Chapter Text
One year, nine months, three weeks, four days, six hours, and three seconds.
One year, nine months, three weeks, four days, six hours, and three seconds since Damian Wayne ran away from home. Ran away from Robin. From his family.
Tim’s hunched over his computer on the kitchen island. The bags under his eyes are worse than usual, brought on by the recent alien invasion and then the more recent Rogue breakout. He should sleep. He needs it.
But he can’t.
Kon has long since given up on trying to convince him to sleep. On days like these, the best that he can get is a promise for an hour.
An hour wasted on sleeping, when he could use it to find Damian.
The details on why he ran away is. Unclear. But it all really comes down to the fact that their family is the most emotional constipated and illiterate that Tim has ever known, and he’s a Drake. Damian’s never been good with telling them what he needs, what he wants, and how he needs it. Dick’s pretty good at wrangling it out of him, but Damian’s better at hiding his emotions.
Tim rubs his eyes again. Hours of pouring over security feeds does nothing. Damian is smart, he’s well-trained, and he’s probably alive.
Probably is not good enough for Tim.
When he usually goes AWOL, he at least takes a tracker. This time, he’s completely off the grid. The multiple trackers, even the ones that must be a pain to get out of the lining of his Robin suit, were either carefully disassembled or broken and crushed. The ones that aren’t are laid out on a nice little trail for them to follow as Damian gets further and further away from them. From Gotham.
Jon claims to not have heard his heartbeat. If he’s telling the truth, Tim is officially impressed. If he’s not, Tim is…well, he’s not any angrier than he is now. Because he is. So angry at Bruce for not expressing his feelings clearly. Angry at Damain for running away without so much as a note. Angry at the world because he has to juggle being Timothy Drake, former CEO of Wayne Industries and now the head of the R&D department - he loves his job, but he hates the press. That and covering for Damian’s disappearance…
He sighs. Puts another round of security feed through his programs. Leans back in his chair and lets it run.
They haven’t given up on him. They’re not known for giving up, in this family. But with all of Dick’s taking down of the Court/Parliament of Owls, Spyral, Jason’s little stint with the Outlaws (that might’ve changed, Tim doesn’t know) and the girls are…well, probably doing something badass. And Bruce searches tirelessly too. But he also has the Justice League.
Tim puts Red Robin in the backseat as he downs another Redbull.
There’s the ringing of a phone. It startles Tim so much he almost tips back on his chair. He rights himself quickly and picks up. “Yeah?”
“ Hey, Replacement. ”
There’s the sound of gunshots behind him. Tim squints at nothing in particular. “Are you in a fight? You called me in the middle of a fight?”
“ Don’t judge,” Jason defends, which isn’t much of a defense at all, but Tim holds his tongue. “ You gonna let me speak or just keep judging me? ”
“Yes, what’s so important this time?”
“ I got a lead on the Demon Brat.”
Tim’s heart stops. Part caffeine and part shock.
One year, nine months, three weeks, five days, zero hours, twenty-six seconds since Damian Wayne ran away from home, never to be seen again.
One year, nine months, three weeks, five days, zero hours, twenty-seven seconds since Tim last saw his brother.
That number is going to be zero real soon.
“Send it over.”
His laptop chimes.
Tim downs his Redbull, cracking neck muscles and closing his eyes, letting out an exhale. Time to get to work.
***
The presentation is ready by the next week.
They don’t want to - to give the family false hope. Jason follows up on leads and Tim makes sure all the information is concrete before they dare broach the topic.
The family is scattered around the room. Conversation is still easy, but it doesn’t feel complete. There’s someone missing, and it’s obvious in the way that they still falter when they’re about to say his name, the way they forget that he’s not there for them to tease with short jokes, the way that they insinctually save the chocolate biscuits for him.
“We’ve got a lead,” Tim says firmly, makes them freeze in their spots. He uses the Batglare(™) to get them back into their seats. No more running away. “On Damian.”
Bruce looks like he wants to stand. Dick turns pleading eyes on him. Bruce looks left, right, then sighs and settles back into the couch cushions. Triumphant, Tim holds his hand out - Jason slaps ten dollars into it, grumbling. “You want to start?”
Jason shrugs, which Tim takes as a yes, and takes over in front of the large TV. “One of my kids, Casey, she was sixteen when she was taken.” At this, they all collectively hold back looks of disgust and winces. “I took care of that piece of shit, ‘course. But we all thought she was gone. She was young, y’know? Wanted to get to med school. ‘Was gonna help her with that, but she was kidnapped before she could.”
“What does this have to do with Damian?” Bruce cuts in, fingers impatiently dancing across his knee.
Jason points to him. “She came back, last week. With a GED and everything, acceptance letters to universities. And stronger. She whooped the kids’ asses. It was…it was good. I asked her how she was saved. She told me that someone named Shadow saved her, three days after, on the transport. Right after Damian left.”
Shadow. It suits Damian perfectly. Cass inhales.
“It could be someone else,” Bruce points out, infuriatingly calm. “Another vigilante.”
“Which vigilante can escape your notice for so long?” Jason prompts, and Bruce pauses. “Thing is, I heard in one of the rooms I bugged, she was talking to the other older girls. ‘Bout a place not too far from here and Blüd. She said it was fully stocked, not just that, but it was a safe place for people of all ages. Mostly teens went there. They had shelters for the night, referrals, places to safely regulate and monitor drug use, defence classes, all of that. She called it Hope. Gave the other teens cards, with a website and a cipher.”
“That sounds way too good to be true,” Duke notes.
“Tha’s what I thought at first, too. Got a good look at the card, send the website to Timbo.”
“It’s real,” Tim picks up. “All of it. I don’t know about the referrals and how big the place is, but it is safe. Took me a while to crack. The code - I recognised it. It was my own. Or, at least, close enough to my style that I recognised it. Whoever was coding is good. But I got in. There’s a simplified version of one of our codes there. It’s an address. Bruce, it could - ”
“Don’t.” His voice is low, growled, and Tim exchanges looks with Jason, begrudgingly handing him back his ten. “Don’t, Tim.”
Don’t what? Tim wants to ask. Don’t give you hope? He’s your son, Bruce, you owe him that.
“These two things could be entirely unrelated. A coincidence.”
“Our world doesn’t do coincidences, B,” Steph points out.
“And there’s this.” Tim types something onto his computer and turns it around. “A picture of their walls. Everyone signs their name. And the background…”
A large, sprawling, black silhouette, with pointed tips and symmetrical in a way that can only be done by steady artist’s hands. Hands that Tim knows. A bat. The Bat.
“He didn’t want us to find him before this,” Jason points out the obvious. “For that many people to know about this, but for you, for us to not catch wind of this before, he has lots of connections now. Loyal people. But he let us know. Casey definitely knew that room was bugged. I teach my kids good. But she did it anyways.”
“It’s an offer,” Tim lays it out for him. “For us. If we want to go.”
Bruce is silent for a long moment, staring at it.
“Observe,” he says finally. “Three days. Any activity, report. Then we’ll…we’ll see where to go from there.”
He whisks away into the shadows like the emotionally constipated man he is. Jason hands Tim the ten again.
***
There’s a new name on the board. It updates everyday, and Tim is impressed with the number of names growing. Sometimes, there’ll only be one or two new names. Some days, groups of people cluster their names together in tens.
This one is a singular name. But it stands out.
Five letters.
Colin.
“A calling card,” Tim says.
“We’re going,” Dick confirms firmly, not sparing a glance to Bruce. He nods anyways.
“Ready for a field trip?”
***
They leave Gotham in the hands of Superman and Kid Flash for the time being. No one is staying behind for this. The car ride is silent, barely an hour away. Bruce drives, careful and measured. Tim watches as the landscape changes from smoggy to bright and sunny.
Figures.
They arrive at the address. There’s nothing but fields for miles. Tim frowns. “It should…”
A ripple in the air, and someone appears. He’s older. But smiling, and less of that thinness and more of a leanness. “Hey,” Colin Wilkes says. He’d run away a few months after Damian. Tim should’ve known the two things were connected. “Mel, you can lower it.”
Another ripple, this one much bigger, and there’s buildings stretching out in every direction. Some of them are white. Others are splattered with paint. Unfinished drawings littering the reachable places. The nearest building has a few levels, and on the first floor is a teenager looking out the window, peering closely at them. Colin waves to her, still smiling, and she smiles back, though she does send a mistrustful look towards Tim and the others.
Colin beckons for them to follow him. They do.
“It’s good to see you guys again,” he says, as they walk through the first building. “We weren’t sure you would come.”
“You’ve been here?” Tim says, looking around at high ceilings and colours. “Building this?”
Colin frowns, lips pursed. “We didn’t build it. It was a government facility. For metas and mutants. Their experiments weren’t exactly humane. ”
The red here is either in light shades of pink or maroon. There’s the reason for that.
“ We? ” Cass focuses on the more important part of the question. At that, a full smile breaks out onto Colin’s face, familiar when the rest of him is strange.
“We’ve grown in numbers. Damian…Damian’s really done some good here.” He leads them through the first set of doors. It opens to a gymnasium, where two teams of teenagers play basketball, a few older people doing yoga, or something yoga related, and younger kids practicing shooting hoops. “It started out with him and the metas that he freed. Lot of them had families, places they had to get back to, so they didn’t stay. But when he called, they answered. Had a lot of respect for him in the first place. Their loyalty came in when he told them what he wanted to do with the place. Rebuild it. Into this. A safe place, not just for metas. For anyone who needs help.”
The way Colin talks about it should sound manipulative, but it doesn’t. It sounds like fact and like something he believes wholeheartedly.
“I joined him after a few months. Maps was already here. Maya drops in sometimes, but she’s got her own thing. Jon too. But us three, we mainly make sure things run smoothly. Uh, you might wanna make sure you’re quiet for this one,” he warns, opening another door.
This one is much more quieter in comparison to squeaking shoes against the floor of basketball courts. Instead, they’re greeted by sterile white sheets, many people lying down in beds, and for the most part, they have someone beside them. They have that foggy look in their eyes.
“Withdrawal,” Colin explains once they walk into an elevator. “Some of them are really far gone. But we try.”
Jason has gone quiet, unrestrained fury lighting his eyes. “There are kids,” he growls quietly.
Colin stares him in the eye, a feat that he wouldn’t have been able to achieve a year ago. “Not everyone has someone to go through withdrawal with.”
When he said everything, he meant everything.
The elevator takes them up to the fourth floor. Down a hall, right at the very end. Colin knocks on the door and doesn’t wait before opening it.
Damian sits behind a desk that’s nowhere near the grandness and flourish he usually desires. It looks sturdy, sure, but not the deep, rich tones of mahogany that he likes so much, pale, cheap wood replacing it. Stacks of paper are scattered around him, as well as plenty of screens, the type of organised chaos that their family has perfected. He’s muttering to himself - he knows they’ve come in, by the tensing in his shoulders, but he doesn’t look up, shifting papers around.
“Damian,” Colin calls. He still doesn’t look up. Colin strides over to his desk and raps on it. “Damian~” he sing songs.
Damian looks up, finally, glaring at Colin. “What, Wilkes?” Colin shrugs, grabbing a laptop and a stack of papers, sinking into one of the very comfortable looking armchairs. Damian sighs, and finally meets their eyes.
He looks better. Taller, obviously Talia’s genes from the way that he’s built leaner and less like Bruce. His hair is longer, too, but he looks healthy. Very. Better. He doesn’t look as…stilted. His movements are much more languid here.
“Father,” he greets. “And the rest of you.”
Tim laughs at the absurdity at it. Dick steps forward, hesitant. “Damian - “
Damian walks forward to meet him. He hugs Dick back. After a minute, he pulls in everyone else. They stay like that, a pile of birds and bats, Waynes. Just taking in the fact that he’s alive. He’s real. “I see you got my message.”
Jason’s turn to laugh incredulously. “You could’ve just called, y’know, baby bat.”
“Where’s the fun in that?” he responds, pulling back. “I’m…I’m sorry I didn’t contact you before.”
“We’re just glad you’re alive,” Bruce immediately assures him. He’s gotten better.
“I was lost,” he continues. “Mother was trying to persuade end to come back, but I…you helped me realise that I didn’t want to. To go back to the League. But I couldn’t stay in Gotham. It was…stifling.” Damian was made for open sky and air and mountains. He was made for nature. Tim understands. He grew up in isolated places where he could be alone with the quiet and the wind. Gotham is filled with smog and dirt and scum. There’s a sort of beauty in it of itself, but Damian wasn’t born in Gotham. She wasn’t meant for him.
“I didn’t…necessarily want to leave you. But I wanted to find my own way. The same way Richard, and Todd, and Drake did.”
“You became Shadow,” Tim supplied. Damian nods, stepping on a loose board in the floor. He grabs the opposite end easily and reveals his uniform. Plain black. Still with a utility black, and a cape with a hood, and a black domino.
“It was a fitting name for my endeavours. Three months in, and I had found some headway. But not a lot. Then I found this place.” He places the board down again, gently. Opens his arms wide and gestures to everything around him. “A government facility. Experiments on metas, mutants, magicians, demigods. Everyone not remotely human. It was horrifying. It took six months to successfully plan an infiltration.”
He leads them back out the hallways, down the elevator. “A lot of the metas had lives. Not all of them could go back to it. The…wardens kept them on drugs to suppress their powers. Highly addictive and dangerous. The newer ones shook it off. But the ones that have been here the longest couldn’t. They stayed. So did I.”
Back through the infirmary. People in the cots. They shoot smiles at Damian, however small, and he nods back. “I couldn’t leave them. They didn’t know how to safely help them through withdrawal. I did. I helped. A lot of the people here didn’t want to leave their friends, so they stayed too.”
The basketball court. Damian catches a stray basketball straight to his face and tosses it back to one of the boys, who catches it midair without his hands. It moves through the air into his hands.
“It had a lot of bad memories for them. So we started to change it. The painting, the cleaning up. We kept it on the down low, but we needed funds, too. I had my own contacts from Shadow.”
“So who’s funding all this?” Dick asks, looking around. There are fields filled with edible plants, and people tending to them. They walk past them, to another building.
“Well, my contacts were very helpful in finding me a generous sponsor. My grandfather is very happy with the work I’m doing here.” The grin is downright malicious. Tim has never felt more proud.
“You’re using Ra’s money?” Duke asks incredulously.
Damian grins smugly. “If he has caught wind of it, he does not care. The first few months were entirely dependent on him, but once we got on our feet, we’re taking less and less. I have measures in place in case he does end up caring, of course, but for now we are stable.”
Through another hall, and past a row of doors. Sounds of metal against metal reaches their ears. “Metas weren’t the only ones here. The demigods, magicians - they all went back to their own, but a lot returned to help. The wizards had a few charms for us. A repelling spell, unless someone wants to find us. We kept word tight. Then they suggested letting mor - mug - humans in as well. The families were already here, and I didn’t see any problem with it. Which is how we ended up here.”
A giant hall. Easily able to fit in a few hundred people. Maybe two thousand. “They named it Hope. Come.”
There’s a crowd. Lots of people milling about, power crackling through the air. Damian mixed with them easily, and they lose him almost immediately. Tim catches sight of him going up the stage and almost loses his breath.
The mural is behind him. The giant bat and the names, scratched onto the wall. Up on the stage, Damian claps his hands twice and silence falls.
“Not many new announcements today,” he says, looking perfectly at ease. This is a part of their routine. “Twenty-three new arrivals, four in metas, two in mutants, six in humans, three in demigods and magicians, and the wizards are visiting. Adjust schedules accordingly.” A few people have tablets which they flip open and start typing or writing on. “Carlos, I noticed a few people doing the same shifts?”
The teenager clears his throat, in his hands a tablet. “Jay had a relapse. We’re accounting for it.”
Damian hums. “Make sure one of you is with him at all times. Riley, can you send a few over to help?”
”Done.” A girl with close cropped hair swipes up on her screen. “Updated.”
”We have a few people leaving tonight.” At this, cheers ring through the hall, amplified. He rattles off a list of names, and the people smile, blush as they walk up to the stage, pushed by their friends. “I believe it’s time for you to complete the wall.”
Tim hadn’t noticed it before, but there was a significant difference between the wall online and the wall in real life. Only the names were visible online, but in real life, there were dates next to the names. Some of them had two dates, others only one.
A long ladder was rolled out and some of them took turns climbing up, painting the date onto the wall.
They smile, exchange high-fives, then stand and bow to more whistles and cheers.
“We’ll see you off at morning, but for now, enjoy your last night.” Damian does a little small bow, and to Tim’s surprise, hugs everyone on stage. They’re older than him, except for one that’s around the same age, and most pat him on the back. One woman kisses both his cheeks.
Tim reaches him amidst hands and words that reach Damian. Jon is there, along with Maya and Maps. They all look at home and older.
“Colin was right,” Tim says, punching him affectionally. “You’ve done a lot of good here.”
Damian’s face flushes. “Thank you.”
Colin comes up to him. “You gonna introduce them?”
”Sure,” Damian agrees. “Come. I’ll introduce you to my second hands.”
They walk into another room, significantly smaller, and supposedly soundproof. A few of the other people follow them in, young adults and teenagers.
“Who’s this?” one of the boys, Carlos, asks brashly. His complexion is the tan one of South America, Spanish accent wrapping around his words with curly hair and brown eyes.
“My family,” Damian answers. “So be nice. Waynes, these are my second hands. Carlos and Melody, heads of the metas. Carlos can control and produce fire. Melody can change people’s perception of their objects and surroundings.” The girl from before, Chinese features and long black hair.
”Nico di Angelo and Dakota, here as official ambassadors for the demigods and their whole universe.” They don’t look like much, but Tim knows all about underestimating people. The swords in particular makes him uneasy. No one carries such a large weapon without knowing how to use it.
“Riley and Olivia, mutants. Paolo and Katie, humans.”
”Nice to meet you,” Katie says, smiling, while Paolo just looks bored. “You’re human? Like Damian?”
”Perfectly,” Dick promises.
”Well…” Jason’s voice trails off, a punch from Cass earning a yelp.
Duke raised a hand. “I’m a meta. Light.”
Melody nods at him.
”Stay the night,” Damian invites. “See what I’ve built.”
They didn’t plan to. Bruce nods anyways. “Of course.”
Their group walks through the halls, Carlos and Katie carrying the conversation. The others seem content to sit back. “We help them control their powers and all. Self defence. Drug use in controlled spaces. Whatever they need. Even if they just need food and shelter for the night. Strictly word of mouth to make sure we’re safe. And we’re expanding.”
They arrive at a few rooms. Three to each.
“Tomorrow, we’ll talk,” Bruce promises.
“You may help me paint,” Damian allows. “And do paperwork.”
”Tomorrow, we’ll spar,” Jason corrects, cracking his neck.
Damian smiles, bloodthirsty and evil. “I look forward to it.”
One year, nine months, three weeks, five days, six hours and forty-two seconds since Damian Wayne ran away from home.
Zero seconds since Tim last saw his brother.
He seems at peace. Like he’s found home.
Like he’s found hope. Tim smiles. “See you tomorrow.”
”8 A.M. Sharp.”
Damian has changed. But he’s also still the same.
“Tomorrow,” Damian agrees.