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Chapter Text

It was a surprisingly rare case that called for all the senior members of the Justice League to convene privately and abruptly. Most of the cases that called for urgency would consist of some sort of emergency summons to every available body, senior members and tangential allies alike. Normal meetings of the Senior Council were pre arranged things, scheduled monthly meetings to go over finances or policy changes and the annual debate over which rising heroes should be offered a spot on their roster. The fact that they were all called together so suddenly indicated a pressing internal matter that couldn’t wait to be addressed, something of a more personal nature than their usual emergencies.

Unfortunately, Batman already had a suspicion as to what he was being summoned to discuss. 

He was also highly suspicious that he might be the only one caught at all by surprise at the “sudden” meeting, if the sudden halt to conversation as soon as he stepped into the room was anything to go by. Practically everyone else was already sitting in their places at the table. Waiting for him.

Tim hadn’t even been rescued more than 24 hours, but apparently the full explanation could wait no longer.

“Batman,” Superman called out, rising to his feet as the black-clad vigilante approached. There was an atypical tension in Clark’s shoulders and facial expression as he subtly scanned Bruce over, apparently not convinced that he escaped the previous day’s battle unscathed. Bruce, in turn, pushed back the dual waves of irritation and warmth at the gesture. Neither would help him here.

“Superman. Everyone,” Batman let his gaze drift over the table’s many occupants. The Founders- Superman, Wonder Woman, and himself- were a given at almost any Justice League meeting. However, one or more of the others were often absent for some reason or another. The Justice League tried not to be too strict about attendance when it wasn’t necessary, since almost all of them were tediously balancing their hero and civilian lives. Conflicts were to be expected. 

Everyone was here this time, though. Green Arrow, Aquaman, Martian Manhunter, Green Lantern- the full time members who had been on the team since nearly the beginning in some capacity or another. Black Canary, Zatanna and Captain Marvel- some of the later additions to Senior level status. The Flash was unique in that the name has long been a fixture at the table, though in reality Wally had only fully taken over the position from his uncle around a year ago. He was the newest face present, and the only legacy mask now that Dick has stood down as Batman in Bruce’s stead. As such, his nervousness about this meeting was by far the easiest to read.

“To what do I owe this meeting?” Batman finally asked when no one dared make the first move. “I was not made aware of any scheduled gatherings until less than an hour ago, and as I’m sure you are all well aware I have more important matters to tend to at the moment.” That made them all flinch a bit, some more so than others. As much as it rankled on Bruce to be there, at least he was getting a bit of entertainment out of this.

“Yes, it was rather a last minute decision to meet today, but it was deemed urgent enough that we could not wait,” Wonder Woman said smoothly, cutting through the tension as only she could. Superman sat back in his chair, seceding easily to her takeover of the situation. “In fact, it has quite a bit to do with your… important matters , as you said it.”

“So I’ve deduced,” Batman said gruffly, finally giving in and rather roughly, for him, dropping into his own chair. “If you could all just get on with your questions about the situation, then. I would appreciate hurrying this along.”

“Fair enough,” Superman agreed. “Let’s begin with a review of the known facts of the situation, the information that we have already, and you can fill us in with more detail as we go.” At Batman’s barely-there nod and the room’s muddled sound of general agreement, Superman pressed a few buttons to activate the holodisplays and send the related files to everyone for individual viewing. Bruce only glanced down briefly at his screen, tearing his gaze away after being met by the image of a young, smiling Robin. Tim. His chest grew ever so slightly tighter even as Wonder Woman started talking.

“Timothy Drake-Wayne was the third individual to hold the title as Batman’s partner, Robin, claiming the title at thirteen following the death of his predecessor. The exact details of how he came to take over the role are irreverent at this time. Timothy held the position more or less continuously for the next four years, allying himself with various teams throughout that time, most notably Young Justice and the renewed Teen Titans, both of which he led for a period of time. His strength has always laid in his intelligence and strategic ability, though over the years he has made a name for himself as a not insignificant fighter, having taken part in various Justice League level missions and taken out countless major threats in Gotham and beyond.”

Batman grunted slightly. This was all just unnecessary background knowledge. Everyone here was trusted enough to know the Bats’ civilian identities, and had been around for long enough to have heard the stories of how the Bats came together, if they hadn’t been distantly present themselves for the duration. This was at best only loosely important to the matter at hand, but more importantly it was a waste of time to rehash. Everyone glanced up at the man, studying his mood with varying levels of uncertainty, before Superman took up the thread of the tale and they all refocused.

“Approximately thirteen months ago Batman, Bruce Wayne, was assumed dead following the battle against Darkseid. This came at the tail end of a string of personal losses in Tim’s life. Less than a month after the presumed death, when criminal activity in Gotham began to spike following the Bat’s disappearance, the first Robin, Dick Grayson, currently known as Nightwing, reluctantly took over the mantle as Batman. He and Tim worked together as partners for less than a week before Dick abruptly made the decision to install Damian Wayne, Bruce’s youngest and recently discovered son, as the newest Robin. Timothy turned seventeen only days later, and within another week he had departed Gotham. Does that sound correct so far, Batman?”

“Yes,” Batman grumbled reluctantly, “Though the brief account does not accurately convey the emotional stress my entire family was under during that time period.”

“Yes, of course they were,” Superman agreed sympathetically. “We were all extremely devastated by your presumed loss at the time, Bruce. We were all grieving at the time, your family most of all. That was never a question here.”

“Hmm,” was all Batman said, permission enough to continue on with the recounting of the past year. He almost regretted that choice when Green Arrow took over the next segment.

“Tim Drake had a theory that Batman wasn’t dead, but was rather lost in the timestream following Darkseid’s final attack. At the time, considering everything that had occurred as of late alongside the lack of evidence to his claim, Drake was assumed to be lost in grief. Some sort of mental breakdown. There was attempted intervention recorded by Grayson, a Stephanie Brown, and Cassandra Sandsmark, one of Drake’s former team members, but no one succeeded in convincing him to stand down. The Robin mantle was transferred around this time period as well. Shortly afterwards, Drake disappeared on his own on a mission to prove himself right alone, against all advisement.”

“He was right, though,” Batman growled at the implied judgement there. It rankled that most of the hero community had spread such rumors about his children in his absence, and that his obvious return had only mostly , not completely, squashed those perceptions. Now that he was no longer distracted by tracking Tim’s movements, Batman would be sure to take time to squash those remaining rumors whenever possible.

“Yes, we are all very aware of that fact now, Bruce,” Oliver defended himself, “but at the time you can see how we came to the conclusions we did.” Batman quickly opened his mouth to argue, but before he could say anything Black Canary shot a targeted look at both her husband and Batman, promptly cutting off further escalation. She took over the next portion.

“The information about Tim’s movements over the following year is sparse. He knew how to cover his tracks, he didn’t want to be found. At some point, rumors started circulating through communication channels that an ex-Bat was working with the League of Assassins, though at that point nothing was concrete. Bruce returned to his family in Gotham approximately four months ago, and he was the first to confirm Tim’s alliance with Ra’s al-Ghul. Sightings picked up swiftly following that event, as did the news that Tim had been named the Demon’s Heir. Tim was reported as taking part in multiple missions over the following months, some of which resulted in structural damages or deaths, though the information on these missions was always received after the fact. No one could pinpoint Tim’s location, despite the Bats and JL’s resources that were focused towards the task. Even attempting to use super-human abilities and magical scrying had no results. 

“That is, until yesterday when Conner Kent and Bart Allen also returned unexpectedly from the dead. The circumstances around their return will be discussed later, but their authenticity has been confirmed multiple times. More importantly was that Superboy was, presumably due to his familiarity to the former Robin, able to pinpoint Tim’s location at a high security LexCorp research facility in Alaska. That particular site is now more or less confirmed to be researching new forms of weaponry, some of it containing kryptonite. The Bats, along with Superboy, Impulse, and Wonder Girl, all dispatched almost immediately and managed to retrieve Tim from the facility. Tim himself was the only one significantly injured in the ensuing fight, and he is even now recovering in the Watchtower’s medical facilities, expected to awake shortly. And that is all we know.”

“Still sounds a bit suspicious to me,” Green Lantern declares, heedless of Batman’s increasingly furious glare towards the room's occupants. “Even if we all determine that the kid was perfectly sane when he ran off to find Batman- just because he was right doesn’t mean that he was one hundred percent together at the time- his more recent actions are alarming. He could have, should have, returned to Gotham when Bruce did, but instead he chose to stay and work alongside one of our worst enemies. Two of them, if he was working with Luthor as well. Doesn’t this kid have all sorts of knowledge about all of us? Letting him continue to run around freely colluding with enemies is dangerous. If he’s actually betrayed us-”

“He was acting under duress, it’s not his fault!” Batman finally snapped, rising abruptly to his feet as a fist pounded against the table hard enough to rattle it. Everyone else was immensely startled by the show of emotion by their normally ever-stoic Founder, many of them rising themselves as if concerned that the anger could escalate.

“Enough!” Wonder Woman snapped at the group, accompanied by Superman’s forceful, “Calm down Bruce, everyone. We’re not the enemy here.” There was some grumbling from around the table, but everyone eventually complied with the order. There were a few moments of silence after the fact, no one quite sure how to continue asking questions from there when Batman was obviously very touchy on the subject.

It was eventually Flash who spoke up, slowly as if being atypically cautious of his wording. “When I asked a couple weeks ago, Nightwing said that there were extenuating factors in the situation that we hadn’t been made aware of. What haven’t you told us yet Batman? What are we missing here?”

The various heroes tensed at the direct words, expecting another harsh rebuttal by the Dark Knight. Surprisingly, the anger didn’t come. Batman just sort of seemed to slump in on himself slightly, as much as he ever did. That reaction was almost more jarring than the anger. No one moved, waiting to see how the man would respond.

“The Lazarus Pit,” Batman finally said, barely loud enough to carry across the space. The reaction, despite the lack of strength of the delivery, was immediate. Everyone around the table besides Batman went rigid with surprise at the mention of Ra’s al-Ghul’s key to immortality, and most quickly made the implied connection that they had been given.

“Oh god,” Black Canary breathed, the horror in her voice blatant. Beside her, Green Arrow’s face had gone atypically pale. Everyone had turned three shades more grim, even the younger members present who would have had little to no knowledge of the Pits beyond what they had read in the archives. 

“Why wasn’t this information revealed sooner?” Aquaman asked after everyone had been given a bit to process the new data that had been revealed. “Or was it something more recent that happened after you last saw him?”

“It’s… not new,” Batman admitted reluctantly. There was no more sidestepping this. “From what I was told, the… injury that led to the use of the Pit happened only a couple of months after Tim left Gotham, shortly after he grew desperate enough to accept Ra’s’ assistance. I- the family decided early on that we wouldn’t disclose the information unless it became relevant to the search.” Batman, Bruce, looked down at his clenched hands, posture sagging. “He seemed so in control when I saw him last, I wasn’t even sure if it would really be an issue for him. The little research we have proves that everyone reacts differently, after all. But something escalated after I had to leave him, maybe because I left him. He’s more unstable now. But he’s safe now, and the Titans all saw him, so there is no point in holding the information back anymore.”

“That would explain a lot of Timothy’s movements,” Martian Manhunter agreed. “I’ve only gotten brief glimpses into human minds exposed to the Lazarus waters, but that was enough. If Timothy was exposed, and was as deeply affected as you now assume, he truly cannot be held accountable for his choices. However, this isn’t something that will be easily fixed now that he has been retrieved. The issue still must be addressed”

“I am well aware of that,” Batman agreed, still slightly pained. “Unfortunately enough, quite a few members of my family have a degree of experience with the Lazarus Pits, some significantly so. I’m confident that we can pull him back from the edge of the Pit now that he’s away from Ra’s’ influence.” Everyone in the table nodded slightly at the declaration. Despite Ra’s being classified as a Justice League level enemy due to the reach of his influence and power, more times than not it seemed like the Bats were the ones taking him down a few pegs every few months.

“What about Tim’s involvement with Luthor?” Superman redirected, obviously a bit more concerned than the others about that detail. “What do you know about that?”

“Not much,” Batman said tiredly. “There wasn’t a chance to discuss it with Tim or to do a thorough sweep of the place when we were focused on getting him out. I suspect the partnership was just a tactical move by Ra’s to throw us further off Tim’s trail. It was very fortunate for us either way.”

“How so?” Captain Marvel asked curiously.

“Luthor is good at hiding from Supers, but that particular base was remote enough that he was a bit lax with the audio shielding,” Batman pointed out. “That’s the only reason Superboy was able to find Tim so quickly. Ra’s is paranoid, and he knew that we had allies checking periodically for Tim specifically. All his bases where he was housing Tim and himself were no doubt much more thoroughly shielded via mechanical, structural, and magical means. Even Superboy wouldn’t have been able to reach him through that.”

“That would explain why we couldn’t locate him,” Zatanna agreed, “Though it does make me wonder who he got to put up the magical barriers.”

“There are a lot of magic-based villains in the database,” Green Lantern pointed out before anyone else could. “He probably just cashed in a favor at some point. Or a series of favors. Maybe made some sort of trade at one point or another. It doesn’t really matter, in the long run. Ra’s isn’t one to use magic like that long term.”

The conversation reached a natural lull, everyone again taking a moment to mull over the information that they had been given. Bruce glanced subtly at his wrist computer, checking the time and confirming that there were no messages. He had left Cassandra sitting with Tim, and they were in the Watchtower so there was no concern over his safety, but Bruce was nonetheless anxious to return to his son’s bedside. The boy should be waking soon.

“So what's your plan from here, Batman?” Wonder Woman cut into his thoughts. “You mentioned previously that your family is the most familiar with Ra’s’ seductions and the Pit’s influence, but I do have some concerns about the security in Gotham. I believe it was Green Lantern who pointed out the fact that Timothy has access to a vast wealth of knowledge and abilities that could prove dangerous to all of us in his current mental state. However, I think we all can agree that holding him here, or in any other secure Justice League facility, would not help his recovery. What safeguards will be in place until we can one hundred percent confirm Timothy’s loyalties?”

Batman sighed quietly, head tipping down ever so slightly and eyes closing briefly behind the anonymity of his cowl before he fully refocused on the others. “I suspected that this is where this conversation was heading. I am willing to make the concession towards something similar to a parole period, for the time being. Tim will be confined to Gotham for the time being. More specifically I plan to keep him in the Manor and under Bat observation for at least the length of time it takes for him to readjust as necessary. He won’t be unsupervised until we are sure of the safety of both himself and others in his vicinity. Ra’s isn’t one to just give in easily after all. In a month or so we can reassess what new information we have. If there are really any complaints about how we are handling things at that point, they can be addressed then. Is that acceptable?”

There was a wave of muttering, the Senior Council reaching a general consensus to let the Bats handle their own for now. Batman internally exhaled in relief that no one had pushed for more constraints after all of the horrible rumors and bias that had been building over the past year. The Lazarus Pit reveal had garnered more sympathy than Batman had first hoped. The issue was settled just in time, too. Just as the tension started to fully break apart, Batman’s wrist computer finally gave the ping he had been waiting for. Gotham’s Dark Knight stood smoothly from his chair, all former signs of stress wiped away by cool professionalism.

“Now that that issue is settled, I must take my leave. It has been a hectic day, and I still have a lot of things to attend to before I can return to Gotham. Message me if you must, but don’t expect a swift answer.” And with that, the Caped Crusader moved swiftly yet silently out of the room, only releasing his pent up breath as the door closed between him and the ‘goodbyes’ and ‘good lucks’ of his allies. 

Not wasting any time on recentering himself, Bruce Wayne’s concerns slid smoothly to the fore of his mind as the man confidently made his way through the many hallways of the Watchtower. He had things to do, goals to accomplish.

His son was awake and safe once again, and it was past time that Bruce was able to actually see him.

---

Tim comes to awareness slowly, carefully in control of himself. It’s an instinct born from experience, years of training and ingrained subconscious reactions honed by Bruce’s and the Pit’s and Ra’s’ influence working together to determine the best reaction for a given scenario. Even as his brain first starts to process conscious thoughts, he knows already that he is somewhere unfamiliar. There is at least one person present in the room with him, but they are not hovering above him or actively doing anything to him beyond watching. There is currently no need for a rapid, furious defense. An abrupt awakening like that would only give him away before he has time to gather information about his surroundings. 

So even as Tim drifts awake fully and his brain kicks into hyperdrive his muscles stay lax, his heartbeat stays slow and steady, his eyes do not flutter. There will be no indication to anyone watching that his status has changed. It gives him time to gather himself, to assess the many signals his body and surroundings are giving him. There is a lot of information to sort through, after all.

The most demanding is his own body, the burning ache centered around his chest and lingering throughout all of his muscles in a way he hasn’t ever experienced. The muscle strain is almost like after a bad Lazarus episode, but not quite. This is something different. He’s tired, even after the suspected hours he’s spent asleep. Whether this is a tiredness born of his own body trying to heal from whatever happened or something caused by drugs he can not yet tell. He can’t feel any IV’s at the moment, but he also hasn’t moved or opened his eyes to confirm it and the dull, aching buzz below his skin could be hiding the pinch of a needle. For now, the only external injury he can feel is a stitched and bandaged cut on his left forearm. Initial assessment indicates that this was professionally done.

Tim shifts his awareness a bit further outward. He is no longer dressed in anything Ra’s would see fit for him to wear. That is to say, he’s not in any sort of stiff formal wear or form-fitting suit underlayer. The clothes are somewhere in between, something along the lines of sweatpants and a t-shirt. It’s certainly not in his full Ghost uniform like Tim has to assume he was wearing previously based on the flashes of memory he’s getting through the still-lingering fog over his brain. He was fighting, he had passed out, he ended up here. And ‘here’ is almost certainly not with Ra’s. A hostage situation to get at the Demon’s Head perhaps?

The mattress under him is thin, though not overly uncomfortable, and there’s a thin blanket over him. Somewhere in the general area something is letting out a slow, consistent beep in time with his heart. Medical equipment would certainly make sense given how strange his body feels after whatever happened to him. Given the way the sound of the beeping (and the near-silent rasp the room's two occupants breathing) echoes, the room is an open one. The temperature is unremarkable, likely controlled. A proper medical ward, maybe? 

He can determine nothing of note about the person in the room with him. Their breathing is slow and controlled but not asleep, and they are around 5-10 feet away from where he’s laying. That’s all Tim knows for sure. There is no indication of movement to give away size, no voice to give away gender. Nothing about their presumed watch has changed since Tim woke. He has escaped notice thus far.

As such, Tim just about jumps out of his skin when light fingers are suddenly brushing against his arm out of nowhere .

“Ti-” is all the person- female, on the younger side- managed to vocalize before Tim is up and out from under the covers, lashing out with one foot even as he throws himself in the opposite direction to gain some distance from the person who apparently managed to get close to him without him even noticing . Ra’s would be disappointed that Tim had missed something like that.

The drop to the floor is a bit further than Tim thought, he had jerked away before even opening his eyes to get a proper assessment. They spring open as he’s moving, the world blurs, and suddenly he’s stumbling backwards on abnormally numb feet, away from the identified threat still on the other side of the bed. His back knocks into a pole sitting at his bedside as he staggers to regain control, brain whirring too fast for any thought to actually stick. Said pole tips backwards with a crash that comes almost perfectly in time with a sharp tug at his right inner elbow. There had been an IV, then. That’s taken care of now.

Tim’s head is still spinning, nothing is processing correctly. All of his muscles scream in protest at the strain of simple movement, machines are blaring in response to his abrupt desertion of the bed he had been on. He pulls his arms up defensively as the other person in the room draws closer, but he can feel his entire body shaking with the strain of movement and adrenaline of the moment. 

The Pit is lapping at the edges of his mind, instinct pushing to take over as conscious thought failed him mid crisis. Tim fought it back waveringly even as his vision blurred further. He didn’t want to give in to that instinct here, at least not yet. He didn’t know where he was, he needed to figure out how to escape quickly, not get lost in the moment fighting his way through. There were no allies here to make sure he kept going in the right direction if he gave in to the Pit’s call. But he could feel himself losing ground, thoughts blurring, green filling in the cracks-

A voice. A familiar voice cuts through the waves of green, one that his mind catalogued as safe. He clings to it like a life raft, suddenly given proof that he’s not as alone as he thought. But he can’t figure out who this voice belongs to. It’s not Ra’s or Pru, or anyone from the League of Assassins. Their presence was always tinged with an air of caution no matter how much time he spent with them. Tim decided that he didn’t care. He didn’t instinctively relax with even Pru the way he did with this person’s voice. This person was only safe. He had to trust them.

Tim didn’t flinch away at the hand that lightly pressed against his shoulder, sliding down carefully to wrap around his wrist. He was nudged back on shaking legs until his calves hit a surface, and suddenly he was sitting down, the still unidentified person crouching in front of him as they continued to talk softly. The hand on his wrist rubbed soothing circles against his skin, giving his mind yet another thing to ground him.

It took a while, how long exactly he couldn’t say, but eventually the voice resolved itself into actual words. “- safe, Tim. We will not hurt you. You are with family. Is safe here.” The blurry figure in front of him gradually came into focus as well, a girl somewhere around his own age of early adulthood with short, dark hair and sharp, assessing eyes. His breathing stuttered again slightly when his brain finally made the connection as to who this person was, elation and confusion spiking simultaneously.

“Cass?”

The girl in question smiled, eyes lighting up with the warmth of it.

“Timmy-bird, little brother. Hi,” she said as confirmation.

“Uh… hi,” Tim returned, muscles relaxing minutely when it sank in that this was indeed Cassandra Wayne in front of him. Cass wouldn’t let him get hurt. A quick glance revealed no one else in the room besides them. Cass was in her Black Bat uniform, he realized now, just without a mask. She had been the one waiting for him to wake up, for some reason. 

Where even was he? Why was Cass here? What was Tim missing? He could remember a bit more of what happened now. The perimeter alarms had gone off, the comms system failing right alongside it. Ghost- Tim- had gone up to the surface with the ninja Ra’s had sent with him to guard Luthor’s base, only to find the Bats waiting for them. Him? There had been… some sort of conversation. That part is where things got a lot more hazy for him. He remembered feeling… panicked, conflicted. Something… big had happened, itching at the edges of his mind. Ra’s had been furious, that was for certain. At him? But that’s all he had, then it’s just blank up until now.

“Um, Cass… where am I?” he finally managed to ask, trying to not give away how unsettled he was about the blank spots in his memory. “What happened?”

“We rescued you. Family and Titans, together.” she explained confidently, as if that clarified things.

“You rescued ... Wait, the Titans were there?”

“Indeed they were,” a voice that definitely wasn’t Cass cut in. Tim jumped slightly, cursing his lack of awareness once again, only to glance up and find himself face-to-cowl with the Batman. His former mentor, his sort-of father figure, the one Tim had given everything to save. 

Tim’s pulse jumped at the sight of the achingly familiar figure. He was wary of what Batman would do, painfully aware of how far he had fallen since he had last seen his former mentor. Memories of Jason’s return to Gotham flashed through Tim’s mind, and he had to repress a shudder. He didn't think he could handle it if Batman went after him like that. He wouldn’t be able to handle it if he got thrown in Arkham after he ran off alone to escape that exact fate. 

He had little hope that Cass would get in the way of that decision, should Batman deem it best. Tim and Cass had always been close, but to the Bats Batman’s final word was law. Fighting against his will on something as big as Tim would only land the others in a cell right next to his. So Tim just waited mutely for the verdict to come down.

But the Dark Knight didn’t immediately lash out, neither physically nor verbally. He simply stepped further into the empty medical ward, gently closing the door behind him before again turning to face Tim. The cowl was pulled back without fanfare, and suddenly it was just Tim and Bruce instead of Ghost and Batman. That made Tim feel slightly less nervous about the situation. Bruce was always a bit easier to talk to when out of the mask, and that went double for emotionally charged situations like this.

The man stopped his approach with a few feet between them, choosing to keep his distance and study Tim from afar. Cass moved from her crouched position in front of Tim as he drew closer, drifting to the side as if to not block the eldest man’s view. She didn’t interrupt as the two males studied each other blankly. Tim waited for the other shoe to drop, refusing to be the one to break the silence.

When Bruce finally spoke, it wasn’t the harsh words he was expecting. He had apparently chosen to lock onto a different detail to start with.

“You pulled out your IV,” Bruce admonished, almost sounding alarmingly… concerned. He took a step closer to Tim, eyes focused on the thin trail of blood down Tim’s arm. Glancing down at it himself, it was clear to Tim that the small wound had already almost stopped bleeding. It wasn’t the main concern here. He instinctively pulled the offending limb closer to his chest nonetheless.

“I don’t appreciate being drugged,” Tim defended, flat tone drifting a bit closer towards sharp. This whole scenario was throwing him off. Everything was off here, he still didn’t know what was going on, and no one was making any sense. It set him on edge. At least with Ra’s he always knew where the line was. Tim didn’t even know how he got here, damnit.

“We weren’t giving you any sedatives, or anything that strong,” Bruce offered quickly, too openly for Tim to trust that nothing was up. “It was mostly just fluids, and a mild painkiller. We wanted you to wake up sooner rather than later, just in case. Your body is probably pretty sore though, likely with muscle pain, maybe some tremors or numbness? No one was sure exactly how it would affect you. We can get you on some other pain meds in a bit. Your chest has some decent electricity burns on it as well. It’s a miracle that things weren’t worse than they were, though Jason suspects the Pit is boosting your healing just enough to buffer against the serious internal damage we feared. That might be where the extra exhaustion is coming from.”

Electricity burns… so he was electrocuted? None of the Bats’ weapons would be carrying enough current to risk organ damage, so it didn’t make sense for them to have done it. As much as he strained, Tim couldn’t put together the pieces he was missing.

“What happened ,” Tim demanded, his careful blank mask slipping away under the onslaught of confusion. “Where the hell am I, Bruce?”

“You’re in the Watchtower’s medical ward,” Bruce assured swiftly, seemingly alarmed at Tim’s slip in control. The man glanced momentarily over at where Cass stood slightly off to the side now, the two having some sort of silent conversation. After a few seconds Bruce nodded, glancing back towards Tim thoughtfully. He then moved forward, ignoring Tim’s slight flinch as Bruce rounded the bed Tim had formerly laid on and sat lightly on the edge of it. Apparently he was expecting this to be a longer conversation. Then he finally started to give a proper explanation.

“Yesterday everyone in the family was meeting to discuss the week’s events and progress as usual when we were interrupted by some unexpected visitors. Wonder Girl, Superboy, and Impulse to be precise.”

“Kon and Bart,” Tim breathed, mildly shocked by the news. Their names jogged his memory, three familiar figures throwing open a set of warehouse doors, standing backlit by the sun as a familiar, deep voice called out to him. Tim’s chest tugged . “They’re alive? How? Where are they?”

“Yes, they apparently are alive and have been confirmed. I haven’t received a full report myself yet, but I know time travel was involved somehow. Conner in particular was the key that finally allowed us to get a lock on your location, though Luthor’s imperfect security also played a role. The three of them all came on the rescue mission as well. They all wanted to wait for you to wake up, but you were out for a long time. Considering that Conner and Bart had literally just come back from the dead they eventually conceded that they had to take care of some things. I promise you’ll be able to see them as soon as they’re free and you have recovered a bit more.”

Tim studied Bruce’s face for a few moments, distrusting on principle. His fuzzy memories seemed to support what he said about Bart and Kon being back, sure, but he could also see this as some sort of ploy to gain his trust. Everyone knew how his best friends’ deaths had hurt Tim. Even with the likelihood that they were back, Tim didn’t trust that he would actually be allowed to talk to them, not without some sort of catch.

Either way, it’s not like Tim really had any say in the matter. He was essentially in Justice League custody after all, no matter how they manipulated the situation to make it seem more innocent than it was. After all, he had apparently been taken unceremoniously from Luthor’s facility to the Watchtower, one of the most secure facilities in the galaxy. Tim had no control here.

Focus, he chided himself internally. Get all the information you can out of them for now, then figure out how much you can trust them .

“Alright,” Tim agreed externally, metaphorical mask carefully in place once again. “I remember you guys showing up, and pieces of the conversation after that. And I can just barely remember the Titans showing up. What happened after that?”

“Ra’s panicked, as much as a man like him can,” Bruce conveyed, almost gravely. “He ordered his men to attack us, and he tried to get you to retreat back to the lower levels. I can’t say exactly what you were thinking at the time, from what I could tell you were in and out of clarity all throughout that confrontation, but I did see you fighting towards us in the middle of things. Probably towards Bart and Conner, really. You definitely injured some of the ninja who tried to stop you, I couldn’t tell how badly.” Bruce visibly winced at the last part. There’s that discomfort and disappointment Tim was looking for, but it was still layered under enough other emotions that it confused Tim. Cass, for her part, didn’t react at all, choosing to continue her silent observation of the conversation. It was strange

“How did I end up electrocuted,” Tim pushed, knowing that that was the last missing piece here. Bruce winced again.

“That was Ra’s’ doing. Your suit had an inbuilt defibrillator, and apparently it could be triggered remotely at a level far higher than any medical professional would recommend. You dropped on the spot. Your... your heart actually stopped for a bit afterwards, and Batgirl and Hood had to work together to bring you back. It was only for a couple of minutes, I think. But that’s what made us so concerned afterwards, enough so that we came here rather than heading straight for the Cave.”

Tim stopped listening somewhere in the middle of Bruce’s explanation. He wanted to laugh. Hysterically so. His heart had stopped. Again. He had been pulled from the clutches of death for a second time, this round without a Lazarus Pit. Ra’s had done this, supposedly. He would have known what he was risking. The man had been perfectly willing to sacrifice Tim’s life again in order to keep (protect?) him from the Bats’ clutches. Especially if Tim was being as insubordinate as it sounded, when he was already on thin ice lately.

Assuming that Bruce was telling the truth about this.

Could he trust Bruce’s word, especially after he had essentially orchestrated Tim’s kidnapping from Ra’s’ oversight? After the Bats had all done so much to hurt and betray him, Bruce included? Or should he trust the other part of his mind that was the Heir loyal only to Ra’s, trusting that the immortal man would only do what was best for him in the long run? Even when what was best for him led to pain and broken morals?

Tim wasn’t sure who to trust, anymore. He couldn’t even trust himself.

For the first time since Batman had stepped into the room, Tim dropped his gaze, preferring to carefully study how his hands clenched where they rested on his lap. The hopelessness and lack of control over the situation washed over him again. He had absolutely no choice here. It didn’t matter who he trusted, not right now. He was under the Bats’ control right now. Fighting against what they said would undoubtedly lead to consequences. 

If… if he played nice, if he did everything he could to stay between the lines and act like everything was perfectly fine in this situation, then things shouldn’t be too bad. The Bats and the Justice League always liked to see themselves as Paragons of Justice. They wouldn’t mess around with that. Considering he wasn’t restrained at all right now, even after he had lashed out blindly at Cass when he first awoke, then Tim doubted that they were immediately planning on throwing him into a place like Arkham. They were trying to convince him that he wasn’t the prisoner that he was. They wanted him to stay away from Ra’s willingly.

This could work out alright. Tim could play the game, earn himself a bit of freedom, and from there he would have time to think things through and sort through the mess that was his brain. He would gain himself time to plan, to decide where his alliances should be. That was all he had at the moment. It was his best bet in the impossible situation he had been dragged into against his will.

“What happens now?” he asked quietly, after just enough time had passed to play at having been shaken up at Ra’s’ actions. The fact that he sort of was just made things easier, and that was crucial. He was trying to convince the World’s Best Detective and Cassandra Wayne, after all. They both softened slightly at his tone, so he assumed it had worked.

“First I want to check over all of your injuries one more time. Including where you pulled out that IV, don’t think I forgot about that Timothy. Maybe run you through some light stretching or CT scans as well, to check again for any hidden damage. You’ll definitely need some proper painkillers. After that everything should be set for us to finally head back to Gotham. All the others should be waiting for us at the Manor. They’re already expecting us.”

Ah, so the Manor was to be his not-prison, and therefore the Bats were his supposedly well-meaning wardens. It was impossible for Tim to determine how much of this offered kindness was genuine. Either way, the reality that Tim was to be confined to the Manor’s walls for the foreseeable future was unstated but nonetheless implied. Tim wondered distantly if the rest of the Justice League had opposed that choice, if any of them had pushed for a stricter confinement. It wouldn’t surprise him.

He could still remember the reactions when Jason’s return was revealed, after all. He remembered the paranoia among the hero community that a former Bat had drifted so far from Gotham’s strict moral code, the fear of where that betrayal of family would lead. Jason’s reign of terror had been mostly solo and confined to Gotham’s bounds, and that was really the only reason that the Justice League stayed out of things. 

Tim, in comparison, was well recorded as working worldwide with Ra’s. He was fair game, aside from the Bats’ wishes. How narrow a line was Tim walking between being held at Wayne Manor vs one of the Justice League’s high security prisons?

There was no choice but to walk that line if he wanted a shot at doing what he needed to do in this situation. He was too well trained, too backed into a corner, to settle for anything else. Tim refused to lose himself in this power struggle between two sides. He was in a precarious position now, maybe more so than ever before, but all was not lost.

Tim could still pick his own path, if he played his cards right.

The ex-vigilante-assassin looked up again with a new determination burning under his skin. His body language shifted, careful to include Cass even as he focused his attention towards Bruce. His green-tainted eyes once again sought out that familiar, intense blue. 

Tim nodded in agreement.

Chapter Text

Tim’s return to Wayne Manor is a quiet affair, all things considered. 

It only took a single brief and silent but nonetheless heated disagreement with Bruce before Cass acquiesced to head back to the Manor ahead of the other two. She wasn’t particularly happy about it, but she recognized the necessity. Cass had sworn to herself before that she wouldn’t leave Tim alone for a second until they were both back in the Manor. Maybe not even then. She knew for a fact that she wasn’t the only one who could feel the tension between Tim and Bruce, and she didn’t want to risk something happening while she was gone. 

However, Cass couldn’t deny Bruce’s reasoning. If she returned before Tim, then she could guarantee that the path between the Cave’s zeta tube and Tim’s freshly cleaned room in the Manor would be clear of their well-meaning but nonetheless troublesome siblings and family friends who might be lingering in to try and intercept him. While Tim might be hurt-unsure-guard with Bruce (and Cass herself, to a lesser degree), he could tolerate being with them well enough without slipping into fear-anger-attack , as long as they were careful with him. Tim wasn’t entirely closed off to the idea of trust the way Jason had been for a time, just extremely cautious. They just had to be careful not to make things worse.

The others though… Cass was more concerned about them. Bruce seemed to be doing well enough skirting around Tim’s boundaries, but she knew how most of them were worried-nervous-excited-guilt . They were almost certain to jump him in an overeager attempt at reconciliation arrival, and that would absolutely not end well when paired with Tim’s nerves.  Even just from the brief moments during the earlier rescue mission Cass could tell how Tim’s eyes tinted just a bit greener, body language leaning a bit deeper into anger-distrust-defend when looking at Dick or Damian or Steph. They prompted the anger more than had been predicted. He was not as willing to trust them. To him, they were still regarded as dangerous.

Cass could see exactly how on edge Tim was currently just due to the pain and confusion and stress he was under. He was upset at the situation he had been thrust into, once again moved against his will. And now he was about to be moved to somewhere even more isolated with only people he distrusted for company. He wasn’t ready to see any of the others, except perhaps Alfred. Cass trusted him to know how to act with discretion, but not the others, not now. It would only end in disaster if someone tried to push for a reunion in a blind fit of excitement or relief at seeing Tim home. 

If someone did something to set off the fragile balance Tim was currently holding, it would set back their attempts to help regain his trust exponentially. They had to make sure they gave Tim space to heal. Between Cass and Bruce, one of them had to ensure that nothing would happen that could negatively tint Tim’s first venture back home. 

And as much as Cass wanted to stay with Tim… in this scenario everyone was much more likely to listen to her if she told them to back off. Bruce telling them to stay away could be heard and challenged as overprotectiveness. They all trusted Cass’s word a bit more. Cass telling them to stay clear should buy them a bit more time.

Tim needed that time. 

Cass held out just long enough to extract Bruce’s promise that he wouldn’t let anything happen to Tim in her absence, and then she left with a begrudging nod and a hand gently squeezing Tim’s shoulder. Even that small contact seemed to startle Tim. He jumped slightly, whipping his head around to stare at her for a moment before realizing who was touching him. Nervous-discomfort-distrust at the contact, even when the confirmation that it was just her pushed back the rising wave of green from his eyes and mind.

“Soon. I will wait,” Cass promised him, and then she refitted her Black Bat mask and strode swiftly out of the room. She ignored the questioning eyes of the Justice League on her path to the zeta tubes. Bruce would confirm Tim’s health and safety and then bring him the final distance home. She had her own mission to accomplish.

---

Just as predicted, Cass arrived in the Cave to find it occupied. She only had time to take in a single breath of that familiar, slightly damp air before her eyes caught on Dick from across the open space. Her eldest brother paused in his gymnastics routine when he heard the zeta chime, eyes lighting momentarily with hope-excitement that only dimmed slightly when it was clear that Cass was alone. He easily dropped down to the mat and jogged over to meet her halfway.

“Hey Cass,” he greeted once they were close enough that they wouldn’t be just yelling at each other across the open space. It annoyed Alfred when they did that. “Any updates? Is Timmy awake yet? Is he coming home soon?” Cass could appreciate that he at least took the time to say hello before releasing a flood of questions. Some of the others might not have even bothered. Dick was generally the best out of the family at maintaining strong, positive relationships. It irked her that this skill had somehow failed so miserably towards Tim, but she knew that he was punishing himself enough for it already.

“Tim is awake. Coming soon,” she informed him quickly, cutting him off before he could think of any more increasingly specific things to ask about. 

The smile Dick had been sporting before brightened significantly at the news. He was genuinely glad that Tim was coming home, even if he was using those positive feelings to drown out his guilt over the whole situation. That longing to fix things made her feel slightly more guilty for having to keep him away, but it was also exactly why she had to do it. 

“That’s great! I can’t wait to-”

“You must leave,” she cut in before he could get too far. There was a momentary pause as Dick blinked at her, uncertainty slipping into his body language.

“What? What do you mean, Cass?” was said hesitantly, doubting. He already knew where this was going, but didn’t want to admit it to himself. It made Cass feel even worse about this, but she pushed on. Tim needed the space more than Dick needed the forgiveness right now.

“Tim is fragile, cannot talk to you. Bad for him. He is hurt. You must leave.” Clear cut, decisive. Cass was not budging here. This would not be a debate.

“Cass…” Dick resisted, tone laced with guilt-despair . “You know why I have to talk to him. I messed up, I just want to apologize. I owe him that.”

He wasn’t wrong, Cass acknowledged internally. Dick did need to apologize to Tim, both for their younger brother and for himself. He was holding on to so much guilt over the situation. Despite how no one said it, it was clear that Dick was the one who broke Tim’s trust the most. The apology would be only the first step needed for him to regain anything close to what he and Tim had once shared, if the relationship could even be mended at all. But if he pushed it, if he tried to air his sorrows too soon, Tim would only lash out and dig himself further into his mind. Tim would not believe the words now, and any hope at reconciliation would be forever lost.

“Yes, but not yet. Not ready now. Tim needs time. Let him heal. Then he will be ready.” Cass left no room for argument. 

Dick studied Cass’s face for a few moments, desperately trying to deny the resolution there. After a few seconds the last of his stubbornness drained out all at once, and Dick’s shoulders dropped in acquiescence.

“Alright,” he agreed grumpily. “ Alright , I’ll stay clear. At least for tonight. No promises after that.” Cass studied him for a second longer, considering the mullish glint to his eyes, before figuring that this was as good as she would get for now. Tomorrow could be dealt with as needed. 

Cass nodded in agreement, and Dick reluctantly turned away to trudge off towards the stairs. Sad-helpless-guilt . After a second of studying him and considering the rest of the things she had to tackle, Cass suddenly had an idea.

“Wait!” she called, and Dick turned around to raise an eyebrow at her. “You want to help?” 

“Of course,” her eldest brother responded predictably. “That’s why I’m being banished, isn’t it?”

“Yes,” Cass agreed, resisting the instinct to roll her eyes. “But also, distract Damian. He must stay away too.”

Cass watched the thought process play out over Dick’s face as he considered what she said, likely playing out the same possible outcomes if the two youngest Bats met the same as she had earlier. He winced slightly at the conclusion that drew.

“Yeah, I’ll have to agree with you there. Dami has grown a lot over the past year, I know he actually regrets how he acted with Tim originally on some level. But considering how Tim was so closely tied with Ra’s and the League of Assassins…” the image of dark ink across pale skin and poisonous green eyes flashed through Cass’s mind, “If seeing me is risky for Tim, Dami is definitely a no-go. Alright, I get it.”

“Yes, bad idea,” Cass agreed empathetically.

Dick considered his options for a moment, shifting more towards focus-helpful . “Dami and I could watch some movies in the main TV lounge, I guess. It’s a bit late, but it’s not like we're not used to late nights and he’s still on summer break for a few weeks. A movie or two should give you enough time to get Tim settled in.”

Cass considers the idea. The lounge in question, the one with the best couches and sound system that they all always preferred for movie nights, was on the first floor and a ways away from the hall that Tim would have to be led down to get to the stairs. The movies, and Dick’s undivided attention, would be enough to distract Damian for the time they needed, even if he had thought to try and intercept Tim’s return. That was as good of a plan as they were going to get. Cass agreed..

The two Wayne siblings split up. Dick went to make a stop in his room to change out of his workout gear before finding Damian, while Cass ducked into the lockers to change out of her Black Bat uniform before ascending the stairs alone and taking a different hallway. After all, she still had the rest of the Manor’s permanent and occasional occupants to account for on this mission. She could spend the time combing the expansive layout to confirm if anyone was waiting around, but that would take time. Likely more time than Cass had. 

Luckily for her, there was one man who undoubtedly knew where everyone was, and Cass knew exactly where she would find him.

Sure enough, Cass’s approach towards the main kitchen was guided by the familiar scent of Alfred’s cooking. She entered the room to spy the beloved Englishman himself as he fiddled with a medium sized pot boiling on the stove. More surprising was the fact that the butler wasn’t alone. Both Alfred and Jason looked up at Cass’s entrance, the latter of the pair straightening from where he leaned against the far wall. Protective-anxious-care and nervous-hopeful-guilty , both calmed slightly by the others' presence. 

Interesting. Cass had half expected Jason to have retreated to one of his safehouses already with how uncomfortable with the situation he still was, but apparently his lingering worry about Tim’s wellbeing was enough to make him hang around for confirmation that he was definitely alright before he bolted. Her wisp of a future plan might be even more reasonable than she thought, but that’s for later. One thing at a time, she couldn’t multitask like Tim could.

“Miss Cassandra,” Alfred greeted warmly, setting down the wooden spoon he had been holding as he turned to face her properly. “I was expecting a notice of some sort before your return from the Watchtower. Is everything alright then?”

“Yes, alright. Tim is awake,” Cass recited again. “I am the notice, Tim and Bruce coming soon. I come first, make sure no one bothers him. Needs space.”

“That’s a good plan,” Jason acknowledged, moving quickly to grab his jacket from where it was draped over a nearby chair. “In that case I should probably make my exit now. Unlike the rest of you, I actually need to get some patrolling done tonight. Crime Alley won’t rid itself of idiots in my absence.” 

The excuse was a bit thin but genuine, Cass recognized. It had been a couple of days since Red Hood had been able to make his usual patrols, between the Tim rescue mission the previous night and a couple big all hands on deck cases the days leading up to then. The need to check back in with his territory wasn’t unreasonable. But Cass could tell that the hasty exit was also because Jason was… scared to stay. Scared of what might come next. Now that Tim was definitely alright, that fear was overriding the concern that had held Jason here in the first place. He needed the space to assess himself and this new scenario.

“Stay safe, beat up bad guys,” Cass recited, earning a begrudging grin from the older boy.

“You’ve got it Cassie,” he teases back to her, turning towards the door that led to the garage. Cass suspected that he was about to “borrow” one of Bruce’s cars, not that anyone really cared.

Alfred’s “Do come back soon, Master Jason,” made the boy pause, glancing back with an air of sad-hope-guilt at the older man. Knowing Alfred as she did, Cass knew that the butler had likely deduced Jason’s reasons for leaving just like she had and that this pointed reminder was the man’s attempt to keep the second Robin from straying too far. He got a nod for his efforts.

“Will do. I’ll call you,” Jason promised, and then he slipped swiftly from the room before Alfred could even attempt to extract a more specific visitation timeline from the boy. 

It was fine. Cass could tell that Jason would be back eventually. Both of the remaining occupants of the kitchen waited silently and without moving for a few moments, studying the now empty doorway. Then Alfred turned towards Cass with his familiar warm, if currently slightly strained, smile.

“Do you need anything Miss Cass? You and Master Bruce have both been very determined with your vigil over Master Timothy. I assume you have both taken the time to get proper food and rest over the past day?” Alfred asked pointedly, raising an eyebrow appraisingly.

“Yes. Slept taking turns, and Watchtower has food stocked,” she assured him, and it was technically true, even if all of their naps had been rather short ones and the food had been more like snacks they could grab quickly and take back to the Medbay. Alfred’s expression gave away that he wasn’t at all convinced that his charges were taking care of themselves properly without his oversight, but he didn’t call her out on it.

“Lovely. You won’t do Master Tim any good asleep on your feet.” Cass nodded in agreement, carefully not pointing out that both she and Bruce had gone far longer without sleep and food before when necessary.

“Where is Steph? Babs?” she asked instead, choosing to redirect the conversation. She still had a mission to complete, after all.

“Ah, of course,” Alfred acquiesced. “Miss Stephanie had to leave earlier this afternoon to attend what classes she could, as well as to mollify her mother. She mentioned plans to take tonight off to catch up on the schoolwork and sleep she has missed as of late. Miss Barbara has requested to stay updated on current happenings but stated that she will defer to us as to when she should visit as to not overwhelm Master Timothy. She also stated that the Birds of Prey will be able to handle Gotham for the night so that everyone here may take a much needed break.”

Babs would listen to Cass if she said that Tim needed more time, she knew. That easy trust in her teammates was one of the reasons Cass respected the first Batgirl. Steph was a bit more unpredictable and brazen, and after a few days of being told no she might get impatient and not listen, but that was an issue for later. For now, everyone in the family was accounted for and would not be bothering Tim tonight. That’s all that mattered for now.

“Dick and Dami are going to watch movies,” Cass informed Alfred, knowing the butler would pick up on the intention behind that decision.

“A nice, calming activity for a relaxing night in,” Alfred nodded sagely. “I’ll ensure that the pair are stocked with appropriate snacks once I am finished with preparations for Master Timothy’s return. The chicken noodle soup is prepared and shall be easy to reheat when needed, but I still must make up the bed in the selected guest room now that the sheets have been washed. Master Jason gave the insight that Master Timothy might not appreciate staying in his old room currently, so I’ve gone about preparing another for him at the far end of the hall. If you are now simply left waiting for Masters Timothy and Bruce to return you could accompany me, and then we could head down to the Cave together?”

Cass nods in agreement, both at the overall plan for Tim and at the option of shadowing Alfred rather than just waiting around by herself or joining in the movie night only to have to escape without notice later. So Cass trails after Alfred to the laundry room, and then up to the bedroom that was chosen for Tim. It’s technically still in the family wing, but is separated from the other occupied rooms to give Tim a degree of separation. Good choice.

Cass wanders around the space after Alfred waves off her assistance with the sheets. The room is clearly freshly cleaned from top to bottom despite the fact that it can’t have been all that dirty to start with. The mirror in the en-suite bathroom is spotless, the floors all vacuumed. Cass pauses a moment to look out a window at the almost entirely darkened sky. The windows are all heavily locked, alarmed, and reinforced. There are no trees bordering this side of the house. This room might have been chosen for more than one reason, then.

Just as Alfred has finished tucking the sheets and placing pillows to his satisfaction, both his and Cass’s phones let out a familiar chime. Cass fishes hers out of her pocket to read the message from Bruce.

Back in 10 .

So then Cass and Alfred moved down to the Cave together, the pair of them a much more restrained greeting party than would have been expected otherwise. They both wait silently a few feet away from the zeta platform as it whirs to life. Tim appears a few seconds ahead of Bruce, both men rather subdued. 

Tim’s bandages are all freshly changed, Cass notices quickly, and some of the fear-pain he had obviously been feeling when he woke up has been dulled, replaced by a bone-deep nervous-distrust-tired . He steps off of the platform warily, as if expecting some sort of trick despite being privy to the plan to ensure him some privacy. He is extremely tense even with the exhaustion, and Bruce is practically radiating his regret-frustration in response. Bruce hadn’t made anything worse, but he hadn’t managed to make any progress either.

Alfred obviously notices the tension in Tim’s body, as when he steps forward to meet the returning pair he does so slowly, projecting his movements and leaving a healthy distance between himself and Tim. Tim eyes Alfred warily, but doesn’t immediately fall into fear or anger. The green stays below the surface. Cass was correct in thinking that Alfred would fall into the same “tentatively safe” category as her and Bruce.

“Welcome back Master Bruce, Master Timothy,” Alfred greets warmly. Protective-care-safe . He studies Tim in particular, as if deciding what to say. Tim, meanwhile, is pointedly not looking directly at Alfred, his gaze tilted just slightly down and to the side. After a moment of pause, Alfred apparently decides not to even attempt approaching any of the lingering topics hanging over them, simply settling on, “Would either of you like some soup before bed, seeing as you’ve both missed dinner, or shall I store it away for tomorrow?”

Everyone immediately looks to Tim to make a decision, even as the boy’s head snaps up to stare at Alfred rather incredulously. He’s confused-nervous , Cass notes. He had expected some form of punishment or anger, or to be pressed for answers right away. He’s startled to have been addressed directly and with warmth, to the point that he’s untrusting of the offer. Tim steadily slipped towards thinking-nervous-unsure as he then struggles to try and figure out what they want him to say. Like there’s some sort of wrong answer here. His eyes tinge ever so slightly more green and hold there.

After a few seconds of awkward silence as Tim internally panics, Bruce decides to just speak first. “I’m pretty tired Alfie, so I think I’d rather just get some sleep for now,” he looks down slightly at his son, “Tim?”

“Yeah, I’m tired,” Tim agrees quickly. It’s just a bit too fast to be read as an entirely genuine decision. But it is clear enough that he’s barely holding himself up at this point, and no one is willing to push him to actually think through his answer at the moment, so it’s accepted as is.

“In that case, let’s head back up. I have a couple things to attend to still, but Miss Cassandra can show you where your room is, Master Timothy. I trust Master Bruce can find his way by himself.”

As Bruce agrees, a tad chagrined at Alfred’s obvious distaste for his self preservation abilities, Cass finally steps forward to stand closer to Tim. He jumps at first, apparently not having noticed Cass’ presence at all previously, but then to her delight he actually relaxes a bit. Apparently their time alone together previously, combined with the fact that she had kept all the others from swarming as promised, was enough to earn a bit more trust. A sort of tentative ally status. It was all the validation Cass needed to know that her careful planning and respect, even guard, of Tim’s boundaries was working.

“Let’s go?” she asks him quietly.

“Um… yeah,” Tim says a bit shakily. He stubbornly straightens his shoulders as if that might hide how unsure and overall awful he feels. “Yeah, let’s go up now.”

They all end up waiting for Bruce to change out of the Batsuit and into some sweats and a t-shirt anyways, and then they all head up together in a sort of procession. Alfred splits off quickly towards the kitchen, likely planning to store away the soup and distract Dick and Damian with snacks. 

The rest of them head upstairs towards the family wing, Bruce in the lead and Cass sticking relatively close to Tim’s side. They are all hypervigilant as they move through the halls, but none of the rest of the family makes an appearance by the time Bruce is pausing in front of his bedroom door. He studies Tim and Cass for a moment, debating with himself as he has for the past day. Bruce is so desperate to not mess up with Tim the way he did at first with Jason, trying to make it clear that nothing is his fault and he's still part of the family, but his attempts at openness are being limited by his general emotional limits and fear of seeming too out of character. Tim had to believe it was genuine, or it was pointless. This left their father, all of them really, with a fine line to walk.

“Will you be alright for tonight?” Bruce blurts out suddenly. “You could stay in my room for the night if you wanted to, Tim.”

“No,” Tim immediately balks at the suggestion, eyes flashing ever so slightly greener. “I’m alright, thanks.” He freezes for a moment afterwards as if waiting for rebuke, but Bruce only nods, only slightly displaying his disappointment at not being able to keep Tim close without spooking him. It was hidden enough that Tim probably wouldn’t notice, though.

“Alright, then. You know where to find me or Alfred if there’s a problem. Goodnight Tim, Cass.”

“Goodnight Bruce,” Cass echoes back. Tim says nothing, just watches the door close with surprised, assessing eyes. Then he turns to Cass.

“What now, sis?” he asks, and while the casual use of the familial term would usually warm her, the tone with which Tim said it was off. As if he said the word, but really meant something else. But Cass was too inexperienced at reading vocal cues to decipher exactly what was hidden there, and his body language was likewise unhelpful, simply continuing to convey the tired-resigned-wary he had been since starting up the stairs to the Manor.

“Bed,” she told him, consciously restraining herself from reaching to touch him as she led the way further down the hallway towards the only open door.

Tim studied the recently prepared guest room intensely as they entered, stepping forward silently to walk along the walls and study the reinforced windows. His eyes caught on the places Cass knew the few cameras and audio bugs were hidden. His face stayed blank, body language not changing, but Cass figured he was upset. She wondered if Tim would believe her if she told him that the devices were the same emergency access only ones that could be found in all of the bedrooms. He didn’t ask.

After a few minutes of his pacing, including a brief glance through the bathroom amenities, Tim came to a stop by sitting on the edge of the bed, looking at Cass silently. Cass was struck again with the realization of how young Tim still was, barely eighteen years old, eternally small-framed. The slightly overlarge clothes the way exhaustion pulled slightly on his frame made him look all the younger. It made the cuttingly intelligent, wary edge to his tinted eyes all the more unsettling. 

“Need to wash?” she asked him, trying to figure out what he was thinking. Tim only shook his head slightly, still watching her nervously. Curiously. Waiting for something, to see what she would do next.

Tim needed sleep, she knew intrinsically. He was about five minutes away from passing out one way or another. His body was still healing from the previous day’s events. But he was still so tense, his gaze flickering between her and the hidden cameras and the slightly cracked door. He wasn’t relaxing like he should be. He didn’t feel safe here like he once did.

“Should I stay?” Cass decided to offer, mostly expecting to be rejected as quickly as Bruce’s suggestion had been. But Tim’s eyes only sharpened with uncertainty and curiosity, gaze settling firmly on her once again.

“Why?” he asked her, and the seriousness of that question made Cass pause and consider her wording before answering.

“I can watch, protect from others while you sleep,” she explained, letting the tentative hope bloom in her chest. “Trust me?”

The question hung in the air silently for a moment. Then Tim let out an incredulous huff of air and all at once flopped bonelessly backwards.

“Fine,” Tim agreed even as he somehow twisted his body to lay on the center of the bed. He pointedly stayed on top of the comforter and only pulled a single blanket from the foot of the bed over himself as he settled on his side, facing the door. His eyes stayed open. Cass cautiously moved into position closer to where Tim lay, tugging a chair slightly out of its original place before sitting there to observe.

“Goodnight, Tim,” she told her brother, rejoicing internally at the opportunity to say the words despite the circumstances against them. Tim didn’t comment, but the way he let his eyes slip shut was telling enough.

It took a few minutes of rapt silence, but slowly Cass observed the tension draining out of Tim’s limbs as his breathing eased. Tim slipped into an uneasy but nonetheless satisfying to witness sleep, and Cass settled in for the next couple of hours of guarding.

Sleep could be made up later, when Tim had more energy back and didn’t need her. Right now his needs trumped hers. Cass was just glad that Tim was giving her the chance.

Chapter Text

Jason was perfectly aware that he was avoiding the Manor. 

Well, maybe for the first few days he could rationalize his actions. It’s not like he was ever living there full time to begin with, he just stopped by the place occasionally, more consistently so ever since he had properly taken control of the Pit’s side effects and the other Bats had managed to properly reconcile their grievances. It had grown a bit tense again for a while after Bruce’s return, no one sure if the original Batman would be as lenient with the weapons and territory compromises that had been worked out in his absence, but after a couple of conversations things had settled right back where they had been. 

In fact, Jason would be lying if he didn’t say that the frequency of his visits to the other Bats, from then on relocated to the Manor, had actually increased in frequency. He couldn’t go a night without having someone Comm in to ask for his advice or assistance on a case. Occasionally, when missions ran long, he even found himself convinced to spend the night in the Manor instead of making the long trek back to his apartment in the city. Occasionally, even, he would be convinced into a “family visit” outside of the nighttime gig, mostly within the Manor seeing as Jason Todd was still legally dead, and being spotted amongst the notorious Wayne Kid Crowd out in public would have raised more questions than it was worth.

Bruce had offered to fix that, though. To legally bring Jason back alive, as part of the family, one of the gaggle of kids he had collected over the years. Jason hadn’t known how to respond at the time of the offer, made out of the blue one quiet morning after Jason had spent the night at the Manor once again. He still didn’t know what to make of it, really. Bruce had just left the offer there and let Jason swiftly flee back to the quiet safety of his own apartment, not once bringing it up again. Nonetheless, the offer had lingered in the back of Jason’s mind with every “family” interaction ever since.

Somehow, without Jason quite noticing it happening, he had been drawn seamlessly back into the fold.

What had really done wonders to pull him back into the family, Jason recognized, was Tim. Little Replacement Timothy Jackson Drake-Wayne, the former Robin that Jason had, at one time, wanted dead and gone almost as much as he did the Joker. Of course, after a few months of Pit detoxing, Jason could recognize that his thought process was far from clear at the time. Tim hadn’t replaced Jason any more than Jason had Dick. In fact, had Jason not been straight up crazy when he first came back to Gotham, had he actually done his own research on the kid rather than just trusting the bullshit that Talia had fed him, Jason had no doubt that he would have fully supported Batman’s decision to take in the little, lonely stalker that had been trailing after them for years.

In another world they could have been friends- brothers- from the start.

Jason had been thankful for the chance to apologize to Tim, however awkward it had been, in the midst of that tumultuous time after Bruce was thought dead and a tentative peace had finally been forged between the remains of Gotham’s vigilantes. Tim had taken the apology in stride, with a blank acceptance that Jason recognized as the signature of a kid who had far too much pressure placed upon his shoulders to argue against such a claim. It was too much effort to hold a grudge. Still, that didn’t mean that Tim would in any way trust Jason, not after all he had done. That same night Jason, for the first time truly looking at the too-small, too-serious Robin before him, had vowed silently to himself to bridge that gap however he could.

Then Tim had dropped off the face of the map. 

At the time, Jason had just taken it as a too-stressed and more than capable young vigilante deciding to flee the nest and forge his own path away from the memories and ties that would have bound him had he stayed home. He had worked alongside Dick and Babs to track Tim’s path across Europe as much as he could, and he hadn’t really been surprised or panicked when the trail abruptly ended. If the kid had been killed or captured, the responsible party would have broadcasted the achievement loud and wide. Disappearing like this had to be an intentional action by Tim. He had either found a case that warranted going full undercover, or he knew (of course he knew) that the Bats had still been tracking his movements and he had decided to properly cut off contact. Tim would be fine.

Then Bruce had shown up out of the blue, perfectly alive, and Jason had found out just how wrong he was.

It was just like the Replacement to follow in Jason’s footsteps once again.

The aftermath of that revelation had thrown all the Bats, Jason included, into a furious race against Ra’s al Ghul himself, one that had only really led to hints and frustration for the vigilantes. Ra’s just somehow always managed to be one step ahead. Jason could almost constantly feel the edges of the Pit in his anger, but he managed to hold it back for the sake of the kid they had all failed. In the process he found himself spending more and more time working with the other Bats than ever before, doing their best to deal with all the usual Gotham craziness as quickly as possible to free up every spare moment for the Tim search.

Then, out of nowhere, two more formally dead allies had appeared in the cave, and just hours later Tim had been retrieved. Heavily injured, and no doubt still mentally unstable, but he was out of the hands of the League of Assassins at least.

And Jason had no clue how to react. How was he supposed to interact with this kid, now technically an adult if only just, who had been through so much of the same traumas as Jason, just spun in new and equally damaging ways? How could he help this too-sharp boy who’s trust had been betrayed by those closest to him again and again and again. Over the months of stories and research into Tim’s life, learning about the quirks and skills and personality of the boy who could have been his little brother, Jason had somehow grown to care about the kid. And that fucking terrified him.

Jason had lingered tensely around the Manor after the rescue, muscles tensed to flee but brain determined to confirm that Tim would be alright after the near-death experience that was his rescue mission. He had held his ground, barely sleeping, mostly trailing after Alfred, until Cass had come home and confirmed that Tim was awake and perfectly alright, just stressed and unhappy about the latest turn of events. 

Tim wanted his space. Jason was perfectly happy to make his exit now that he had the confirmation that the kid wasn’t about to bite it or get shoved into some far off Justice League prison for the mere mistake of being manipulated by the worlds smartest, oldest megalomaniac. 

The reason Jason gave for his hasty retreat from the Manor wasn’t a lie, even. Between a sudden outcropping of criminal activity that had pulled all the Bats together and the unexpected rescue mission that led to Tim’s retrieval, the Red Hood hadn’t been spotted in Crime Alley for almost five consecutive nights, the longest stretch of time Jason had been unintentionally absent from the streets in months. After crashing in his apartment for a much needed rest, the Red Hood had to deal with a number of criminals who had gotten brave and started trouble in his absence. Luckily none of the Big Bads had seen fit to surface, not with how the Bats had been viciously combing the city ever since the original Batman’s return, but it was enough to keep Jason busy for a few days.

After that, his excuses to stay clear of the Manor were… a bit less substantial.

It had taken only two days of dragging his feet for Roy and Kori, Jason’s current closest allies outside of the Bats, to call him out on his bullshit. They knew him too well. Jason was nervous, stalling on the inevitable. The Manor’s siren call pulled on him, the now-familiar warmth of family and the surprisingly strong protective instinct that urged him to make sure his newly returned brother ally was alright.

Jason would get to it. Eventually. When he felt ready. But for a while, just a few days, he allowed himself the space to stay away from the responsibility, to stay focused on his own territory and to focus his energy on pushing back the edges of the green that was ever so slightly louder than it had been in months.

How could he help the kid if he was still barely in control of their now-shared curse himself?

He just needed a bit more time.

---

It was Cassandra that finally bridged the gap to drag Jason back to the Manor.

After a week and a half of Jason’s best efforts to stay clear, still answering calls and checking in regularly but refusing to leave his territory, it was a simple text message from his almost-sister arriving out of the blue one evening that finally broke his steadily weakening resolve.

Come back home, brother. Tim needs you.

Jason had stared at the message for a solid minute before his brain managed to stop buffering and put the phone down so that he could continue preparing for the night's patrol. The words were nothing that the rest of the family hadn’t said already over the past week and a half. Jason was perfectly prepared to brush off the request the same way he had all the others before it. The text message went unanswered as Jason threw himself into his usual nightly routine.

Still, Cass’s words lingered in the back of his mind, pulling at his thoughts in a way that none of the others had managed, not even Alfred. With any of the others, Jason could see through the words that called him to action for the sake of the kid, recognizing that they were merely trying to pull on his emotions in order to call him back to the group sooner rather than later. That, he could ignore. 

But Cass… Cass was never one to do that. She was innately in tune with the entire family’s emotional needs in a way that none of the other emotionally inept Bats could ever manage. He could tell, when he left the Manor last, that she recognized his need for escape, for time to center himself again.

So the fact that she was calling him back now, no matter how simple the delivery, held a lot more weight than Dick’s long winded pleas ever could.

Jason only managed to hold out until the next afternoon, when he found himself on his civilian motorcycle, cruising up to the Manor’s main gate without quite knowing the entirety of the thought process that led him there. He punched in the now-familiar access code, riding up to the Manor without any prior warning that he would be arriving.

Cass was already waiting for him in the garage as he pulled up. Typical.

She waited silently, without moving from her spot leaning against the wall by the door to the main house, as Jason pulled his bike into its typical spot and cut the motor. He stood off the machine in mildly tense silence, pulling off his helmet and setting it neatly aside on the bike seat before properly turning to acknowledge the observing brown eyes that tracked him. The two held eye contact awkwardly for a few moments before Cass suddenly nodded, ever so slightly. The tension broke.

“So… Timmers,” Jason finally asked, carefully studying Cass’s facial ticks for clues. “What’s up with him, then?”

“Good and bad,” Cass acknowledged. “He trusts me, kind of Bruce and Alfred. Others not as much. I watch him, guard him from the others. Mostly stayed in his room, but leaving it more as he gets bored. Incident yesterday,” Cass wrinkled her nose a bit here, obviously annoyed and a tad stressed if Jason read it right. “Ran into Dick and Damian when out of room. Dick wanted to talk, Tim almost slipped into green.”

Jason hissed quietly at that. “Yeah, that could have gone very, very badly if he lost it there.”

Cass nodded insistently. “Yes, almost bad. I pulled Tim away, yelled at Dick later, no fight, but close. I don’t know how to help, don’t fully understand. He is stressed, feels trapped, no control here. You understand more, you can help. I call you home.”

Jason sighed, running a hand through his already messy hair. “I don’t know, Cassie. You of all people know that I’m barely keeping myself stable as it is. I don’t know if I’m in any position to help Tim gain control of the Pit. I’m worried I might just make it worse.”

“Can’t make it worse than already is. You care, you understand, he will be able to tell. At least have to try.”

“But what if-”

“Jason.”

The two almost-siblings stared at each other for a few moments, waiting to see if the other would break. After a few seconds of Cass’s too-knowing gaze, Jason finally gave in and threw his hands up, again running one through his hair. 

“Fine. Fine! You win, let’s go before I regret this.”

“You won’t,” Cass promised brightly before she smoothly pushed off the wall and led the way through the Manor, towards where Jason knew Tim’s current room was. Which reminded Jason of something...

“Why did you come out here to meet me, by the way? Did you leave Tim by himself?” Jason questioned as they passed by the kitchen, almost within sight of the main stairs. Cass shot him a (jokingly, Jason was pretty sure) insulted look.

“Not alone. Titans are visiting.”

That surprised Jason to the point that he momentarily stopped walking.

“You’re telling me that Bruce actually let a group of teenage Meta’s into the Manor?” Jason asked incredulously. Cass laughed.

“Yes, for Tim. Trying to win him over, I think. Only kind of working though.”

Jason was therefore still slightly surprised, but not shocked, by the vaguely familiar voices that trailed into the hallway as he and Cass approached Tim’s room. Sure enough, when Cass swiftly opens the door, giving Jason no time to pause and prepare himself further, he is met with a decently crowded room of teenagers. 

Tim himself was sitting on the bed, covers pulled up neatly underneath him and a pillow propped behind his back. Closer to the end of the bed, Conner Kent sat, looking slightly more withdrawn than would be typical from what Jason had previously known of him, but still nonetheless moving his arms dramatically as he tried to explain something about the people he had met in the future. Cassie Sandsmark was seated in a chair next to the bed, closer to Tim than Conner, also trying to feign nonchalance at having suddenly regained her three best friends after having lost all of them one way or another the year previous. 

Bart Allen was sprawled on the floor, hair a mess and body slightly vibrating in place. He was the first to notice the door opening, eyes instantly snapping to study the new occupants before just as quickly looking back to Tim and Conner. Apparently having Cass there was enough to offset the presence of Jason for him. The other two, however, took a bit longer to judge Jason’s stance as he slid through the door frame, taking what Jason assumed was a strong glare from Cass before they backed off, though neither said anything out loud. Dang, these kids were paranoid.

“Sup,” Jason said to break the tense silence that had fallen, settling himself against the door with as unthreatening of a stance as he could possibly manage. Cass flopped herself easily down onto the floor next to Bart, as if the tension in the room was nonexistent, and slowly the conversation resumed, if slightly more subdued than before. Jason continued to observe the group silently.

It was Tim, as Jason would have expected, who took the longest to settle after the sudden intrusion into his room. His eyes flitted between Cass and Jason multiple times before he finally settled back, ever so slightly. And yeah, Jason could already spot the problem here.

Tim’s eyes, which he knew should be resting at a slightly green tinged blue much like Jason’s when not losing it nowadays, were much greener than one would think warranted for a casual hang out with his friends. They flashed ever so slightly greener at Jason’s entrance before settling back once again. Despite the casual demeanor he maintained, Jason’s experienced eyes could spot the tension Tim was holding in his muscles, the way his eyes never seemed to settle on one place, flickering between the window, the doorways, the people. His fingers were periodically twitching, curling infinitesimally into the comforter before releasing again. 

The other three friends talked, gestured, and laughed like the kids they were. Tim was mostly silent.

To summarize, Tim was on edge. Even here, surrounded only by the people he should, by all means, trust the most in the universe, Tim was constantly one slightly raised voice or too-fast movement away from snapping. And while Cass and Jason could spot the signs and regulate their interactions accordingly, there’s no telling if the others could. From what Cass had said, Dick certainly hadn’t yesterday. 

Tim might not be as blatantly lost in the Pit madness as Jason had been for the first year or two after he was dumped in the pit, but he wasn’t unaffected by it. Rather than a constant threat, Tim was like a ticking bomb ready to explode at the smallest trigger. And in a lot of ways, that was more dangerous. People had known to expect Jason’s instability, and had learned how to counteract it. If and when Tim went off, they would have no clue.

Tim needed to learn control. No doubt Ra’s hadn’t bothered to teach him anything about suppressing the instincts towards violence that came with the Pit. Jason knew from firsthand experience that figuring out the balance was difficult, especially on your own.

It’s hard to try and suddenly reintegrate with the people who care about you when everything in your core is screaming that nowhere is safe, especially not with those who you trusted before you were hurt so badly. Jason could imagine the ways that the Pit was whispering in Tim’s mind, twisting past events in a way that makes it seem like it’s Tim against the world. Just like it once had done to him, like it still did sometimes.

Jason’s resolve strengthened. He would help Tim, as much as he could. It’s only the least he could do, after everything he’s done to the kid over the years.

---

The three visiting Titans ended up making their exit maybe half an hour after Jason had arrived. They all gave pretty reasonable excuses as to why they had to leave, mainly related to hero or family duties that they couldn’t just ignore, but Jason still kind of suspected that they were cutting their visit a bit shorter than they normally would have because of his presence. He was slightly guilty about that, but only slightly. He and Tim had an important conversation to get through that the Titan’s couldn’t be present for. If they cared about Tim, they would be back to talk to him another day. His issue was slightly more time sensitive than catching up on their everyday lives.

It was obvious that Tim recognized that Jason was here for a reason as well, considering the way that his gaze locked and held onto Jason as soon as the Titan’s had disappeared through the door. Cass sat up straighter and Tim barely shot her a look, fascinatingly enough. Cass actually had managed to earn some trust from the kid, then. Jason, however, was still clearly on thin ice.

“Ello there Timmers,” Jason started. “You’re looking a lot less close to death than when I last saw you.”

Cass smacked Jason’s leg, probably deservedly, at the bad attempt at breaking the ice. Tim, however, actually let out the smallest huff of amusement, tension ever so slightly relaxing in Jason’s presence. Jason took it as a win.

“Jason,” Tim responded, smoothly following along with the overly light tone that Jason had opened with. “You seem about the same as always. Or at least, the same as when I last saw you. You’re not about to snap and try and kill me, I hope?”

“Nah, murder’s not really my thing at the moment,” Jason assured quickly, trying to keep up the light, joking tone they had fallen into even as his heart twisted in his chest at the reminder of his past actions.

Tim’s eyes narrowed ever so slightly, shrewd gaze noticing the slip up and instantly growing more wary. Damn, he had caught that then. If knew that Jason was covering for something, trying to keep up the casual nothing is wrong pretense wouldn’t do anything to help Jason’s attempts at gaining trust. So he quickly dropped the act, the mood falling more somber as everyone adjusted to the tone shift, waiting. Jason’s gaze dropped to the floor, unable to maintain eye contact with the emotions rolling through him.

“I am sorry about that, you know?” Jason said heavily. “I wasn’t thinking clearly back then, what with the Pit scrambling my head right around.” He paused, eyes flicking back up to hesitantly gauge how Tim was reacting. The boy stared back silently, not moving, and Jason made the decision to push forward. 

“You probably have a pretty good idea of what that's like now, don’t you Timmers?”

Silence fell. Jason waited apprehensively for Tim’s response as the boy’s eyes flickered between shades of green and blue, praying internally that he hadn’t pushed too far too fast, that he hadn’t messed up already. Screw his inability to do things patiently. At this point he wouldn’t be all that surprised if Tim just straight up lost it and lunged at him.

But, to Jason’s equal relief and shock, Tim didn’t attack. Rather, after a couple seconds of internal battle, Tim just dropped all tension in his muscles like a puppet with cut strings, nothing left to hold him up. His head dropped down as his body slumped forward slightly, black-and-white hair just long enough to obscure his eyes at that angle. His position was overly relaxed, vulnerable to the others in the room. The form of a boy who had given up and was simply accepting his doomed fate.

“Yeah,” Tim admitted quietly, voice rough, almost inaudible from Jason’s position across the room. “Yeah, you could say that I get it now.”

Suddenly more scared by the boy’s unexpected reaction than he had been by the idea that he might lash out, Jason carefully pushed himself up from his spot leaning against the wall, taking a few measured steps towards where Tim still sat on the bed. From the floor, Cass watched the exchange attentively, not moving to intervene but ready to spring up at the smallest cue.

“Timmers?” Jason prompted warily. “Tim, are you-”

“I’M FINE!” Tim spat suddenly, entire body jolting back upright, eyes blazing a brilliant green for a split second before he managed to snap back out of it. Then his eyes clenched shut again, both hands pressing desperately into his face to further hide himself, fingers digging into his hair. 

“Tim,” Cass said quietly from Jason’s side. Jason had to resist jumping, he hadn’t even noticed the girl stand up with how hyperfocused on Tim he had become.

“I’m fine,” he repeated again into the silence, huffing after another beat of silence just reinforced how little that would do to convince the two people who had just witnessed his slip, the two people who would understand his mental state the most. His hands dropped back to his lap, head tipping up to aim a (from what Jason could read, half-hearted at best) glare at Cass.

“You called him in because of what happened yesterday, didn’t you,” Tim observed bluntly.

“Yes,” Cass agreed, totally unaffected.

“Figures,” Tim grumbled, eyes sliding over to study Jason. The older boy could feel his shoulders straightening under that analytical blue-green gaze. “So why are you here, then? Going to try and win over my trust by spouting off about how similar we are now?”

“No,” Jason responded bluntly, Tim blinking at the firm response. “Despite how the others might be viewing this, I of all people can recognize the differences in our situations. We might be similar, yes, but we are not the same. And I doubt that you’ll really trust me anytime soon. But still, I think I can offer… a helpful perspective, I guess. I’ve done my time dealing with the judgmental and pitying looks, I’ve had to get used to being back in Gotham. I’ve learned my own ways of dealing with Pit flare-ups. At the very least I can take over for Cass sometimes in keeping the others off your back. She’s going to need to properly sleep at some point. They’ll listen to my warnings on this kind of stuff.”

Tim stared at Jason blankly for a moment before he performed some convoluted movement almost reminiscent of Dick’s boneless acrobatics to roll off the bed and stand on the floor even with Jason, chin tilted up stubbornly. Even standing on even ground, the top of Tim’s head barely came up to Jason’s chin. Damn the kid is short.

“Why are you offering all of this? Why go out of your way to help me?” Tim challenged. Jason found himself once again reminded of the stories of a younger, more innocent Tim who had been driven enough to out-stubborn the Batman. He was still in there, somewhere, Jason was sure of it. Maybe a bit broken and scared, but still there nonetheless.

“Because no matter what you might say whenever it’s brought up, I do still owe you for the time I beat the crap out of you for no good reason,” Jason said instead. “And even if I did really hate you at some point, I know what the Pit does. I know what the League of Assassins does. I wouldn’t wish that on anyone, so if I can help in some way, I’m going to. Even if that means pissing off Dickiebird when he needs to back off.” Jason thought for another moment, then grinned. “Maybe especially because I can piss him off. He needs to learn boundaries sometimes, ya know?”

Tim huffed a bit in almost- laughter, relaxing a bit once again, stance settling into something almost casual. Next to Jason, Cass nodded along knowingly, a spark of satisfaction in her eyes now that it was clear that her plan had worked as expected.

“Alright,” Tim agreed. “We can try to work something out. At least you’ll be less overbearing than Bruce or Alfred would be.”

Another round of agreement sounded from the whole trio. And, from there on, they began.

Chapter Text

The thing about being a prisoner (unacknowledged by the wardens or otherwise) that a lot of people seem to forget is that it can get boring very, very quickly. Tim was growing all too familiar with this fact during his weeks of confinement in the Manor.

The thing was, Tim had never really been a prisoner with Ra’s. At least, not in this way. He had free range of the expansive compound where he was staying at the time with a fairly limited guard. He had been encouraged to research, to strategize, to stretch his muscles and mind. There wasn’t a day that had gone by with the LoA where he had just sat around, he was constantly working three problems at once at the behest of his Master. Maybe that was intentional on Ra’s’ part, to keep Tim distracted so that he wouldn’t have time to really contemplate why he was there or plan any hint of an escape, but Tim had thrived under the constant mental and physical stimulation that came with Ra’s’ tutelage. 

 While somewhat painful to think about, Tim could also remember back to the era of Robin, which when it came down to it had been much the same story, just under a different tutor and slightly less violent means. Dealing with school (as boring as it often was) while also keeping up a secret identity as a vigilante had left him constantly on the move. Stretching back even further to the pre-Robin days, Tim could remember the many nights of tracking Batman and Robin over the rooftops, trying to take pictures and solve cases alongside them from afar.

So, in short, Tim really had no clue how to deal with boredom in a healthy manner.

The first few days back in Gotham had been fine, sure. He had been readjusting once again to a new ‘normal’, trying to understand the unspoken rules of his house arrest while hiding away from all the people in the Manor that made his entire mind fizzle with green. It had been enough to distract him for a while, but eventually he started to… not really settle in, but he became desensitized to the stress enough that it wasn’t a distraction anymore. 

Cass, as great as she was at keeping Tim company and keeping the others away from him, was not one for extensive conversation. All the books they deemed safe enough for Tim to read failed to hold his attention. Tim didn’t even bother trying to deceive himself into thinking he would be allowed any form of technology, not in any way that mattered. The trivial games that they would have possibly allowed him access to (with careful monitoring no doubt) if he asked wouldn’t do anything to hold Tim’s attention. There were some stretches he could do in his room under Cass’s watchful eye, but the small suggestion of a proper sparring match Tim floated was quickly rejected with a shake of the head and a small frown from the girl. 

She claimed it was because Tim was still recovering from his injuries. Tim had a sneaking suspicion that that was only a small part of the reason.

The growing frustration at being trapped in the room (no matter that it was self-enforced) was what finally drove Tim out of the small safe space and into the rest of the Manor only a week into his stay. The near-miss with a Lazarus episode when Dick had managed to catch Tim slipping through the halls was exactly why Tim had tried to avoid the roaming episodes in the first place, and yet he could only take so much isolation before it drove him crazy… more than he already was, that is. 

It was just a matter of time before Tim slipped up and lashed out. No matter how much the Bats were trying to insist that this was anything more than a prison to keep him in line, Tim knew that the moment he finally let the Pit slip through the cracks in his mind would be the moment that he got locked up for good, properly this time. Maybe the Bats really were trying to keep him out of a proper prison, but if the Justice League heard anything that could indicate that Tim wasn’t contained here they would step in. Even Batman didn’t have that kind of power.

They would have all seen the files. They would all already know how far Tim had fallen from the boy he once was. He was holding on to the guise of freedom by a thread, and it was only a matter of time until it snapped.

The isolation also left Tim way too much time to think about that. All the ways that he had failed, the monster that he had become. Because he was tainted, no matter how Cass and Jason and Bruce tried to subtly state otherwise whenever they saw an opportunity. Tim had worked with the enemy, more or less willingly for almost an entire year. He had committed countless crimes. He had killed , the one thing he always swore he wouldn’t. He had become Ra’s’ vassal, his heir.

Now Tim wasn’t even sure where he fell with that. He had disobeyed Ra’s, in the end. Despite how blurry Tim’s memory was of that night, he knew that to some degree, he had ignored a direct order, allowing his surprise and nostalgia to get the better of him. He had contributed to his own capture, and even now sat relatively complacently in the home of Ra’s’ greatest enemy. His Master would be angry at the betrayal if… when he went back. Even when turned to the dark side, Tim couldn’t do the right thing, couldn’t follow orders. He would have been better off-

Tim forcefully cut off his thoughts at this point, pushing down the wave of green that had risen up when his thoughts began to spiral. The tattoo on his back and even newer scarring on his chest twinged with phantom pains. Cass shot him a concerned look from where she sat across the room, but said nothing.

Yeah. Having too much time to think was not in Tim’s best interest at the moment. 

Jason helped... some. Jason understood . He could keep the others away from Tim’s room when Cass inevitably was called away, or teach Tim various breathing exercises or mantras to recenter himself when the Pit’s whispers grew louder. The older boy went from hiding away from the Manor to being there practically every other day, undoubtedly seeing Tim’s restlessness and trying to create some sort of buffer before the inevitable collapse. 

After a couple days of keeping their little sessions confined to Tim’s room, Jason convinced Tim to once again dare venture out into the Manor proper. And thus began a new pattern that repeated every few days. The library, a secondary lounge, the sunroom. Somehow Jason always managed to keep the others clear when they weren’t invited. 

“Not invited” being the key word there. Eventually, Jason and Cass had insisted that Tim had to get used to the others, at least to ease the current tension. It started with a trip to the kitchen to spend a bit of time with Alfred, who Tim had already somewhat interacted with regularly anyways during food deliveries. Then came Bruce in all his awkward glory during one of their library days. Babs making a visit just to sit down for tea. Once, a talk with Steph, Cass glaring at the blonde girl the whole time. Dick accidentally wandered into the Manor during a kitchen outing once and they actually managed to exchange a few words before Tim’s emotions spiked and Jason and Cass booted the first Robin right back out of the room. 

It didn’t escape Tim’s notice that Damian was never one of the people he ran into, even accidentally. Whether that was Jason and Cass’s decision or Damian's went unanswered, as Tim didn’t care to ask. He didn’t want to see the kid anyways. He’d undoubtedly just end up going for the brat’s throat five seconds in.

Overall, Tim was… somewhat getting used to the Bats again. Trust was still far, far off but they were… civil. The tension in the Manor eased slightly, though Tim still mostly insisted on keeping his distance. As long as they never approached him alone or tried to push his boundaries, they were tolerable. They gave him something else to think about beyond his own, scattered thoughts.

But even with the added dash of interactions to Tim’s life, he could feel the frustrated energy bubbling up under his skin. Maybe even more so, now that he wasn’t so hyperfocused on keeping track of everyone's movements throughout the day. He needed something else to focus on, or else he might just snap from the boredom of it all.

Again, Cass and Jason were the ones to come to the rescue. Tim wasn’t sure what they told Bruce, probably something along the lines of “he needs something to do before he literally explodes”, but one day about a month post-Ra’s, during one of Bruce’s visiting sessions, the man threw Tim a line.

“I was thinking…” he had said hesitantly, not quite meeting Tim’s eyes, “that there is no reason to keep paper files away from you, as long as they don’t have to do with… sensitive topics. And the Cave is a supervised enough area when someone else is there, as long as you stay away from the computer. You could look through some old cold cases, I think. As long as someone is actively supervising you.”

The decision had been surprising to Tim, but he quickly brushed it off as another attempt by Bruce to win his favor. It’s a surprising move, looking at things strategically, but not totally out of character with how he had been reacting to everything recently. Tim decided to not question it too hard, not when he finally was being given something mildly interesting to do with himself.

Sure enough, daily trips down to the Cave were swiftly worked into Tim’s semi-regular schedule. He was always accompanied, typically by Jason or Cass or Bruce. They would pull some pre-selected and printed case file out from storage and let him have at it, watching him with steadily decreasing suspicion from where they sat a ways away doing their own work on the computer or exercise areas of the cave, always within eyeshot. 

His time was limited, usually 2-3 hours depending on everyone's schedule, his visits had to be timed around when the resistant vigilantes had to use the Cave’s resources for serious work that he could not be privy to, but the time quickly became precious to Tim as he tore through the build up of cold cases that the others would generally never have time for.

Despite this, or maybe because of this, Tim never dared put up any sort of disagreement when his watcher-of-the-day deemed his “mental exercise allotment” (as Tim started internally referring to it) completed for the day. He didn’t dare give them reason to limit him further.

Somehow… the restrictions only grew looser. The level of supervision slipped over time, to the point where he didn’t feel eyes flickering towards him every time he stood to move around the table. On days where work picked up for the team, Alfred was permitted to be his watcher, the old Butler usually using the time to tidy up areas of the Cave while Tim worked. This then evolved into Alfred occasionally letting Tim come down to the Cave at night, when everyone, even Cass and Jason, were inevitably called out to the streets all at once. A possible Rogue sighting, a suspected human trafficking ring. No one wanted Tim upstairs alone, so a compromise was reached. Alfred would wait until everyone had left for the night before inviting Tim down, the Englishman assisting Oracle on the Comms while Tim worked through an extra case or two, and then Tim would be ushering back upstairs before the vigilante’s all returned for the night.

It was a flawed system, working on a thin layer of trust that Tim knew he shouldn’t have been entrusted with. The entire system was a ticking time bomb waiting to go off. Tim knew, but he couldn’t bear to lose the hints of freedom he was finally getting.

 So he said nothing.

---

The inevitable finally happened about two months after Tim’s return to Gotham.

It was a night where Tim and Alfred both stayed late in the Cave, the others all tied up with an abnormal string of robberies that had been odd enough to call everyone to the field at once. Tim, as usual, worked diligently through a pile of smaller cases that had recently been set aside, letting Alfred’s conversation with the other Bats fade into the background. Tim’s constant, ingrained awareness was enough to keep him subconsciously following the conversation, tracking who was talking and the tones with which they spoke. 

Alfred was flipping through cameras, as usual splitting the load with Babs as they tried to catch any unusual activity in the potential target areas. Tim tried to not keep close enough attention to notice where the cameras were pointing.

Tim did look up when Jason’s voice suddenly rose into a surprised yelp, out of turn with the idle, focused chatter.

“Red Hood?” Batman questioned quickly, no doubt ready to tear across the city if necessary. Bruce was always overprotective of the once-dead Robin no matter how much Jason resisted the treatment.

“I’m fine,” Hood responded gruffly. Embarrassed. “Some raccoon or something jumped out at me when I passed through an alley. He was a big fucker in my defense, surprised me and managed to nick a tooth through the armor gap on my wrist when I blocked the lunge. He scurried off right after too, damn it.”

“The great Red Hood, bested by a raccoon,” Batgirl giggled. Robin tutted somewhere in the background, and Tim lost a few moments of conversation as he forcefully pushed down the flare of pit rage at the sound. When he managed to focus again, Alfred was speaking.

“-should nonetheless check in to the Cave, Master Hood. If the creature managed to draw blood you wouldn’t go wrong with a rabies booster. Not to mention anything else the rodent could have picked up on the streets in Gotham.”

“Oh c’mon A, it’s barely a scratch-”

“No,” Batman cut in over Hood’s complaints. “Agent A is right, it’s better safe than sorry Hood. We’re not getting any activity in your area right now. Do a quick rendezvous back by the Cave so A can confirm you aren’t exposed to something, then you can head back out.”

“... fine,” Jason huffed, “I’ll be there in around 20, A.”

“Understood,” Alfred responded evenly, before standing and somewhat distractedly making his way past Tim’s station and towards the Medbay. “Goodness,” he muttered as he passed by, “I do hope our HDVC is still in date or I’ll have to ring Leslie. Should probably...”

Silence fell as Alfred turned the corner. Tim became suddenly hyper aware that this was the first time he had been left relatively unattended in the Cave since his return. His gaze drifted over to the now-abandoned computer screens, no real intention behind the idle curiosity as camera feeds continued to flicker past. Shadowed, barren images of empty streets and storage warehouses.

Tim’s vision caught when a person moved into frame on one of the warehouse cams. Not in itself unusual, a couple people occasionally flickered across the screen-, this was Gotham after all- but something about this particular person’s stance dinged some sort of alarm in Tim’s mind. He knew better than to ignore his brain’s intuitions, attention fully turning towards the feed just in time for the man to turn his head towards the screen. Tim’s blood runs cold.

George “Digger” Harkness. Alias Captain Boomerang. 

The man who had killed Jack Drake in his own home.

A man who was supposed to be dead.

Tim didn’t understand what was happening, his mind short circuiting as Boomerang started methodically popping open storage crates without a care in the world like a man who hadn’t been killed by Tim’s own father over a year prior. Why didn’t anyone tell Tim? Did anyone know?

Why was the man who murdered Tim’s father and died himself in the act suddenly alive and well in the middle of Gotham, free as a bird when even Tim was caged away oh so carefully?

Why had no one done anything about this?

Before Tim could even have a chance at rationalizing, his vision was washing green.

---

There was only perhaps ten minutes of silence from the Cave after the whole raccoon incident before Alfred came back online, sounding much more stressed than he had previously. 

“It seems we may have a bit of an… urgent problem on our hands,” Alfred said. Nightwing swung to a stop along his path, suddenly focusing in on the conversation again.

“What kind of problem?” B responded quickly, also cluing in to the tone.

“Master… T seems to have vanished from the Cave during my brief check of the medical equipment,” Alfred admitted worriedly. Dick’s stomach dropped at the words. “There's a bike missing. The facial scan running on the feeds here in the Cave dinged George Harkness at the titanium storage warehouse in East Side a few minutes ago.

A moment of deep silence cut over the Comms, a collective realization.

“Shit!” Hood broke through, followed by a squeal of tires on asphalt as he no doubt wrenched his bike around to head in an abrupt new direction. Oracle instantly took charge of crisis management.

“Hood, you’re closest to the warehouse, Nightwing and Batman you two are also in range. Everyone else stay clear for now but be on standby. Batgirl, swing Northeast to rendezvous with Robin since he can’t go with Batman. Black Bat, I know you’re probably worried about him but you’re a bit far out to help so just let Hood and B handle it, alright? If you don’t think you can focus, start heading back towards the Cave and wait there. Everyone else, hold position.”

It was a testament to the tension that not even Damian complained at the orders.

Nightwing, for his part, tuned out most of the chatter as he tore off immediately towards where he had left his bike a couple blocks over, worry making him sick to his stomach. Even at Hood’s top speed, they were all far enough out that Tim, coming from the Manor and likely taking the fast-transport tunnels that ran out from the Cave, would get there first. If he was fully out of control, even those few minutes head start would be enough for Tim to do damage. The warning the Justice League had given them rang through Dick’s head as his feet finally hit the street.

 “ETA sixteen minutes,” he reported, smoothly sliding onto his bike and shooting forward.

“Eight,” Hood echoed, voice tight.

“Fifteen,” was Batman’s response. “Just try and get him as calm as you can, Hood. Draw his attention if he’s not stable, limit the damage.”

Not enough time, Nightwing’s mind echoed over and over again. Not enough, never enough. You’re never enough. Not when it comes to Tim.

He made a split second decision, and reached up to slam a hand against the screen on his bike, sending out a signal on a private line. 

---

The Red Hood arrived at the scene approximately ten minutes after Tim had officially been marked as missing, his bike skidding harshly to a halt just shy of twenty feet from the warehouse doors. Normally Hood would be internally wincing at the wear on his tires after such a maneuver, but in this case there were much higher priorities. As it was, he barely had the awareness to pop the kickstand down as he swung himself off the bike, already taking in the situation before him.

“I’m on site,” he reported quietly, pushing through the tightness in his chest and ignoring the green that lapped at the edge of his consciousness. “T definitely beat me here, one of our spare bikes is dropped outside… and there's a couple of henchmen who must have been on guard duty on the ground outside.”

“Injured, or…” Batgirl trailed off anxiously.

“I don’t fucking know,” Hood snapped back, “I’m a bit more worried about calming Tim down first before I start worrying about the health of some random ass thugs.”

No one else commented as Hood approached the slightly ajar warehouse door, listening carefully and quickly flashing his helmet to infrared and back to get a rough idea of what he’d find inside before pulling it off and throwing it aside, figuring that the better view of his face the domino provided might help Tim recognize who he was and snap out of the haze sooner.

“Entering now,” he reported quietly, pressing a hand to the door as the other moved to rest on one of the modified pistols that sat on either hip.

“Backup in seven,” Batman updated, followed quickly by Nightwing’s short “Eight.”

Hood took a deep breath, trying to center himself before jumping into the fray. It wouldn’t help anyone if he lost his own grip on the Green while trying to deal with Tim’s. He mentally counted down.

Three...

Two...

One…

Then he slammed his palm into the door, swinging the slab of metal roughly around about its hinges to collide loudly with the metal paneling of the wall. Standing in the center of the large room beneath the dull fluorescent lights flickering with age, Tim’s head snapped around to glare blankly at the source of disruption, his eyes glowing a sickly green that rolled Jason’s stomach with the familiarity. His posture was loose, unconcerned as he steadily pointed a handgun down towards the humanoid figure at his feet. Jason’s slightly enhanced sense of smell could pick up the iron-tinged scent of blood from the door.

“Go away,” Tim said emotionlessly. But it wasn’t Tim, not really. The intonation of the words was familiar, and yet ever so slightly to the left, edged with a hint of something that set Jason’s instincts on high alert and tried to pull the Pit ever so slightly further to the surface in his mind. This wasn’t the every-cautious, too-reserved Tim that Jason had slowly been coming to know over the past weeks. This was the Ghost, the Demon’s Heir in his full, Pit-fueled, silent fury. 

And Jason had to try and figure out how to talk him down. Fuck.

“You seem to have gotten yourself really upset there, Timbers. But it looks like you got him, yeah? You can come back up now.”

Hood edged himself carefully forward between the scattered crates, his own, non-lethal gun drawn as a precaution but pointed at the ground. Tim simply twisted his head and torso around to track Jason’s progress, the arm aiming at the person below him not wavering. 

It was Captain Boomerang himself, Jason could now see. The man’s typically blue-themed clothing was torn and stained deep crimson, his body pinned to the ground by a knife that had apparently been driven through his shoulder with enough force to stick in the concrete below. The man was awake, from what Jason could tell, but had given up struggling. He simply breathed in and out shakily as he stared hazily up at the gun bearing down on him. He’d given up on fighting.

“Leave,” Tim said again in that same not-there voice as Jason got within about twenty feet of him. There was no flicker of recognition in his eyes or body language, no hint that the Pit was fading now that Jason was there trying to play distraction. “You don’t need to be involved in this.”

“I’m not leaving, kid. You’re just going to have to deal with it.” Jason pushed, coming to a stop still around ten feet away, lingering at the edge of the central clearing of boxes Tim was standing in. “Stand down, Tim, you’ve done enough here.”

The boy’s head tilted slightly, considering Jason as he stood stubbornly nearby in an attempt at distraction. Even at such a close range, Jason could barely process the twitch of Tim’s muscles before his finger was squeezing around the trigger.

Bang. Bang. Bang .

Two shots to the chest and one to the head point blank. Jason flinched back despite himself as Captain Boomerang’s body twitched at the impacts, any noise he may have made swallowed by the firing of the gun itself. Tim’s head tipped back around briefly to observe the results idly before turning back to Jason, blank expression now edged with something else that had Jason’s teeth on edge as Tim’s stance shifted just ever so slightly.

The Green that resided in Jason’s own veins rolled upward in response, reacting to the danger before him in turn, and Jason found himself desperately trying to push it down. He was the older one here, the more experienced with the Pit’s influence. He had to keep control of his reactions, or things would just escalate.

“Fine then,” Tim declared flatly. “Have it your way.”

As torn as he was with emotion and his own mind fighting for clarity over the Pit, and as swiftly as Tim suddenly moved to swing his arm around, Jason had no time to react before Tim’s weapon was suddenly pointing at Jason himself. 

Bang . 

There was a rush of air, the world suddenly blurring with sound and color. By the time Jason had blinked he found himself a good few feet back from where he had last been, a wall of red and blue standing between him and Tim. Three young voices were speaking, familiar figures edging cautiously towards Tim as they called out to him assuringly.

The Titans were here. One of them (probably Superboy) had prevented Jason from being shot. Okay, that was cool. Things were perfectly under control, no need to let himself slip too.

“What are you guys doing here?” Jason sputtered slightly as the shock of the moment wore down, blinking at the three teens that by all means had been nowhere near Gotham not minutes ago.

“Nightwing called us,” Wondergirl reported as she worked her way further around the room, the trio working in tandem to half surround Tim in a half circle with the door to their backs, observing his responses. Jason moved forward again to complete the ring, watching as Tim’s body only seemed to tense further as his eyes flickered between the four of them. Distantly, Jason registered the voices coming through his still-open Comm line. 

Surprise at the Titan’s appearance. Four minutes until Batman arrived.

“Tim?” Superboy tried. “Hey, buddy, it’s just the three of us and Jason here right now, yeah? You know us. Think you could try and relax a bit?” The boy in question only snarled at the words, whipping around to face the one speaking, then again spinning to face Jason as he stepped forward cautiously.

“He doesn’t seem to be tracking at all at the moment,” Jason told them calmly, trying to avoid a sudden shift in tone lest he tip Tim’s reactions any further. “It’s all purely aggressive/defensive actions when the Pit is this strong. Reacting to potential threats in a perceived need to protect himself against them, no matter the actual intention. I doubt we’ll be able to drop his stress levels enough to calm him down as it is.”

“So we’re going for restraint, then?” Wondergirl checked, one hand moving to lightly rest on the golden lasso looped at her hip at the edge of Jason’s vision. Tim’s eyes flickered to track the movement.

“I’vegotit,” Impulse blurted, blurring forward from where he had managed to edge a bit closer behind Tim’s back, a flash of silver in his hands as he moved. 

But in the same moment Impulse was moving, so was Tim reacting at a suddenly near-untrackable speed, fluidly spinning around to grab Impulse’s arm from where it was reaching in with the restraints and heaving . The speedster went flying across the room with a surprised shout, ending in a pained yelp as he slammed into the concrete flooring a good twenty-five feet back.

Superboy and Wondergirl launched forward to block Tim from following through with the attack, metal clanging as the two superheroes tried to block the desperate attacks Tim was throwing at them, the boy letting out an aggressive snarl even as his face stayed distantly blank. Jason’s non-lethal gun was still drawn and pointed towards the fight, but with his current position and how quickly the three combatants were all moving there was no clear shot, and he had no hope of standing up to the fray physically unless he wanted to give in to the Pit himself.

Tim was well and truly in panic mode, Jason realized. Being exposed to the Pit only gave a person mild physical enhancements. But, when pushed perceivably to the brink and deep in the Green, the Pit also had the ability to unlock a person’s hysterical strength as well, as a last resort defense. Which is what Tim’s brain had done, considering he was going toe to toe in a purely physical battle against two enhanced. 

“He’s going to hurt himself if this keeps up!” Jason shouted over the noise desperately, trying to edge in without getting knocked out. “His body can’t take this level of strain for this long!”

“We’re trying!” Wondergirl yelped as she got thrown past Jason, flying up to stop the momentum and throw herself back into the fight. Jason dared to take a shot at the floor to block Tim as he tried to use the opening to go for the door. As bad as the situation was, letting Tim out of the relatively controlled area would be exponentially worse.

They had to end this now. They needed to get Tim to stop fighting or-

A muffled shot sounded, not one of Jason's. Tim yelped, stumbling back a few steps before crumpling to the ground. Jason’s gaze snapped around even as Batman’s dark form descended from the rafters, tucking the tranq gun back into his belt. He had arrived, then. Jason could read the man’s worry in the line of his mouth as he sprinted forward, pressing an ungloved finger to Tim’s pulse point. 

Jason moved closer as well, crouching next to where the two other Bats sat even as the Titan’s drew back to go check on Impulse where he had shakily risen to his feet on the other side of the room. He was holding one arm awkwardly. But Jason was more focused on Tim. The boy's body was visibly shaking from muscle strain even as he was pulled forcefully unconscious. The T-shirt he was wearing did nothing to hide the bruises blooming on his forearms and knuckles. Who knows where else the kid may have been injured.

Likely thinking along the same lines, Batman carefully stood, bundling his second youngest carefully in his arms, pulling his cape forward to half block Tim from the outside world. He paused for a moment on his quest to turn and check on the other three heroes in the room, gaze hovering particularly over Impulse.

“Are you three alright?” he checked, his voice more Stressed Dad Bruce than Dark Knight. 

“I broke my arm, but it’s healing fine already, we shouldn't even need to set it. Mild concussion too, but that’s basically gone as well,” Impulse assured Bruce quickly. 

“We’re fine,” Superboy and Wondergirl agreed. Batman nodded, trusting their verdict.

“Head back to the Tower, then. I’m sure the others are worried. I’ll try and get someone to send you an update within the hour, if that's acceptable, but we’ve got it covered from here.”

The trio agreed, and with a gust of wind they were gone. Jason went to follow them out, Batman a half a step behind with Tim still thoroughly unconscious in his arms.

Nightwing met them at the door, holding Jason’s helmet out in silent offering from where he must have retrieved it from the ground outside. Jason took it thankfully, the Red Hood sliding back into place even as sirens rose up in the distance. Someone had alerted the GCPD.

“I’ll stay to try and explain… this,” Nightwing offered, gesturing somewhat helplessly at the crumpled figures outside and inside the warehouse. “You’re both probably better off staying with T, and Hood isn’t the best at dealing with the cops on a good day anyways.”

The attempted joke falls flat for all of them, but everyone is quick to agree. By the time the flashing lights are pulling up along the street, Batman is already disappearing into the Batmobile, having tucked Tim in the back, and Jason is already seated on his bike and ready to follow him home. Quickly, the pair shoot off in their respective vehicles, leaving Nightwing to field the flurry of questions at the crime scene.

Chapter Text

Bruce sighed as the video call disconnected, finally able to pull off the cowl and slide out of the Dark Knight persona that he had been holding for the past two hours. While Bruce was well accustomed to sleepless nights at this point, this night had been particularly exhausting.

The Justice League had not been pleased with Tim’s brief lapse in control. They were even less pleased that the Titan’s, their mentees, had been drawn into it, and for Impulse got injured, without their knowledge. 

Two of the henchmen caught in Tim’s rampage had died along with Captain Boomerang himself, another six were significantly injured. Thanks to Nightwing’s quick thinking in concocting a story, the GCPD had been expertly nudged towards assuming one of the various other villains or gangs with a grudge against Boomerang was likely responsible for the attack. Not that they would ever think to look at Timothy Drake-Wayne and/or a former Robin to be responsible, but there was no need for them to waste time and manpower to try and solve a case they’d never get evidence too. None of the Bats felt too bad about exploiting the GCPD’s trust in them in this case.

(Bruce was focusing very hard on not thinking about the people Tim had just killed. He refused to take this as a rude reminder of all the others who had undoubtedly died at his second youngest’s hand before then. It wasn’t Tim’s fault, it wasn’t , and yet Bruce found himself fighting with the Batman part of himself that stubbornly clung to his oldest rule. He kept flashing back to when he met Tim, how earnest and pure he was in his image of what Batman and Robin had represented. How had he let things go so wrong ?)

The Justice League, predictably, were not as easy to distract away. Not when they were all already so on edge about what Tim could do if he fully slipped. They got particularly snippy with Bruce when they quickly realized that the Titans had been directly involved in the fight, and that Impulse had been injured in the process. Hence, Bruce’s past two hours being taken up by a conference call where he did his best to explain what exactly had gone wrong and why the Justice League should absolutely not show up in Gotham or otherwise try and interfere.

The League members had settled down, eventually. Especially with Canary’s semi-expert knowledge of psychology as support and Oracle dropping in briefly with all the related documentation and video record. They let the Bats go about their business in Gotham once again… as long as there were no more incidents. Which, realistically, given Jason’s detox years from the Pit as a prior example, was unlikely.

God, Bruce needed a nap.

Setting the cowl aside to be reunited with the rest of his uniform later, Bruce pushes his chair back from the main desk and stands. From there, it's only a few steps until he has a line of sight with the largest of their containment cells. The most furnished one, set aside for when one of the Bats is detoxing from something or another that could make them a danger to themselves or contagious to others. 

The necessary precaution hurts Bruce, and Cass and Jason were predictably mad about his insistence that it wasn’t negotiable, but it was needed. There was no guarantee that Tim would wake up with his mind and body completely clear of the Lazarus’ influence. If he needed more time to settle, they had to ensure he couldn’t get out of the Manor grounds again. If not for Bruce’s peace of mind, than to help assure the Justice League that things were being handled. They would have been even more pushy if Bruce hadn’t at least been able to give some assurance that Tim wouldn’t immediately be free to roam upon waking.

Bruce is drawn towards the glass, wanting to check up on his kid. Kids, really, since there are three of them currently sequestered inside. Cass is sitting on the far edge of the cot next to Tim’s sleeping form, legs pressed against his arm and back and side against the wall. Her eyes are closed, and she could almost be mistaken as asleep if Bruce couldn’t read the cautious tension held in her shoulders. 

Jason, seated in a chair beside the cot, looks up at the near-silent sound of Bruce’s approach. His blue-green eyes bore into Bruce for a moment, judgemental and still carrying some anger. He doesn’t want to start a fight any more than Bruce does, though. Their relationship had recovered enough over the past months for that, at least. The younger looks away after a few moments of silent staring, back to dutifully watching the face of the containment cell’s third resident.

Tim is still unconscious, though he likely has worn through the sedative Bruce had given him already. Once forced to a standstill, his body had taken over in its need to recover from the overexertion it had been forced into. Bruce had researched how the Pit’s temporary strength-heightening worked in the past, enough so to know that Tim’s muscles would be undoubtedly sore when he woke up, strained still even with the increased healing the Pit also brought. The deep bruises accumulated over a night of fighting unarmored against henchman and superhumans alike would also take some time to fade away. It was a miracle he wasn’t hurt worse.

The scars of wounds previous were still present, though. That much was clearly remembered when they had pulled off Tim’s shirt to check his ribs only to be greeted with the spiderweb of scarring left over from his near-death two months prior, along with countless other marks from who knows where. The tattoo forever etched on his back had stood out sharply, dark against Tim’s pale skin. Bruce hadn’t missed how Damian’s eyes caught on the mark before the boy was ushered quickly past and upstairs by Dick.

That was another conversation Bruce had been putting off for far, far too long now.

He did have an idea of how to tackle that issue, though. How to assure Damian that Tim essentially being marked as his replacement didn’t make him worth less, how Ra’s and the League of Assassins weren’t worth the boy’s jealousy, especially not now that he was part of their family. Bruce would likely stumble a bit, but he and Damian would get there eventually.

Tim however… Bruce was constantly finding himself lost on where to even start. He and Tim had some basis of… maybe not trust, but admirance maybe. Bruce’s… disappearance was the whole reason behind Tim’s solo quest after all (and didn’t that thought pain him, that technically all of this started because of his own failures). 

But how does he use that to gain back any hint of his and Tim’s previous relationship despite all the obstacles? How can he, as a father, help the other members of the family also regain that relationship when their ties are even more frayed than his own? How does he convince Tim that he’s safe here when he has been given prior evidence otherwise? How does he help his son through the Pit’s influence in a way that won’t just hurt him more? He’d never been able to do so when Jason was at his most volatile, there is no prior knowledge to build off of here.

It hurts Bruce, to have to be the one to play the tough card and lock him away right now, but he knows no other way to protect his son from himself and from those who would take every slip-up as an excuse to claim the Bats as incapable of taking care of him. For everything else, Bruce is constantly finding himself forced to leave Tim’s care to Cass and Jason, the only ones that have managed any significant progress in helping him.

Bruce will come up with something, eventually. He is not giving up on his son. For now, Cass and Jason are more than qualified to watch over the injured bird in their midst. Somewhat reluctantly, Bruce steps past the containment cell and heads up towards the Manor.

He will have to start with what he knows and hope the rest comes to him eventually.

- - -

Jason is fuming, though he is doing his damndest to make sure that it is not apparent to anyone else. He knows that Cass would never be fooled by his charade of nonchalance, but considering how she is settled protectively next to Tim in the same way that Jason is, he doubts that she cares. The two of them may have not been all that close a couple months ago, but now they have gained an understanding with each other. United for the sake of protecting Tim.

He hates that Bruce insisted that Tim had to be locked in a containment cell until he woke up. He can understand it to a degree, it’s not like anyone in the Cave at the time could miss the raised voices coming from the video call Bruce had been dragged into as soon as things started to calm down. But just because Jason understands doesn’t mean that he likes it. It is enough to allow himself restraint, though. 

Jason doesn’t want to fight. Not against his family. He is so tired of fighting with his dad, fighting with himself for control.

If Bruce hadn’t conceded on the handcuffs, though, Jason doesn’t think he could have held back the wave of anger. The part of him seeped in Lazarus green may have been losing for a while now, but to protect Tim it would have been worth the slip. Luckily, though, it hadn’t been necessary.

So now here they are, just Jason, Cass, and an unconscious Tim. Bruce had disappeared upstairs once he had broken free from the call, only giving Jason a short, hesitant glance before he did so. Jason had looked back, equally silent until Bruce turned away.

Then it was back to his and Cass’s cautious vigil. Cass leaning against the wall as if asleep, and Jason alternating between scanning over the cave and containment cell while periodically glancing towards Tim’s sleeping expression.

An indeterminate time later, Cass suddenly slipped out of her semi-meditative state, glancing down at Tim even as Jason glanced at her.

“He’s waking up,” she said, and just like they were both sitting up straighter. Now paying attention, Jason can just notice the slight tensing of Tim’s muscles before he relaxes again. Faking being asleep as he assesses the situation, most likely. Cass seemingly agrees with that as she reaches over and lightly touches the kid’s arm. 

“Tim?”

A split second later the boy is up like a shot and landing on the floor with his back against the wall, arms up defensively. Jason has a single moment of uncertainty before his eyes catch on Tim’s, and from the more-blue-than-green color alone he knows that the boy is once again back in his own mind. So it's no surprise when the aggressive posture drops a couple seconds later, Tim’s whole body sagging a bit to be more defensive as his muscles catch up with his mind and start registering the pain.

“Oh,” is all Tim says as his surroundings register, eyes flicking from Cass, to Jason, to the Cave beyond the layer of Meta-reinforced glass. A blink clears the last of the haze of sleep from his eyes, and Jason can almost physically see the shutters dropping down on Tim’s outward expression as his (from Jason’s personal experience, hazy) memories of the evening catch up to him. Expected. 

But there’s something… off about Tim still that Jason can’t quite pinpoint. From the well hidden concern Cass lets slip through when Tim glances down, Jason knows that she caught it as well. Whatever it is she’s noticed, she doesn’t say outright. Instead she just resituates herself against the wall from where she had moved forward when Tim jumped and pats the once again available space invitingly.

“Come?” she requests, more unsure of herself than Jason has ever seen her. Tim makes no move to step forward from where he has pressed his back against the far wall.

“You… aren’t mad at me?” he asks, and something… something is wrong there. An edge to the tone. Jason expects Tim to be guarded and distant with them, like he usually is, and he is. But there's that layer of something else there as well, an unfamiliar emotion where Tim is usually so careful about showing only what he wants to. He’s slipping, and he’s not fully relaxing from his defensive stance, and Cass’s eyes keep flickering to Jason like she’s looking for backup when she’s usually the one who can read Tim best. It puts Jason more on edge.

“No, of course we’re not mad,” Jason throws out, trying to settle whatever storm is brewing. “Why would we be mad? I for one know exactly what it’s like to lose control.” 

Jason realizes, as soon as the attempt at sympathy has left his mouth, that this was the absolutely wrong thing to say. Even without how Cass tenses, Jason can read his mistake in the way that Tim’s failing attempt at subduing his emotions shatters and gives way to anger , spine straightening, chin tucking, arms throwing themselves out to make himself bigger. It has alarms ringing through Jason’s entire being, has him desperately checking Tim’s eyes for that oh too familiar flood of green, but for once the Lazarus pit is not to blame.

No, Jason realizes as Tim’s internal frustrations come exploiting outward. This may be slightly influenced by the earlier loss in control, but the frustration is all Tim. He isn’t lashing out mindlessly as much as he is collapsing under internal pressure. And all Jason can do is watch.

“But I’m not you, Jason!” the boy snaps. “It is different! I’m supposed to be better, I’ve always been expected to be better. I wasn’t allowed to be anything less than perfect. And then I fucking went and ruined everything. You were thrown into things against your will, same as Cass, same as Damian, but I went and practically begged for it! I chose to work with Ra’s.”

Jason is scrambling, drowning right alongside Tim as the pressure drops and the storm breaks around them. This is something more than just today being a bad day, more than residual emotion. This is something lingering, and dark. The anger being thrown doesn’t feel directed towards the older two Bats, despite them being the ones subjected to the tirade. No, these verbal daggers are all directed inward, and Jason has no clue how to intercept them. At his side, Cass is just as frozen, eyes wide. She doesn’t know what to do either.

“Tim, no one-” Jason tries desperately to interject, but Tim just blows past him.

“And then you guys dragged me back out from there, and I can’t even decide if that was even a good thing or not because I feel like I can’t trust any of you, but I never trusted Ra’s either. So I’m just here now, locked up and monitored like I could snap at any moment. And look what happens! The second an opportunity arises I fucking lost it! I broke the rule, and we all know that this isn’t the first time I’ve killed someone. And maybe for you guys it’s excusable, maybe none of you chose to hurt people. But we all know that I did. And you say that it’s not my fault either. But I know that all of you just see me as the broken little Robin who fucked up so bad that he joined forces with our greatest enemy, and there is no coming back from that.”

At that, Tim suddenly seems to run out of steam. The anger falls away just as quickly as it came, and Tim’s body language seems to fall in on itself until he seems to be disappearing into his loose clothing, leaning into the wall for support. At this point Jason is at a loss as to what to do, but the flip is somehow what Cass needs to snap out of her own shock. She sits up straighter, face twisted in empathetic pain as she stretches a hand openly towards her little brother.

“ Tim ,” she calls quietly, but the boy doesn’t look up from where his eyes that just moments before burned with emotion are now glued to the floor.

“No,” Tim responds, the storm in his voice having completely blown itself out. His previously overworked muscles give way, and shakily Tim sinks down until he sits against the wall, knees pulled to his chest. “Don’t even try. Please. I know you’re all just lying to me. And even if the two of you believed that it’s not my fault, I know for a fact that none of the others in the family or the JL do. So you shouldn’t even bother.” 

Tim wraps his arms resolutely around himself, tipping his head down until his face is hidden from view. When he speaks the final line of his outburst, the words are almost indecipherable. But Jason hears them nonetheless, and the two sentences are even more damaging than anything that came before.

“Honestly, you guys shouldn't have even bothered reviving me when I flatlined. Everyone else would have been a hell of a lot better off if I had just stayed dead.”

The silence that follows that statement sits so heavily in the air that for a moment Jason doesn’t think he can breathe.

“No,” Jason almost begs, rising to his feet as his heartbeat rings in his ears. “No, you can’t mean that. Cass?” He glances at the girl at his side, hoping to find some sort of evidence that this is all some sort of sick joke, some weird side effect. But Cass’s own pain at the situation is worn clear as day on her face. Maybe she knew of Tim’s mindset to a degree before now, maybe she’s just as blindsided as Jason. Either way, her reaction now as she looks back at Jason makes it real.

“Fuck,” is all Jason can say. His own emotions war in his head, fear and uncertainty and disbelief and anger clashing awkwardly with the edge of the pit that was always there waiting for him to slip. He was never good at dealing with strong emotions, not when as a kid his solution always boiled down to throwing punches to beat away the problems and until recently when any strong emotion was just buried under the green. He didn’t know how to process this, not hear, not with his little brother watching, the same one who threw him into turmoil in the first place because he admitted that he thought he would be better off dead . How does he, what does he, he can’t-

“Go,” Cass says, and the word is enough to shock Jason from his spiral for just a moment, enough to focus on how her expression has shifted. Still grim, but with a clear determination burning behind her eyes, maybe the beginnings of a plan. “Go out, it’s still early. Burn off steam. I can watch, and explain to others.

“But,” Jason balked, eyes flicking towards Tim’s tightly coiled and still unmoving form with poorly veiled worry. “Shouldn’t I-”

“No. You need a break. Can’t help when you are upset,” Cass pressured. Jason still hesitated, taking a few steps but halting beside the door before he reached for the keypad.

“You’re sure?” he checked one final time.

“ Yes ,” Cass said emphatically, and Jason could tell then that she had fully freed herself from the surprise she had been stuck in. “Silly boys, so stubborn. Go calm down, then we can think clearly. We will be here.”

“Ok,” Jason caved, turning to type in the code Bruce had told them earlier. “ Ok . I’m going, I’m going, no need to get so pushy about it.”

“Leave the door open,” she called after him one last time as he stepped past the threshold. “No more Pit, so it is safe.” Jason did as requested, waving sloppily in reply as he tunnel-visioned in on his bike, on the escape from the overwhelming emotions he had been bombarded with for the past… however long it’s been. 

Jason allowed himself one more glance back towards the others, noting that Cass had moved from the cot to sit on the floor a short distance away from Tim, before he kicked the bike on and took off down one of the many tunnels branching towards Gotham.

- - -

Hours later, Jason had to admit that Cass had had a point. Having managed to soothe the Pit rage prickling in the back of his mind due to the tense emotions via beating up a handful of low level criminals, he did find it a lot easier to process everything that he had been suddenly forced to reconcile. 

It still hurt him, to think about how Tim was hurting. He still had no clue what to do about that, or even if they could do anything beyond what they already were to try and prove to Tim that no one was lying to him, that they did care. But at least now that he had been given a moment to breathe Jason could actually consider the situation outside of the writhing bundle of emotion in his chest.

Chances are that when he gets back Tim is going to try and just ignore that the conversation had happened. Jason has no doubt that the lingering whiplash of Pit influence and the effects of the sedative and the minor pain meds Tim had been given had altogether accumulated into the slip of Tim’s facade. Should Jason and Cass just let him? Tim definitely wouldn’t appreciate them trying to hover any more than they already were, that would just feed into the mistrust theory. They should probably talk about it a bit sometime soon though, right? Just to clarify some things? Or would Cass, and maybe even Bruce if Cass decided to tell him, have done that by the time Jason gets back? Should they tell Bruce? Probably, since he’s their dad. Right?

Ugh. Jason was no good at this kind of responsibility. He was never really cut out to be a mentor/older brother-of-sorts, but here he was dealing with it now. He’d just have to do his best and hope Cass could cover the rest.

Caught up in his thoughts as he was, Red Hood almost missed when a pair of footsteps landed on the roof behind him. Keyword being almost . It paid to be slightly enhanced and very much over-paranoid sometimes. Hood spun around, drawing one of his non-lethal guns defensively and pointing it towards the sudden visitors. 

Two women, both roughly in their twenties and dressed in tactical gear. One was bald and with obvious guns strapped to her thighs and across her back, but none were drawn. The other is a tad taller, brown hair tied up in a bun at the back of her head, and her clothing is lined with various knives and other throwable bladed weapons, though again none were currently in her hands.

Overall, the pair were remarkably uncaring about the vigilante currently pointing a gun at them. Mayne it’s not that surprising considering that their clothing and stance screams League of Assassins.

“Stand down Hood, we come in peace,” the bald one said, almost sounding bored. 

“Sure, I’m just going to trust that,” Hood scoffed back. “League of Assassins members have always had only the best of intentions when showing up in Gotham.” The brown haired one just blinked at the tone, while the bald one grinned in response.

“Well then, lucky for you that we’re not here with the League. We’re friends with Tim, you know him yeah? M’ name’s Pru.”

Interestingly enough, Jason had heard about Pru, during the various scraps of stories that Tim had seen fit to share with Jason about his time with the assassins. Pru was always described as an ally, a friend forged through shared trauma and side-by-side missions and recovery. This woman matched the basic description as well, bald and gun-toting with a scar across her neck and an ever so slight mechanical edge to her voice. So Jason was inclined to believe that this was her. The other woman though…

“Who are you, then?” Hood pushed a bit, speaking directly to the brown haired one now but carefully gaging both of their reactions. Checking for a flaw in their easygoing exterior. Neither of them reacted to the blatant mistrust.

“I am Marianna Krupin,” the brown-haired one finally said, a distinctive if slight Russian accent to her voice. “Pru and I, along with some others, were Tim’s close ally’s within the League, his lieutenants for lack of better terminology. Tim managed to make himself rather popular during his time as heir. His ideology of protection over aggression drew a lot of attention, gathered a bit of a following. We were among the first, the closest to him.”

“We need to talk to him,” Pru cut in, stepping forward a bit with her hands raised to dissuade Hood from shooting. “To all of you, really. We are here of our own volition, behind Ra’s back if not directly against his wishes. Things are evolving quickly, and whether anyone likes it or not Tim is at the center of it. He needs to know about this, to have a say in things.”

And that- wanting Tim to get a say in things, said so straightforwardly- is enough to finally make Jason trust that, at the very least, these two aren’t here to hurt Tim. The assassins are all trained in deception, but Jason was too. He knows the tells to watch for, and he is seeing no sign of a lie here. That doesn’t mean that he necessarily trusts them around the rest of the Bats, or in their home.

“How important is this, then?” Jason questioned further, still unsure. The two women glanced at each other, communicating something between them before Marianna finally responded.

“Life and death. Both for you Bats and many others, should things go bad. We can’t say more here, better to have everyone in a secure location.” And, yeah. Jason figured as much. If they were going to talk with Tim it would be best to do so in the Cave and under supervision anyways. He didn’t really feel like dragging Tim out into the city for a random, potentially high emotion meeting was a good idea at the moment. But man did he know that Bruce and the others were going to hate the idea of assassins in their Cave.

“And if I tell you no?” Jason tried, well aware that he was pretty much just stalling at this point. Pru raised an eyebrow at him judgmentally, like she knew exactly what he was doing.

“Then we’ll just break into your house and talk to Tim anyways,” she said bluntly. “We are trained assassins, after all. We know how to get into your little Cave. We’re just asking as a sign of good faith.” Jason stared at the pair for another few moments. They watched back, equally as quiet and assessing. Under the mask, Jason let his eyes close in acceptance, just for a moment.

“Fine. Fine .” Jason gave in, finally lowering his gun and tucking it safely back into its holster. “You two sit there for a minute, then, while I call this in. At the very least I need to warn everyone before bringing potential enemies into our secret HQ.”

This was going to be a rough one to explain to Bruce. But fuck it, Jason had a feeling that he would severely regret it should he ignore this. The other Bats would just have to deal.

Chapter Text

Tim could tell right away that something big was happening, it’s obvious as soon as Bruce entered the cave with that pinched look on his face. The man was immediately moving towards the computer to start furiously adjusting what looked like the Cave’s security protocols. Then some of the other Bats currently in the Manor also appeared from upstairs, slipping into the locker room to suit up amid low volume, stressed sounding exchanges despite everyone only having a few hours of rest at most. That's enough to tell Tim that whatever this something is, it’s big enough to warrant an all hands available summons.

Cass had perked up from her semi-meditative doze beside Tim as soon as Bruce entered the room, carefully tracking everyone's movement and body language the same way Tim was. She and Tim had been silently sitting on the floor for the past few hours, ever since Jason had departed and Cass had given up on coaxing Tim out from his pathetic little huddle in the corner of the cell. She had tried for a while to convince the boy to move back up to the cot, or to even move out of the cell altogether since Jason had left the door open when he left, but Tim had stubbornly refused until she gave up and lapsed into silence, choosing instead to stay on the ground beside him.

Tim wondered if she could read the depth of the self loathing that kept looping through his mind like a broken record.

How could it not, when everything else he had been trying to hold together had fallen apart practically overnight? Tim had lost control of the Pit, taking advantage of the Bats’ increasing trust in him to escape their watch and proceed to break their most stringent rule (because Tim knows , despite the blur in his memories, that at least some of the men he faced must have died.) He had attacked Jason, injured his (former?) friends when they were called in to try and stop him. 

And, maybe even more egregious, he had slipped up upon waking and said aloud the lingering thoughts that he had been fighting to keep to himself ever since his return. That pressing feeling in the back of his mind that told him that everyone would have been a lot better off if he had just stayed dead either of the times fate had tried to take him. Twice dead, twice revived in one way or another, proceeding to only cause problems for whoever tried to help him. He always ended up betraying the ones he worked alongside in one way or another without even meaning to.

Tim hadn’t wanted anyone to know how he was feeling. He couldn’t tell if that's because he didn’t want to expose the weakness, because he didn’t want to lose the relative freedom that he had recently gained, or because there was some part of him that was scared that someone might agree with the assessment of his worth.

He supposed that, when it came down to it, the reason for his silence didn’t matter. The truth was clearly out in the open now, with how carefully Cass had been watching him over the past hour. She hadn’t left him or immediately called over Bruce to tell the man about it, but Tim knew that the fact that his breakdown had happened here meant that the entire thing would have been caught on a multitude of cameras in high definition. There would be no point trying to convince Jason and Cass not to say anything when the footage would flag as soon as Bruce or Babs had the time to look through it. The whole group would know about Tim’s latest failing sooner or later.

Though, with how distracted they all suddenly appeared, it was looking more and more like that might actually come later rather than sooner.

After a few minutes of doing whatever it was he was doing, Bruce (now back in Batman uniform besides the cowl tucked under one arm) finally approached the pair of observers directly. Cass stood up to meet him at the open door as soon as she noted his approach, effectively half blocking Tim from view as if protectively. Tim himself opted to stay on the floor, but he did uncurl fully to look more attentive. The instinctive caution that lurked constantly in the back of his brain would let him do nothing less, even with his current… lack of care for his own safety.

“We are having visitors to the cave,” the man explained, eyes flicking down to Tim with an obvious layer of uncertainty. Hesitance to bring them the news. And just from that Tim could feel his heart sink into the floor, already zoning out of the conversation as Cass started to ask questions.

This was it, then. Tim had pushed too far, and someone was coming to deal with him. Most likely it was the Justice League coming to lock him up if these ‘visitors’ were coming to the Cave themselves. If Tim was being moved to Arkham then the Bats would just complete the transfer themselves, but the JL would undoubtedly insist on being the ones to do it once the Bats themselves had proven their inability to contain him. 

Was he going to be locked in the Watchtower indefinitely, or just thrown directly into one of the prisons around the world that the JL funded super-secure wards in? Tim supposed that depended on how much information they were still hoping he would give up. Most likely, they would know better than to try and get anything out of a former Bat and just jump straight to the supermax lockup, but they could be desperate enough to try for a while. He wouldn’t be able to get a read on the mood until they arrived, unless he could get someone to tell him the full plan beforehand-

“Tim, are you listening? I need you to keep tracking for this kiddo, it’s important.” The order, however oddly soft it was, managed to pull Tim’s attention back to the conversing vigilantes. They were both looking down at him now, with matching expressions of concern that might have amused Tim once upon a time in their similarity. For now he was just tired.

“What’s happening, then,” Tim asked as he let his gaze drop tiredly, already resigned to the worst. 

“Red Hood ran into two League assassins while out on patrol,” Bruce said, and Tim’s gaze snapped back up to look at him, eyes wide. This was… not where Tim had assumed this was going. “Both of them are female, estimated to be in their 20s. One has an obvious Russian accent, the other is bald with an obvious scar over her throat. They said they know you.”

“Pru and Mari?” Tim deduced quickly, rapidly pushing himself to his feet as he properly narrowed in on the conversation, pushing his former thoughts and extremely achy muscles firmly down into the recesses of his mind as he tried to focus . “What are they doing here? The League-”

“Supposedly they are here of their own violation, according to what Jason got from them,” Bruce said as if to assure him, and Tim couldn’t tell if he himself was happy or disappointed to know that Ra’s was supposedly not involved. “They claim to have a message for you, and for the rest of us. Hood deemed it safe and urgent enough to suggest bringing them directly here, so we’re preparing accordingly. They should arrive in the next fifteen minutes. 

“Cass,” he turned to speak more directly to her, “Can you go ahead and suit up, sweetheart? At least the basic gear. Grab a vest and domino for Tim as well, just to be safe.” Cass nodded once sharply at the request, sparing Tim a brief, searching glance before she brushed past the much taller man to make for the locker room. 

Batgirl had already emerged from the room, Steph having apparently decided to spend the night after the earlier drama only to be dragged awake once again. Nightwing and Robin had yet to reenter the main Cave. Tim could just make out the faintest echo of male-toned voices as Cass opened the door on her way through. In the corner of Tim’s eye, one of the computer screens displayed the smallest flicker of static, enough for Tim to know that Oracle was also awake and watching in spite of the time, likely not speaking, but observing in case they needed to call in backup. When it came to a potential security lapse like this, the whole Batclan showed up.

The darker parts of Tim couldn’t help but wonder if they were actually this worried about the two Hood-sanctioned visitors, or if they were more worried about how Tim himself could react to League assassins so soon after his earlier lapse in control. 

Probably both, Tim figured as he dutifully followed along with Batman’s quiet instructions to follow him out of the containment cell and into the open area of the Cave to wait. There was no point waiting in an open cell after all. Black Bat flitted out of the changing room as quickly as she’d entered, moving directly to Tim’s side to hand over one of the non-branded protective vests and plain black dominos. When Tim hesitated for a moment over the pieces, Black Bat raised an insistent eyebrow until Tim was fitting them both into place.

He tried to not focus on how the domino mask didn’t effortlessly stick to his skin, the material not having been molded to fit perfectly to his face like his Robin masks had been. It had been a while since Tim had a need to wear one of these, ever since he had left on his quest to find Bruce. The Red Robin cowl had been used for only a short time, and everything after that in the League had left Tim either with only a mask over the lower half of his face or no mask at all. Everyone in the League had known who he was regardless, so there had been little point.

There was no reason for him, for any of them, to be masking up fully in this situation either, seeing as practically every high ranking member of the LoA knew who the Bats were already, but Tim figured it wise to not try and argue with Bruce on the matter. That would just be a reminder of how well Tim knew them. So, after a moment of hesitation, the mask was sitting over Tim’s face and he was carefully not thinking about the memories that threatened to rise because of it.

It was only minutes later that the roar of Hood’s bike sounded from further down the tunnels. Jason must have intentionally turned on the sound to alert their approach seeing as all the Bat’s vehicles could run near soundlessly. Robin and Nightwing seemed to take that as their cue, emerging from the changing room then despite the fact that everyone knew they would have been done suiting up long before. Tim’s eyes were drawn towards the movement as they emerged, curiously noting Damian’s tense posture and the restraining hand Dick kept on the boy's shoulder. 

Huh, they were worried about some sort of reaction from the often volatile teen then. Whether that feared reaction was towards the approaching assassins or Tim himself was hard to tell with how obviously the boy immediately glared at Tim as the pair joined the half circle. They had been very careful in isolating the two youngest of the Manor so far, Tim mused to himself. Tim had assumed that was because of his own stability issues when concerning the boy who had usurped him, but maybe the feeling went both ways. 

Interesting.

Without much fanfare, Red Hood’s bike finally came into view from the tunnels, the man coming in fast and skidding to a stop a bit further into the Cave then they typically brought all the vehicles. A second bike followed behind him, carrying two passengers and traveling at a much more conservative speed to come to a smoother stop just inside the cave. The guest’s helmets came off, and sure enough Tim recognized the two people before him. 

Almost unconsciously, he could feel some of the tension in his body relax. The Bats’ had told the truth about their visitors' identities, and Tim knew these two well enough to trust that if something went hostile they would be on his side. Though, if Ra’s had sent them to try and bring him back the man would be sorely mistaken about how much freedom Tim had here. But the Demon would have likely deduced the situation himself, and they had apparently claimed to be here of their own will.

It was odd, even for them. Something was clearly going on, and Tim had a sneaking suspicion that he wouldn’t like it. Nevertheless, he took a couple steps forward, putting him in front of the line of waiting Bats, to greet the approaching trio. He was half surprised that no one stopped him, but this was their own turf he supposed. There was nowhere for him to run if he tried.

“Pru, Mari, what are you guys doing here on your own,” he questioned as soon as the pair were in reasonable earshot. He did his best to keep his voice level, devoid of uncertainty, even as Mariana seemingly picked up easily on the tense vibes, her gaze flickering over Tim’s sore and slightly bruised frame with the smallest frown on the Russian's face. 

Pru, meanwhile, seemed to have no care at all for the danger of being surrounded by the enemy.

“Ghost, long time no see,” she called out with mock-exuberance, entirely unaffected by how all of the Bats tense at the name. Tim just sighed internally at her obvious attempt to test the vigilantes’ reactions.

“Prudence,” he replied, slipping in a hint of exasperation as a subtle warning. She took the hint, easily settling into something a bit more serious. Tim could almost physically feel the watching eyes of the Bats’ burning into his back, observing the exchange. 

“It’s been a long few months since you left, Tim,” she offered as the pair of assassins finally reached the far edge of the vague circle the whole group had formed. The words almost had a weight to them, an indication that the time had not been a calm one for them. Hood moved a bit further in still, settling into place closest to Black Bat. Then everyone was still, watching tensely as the conversation unfolded.

“Ra’s didn’t send you,” Tim observed, not bothering to phrase it as a question since he already knew from the context clues that what the pair had told Jason was true. Whatever had gone down, it had led to them going behind the Master’s back to contact him.

“No, he didn’t,” Pru confirmed, Mariana shifting ever so slightly at her side. “Ever since you… left, the Master has… well, for lack of better words the old man has lost it.” Somewhere behind him, Tim could hear the sudden intake of air, Robin himself making a vaguely strangled sound in surprise. Tim could relate.

“He’s… what ?” Tim managed to ask, flabbergasted. Ra’s was always slightly unstable at the best of times, who wouldn’t be with the Lazarus running through their veins, but if he had tipped enough to make his own people notice the issue as a problem…

“Explain,” Batman said, cutting into the conversation for the first time. Tim could almost feel the man’s brain trying to pick apart all of the information he was being given already, shifting away from outright caution over having assassins in the center of their operation and towards the detective side of him that needed answers. He too, apparently, seemed to believe their story so far. At least enough to hear them out fully.

To their credit, the two assassins didn’t jump or respond aggressively at all at the gruff command from the Bat himself. Tim would have expected nothing less. The two just studied the man for a moment, appraising his intentions. Then Pru pointedly shifted back to talking more directly towards Tim, with Mariana continuing to silently observe the group as a whole.

“Ever since his heir was “stolen” he’s been almost unreasonable in his obsession over how to go about getting him back. Obviously he knows where you are, not like it’s much of a secret,” she tilts her head over to raise an eyebrow at the gathered Bats at that, “but he is at least together enough to know that he can’t just outright attack Gotham, the entirety of the Justice League would undoubtedly come in to flatten the his attempts if he did. 

“But he’s plotting something . I got kicked from the inner circle once the serious planning started so I can’t give details, but he’s been moving around a lot of personnel, including those who were supposed to be running other jobs at the moment. A lot of contractors have been getting pissed about it. Some of the League members too, since some of these people are ones who have been spending years in deep cover for these jobs, but anyone who complains too strongly gets silenced the permanent way. The entirety of the League’s infrastructure is starting to crumble as our payment and supply lines get stripped of personnel, and no one can stop it.

“Ra’s has been atypically erratic about it as well, giving out orders and retracting them as the thought crosses his mind, threatening to punish anyone who questions it. Apparently he’s mostly been holed up in the main strategy room he set up for privacy, not even eating or sleeping much. Even the inner circle guys are all unsettled by it, and they’re used to dealing with him fresh off the Lazarus juice.”

“That’s… worrying,” Tim half-muttered, brain running in hyperdrive. He knew intricately how all the different facets of the League had to work together to keep the whole beast running. The contracts to gain money and supplies that they couldn’t procure alone, the operatives spread into countless government or otherwise important positions that allowed them to keep certain activities under the radar, to influence decisions one way or another. Tim had lived and breathed that constantly evolving structure for months under the Master’s command, cautiously learning how to pull the strings that wrapped through a nonsignificant portion of the known world.

The entire enterprise had been set up gradually over years, decades, millennia even, coached under the al-Ghul family’s meticulous hands. Very, very few people knew how deep the strings ran. Tim had no doubt that Ra’s had kept a decent number of details even from his crowned Heir, withholding the darkest of the depths of his reach from Tim’s knowledge until he had been deemed worthy of the full keys to the kingdom. 

If Ra’s was suddenly growing careless, if the house of cards was truly beginning to crumble, then there's no telling what other foundations of the world could be taken out in the wake of everything. The megalomaniac’s greatest strength was always his mind, his innate, time-earned knowledge of when to act and when to hold position. If he was suddenly straying from that mindset, then there’s no telling what could come of it.

“Ra’s isn’t the only one with power in the organization,” Nightwing spoke up. Tim could just see him and Robin in the corner of his vision, the elder of the pair keeping a careful hand on the younger’s shoulder. Tim had no doubt that Damian’s mind was being thrown into a similar spiral of thought as his own. After all, the current Robin had once been the Demon’s Heir himself, even if he had never officially been named as such like Tim had been.

“Yeah,” Hood picked up, general concern seeping into his tone even with the voice modulator. “Where is Talia at in all this? I know for a fact that she still must have her own loyal group within the League, even after she lost favoritism with Ra’s.”

Everyone pointedly didn’t turn to look at Robin, and the boy himself was suspiciously silent throughout the conversation. Pru looked instead to Mariana, who Tim remembered then had actually been more loyal to the women in question before Tim’s entrance had shaken up the status quo. She had been one of the few of Talia’s fiercely loyal and rather closed off group to shift her main loyalty to Tim.

“Miss al-Ghul had already been slowly working to separate her party from the inner workings of the League even before Tim was officially named heir. The process was sped up after the fact, out of fear that Ra’s could turn on her now that he had a… more fitting second in command. By the time Ghost was taken, it was a fairly simple matter for Talia to withdraw her allies entirely as soon as things started to shift. When I opted against joining her retreat I lost all remaining contact, and her people disappeared overnight. There’s been nothing since. She’s undoubtedly fine on her own, but is not willing to offer us assistance.”

Batman cut in again before anyone else could speak. “This is all good information, and I appreciate the warning of a potential attack against us, but none of this explains why you are here telling us all of this. You aren’t with Talia.”

“No, we aren’t,” Mariana agreed, gaze turning again towards Tim, appraising his reaction to everything. Expectant. The foreboding feeling Tim had felt since the beginning of the conversation grew heavier, context clues he had been avoiding snapping together. He had a sinking suspicion that he knew exactly where this was going.

“I take it that Tim hasn’t told you much about his time with the League,” Pru deduced, studying Tim’s now frozen form sharply before flicking her gaze between the various Bats thoughtfully. She held the most focus on Cass and Jason, who Tim knew were by far the most likely to be putting the pieces together already.

“No, he didn’t,” Batman admitted, with just an edge of suspicion. “We chose not to press him on it, since we knew enough of the overall picture as it was.” His tone of voice made it clear that he was starting to realize that he was missing something crucial there.

“I’ve heard just enough stories to recognize your names,” Hood added. “Just pieces of overall unimportant stories. Mainly featuring Prudence, a few mentions of others.”

Black Bat stayed noticeably silent. Tim could feel the weight of her gaze on his back. Observing. Judging.

“We-ell,” Pru drew out, obviously trying to figure out how to explain even as Tim was half debating his escape from the impending turn of conversation. “That makes sense, since Tim and I met even before he got fully dragged into the League with the Pit and being named Heir and all. Me and a couple others were assigned to assist him in hunting for clues about the Big Bat’s whereabouts.” Distant pain flashed in her eyes at the slight mention of their former friends, but she didn’t touch on it more than that. “So we’ve been acquaintances now for ages. Trauma bonding and all that. And the dude can be rather charismatic and convincing, I’m sure you’re aware.

“Then he started working for Ra’s more directly, obviously. Him getting Pit-revived and the pressure from Ra’s threw a decent wrench in how he went about everything. Kind of hard to stick to the Bat code through that, as I’m sure you’re all well aware by now. I’m not going into details there, that’s his business to share or not.” She glanced at Tim again. He’d almost call her expression apologetic if he didn’t know that she was likely enjoying tattling on him, at least a bit.

“What is relevant though is that when Ghost started running missions, he started gathering an interesting reputation amongst the League. He put a more emphasis on protecting his team first and foremost, only resorting to direct violence when it was necessary to complete the mission. He spent a lot more time planning specific mission details, and he kept relatively focused under fire even with the Pit creeping up on him. He even got into it with Ra’s about his style a couple times, which drew even more attention. A lot of the higher ranking circle didn’t like him because of it, though they couldn’t do anything directly against the Heir, especially not when his methods worked. Ra’s just started biding his time on the matter I think.”

“Pru…” Tim tried half heartedly as he pushed down the panic, but she plowed on with the explanation regardless, the Bats perfectly willing to let her talk. If he hadn’t just come out of a Pit episode already, Tim has no doubt that he’d already be toeing the line there. He could feel the green haze lurking in his mind, but it couldn’t overcome the depth of his exhaustion. 

She kept talking.

“What was interesting, though, is that a lot of the newer generation, the lower ranked and generally younger crowd, were very taken with the Heir’s way of doing things. Makes sense when those are the people who would usually be thrown under the bus first in a fight. There was an internal power shift as that minority grew, people started asking to be assigned to Ghost’s missions. He himself was largely unreachable for contact under Ra’s watch, but the five of us who worked with him most became an unofficial second in command group that people reached out to. It became more official once he was given the formal title, since there was a lot less chance of backlash for favoring the Heir over the Master.”

“So… you’re saying-” Batman cut himself off, but the fact that he had put together the overall implication was clear.

“Tim unintentionally ended up forming his own internal group within the League, similar to Talia’s,” Mariana confirmed. “When the Heir left- willingly or not, the rumors disagreed there- and the Demon’s Head started to grow alarmingly erratic, a lot of those people looked to us lieutenants for alternative guidance. When Talia’s circle withdrew entirely, and things started to fall apart further, we decided we had to take the nuclear option.”

Mariana reached behind her, carefully telegraphing her movements to the alarmingly silent huddle of vigilantes behind Tim as she withdrew the blade that had been sheathed at her back. 

An achingly familiar blade. Ghost’s blade. The Heir’s blade. One that Tim had assumed long-lost months ago when he had been abruptly yoinked from the League’s influence. Mariana brought it in front of her, lying lengthwise across her flat palms. Tim’s breath hitched, eyes locked onto the intricately carved metal of the crossguard as Mariana sank down to one knee, Pru copying with her gaze locked on Tim’s face.

The small ounce of hopeful doubt that Tim had been maintaining turned to dust as Prudence spoke.

“Timothy Drake-Wayne, former Robin, Ghost, the named Demon’s Heir. We offer our loyalty to you. We are yours to command as you see fit, Master.”

The Cave was dead silent, enough so to hear the bats squeaking in the distant reaches of the cavern system that the vigilantes had claimed as their own. Tim himself could barely breathe, chest tight and shoulders heavy with the suddenness of what had just been thrust upon him. His soul strained under the weight.

Tim just wanted everything to stop. He wanted the time and space to goddamn catch his breath and make decisions for himself for once. The past year or so, and for his entire life really, Tim had found himself constantly bouncing around between situations, the role he was meant to fill constantly changing but the expectation of success forever looming over him. Be a good Robin, then Robin is taken away. Be a detective, then ignore your intuition that says Batman isn’t dead. Be a good little soldier, be the Demon’s Heir, then get dragged back to where you’re started and somehow learn to recover. No one ever stopped to ask what Tim wanted, to check if he was doing okay or if he could handle the pressure put on him. 

The past few months were probably the closest thing he’s gotten to a break since even before he first put on the mask. And here it is again, the thing that once again pulls the rug out from under him as if the Pit episode not hours before wasn’t enough to do that already. A call to lead, a call to drag himself fully back into the fray.

Tim was Atlas, constantly forced to hold the weight of the world with no reprieve. He was Icarus, constantly drifting higher and higher on winds of responsibility, knowing that inevitably his wings would fall apart around him. But now, but always , there was a cost to Tim’s failure, a reason he has to keep fighting on. Batman wouldn’t survive the loss of another Robin. If Tim couldn’t find Bruce in the timestream then he would be lost forever. 

If the Heir didn’t step up now, when the League (or at least a segment of it) called for his leadership, then the entire system could crumble. The world the League had built up would fall apart at the seams, taking who knows how much of known society down alongside it.

When it came down to it, Tim knew that this wasn’t a question as much as it was a sentencing for his own actions. He had made choices, made mistakes, that put him in a position to catch Ra’s eye. His clinging to the scraps of his morality in the aftermath of everything falling apart made him stand out, dangerously so. His choosing to betray Ra’s, whether he meant to or not, meant that he left his newfound followers in the hands of the Demon, who apparently could not mentally handle the betrayal. 

The assassins who had left the League would not be welcomed back by anything less than lead and iron. At least under his direction they could focus their efforts on better things. At least with this warning, Tim’s cascade of mistakes still had a chance to be salvaged.

Somehow, Tim managed to unlock his muscles, taking one step forward. Then another. He had to work hard to hide how his limbs wanted to shake, fighting to straighten his spine under the weight that bowed it. Even more surprising, in his mind, was that none of the Bat’s moved to stop him even as he reached the assassins, running a shaky hand over the familiar pommel and crossguard presented to him.

Maybe they too knew why this had to happen. Maybe they have just already written Tim off as a lost cause and were about to kick him out alongside the assassins he was allying with. But what choice did Tim have here?

The sword was a familiar weight in Ghost’s hands even after months apart. The Demon’s Heir breathed, and the new responsibility clicked into place. What was one more stone atop the mountain, one more feather lost?

“I will do what I can,” he told the two women, and they rose up from their knees easily, Mari much more elegantly so than Pru.

“That is all we ask of you,” Mariana promised, and just like that the deal was done. Tim’s fate was sealed once again.

The finality of the words seemed to be what finally snapped the rest of the room out of the frozen state they had been locked in. Footsteps scuffed lightly behind Tim, startling him enough in their suddenness that he spun around to face whoever was approaching, sword half raised defensively and the edges of the Pit tiredly lapping at the edges of his mind in response to the spike of fear. 

“Easy Tim, you’re all alright,” the person in front of him tried to assure.

It was just Batman- or, just Bruce would be more accurate. The man had, at some point, slipped his cowl back once again to reveal his face, tired and slightly guarded, but seemingly not mad. His hands were raised placatingly, likely cautious of how high-strung Tim’s responses to everything were at the moment. It could also be because of how the two assassins had responded to Tim’s jumpiness, reaching for weapons themselves before they had the chance to actually analyze the situation themselves, trusting his instinctive read on things.

That only went so far though. After all, Pru had grown rather used to handling Tim’s heightened overreaction to things ever since the Pit. She nudged him lightly then, a clear signal that he should stand down.

‘ We could use their help ,’ she said without words. ‘ At least see what they have to say first. ’ Tim was still doubtful that they would want anything to do with him after everything that had happened that evening, but he forced himself to relax as he processed that no one appeared outright hostile at the moment. This wasn’t a fight. He should be able to resist the Pit reflex, especially when he had just gotten out of a flare up already. He refocused on the Bats, analyzing their expressions cautiously. 

Whether the Bats help him or turn against him, Tim knew what he had to do.

- - -

Cass observed the conversation from a bit of a distance, trying to keep everyone in her sightline so that she could dutifully keep an eye on everyone’s reactions. The only one she couldn’t currently see was Jason since he’s directly beside her, but she wasn’t concerned about him. He was the least likely to react badly to the revelations this night has brought. The faint glance she had taken towards him earlier had only read as nervous-protective , maybe a bit of dismay over the mess that their Tim has been dragged into now. He isn’t at all aggressive or in danger of a Pit flareup. Her ally in protecting Tim, as usual.

Tim himself was a tight ball of resigned-nervous-fear , though he hid it increasingly well with his outward display of confidence. The hints of the Pit that lapped at him with anger-defense are faint, even as his eyes occasionally flashed a brighter green. It is well subdued for now, though, so she didn’t worry. Cass was mostly just glad that the mystery-depression he’d been stewing in earlier had abated as he focused on the situation at hand.

The assassins echoed Tim’s mood rather closely, though they were much less nervous now where Tim’s had increased. They were more confident, almost hopeful now that Tim has agreed to help them, though there had been little doubt that he’d accept, especially from the bald one. They hovered carefully behind Tim now, reactive to his responses but also acting to tone back his tense impulsiveness. They seemed good for him. Cass is glad that Tim did have some friends within the League.

Stephanie is… unsure. She had been hesitant towards the assassins initially, but that has faded away into a quiet internal conflict. She often doesn’t know how to react with things related to Tim nowadays, for the most part choosing herself to stay clear. There is still some lingering guilt on her part for driving Tim away from Gotham in the first place, even though she was far from the biggest player there. For now Batgirl had drawn back some, content to let the others handle it. Cass suspected that the blonde would likely slip away to head back up to the Manor or to her apartment as soon as she is permitted, both from tiredness and to give her room to think.

Dick is still hesitant and a bit confused how to react towards Tim, absolutely still trying to smother the guilt that threatened to boil over into confrontation at some point soon, but he was currently much more distracted by the mood of the youngest in the room. 

Damian was… hard to read. There was fear, likely for his mother and any former acquaintances in the League, and perhaps for himself. There was the typical-as-of-late jealousy and some anger towards Tim, the one Damian saw as having stolen his position in the League, but over time it had shifted a bit more towards guilt, just the same as the others. He was learning over time, but years of conditioning since birth was hard to break. Luckily the kid had taken to ignoring Tim in his uncertainty rather than lashing out at the other boy thus far, but Cass was watching carefully now just in case.

Bruce, for his part, had seemingly processed the revelations of the night at lightning speed, and had settled firmly into thinking-plan-protect . A feeling that Cass could get behind, especially with her added knowledge of Tim’s current mental state that was no doubt crumbling further under this added stress. 

This was a terrible thing to have been put on him, but maybe, just maybe, this could be their shot to prove that they still trusted him.

“You’ve said that there’s more defected League members than just you two,” Bruce said, turning his attention towards the assassins at Tim’s side as he starts to break down the situation further. “Can you give me a number estimate? Where is everyone currently stationed?”

“Around a hundred-fifty currently, probably a bit over that,” the bald one answered. She was noticeably the one in charge between the two, even if the brown haired woman was a bit older. That could be by choice, though, since the latter didn’t seem to enjoy talking much. “Us two and the other three Lieutenants have been in charge for the most part so far. Kazuya’s been the one tracking the exact numbers, we can check with him later if you need something more specific than that. Currently we have a main camp set up in an uninhabited area west of here, off the main island. We figured it was probably a bad idea to have that many former League agents show up in Gotham with no warning.” Bruce hmm ’d in thought.

“Probably best for you all to stay there for a while, until we can establish a plan and figure out what to do long term. We’re probably going to need to set up a better base of operations for all of you guys, I prefer to keep the cave Bats only. Something more central in the city perhaps so we can avoid outside prying.”

“The Bunker under the Wayne Tower is still mostly retrofitted from when we were using it for a while,” Dick noted, still a bit distracted by trying to catch Robin’s eye.

“Exactly what I was thinking,” Bruce agreed. “We can use the Bunker for operations, and the penthouse can be adjusted to house twenty or so people easily enough. Perhaps more.”

At that, Cass suddenly had a brilliant idea. Something to give Tim more space, show that they trust him still while still keeping him safe.

“Some of us should move as well, focus on organizing,” she said aloud, drawing the attention of the room in a way that made her a bit uncomfortable, but would surely be worth it. “Tim and I, and Jay,” she glanced over at the man, red helmet at some point discarded to the side as they all relaxed, and he nodded in agreement. He clearly knew where she was going with this, considering the determined set of his shoulders at the idea of moving Tim out of the manor.

Bruce, obviously, did not know why the two of them were acting even stranger than usual all the sudden. Cass knew from the man’s suspicious glance that she or Jason would be explaining this later, but she wasn’t about to just start talking about why she wanted such a dramatic change in order to show Tim trust (and hopefully distract himself from his own mind) in front of everyone who didn’t need to know details. Not in front of Tim especially. So Cass just looked back at her father, pleading and trying to convey that it was, in fact, beneficial to Tim’s wellbeing, until the man gave in.

“No reason to argue if you all want to, I suppose. You three might have to set up rooms in the Bunker itself though-”

“You’re okay with that?” Tim cut in, obvious uncertainty-surprise-doubt-challenge in his tone and body language. Posturing as more confident than he actually was now that he’s decided he has to protect the assassins behind him. The green in his eyes flares tiredly, only ever so slightly. Still nowhere near the danger level. “Aren’t I supposed to be under house arrest or something?”

“That was… the Justice League’s intention, at least,” Bruce admitted slowly, hesitant to acknowledge it after all this time but not wanting to lie directly when everyone would be able to tell it was false. He clearly knew that doing so would do the opposite of help gain Tim’s trust. “But at this point they’re already going to be mad enough about the small army of assassins we’re taking in- and the large army of assassins that might be causing problems soon- that I figure they’ll have bigger issues to pick with us. As long as no one is killing in Gotham I don’t have a problem with getting more help against Ra’s. The JL has never gotten to dictate what happens in my city.”

“You’re… actually letting a bunch of m- a bunch of League assassins into Gotham? And you’re working together ?” Tim was incredulous-doubt , not willing to fully trust Bruce’s word even as the bald assassin at his side nudged him to convey relax-listen-alright . They were clearly much faster to trust the Bats’ assistance then Tim was, likely out of the understood necessity of the alliance. Which was sad, but helpful in this case. If none of the group trusted them then protecting Tim now would have been made a lot more difficult.

“ Former League assassins, yeah,” Jason decided to cut in and emphasize, stepping forward a bit from Cass’s side while keeping his posture carefully relaxed. At ease and unthreatening, not letting his own stress from the day leak into his expression. His break from the Cave had served him well. “I mean lets be real, at this point we’ve pretty much all done a stint with the League at one point or another. Besides Dickie and Steph I guess.”

“Well yeah ,” Tim allowed, relaxing marginally. He looks down slightly, carefully not meeting anyone's eyes even as he still tracked everyone’s position in the room. His hand was white-knuckled around the grip of the sword he still held at his side, but he was starting to thaw a bit. “But this is… a bit beyond that. I’m, like, officially, willingly in charge.”

“Tt.”

The sound reached clearly over the group, everyone simultaneously tensing at the vocalization even as everyone’s gaze snapped towards a suddenly more standoffish Robin, who had somehow moved forward a couple steps when Nightwing must have been distracted by the conversation. The eldest Robin started to open his mouth, intending to warn the youngest off, but Damian beat him to speaking.

“Surely Drake can’t be left in charge of League forces. I spent years under Grandfather learning how to be Heir, and Drake had less than one, not to mention his general mental instability even not considering the Pit. He’s not worthy .”

Cass, of course, can see the overwhelming twist of jealousy-mine-pain-why-him in Damian’s hunched shoulders and clenched hands, the culmination of seeing Tim given the position that the youngest had been originally promised since birth. He was young, tired, frustrated, scared of what was happening. She’s sure that everyone else, beyond maybe their newer allies, knew what had prompted the outburst. That didn’t prevent the entire room’s tension levels from skyrocketing as the words processed. Bruce straightened authoritatively, turning to face his youngest and fighting to hide his frustration.

“Robin-” was all he got out before the tension broke.

Tim had gone rigidly still in the corner of Cass’s vision as the words were spoken, muscles tightening like a spring and eyes flashing. Cass hadn’t reacted much to it beyond noting that the words hadn’t triggered a proper Pit flare-up, Tim having just enough control to not ignite into overwhelming instinct again after the earlier breakdowns had drained him physically and mentally. But that assurance to herself that he wasn’t aggressive meant that she didn’t process the boy’s ever so slight shift in stance until he was already rocketing forward.

Faster than he should be able, within a blink Tim had cleared the not insignificant space between him and the current Robin, sword raised. Everyone had been distracted, just enough so that no one could react to try and block the lunge forward before it happened, Robin likewise reacting just too late to muster a proper defense. Warning cries called out, bodies shifting into action even as Tim’s left fist roughly grasped into the fabric of the boy's cape and pulled , a leg sweeping to complete the maneuver. Within a breath, Robin was immobilized, a knee on his back and a sword hanging above his neck.

Bruce, Dick, and Steph froze in place, just too far to stop anything if Tim chose to press the attack under further threat. Jason had only just started to move forward before the full situation processed and he relaxed.

Cass personally didn’t even do more than turn slightly to watch. She could tell immediately that the move had been nothing more than to make a point to the boy who would have otherwise refused to back down. There was no uncontrollable anger in the action, only an intent to intimidate with a startling show of skill. Tim had suddenly found himself with something to fight for, and for better or worse he was going to defend it.

Personally, to herself, Cass felt that the takedown was a bit deserved honestly. Damian was in his full, shock absorbent Robin suit and Tim had kept his head from hitting the ground. He’d end up with a couple bruises at the most.

“Don’t test me, Demon Brat,” Tim asserted clearly as the boy stopped struggling, the elder of the two not looking up as he pressed his knee ever so slightly further into the younger’s spine even as the sword didn’t waver, just close enough to feel its presence.  “I don’t give a fuck if you like me or not, but I’m not going to put up with you bothering me while I try and keep fix your Grandfather’s mess that he dragged me into. You’ve already taken Robin. Don’t fight me for something you don’t even really want.”

With that, Tim abruptly released his hold on the younger, pulling the blade even further clear and smoothly rising to his feet to take a few steps back towards his original position. The two assassins cautiously moved forward a bit to join him from where they had stood, watching attentively as the scene unfolded in case they had to step in. Cass could already tell that the bald one in particular knew what Tim actually looked like when he was unstable, she’d been completely unconcerned once she saw the Bat’s weren’t going for Tim. They would be helpful, then.

The tension relaxed some. Everyone who had been made nervous by the sudden action straightened again, assured that nothing was happening. After a moment of freedom, Damian swiftly rose back to his feet and retreated back to Dick’s side. His pride was obviously smarting, but there was also a deeper air of contemplation that Cass could pick up on as he made no attempt to respond and rigidly avoided meeting anyone's eyes. He was obviously done being impulsively antagonistic towards Tim, which was enough for now.

“So…” Tim said after a bit, back straight and shoulders back with just a hint more confidence than he had before. A hesitant trust born from the fact that he hadn’t been immediately attacked for the stunt he just pulled, though it was far from fully fledged. “You’re actually going to help?” Bruce blinked at his second youngest, obviously still a bit surprised by the sudden shift of emotions they’d been met with. He was aware enough, though, to decide to step forward and offer out his hand.

“Yes, Tim. We’re going to help.”

After a moment of consideration, Tim took Bruce’s hand. Internally, Cass grinned at the small sign of progress.

From there, the planning truly commenced. A war was coming, and they would be ready.

Chapter Text

All in all, it was shockingly easy to incorporate the recently-defected assassins into Gotham’s defenses. Throughout the first few weeks Tim was untrusting, constantly convinced that the tentative alliance would crumble apart from under him, and yet the foundations the Bats had so spontaneously built somehow held firm despite all odds. 

The day after the deserting assassins' arrival, Tim, Jason, and Cass all made preparations to move their main residence into the recently abandoned Wayne Tower. Considering the three of them were all far too used to moving house frequently over their lifetime, it was rather a simple matter to pack all the necessities for a couple weeks into a pair of cars and drive them over to the private penthouse suite where they would henceforth be staying at. Bruce and Alfred insisted on helping to load the gear and accompany the trio for the drive and initial unloading, but they made no attempt at dissuading the group from proceeding with the move like Tim had expected. 

Tim had tried, briefly, to test their resolve of the decision, cornering Bruce at one point during the morning when all the others had left the vicinity for some task or another.

“You know…” Tim pointed out hesitantly, hyper-aware that this was the first time since the assassins arrival that he was alone in a room with the Dark Knight. “The Justice League is going to be… less than pleased that we’re basically assembling a small army of assassins. Or that you’re letting me out of the manor so soon after the last incident.”

Bruce paused, turning away from the box he had been packing to fully face Tim. His expression was serious, unwavering. He didn’t speak until Tim properly met his gaze, blue on blue. The look was all Batman.

“The League has no say about what happens within Gotham,” he asserted firmly, leaving no room for questioning. “If they want to try and force the issue, they’ll have to go through all of us.”

And, well. Tim didn’t really know what to say after something like that.

The later morning and the majority of the afternoon and evening were then spent settling in, the only thing close to downtime that any of them would likely be getting in the near future. By the time darkness had fallen again, the Bunker was officially opened for operational use.

The following days were spent largely in a constant state of organizing, a role of which Tim slipped into with easy familiarity despite his paranoia that the current deal wouldn’t last. A more permanent residence had to be established within the city, spreading the small hoard of assassins in strategic groups throughout a couple of different Wayne-owned locations throughout the city’s center and near the entrances. Patrol routes were established, both during the day in civilian clothing and at night to augment the Bats normal routines. Strict rules of conduct were set in regards to when the assassins were to engage in a situation and about the level of force that was permitted within the city’s bounds. Surprisingly, or perhaps not since the group did comprise of LoA deserters that had been particularly drawn to Tim morals, there were no major breaches of the set rules in the initial weeks of implementation.

While the former assassins themselves were steadily set loose to patrol the city over the course of the next few days, Tim had been forced to agree that he was not yet in a position where it was smart to enter the field himself. He was permitted full control of strategic planning, and all of the major goings-ons were passed up to him in one way or another (with the Bats involvement or not), but he was relegated to oversee it all only from the relative security of the Bunker, under primarily Jason and Cass’s watchful eyes.

Everyone insisted when in Tim’s presence that the decision was only a strategic one. They knew that Tim was the target of Ra's impending move, and keeping him in a secure location rather than having him constantly moving throughout the city would make things much easier to secure whenever the time came. Silently, Tim knew that the arrangement was set mostly because the Bats didn’t want to risk another slip of his control, especially when that would draw negative connections to the Bats and their new allies at an already tenuous time. The last incident had been close enough as it was.

However, there was nonetheless the acknowledgement that when the attack did come it would be foolish to assume that Tim could stay (or be forcefully kept) away from the entirety of the fighting. Not when he was the primary target. Which then led to the realization that Tim needed a suit to protect him if and when it came to combat. But then came the question of what that suit would be. They could easily scrounge together something simple, similar to the former assassins, but that didn’t feel right after everything. And from that sparked Tim’s second primary project.

Tim wasn’t Robin anymore, as much as it still stung like a freshly earned wound over a year after the fact. And while he wouldn’t have necessarily minded re-donning a version of the Ghost suit for the sake of irony, he knew that the Bats would have (and did) absolutely reject the proposal at first suggestion. So instead Tim focused his effort on being allowed access to the supplies and tools he would need to create something himself, something built by his own hands. The request was granted easily enough with the stipulation that he kept Jason and Cass informed on what he was working on. It was an easy enough deal to agree to.

After years on the field observing others and making changes to his own fighting style, Tim had quite the collection of ideas in mind for this project. It was his first sort-of “fresh start” without a title being handed to him or a predetermined image of what sort of figure he had to portray. Of course there were the basic requirements. Protection against bullets and blades, lots of storage for gear, a sheath for his Heir sword and a place to secure a bo staff for when he wanted something with less risk of severe damage. 

The more aesthetic or unique components of the design were much more flexible, and that was where much of Tim’s time outside of assassin-wrangling was henceforth focused. Jason had to, on multiple occasions, drag Tim by force out of his “little nerdy tech cave” to eat while he was perfecting the design, overtaken by the urgency of the likely impending conflict. Everyone who wandered in and out of the area when Tim was tinkering was liable to be interrogated for their opinions on one concept or another as ideas were drawn up and thrown out in turn for something better.

Tim’s being overall very open with his design process acted as a good cover, after all. As much as it pained him to betray the trust he was being shown, there were certain… contingencies… in the design that Tim knew the Bats could not be informed of. Things that he was not willing to compromise on, but he knew that the vigilante’s wouldn’t allow him to do. Pru, luckily, was much easier to bring around to his line of thinking, and was capable of sneaking in the required materials without anyone else knowing while only requiring a promise that the contingency would be an absolute last resort.

Tim had agreed with her easily at the time. Later that night, as he tinkered with the layers of protective armor, he contemplated what those odds really were. No one knew how to predict Ra’s like he did, after all. Tim knew how he thought . A blessing in this case, but also the curse that had trapped him in this situation in the first place.

Everyone else seemed so optimistic of their strength, but the deeper, more violent part of Tim’s brain knew that ultimately the confrontation would come down to being between the Master and the Heir. And no matter what only one would be coming out of the situation a victor. 

The two of them both knew what the other’s end goal was here, and for the well being of everyone, Ra’s could not be allowed to win. Tim was just further ensuring their odds. No matter the price, Ra’s would not win.

Tim’s level of activity that was a given between all the combined tasks he was handed was refreshing after so long confined to the manor. It gave him something that felt more like purpose, something to focus his energy towards. The Pit hummed in the background of his mind, still occasionally flaring, but overall stable amid the new state of constant focus towards his goals. 

The pieces all fell easily into place.

Gotham’s citizens, as attuned to the patterns of crime and vigilante activity as they were, were quick to catch on that there was suddenly a significantly higher number of vigilantes moving about the streets. Stories started popping up almost instantly about the new “shadows” that appeared at various crime scenes all over Gotham, swiftly solving the problem at hand and disappearing again without a word given or a trace left behind. The newcomers wore all black, with no symbols that would indicate alliance with the Bats, but the connection between the two groups was nevertheless quickly drawn from the few sightings of them working together and no indication of disagreement. 

Bruce relayed to the whole team when, on the second night of full operation, the Commissioner himself had flagged Batman down to ask him directly about the intention behind these “shadows”. Batman had simply assured him that they were allies, and hinted vaguely to the man that a different group of less well intentioned individuals could soon be making a move.

“There’s no benefit in keeping the GCPD entirely in the dark,” Bruce had pointed out. “Even though we know what Ra’s target will be, we have no clue right now how he will be making that move. It’s likely that he will strategically target the city in an effort to split our attention, and as such certain key people should be informed. Not everyone, that would cause unnecessary panic. Gordon will know who’s best to keep on standby.”

“Shadows,” Jason had considered out loud after the main points of the meeting had concluded. “Our little group does need something to be referred to by. The League of Shadows, maybe? It has a nice vibe to it, ‘faceless figures of protection’ and all that. What do you guys think?”

The Lieutenants, Pru especially, had all agreed easily enough to the name suggestion for the collective group of former assassins, and Tim hadn’t yet come up with a better idea. So from then on the League of Shadows was formally established, not exactly assassins or vigilantes but some new form of gray area that Tim had somehow found himself in the midst of.

Inevitably, of course, news of the Shadows’ presence spread into the awareness of those outside the city. Though Tim was strictly not permitted to attend the Justice League meetings that sprung up about the topic, he got enough secondhand knowledge from the Titans that he knew the JL was not pleased with the Bats. They didn’t seem to know the true extent of Tim’s involvement in the situation, but it didn’t take much to draw the connection between him and a group of defected assassins that had spontaneously made an appearance in the Bat’s city. 

Of course, as Bruce had previously pointed out to Tim when the whole operation started, the JL had no jurisdiction over what happened within Gotham’s boundaries. The other heroes had respected Batman’s claim over the city since the beginning of their team being established, and they were expectedly reluctant to break that standing arrangement with the Bats without a very strong reason. So, for the time being at least, they remained unchallenged.

That isn’t to say, though, that the Justice League let the situation lie entirely. Tim knew, from his limited and infrequent messages to the Teen Titans that he managed to receive, despite the JL’s overzealous monitoring of their apprentices, that the Shadows were being carefully watched for any sign of activity beyond the Bat’s territory. Until a major attack was sprung, the JL would not be allowed entry to the city.

It was also through the Titans, before anyone else, that the Gotham crew learned that the League of Assassins’ activity around the globe was growing increasingly and alarmingly quiet. The whole team had grown somber at the news, knowing that this was undoubtedly a sign of Ra’s quietly moving about his forces with some sort of plan in mind. With no way to know what the madman was planning, the Bats and Shadows could do nothing but continue their careful watch and prepare for the inevitable.

The foundation was built up and held steady… until all at once it came tumbling down on top of them.

- - - 

When Bruce was abruptly awoken one morning to the sound of multiple near-simultaneous emergency pings sending alarms over the Justice League’s monitoring network, he was immediately overcome with the sinking feeling that this was the start of the end. He scrambled into basic under-suit-acceptable attire and bolted for the Cave, Dick trailing only moments behind him with his own flood of alerts pinging from his watch. Damian and Alfred were both swift to appear from behind them. After all, they all had known that this would be coming soon.

The three vigilante’s of the group split immediately into the changing rooms to get appropriately outfitted, knowing that it was better to prepare fully now then after getting swept up by the situation. As such, it was Agent A who was the first amongst the Bats currently in the manor to start sorting through the multitude of incoming data, a chime only moments later indicating that Oracle had also come online and was sorting through everything herself in order to act as a second, broader point of strategic support for the Justice League.

By the time that Batman emerged fully cowled and ready to respond, the two had already pulled up a wide variety of maps and active news feeds of the situation, frowning at the vast spread of activity they had been met with. The Dark Knight strode quickly to stand behind Alfred’s chair, coming to a stop almost in time with the Watchtower emergency communication line ringing through the system. Batman was quick to reach over and accept the call, the feed connecting even as Nightwing came stumbling out of the locker room still pressing his domino mask into place, Robin just behind him. Bruce barely noticed his sons’ arrival, already distracted while taking in the destruction they were being greeted by.

From the Watchtower, Cyborg was already talking, having been able to quickly sort through the data with his direct connection to the Justice League’s database. 

“There seems to have been three waves of attacks, mostly consisting of chained explosions, each occurring across multiple cities in the United States and abroad, with only approximately a two minute gap between the waves. Fifteen different locations were targeted in total. From a quick scan by the data system to look for patterns, it appears that each targeted building or complex has ties to Lex Luthor, either a public LexCorp facility or subsidiary or one of the locations we had identified as likely housing some of his more secretive operations. All of the locations include substantial risk of civilian casualties that require a swift recovery response. Multiple person’s of interest have already been spotted across the various locations-”

“It’s the League of Assassins,” Superman’s voice cut in, air rushing past in the background of his line. “Along with a couple of other faces I recognize from the threat database. I’m currently on scene pulling people out of the main LexCorp tower in Metropolis, and I already sent Superboy to meet up with the Titans in San Francisco so they can handle things in that sphere.”

“I’ve come to the same conclusion here in Central,” Flash concurred. “Impulse has been sent out as well.”

“All the Titans are accounted for and responding, so don’t worry about us” Beast Boy confirmed. “We can split the team and handle the two locations here in California, you guys handle everything else.”

“Every location luckily seems to be in range of a Justice League member or associated team, and are all fairly spread out” Wonder Woman agreed. “Everyone just head to your closest location, and we’ll call in other associates to handle the areas we can’t reach immediately. Though I imagine they’ll already be readying a response on their own.”

“The real question,” Green Arrow cut in, words interrupted briefly with the twang of an arrow releasing, “is why the League of Assassins would launch something on this scale. They’re usually more subtle than this, right? Did Luthor really do something to piss the Demon off that badly?”

That question, incidentally enough, was already the one that Batman himself had been silently pondering, letting the flow of conversation process at the edges of his awareness to collect the pertinent details from it while the forefront of his mind had pivoted to instead closely study the world map that marked the targeted locations as soon as the League of Assassins’ name had been brought up. He had instantly had a suspicion of what was occurring, and as further information filed in, that hypothesis looked more and more likely.

He was hyper aware of the small, modified bat symbol blinking in the corner of his vision, proof that the Bunker’s communication line was active and listening in where the Cave was redirecting them the Watchtower’s feed. Bruce wondered if they had already noticed as well.

“There’s a deeper layer to the pattern of locations beyond them all being related to Luthor,” Oracle declared, having clearly followed the same line of deduction that Bruce had. “There’s a pretty major LexCorp manufacturing facility in Bludhaven that seems to have been left unscathed. In fact, there's a rather blatant lack of target locations within about a 300 mile range of Gotham, despite every other Justice League member having at least one in the near vicinity of their home city.”

“They’re pulling attention away from Gotham,” Batman agreed, dread compounding in his chest despite his outwardly composed facade. “That’s also why they called in outside forces to the distraction locations rather than just using more of their own people. Gotham is going to be the primary target.”

“I guess this is it then, right?” Nightwing stated knowingly. “This is the move by Ra’s we were waiting for.”

“You knew this was going to happen?” Green Lantern exclaimed. “We should have known that you Bats would be-”

“We knew that Ra’s would be targeting us at some point, as you all undoubtedly suspected as well. But we did not expect the outside impact to be at this scale. We had assumed that any distraction attempts would have been confined to within Gotham or the surrounding areas. Ra’s was… less subtle in his actions than we expected of him.”

Without warning, a burst of static overwhelmed all of the news feeds that were being broadcast onto the Cave’s screens, quickly replaced with an unfortunately familiar green symbol.

“The Assassins seem to have taken control of most of the major news airwaves,” Alfred stated, unnecessarily so considering that the Cave’s residents had already noticed the change. The butler quickly went about rearranging the windows to enlarge one and unmute its audio.

A couple of seconds after, the symbol faded into the black background, only to be replaced by a video of the man they had already concluded was behind this. Green eyes shone eerily bright through the screen despite the shadow that lay over the one who owned them.

“Hello, citizens of the world,” Ra’s al-Ghul stated infuriatingly calmly in his accented English. Bruce’s jaw clenched at the sight of the man's self-assured grin. 

“This message is being sent out to the so-called Justice League, more specifically to the Batman, and most of all to my Heir.”  The man’s eyes grew slightly more glazed, picking up a strange shine to them as his attention slipped from the camera and to somewhere more… distant. The unsettling green tint sharpened, seeping from the iris and into the surrounding veins. In that moment, it was clear exactly how unstable Ra’s had grown since he was last sighted.

“I know you will be listening in as well, Ghost. Did you enjoy the demonstration I have put on for you? Did I surprise you, I wonder? If anyone could have deduced my plan, it would have been you. You have always been so clever… the only one amongst your brood who truly seemed to keep up with my plans even before I took you under my wing, made you something more … Have they been stifling that intelligence, I wonder. I suppose I will soon see…” At that thought, the lucidity returned, the Demon’s eyes refocusing towards the camera (a recording, no doubt) as if he could peer through it.

“My forces and our allies were responsible for today’s attacks, as you have no doubt deduced already. Lex Luthor has failed me too blatantly, you see, not keeping his facilities well enough protected to shield my Heir from detection until it was time for him to fully reveal himself to the world. And those who get in my way, those who betray my trust and lose what is mine… they will face consequences. You have seen now, the lengths I am willing to go.”

The line connecting the Cave to the rest of the Justice League was nearly dead silent. Not fully muted, there was still a faint trickle of background noise leaking through, but there was a blatant, tense lack of reaction from anyone as Ra’s words filtered through. In the corner of Bruce’s vision, the Bunker’s open connection still flashed damningly, equally silent.

“I have no quarrel with civilians, or even with the Justice League itself,” Ra’s said, leaning back from the camera leisurely, as if this was just a casual conversation over lunch. “My people will not impede any rescue efforts. The damage was merely needed to send a message, a means to an end. Luthor was not today’s true target, after all. But you know that already, don’t you my clever little Ghost? You know what I am really after.” Abruptly, Ra’s stood from his throne, the camera rising to follow the movement as the Demon stepped closer, expression shifting into something darker.

“I know that he is being held in Gotham, hidden away from me by the Bats that flitter about the city’s rooftops as if not killing automatically makes their actions more moral than anyone else in that god-forsaken city. I know that some of those who once were my own loyal followers have deserted me to aid their cause. It will not stop me, not for long.

“Hand over my Heir, return him to where he belongs, and no one else need be injured in this silly game of cat and mouse. Hand yourself over, Ghost, and no one else will die for your own foolish decisions. If the Justice League sees fit to interfere, know that my retaliation will not be as benevolent as I have been thus far.

“And if you Bats choose to continue to ignore my merciful warnings… then what happens to that wretched little city that you claim to protect will be entirely on your hands. And I promise, I promise , that it will pale in comparison to anything that I have done before.”

Ra’s steps back from the camera, settling once again onto his throne.

“I will arrive at your city’s bounds exactly two hours from the conclusion of this broadcast. Either relinquish my Heir to me then, or face the consequences. There is only one way this story ends.”

And with that proclamation, the feed cut to black.

- - -

Underneath the center of the city that is Gotham, the ending of this broadcasted declaration of war set about a flurry of activity as the League of Shadows quickly gathered to rise in response. Amongst the rapid movement of preparation, only one figure stood still, staring unerringly into the darkened screen. Numbed into stillness with apprehension for what will undoubtedly be the end of it all. His blank expression gave away nothing of what he was thinking.

There is only one way this story ends, the Demon had said, so sure of his victory. Little does he or anyone else know that the Heir will be the only one to dictate who wins this game of theirs. After all, Ghost has one last card up his sleeve.