Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Jason was not easy to be around. 

He was a dick. 

(Not like Dick, Dick was extremely easy to be around, but a dick, a huge, annoying, mean, dick.)

Jason was mean, harsh, angry (justifiably so), and he barely tolerated Tim's existence at times. To be completely honest, Tim wasn't one hundred percent sure that Jason wouldn't still kill him, but he was Jason . 

He was Bruce's Jason . 

And if Tim could bring him back, if Tim could fix them , Bruce wouldn't have that haunted look in his eyes when he saw Tim out of the corner of his eye and mistook him for Jason. Alfred wouldn't have that tension in his shoulders and behind his eyes. Dick wouldn't spend so much time in Blüdhaven. Jason would realize he didn't need to be angry anymore. 

If Tim could bring Jason home they'd be a family again. 

(And Tim would be obsolete.)  

Which is why Tim kept sneaking out to the Alley. 

Bruce and Dick had told him separately to stay away from it.

Jason had told him to stay away. 

But Jason also hadn't killed him at the Tower. 

So Tim snuck out to the Alley, waited for Jason to find him, and haunted the Red Hood as he stomped around his territory. Tim was going for a sort of exposure therapy, getting Jason used to his existence which would hopefully grow into tolerance and then maybe Tim could convince him to go home. 

Hopefully.

It was far from precise and Tim was decidedly not a licensed psychiatrist, so the efficacy of the plan was not guaranteed, but Tim had to do something . He was the only one who knew Jason was alive , much more in Gotham and well within reach. 

And, so far, Tim's plan seemed to be working! 

(Insofar as he was still alive and Jason hadn't beaten the everliving shit out of him again (yet) .) 

Tim was coming back from one of his "sessions" with Jason, (a notably successful one in that Jason hadn't yelled at him terribly much when he found him (Progress!)) thinking about current cases and deciding he could probably go one more night without sleeping (provided he had plenty of coffee) when he noticed something amiss. 

On the way to his window, he passed the front door, and the pot that hid the spare key was just slightly misplaced. No more than a couple centimeters to the right of its usual spot, the pot was otherwise completely normal looking. 

Maybe his parents were back early and had lost their keys? 

They'd have at least texted him that they were coming back though, or their secretary would have, but it probably wasn't them.

It was more likely Mrs.Mac or the gardener had bumped it at some point and Tim simply hadn't noticed until then. It was probably just Tim's brain fixating on a small detail it hadn't had the time to catalogue before. That happened sometimes, his brain playing catchup on his surroundings after periods of Tim being too in his head to keep track. 

Tim continued on to his window, shimmying up the tree outside and scooting along his desired branch before he shoved his window open, all the while considering if he wanted to break out his good coffee for the night. He'd just decided on 'yes' when he made it through his window and sensed the person pressed against the wall next to the window. 

Tim whipped around to face the person even as he was jumping away from them, and heard the squeak of the floorboards where another person was looming by his bedroom door. 

His brain kicked into overdrive assessing the situation. Tim wasn't in the Robin suit (He was stupid enough to try to bring Jason home, but not so stupid as to wear what was obviously a trigger to Jason while he did it) which meant no weapons, but the preservation of his identity. The person he could see was dressed like a ninja and seemed surprised that Tim had noticed them. 

Everything in his room seemed untouched from when he'd left to haunt Jason, which meant this probably wasn't a robbery. This left two possibilities in Tim's mind.

One: they were there to kill him.

Two: they were there to kidnap him. 

His brain processed all of this in the two second span between him setting foot in his room and him standing with his back pressed against the edge of his desk. From his new vantage point, Tim could see that the person by the door was also dressed like a ninja. 

"Hello gentle-ninjas." Tim said without thinking. "What can I do ya for?" 

The stupid midwestern phrase made Tim silently curse Kon in the second before the window-ninja threw something at him. 

Moving on instinct, Tim grabbed the first thing his hands touched on his desk and ended up blocking the projectile with his laptop. 

In the second's silence that followed, he looked down to see some kind of syringe dart embedded in the case of his laptop. 

Kidnapping, then , the analytical part of his brain said. 

Fucking ninjas , the Tim side of his brain hissed. 

Then everything was a flurry of movement as the door-ninja charged at Tim. He turned to face them, swinging his laptop hard against their outstretched arm (another syringe in their hand). The laptop and the ninja's arm both cracked loudly in the almost silence of the room and Tim winced mentally for his poor laptop. 

In that same moment the window-ninja was moving towards Tim and he dropped the laptop, grabbed the quietly cursing door-ninja and spun so the window-ninja's flying kick caught their associate in the ribs (The door-ninja was definitely speaking in Arabic and had some very not nice things to say about Tim's mother). 

Tim almost felt bad for the now crumpled door-ninja before he remembered they were there to kidnap him and he bolted out of the now unblocked door and down the hall towards the stairs. 

If Tim could make it out of the house and across the mile between Wayne Manor and the Drake residence he could grab his bo staff or Bruce or Alfred and they'd clean up the ninjas and it'd be fine . 

He just had to make it out of the house. 

Easy! This was Tim's home territory-literally!-he knew the place inside and out and-holy fucking shit there was another ninja.

Tim jumped over a leg set to sweep his ankles and started bolting down the stairs. He was forced to leap over another goddamn ninja halfway down and landed badly a few stairs down, twisting his ankle and losing his balance to tumble down the rest of the stairs in a mess of limbs. 

He jerked to his feet before the momentum of his fall had even dissipated, ignoring the throb of his ankle and the ache of what would surely be bruises over the rest of his body to keep running. 

The path to the front door was blocked by the hall-ninja who'd slid down the banister in a move that reminded Tim of Dick, so Tim sprinted for the kitchen. 

Unfortunately, stair-ninja leapt the banister, landed, rolled, and popped up directly in Tim's path. Tim was, however, moving too fast to redirect, so he hit the deck, praying he'd be able to slide between the ninja's legs. 

He was, through no action of his own, able to slide between the ninja's legs, because not even a second after he'd dropped a dart had flown over his head and stuck in the chest of the stair-ninja.

An incredulous, disbelieving laugh barked out of Tim's throat as he leapt up on the other side of the fainting ninja. 

Maybe he would make it out! Maybe he'd make it to the Manor and it'd be okay and- nope. 

Because of course there was a kitchen-ninja. 

Smaller than the rest, crouched on the island in the kitchen, glittering green eyes gleaming with delight as the dart hit Tim square in the center of his chest. 

"Fucking . . . ninjas." Tim hissed furiously as his body instantly went numb. 

He fumbled for his wrist, for the watch that held the emergency beacon Bruce gave him as his legs gave out. Tim couldn't quite get his fingers to obey as the little ninja hopped off the island and moved to stand over Tim. 

"Pathetic." The little ninja snipped out, glaring down at Tim as his eyesight flickered. 

Fucking ninjas , Tim thought before everything slipped away. 

XxX

Halfway through his Thursday night routine, Jason got antsy. 

The little bird hadn't come around.

The fuckhead had made it a habit to follow Jason around on Thursdays from the moment Bruce let him out of the Manor after the Tower incident. He even went through the trouble to get messages to Jason to tell him when he'd miss a day. 

Which was the only reason Jason was bothered by the Pretender's absence. It was inconvenient for Jason to have arranged his schedule around the annoyance of having the kid follow him around only for the kid not to show up. 

It was especially vexing in the wake of Talia's visit the week before. 

She'd melted from the shadows mere minutes after the kid had headed back home for the night and Jason's gums had been itching ever since. 

Spitting venom and getting as much back from the kid had been something Jason was counting on to soothe the irritation. With the kid's non-attendance of their informal bitching session Jason's head was swimming the urge to main and/or kill. 

He'd just be extra bitchy when the kid inevitably showed up the next week. 

XxX

Jason was sliding from irritated to pissed faster than a kid sledding down a hill of straight ice. 

The Pretender hadn't shown up. 

Again. 

It was infuriating! Jason had put off Important Things because he'd been expecting the kid's presence!

Unless the kid came up with an excellent excuse, Jason would be cussing his ass out for hours the next time he showed up. 

XxX

Something was wrong. 

Three weeks with no message meant something was wrong . 

Even when the kid was confined to the Manor he managed to find ways to tell Jason he wouldn't be in the Alley. 

He'd been gone for three weeks and Robin had been gone longer, benched, probably, because of the time the kid had chased someone on Jason's shitlist into the Alley. 

The kid was as petty as Jason was, which meant there was a chance Bruce didn't even realize something was off, that the kid was missing. 

Chapter Text

Three weeks and one day into the kid's disappearance, Jason left the Alley, entered the Bats' territory. 

Bruce found him almost immediately, not that Jason was trying to hide, swinging down to land on Jason's chosen roof within twenty minutes of his exit of the Alley. 

Jason was all too familiar with the posturing and the looming and didn't bother looking up from the dealer he was monitoring as Bruce did his whole intimidation routine. 

"Where's your little bird?" Jason lowered his viewfinder as the dealer shuffled into an alley. 

"That's none of your business." Bruce snapped out immediately. "What are you doing out of the Alley? I leave your territory alone on the condition that you don't leave it." 

Jason barked a sharp laugh, green fury edging into his brain. "You stay out of the Alley because you can't handle it. You aren't willing to do what's necessary to keep the scum there in line." 

Jason heard the creak of leather as Bruce surely clenched his fists under the cape. 

"What are you doing out of the Alley." Each word was grit out with fury evident. 

"None of your business." Jason spat in reply, vision beginning to wash green. "But a word of advice; keep a closer eye on your little bird. He's been sticking his nose places it doesn't belong." 

Jason turned to make his way back to the Alley, nearly deafened by fury singing sweet. 

"What did you do to him?" Bruce grabbed Jason's shoulder, trying to stop him from leaving.

Jason had a gun out and pointed at his face in barely half a second. 

"Nothing." His voice modulator crackled over the hissed word. "But if he's not careful, someone will do something. You don't exactly have a shining record with your little birds, do you? I'd see what your boy's been doing, before it's too late." 

XxX

Three weeks and four days into the Pretender's disappearance, Jason broke into his house. 

He was bored, had the time, and Bruce wasn't doing shit to find the kid, so . . . Jason was going to. 

The kid's window would be unlocked, and Jason knew for a fact that that was not out of the ordinary. The kid never locked the window, he used it more than the goddamn door, so Jason decided to use it as his point of entry. 

Except he got to the window and it was not unlocked. 

Twelve different alarm bells started ringing at the discovery, and Jason shimmied back down the tree and went to the front door. Retrieving the key from under the pot next to the door, Jason let himself quietly into the house. 

Upon first glance it looked untouched, upon second it looked barren. 

There was no dust, no dirt, not a single indication of anything alive having ever been in the place. It put him on edge and he unholstered one of his guns, prepared for any sort of opponent to appear. 

Jason made his way silently up the stairs, examining every inch of the place for any indication of something amiss. He made his way carefully down the hall to the kid's room, pressing the unlatched door ajar with the muzzle of his gun. 

The room looked . . . well it looked like a teenaged boy's bedroom, which is to say it was a fucking mess. 

Unfortunately for Jason's investigation, it looked like the normal kind of mess, and not like the kind of mess caused by a fight. With no obvious clues to there being anything amiss, Jason began to look closer. 

There were several case files on the desk, all open and in various stages of completion, along with a laptop and about five million sticky notes. On the back corner of the desk, a digital camera was set next to a bag the appeared to have several specialty lenses tucked carefully inside. The chair was haphazardly left out, as if the kid had gotten up in a rush and hadn't bothered to push it back in. 

Around the rest of the room there were clothes thrown haphazardly about, and the bed was, predictably, unmade. There was a sleek black backpack set against the wall under the window frame and Jason recognized it from the kid's incessant stalking. 

After a quick glance to double check the room was vacant except for himself, he holstered his gun and moved to sift through the backpack. 

He found packaged snacks, water bottles, two grapples, and a first aid kit, all things he had seen the kid make some use of during the evenings he stalked Jason. That the bag was still there was just another red flag thrown onto the fire. 

Even if the kid was off galavanting around Gotham, he'd have taken at least the grapples and the first aid kit.

Jason moved on from the backpack, walking to poke around the nightstand. 

There was an old fashioned digital clock, a handful of change, several charging cords, a watch, three empty coffee cups, and three more case files stacked haphazardly on the small space. Jason poked through the case files, and found them in similar states to those on the desk. He picked up the watch and flipped it over in his hand a few times, idly trying to figure out what the fuck could be going on. 

He ran his thumb over the face of the watch a few times as he considered his evidence.

One; the kid hadn't been to the Alley for over three weeks with no message to tell Jason he wouldn't be there. 

Two; his window was locked, which was something the kid never did for the sake of convenience. 

Three; . . . 

So maybe Jason didn't really have all that much evidence that something was wrong, but he knew the kid would have said something if he wasn't gonna be able to get to the Alley. He went through the trouble of telling Jason if he was gonna be fifteen minutes late to entering the Alley, much more fucking disappearing for three entire weeks. With the window being locked and the kid's complete absence from the Alley, it was more than enough proof for Jason that something happened to the kid. 

Jason clenched his fingers tight around the watch, furious with the lack of proof for what he knew was true. 

Menacing the kid was his responsibility, and if anyone had done something to the kid, Jason was gonna fucking eviscerate them. 

He went to toss the watch back onto the nightstand but paused as he saw it in more detail. He lifted the watch to examine the face. Running his thumb along the side of the facing, he found a tiny hidden button. Pressing the button popped out a tiny tray with another button. 

It was an emergency beacon, no doubt about it. 

Now why on Earth would the kid, who was pretty stupid, but not that stupid, leave his emergency beacon behind if he was going anywhere? 

Ladies and gentlemen , Jason thought, I present to you, the third piece of evidence.

XxX 

Four weeks into the kid's disappearance, Nightwing found Jason in the Alley. 

He dropped into the alley where Jason was taking a breather and had Jason up against the wall of the alley in seconds, one escrima stick shoved tight against Jason's throat and the other raised as a potentially deadly threat. 

"What the fuck did you do to Robin?" Dick's voice was all grit and fury as Jason had never heard it before. 

Bitter rage welled poisonous in Jason's chest. 

"I haven't touched your precious little birdie." Jason spat in reply. " I'm the one who warned the fucking Bat that he was in trouble. I'm the one who noticed something wrong first . I have been trying to fucking find him. How long ago did he tell you the bird was missing? Huh?" 

Dick's face twitched, something like guilt briefly creasing his eyebrows. 

"Today? Huh? I told him a week ago. I told him the bird was in trouble a week ago ." Jason continued in a snarl. "I'm the one who noticed something was wrong with the birdie."

"Why do you care?" Dick asked lowly, adjusting his grip on the escrima stick against Jason's neck. "Why have you been tracking Robin?"

"He wouldn't leave me alone."  Jason snapped. "He kept coming to the Alley, and your Bat didn't even fucking notice . So I figured someone had to watch out for the fucking kid. Someone had to make sure he didn't get into trouble. I'd be a pretty shit fucking hypocrite if I didn't watch out for him." 

"You beat the shit out of him the first chance you got." Dick's face was filled with mistrust and something in Jason howled with griefangerpain at seeing that mistrust being leveled at him from his big brother Dick. 

"I sure fucking did." Jason hissed. "He had no business putting on that fucking costume after what happened to the last child who wore it. No child should be out here. No child should be fighting the shit the Bat makes him fight." 

"Batman needs him. The city needs him." Dick argued.

"They shouldn't need him! They shouldn't need a goddamn child to take care of them!" Jason's voice modulator crackled with his shout. "No child should bear the responsibility of this city's problems! Or that man's! You let that kid take on those burdens and now he's paying the fucking price for it, and you're too busy blaming the wrong fucking people to do anything about it!" 

Dick stumbled a step back, like the words had been a physical blow. 

There was a pregnant pause that weighed heavy on the air. 

"I don't know about you, but I'm going to fucking do something about the fuckers who went after the kid, and if you want to join me, feel fucking free." Jason stepped away from the wall. "But stay the fuck out of my way if you aren't gonna be of use." 

Dick stepped back, giving Jason more room, and turned halfway towards the other side of the alley. He clenched his fists around his escrima sticks and took a heavy breath. 

"What do you know?" Dick's voice was low and flat when he spoke. 

"I've got people keeping an eye out for him around the city, but they haven't found anything." Jason shoved his fists into the pockets of his jacket. "He's been gone for at least four weeks as of today."

"Four weeks?!" Dick whipped his head up to stare at Jason, the white lenses of his domino wide with shock.

"He was benched even before that, for coming into the Alley during patrol." Jason continued. "I went to his house-."

"How do you know where he lives?" Dick cut him off.

"He's been stalking me for months. A guy gets curious, sue me." Jason snapped impatiently. "Anyway, I went to his house and his window was locked."

"And?" Dick crossed his arms and leaned against the alley across from Jason.

"He never locks his window, he uses it more than the fucking door." Jason huffed. "And I found his watch with the emergency beacon in his room along with the bag he uses to run around in the Alley." 

"Now that's something, he never takes the watch off." Dick perked up. "Was it damaged?" 

"No." Jason rolled his eyes under his helmet. "I'm no fucking amateur, I know that that's something. You Bats are too fucking paranoid to go anywhere without some kind of tracker. Speaking of, are there any others that might still be on him?"

"It's not likely if he didn't have his suit." Dick hummed contemplatively. "I'm gonna go check his house and see if I can find anything you missed."

Jason gave him the stink eye through his helmet. 

"I'm not saying it because I think you missed something obvious, I'm saying it because I know the kid better than you do." Dick huffed. "I'm more likely to notice small details that no one else would." 

"Fine." Jason grabbed a spare comm out of his belt and threw it to Dick. "Here, call me if you find anything." 

"Sure." Dick agreed easily, catching the comm and tucking it into his ear. "Look, I'm gonna have to update Batman on this, can you be civil about it long enough to find him?" 

"Fine." Jason grit out. "I'm gonna do some more looking around town, we'll rendezvous if either of us find something."

"Fine." Dick shot his grapple and swung out of the alley. 

Chapter Text

Bruce was not a perfect man.

He was not a perfect father.

He was not a perfect mentor. 

He was not even very good at being a father or a mentor. 

But he tried. 

He tried and sometimes it wasn't enough. 

He'd learned that lesson hard with Jason and how he handled Dick in the wake of it. 

He'd learned his lesson and he was trying to be better with Tim. 

He was pretty sure he was failing. 

When Hood berated him on that rooftop he was sure he was failing. 

Tim was a capable kid, and obviously skittish about adult supervision, so Bruce tried to give him his space while also managing his more reckless habits. It was a hard balance to strike and Bruce had obviously failed to maintain it. 

Hood had brought Tim to his attention on purpose, of that, Bruce was certain. 

His motivations behind the act were, as of yet, unclear. He claimed innocence in the matter, but he'd known something was up with Tim, which meant he was keeping track of him somehow. Considering what had happened at the Tower, Bruce did not trust his intentions to be noble or even anything other than malicious. 

But he'd still brought Tim to Bruce's attention.

Could it have been to torture Bruce?

Hood seemed passionate about what had happened to Jason. Could he have done the same to Tim to punish Bruce for allowing Tim on the streets? Was he hinting at it to drive Bruce insane?

The thought made dread and heavy grief boil low in Bruce's stomach. 

The very night Hood approached him, Bruce had tried to contact Tim. Texted him to check on the cases he was working on, and when he had no reply by the next evening, Bruce had started to quietly panic.

There was every possibility that Tim was ignoring him on account of being benched, but Bruce had felt such terror when the boy had ended up in Hood's territory. The man had already brutalized Tim in a place that had previously been safe , letting Tim anywhere near where Hood considered his territory scared Bruce more than anything. 

But still, Tim often made his displeasure with Bruce known by long silences, so Bruce reassured himself with the fact that his emergency beacon hadn't lit up, and let it be for another three days. He texted Tim a few more times over those days, pursuing the case files as a cover for his growing anxieties. 

Alfred realized something was wrong at that point. 

On the fourth day after Hood's warning Bruce tried calling Tim. 

He didn't answer. 

Bruce tried to stay rational, tried to tell himself that Tim was just angrier than usual, that he was still just ignoring Bruce.

(Tim always answered when Bruce called, it was an unspoken thing that calls were something they always answered, even when texts weren't.) 

Bruce went by the Drake residence the evening of the fourth day. Tim didn't answer the door.

Bruce told himself Tim was out at a friend's house.

He called again on the fifth morning.

Tim didn't answer. 

Bruce decided then that something was wrong. 

(He fucking knew he'd fail again.)  

He checked cameras all around and the few that were in Crime Alley for the past several weeks, searching for evidence of Hood's involvement. 

He found something four weeks and five days previous. 

Tim. 

Tim sneaking into Crime Alley in dark clothes and following Hood around for hours.

Hood letting Tim into the Alley, letting Tim follow him around. 

Bruce went further back, found footage of Tim entering the Alley nearly every Thursday for months . Of Hood finding Tim, yelling at him, Tim snarking right back, the pair wandering the Alley. 

Hood protecting Tim on rare occasions. 

It didn't make sense. 

Not after the Tower. 

Hood made it very clear he despised Batman, and Robin. 

He clearly knew who Tim was, could have hurt him, killed him, at any moment, but hadn't.

Didn't. 

Maybe it was because Tim was a kid? 

Hood protected kids, protected innocents in the Alley with violence and fear as his weapons. 

But he'd nearly killed Tim. 

Bruce couldn't make sense of it. 

He decided it would be easier to not try to.

Instead, he tried to find Tim. 

On the last night that had footage of Tim going to the Alley, Bruce tracked his path back to the Drake house right up to the edge of the city. There was no evidence of Tim leaving the place after that, and since it was summer and therefore there was no school, there really wasn't a reason for him to have left. 

The Drake's didn't have a security system that included cameras, so there was no way for Bruce to check if or when Tim had left the house, or if anyone had taken him. 

By the fifth evening, Bruce was scouring every camera feed he could get access to in the city.

He was interrupted by a call from the Justice League. 

He didn't get back until early on the seventh morning. 

Alfred made him sleep.

Bruce called Dick the moment he woke up. 

Dick was in Gotham by noon. 

Bruce told him everything he knew. 

Dick left the cave in a storm of fury. 

Bruce kept looking through the camera feeds. 

"B." Dick's voice came over the comms, breaking Bruce out of his trance.

"What did you find?" Bruce couldn't help hope sparking low in his chest. 

"Rendezvous on the bank on Fifth and Magnolia." Dick ordered.

"Nightwing-." Bruce began.

"Twenty minutes." Dick interrupted. "Call Oracle." 

The bleep of his comm turning off came through and Bruce knew he had no choice but to obey. 

Twenty minutes later Bruce was on the bank with Oracle on the comms. 

Also on the bank were Dick and Hood.

They had a good distance between them, but didn't seem tensed or in conflict. Dick had a computer under his arm. 

"What is he doing here?" Bruce grit out, his anger at the non-answer of why the hell Hood looked after Tim in the Alley leaking into his voice. 

"He's the one who noticed Robin was gone." Dick said coldly. "He's also been looking for him for the past week."

The "unlike you " remained unsaid, but not uninsinuated. 

"Why?" Bruce grit out.

"Because someone had to look out for him, seeing as you aren't very good at it." Hood spat venomously, voice modulator doing nothing to hide his hatred. 

"And you're-?" Bruce began, hackles raised.

"Can we focus, please?" Barbara's voice cut in. "Why are we here, Nightwing?" 

"This." Dick held up the laptop. "I found it in Robin's room. It's not his." 

"What do you mean?" Bruce asked as Hood straightened.

"It's the same model as his, is set up to look exactly like his, but it doesn't have his or Oracle's programs on it." Dick said. "I was thinking she could take a look at it and try to track down an origin." 

"Is our perpetually asshole-ish frenemy in red invited to the conversation?" Barbara asked. 

"Yes." Dick answered before Bruce could.

"Cool." The sound of her typing came through the comms for a brief moment. "Hello, Hood. I'm Oracle, I know everything there is to know in Gotham, and I see all." 

"You're the techie." Hood seemed unmoved by her near instant access to his comm line. 

"In a word, yes." Barbara agreed.

"The laptop." Bruce redirected. 

"Right." Dick set it on an air conditioning unit and powered it on. "It's all yours, O." 

"Got it." She replied almost instantly. "It looks . . . like someone copied over as much data as they could recover from the hard drive on his actual computer."

"Meaning?" Bruce prompted.

"They had hands on his actual hard drive, but from what's here, I think it might've been damaged somehow." Barbara sounded thoughtful. "Robin’s not the type to leave things unprotected. He had protocols in place that would wipe certain things off the drive if it got damaged or if someone tried to break into it. There are several programs, files, and protocols absent that an outsider wouldn't know to look for if they were trying to make a convincing duplicate. The kind of files he’d have deleted." 

"So, someone fucked up his laptop and tried to replace it to avoid getting found out?" Hood summarized.

"Looks like it." Barbara agreed. "Computer aside, I haven't had any luck finding his phone. It's either powered off or broken, but either way I can't locate it."

"What about his emergency beacon?" Bruce asked. "Could you activate it remotely and track him with that?"

"It wouldn't help." Hood shot the idea down. "That was in his room too." 

"How do you know that?" Bruce's attention snapped to the man. 

"I was there three days ago, you know, while you were still dragging your feet pretending he wasn't missing." Hood snarled. 

"And why exactly are you involved with this at all?" Bruce stalked closer to the man.

"B-." Dick moved to get between them.

"Because someone has to look out for the kids in this city, and it doesn't seem like you've got a talent for that." Hood's tone was mocking, the blank slate of his helmet hiding the microexpressions Bruce would've liked to be able to read. 

"Hood-." Dick began in warning. 

"Right, remind me how you were 'looking out for him' when you beat him half to death." Bruce pressed against the hand Dick had against his chest. 

"I was making a fucking point. The point that no child should be expected to carry your crusade on their fucking shoulders, and letting him wear that damned costume will get him killed just like the last one." Hood jabbed a finger furiously at Bruce, emphasizing every point of his argument. "It probably has gotten him killed, considering he's been gone a month and you didn't even notice ." 

Something in Bruce reeled, stinging with the pinpoint accuracy that the accusations and vitriol struck with. 

"Hood, that's enough!" Dick shoved the man back, away from Bruce. "You said you'd keep a lid on it long enough to find Robin."

"We'd have a better fucking time of it if he didn't fuck it all up by completely ignoring the indications that something was wrong with the kid." Hood stayed focused on Bruce. 

"You're right, but arguing about it is just gonna make this take even longer, so calm the fuck down and try to actually be helpful." Dick scolded and hell, did that sting.

Dick blamed him.

Bruce could hardly fault him for it either. 

(Bruce blamed himself, for this, for Jason, for letting Dick ever wear the Robin colors.)

"Oracle, can you keep an eye out for the kid's phone? Like, if it turns on or something?" Hood asked after a long minute. 

"Yes." Barbara answered. "I also want to get my hands on that laptop. Looking at the serial number might mean I can track it from manufacturing to who planted it in Robin's room." 

"I'll bring it by, when we're done here." Dick volunteered. "In the meantime, run facial recognition for Robin anywhere you can imagine him even considering going for the past month."

"Already on it." Barbara reported. 

"B, you should go by Robin's house as well." Dick directed. "You might be able to see something we missed." 

"I'm gonna find out what the Rogues know." Hood announced as Bruce nodded in acknowledgment of Dick's idea. "Could be a Riddler plot." 

"Right." Dick agreed. "Let Oracle know if you find anything, and we'll rendezvous here again in twenty-four hours."

Chapter Text

It had been, by Tim's count, twenty-four(ish) days since he'd been kidnapped by ninjas. 

The ninjas didn't seem to know he knew Arabic, which was good for him, because that meant they talked around him without caution.

Here's what information he'd gathered because of that:

One; the ninjas were for sure from the League of Assassins. Bruce had told Tim to avoid them at all costs, and, in fact, hadn't wanted Tim to know anything about them. (Tim had, of course, found out everything he could about them at the first chance he got.)

Two; the League of Assassins definitely knew all of their identities and their leaders had a hater boner for Tim specifically. (This had pretty much confirmed that they were responsible for Jason's return to life.) 

Three; it would be nearly impossible for anyone to find him if they were even looking in the first place. (Tim had been benched before his kidnapping, and pissed with Bruce on account of that fact, meaning Bruce would more than likely assume Tim was giving him the silent treatment. Tim's parents were out of the country for at least another three months, and Mrs.Mac would assume he was at the Wayne's again when she didn't see him at the house. Dick was in Blüdhaven, pissed at Bruce and unlikely to look for Tim even if he ended up in Gotham anytime soon. Jason was the only one who might've realized Tim was gone and that was only because Tim went through a lot of trouble to establish a sense of consistency with him (it was a part of Tim's pseudo-therapy plan for Jason's rehabilitation). The odds of Jason doing something about Tim missing were somewhere between the odds of pigs flying and Bruce actually communicating his emotions with Dick and them making up (extremely unlikely) so there was probably no one coming for Tim.) 

Four; the little green eyed ninja was actually a child (Bruce's child, if the kid's mutterings were to be believed) and he hated Tim even more than his mother and grandfather. (The kid (Damian, Tim had gathered) was the heir to the LoA and, allegedly, Batman, and loved to tell Tim how badly he was doing as Robin. There was clear manipulation happening there, and Tim almost felt bad for the little shit.) 

Five; he'd been kidnapped because he was interfering with Jason. (Jason was, evidently, a pet project of Talia Al Ghul (daughter of Ra's Al Ghul, head of the LoA), though what she was doing with him was unclear as of yet.)

There were more things Tim had learned, but these five were most important in his mind. They pointed to only one possible course of action;

Tim had to break himself out of Nanda Parbat and take Damian with him. 

This was easier said than done, and would, in fact, be made harder by the fact that Damian hated Tim and would not go willingly with him. 

Leaving Damian behind was not an option, though. 

Even if he wasn't actually Bruce's son, he knew their identities, he believed he was heir to the Bat, and he was a child obviously being manipulated by the adults around him. Tim couldn't leave Damian and maintain the title of Robin. 

The good news was that Tim already had some experience subverting LoA brainwashing and manipulation with Jason. 

Jason, who had the added factor of Pit Madness. 

Damian was just an angry, abused kid. 

Tim could do it, he could win the kid over and get the hell out. 

He just had to move carefully. 

XxX 

Dick was furious.

He was furious at himself, at Bruce, at Tim,  at the Red Hood.

He was furious with Gotham and Blüdhaven. 

He was furious with the world. 

But being furious didn't fix anything.

Action fixed things, so Dick put away his fury, and started working. 

He confronted the Hood, searched Tim's room, sent Bruce to search Tim's room, gave Babs the imposter laptop, checked with the Titans, pretended he wasn't suffocating inside in front of Alfred, tossed and turned in his bed at the Manor for a few hours, patrolled Gotham, retuned the the bank roof at the designated time. 

Hood was already waiting. 

Bruce arrived seconds after Dick. 

Babs started talking moments after they were all there.

"The laptop was an almost perfect duplicate of Robin's." She reported. "Right down to the serial number, so I wasn't able to find anything with that. There weren't any fingerprints except for Robin's on it, so nothing on the forensic side either. His phone hasn't shown back up, and all of his other trackers are in the Cave. I've got nothing." 

If Dick didn't know her as well as he did, he wouldn't have heard the frustration and grief in her voice, and he hated the situation all the more for how it hurt her. 

"Alright, thanks, O." Dick tried to sound like he wasn't losing his mind. "I checked with the Titans, former and current, and they haven't seen or heard anything from Robin either. What did you get from the Rogues?" 

Hood's arms were crossed as he leaned against an AC unit. "S'far as I can tell, they aren't involved, but the Black Mask has been up to something recently, so I wouldn't rule him out." 

"Okay, O, start seeing what you can find on Mask." Dick instructed. "B, did you find anything?" 

"His window was locked." Bruce said shortly. "And I found a few drops of some kind of dried substance on the floor near his desk. I collected a sample to analyze, but it hasn't come back yet." 

"You got any guesses for what it could be?" Dick prompted.

"A sedative, maybe, or a poison." Bruce said. "If it's either of those, there's a chance I won't get anything back on it depending on the rate of deterioration." 

"So we've got a grand total of shit for dick." Hood sounded like he was working himself up into a fury. 

"There's the lead on Mask." Dick tried to head off the new potential argument. "Find anything, O?"

"Not much, looks like Mask is old school, keeps most of his stuff offline, but I've got a few addresses." Oracle offered. 

"If we're going after Mask, we're doing it my way." Hood stood up off of the AC unit. "He's in a league you aren't used to." 

"I've dealt with worse things than Black Mask." Bruce growled and Dick almost wanted to scream.

"Black Mask is my problem and I won't incur excessive casualties because you try to handle him your way." Hood's hands were balled into fists at his sides.

Bruce didn't immediately respond, and Dick could tell it was because he was surprised at Hood's declaration of intent to preserve the health and safety of innocents. Dick wasn't as surprised, their conversation in the Alley had illuminated things about the man's belief system which indicated he had a moral compass Dick previously considered absent. It was still strange for the man who ruled Crime Alley with an iron fist to be concerned about casualties. 

"I think he's right, B." Dick said before Bruce could formulate something to say. "Mask is an Alley problem, that's Hood's specialty, and it's better to defer to people who know what they're doing." 

Bruce frowned a little deeper. "Fine." 

"Alright O." Dick took a deep breath. "Tell us what you got."

XxX

Twenty-seven(ish) days into his kidnapping Tim was brought before Ra's Al Ghul. 

He was dragged from his tiny, dark, freezing cell and shoved along into one of the many rooms that lined the tunnels of Nanda Parbat before being kicked to his knees in front of Ra's. 

He'd have been intimidated if he weren't too fucking tired of this shit to care, actually. 

"Do you know who I am?" Ra's asked Tim in a deep, even voice. 

A hardass , Tim thought.

He shook his head as meekly as he could. "No, sir." 

"I am Ra's Al Ghul, the Demon's Head." Ra's said lowly, a vicious smile spreading across his face. 

"I don't . . . I don't know what that means." Tim tried as hard as he could to sound like a kid scared shitless, he thought the stammer was a nice touch. "Why did you kidnap me?" 

"The Detective didn't tell you about me? Tsk tsk, I'm disappointed." Ra's hummed, turning away from Tim to gaze out of the windows behind him. 

It was night, the darkness outside broken up by distantly flickering lights. (Tim might have to reevaluate how long he thought he'd been kidnapped for, what with jet lag and the portion of time he'd been unconscious for, he could've lost a day or two.)

"D-Do you mean Batman?" Tim glanced around the room in a purposely anxious way, noting the six ninjas that loomed in various places. 

"Oh, there's no need to try protecting his identity. I know Bruce." Ra's grinned over his shoulder. "As I know you, Timothy Drake." 

That was not surprising, but was, in fact, unsettling, Tim decided. He let his face twist into a terrified mask, covering the indifference he'd have liked to show.

"Though, you prefer 'Tim', don't you?" Ra's continued. "I must admit, to have chosen to become Robin is an admirable thing, especially after what happened to our dear Jason." 

Ra's tuned to face Tim again, apparently relishing in Tim's drawn in shoulders and bone-white face (more due to the weeks of cold, damp, not-sleep than terror, but Ra's didn't need to know that). 

"I had hoped you'd be more fearless when we finally met. What's that thing they say about meeting heroes?" 

Ra's stepped off of the dais he'd been grandstanding on and crouched in front of Tim. 

"You asked why you are here. The answer is simple, you have been an interference. A roadblock for the true heir, my grandson." 

So that confirmed that the LoA had intended for Jason to kill Tim. 

That was . . . hmm.

It was one thing for your hero to almost kill you, it was another thing entirely to learn that he almost killed you because the world's most evil man wanted you dead.

"I- I'm sorry! I didn't know! I- I just- He was gonna kill himself, and . . . and no one else knew . . . and I was the only one who could do it!" Tim stammered pitifully, letting tears well up in his eyes. "N-Not because I'm special or anything! Just- . . . My parents . . . they wouldn't even notice if- . . . if anything happened, and n-no other kid would have been mature enough, s-so . . . I thought . . . I thought I could be a placeholder . . . until Bruce found someone better." 

Tim made sure to let his voice fall quiet towards the end of his speech, to demonstrate how cowed the poor, terrified pretender was. 

"Oh, there's no need to be so terrified, my boy." Ra's grinned viciously wide. "You won't be hurt here."

Liar , Tim scoffed mentally.

"My grandson, Damian, is more than well suited to take the weight of Robin's mantle from your shoulders."

He's like, five years old , Tim blinked his welling tears down his cheeks.

"H-He is?" 

"Of course he is, child. Damian has been preparing to inherit the title since he was old enough to know his father's name." Ra's lifted a hand to cradle Tim's face.

Ew, ew, ew, ew, ew, gross, creepy, gross , Tim leaned into the nurturing touch. 

"If you teach him everything he needs to know to inherit Robin, you would not have to carry the weight of it any longer. You could rest, Tim." 

If Tim were actually a cowering, terrified child, the offer would seem a boon. 

Tim, however, was a petty, sleep deprived, smart child, so the offer looked like what it was; a manipulation tactic to put Damian in a better position to depose Tim. 

"A-And I'd be able to go home ?" Tim sniffled. 

"Of course , dear boy." Ra's cooed. "I do apologize for the uncouth nature of how you were brought here, Damian moved without my approval. He grew concerned that Jason would kill you before he had the chance to meet you. Jason . . . well, we have done our best for the boy, but the Lazarus Pit is not always kind to those who enter it." 

Fucking lying ass ninja , Tim thought.

"I-I've been trying to help him." Tim tilted his tone up, trying to sound hopeful. "T-To bring him home to Bruce." 

"I know you have." Ra's moved his hand to smooth over Tim's hair and Tim fought the urge to puke. "What you've done for Jason is miraculous and incredibly courageous, especially after what he did to you." 

I bet you think I'm actually the stupidest person alive , Tim looked into Ra's' snake eyes and knew the man wanted him dead.

"Bruce and Dick, they're still grieving." Tim looked down at his hands, as if insecure. "I need to fix it, to bring Jason back to them. If I can bring him back, if I can explain he didn't know what he was doing, Bruce would forgive him, right?" 

Tim looked up at Ra's, eyes wide and uncertain.

"You do not need to worry about that any longer, Tim." Ra's put on a smile. "I will ensure Jason's safe return to the family. All you must do is teach Damian. Could you do that?" 

Eat shit and die , Tim thought. 

"I think so." He sniffled.

Chapter Text

Five weeks into the kid's disappearance they had zero leads, zero evidence as to what took him, and zero clues as to the next direction to move in. 

Striking at Black Mask got them nothing but injuries and arguments, Bruce's substance was too deteriorated to identify, and there was absolutely nothing on the tech side that Oracle could trace. 

The Thursday night that made five weeks also turned up Talia, the woman melting from the shadows to greet Jason on an Alley rooftop. 

"Jason." She hummed lowly, reaching out for his shoulder. "You look tense, what's wrong?" 

"Don't touch me, Talia." Jason knocked her hand away. "What are you doing here?" 

"I am here to check on you." Talia frowned at him. "Can I not be concerned for the boy I raised as my own?" 

"You did not raise me." Jason snapped, and green, green, green , began seeping in behind his eyes.

"Hood." Barbara's voice came through Jason's helmet. "Batman's requested your assistance." 

Fucking fantastic , Jason thought bitterly. 

"I took care of you, I taught you how to live again." Talia said. "Does that count for nothing?" 

"Hood, do you copy?" Barbara pressed.

Jason turned from Talia, lifting a hand to the side of his helmet to indicate he wasn't talking to her. "Not a great time for me, O." 

"Tough shit, Joker's out and Nightwing's already dealing with-." Barbara began.

"No." Jason growled, if he faced the Joker the green would take over and Jason would kill and kill and kill until something else killed him . "Black Mask was one thing, but that is not something I will ever touch. We aren't friends just because we're working on the same problem. Fuck off." 

Jason turned his comm off and turned back to face Talia with a symphony of green angerfearhurt rushing in his blood. She was looking at him with a soft, concerned expression.

"Who was that, Jason?" She prompted in a soft voice. 

"None of your fucking business." He tried to keep his breathing even as green rippled over his eyes like water. "Leave."

"Jason-." Talia reached out to touch his helmet.

Jason had her slammed against the stairwell wall in a heartbeat, her wrist nearly crushed in his grip, greengreengreen drowning out his thoughts. 

"You said you were here to check on me." He forced himself to take deep breaths. "You've done that. Leave."

"Jason-." Talia tried again. 

"Leave, before I kill you." Jason forced himself to step away from her, to turn his back and focus on the street below them. "If I ever see you again, I'll kill you." 

He turned his comm back on. 

"Where is N?" 

"Hood-." Barbara began. 

"If I bail his ass out he can go deal with the other problem." Jason hissed. "Where is he?" 

There was a long moment of silence. 

"Warehouse on Sixteenth and Newark." Barbara's voice was tight. "Penguin's there."

"Fine." Jason grunted and leapt off the roof. 

XxX

In the few hours that Dick slept, he had nightmares about Jason's death. 

Except instead of it being Jason, it was Tim who was bloodied and broken and burned. 

Tim, who was so much smaller than Jason despite being the same age Jason had been. Tim, who was so pale naturally, made paler by the lack of blood in his body. Tim, who had never really opened up to Dick no matter what Dick tried. Tim, who dragged Bruce back from the edge and forced Dick to start making up with him.

Dick avoided sleeping.

When he was awake, Jason's ghost haunted him again.

"It's kinda fucked up that you failed both of us." Jason said as he balanced along the edge of the roof Dick was catching his breath on. "I mean, you didn't even know he was gone for a month ." 

Jason climbed onto a gargoyle. "D'ya think he's getting tortured like I was? Or that he's already dead?" 

Dick wiped sweat from his mouth and took a deep breath, preparing to continue patrol. 

"I wonder if he cried out for you like I did." Jason swung his legs childishly (he was just a child ) . "I wonder why they took him. D'ya think it's cause they wanted to know B's identity?"

Dick ran and leapt off his roof as a scream lifted into the air. 

Jason followed.

"Hmm, that doesn't really make sense though." Jason's voice was still crystal clear as wind rushed in Dick's ears. "They didn't take him as Robin. They took him as Tim. If they knew he was Robin, then they probably also know B's identity. Maybe they were after his parents."

Dick plunged into the alley the scream had risen from, lashing out with his escrima sticks at a mugger.

"They're rich, you know." Jason leaned against the alley wall. "Could be to ransom him. Though, that wouldn't be very effective would it? No one can ever contact his parents, can they? S'not like it matters anyway, he's probably already dead like me. Probably already rotting, you know?" 

The mugging victim bolted out of the alley and Dick pinged Oracle to contact the GCPD to pick up the mugger.

"I wonder if he's unrecognizable yet." Jason skipped behind Dick as he made his way out of the alley.

"Oracle." Dick activated his comms. "Have we looked into anyone who might've gone after Robin to get to his parents?" 

"I'll bet they killed him the moment his parents didn't answer." Jason slung an arm around Dick's waist. "There's probably nothing left but rot and hair." 

"Not yet, I'll contact Batman and see if he knows anything while I start looking." Babs replied. 

There was a moment when Dick only heard the ambiance of Gotham layered under Jason humming an old lullaby Bruce had once sang to them, the ghost content to haunt Dick with only his presence for a moment.

"Are you doing okay?" Babs asked softly.

A short bark of a laugh burst out of Dick's throat without his permission. "Are any of us?" 

"Ni-. Dick." Babs' voice turned stern. "I mean it. After Jason d- . . . after Jason, I know you pretty much went off the deep end, and this? This is just as bad, if not worse, I want to make sure you're not . . . I dunno, just, you'll tell me? You'll tell me if your brain gets too fucked up?" 

"My brain has never not been fucked up." Dick grappled up onto a roof. "People who aren't fucked up don't get into this shit. I just want to find him. It's not knowing that's . . . I just hate not knowing." 

"I know." Babs sighed. "We'll find him. I know we'll find him." 

"I hope so." Dick said before he leapt off the roof in the direction of another scream. 

XxX 

Jack and Janet Drake did not have the kind of enemies who'd kidnap a child with the precision that currently had Bruce, Dick, and Barbara stumped. 

They did, however, spend months upon months in a number of countries that were excellent places for the kind of operatives who could disappear a kid like Tim without a trace. They also seemed to have a habit of smuggling rare artifacts from those counties back to Gotham. Such behavior could easily catch the attention of aforementioned operatives and with Tim left home alone far more often than any child should've been, he would've been more than an easy target. 

Bruce loathed that he'd allowed-engineered-the perfect circumstances for Tim to be taken without anyone noticing. 

But self-loathing, and grief, and anger, and fear would do Tim no good. 

Bruce got to work looking into the operatives capable of the precision required for such a clean crime scene who'd been in any of the countries Jack and Janet had smuggled artifacts out of within the past year and a half. 

He turned up a result he hated nearly immediately. 

"Nightwing." Bruce activated comms. 

"What've you got?" His eldest son (Could he still call Dick his son after he'd failed them all so spectacularly? Yes, yes, Dick was his son, would always be his son, no matter what happened to them, what they suffered. Bruce would not forsake him, not even in his mind.) sounded exhausted. 

"There are no obvious enemies of Robin's parents who'd be able to take him like this, but I found something else." Bruce explained. "They smuggle valuable items into Gotham on a semi-frequent basis from places that are safe havens for the kind of people capable of it, and I've found one who is currently in the area." 

"Who?" Dick asked immediately.

"Deathstroke is in Blüdhaven." Bruce replied. "There's no evidence it was him, but-."

"I'll take care of it." Dick's voice was deadly calm.

"Nightwing-." Bruce began, ready to demand he take backup.

"I'll take care of it." Dick repeated. "You keep looking for anyone else who could've done it." 

Bruce pressed his lips into a line, unhappy with the situation, but aware that they didn't have anyone else to send. 

Still, he didn't want to send the only son he had left he could still protect to face Deathstroke alone. 

"Be careful." Bruce said, voice tight. "Call for backup if anything happens." 

"I'll be in Blüdhaven-." Dick began to argue.

" Dick ." Bruce pressed his eyes closed. "I- . . . You need to stay safe. Tim needs both of us looking. He needs us." 

  I can't lose another son.

"I know, B." Dick's voice softened. "I'll be fine. Keep looking . Check with Oracle, share what you've found with her, she might be able to dig up more based on what you've got." 

"Right." Bruce opened his eyes and focused on the screen in front of him. 

"Alright, I'm headed for Blüdhaven." Dick's voice turned businesslike again. "I'll update if I find anything." 

They disconnected comms and Bruce got back to work, letting the world disappear until all that was left was the information trail. 

Some amount of time later, Dick was calling on comms. 

"Deathstroke isn't involved." He sounded winded, and beyond that, tired in a way Bruce couldn't be okay with. "He's here for something else." 

"Mm." Bruce hummed in acknowledgement, the thrum of exhaustion in his head making actual words unattractive.

"I'm about to head back towards Gotham, unless there's anything you or Oracle have found elsewhere?" Dick pressed.

"Haven't found evidence of any of the other potential suspects entering the country." Bruce reported, ignoring the pang of fearterrorgrief that struck him at the admittance.

Dick's sigh sounded more like the huff of breath elicited by a gut punch than a normal release of air. Bruce wanted to say something, anything , that would make his son feel even the tiniest bit better, but there was nothing. 

Tim was lost to the wind, and they had nothing . 

"I'm . . . I'm on my way back." Dick's voice was deceptively steady. "We should check in with Hood, see if his people have found anything." 

"Fine." Bruce did not agree with Hood's methods, but over the past week and a half he'd proved he could at least be relied on in a fight. "Ping Oracle when you get back into town, she's been asking after you." 

"Sure thing." Dick said, and Bruce did not believe for a moment that he'd answer Barbara's concern for him with anything but lies. "Catch ya later, B." 

Dick disconnected from comms and Bruce knew his civility was a result of his exhaustion and professionalism. 

His son was good at putting away his emotions for the sake of a mission and all too often Dick worked himself to the bone in pursuit of answers. (Nevermind that Bruce is the one who taught him that by example.) It burned something up in Bruce to know he'd done so badly that Dick was only civil towards him for Tim's sake. (Tim, who Bruce kept failing to protect or even properly care for .) 

Bruce dropped his head into his hands for a long moment, taking deep breaths to keep himself centered. If he stopped, if he let himself pause the feargriefguilt that hovered at the edge of his mind would slip in and Bruce would break . 

"Master Bruce." Alfred laid a gentle hand on his shoulder. "Perhaps now is a good time for you take a break and rest for a while." 

"I can't ." Bruce's voice broke and he looked up at his father imploringly, begging him to understand.

Alfred looked a million years old, his face drawn and wrinkles set deep. 

He pursed his lips together. "Very well. I'll put on a pot of the good coffee." 

Alfred gave Bruce's shoulder a single, firm squeeze, and then made his way toward the stairs.

Chapter Text

Alfred was familiar with grief.

He knew his own as intimately as he knew the grief of his son and grandson. The grief that drove them near insanity as they searched for Tim. 

He knew that, left unchecked, Bruce's grief would turn into self-flagellation, thoughts of how he should have been faster, stronger, smarter . Thoughts that would drive Bruce to the brutality he sank into after the loss of Jason. 

Dick's grief, allowed to fester, would morph into guilt, self-hatred, and anger. The boy would throw himself endlessly into danger, uncaring of the consequences to himself. 

(How alike they were, Alfred's only remaining family.) 

Alfred did what he could, encouraged sleep, food, breaks from the, as of yet, fruitless search, but he also knew that the only thing keeping them afloat was the action, the pursuit of anything that could lead to Tim. 

Polite young Tim, who Alfred had always worried about, from the very moment he appeared on their doorstep declaring he would take up the mantle of Robin. The boy who bloomed under any sort of positive attention and who was almost twice as stubborn as Bruce himself. The brilliant child who'd saved Alfred's son and brought Dick home. 

Alfred had never liked Bruce's hands off approach to the skittish child, but was all too aware of the way Tim slipped and shied away from being treated like family. It had whipped up something furious in Alfred's chest when Bruce had mistaken Tim for Jason and Tim had just smiled sadly and pressed past it like he'd expected it. 

Like he believed he was just a stand-in. 

Over time, Tim had opened up bit by bit, occasionally accepting invitations to eat with them in the manor and clashing so bullheadedly with Bruce he ended up benched for a month or more. 

But always, always , the boy kept his distance. 

If Alfred had known this would be the result, he'd have done whatever it took to get the boy to stay at the Manor. 

Instead, he now tried to mitigate the damage his son and grandson would do to themselves, and use his contacts to search where the others couldn't. 

There had still been nothing . 

Alfred felt older than he ever had before. 

XxX

Thirty-four(maybe) days into his kidnapping, Talia brought news from Gotham. 

Tim was teaching Damian one of the core tenants of being Robin; Escape Protocol (or Kitten Protocol, as Dick called it, which boiled down to going completely limp the moment someone grabs you so they could maneuver you as needed to get the fuck out of the gone-to-shit situation you were in), while Ra's supervised when Talia come into the training room. She looked harried, unsettled, and that immediately caught Tim's attention. 

(He noted a hand shaped bruise around one of her wrists that looked three or four days old based on the coloration.) 

Damian also looked up when his mother entered the room, but quickly returned his attention to Tim. 

(The kid really wasn't all that bad when it came down to it. He was just spoiled and kind of brainwashed, but took to Tim's teaching pretty well and with more focus than Tim expected from a seven-year-old.) 

Tim very carefully split his focus between the exercise of snatching Damian up and away from a pair of ninjas with wooden swords and the quiet Arabic conversation passing between Talia and her father. 

"The Undead Boy is becoming more volatile." Talia hissed, stroking at her bruised wrist with her other hand. "He is also working with people he called 'O' and 'N'."

Tim flinched out of the way of a flailing fist from Damian, the kid's instinctual reaction to being picked up was violence, and he hadn't quite mastered the going limp part completely yet.

(Jason was losing it and also working with Oracle and Nightwing??) 

"Don't worry about it, Damian." Tim said to the scowling boy. "It took me ages to stop flailing every time Bruce or Dick just picked me up." 

"Pretender Child must have had a greater calming effect upon him than we realized." Ra's hummed thoughtfully. 

"C'mon, let's try it again." Tim patted Damian's shoulder as the scowl didn't move an inch. 

"Our operatives there also reported he's been meeting and working with the Detective and the Eldest." Talia's eyes were sharp over Tim and Damian. "They went after a rival of the Undead Boy together." 

Tim and Damian squared up facing the ninjas. 

(Jason was working with Barbara, Dick, and Bruce??? Christ, Tim almost felt bad for whoever had the misfortune to be hunted down by Nightwing, Batman, and the Red Hood. He also wondered what on Earth could have made Jason team up with Bruce.) 

The ninjas feigned attacks at Tim and Damian and Tim turned on his heel, catching Damian around the middle to pull him away and earning an elbow, softened by willful hesitation, to the ribs for his trouble. 

"Oof!" Tim dropped to his knees like the blow had actually hurt, leaving Damian standing somewhat awkwardly next to him. 

"That is not expected." Ra's frowned slightly. "Do you know the reason?" 

"Surely that did not hurt you." Damian glanced between Tim and Ra's, he'd been sternly warned not to harm Tim and obviously feared whatever punishment breaking that rule would incur. 

(All the more reason to get him the hell out of there.) 

"I'm alright." Tim smiled, not his gala smile or his deflection smile, but his real one that was crooked and imperfect. "You held back that time! I can tell you didn't hit me as hard as usual! Great job!" 

A flush of pride rose on Damian's cheekbones as he scoffed and looked away from Tim. 

"It is unclear, but they have all been behaving out of the ordinary." Talia said. "The Undead Boy said he would kill me if I returned to the city." 

(That was somewhat unexpected. From what Tim had gathered, Talia had always been pretty safe around Jason, even when he was fresh out of the pit and completely out of his mind. For such a change to have occurred, the object of his Pit Madness inspired hatred must have shifted.) 

"You wanna try again? Or do you wanna do something else?" Tim asked Damian.

"What do you mean?" Damian returned his gaze to Tim, who was still sitting on the floor.

"Then do not." Ra's said. "If he is becoming more volatile, then he shall keep the Detective busy for longer. It will give us more time to prepare the heir and find a way to remove the Pretender Child."

I fucking knew you wanted me dead, you fucking lying ass ninja , Tim thought. 

"Well, sometimes, it can help to take a break from working on something and then come back to it later." Tim explained, shifting to sit cross legged and holding onto his ankles. "I've got some things I can teach you in the meantime, if you want to take a break from this." 

"Do you not work until you have accomplished the skill you are pursuing?" Damian's eyebrows creased. 

"You want me to abandon him?" Talia hummed. 

"It depends." Tim absently tugged at his bangs. "Something like this takes a lot of time to make instinctual, so it's a skill that I worked on in a lot of little sessions. Other things, say, like a fighting move or a throw are best perfected in a few long sessions for me. It can differ between people as well, depending on what learning style is best for them." 

"We will continue to monitor him." Ra's decided. "But you will not take part."

(That was interesting. They'd intended for Jason to kill Tim, but now that Tim was fully in their grip, there was no clear reason to keep Jason on their radar.) 

"I have not heard of this." Damian frowned. "Are you certain of its efficacy?" 

"Yeah!" Tim nodded. "Bruce and Dick are the ones who taught me about it." 

"If Batman deems this method satisfactory, then I suppose it is something I may learn." Damian nodded seriously to himself. "What would you teach me in the meantime?"

"You believe he would not kill others?" Talia asked lowly.

"Falling." Tim pushed himself to his feet. 

" Falling ?" Damian sounded incredulous. 

"Of course not." Ra's bared his teeth. "They will not do as you have done. They will observe from the shadows. Is there anything else?" 

"It's very important to know how to fall so that you don't get hurt when you do." Tim set his hands on his hips. 

"I already know that." Damian huffed. "I am quite adept at falling." 

"No." Talia pressed her lips into a thin line. 

(She seemed unhappy, and now wasn't that something? Might she actually care about Jason in some way?)

"Show me." Tim gestured for Damian to demonstrate. 

"Then that is the end of the matter." Ra''s stepped forward and switched to English. "That is enough for today, boys." 

He walked over and set a hand on Damian's shoulder. "Damian, show young Tim back to his chambers." 

"Yes, Grandfather." Damian immediately grabbed Tim's forearm and pulled him from the training room. 

The walk through the veritable maze of tunnels was pretty much silent and Tim took the time to consider his method of approach for getting Damian to leave with him willingly. (Did it count as kidnapping if Tim was nabbing the kid from what was essentially a cult?) 

Damian responded well to praise and affirmative words, which was kind of cute, and also really sad at the same time, because positive reinforcement did not seem to be something the LoA bothered with. It benefited Tim though, Damian leaned into his affirmative words and actions like a cat while pretending he was completely unaffected. The kid had already, seemingly, begun to open up to Tim on account of his freely given praise.

Tim just needed to find a way to spend more time alone with him and essentially love-bomb him until he trusted Tim enough to leave Nanda Parbat with him. 

(That sounded so much worse than Tim intended it to.) 

They got to Tim's extravagantly decorated new cell and Damian turned to leave.

"Damian." Tim suddenly had an idea.

"What?" The boy asked shortly.

"Would you teach me Arabic?" Tim cocked his head just enough to resemble a puppy.

"Why?" Damian asked suspiciously.

"Bruce always says we should take advantage of every chance we have to learn." Tim respected the kid's discernment. "I know I won't be Robin for very much longer, so while I still am, I want to do what he'd want me to. And I feel bad for making you speak English when everyone else here doesn't unless they have to talk to me." 

"I will have to ask Grandfather." Damian decided. 

"Of course! I wouldn't want to get you in trouble." Tim bobbed his head apologetically. "I admire you a lot, Damian. You're really brave for wanting to take Robin. It's not easy and I know I haven't been that great, so I really hope I can help you be even better than me!"

The kid would probably never believe another word out of Tim's mouth if they managed to get out.  

"I will speak to Grandfather about teaching you." Damian turned away, but Tim could see the tops of his ears were red. 

"Thank you." Tim called after him.

XxX

Later that night, Tim snuck out of his room, which technically should've been impossible due to the ninjas Ra's had guarding Tim's door. 

All four walls of the room were solid stone, which was a hindrance for actually keeping eyes on Tim, but a wonderful little thing for Tim's ability to sneak out. 

As was important in all underground lairs, there was an air vent in Tim's room. One that, for a normal teenager of Tim's age, would've been too small to fit through. Tim, however, was not a normal teenager and also happened to be smaller than the average fifteen-year-old boy.  

He also had the benefit of having been trained by Dick Grayson, an infamously slippery motherfucker. 

So Tim could slip out of his room through the vents and wander around the LoA headquarters pretty much unchecked. The LoA was fairly low tech, which was great for Tim being able to get around without being spotted by cameras, but bad for Tim arranging a rescue party. 

They did have a computer room, which Tim took the liberty of using to write a virus into their system that he could activate remotely, which would then permanently cripple the LoA. Beyond that, Tim spent several hours each night sneaking around the complex tunnels of the place, because if he was going to get out, he had to know the path. 

All he really needed was to get Damian to trust him, then they'd return to Gotham quite promptly and Tim could resume his mission of rehabilitating Jason.

Easy peasy.

XxX

Six weeks into the kid's disappearance Jason was being followed by League operatives. 

Always following, haunting, Jason from just out of sight. 

More than likely Talia was keeping tabs on him through them, and it was more of an annoyance than a threat, so Jason ignored them. 

It made it inconvenient to continue searching for the kid, but they weren't high level operatives. Jason could lose them any time he chose, and it was better for them to think he didn't know they were there, so he only shook them off every now and then. 

For the time being he kept his people searching, kept assisting Nightwing and Oracle, kept trying to think of who would take the kid. 

He'd started dreaming. 

Mostly of the night at the Tower. 

Of the moment he'd come back to himself, an instant before he would've slit the kid's throat. 

Except, in the dreams, he didn't wake up, he watched from inside himself, screaming against the green, as he slit the kid's throat and let his lifeblood spill out over his fingers. 

The kid stared at him, eyes full of pain and silently screaming " why ?" right up until the blood finally stopped pouring over Jason's fingers, right up until the kid was dead . 

Then it would start again. 

Jason always woke up exhausted after watching the dream repeat countless times over the few hours he slept each night. 

He'd developed a tremor in his hands that wouldn't go away.

But Crime Alley was still Crime Alley, and business was business, so Jason wore his helmet and pretended his use of a tire iron was the result of his cruelty streak and not because he didn't trust himself to aim his guns properly. 

There were still no leads on the kid.

Chapter Text

When things got to be too much, when the stress, and anger, and fear, and grief, and guilt grew too big for Dick to handle, his brain turned it all off.

His emotions, his heart, shut down and left only calculations. Only reason and logic, and cold pragmatism. 

Tim was a smart kid, a resourceful kid, if it were possible, he'd have found a way to contact them by now. 

This left two options.

One; he was in a position where he couldn't contact them.

Two; he was dead.

Neither was good, and with how completely Tim had disappeared, without even a trace of a sound, like a child slipping underwater in the night, Dick had to consider that Tim was already completely beyond their reach. 

He brought it up to Bruce on the forty-fourth day from the date of Tim's presumed kidnapping. 

"I want to scan the harbor." Dick peeled off his domino as he walked into the Cave. 

Bruce looked up at him from the computer, and he looked like shit. His eyes were sunken and his skin was ashen, he obviously hadn't shaved in days and the resulting scruff was patchy and ugly. 

He was still in the Batsuit, he probably hadn't taken it off since they'd started looking. 

"Why?" Bruce's voice was the rasp of something long unused. 

"At this point we have to at least consider the possibility that he's dead." Dick said. "The harbor is the cleanest method of disposal, everyone in Gotham knows that. It's the best explanation for why we have no leads." 

"There is no evidence that he's dead." Bruce's jaw tightened. 

"There's no evidence he's alive either." Dick needed to rule this out, he needed to eliminate this possibility. 

"We cannot assume the worst." Bruce grit out. 

"You always assume the worst." Dick snapped. "Just not this time, because that would mean you failed again." 

"Dick-." Bruce stood up.

"You knew from the beginning that he wasn't in a safe position, and you left him there." Sickening anger crept into Dick's blood. "The least you could fucking do is actually look for him in a place where he might actually be." 

"Would you have had me force him into the Manor against his will?" Bruce snarled, fists clenched at his sides. 

"If that's what it took, yes!" Dick curled his fingers around his mask. "You could have at least acted like him being here wasn't just a trigger for you!" 

"You cannot act like I don't care about him!" Bruce snarled. "I have done everything I could to protect him and prepare him!" 

"Is that why you flinch every time you see him?!" Dick's blood was rushing, pounding through his body, ready for a fight. "You can hardly bear to look at him because he reminds you of Jason!" 

"This isn't about Jason!" Bruce shouted.

"You know damn well that it is!" Dick stalked closer to Bruce, shoving an accusing finger into his chest. "You are so desperate not to admit that you've hurt another kid that you refuse to think logically about the situation!" 

"Master Dick!" Alfred had just come down the stairs. "That is quite enough!"

"No! Tim has been missing for six weeks!" Dick kept his gaze on Bruce. "He didn't even know for over half of that time!"

"Neither did you." Bruce hissed.

Dick punched him. 

Bruce stumbled back a few steps, cradling his jaw and Dick turned on his heel.

"I'm taking the plane to scan the harbor." Dick placed his mask back on. "Since you don't care enough to." 

XxX

Bruce deserved it.

He deserved every bit of hatred and vitriol Dick spewed at him. 

That didn't lessen the sting or curb the reflexive urge to argue. 

Dick's punch had been earned and lit stars behind Bruce's eyes. His scathing words afterward had hurt more. 

The Cave was silent in the time it took Dick to get the plane powered up and navigate it out. 

Bruce couldn't find it in himself to look Alfred in the eyes as the man silently retrieved an ice pack for Bruce's jaw. 

He went back to the computer and tracked Dick's progress over the harbor for the hours it took to scan. Alfred lingered not too far away, cleaning already spotless surfaces. 

Finally, Dick turned the plane back towards the Cave. 

Bruce nearly sobbed.

Whether in relief or disappointment he couldn't say. 

Dick disembarked the plane in the same silence which he'd taken it with and didn't even look at Bruce as he made his way towards the stairs to the Manor. 

"Dick." Bruce called to him, standing from the computer.

His son paused.

"I'm . . ." Bruce took a deep breath. "I'm sorry."

"I'm not." Dick continued to the Manor without even glancing at him. 

Alfred drifted to Bruce's shoulder.

"What do I do?" Bruce asked him. "How do I help them?" 

"I'm afraid . . ." Alfred sighed tiredly. "I'm afraid I do not know, Bruce." 

Bruce felt tears slip from his eyes. "Neither do I." 

XxX

Forty(probably) days into his kidnapping, Tim and Damian were in Tim's room after physical training. 

It was the second day of Damian "teaching" Tim Arabic, and the kid had displayed way more patience than Tim ever expected. 

Around the time Damian was about to lose his patience, Tim decided to give the kid a break.

"Damian." Tim said in English.

"What, Drake?" Damian huffed.

"I didn't just ask you to teach me Arabic to learn." Tim admitted. 

"You lied?" Damian scowled.

"Yes, but only because I want to teach you something that no one else can know." Tim kept his voice low, secretive.

"What?" Damian seemed begrudgingly curious. 

"A code." Tim told him. "One that only Batman and Robin can know."

The code was, in actuality, something Tim had come up with to write down his notes on Batman and Robin, and then developed spoken and Morse code equivalents of as a thought experiment. 

Teaching it to Damian meant he'd be able to get closer to the kid and they'd be able to communicate with each other in secret, both very good things for Tim's mission. 

"So you couldn't teach me in front of Grandfather and his operatives." Damian hummed thoughtfully. "I understand the need for your discretion." 

"I still do want to learn Arabic, so I thought we could take turns teaching each other every night." Tim suggested.

"That is acceptable." Damian decided. 

"I'm glad." Tim smiled. 

(If the kid didn't already have trust issues, Tim would have for sure been the reason he developed them upon their return to Gotham.) 

Damian picked up the code quickly, partly due to Tim's teaching ability, and partly because he was nearly as smart as Tim.

(Tim was starting to believe the kid was actually Bruce's son. He was smart enough to be, and just as stubborn and uncomfortable with expressing emotion.)

When they finally called it a night, Tim sprawled out over his bed.

"Do you want to know about them?" Tim asked. 

Damian frowned at him. 

"Dick and Bruce." Tim clarified. 

"My mother and Grandfather have already told me about them." Damian said.

"I bet they haven't told you that Bruce never wears matching socks, even though Alfred always folds them in pairs." Tim smiled at the thought. "Or that, once, when they were arguing, Dick got so mad he bit through Bruce's gauntlet. Alfred grounded them both after that." 

"Surely Father did not allow himself to be punished like a child." Damian frowned skeptically.

"Bruce always listens to Alfred. We all do." Tim replied, and when Damian still looked disbelieving, he continued. "Alfred is the boss of the Manor, no one argues with him. He's stern, but also kind, it's kind of hard to explain. You'll understand when you meet him." 

Damian sat in thoughtful silence for a minute. 

"What else can you tell me about them?" He finally asked. 

"Dick's favorite food is cereal and it frustrates Alfred a lot. It's kind of funny, every time Alfred sees Dick eating cereal out of the box, he gets this look on his face like someone used a microwave to make tea in front of him, and it's only partially because of Dick's lack of manners." Tim let himself fall into the softness of the memories. "Bruce isn't allowed to use anything in the kitchen except for the microwave because every time he tries to cook he gets distracted and sets something on fire." 

Damian scoffed, but Tim could tell he thought it was funny too. 

"Bruce is kind." Tim studied the rough stone of the ceiling. "Before anything else, he's kind. He loves Gotham, her people, that's why he's Batman at all. He's terrible at expressing it, though. That's why he and Dick argue so much, but they've gotten better recently."

Damian was looking at Tim with a sort of hungry look in his eyes, like he wanted to devour every piece of information he could get about his father and older brother that Tim could provide.

"They both miss Jason so much." Tim couldn't help the ache in his chest at the thought. "They don't even know he's alive, yet."

"You have not told them?" Damian frowned.

"No, I haven't." Tim sighed. "I . . . I wanted to bring him back to them, and if they knew he was the one who attacked me before I brought him back . . . They deserve to have him back, they deserve to be a family again, and I can't let my failure inhibit that." 

"You do not consider yourself as their family?" Damian looked at Tim, and there was surprise there.

This conversation had spiraled off of Tim's original planned path, but Damian was responding well, so Tim pressed on. 

"Of course not." He sat up. "Bruce chose Dick, he chose Jason. I forced myself into his life, into being Robin. How could I consider myself their family when I gave them no choice? The only reason I'm still with them is because there needs to be a Robin and there was no one to replace me yet." 

"You will really accept me replacing you?" Damian tilted his head as he watched Tim's face. 

"It's natural to outgrow Robin." Tim replied, focusing on his hands. "Dick did, Jason was about to when he died. It's not something that you can just continue to be forever." 

"And Father will accept me?" Damian sounded so childlike that it really hit Tim that he was just seven.

"I don't think he'll like it very much at first, but I'm choosing you to inherit Robin." Tim faced Damian and set a hand on his shoulder. "He has to respect that." 

Damian searched Tim's face for any hint of a lie. 

Tim knew he wouldn't find it, because Tim meant it. When Damian was older, once he'd had a chance to be a child, Tim would give him Robin. 

Damian nodded once, an acknowledgement and acceptance before he stood up. "I should return to my room." 

"Sure." Tim agreed easily. "See you tomorrow." 

"Right." Damian nodded again and silently left the room. 

Well, Tim thought, This might be easier than I assumed. 

XxX 

One day shy of seven weeks since the kid disappeared, Dick called Jason over comms.

"Hey Hood." Dick sounded exhausted, too tired for his age. "Meet me on the Midtown Bank?" 

"Sure." Jason agreed easily, something in him hoping for some kind of development in the search despite Dick's obvious helpless frustration. 

Dick was already there when Jason arrived. 

He sat on the edge of the roof, looking out over the city with a heavy slump to his shoulders.

Jason sat next to him, figuring this wasn't a work meeting. 

They both kept quiet for a few long minutes. 

"Do you think he's even still alive?" Dick asked quietly.

Jason . . . wasn't sure. 

"I don't know." He said. "I think . . . I think we might have to start considering he left on his own." 

"What?" Dick looked at him, brow creased. "Like he ran away?" 

"That kid is a force of nature when he wants to be." Jason kept staring over the city. "If he wanted to disappear, even from Batman, he could do it." 

"But why?" Dick sounded desperate.

"I dunno." Jason shrugged. "He seemed pretty hellbent on making me tolerate him, to just up and go like this . . . maybe he found out something he didn't like." 

Dick laughed harshly. "He already knew all of the fucked up shit there is to know about us. Maybe he just got tired of it." 

Jason hummed in agreement. 

"It's my fault, again." Dick said lowly after another brief silence, voice choked. "I wasn't there for him, I wasn't there for either of them. I'm as guilty as B is." 

Jason looked over at him, something strange making his chest ache. "Why are you telling me this?" 

"You remind me of him, I guess." Dick smiled brokenly. "My little Jay." 

Something in Jason's brain shifted, some beam of anger and hurt snapping under the weight of Dick's grief. 

"I think B sees it too." Dick croaked. "You get angry like him, like Jay. You look after the Alley in a way that would make him happy, I think." 

Jason's throat felt thick, too thick to speak around. 

"S'probably why B doesn't like you, aside from the whole Tower and murder thing." Dick continued. "B can't handle seeing what Jay could've been." 

Jason's head felt like it was spinning. 

"M'sorry." Dick scrubbed a hand over his face. "You didn't ask for my problems." 

"Nah." Jason choked out. "I imagine it's hard to find a therapist that you can talk to about your nightlife."

Dick huffed out a tired laugh. "Yeah." 

They sat side by side in the quiet night, silent after the heavy revelations Dick had given up. It was almost peaceful, to sit next to his older brother, watching over their city, as if nothing had ever changed. 

As if Jason never died. 

"Hey boys." Barbara's voice broke their quiet nearly an hour after it fell. "I've got a case for you." 

Dick straightened up. "What is it?" 

There was no sign of the grief and guilt that had gripped him before, just pure Nightwing confidence and determination. 

"Someone's been trying to mess with my access to security cameras in Gotham, deleting footage and the like." Oracle reported. "I've tracked down the computer they're doing it from. I need you to find out who it is and make them stop." 

"Alright." Dick said. "What's the address?" 

Jason pushed himself to his feet and offered a hand to Dick as Oracle rattled off the address. 

"Got it." Dick accepted Jason's hand up. "We'll head in that direction." 

"Thanks, boys." Oracle said. "Keep me updated." 

"Sure thing." Dick agreed easily before turning to Jason. "Ready?"

"Whenever you are." Jason confirmed. 

They leapt off the roof in tandem, swinging for the address Oracle gave them. 

It was a classic safehouse, simple, barely furnished, and infested with ninjas. 

Alright, well, maybe the ninjas were a little atypical. 

They were also, quite obviously, the ninjas who'd been following Jason around. That they were fucking with Oracle's domain was new and unexpected, but not a big deal, really. 

Jason would gladly solve the problem, by lodging a corpse-shaped complaint with the League. 

"Hey, O." Dick called after they'd incapacitated the ninjas. "Found your guys, it's just a bunch of ninjas."

"They're my problem, some new gang in the Alley." Jason said. "I'll take care of it." 

"Does 'taking care of it' mean you're going to kill them?" Barbara asked sharply. "Because that is something I would not recommend doing." 

"Maybe one or two." Jason had green starting to creep into his vision. 

The things Dick admitted to him had knocked something loose in Jason's mind. A surety that Dick and Bruce hadn't actually cared about his death made obsolete by his brother's pained confessions and the anger in him had shifted in its focus. 

"Hood-." Dick began. 

"Like I said, they're my problem." Jason cut him off. "I'll solve my problem in the method I deem necessary." 

"He's got a point, O." Dick conceded. "B says to leave Alley problems alone." 

"Alright." Barbara sounded like she was throwing her hands up in frustration. "But if B gets on my ass about ninja corpses, I'm sending him directly to you." 

"Fine." Dick agreed. "Got anything else you need me on tonight?"

"There’s a lead on the bank robbery from two days ago." Barbara offered. 

"Tell me what you got." Dick tossed a lazy salute in Jason's direction as he climbed out of a window. 

Jason disconnected from comms and turned his attention to the ninjas at hand. 

Chapter Text

Barbara was having . . . a shitty life, to be honest. 

The past three weeks had just been shittier than average. 

She wasn't close to Tim, not that anyone really was, but she was more distant to him than Dick or Bruce. It was still terrifying to face the idea of him disappearing. 

Tim was good with computers, almost as good as Barbara herself, and she liked the kid. He was clever, with a wry sense of humor and surprising stubbornness that Barbara had to admire. 

When Bruce told her Tim was missing, Barbara had immediately started checking every avenue she could to try and find a lead. 

When she'd turned up nothing, she checked again. 

And again.

And again.

And again.

And still found nothing. 

Then Dick started spiraling and Bruce started regressing and Red Hood (for some reason) joined the search. 

And they all found nothing. 

Three weeks later, seven since Tim's actual disappearance, according to Hood, and there was nothing except Gotham's usual crimes and Hood's new ninjas. 

Barbara was a passionate woman, an opinionated woman, one who hated being stumped. 

Being stumped on this was driving her crazy. 

Especially because Tim's life was at stake. 

It was bad enough that her Dad had noticed something was up. 

"Is your current mood relevant to Batman and Nightwing's abnormal behavior?" He'd asked over their weekly lunch. 

Barbara stabbed at her burrito bowl with extreme prejudice. "You notice that Robin's been absent?" 

"Of course." Jim nodded. "Batman mentioned a behavioral issue a couple weeks back."

"Yeah, well he's been missing for almost two months." Barbara sighed. 

Jim looked up at her in shock. 

"We've been looking, I mean- Even the Red Hood is searching for him!" Barbara laughed humorlessly and dropped her head into her hands. "We can't find anything. None of us can find anything." 

"How'd he disappear?" Jim frowned.

"We don't even know that much." Barbara huffed. "There were almost zero pieces of evidence at the scene where we assume he was taken. No tech trail to chase, no chatter underground, no ransom, not a single word or rumor about anything. It's like he just vaporized off the face of the Earth!" 

"Could he have left on his own?" Jim asked, getting caught up in the case.

"Maybe, but even then, I can't find a motive for it." Barbara picked at her food again. "I don't think he would, though. He's . . . He has a passion, and a sense of responsibility that rivals even Batman. I don't think he chose to leave, Dad." 

"He . . . does make me think of Batman when I talk to him." Jim conceded. "And there's nothing?"

"Nothing." Barbara shoved a bite of food into her mouth and chewed angrily. 

"I can have my boys keep an eye out." Jim offered. "But time is important for this kind of thing."

"I know."

And, God, did Barbara know. 

How many missing kid reports ended up on her Dad's desk? 

How many did she sneak looks at? 

How many times did she hear her Dad repeat the statistics? 

But Tim wasn't like most kids, he was trained by Batman, by Shiva and Dick. He figured out their identities when he was nine. He was incredibly smart and strategic and strong. 

He was still human. He was still a fifteen-year-old kid with almost no support system, and he'd been taken. 

"I feel like it's partially my fault." Barbara admitted. "They were counting on me to find something and I haven't, and he could be dead because of it." 

Jim reached over the table and curled his hand around her wrist. 

"It isn't." He looked directly into her eyes. "It is not your fault. Whoever took him is to blame. You are not responsible for what they've done to him."

"I know." Barbara repeated. "This whole thing is just . . . incredibly shitty." 

"I can't imagine . . . his poor parents." Jim said lowly.

His parents haven't seen him since January, Barbara thought bitterly. 

Then she thought of Alfred and Dick and Bruce and her heart ached. 

"We haven't given up yet." Barbara set her shoulders. "We won't give up, we'll find him." 

"I'm certain you will." Jim smiled grimly. 

XxX

Forty-four(supposedly) days into Tim's kidnapping, he learned that Jason killed several League operatives. 

He definitely was not supposed to know this. 

He found out when he was haunting the tunnels after lessons with Damian. 

Tim had found his way into a secret tunnel that led, apparently, to Ra's' preferred room to hold court. It was Ra's's voice that tipped him off, his hissing tone echoing to reach Tim's ears.

"What have you to report?" 

"He has killed all of the operatives we had in the city, my Lord." Someone else said. "He left their bodies out, displayed them." 

"He is challenging my authority." Ra's hummed contemplatively. "What prompted this?" 

Tim crept closer to the room, not wanting to miss a word. 

"We believe it was a result of them bumping up against an operative called Oracle." The underling reported. "They're a known associate of Batman, his 'tech support', I believe. The reports of your operatives there suggest he's been working with them." 

"His stability must be deteriorating further." Talia's voice was suspiciously even. 

"He has outlived his usefulness, in that case." Ra's decided. "It is better to eliminate the risk he poses." 

"You will have him killed?" Talia asked lowly.

(Challenging Ra's was bold, even for his daughter, things could turn very ugly very quickly.)

"You will kill him." Ra's said.

Tim's hatred for the man bloomed like fire in his chest. 

That was just cruel, not even considering Talia was his daughter. Making any parent kill their child was fucked.

(Because Talia certainly cared for Jason as her child. Her behaviors, and the little hints Tim had managed to whittle out of Damian were proof enough of that.) 

"At your earliest convenience." Ra's continued, and Tim could imagine the hateful gleam of pleasure in his eye. "Though, the task will be fulfilled within the week." 

"It shall be as you wish, Father." Talia's voice remained steady, and Tim had to commend her for her performance.

"That is all." Ra's said and Tim took that as his signal to scram.   

Once he was safely back in his cell, Tim thought over what this development meant for his plan. 

It put a timer of Tim's window of action. If anyone could kill Jason, Talia could, but Tim felt he could count on her putting it off for as long as possible.

He had a week to secure Damian's trust and  make their escape to Gotham so they could warn and save Jason. 

That was fine.

Tim would just accelerate the current process. 

He could do it.

Easy peasy. 

XxX 

It was getting worse. 

As the days slipped away, Alfred's family fell further into darkness, grief, and fear. 

Dick's behavior reminded Alfred all too much of the years after Thomas and Martha's murders. (The boy was so, so much like his father.) He was angry, reckless with his life, and irreverent of Alfred and Bruce's attempts to keep him safe. 

Bruce was hardly any better, the man was kept rational only by his duty to Gotham. Still, even that lifeline was a tenuous one, his fights becoming more brutal each night. 

The 'Red Hood', as he was called, was tearing through Crime Alley, viciousness amplified in the echo chamber of failure. 

Gotham's children had begun to whisper of her lost bird. Little rumors flying back and forth, the most brazen of which suggested he'd met a fate identical to his predecessor. 

With the Titans and the League offworld, it was likely that most reasonable people would assume Robin was with them. There was no great chance of Robin's disappearance becoming known. 

Still, it put a timer on how long Batman could operate like this. 

On how long they had to find Tim. 

Alfred had begun reaching out to his . . . seedier contacts, people he preferred not to associate with. 

There was still neither hair nor hide of the boy. 

Alfred had begun to fear that Gotham herself had swallowed the boy up. 

God knew Gotham did not give up those she claimed.

Alfred merely prayed she'd been merciful to Tim, that he did not suffer. 

XxX 

Alfred was losing hope.

That, more than anything, made Bruce confront the possibility . . . the potential for . . . 

The idea that Tim might actually be dead. 

The moment he gave himself room in his mind to consider it, a gaping hole opened in his chest. 

It felt like he was tumbling into a yawning pit of darkness, the familiar hollow grief that . . . that Jason's death opened in Bruce, shifting into sharp focus. The open wound of it was torn further and joined by the all new pain of Tim being beyond saving. 

Two of his sons gone . . . dead. 

How could he call himself a father? 

How could he even consider himself a mentor? 

It was paralyzing, the weight of the grief and guilt that wrapped like a noose around his throat.

Bruce did not give himself long to think of it. 

It would be his end if he let it sink in. 

So he kept stubbornly looking.

XxX

The amateur vigilante dressed in purple found Dick on his favorite roof to rest on.

"Hey." Her voice was sharp, unfriendly, and Dick vaguely remembered she was called Spoiler. "Where's Robin?" 

"Offworld with the Titans." Dick replied shortly, turning away from her.

"Don't lie." She snapped. "He would have told me. Even when it's emergencies, he always tells me when he's gonna be out of reach. He hasn't answered me in a month and a half. Where is he?"

Dick looked at her. She was standing with her legs braced, arms crossed over her chest, chin raised defiantly, eyes shining with determination. 

"Spoiler, right?" Dick ran a hand over his face. 

She nodded sharply. "Yeah. Answer the question." 

"We don't know." Dick admitted. "No one knows where he is. My best guess is that he's dead." 

"Hah!" Spoiler barked a laugh and put her hands on her cocked hips. "It would take an act of some god to get rid of him, and even then he wouldn't go quietly!"

"Then some god of silence must be hanging around, because he's gone." Dick was tired and a pale figure with a knife-sharp grin had started tumbling around the edge of his vision alongside Jason. 

"Not for long." Spoiler said stubbornly. "He'd never let himself just disappear like this." 

"Well sometimes we don't get to make that kind of choice." Dick said sharply. "Sometimes the world makes it for us, and there's nothing we can do about it." 

Spoiler looked shocked, and a bit hurt before her glare turned fierce. "You might believe that, but I know he'd fight heaven and hell and God and Satan and everything in between so that you and Batman wouldn't face that loss again. He'd never let that happen with no explanation. He believes in you. He trusts you. The least you could do is return the favor." 

Then she was swinging away in a blur of purple and blonde. 

Dick crouched on the roof with his head in his hands and wondered; why?

Chapter Text

Forty-eight days into his kidnapping, Tim began his very first escape attempt. 

He snuck out of his room, and found his way to Damian's. It was late, far later than any seven-year-old should've been awake, and Tim was going to use that to his advantage. 

The boy came to the door, rubbing his eyes sleepily, and he looked vaguely confused rather than suspicious, which was very good for Tim. 

"What are you doing here, Drake?" The kid mostly mumbled.

"It's time for us to go to Gotham." Tim told him. "Bruce has probably noticed I'm not there by now, so we need to go back before he starts looking." 

The lie aside, it would be better to get to Gotham before Bruce noticed anything was amiss. Tim needed to mitigate the potential complexes that might've appeared in the case that they had noticed him missing, and introducing Damian would be a fantastic way to take some of their focus off of where he'd been for the past almost seven weeks. If they both managed to get to Gotham mostly unharmed, all the better. 

"Has Grandfather agreed?" Damian blinked green eyes up at Tim. 

They look like Jason's- No.

That was a thought to be confronted when they weren't in Nanda Parbat. 

"Not really." This part was a gamble. "But think of it as a test. If we can get to Gotham without your grandfather noticing, he'll have to admit that you're ready to train under Batman." 

Damian frowned briefly.

"Don't you want to meet them? Rather than hearing stories from other people?" Tim pressed gently. 

"Let's go." Damian set his shoulders and met Tim's gaze defiantly. 

"Alright." Tim smiled. "Let's go." 

They needed to move quickly, make some distance before Damian's brain was far enough from sleep to question how and why Tim knew his way around. 

Easy peasy. 

Damian followed half a step behind Tim as they made their way towards older, lesser used passageways. Tim had half a mind to hold Damian's hand, but could imagine just how little the kid would appreciate that action, so refrained from it. 

Tim had chosen a time he knew to have less foot traffic in the halls, so they didn't have to avoid people on their way out.

Things were going well. 

Until they weren't. 

As they approached the tunnel they needed to get to the way out, Tim heard voices approaching from down the tunnel, and silently cursed. 

He grabbed Damian's wrist and pulled him into a side tunnel he hadn't managed to explore during his wandering nights.

It's fine, he told himself, we'll just wait down here until they're gone. 

He pulled Damian with him, hoping to get far enough down the tunnel that anyone who glanced into it wouldn't immediately see them. 

Then he ran face first into Ra's Al Ghul's chest.

"Shit." Tim said.

He tightened his grip on Damian's wrist and bolted back the way they'd come. 

XxX

Damian . . . didn't quite understand what on Earth was happening.

In the wake of Drake's joint escape and kidnapping attempt, he and Damian had been brought to Grandfather's stateroom. 

Grandfather arrived swiftly afterwards, sweeping the room with a keen eye before turning his attention to Drake.

The older boy was being held by two League operatives, arms gripped tightly and immobilized. 

"You're good." Grandfather addressed Drake. "Clever."

"Not really." Drake tilted his head up, jutting his chin out. 

He was putting on a brave face, doing his best to stand defiant in the face of true power. 

He looked scared out of his mind. 

"I'm just lucky." Drake said shakily. 

"Bold, too." Grandfather said, and Damian could hear the threat in it. "Now, tell me, what should I do with you?" 

"I imagine whatever you see fit." Drake's voice was tight. 

"You are clever enough to know at least that much." Grandfather appraised. "Well, before I sort you out, perhaps I should sort the problem of my blood?" 

His gaze shifted to Damian, and Damian kept his head up, didn't flinch.

"No!" The word seemed torn out of Drake. 

He broke the operatives' hold on him and Damian was certain one of the cracking sounds was Drake's arm. 

Before any time had passed, Drake was across the room, stolen katana in hand, moving towards Damian. Just as he was entering striking range, he jolted and Damian saw the tip of a katana exiting the older boy's side. 

An operative had thrown their blade at Drake, and it pierced through his gut, with nearly ten centimeters of the blade protruding from his body on his left side. 

"Fucking-." Drake bit off his curse and turned on his heel.

He settled into a protective stance, stolen katana held as a threat towards Grandfather and his operatives. Damian could see the katana was impaled nearly to the hilt in Drake's back. 

But he was standing, he was guarding Damian. 

"It's my fault!" Drake hissed. "I manipulated him. I-I tricked him into t-thinking you approved. If y-you're going to punish anyone, punish me. He's just-just a kid. I- I'm Robin. I can t-take responsibility for what I did." 

Blood was slowly soaking the black clothes Grandfather had provided for Drake. There was no way the blade had missed the boy's organs, but he still stood stubbornly between Damian and Grandfather, lying outright, as if he thought he could actually do anything.

"Bold, indeed." Grandfather huffed a dry laugh. "Especially to challenge me with a wound like that." 

"I'm Robin, I d-don't back down when I'm h-hurt, or facing impossible . . . odds." Drake was breathing heavily, wheezing. "That's . . . That's what it means t-to be Robin." 

"Do not be foolish, boy. That wound will kill you if you do not stand down." Grandfather warned. 

From what Damian could see, Drake's face was rapidly going from its natural paleness to almost ashen with lack of blood. 

"T-Then I'll die . . . doing what's right." It was taking more and more energy for Drake to speak. 

Damian did not understand this. Drake was putting his very life on the line so that Damian wouldn't be punished? 

Damian had not earned that sort of loyalty from Drake. Had not even been particularly kind to him. 

What had Drake said? "That's what it means to be Robin". Standing up for someone you hardly know, who does not like you, who wants to replace you, that was what it meant to be Robin? 

Could Damian do the same in Drake's position? 

"Damian will not be punished." Grandfather's gaze was calculating. "As you have claimed responsibility for this foolish attempt, I will consider that wound as punishment enough for your insolence. Now, stand down. It will do no good for you to die pointlessly." 

"You swear it?" Damian could see sweat breaking out on the side of Drake's face and neck. "Swear you won't punish him?"

"I swear it." Grandfather answered easily. 

"Alright . . . " Drake panted. "Okay."

He lowered the katana in his hands and dropped to his knees, tilting his head back. His eye was cracked open and focused on Damian.

"This is all I can do to protect you." He whispered. "I'm sorry." 

Then Grandfather's operatives swept forward and took Drake up into their arms.

XxX

Seven and a half weeks into the kid's disappearance, Talia found Jason again. 

She slipped from the shadows to meet him on the roof he'd chosen to rest on, hands lifted out to her sides. It was an obvious demonstration of peaceful intent, and her face was stricken with emotion. 

Jason had a gun aimed between her eyes the moment she appeared. "I warned you, Talia." 

"Kill me if you must, but please, retrieve Damian." She met his eye unflinchingly. "Get him away from my father." 

"Why?" The green at the edge of Jason's mind was mitigated only by the memories of Talia's kindnesses to him after the Pit. 

"Father sent me to kill you." Talia dropped her hands. "I cannot kill my child, nor can I return to Nanda Parbat without your head. Damian is still there and I only have three days left before Father expects you to no longer be a problem."

"That doesn't answer my question of why you want him out of Nanda Parbat." Jason grit his teeth.

"My father . . . he intends to use Damian's body to host his mind. His body is deteriorating too much for even the Pit to help him." Talia answered. "I, alone, cannot stop him. While I have allies, unless I had a guaranteed way to depose my father, they would not assist me. If Damian was not a factor, I would be able to work against him with little fear." 

Jason . . . Jason was furious. 

Damian was a spoiled little brat, but he was a kid. Kids were supposed to be spoiled little brats, and for Ra's to be planning to use him . . . 

"I'll take care of it." He holstered his gun. "You stay here until I bring him back. After that, stay out of Gotham unless he wants to see you." 

"There's more you need to know-." Talia began. 

"I know everything I need to know to adjust Ra's's attitude." Jason fished his phone from a pocket. 

"Jason-." Talia tried again. 

"My tolerance of you is for Damian's sake." He scrolled through his contacts, considering which favors he wanted to call in from who. "Don't test the limits of it." 

This wouldn't get Tim back, but it was something Jason could do. It was progress, action, movement. 

"Lay low, Talia." Jason told her as he decided who to call. "If Batsy finds out you're in town it won't go well for anyone." 

"Be careful, Jason." She said, and then she was gone, back into the shadows. 

Careful wasn't Jason's speed, he was going to be ruthless. 

He was going to save the brother he knew he could reach. 

XxX 

Hood waved Dick down on his patrol route around half past midnight. 

"What is it?" Dick asked, landing on the crime lord's rooftop. 

Somewhere in him, something found the wherewithal to hope.

"I'm leaving Gotham for a few days." Hood told him. "I want you to look after the Alley for me while I'm gone." 

Dick ignored the swooping sense of disappointment in his gut. "This have to do with your ninja problem?" 

"As a matter of fact, yes, it does." Hood had seemed more open since the night they'd spent together, watching over the city. "It has the potential to take me up to a week, so I'll let my people know to report anything big to you." 

Hood looked Dick in the eyes. "I'm trusting you."

To Dick's surprise, Hood had disengaged his voice modulator. 

He sounded young, younger than Dick was. 

"I'll take care of them." Dick promised, heart aching, he added. "My Jay was from the Alley. I'll take care of them." 

"Thanks." Hood nodded once, firm. "I got a couple hours before I leave. Want a tour of the area?"

"That sounds like a good idea." Dick agreed easily. 

"Right." And the voice modulator was back. "Keep up, old man."

Dick couldn't help a startled laugh. 

The playful challenge was so achingly familiar. It was like a balm to the sore spot of Jason's memory, like a tribute to the Crime Alley brat who became more than that. 

"I'll bet I'm faster than you." Dick met the challenge with a grin. "Though, that's not really a fair bet, is it? It's like betting on a sports car versus a semi truck." 

"I'll fucking show you a semi truck." Hood snarked, and then they were off. 

For a few hours, Dick was almost at ease. 

Swinging, jumping, flipping, running over the rooftops with Hood felt so familiar, so much like it had when Dick was teaching Jason the ropes. It drove out his ever present angerguiltfear at the losses of his younger brothers. His focus was on moving, flying, where his next grapple would anchor, and the things Hood pointed out to him about the Alley. 

Dick knew that in the time, the quiet, that followed patrol, it would all come back. He would be broken and grieving again. 

But for those few hours, he was free, he was . . . happy.

Chapter Text

Tim had lost track of how long he'd been kidnapped. 

What with the surgery, anesthesia, and pain medication, Tim was sure he'd lost at least two days. 

(Getting stabbed and also breaking your arm sucked major ass.) 

He didn't want to risk asking. Ra's knew he had at least some spine at this point, and he didn't want to risk tipping the bastard off to the fact that Tim was keeping track. 

It had already been a full day since Tim had properly woken up from the surgery, and he was conflicted.

On one hand, being fresh off an escape attempt meant that scrutiny would be higher.

On the other, no one would expect him to try again so soon, especially with his injury. 

He wasn't sure if he wanted to press the advantage of being underestimated (again) or to wait until Ra's was negligent of him again. 

Ra's had stuck him in a new room post-surgery, likely with the intent to make it harder for Tim to sneak around. 

(Tim started sneaking around the moment he was properly unsupervised.)

Joke's on him, the new room had the same exact air vent access point as the old one and there were still no cameras inside.

It also happened to be situated rather close to an armory. 

Tim discovered that delightful little surprise on his very first, very painful, wiggle through the vents. 

(It was harder to fit in the vents with a casted arm, but not impossible.) 

He almost laughed out loud when he made the discovery, it was so lucky. 

As soon as Tim was certain the armory was empty, he climbed out of the vents and started investigating the room. There was a thin layer of dust over everything, suggesting this armory was not the main one. That, along with the items stored within, gave Tim a rather horrible good idea. 

Quite the contingency plan, it made.

Well, it paid to be prepared.

(No, Tim did not take Bruce's lessons on preparedness (paranoia) too seriously, thank you very much.) 

With a backup plan in place, Tim felt confident in waiting for Ra's to lower his guard. 

For the time being, he would just continue to map out his surroundings and prepare himself for another escape attempt. 

(And also figure out a lie that would convince Ra's that he was in fact a scared little kid, just one that had the audacity and stupidity to try to bamboozle the world's most evil man.) 

Easy peasy. 

(Tim was not in over his head. He was more than capable of thinking, planning, and manipulating his way out of the situation, and in fact, would surely manage to do it without further injury to himself or any injury to Damian (surely).) 

XxX

Jason entered Nanda Parbat through the back ways. Tunnels that no one used or thought about. 

He took a certain kind of pleasure in it.

In compromising the places people considered safe without ever breaking or damaging the place. 

In infiltrating quietly and destroying every sense of security a person could ever have in their home. 

It was important to take joy in the little things in life. 

He was nearing the regularly used tunnels when something-someone-slammed into his chest. The little body bounced off of him like a tennis ball and would've slammed into the ground if Jason hadn't caught their arm. 

"Jason?!" A familiar voice hissed out in surprise. 

Jason had never felt a jolt of surprise so powerful in his life when he registered that the arm in his grasp belonged to Tim. 

"What are you doing here?" The kid's eyes were wide with surprise.

"What the fuck are you doing here?" Jason catalogued the kid's appearance as fast as he could.

There was a cast on the arm Jason wasn't holding, but no other obvious signs of injury. He looked the same level of sleep deprived as the last time Jason had seen him, if a bit paler, likely from an extended stay underground. 

"I got kidnapped." Tim's brow creased. "How did you find me?"

"I wasn't here for you." Jason answered reflexively.

"Did you kill Talia?" Tim pulled his arm out of Jason's grasp. 

And wasn't that a surprise?

Talia being sent after Jason was definitely confidential League business that the kid should not have had access to.

"She sent me here for Damian." Jason said. "How did you know about that?"

"Shit!" Tim whipped his head around, staring down the tunnel he'd come from. 

"What? Damian?" Jason followed his gaze. "Is he-?"

"Stay here." Tim's gaze was intense. "Jason, you have to stay here. I have a plan, and you have to stay here no matter what happens."

"What are you-?" Jason began. 

"Jason." Tim's voice was steel. "Promise me you'll stay here. Even if the place starts exploding, you have to stay right here. Swear you will."

If Jason's brain wasn't still numb with surprise, he probably would have responded with his usual blustering insubordination, instead he responded to the authoritative tone. "I'll stay." 

(No, not because it reminded him of Bruce, fuck off.) 

Tim nodded once, firm and certain, and then he was hauling ass into the tunnel he'd come from. 

Shit, Jason thought, I should have gone with him.

Chapter Text

Tim's brain was running way fucking faster than it ever had before. 

Jason had thrown one hell of a fucking loop into Tim's plan to be patient, and he needed to move fucking fast if he wanted things to go well. If things went truly well, then Tim wouldn't even need his backup plan, but for safety's sake, he retrieved the weapon he'd stashed in the vents.

Even with Jason there, Tim needed to be careful, and with few good options for keeping things subtle, he tore open his stitches and pressed the device into the wound. The agony of it was blinding, but Tim grit his teeth and bore it.

It's not worse than Jason shooting me, he told himself as he panted through the pain. 

"C'mon, Tim." He murmured out loud, pressing his hand to the wound to stem the fresh blood. "C'mon, you're Robin, you can handle this. You need to get Damian, get your shit together, let's go." 

Tim took a deep breath, and started running again. He hoped that Damian wouldn't mistrust him for the whole first escape attempt thing, but knew that the Kitten Protocol (which Damian had finally gotten down to an instinct) would compensate if the kid had had a change of heart. 

Tim whipped around the corner to the tunnel that led to Damian's room and just as quickly jerked back into the tunnel he'd come from. 

Ra's was in the hall with Damian. 

FUCK! 

He peered back around the corner and saw Ra's guiding Damian further down the hall, towards Ra's' courtroom. 

"Fuck." Tim hissed. 

Blood was trickling down Tim's side, soaking into the waistband of his pants. Sweat slicked down his back and chest, and the radiating ache in his side was becoming distracting.

It's still not worse than what Jason did, he tamped down on the growing thoughts of discomfort.

He checked the hall again and Ra's and Damian were out of sight. 

Well, Tim thought, slightly hysterically, I guess I will need the backup plan.

He took a few fast, deep breaths, and then darted down the hall after Ra's and Damian.   

Tim tracked them all the way to Ra's' courtroom, and with no good options, barged right on in. 

Ra's turned to him with a furious countenance that was briefly broken by surprise before he schooled himself back to impassive. Damian's eyes were wide, and he held some kind of jar with liquid and what looked like an organ in it. 

"How did you leave your room?" Ra's enunciated every syllable. 

"Same way I left the other one." Tim tilted his chin up in challenge. "I'm taking Damian to Gotham, and you're going to let me." 

"Pray, tell me why I would ever let such a thing occur." Ra's was standing slightly in front of Damian, acting as a barrier. 

"It's where he belongs." Tim met his gaze unflinchingly, even as he pressed his fingers into his side to retrieve his weapon. "Even if you do not let us go willingly, we will go. If you dare seek retaliation, your entire empire will fall out from beneath you."

Damian's gaze flitted between Tim and Ra's.

"And I suppose it shall be you who does it?" Ra's' voice dripped with derision.

"You've already made this mistake twice, I'd advise against making it again." Tim's fingers nearly slipped from the device as he eased it from his wound. 

"Mistake?" Ra's scoffed. "What mistake?"

"Underestimating me." Tim replied in Arabic. 

Ra's' eyes flew wide in surprise as Tim lifted the blood slicked device, flicked open the safety latch, and detonated the explosives he'd planted in the air vents. 

XxX 

The, apparently fucking nuts, kid must've had the damn explosions in his plan. 

When he'd mentioned it, Jason thought he was pulling some insane hypothetical out of his ass, but that was, evidently, not the case. 

The entire compound shook with the explosions, and dust trickled from newly formed cracks in the ceiling.

Jason just about started into the compound, but remembered the kid's steely tone. 

Tim had a plan, had demanded Jason stayed put as a part of it. 

If Jason was confident of the stability of every tunnel in the compound, he'd have gone after Tim, plan be damned. As it was, there was too much risk of certain tunnels being collapsed, of Jason being overpowered by sheer numbers while he searched aimlessly for two kids he didn't know the locations of. 

Jason resigned himself to fifteen minutes. 

He'd wait fifteen minutes after the explosions for the kid, and then he'd fucking find him and Damian and get the fuck out of there. 

Ra's could be a problem for another day. 

Luckily, for everyone involved, Tim came flying back down the tunnel only six minutes after the explosions detonated. He had, over his shoulder, a limp Damian. 

"Let's go!" Tim caught Jason's arm and dragged him into a run without ever slowing down. 

Jason matched his speed, looking the kids over for obvious injuries. Tim was moving at speed, carrying a seven-year-old without much sign of strain, and Jason couldn't imagine he'd managed to obtain injuries in the fifteen minutes he'd been gone. Damian was hanging over Tim's shoulder, with no sign of injury, clutching a wet specimen jar and a cell phone, staring down the tunnel behind them with a slight frown on his face. 

All of a sudden Tim slowed drastically, pressing back against Jason. 

In front of them, several League operatives had emerged from a side tunnel. Footsteps behind them indicated more operatives closing in.

Jason began to unholster his guns.

"Stop! If you miss, the ricochet is as likely to hit us as them." Tim glanced at the operatives in front of them and then back at where the others were coming into view. "Take this."

'This' turned out to be Damian, who Tim shoved into Jason's arms with little ceremony. The teen then charged at the operatives blocking their way forward.

Damian remained completely limp as Jason maneuvered him into a manageable hold without dislodging the items in the kid's grasp. 

"Did you teach him Kitten Protocol?!" Jason managed to sling the seven-year-old onto his back, where Damian clung like a koala. 

"Among other things!" Tim blocked the swing of a bo staff with his casted arm, grunting painfully at the impact. 

Jason watched, halfway amazed as the kid landed three lightning fast blows to the operative and took control of the bo staff.

"Finally." The kid sighed under his breath, and Jason suddenly remembered that Tim had trained with Lady Shiva. 

He proved it with his quick and ruthless incapacitation of the League operatives blocking the way forward. Just as the last of them went groaning to the ground, the ones from behind got close enough to throw shuriken. 

Jason turned so the blades bounced harmlessly off his body armor and Tim used his staff like a baseball bat to swipe them out of the air. Some of the blades embedded themselves firmly into the wood of the staff and Tim grinned sharply. There was a glint of what Jason would call feral joy in the kid's eyes as he charged the League operatives with his newly spiked weapon. 

The operatives didn't seem all that impressed right up until Tim kicked off the wall to take a flying swing from above with his bladed staff. His first swipe with the weapon left two of the seven operatives with nasty slashes across their chests. The kid pressed past them, wheeling the staff around to bring it down on the shoulder of one of the other operatives. 

They howled in pain as Tim dragged the shuriken free from their shoulder and kicked them hard in the chest. As that operative crashed to the floor of the tunnel Tim moved forward, getting right in the middle of the remaining four. He stabbed the staff forward at the operative on his left, catching them in the chest, then just as quickly jabbed it backwards into the stomach of the person on his right. 

They both had the wind knocked out of them and Tim swung the staff to catch the other two, who had surged forward. The one behind the kid on the left caught the shuriken studded side of the staff and screamed painfully as the blades sliced into their side. The other one caught the bare end of the staff hard to the temple and went quietly to the floor. 

Tim swung the staff back to his front, knocking away a katana aimed for his chest, then spun the staff so the bare end slammed hard into the crotch of the person in front of him (Yikes.) and the bladed end crashed down against the skull of the only person still standing behind him (brutal).  

As they both crumpled, Tim swung the staff against the head of the one clutching his junk, knocking him out.

(Jason made a mental note to always wear headgear and a cup when near Tim.)

"Let's go." Tim stepped over the incapacitated and bleeding operatives, catching Jason's arm again and tugging him into a run. 

After just a few hundred meters, the kid slowed again. 

"What are you doing?" Jason hissed as Tim knelt and pried the grate of an air vent open. 

"Getting something to cover our tracks." The kid wiggled halfway into the vent and then wiggled back out with several small explosive devices in his hands. 

"Where the fuck did you get those?" Jason asked as Tim resecured the vent cover.

"The armory, duh." Tim rolled his eyes. "Now, come on. I have a plan of where to set these off to create maximum confusion, and we can't do that if they catch us again."

"He been like this the whole time?" Jason asked Damian over his shoulder. 

"No." Damian replied in that too-serious way of his. "I was under the impression he was an idealistic, weak-willed, idiot." 

"You and me both, kid." Jason sighed and followed after Tim as the kid started running again. 

As they made their way deeper into the tunnel system, Tim paused at a few forks in the path told Jason to wait with Damian, and bolted down them to plant a few explosives on timers to cover which path they were taking. The closer they got to the exit, the more wan Tim became, evidently losing his stamina from all the running. 

He'd apparently been planning to use the path Jason used to get in to get out, so it was simple enough to place the last of their explosives in the tunnel a few hundred meters from the exit and make their way out. 

Some of the bombs he'd planted had already started to go off by the time they were standing under open sky. 

"I put them on different timers so some will go off way later than others. Makes it harder to tell which path we took." Tim explained when Jason gave him a questioning look. "You got a ride out here?"

"Yeah, down that way." Jason let Damian down to stand on his own feet. 

"Cool." Tim blinked rapidly. "'M gonna pass out now." 

Sure enough, the kid keeled right over, almost hitting the ground if not for Jason scrambling to catch him. 

"What the fuck?!" Jason squawked indignantly as he eased the kid to the ground.

"Check his wound." Damian stood across from where Jason knelt, phone and jar cradled carefully in his hands. 

"What wound?" Jason reexamined the unconscious and way too pale kid. 

He spotted a darker, sticky looking patch high on the kids left side. 

"Fuck!" Jason yanked the kids shirt up to find a ten centimeter open gash just under his ribcage. 

The kid's entire side and hip were covered in tacky, drying blood. "What the hell happened?!"

"He was stabbed." Damian replied dispassionately. "And had surgery, which resulted in this." 

'This' was the jar containing, presumably, one of Tim's organs. 

"What is that?" Jason felt for Tim's pulse, which was thready and tired.

"His spleen." Damian said.

"Fuck." Jason scooped the kid into his arms. "Let's go, the closest city is forty minutes out."

Chapter Text

The alarm went off during Barbara's pre-patrol nap, at 9:32pm to be specific. 

It was a blaring one, the tone she used for only the most dire of circumstances. The second her brain registered its meaning she was shoving her glasses on her face and snatching her phone up from her nightstand. 

The words on her screen when she got it unlocked nearly made her heart stop. 

She was calling Bruce before she was even in her wheelchair. 

"What is it Oracle?" He sounded exhausted, beaten down, when he answered. 

"Get Nightwing on the jet right now and get your asses to the coordinates I'm sending you." Barbara shoved herself to her computer.

"What is it?" Bruce repeated.

"Tim." Barbara opened up her tracking system, pulling up more detailed maps. "His phone just came online." 

"What?" Bruce's voice was full of disbelief, and not-quite hope. 

"Tim's phone is on." Barbara hissed. "I have its location and therefore a lead on Tim. Get Dick in the jet, now!" 

"Right." It sounded like Bruce had finally started moving. "Right, got it." 

"Find him." Barbara ordered. "Find him." 

"We will." Bruce said firmly, and Barbara believed him. 

XxX

Bruce and Dick crept quietly towards the door of the apartment they'd identified as the one that had Tim's phone inside. It was nearly 11:00pm local time, and Oracle hadn't quite been able to identify the person who owned or rented the place, so they were going in nearly blind. 

Bruce and Dick positioned themselves on either side of the doorframe, listening for any indication of life. 

"I'm gonna fucking kill you, Drake." A low voice made it through the door. 

"Well, you can't do that from jail!" Tim's voice was loud, angry. 

Bruce was kicking his way into the apartment within half a second of processing the sound. The doorframe splintered under the force of Bruce's boot and the door itself slammed against the wall  as Bruce and Dick pressed into the room. 

The scene inside did not easily lend itself to reason.

The apartment was an open layout, with the kitchen and living room separated only by space and a table set up in between rooms. Around the table were; a man (18-25 years old), a child (5-9 years old), and Tim. On the table appeared to be a game of monopoly, a wet specimen jar that contained, as far as Bruce could tell, a human spleen, and three glasses half full of some kind of carbonated drink. 

The man, and Tim, had apparently bolted to their feet the instant the door blew open and the man had a gun pointed at Bruce and Dick.

"B!" Tim cried out in recognition mere moments after they were in the room.

"Sit your scrawny ass down." The man put a hand on Tim's shoulder and shoved him back into his chair. 

Tim was shirtless, had gauze wrapped around his abdomen, a casted arm, and appeared paler than usual. Otherwise, he seemed unharmed and healthy. 

"Christ, B." The man shoved his gun back into the holster on his thigh. "You forget how to knock?" 

Bruce's full attention shifted to the man, and everything in Bruce's mind froze. 

He was wearing Red Hood's body armor and leather jacket, and Bruce saw Hood's helmet on the kitchen island. 

That, however, was not what froze Bruce's every thought in his head.

The man's face was familiar, but older than the last time Bruce had seen it, baby fat nearly gone from his cheeks, and jawline fully developed. He was tall, an inch or two taller than Bruce, and three or four wider at the shoulder, and his hair was a curly black with a shock of white above his forehead. 

He looked like Jason. 

He looked like Jason grown up. 

"Tim!" Dick rushed to the teen's side, fussing over the bandages. "What happened? Are you okay?" 

"I'm fine, Dick." Tim was glancing between Dick, Bruce, and the man who looked like Jason. 

"He was stabbed." The man said dryly. 

"Jason!" Tim squawked indignantly.

"That's his spleen." The child pointed to the wet specimen jar. 

"His what?!" Dick yelped.

"Damian!" Tim glared at the serious-faced kid before turning back to Dick. "It's not that bad." 

"Oh, right, cause getting run all the way through with a katana isn't that bad." The man-Jason-crossed his arms as he snarked at Tim. "You wanna know what he did after he got stabbed and had his spleen forcibly removed, Dickiebird?" 

"Jason-." Tim began to protest.

"He decided the best thing to do, was to tear his stitches and shove a remote detonator inside his fresh surgery site." Jason continued undeterred. 

"Tim!" Dick's face creased with concern and displeasure. 

"I didn't have any other good options!" Tim defended himself hotly. 

"There's a reason the prison pocket is a classic." Jason huffed with a raised eyebrow. 

Bruce distantly thought he should say something, but too much of his brain was filled with static to build any sort of coherent sentence. 

"Oh, cause having it literally up my ass would have been so much more convenient when I was confronting Ra's." Tim glared at Jason.

"Ra's Al Ghul-?!" Dick frowned deeply, looking between Jason and Tim.

"I'm sure he would've been so patient while I took off my pants and dragged a weapon out of my literal asshole while I was in the middle of threatening his entire criminal empire." Tim barreled on without acknowledging Dick. "You know, it's a real fucking miracle you're up and about walking among us, since you apparently left your entire brain in the Lazarus Pit!"

"Oh, that's so clever, you're a real pioneer in the field of insults, Tim." Jason rolled his eyes. 

The mention of the Lazarus Pit and Ra's Al Ghul had shocked something in Bruce's brain back into motion, and he stepped deeper into the apartment.

"Jaylad?" Bruce's voice broke over the nickname.

"Surprise." Jason spread his arms, shaking his hands back and forth in a halfhearted gesture of excitement. 

Bruce stepped quickly around Tim and Dick, pulling the cowl off as he moved towards his son. Jason tensed up as Bruce reached out but did not protest as Bruce tugged him into a fierce hug. 

Hot tears burned their way down Bruce's face as he crushed Jason against his chest, unwilling to let his boy go for even a moment. 

In that moment, as joyrelieflove bubbled up endlessly in Bruce's chest, he felt infinite. 

His sons, his precious sons, were with him. Dick and Tim and Jason all safe and alive and within his reach.

Bruce did not deserve the mercy of whatever power had deigned to grant him such a miraculous gift, but he would die before he squandered it. 

Even if his sons hated him, even if they never forgave him for his incompetencies, Bruce would not forsake them. He would go to the ends of the universe and further for each and every one of them, cost be damned. 

"Alright, B, lemme breathe." Jason wriggled, attempting to make space between them. 

Bruce reluctantly loosened his grip on his son, letting him pull far enough away that Bruce could see his face. 

Bruce couldn't help lifting a hand to cradle his baby's cheek. His heart sang when Jason leaned into the touch.

"Jaylad." Bruce's voice was still broken, soft with overwhelming emotion. 

"Yeah, yeah B, I know." This close, Bruce could see his son's eyes had changed. 

Jason's irises were no longer ice blue, the hue shifted to a green tinged gray. 

A touch at Bruce's shoulder drew his attention from memorizing his son's age-changed face. 

"S'my turn." Dick nudged Bruce gently away from Jason. 

Bruce went only because Dick asked him to, and his eldest son swept Jason into a clinging embrace.

"Hey, Dickiebird." Jason murmured, tucking his head into Dick's neck. 

Bruce felt like his chest could explode with pride and joy for his boys. He turned his gaze to Tim, desperate to check him over himself, to ensure he truly was not hurt further than he said. 

(Bruce loved the boy, but he also knew he had a penchant for lying about his own health.) 

Tim and the child had moved while Bruce was clinging to Jason, and they stood next to the now closed door. 

"B." Tim set his uncasted hand on the child's shoulder. "This is Damian Al Ghul." 

Looking at the child, Bruce could see Talia's features in his face. High cheekbones, long, straight nose, emerald eyes, all very reminiscent of the woman that was surely his mother. 

Tim met Bruce's eyes with a piercing look, chin lifted as a challenge, but voice steady and calm. "He's your son." 

Bruce thought to a night years past, as he examined Damian again. The boy was the right age for it and that realization set conflicting emotions blooming in his chest.

Joy-love-for the wonder of having a child of his own blood. Fear-terror-for how was he supposed to parent a child he did not know? Anger-fury-with Talia, for keeping his youngest son from him. 

Tim's fiercely protective glare banished the warring emotions and Bruce knelt to meet his son eye to eye. 

"Hello, Damian." He offered a hand for the boy to shake. "It is wonderful to meet you." 

(Tim's shoulders relaxed an almost imperceptible amount, he'd been worried about Bruce's reaction.)

Damian clasped Bruce's hand and he wondered at how tiny his son was. 

"Hello, Father." Damian spoke soberly. "I have already begun my training to assist your mission." 

Bruce was startled by the deep sincerity in the boy's eyes and didn't know what to say. 

"Uh, slow your roll, shortstack." Tim shoved a hand gently through Damian's hair. "You ain't hitting the streets of Gotham for a while yet." 

The kid turned to glare at Tim, nose crinkled in disgust. 

"Don't look at me like that, you know most of what I said in there was lies." Tim told Damian. "You will be Robin after me, but only after you've had time to be a kid. I'm not done with Robin yet, I haven't quite outgrown the cape. You'll get it in time. And don't bitch at me about being called a kid, you are a kid and there's nothing wrong with that." 

"If you had not proven yourself capable in tricking Grandfather, I would personally see you to the gates of Hell, Drake." Damian huffed, scowling all the while. 

"You could try." Tim grinned sharply. "I don't think you'd do any better than Jason did, though." 

"That's a lot of lip from someone who got kidnapped by a seven-year-old." Jason's voice was wry. 

Bruce rose to his feet as Tim led the still scowling Damian back towards the table. Jason had reclaimed his seat and Dick was peering over his shoulder at the jar that held Tim's spleen. 

"Says the entire reason I got kidnapped." Tim made a face at Jason as he retook his seat at the monopoly board. 

"You got kidnapped because you're a nosy little shit." Jason plucked the dice off the table. "Now, sit down, Damian. We have to finish this game to see who gets the spleen." 

"It's my spleen." Tim protested as Damian took his seat across from him.

"Then get your shit together, Damian's kicking both our asses." Jason tossed the dice. 

"You're losing to a seven-year-old?" Dick looked over the board. 

"Yeah, and he claims it's his first time playing." Tim said as Jason moved his battleship token. 

"It is not a difficult game." Damian said. "You owe me rent, Todd."

"I'll bet it's not a difficult game when you own half the board." Jason grumbled, throwing some of his fake money at Damian. “Fucking nepo baby.”

"Dick, you're playing as the bank now. Jason keeps trying to steal money and thinks that saying he's robbing the bank will make us let him keep it." Tim ordered. "We've resorted to sticking him in jail every time he does it and it's negatively effecting the gameplay."

Bruce watched them with a conflicted heart. 

Seeing his sons playing a game together, getting along and squabbling over the semantics of game rules was a precious privilege, but there were conversations that needed to be held. 

Tim had distracted Bruce with Damian, but Bruce still needed to assess him. Jason . . . Jason needed many conversations, probably with the help of Dinah, and also maybe an intervention about the whole eight heads in a duffel bag thing. Damian needed time and conversations and assessments. Dick needed apologies and time and probably more space than Bruce could be truly comfortable with.

As Dick took a seat at the table and slid the tray holding the extra money in front of him, Bruce decided that those things could wait, at least until they'd finished their game.