Archive of Our Own

The biggest sign that all was not well in the mind of Dick Grayson was that he was standing perfectly still.

Of course, it had been a week since Bruce had died—a horrible, grief-soaked week of shock, mourning, and plans no one wanted to enact—and Dick was standing before the case that held his version of the batsuit, preparing to put it on for good, not just a temporary cover.

Jason stepped up to loop his arms around Dick's waist. Dick turned into his arms, tucking his head under his chin and curling small. "I know, Pretty Bird," Jason murmured, kissing his temple.

Dick made a low, wounded noise.

"I know," Jason murmured again. "But it'll never be better than now. You'll never be ready."

Dick sighed, nodding against his shoulder. "I know," he mumbled.

Jason stroked his flanks and tucked his hands under the edge of the tattered, oversize Gotham U hoodie he was wearing, the one that had been in Dick's closet since he was fifteen, but had been purchased for Bruce.

Dick didn't resist, but he didn't help as Jason peeled him down to his usual under-suit clothes, compression leggings and a tank top, and started folding him into the batsuit's armor, one piece at a time. He kissed each joint as he encased it in armor, knees, wrists, elbows, shoulders.

When Dick was wearing everything but the cape and cowl, Jason took a moment to admire him. The lifts in the boots and Dick's better posture made up for the nearly four inches between Dick's height and Bruce's, and Dick's acrobat's shoulders filled the shoulders of the suit all on their own. It was only Dick's trim waist and lean legs that needed padding to match Bruce's silhouette. Jason let himself smirk and leer a little, playfully, at his lover, as he took in the padding on Dick's thighs that disguised the most famous ass in Gotham.

Dick finally smiled, small and sad, at Jason's playful leer. "Jay," he said reprovingly, but his eyes had brightened a little.

Jason kissed him, softly. He considered referencing the "World's Best Batman Impersonator" trophy the Titans had gotten Dick after he'd spent a week on the Watchtower as Batman while Bruce recuperated from some kind of alien snakebite, and not a single member of the Justice League had noticed, not even Clark. But that had been a joke, and this was far from funny. In the end, he just kissed him again, and murmured, "Love you."

"Love you too," Dick breathed. Then he shrugged on the cape and pulled the cowl over his hair and those beloved blue eyes. In Batman's low growl, he said, "Robin."

Tim, fully dressed and fidgeting with his gauntlet-computer, bounced to attention. "Ready," he said.

Jason thought that Tim had been weird for a few days, but he'd had his hands full with Dick's uncomplicated grief and incredibly complicated plans, and his own daddy issues, not to mention an angry fourteen year-old nearly-assassin child who'd just lost his father, and he hadn't quite gotten to figuring out Tim's particular brand of weird.

"Shadow's staying in," Batman said firmly. "Short patrol, just let ourselves be seen, and then home by midnight." It had been exactly a week since Batman had been killed in a Justice League mission on live television. They'd decided to give it this long to deepen the mythos.

And because they needed it.

"Sure," Robin agreed.

"I'll keep the munchkin company on comms," Jason offered.

Damian, halfway into the stealth-suit he'd been wearing on his limited patrols, greys and blacks to go with the Shadow nickname they'd given him till he could decide on his own codename, looked mulish, but he wasn't fighting as hard as he could, which told Jason they were right to hold him a few more nights. "Your assistance is not necessary," he grumbled. "But I will not refuse your company."

"Thanks, squirt," Jason said, ruffling his hair. He flopped down in the chair before the batcomputer and kicked his boots up on the console. He sighed ostentatiously as Batman and Robin headed for the batmobile.

When the ears of the batcowl tilted just slightly, Dick's acknowledgement that he'd heard the noise, Jason said loudly, "It's just not the same, watching him walk away with the cape on."

Shadow and Robin made identical retching noises.

"Hn," Batman said, and Jason knew he was amused. And then the Dynamic Duo was gone into the night, to put the fear of the Bat into the criminals of Gotham.

Shadow settled beside Jason at the computer.

Patrol was quiet, and Shadow even laughed a little at Robin's mask-footage of a attempted mugger actually peeing himself when Batman rose out of the shadows of the alley.

Viper, back early from her own brief loop through Gotham, chivvied Shadow out of his armor and up into the manor for bed, leaving Jason alone at the monitor, watching the tracker of the batmobile make its way back towards Bristol.

Dick shed the batsuit as quickly as he could upon their return, but Tim was still half Robin when he stalled out, biting his lip.

"What is it, Timberland?" Jason asked.

Dick, putting his gear away, paused, coming over to stand with Jason. "Tim?" he asked softly.

"I-" Tim started, his hands, still in Robin's gloves, flexed and fidgeted. "I don't think Bruce is dead," he said in rush.

Dick made a wounded noise.

Jason reflexively dragged Dick into his arms, but he kept his eyes on Tim. "Walk me through it, Timbit," he ordered gently.

Tim's throat worked, looking at the way Dick had wilted. "I- I was, I went to the portrait gallery," he said slowly, eyes wide and wet. "And there- Mordecai Wayne," he blurted.

Jason, still holding Dick's shaking form, cocked his head. "Someone I should've heard of?" he asked.

Tim shook his head. "Supposedly a Wayne ancestor, but there's evidence he was a late find, and added retroactively, and his portrait," he broke off. Then he gritted out, all one breath, "He looks exactly like Bruce."

Jason looked at his little brother. Tim was one of the smartest people Jason had ever met. Smarter than Bruce, maybe, in a lot of ways. But he was also eighteen, mourning, and desperate. He had no idea what to think.

But he did know what it looked like when someone was so desperate to be believed that they'd run rather than accept rejection. And that road ended in a bombed out warehouse in Ethiopia. "All right," he told Tim.

Dick stiffened in his arms.

Jason tightened his grip on Dick, keeping him still. "What's the plan?" he asked Tim.

Tim startled. "You believe me?" he asked softly.

Jason said honestly, "I got no idea, Timpani, but you're smarter 'n me by a fair way, and if you're right we gotta do something."

Dick eased in his arms, realizing the same thing Jason had, just a few moments later.

"I want to go look for evidence," Tim said. "I need- I want to follow the trail."

Jason breathed in, and then breathed out. Dick was shaking again, tense in his arms, but he wasn't protesting. "We," Jason told Tim. "We will follow the trail."

Dick made a noise again, maybe agreement this time, still low and hurt. "Yeah," he rasped, lifting his face from Jason's shoulder. "You can't- be alone, Tim."

Tim blinked wet eyes. "You-" he asked Dick quietly, hopefully.

"I can't," Dick whispered, closing his eyes. "But, if you need it," he trailed off. He transferred his octopus-arms from Jason to Tim.

Tim leaned into him like a a sunflower turning into the sun. "I'll prove it," he whispered.

"I don't care," Dick said, and his voice cracked. "Just be safe."

"We'll go tomorrow," Jason said, and his tone brooked no questions. "We need sleep tonight."

Dick nodded his agreement. He released Tim reluctantly. "Rest," he ordered, Batman to Robin.

Tim nodded, and went to actually finish taking off his suit, dashing the tears from his eyes as he went.

Jason pulled Dick back into his arms.

"I can't," Dick whispered again, into Jason's neck.

"Pretty Bird," Jason murmured, kissing his temple. "It doesn't matter. I'll take care of him," he promised. "And we'll come home."

Dick gave a hoarse, wrecked sob. "Come home," he pleaded.

"Look after the Alley for me," Jason replied.

Dick made a helpless noise of amusement and despair. "I will," he agreed.

Tim was already on his way up the stairs. Jason coaxed Dick to follow. "You need rest too," he said gently. "Come on," he said. They curled into bed together, and Dick, as he had every night this long, unbearable week, tucked his head under Jason's chin, and shook until he finally loosened into sleep.

Jason held him till he was asleep, and then let himself follow.

Knowing that breakfast and onward would be plans and explanations and family, Jason and Dick said their farewells in private when the woke. Dick left a bite deep enough to need a bandage on Jason's collarbone, and Jason left his fingertips bruised into Dick's body. But by the time they made it to breakfast, they were both ready to face the music.

The music, in this case, happened to be Tim and Damian shouting at each other.

"No," Damian shrieked. "I won't, you can't, you can't!"

"I want to!" Tim shouted back. "Just listen!"

"No," Damian yelled again. He looked as close as he ever let himself to tears.

Selina and Talia were in opposite doorways, both looking bewildered.

Dick put his fingers in his mouth and whistled sharply. It was a specific tone, a call and a demand at once. Batman, ordering his Robin to heel.

Both boys jumped to attention. Tim whistled the reply, a familiar, heard, waiting.

"Tim," Dick said.

"I think Dami should be Robin," Tim said.

Damian shook his head fiercely, but Dick hadn't addressed him, and he so rarely dared interrupt anyone but Tim, who you sometimes had to interrupt to get a word in edgewise.

Tim continued, "I tried to offer it to him and he flew off the handle!"

Dick nodded once, and Tim ducked his chin. Dick looked at Damian. "Dami?" he asked gently.

"I won't take it from him!" Damian insisted. "He can't give it to me," he added.

Tim looked mulish.

Dick crossed to their youngest brother. "It's his to give," he said gently. There was a lot of water under that particular bridge, but Dick and Jason, and Jason and Tim had all settled that score years ago.

Dami shook his head. "He has to have something to come back to," he whispered.

Dick swept Damian into his arms, still the only one of them but Talia reliably allowed to do so. "He's coming back," Dick promised. "He is, no matter what."

"I am," Tim agreed, breaking his posture to shuffle closer. "As soon as we find B."

Damian made a hitched noise.

"And Gotham needs a Robin," Tim added earnestly. "And you'll be so good at it!"

Damian squared his shoulders, squirming out of Dick's grip. "Of course I will," he said, sniffing imperiously to cover his wet eyes. "I am the heir of the Bat."

Dick ruffled his hair. "Robin first, kiddo," he said. "We can talk about the cowl when you reach your full height."

Damian subsided. "Very well," he grumbled, moving back to his place at the dining table. "I would not see you give the mantle up entirely," he told Tim sternly.

Tim stared at him. "What do you mean?"

"Have you considered a new name, since you are set to giving me yours?" Damian demanded.

"No," Tim said slowly. "I- I thought maybe I'd take Shadow."

Damian scoffed. "The shadows suit you ill," he grumbled. "No, you should be Red Robin, since Hood will accompany you, but you are still Gotham's light, even if you insist on giving me your wings."

"Huh," Tim said quietly.

Jason felt his heart lurch for his brothers. God he loved them, feral little shits that they were.

Damian nodded as if it were all decided. Hell, it probably was. "Tell me your plans for your search," he ordered Tim.

Jason winked at Talia, who looked relieved. Selina kissed Talia's cheek on the way to her usual place at the table's foot. They all settled, leaving the head of the table uncomfortably empty, as it had been for a week.

Tim was excitedly outlining his plans to a rapt Damian. Dick looked, now that the little brothers weren't focused on him, very tired.

"Perhaps," Talia said quietly into a break in Tim's monologue, "Stephanie also could do with a temporary change of code name."

Dick's head tilted.

Tim looked excited. "She'd make a great Batgirl!" he cried, somehow instinctively following Talia's thought.

Jason hummed agreement. "Just like the old days," he said fondly. "Batman, Robin, Batgirl, kicking ass and taking names."

"And a cat and a snake to keep an eye on them," Selina said, smirking.

"Always," Talia agreed, when Damian looked her way, quick and furtive and hopeful.

"Now," Alfred said, coming in with a towering tray of hot cakes. "I'm sure there is a house rule about shoptalk at the table."

"Sorry Alfred," Tim said, ducking his chin.

"My fault," Dick said. "I used the whistle."

Alfred hummed disapproval and went to get the coffee carafe.

Jason felt much better about leaving Dick, knowing Talia and Mama Cat would be looking out for him. Not that he had thought they wouldn't, but the confirmation eased something in his chest. So did his mid-morning phone call with Jenkins and Turk about leaving the Alley in the Cabinet's hands for a while. His quiet plea to trust Batman with the big things while Hood was away was met with skeptical agreement, but he suspected that they would understand once they'd realized, as they always seemed to, that it was their TJ under the cowl.

Then he was giving Dick one last kiss, ruffling Damian's hair and dodging his return nerve-strike, and nodding to Talia and Selina. He followed Tim onto the plane, and obligingly read the brief Tim had made him, sometime in the last few hours, just looking for the overview. He was perfectly happy to take the backseat on this one. As far as he was concerned, Tim's job was to find Bruce; Jason was just there to make sure they both got home again.

Their passports said they were Charlie and AJ Thompson, brothers, and they were backpacking Europe as Charlie's graduation present. Jason was mostly-responsible for their limited daytime activities, giving the Thompson brothers a digital footprint and their vigilante counterparts an alibi, and Tim was very focused on their nighttime search.

Neither of them needed to confer, however, when they saw the news report about the kidnapped girl, and the police's absolute failure to find her.

It took Tim half an hour.

Tim was dressed in his new Red Robin gear, and Jason was in a stealth suit, since Red Hood was well-known enough to raise questions being in Madrid instead of Gotham. They took out the hired guns on the roof in easy tandem, and headed down to the safe room.

Three guns, Tim signed.

Jason kicked the door in and immediately engaged the bodyguards while Tim darted behind him to free the crying child from her bonds.

"Might want to leave, Boss," the unarmed man said in Spanish.

"R," Jason snarled as the man's hands started to glow.

"Clear," Tim said over comms.

Jason dodged the blast of fire, snarling, "You're going to burn this whole place," in his Gotham-barrio Spanish.

"Then burn," the guy replied, swinging for Jason.

"No," Jason replied, dodging the strike and sucker-punching him with a vicious uppercut to the jaw.

The guy dropped like a stone in a pond, and the fire in his hands went out.

Jason zip-tied the unconscious goons, fire-hands with them, scowled at the door where the boss had escaped, and then headed for the roof to rendezvous with Tim once he'd dropped the girl off with the police.

Slade Wilson, unmaksed but in full armor, slipped out of the shadows. He had the boss slung like baggage over his shoulder.

Jason tensed. "Deathstroke," he growled, as much to warn Tim over comms as to actually greet the mercenary.

Wilson's lips quirked. "Present for you," he said, voice low and dangerous. He dumped the man to the rooftop between them.

Jason narrowed his eyes behind his mask, tense and ready. "Why."

"Got curious," he said, shrugging one shoulder. "Little birdies so far from the nest? You know I'm willing to trade for intel."

Jason scoffed. Then he nodded at the unconscious man between them. "He kidnapped a girl. We were getting her back."

Wilson sighed heavily. "You didn't come to Spain for that," he said.

"No," Tim agreed, landing on the roof at Jason's flank. "We're on vacation. But we weren't going to just stand by."

Wilson rolled his eye. "Of course," he said dryly. Then he cocked his unscarred eyebrow. "Vacation, huh."

"Yep," Tim said blandly. Then he waved cheerfully. "So, bye now!"

Jason mimicked the wave, then scooped up the boss. "We'll take this to the police, so thanks for that, and we'll see you never."

"Hm," Wilson said, but he didn't say anything else, and he didn't seem to follow them.

Once they'd gotten back in civilian clothes, found food, and returned to their hotel, Tim said, "Do you think he was on a contract we should be worried about?"

Jason sighed. "Who the fuck knows, Timbuktu?"

"Oracle," Tim said dryly, texting busily as he stood on his laces to scrape his shoes off his feet and flop onto his bed.

Jason grunted an acknowledgement of this fact, and fished his own phone out.

Saw your pirate boytoy, he texted Dick.

So I heard, Dick texted back immediately. Fire Meta? he asked.

Jason made a face at his phone. As he was considering his reply, Dick added, And don't make that face at me. I can be as worried as I want from another continent entirely.

Jason felt himself smile against his will. Fire meta had a glass chin. No problem. one-eyed bastard more of a concern.

He's fine, Dick answered, predictably. He won't hurt you.

More worried about interference, Jason answered. Nosy fucker.

Still in Madrid? Dick asked, transparently changing the subject.

Jason shook his head fondly. Short Stack says Toledo tomorrow. Kid was getting tall; he was never going to be big, but he'd had a growth spurt this year, and he was catching up to Dick in height. Pretty soon, Jason was going to have to find a new nickname to annoy him with.

What's in Toledo? Dick asked.

No idea, Jason replied. Soon, me and Baby Bird.

A few moments without a reply, and then Dick said, Museo de Santa Cruz sounds up your alley.

Jason grinned.

"Dick?" Tim asked.

Jason hummed. "What's O say about the Dread Pirate Roberts?"

"He just finished a bodyguard gig for a Spanish politician, and seemingly just hasn't left the city," Tim reported. "How's Dick?"

"Sounds good enough," Jason said. Tim knew as well as Jason did that asking Dick his status would not get any useful intel on the matter, and reading between the lines of his banter was necessary. "Our one-eyed visitor apparently called him to complain about us, though."

Tim groaned.

Jason texted Dick, Timmy says hey.

Hug him for me, Dick replied, and followed it with a smiley face.

Jason replied with the middle finger emoji. "Bat-Octopus says we should hug."

Tim's nose wrinkled, which made Jason laugh. "Tell him we embraced manfully and I cried a little."

Jason laughed aloud, and relayed this to Dick. Dick replied with three sad-faces in a row. Tell Tim it's bedtime. He never gets so snarky unless he's tired.

The fuck are you talking about? Kid's a walking sass machine.

And he's always tired, Dick retorted.

Jason snorted. Love you, he said.

You too. Sleep well.

Be safe, Jason replied, and turned to corral Tim into his bedtime routine.

Dick was right. Museo de Santa Cruz was right up Jason's alley, and Tim bounced cheerfully between exhibits too. He was just as fixated by the architecture of the building itself as the exhibits housed within, a fact which Jason could see amusing the docents as they watched the pair of them move slowly between the rooms.

"Look at the ceiling," Tim breathed, voice hushed in deference to the atmosphere. He was staring upwards, instead of at the very famous altarpiece of the ascension of Mary, which was by El Greco.

Jason steered him gently out of the main walkway from the doorway as the couple behind them hid their smiles. Jason shared an easy grin with them.

"C'mon C," Jason said, nudging him. "You like El Greco."

"What?" Tim said, and obligingly brought his attention back to eye-level.

They'd changed wings, and Jason was examining a series of black and white photographs in a temporary exhibit of modern, Spanish photographers when Tim said, "AJ," in a tight voice.

Jason followed his gaze to the far end of the gallery, and found Deathstroke the Goddamned Terminator in civilian clothes, examining a photo with casual indifference. Jason sighed deeply. "Ignore," he murmured to Tim.

"Till we can't anymore," Tim agreed easily.

Jason tucked him under his arm, and they continued their slow journey through the photos.

Tim stiffened a moment later, and Jason followed his gaze to discover that something had made Wilson stiffen, and Tim was reacting to that.

Jason merely shifted to stand beside the mercenary and look at the painting that had so enraptured him.

It was a street scene, a lovely, golden-lit cafe-lined street, filled with brightly colored clothes and easy faces. One whole wall of the scene was a fabulous graffiti mural which had, unmistakably, a bat-symbol painted in one corner. The four photographs surrounding the painting, which were clearly the inspiration, did not show the corner of the street where the bat appeared in the painting.

Tim leaned in to read the plaque.

Jason said quietly, "He's not dead." He still didn't know if he believed Tim, but that was the thesis of this journey, and if they were going to have to put up with Slade Fucking Wilson on it, they would do so with the clarity of their goal unmistakable.

"Hm," Wilson said. "Composition's interesting," he said at normal conversational volume, and moved on.

Tim and Jason rolled their eyes at each other and continued the other direction.

At supper that evening, Tim handed Jason his camera, so Jason could read the plaque about the photo of the bat symbol.

"It's a street in Paris, and the photographer thinks the grafitti dates to the mid-nineteenth century," Tim informed him. "Montmartre, somewhere. I think we can find it."

Jason nodded. "Is that the next stop?" he asked. They'd been in four cities in a week, but this was the first time Jason had been entirely clear on why they were moving on.

Tim nodded. "I don't have another lead to chase, so we might as well."

"Sure," Jason agreed, stuffing tapas in his mouth with pleasure.

Tim was eating happily too; Jason was pleased to note that Tim had been eating more on this trip than he pretty much ever did. He had no idea if it was the different foods on offer or some kind cessation of stress that let him feel hungrier, but it was a relief to see Tim appearing to eat for pleasure rather than just calories.

When they got back to the hotel after their leisurely dinner—Jason would never get used to the late, long suppers in Spain—Tim flopped diagonally across his bed, arm over his eyes. "You gonna call Dick?" he asked.

It was late afternoon in Gotham, and Dick would probably be in the Cave, working on casework before suiting up for the night. They hadn't talked every day, but more often than not. "You mind?" Jason replied.

"Put it on speaker?" Tim replied.

Jason obliged, listening to the line ring.

"Jason?" Dick answered.

"Hey, Pretty Bird, you're on speaker."

"Timmy!"

"Hey Dick," Tim said quietly.

"Everything okay over there?" Dick asked.

"We're in Toledo," Jason said easily. "And I am stuffed full of tapas. Your Pirate Boytoy is stalking us," he added, to hear Dick's laugh.

"How's Gotham?" Tim asked before Dick could explain, again, that Deathstroke wouldn't hurt them.

Dick laughed softly, letting Tim change the subject. "We're muddling along," he said. "Steph's been showing Dami the ropes, and T and Mama Cat swear they're not hovering."

In the background, Selina shouted, "We're not!"

Talia said, "Tell them about your altercation with Penguin."

"Oh god," Dick groaned.

Jason and Tim grinned at each other, and Jason let Dick's voice wash over him, warm and a little tired, but animated.

His phone buzzed where it sat next to him, and as Dick outlined the positions of the goons in the warehouse, Jason checked the text. It was from Will, who rarely texted unless it was a problem, so he swiped to see the full text.

I know you said to trust the Bat while you were gone, Will had written, But are you sure? Turk says there's something off about him.

Jason sighed. I'm sure, he texted back. Trust me, if you can't trust the Bat. He will do the same things for you that I would.

Danny's pining, Will replied immediately. Why couldn't you leave Nightwing in charge?

Jason considered. The boys had figured out Dick's identity, and kept it ruthlessly secret until Danny had spilled it to Nightwing in a stuttered fit of hero worship, and still no one else knew. He trusted them as much as he trusted his cabinet, and more about some things. You can tell Danny and NO ONE else, he texted. But I did.

He got back the bird emoji, the bat emoji, and a string about about ten question marks, ended with a single exclamation mark.

His chuckle carried over the line.

"What?" Dick asked.

"Sorry," Jason said. "Will's texting me complaints about me leaving Batman in charge while I was away."

"How dare you," Dick said dryly.

"He says Danny's pining, and I should've left Nightwing in charge instead."

"I mean," Dick drawled. More quietly, he said, "You could tell him, if it would make things easier. He won't tell anyone but Danny."

Jason winced. "I appreciate the retroactive permission for something I have already done," he said sheepishly.

Dick laughed. "What did he say?"

Jason screenshotted the exchange and texted it to Dick, who outright giggled when it came through. Then he said indignantly, "Off? What does he mean Turk says I'm off? I'm the world's best Batman impersonator!"

"Doesn't mean you can't be slightly off," Tim said teasingly. "Just means you're better than everyone else."

Dick gasped dramatically. "Lies!" he cried. "Lies and slander!"

Jason closed his eyes, letting the knot in his chest, nearly constant now, ease a little at the familiar sound of Dick and Tim's banter, the distant background noises of his family in the cave, while he let himself be a little homesick.

Eventually, Alfred summoned the family to dinner before patrol, and Jason and Tim settled into their nighttime routine, both of them eased by the reminder of what they had left behind.

Wilson settled beside Jason as the train left the Girona station, their last leg of the fifteen hour journey between Toledo and Paris, as if he'd been there all along. "What's in Paris?" he asked. The car was nearly empty, and the other occupants were all wearing headphones.

Tim scrolled for a moment on his camera, and then handed the device to Wilson, screen on the painting from the museum. "We want to find this grafitti," he answered. "See if it's real."

Wilson nodded. "You think he's, what, haunting you via dubious street art?"

Tim shrugged. "The Flashes have time traveled enough to make it a valid theory."

Wilson leaned back in his seat, crossing his arms. "So he got sent to the past and is leaving clues via dubious street art," he said flatly.

Tim only hummed, taking his camera back to scroll further back through his photos. He handed Wilson the camera back, now showing one of his pictures in Madrid, a bat-relief in a facade in a medieval church. It wasn't a typical depiction of a bat, not that Jason was some expert in the art history of bats, but it did look suspicious.

Wilson grunted again. "You birds are such a pain in my ass," he said, handing the camera back without an acknowledgement.

"No one invited you," Jason reminded him pointedly. "You sat here."

Wilson huffed, and tipped his head back and closed his eye.

Jason would eat his helmet if the mercenary was actually asleep, but they didn't get another word out of him till they pulled into Gare de Leon.

"Hm," Wilson said, sitting up again as the train braked. "Well, I'll see you at the hotel." Then he strode away down the aisle and vanished between one car and the next.

"I hate him," Jason muttered.

"Come on," Tim replied. "I want a croissant."

Jason couldn't argue with that, so he followed Tim out of the station and into a cab. It was nearly midnight, but the streets were still busy.

Jason checked them into the hotel while Tim acquired croissants from the shop on the corner, which Tim had fully expected to still be open, and Jason had been surprised. The concierge had chatted cheerfully with Tim in French about pastries—Jason understood more French than he spoke, and mostly about food—while Jason filled out the proper forms.

Wilson came in through the balcony door while Jason was still setting up the security on their room. Jason stared at him for a moment, sighed, and ate his croissant.

Tim, already on his laptop, mouth full of pastry, grunted out a garbled greeting.

Wilson snorted. "City's quiet," he reported. "No whispers of you lot yet."

"Yes, because AJ and Charlie Thompson are very interesting and worth looking at," Jason scoffed.

Wilson rolled his eye. "I meant Red Hood and whatever bird theme Tiny Tim there is going with now, but sure, we can talk about anti-American sentiment."

"Red Robin," Tim said absently, still mostly absorbed in his laptop and his croissant, which he was now peeling into small strips and nibbling to pieces.

Wilson snorted. "Of course," he said dryly. "And have you found any other trouble to insert yourselves into here?" he asked.

"Not yet," Jason said evenly. "But the night's young."

"You're gonna get killed," Wilson sighed.

"No one invited you on this road trip," Jason retorted.

Wilson shrugged, helping himself to one of the bottles from atop the minibar.

Jason objected on principle—he wasn't going to drink it, and it wasn't like they couldn't afford the charge, but he could at least ask so Jason could tell him no!

Wilson ignored him, frowning over Tim's shoulder. "What spiders?" he asked.

And then everything was moving at once.

Jason's gun cleared the holster just in time to bounce a round off the blade aimed at Wilson's head as the man bounded through the balcony door.

Wilson swung Tim and the laptop he refused to let go of out of the line of fire and flung him almost casually onto the far bed. He avoided the claw blades swiping for his face and planted a boot in the chest of the man wielding them, launching him back towards the balcony.

Jason fired three more shots, forcing the man to dodge rapidly, giving more ground as Wilson flipped his mask back over his face and cleared his sword from its sheath.

Then Wilson launched himself at the clawed man, and they were both vanishing off the balcony.

"Go," Tim ordered. "I'll figure out what's happening."

"Red," Jason said tightly, standing in the balcony door, watching Wilson and the other fighter on the roof across the way.

"I'm fine," Tim snapped, "And he was after Deathstroke. N'll be sad if he get killed. Go!"

Jason groaned and made the leap for the roof. Shooting the claw-blades seemed both distracting and painful enough for Wilson to get a good swipe in with his sword, so Jason stayed on the edges of the conflict.

"This has nothing to do with you!" Claw-guy snarled, abandoning his assault on Wilson for a moment to try to run Jason off.

Jason flipped over the claw-swipe with the agility of a much smaller person, obviously startling his opponent. He bounced his boots off the guy's face, turned a backflip, and put two rounds center-mass.

Claw-guy managed to avoid taking either bullet somewhere vital, but caught one in the shoulder, and the other ripped a jagged line across his flank. He snarled in pain and frustration, and whirled back for Wilson. "I'll kill you," he snarled.

Wilson snorted, parrying claws and punching hard into the shoulder Jason had shot.

As it always was, the fight went quickly once they'd drawn first blood, and Jason didn't try to intervene when Wilson sliced the guy's head off in one neat swipe. As far as he was concerned, Wilson could deal with an attempt on his life however he wanted. B would disagree, and odds were even Dick would too, but it wasn't Jason's problem.

He did cross over to the body and nudge the clawed hands with his boot.

"Careful," Wilson said, examining the red, angry line on his forearm which was the only place the blades had touched him. "They're poisoned." He didn't look worried, and Jason would probably throw a party if he dropped dead right now, so Jason ignored the sliver of concern that was Dick's voice in his head.

Jason was trying to figure out if it was surgical or just very fancy push daggers. "Did this guy get his fingers replaced with swords?" he wondered, seeing the blood on the edge of the taping on his knuckles.

Wilson huffed. "Where'd you ditch the other bird?"

"Still on his laptop," Jason replied, tone implying it was a stupid question. He ignored the body and turned to go back to their hotel. Which, they might need a new one, if anyone had reported the gunshots. It was Paris; someone had definitely reported the gunshots.

"I told the concierge we had the tv up too loud," Tim said. "Our neighbors are annoyed, but it's not like anyone here actually knows what gunshots sound like in person."

That excuse would never fly in Gotham, but Jason trusted Tim's judgment. "I hope you promised we would keep it down in the future."

Tim grinned. "Of course! Now, have you heard of the Council of Spiders?"

"The what?" Jason asked.

Wilson grunted a negative.

Tim smiled a fierce, fanged grin. "They've killed five League of Assassins members in the last month. They're a cabal of assassins, and it seems like they've decided killing normal people for money is boring."

"So they're hitting assassins," Wilson said. He frowned. "Someday I am going to issue a strongly worded memo on the difference between a mercenary and an assassin," he grumbled. It was so incredibly something Dick would say Jason nearly laughed before he caught himself.

"You just killed the one called Recluse," Tim continued. "Near as I can figure, there are six more. Maybe seven. There might be two women who like poison, descriptions are pretty vague."

"Fucking, spiders?" Jason grumbled.

"And they're after the League?" Wilson asked.

Tim nodded. "Or, well, no," he corrected. "They're after a challenge. So, Deathstroke, League assassins, it's possible they could go for Shiva, David Cain, Bronze Tiger, or others not League-associated."

Jason hummed. "Okay, Cyclops aside, do we care if they take out those people?"

Wilson grunted irritation. "I'd like to see them try to take Shiva," he said, smirking.

"Actually, I kind of would too," Tim admitted. "But I sent her a text just in case."

Wilson blinked. Jason smirked.

Tim shrugged. "Equally likely, now that you've killed one, the others will refocus from their current targets to you," he told Wilson.

Wilson grunted. "They can try." He was examining the rapidly-healing cut on his forearm, which had lost its angry, red inflammation and was closing before their eyes.

"The Wanderer kills with skin-to-skin contact," Tim said, glancing at Jason.

"Long sleeves it is," Jason replied, knowing as well as Tim did that his proximity to Recluse's death made him a potential target of the Council, if it became known. "The wanderer," he grumbled. "This is fucking stupid."

Wilson grunted again, a scowl on his face, but he didn't say anything. "What's the plan?" he asked.

"Montmartre tomorrow to take pictures, and then on to Berlin, I found a lead there while you were busy."

Wilson shook his head. "When did you have time? No, don't answer that," he added.

Jason smirked. Tim flashed teeth again in his most unhinged grin.

"Birds," Wilson grumbled, and settled in the armchair. "I'll keep watch," he said. "Go to sleep."

Jason almost argued on principle, but Tim's eyebags were getting out of hand again, so he chivvied his brother towards their suitcases. "Come on, Timinutive, bedtime." He took the laptop physically away while Tim whined, but once away from his keyboard, the younger boy grudgingly got ready for bed.

Jason and Tim wandered the streets of Montmartre, ostensibly taking pictures with the camera around Tim's neck, and buying souvenirs for their friends and family back home.

Wilson was trailing them, obviously with them, and equally obviously entirely uninterested in what they were doing. When Tim got distracted by setting up the perfect shot, Jason and Wilson bickered absently, and then as Tim bounced off again and Jason stayed with him, Wilson let the distance grow between them again.

That their winding path led them down all three streets Tim thought the bat graffiti might be on only looked incidental. Of course it was the last one they checked that actually had the bat on it.

Tim, both pretending to and actually taking pictures, paused to set up his shot.

Jason stepped out of the footpath, putting his back against the wall while Tim played tourist. Wilson settled beside him, sipping from a coffee in a travel mug, which had miraculously appeared since they'd last stood side-by-side.

Jason bared his teeth briefly, and then tipped his face back towards Tim.

Tim, glowing with success, looked at him with a grin. Tim cut his eyes briefly to Wilson, and then showed Jason his picture. "Look at the light!" he said brightly.

Jason leaned into his shoulder to look. "Looks good, kiddo."

On the screen, the bat painted onto the wall, was subtle in the shadows of the mural, but it was also unmistakable as anything except Batman's symbol. Not just a bat, but clearly, obviously Batman's.

Madrid could have been a fluke. Toledo, artistic license. But this was starting to look more and more like a pattern. "Where to next, little bro?" he asked.

"Today?" Tim said brightly, pure Charlie Thompson's exuberance, "There's a crepe place I want to try down from our hotel. But tomorrow let's go to Berlin."

Wilson sighed deeply. "Berlin," he agreed; somehow, he managed to sound as if no one in the world had ever been less enthusiastic about anything as he was about going to Berlin. It was honestly kind of impressive vocal control.

Ignoring him mightily, Jason slung an arm around Tim's shoulders. "Lead the way," he said. "I could do with a crepe." He wished having Deathstroke along hadn't eased so many of his worries about this mission.

In the morning, Charlie and AJ had a vicious argument at the train station, and Charlie and their unexplained one-eyed shadow boarded their train without AJ.

While AJ's paper trail had him on a flight back to the US, Jason rented a car and drove to Berlin. Since the train was predictable and obvious, only one of their tails boarded the train with Tim and Wilson, and the others followed Jason from afar. He did his best to pretend he was trying to lose them without actually losing them, and arrived in Berlin almost four hours after Tim and Wilson.

He circled the hotel Tim had picked twice by rooftop, looking for Tim's tail.

"Assassins," Jason greeted, landing across from the sniper.

His tails landed warily on either side of their fellow. "Red Hood," one of them said. He looked a little familiar from his days in the League.

"It's Z?" Jason asked him.

He nodded. "Master has sent us with a message for the young detective," he said.

Jason scoffed. "I'll take a voicemail," he said dryly.

The woman snorted, and their third kicked her subtly.

After a moment, Z smirked. "Mistress, on the other hand, bids me tell you that her father always underestimates you, and fully believes your companion values nothing more than money."

Jason grinned, showing teeth. "He'll be thrilled Ra's thinks so highly of him," he said. "As much as I would love to tell that slimy old bastard to go fuck himself, better at least give Red the option of telling him himself."

"Then the message from our master is thus," Z said. "I will believe you when the world doubts, and my resources are yours for your mission, should you desire.Everything you seek can be attained." He held out an earpiece.

Jason huffed, but accepted the comm. "You get that, Red?" he asked.

Unfortunately, Tim said in his ear. Have your friends tell their boss I'm flattered, but I need to think about it.

Reluctantly, Jason passed the message.

The three assassins bowed politely and vanished, between one breath and the next, into the shadows of the night.

Jason climbed in the balcony of the room Tim had taken. Twin beds, just like all their previous. Wilson was on the tiny sofa, almost more of a loveseat, arms folded over his chest.

Jason tossed Tim the comm from Ra's and stripped out of his stealth suit. "Any fucking," he waved his hands, trying to encompass his sheer disdain for the entire stupid, overdramatic group, "Spiders?"

"No," Wilson said, face twisting in constipation or annoyance or something. Jason didn't actually care except to check he seemed more annoyed by Jason's flippancy than the lack of spider-assassins.

"Plan?" he asked Tim.

"Ethnological museum tomorrow night," Tim answered. "Artifact I'm looking for isn't on display, so it'll be in their archival storage. We'll have to break in, and it'll be easier at night."

"So, tomorrow?" Jason asked.

Tim shrugged. "That's your bailiwick," he answered.

Wilson mouthed the word 'bailiwick' but didn't interrupt.

Jason flopped onto the bed Tim wasn't already occupying, and pulled out his phone. "Things to do in Berlin when you're dead," he said cheerfully.

Tim threw a pillow at him. Wilson snorted.

Jason threw the pillow back, and ignored the one-eyed peanut gallery. "Tired of museums yet, Timbers?"

Tim shrugged. "No," he said after a moment's thought. "Maybe tired of art museums."

Jason hummed, scrolling results. "How about antique bookstores?" he asked.

Tim laughed. "I could handle one more of those," he said. "If your suitcase can."

Jason rolled his eyes. "I can always fit another book, Timbus."

"Out of curiosity, how many nicknames for him do you have?" Wilson asked.

"You have no idea," Jason replied.

"I have no idea, and it's my name," Tim said.

Jason bared his teeth. "Bedtime, Tim-tam," he said, rolling to his feet with a groan.

Tim echoed him, but obligingly set his laptop aside and headed for the bathroom.

Jason, rifling through his suitcase, which Tim had brought up for him, he glanced between the beds and the love seat. Still ignoring their one-eyed peanut gallery, he called into the bathroom, "Is he going to sleep standing up in the corner like a vampire?"

"He said he could sleep on the couch," Tim called back.

"Timmers, it would take three of those to actually hold his entire body."

Tim shrugged. "He may have said that before we saw the room."

"I'll be fine," Wilson grunted. He was still sitting with his back in the corner of the love seat and his arms crossed over his chest. Jason could almost imagine him sleeping just like that.

"He said that when we got up here," Tim said around his toothbrush, leaning out the bathroom door.

"I know this is a wild idea," Jason said dryly, turning back the bed, "But he could get his own hotel room."

Wilson grunted a wordless denial. It was amazing how like Bruce he sounded. Their inflections were even the same. This one was clearly, not just no but hell no, and also you're not as funny as you think you are.

Jason turned out the overhead light, leaving the bedside lamp as he switched places with Tim in the bathroom. "Serum protect you from plaque too?" he asked, waving his toothbrush at the mercenary.

Wilson grunted again, this time an I'm not answering such an obviously stupid question.

Jason shrugged and finished getting ready for bed. Wilson could do whatever the fuck he wanted.

Jason's suitcase did, barely, survive the trip to the antique bookstore, and Tim vibrated happily through the video game museum. Jason's favorite part of that trip was watching Wilson try to act like he wasn't silently dying inside as excitable children shrieked around them.

Now they were in the darkened archives of the Ethnological Museum, and Tim was crouched at whatever the anthropological archive-equivalent of a card-catalogue was, trying to interpret their filing system.

Wilson was prowling around near the archive entrance, and Jason stood silently at Tim's shoulder, watching his back in a very literal way.

Three assassins appeared from the shadows near the ceiling.

Wilson swore, and Tim startled.

"Z," Jason said.

"Hood," Z greeted. "You tripped an alarm," he said. "And the Global Guardians are on their way."

"Fuck me," Jason grumbled.

"I'll leave it to Wing, thanks," Tim muttered. "I need, like, ten more minutes."

"You got it, Red," Jason agreed.

"We cannot be seen to interfere," Z said apologetically. "Master bid us only to observe."

Jason shrugged. There was a wealth of subtext in the assassin-leader's tone and the little smirk on his face. Seen was a very different verb than simply interfere. "Global Guardians have never impressed me much."

Wilson grunted from the vestibule. "Can hear hounds," he said.

"Wild Hunstman," the sniper said helpfully, and then the three of them vanished again.

"Eight minutes," Tim said, shoving away from the computer and bolting into the aisles of shelves.

Wilson grunted as the doors he was holding shut shuddered under a mighty blow. "Go time," he said, and the doors slammed open.

Jason lunged under the first swing of the axe, rolled, and came up firing. Behind him, a hound yelped in dismay. "Don't fucking kill the dogs, man!" he shouted.

"Fuck you, Hood," Wilson bit back. There was another yelp. "I'm not."

A sword-blade intercepted the axe-blade before it could take his head off, and Jason launched himself backwards into a roll, and planted a boot in the midsection of a hound lunging at Wilson's unprotected back.

"You want to tell him we come in peace?" Wilson asked dryly.

"Once you're fighting in sync with Deathstroke the Terminator, I think that ship has sailed," Tim said dryly over comms. "I'll have the JLA send the GGs an apology letter once we get B."

Jason, being swarmed by hounds, said, "ETA, RR?"

"Almost there," Tim replied. "Like, two minutes."

Jason shook his head, rolled under a leaping hound, and swapped out with Wilson facing the Hunstman.

"Last hound out," Wilson reported a few moments later, as Jason just dodged axe-swings and kept the fight moving around the museum. Wilson joined the fray, engaging the axe arm.

Jason saw an opening, used Wilson's shoulder as a launchpad, and got his legs around the Huntsman's neck.

"Warning next time would be nice," Wilson said. He hadn't even moved under Jason's weight.

Jason flipped him off as he rode the Huntsman's struggles to the ground.

Tim emerged from the stacks. "Did you just choke a man out with your thighs?" he asked.

Jason, disentangling himself from the unconscious meta, shrugged. "Get what you needed?"

Tim held up his camera cheerfully. "Let's go," he said.

"Spider," Wilson said tightly, looking into the dark exhibit. He shoved Jason's shoulder. "Get RR clear," he ordered, and turned towards the assassin in the shadows.

"C'mon, Red," Jason said, and towed Tim by the arm towards the door.

Tim followed, but he argued on the way. "We can help," he said.

"Wilson's uniquely suited," Jason replied. "And my mission is you, and your mission is B, so."

Tim sighed, but obediently leapt with him as they left the roof of the museum behind.

"I'll catch up," Wislon said dryly over comms.

"Don't die," Tim said. "N will be sad."

"Going dark," Wilson replied.

Halfway back to the hotel, the long way, Z and company met them on a rooftop. "Master has another message for the young detective," he said.

Tim's head and body said clearly he was rolling his eyes under the cowl. "He couldn't call?"

Z's mouth twitched. Then he stepped forward and held out his arm, full-length, politely not stepping closer to Tim than necessary. In his flat palm was a cell phone, call already open on the screen.

Tim briefly tipped his head back in a silent groan of exasperation, and then he lifted the phone to his ear. He turned away as he answered, "What."

Jason tipped his chin at the woman and the sniper. "Who're you, then?" he asked.

"Owens," the sniper said, gesturing at himself. "She's Pru."

Pru flipped him off.

Jason grinned. "New here?" he asked.

Owen's showed teeth. Pru made another rude gesture.

"Prudence has only recently joined the League," Z said, a low hand gesture making Pru subside from her bristle. More meaningfully, he added, "Her allegiance is not in question."

One of Talia's then, Jason interpreted, like Z and Owens. "You and O the training wheels?" he asked Z.

Z nodded shortly. "You trust your companion deeply, to not even try to eavesdrop," he observed.

Jason shrugged. "He's my brother," he answered. He also knew this was meaningless in the League of Assassins.

But Z nodded as if this actually answered his question. Then his attention sharpened back towards Tim as Tim hung up the phone and returned to their side of the roof.

His mouth was turned down in distaste or disapproval, Jason wasn't quite sure, but he looked stern and steady to outsiders. "Did Ra's tell you he was putting you under my command?" he asked Z.

Pru startled and muttered a curse. Owens went tense, in an attempt to suppress a larger reaction. Z was perfectly poised. "I was told," Z said quietly. "What are your orders?"

Tim's head turned, staring out into the skyline in silence for a long moment. His jaw was tight and his mouth was turned down.

Jason moved closer, putting a hand on his shoulder.

Tim leaned imperceptibly into the touch. Then he squared himself. "We're leaving for Baghdad in the morning," he said. "Scrub your safehouse, settle things between you," he added, because he'd seen just as Jason had the way Pru and Owens reacted to Z's knowledge of their orders. "Travel separately," Tim added. "And then rendezvous with us in Iraq. Destination is a joint operation between Columbia University and the Iraqi Antiquities Committee dig on the southern shore of Therthar Lake, if you don't catch us in Baghdad."

Z nodded. "As you say." Then he jerked his head at Owens and Pru.

Pru dug in her heels, literally and metaphorically. "What do you get from us?" she demanded.

Tim lifted his chin, but before he could answer, Wilson climbed over the lip of the roof they were standing on. He looked a little scuffed. He looked across the tableaux once and then said to Jason, "You have an assassin problem."

"Which you're compounding," Jason replied, just to annoy him.

Wilson's face scrunched up. "Mercenary," he growled. "Not an assassin."

"Yeah, yeah," Jason said. "I look forward to the draft of the memo."

Wilson grunted at him.

Tim shook his head, ignoring them to look at the assassin trio. "There are few people in the world I trust less than Ra's al Ghul," he said steadily. "But I trust that your loyalty to him," and here he tipped his head meaningfully, "And his orders mean that you won't stab me in the back till he tells you to. I don't need your help or his, but for now it works for me to have more hands and eyes, while the Council of Spiders is out in force and I still don't understand why what I suspect happened to B happened."

"B?" Owens said. "We don't even know what we're doing!" This was snarled at Z.

Z's mouth pursed. "Leave the young detective to his work," he said quietly. "I will explain all I have been told."

"You'd better," Pru grumbled. "Because I'm asking Red when we get to Iraq."

Tim nodded. "I will have time to explain in Iraq."

Also, Jason read between the lines, the assassin trio would be able to ditch Ra's bugs before they returned to nipping at Tim's heels.

Z nodded sharply, and the three vanished into the night.

Wilson sighed deeply. "You want to die, Birdies?"

"I have it handled," Tim said shortly. "The spider?"

Wilson grunted again, but inclined his head. "Dead," he offered.

"Which one?" Tim asked.

Wilson shrugged. "He had a laser garotte," he offered.

"Tangle," Tim said.

Wilson snorted in disgust, probably at Tim for just knowing that off the top of his head, but he followed Jason and Tim back to their hotel anyway.

Tim flew to Iraq under his real passport, Timothy Drake, on a trip for Drake Industries accompanied by hired security, in deference to the potentially dangerous area.

Wilson's passport had his legal name on it, to Jason's surprise, and Jason flew under the same identity he'd used on his murder-tour of the world. They were the right kind of slightly-shady ominous security DI had a history of employing on their slightly-questionable dealings.

Tim did, in fact, have one meeting lined up, with an Iraqi businessman and the head of one of the American military contracting firms in the area, and Jason stood idly through a boring conversation about impact, sheer-force, and weight differentials before he realized they were talking about body armor.

Jason knew that Tim had been unofficially running DI since he was thirteen, and that his parents had made him CEO as part of his eighteenth birthday present, but it was kind of interesting to seem him in that role.

Wilson, leaning on the doorframe to most inconvenience anyone trying to interrupt, looked bored.

Then they rented a utility vehicle and headed into the desert.

After roughly an hour and half of listening to Tim monologue about Babylonian social structure while Jason periodically interjected with speculation about Epic of Gilgamesh and the evolution from Uruk to Babylon, Wilson interrupted from the backseat, "Columbia and the Antiquities Committee?" It was the first time he'd indicated any curiosity towards their plan since they'd left Berlin.

Mostly, if he'd spoken at all it was to complain about the recklessness of birds.

"My parents are here," Tim replied.

There was a startled-sounding silence from the backseat.

Jason hadn't realized that either. He shot Tim a sidelong glance.

Tim shrugged, typing busily on his laptop. Jason might've thought it was an avoidance tactic, except Tim was literally always glued to a screen if his body was stationary. "I want their opinion on one of the photos I took in Berlin, and if it's what I think it is we need to be in Iraq anyway, so it made sense to come in person instead of emailing."

"You're taking assassins to your parents' dig," Jason said quietly.

Tim made a low noise of acknowledgement. "T trusts them as much as she can trust anyone outside the family. They're not going to betray us until it's time to, and we'll be away from the dig by then."

"What does that mean?" Wilson demanded.

"Ra's told me to come to the Cradle when I had my evidence, and he would help me get Bruce back," Tim answered. "I mean, more than that, but that was the gist of it. If we don't, I'm sure Z and the others have orders to bring me by force, but they won't tip that hand till it's very clear I've gone rogue." He shrugged again. "And we'll be away from my parents by then, and while Ra's might think to send someone to get them separately, I don't think Z will actually tell him where we've been till after the fact."

"What makes you so sure?" Jason asked.

"He ordered them to go dark, and report only to me," Tim answered.

"Yeah, and he's a lying asshole," Jason replied.

Tim inclined his head. "But he expects obedience from his people," Tim said. "They won't reach out to him unless he breaks the radio silence first, not the least because it suits their orders from T to do so."

Jason silently conceded this point.

"It's a risk," Tim acknowledged, "But it's a calculated one."

Jason hummed. "Whatever you say, Timbourine," he said finally. Tim was better at risky-decision-calculus than anyone Jason knew.

Tim shot him a wry grin. Wilson grunted from the backseat.

Jason turned off the dubiously-paved main road onto an entirely unpaved dirt road, obeying his GPS despite the absolute lack of any idea of where he was going.

"Shouldn't be much further," Tim said.

Indeed, a veritable tent city sprang into view over the next rise. Jason pulled the vehicle into the collection of other utility vehicles and trailed skeptically behind Tim as Tim trotted towards the center of the site.

Jason had, in his heart of hearts, harbored a deep skepticism about the Drakes from the moment he'd learned that Tim had shoehorned himself into the Robin suit without permission or parental supervision after literal years of middle-of-the-night birdwatching. As much as he liked teasing Tim about his stalker tendencies, the fact remained that Tim should never have been able to stalk them. Because his parents should've been in Gotham instead of god-knows-where.

Tim had never once, in the time Jason had known him, expressed any opinion except love and affection for Jack and Janet Drake. Jason would keep his mouth shut, but he would also be on his guard.

"Timothy!" Janet cried, seeing him walking between the tents. She was dressed the local way, wide cloths and covered head, and she had dirt streaked across her face. She swept Tim into a fierce embrace.

"Tim?" Jack asked. He was also dressed like a local, and his face was marked with both sunburn and a dark pigment around his eyes. "What are you doing here, Sport?"

Tim transferred from his mother's fierce hug into his father's arms. Despite the perhaps intense phrasing of the question, Jack pressed a kiss to the top of Tim's head and squeezed him hard enough to pull him up onto his toes.

"DI had a meeting in Baghdad, and I thought I'd come see you while I was in-country!" Tim said cheerfully, disengaging, but staying tucked between them.

"Who's with you?" Janet asked, glancing at Jason and Wilson curiously.

Tim shrugged. "Board insisted on bodyguards, if I was going to wander around Iraq."

Jack visibly rolled his eyes. "Well I suppose if they think it's best," he drawled.

Tim looked over his shoulder at them, and then back at his parents. "They're all right, though," he said easily. "Come on, show me the dig!"

Jason and Wilson followed Tim on the most thorough, and weirdly focused tour of any historical site Jason had ever heard. Honestly, he was struggling to keep his face blank, because the discoveries the team—and to give Jack and Janet their due, they talked extensively about the expertise of their compatriots on the dig site—was making were fascinating finds about early expansion beyond the Fertile Crescent.

"Nerd," Wilson muttered, too low for anyone else to hear.

Jason ignored him, but made a mental note to find something to tell Dick Wilson had done. He deserved a bit of Nightwing-haranguing for being so annoying.

They shadowed Tim through a lively, communal dinner with the dig-team, where Jack Drake spent the entire meal showing his son doodles, schematics, and little bits of electronics between bites.

Jason was beginning to get the impression that Janet was the archaeologist of the pair, and Jack was some kind of mad scientist. Maybe Jason was glad he'd followed his wife around the world instead of staying in Gotham to become yet another dissatisfied academic gone rogue.

Finally, the meal ended, the team dispersed, and Jason followed Tim into the little lean-to shack the Drakes were living in.

Wilson slinked off to patrol the perimeter and probably collect their assassin puppy trio when they arrived.

"So," Janet said, smiling at Tim when they were alone. "What really brings you here?"

"And, sorry," Jack said to Jason. "I think I missed your name."

"Jason," Jason said.

Jack nodded.

"Is he one of your. Colleagues?" Janet asked Tim awkwardly.

Jason startled. He hadn't realized they knew.

Tim laughed. "Yes," he said. "Mom, Dad, this is Red Hood. Jason Todd."

"Oh!" Janet said, startled.

Jack's jaw dropped.

"We met you once, I think," Janet said, tilting her head at him. "Before you died. Did you die?"

Jason a year ago would've been offended. As it stood, he chuckled. "I did, but it didn't stick," he said easily. "And no offense, but I pretty much put everyone I met at a Gala out of my head as soon as the party was over."

"Me too," Jack said cheerfully, sounding very much like his son for a moment. "Jan keeps the names and faces."

Janet rolled her eyes, looking exactly like her son. "Red Hood," she repeated. "And your other companion."

"Oh," Tim said warily. "He's. Not a cape," he said slowly. "Uh, you've probably never heard of him."

"So it's not Deathstroke the Terminator?" Janet asked.

Tim groaned.

Jason tilted his head. "Why do you know that?"

Janet smiled like a shark. "Running a business is cutthroat," she said vaguely.

Tim sighed. "It is," he agreed. "But it's fine. He's. Safe enough."

Janet's eyebrow quirked. "The board hired him?"

Tim shook his head. "I told the board I would arrange my own security. Wilson's with us for personal reasons."

"What reason could you possibly have?" Jack asked, sounding much more alarmed than his wife. Jason rather thought he might be the sensible one of the pair, which was surprising given what he'd seen of them so far.

"Not mine, his," Tim said.

"He's friends with Dick," Jason said, cutting right to the chase. "And has decided Dick would be sad if we died, so he's sticking around."

"I would be sad if you died," Jack said earnestly.

"And we're here because Timberly has a picture he wants to ask you about," Jason added, because he suspected—if the Drakes in one space were anything like Tim and Bruce in a space—they would never get anywhere if he didn't drive the conversation.

"Oh!" Tim said, and pulled his laptop out of his bag. "Yes," he agreed, going through the boot process and getting through his security. "I took a picture of an artifact in storage in the Anthropological Museum in Berlin, and it reminded me of some of the things you were showing me last time, about the dig in the mountains, south of here?" Tim flipped the screen towards his mother.

"Oh yeah," Janet said. "That's- yeah," she murmured, pulling the screen closer.

Tim let her have it, and exchanged a fond look with his father.

"Can I ask what the case is?" Jack asked while Janet hummed over the photo.

Tim nodded. "I don't think Bruce is dead," he said. "And I think if I can find where that artifact came from, I can prove it to the Justice League, and they can get him back."

Jack nodded. "You need anything?"

"Fewer assassins," Wilson grunted, pushing into the shack with the three League puppies trailing behind him.

Jack and Janet both startled.

"Z, Owens, Pru," Jason said, pointing at them. "Jack and Janet Drake. They're Timagotchi's parents, and if they get so much as a sidelong glance from your boss, I burn down the entire League."

Z nodded solemnly. Pru and Owens both looked skeptical, but nodded hastily when Z glared at them.

Jack repeated, "Timagotchi?" kind of curiously.

Tim shook his head.

"Assassins?" Janet inquired.

"Nothing that need worry you," Z said smoothly. "For now, we are merely extra hands for Timothy to wield as he will, on his quest."

"Hm," Janet said, and then she turned back to the picture. "Did it not have provenance?" she asked her son.

Tim shook his head. "Looted and recovered. Best they could say was that it was probably Mesopotamian."

Janet nodded. "I can't promise it," she said. "But it does look like the pieces we excavated there."

"Let me see, Jan," Jack said, holding a hand out. "The thing is," Jack told Jason, Wilson, and the puppies, "That Jan has incredible knowledge about our current project-era, and she recognizes trends and skills and methodologies across eras." He tilted his head at the screen. "I, on the other hand, don't know diddly squat about the history of it, but I have an excellent memory for specific objects." He handed the laptop back to Tim. "And I can say definitively, yes we dug that up."

"Wait, really?" Tim said.

Jack nodded decisively. "I have no goddamn clue where," he admitted. "Or how it wound up on the black market, but we definitely dug that up."

"If we did it, it would've been the dig north of Shakrav," Janet said slowly. "Are you sure?"

Jack nodded again. "Yep," he said. "No recollection of the dig, the relevance, or the sale," he repeated. "But I remember the break in the handle and the cool pigments on the base."

"So that's our next stop," Tim said. He was practically vibrating now, some kind of hunting hound straining at his leash.

Jason nodded at him and smiled back at Tim's fierce grin.

They spent the night with the Drakes, and then Tim spent most of the morning letting his father show him all his current projects, little fiddly engineering bits Jason didn't try to comprehend. He dragged the puppies out in the desert a ways and forced them to spar with him, one by one, under Wilson's deeply skeptical eye.

During lunch, the excavation team had an exciting discovery that looked like a different shade of dirt to Jason, but Tim hopped down in the pit with his mother, so it was late afternoon before they piled back into vehicles to head south.

Wilson got in with the puppies. He shrugged when they glared at him, but Jason knew it was because he didn't trust them, and he was worried about Tim and Jason's safety.

Jason was just glad to have a quiet moment with his brother without any assassins (or mercenaries).

"You all right?" Tim asked. He was, as usual, on his computer. Impossible to tell if he was doing work for Drake Industries or researching for a case.

"Yeah," Jason said. "Why wouldn't I be?"

"You seemed tense, this morning."

Jason blew out a breath. "I trust you," he said after a moment. "But the puppies worry me."

"Puppies?" Tim said.

"Z, and them."

"No, I followed that bit. It's the nomenclature that threw me."

Jason shrugged. "Nipping at our heels," he said finally.

Tim snorted. "I trust T's judgment on the three of them specifically," he said. "And I know Ra's freaks you out, but he's predictable."

Jason grunted.

Tim reached over to pat his hand on the gear shift. "I have Ra's handled," he promised.

Jason nodded. "So I'm fine," he said. "You okay?"

Tim hummed. "I feel so close," he said after a few moments typing. "Like, I think we're almost there."

"Good," Jason said. "But I meant your parents."

"What?" Tim said. "No, that bit's fine."

Jason hummed. "I guess I never much made a secret of the fact that I'm not their biggest fan."

Tim snorted. "No, I've never been unclear on that point," he agreed. "You thought it was… negligence. Abandonment."

Jason hummed. "Wasn't it?"

"I was well taken care of," Tim protested.

"Timbone, you were alone. You were wandering Gotham at night with a camera and a coat."

"And really expensive health insurance, and a full meal in my stomach, and the knowledge that I was loved," Tim said. "That's a lot more than some have." More quietly, he said, "You were out there too."

"First of all, Timily," Jason said, putting a finger in the air.

Tim laughed.

Jason flashed him a grin. "I was three years older, and I was wearing kevlar, and I had an overprotective bat-hen hovering over my shoulder the whole time."

"Secondly?" Tim asked.

"Secondly," Jason agreed, "It's not a zero sum game. It sucking more for others doesn't mean it didn't suck for you too."

"It didn't, though," Tim said. "I mean, yes, I see, objectively, that my parents shouldn't have left me alone for months at a time with only a housekeeper visiting three times a week."

Jason nodded. "I'm glad."

"But, like, I was fine."

Jason shot him a sidelong look.

"Yes, I know," Tim said.

Jason nodded. "As long as you know." He sighed. "They obviously love you," he admitted. "And really thought they were, I don't know, doing right by you."

"They didn't want to take me away from Gotham any more than I wanted to make mom stay home, when all she wanted was to dig," Tim said quietly. "They used to take me along," he said.

Jason made a startled noise. He hadn't known that.

"Then I fixated on Dick," Tim said, gesturing vaguely. "Sorry, I've never told this to anyone."

Jason reached over to ruffle his hair blindly.

"Robin made his debut when we were home between trips," Tim said. "And I got obsessed. So when mom and dad went on their next dig, they let me stay and keep tracking reports of Robin. They got me the camera the next Christmas."

Jason grunted. He could see the shape of it now—Jack and Janet each had their own obsessions they couldn't bear to be away from, and they had given their son what they would've wanted: continued access to his obsession. And that was exactly how Tim had seen it: his parents giving him what he needed. "Okay," he said finally. "I get it."

Tim glanced quickly over at him, and then looked back at his screen, a short, hopeful glance to confirm his seriousness.

"Still don't entirely agree," Jason said. "But it makes sense, and I don't blame them for the call they made in the thick of it." He just thought there should be some kind of fitness test before people were allowed to raise children.

"Thank you," Tim said quietly. "No one's- no one's tried to understand before."

Jason ruffled his hair again. "You're mine, Timperature. I'll always listen."

"Okay that one's weird."

Jason huffed. "All right, Timtation."

Tim chuckled, and Jason counted it a win.

Jason followed Tim's GPS marker, the suv with the assassins following them, off the road and into the mountains a ways. The marker brought them to the base of a cliff, which still had visible pitons from the last excavation.

Tim immediately started preparing for the climb. When he looked up and the rest of them were just standing there, he looked at Jason. "Are you not coming?"

"Your project, Timale verde," Jason replied. "Show me the pictures after, though."

Tim rolled his eyes, and started his climb.

Jason turned back to the puppies, slightly startled to realize Wilson had vanished. He cocked an eyebrow at Z.

Z shrugged, clearly not concerned. "Are we staying here tonight? We have gear for camping."

Jason shrugged. "We'll see what Red says," he decided. "He's the brains of the operation."

Z frowned at him. "You have more experience," he said. "And more familiarity with the League. Why do you yield to the young detective?"

Jason scoffed at him. "He had the vision," he said. "He's smarter 'n me. He's my brother. Take your pick."

Z hummed. "I see," he said after a moment, which suggested to Jason that he absolutely did not see.

Jason just shrugged and turned his eyes back to the cave entrance above their heads where Tim had vanished.

"So are we just standing here waiting for something to happen?" Pru asked.

"You could set up a perimeter," Jason offered. "If you're bored."

Pru huffed.

"A good idea," Z said mildly. "Owens, Pru, take the flanks."

Pru groaned, but went.

Owens shot Z a scowl, but also turned away.

Z looked at Jason. "This has been interesting, trying instead to keep someone alive, rather than to end a life."

Jason snorted. "Funny how that works out," he said dryly. "You going to take the rear?"

Z hummed, and disappeared into the shadow of the SUVs.

Jason leaned on the cliff face beneath where Tim was doing whatever it was he needed to do. He closed his eyes, stretching his ears to hear the desert around them. He slowed his breathing and settled himself in to wait.

Most of the noise he could hear was Tim, above him, rustling about in the cave. Every now and then, a shift of sand as a puppy's foot slid. The slow whisper of steel as a blade slid from its sheath.

Jason opened his eyes, lunging away from the cliff in a hard burst. "Z," he barked, gesturing sharply left.

Z didn't question. He lurched into a sloppy roll and narrowly avoided taking a blade through the midsection. His assailant was already swinging again, and Z scrambled in the sand.

Jason hit the man in a hard tackle, shoulder dropped to hammer his weight into the guy's diaphragm, and then rolled over and past, coming to his feet instead of holding the pin. "Spider," he barked, pitching his voice to carry over the sand.

Twin swords both came for Jason, one low and one high.

Jason flipped backwards, a signature Nightwing move any Gothamite would recognize, but no one ever expected Jason to pull off, with his greater weight. Both swords missed him by a narrow margin.

Wilson hooked a foot around his ankle, taking Jason to the sands as a backslash whipped through where his head had been, and then Deathstroke the Terminator caught the other blade on his own.

Jason rolled out of range before getting to his feet, and pushed Z around ahead of him to guard the base of the cliff.

Tim was scrambling down in a frantic hurry, camera bouncing around his neck.

The other two puppies were watching from atop their SUV. Owens was trying to line up a shot, but the two swordsmen were moving too fast.

"Widower," Tim said quietly.

Jason nodded. After a moment of watching, he nodded once. "Wilson has him," he said.

Z made a curious noise. "How do you know?" he asked.

"Deathstroke's playing with him," Tim said. "Trying to get him to open- ah."

Indeed, across the sands, Wilson had finally arranged for the Spider to have both swords out to his sides, front-facing towards Wilson, leaving him open to the vertical slash Wilson flicked from throat to waist.

"That," Tim said, grimacing as the Widower's insides spilled across the sand.

Swords slid from nerveless hands. "How-?" he wondered, and then crumpled.

Wilson snorted. "Easy," he said to the dead body, "You're sloppy." Then he looked directly at Tim. "You get what you need?" he asked.

Tim nodded, patting his camera.

"Then we probably shouldn't stay here," Wilson said.

Owens shifted uncomfortably, still holding his rifle. Pru rested her hands on her guns. Z would never fidget, but Jason could tell, as close as they were still standing, that he wanted to.

"Istanbul, then?" Tim asked Z.

Z startled.

Tim scoffed. "I know Ra's wants you to bring me to him. Is he at the Cradle, or in Nanda Parbat?"

"Ah," Z said slowly. "Istanbul," he said finally, extremely reluctantly.

Tim nodded shortly. "You drive Owens in your SUV with Hood and Deathstroke and Pru drives me in our SUV," he ordered.

"Red," Jason said reluctantly. He could see the play, but didn't like being separated.

Tim flipped his whiteout lenses up briefly so Jason could see his eyes. Trust me, he seemed to say.

Always, Jason thought fiercely. "We'll be well behaved little hostages," he promised.

Wilson scoffed, but also didn't argue.

Jason couldn't wait to see what Ra's al Ghul thought he was doing, taking The Red Hood and Slade "Deathstroke" Wilson as hostages to promise the good behavior of a Bat.

And after all that, Ra's couldn't even be bothered to meet them himself. Jason rolled his eyes as the White Ghost gestured and he and Wilson were neatly and deftly cut away from Tim like three small sheep surrounded by sheepdogs. He'd already surrendered his phone and his guns, so Jason didn't know what they thought he was going to do.

Tim was following the White Ghost with his jaw set, but his head tilted just slightly once, checking Jason's location in his periphery.

Jason let himself be herded, because they weren't being separated, just kept apart.

Jason whistled when they came into the control room and the Expediter was standing there. "Oh man, Ra's is stressed, huh," he drawled.

Pru, still part of their guard, punched his shoulder, snarling, "Show some respect."

She'd barely tapped him, though it looked good. Jason scoffed.

Tim crossed his arms over his chest. "What do you want?" he demanded.

"We are not here to answer your questions," the White Ghost growled.

Tim laughed. "So Ra's didn't tell you to do anything I asked?"

The White Ghost was suspiciously silent.

Tim scoffed again, and looked at the Expediter. "You are?"

"I am the Expediter," he said. "I keep the network, and organize the data."

He was their Oracle, essentially, and Jason figured Tim was smart enough to read between the lines.

"So what am I here for?" Tim asked.

The White Ghost growled.

The Expediter said, "We are being attacked. Fourteen assassins in three months, two of which were simultaneous."

Tim inhaled, lifting his chin. "The Council of Spiders."

"You know more than anyone else, and you and your companions are the only ones to have ever survived an encounter." The White Ghost looked exceptionally put out by this fact.

No one looked at Wilson, not even Owens, ostensibly guarding the man.

"You will find and destroy them," The Expediter said.

"I will?" Tim asked.

The White Ghost said, "You will. Or your companion will die."

They were welcome to try. Jason bared his teeth.

Tim side-stepped, putting his body between the White Ghost and Jason, despite the nearly fifteen feet between Jason and his back. "Touch Hood and I will burn this place to the ground," he said steadily. "I'll hunt your spiders."

The White Ghost nodded, sneering in satisfaction.

To the Expediter, Tim said, "I need access to everything."

The two League members exchanged an uneasy glance, but eventually the Expediter stepped aside and gestured at the console behind him.

As Tim settled at the computer, fingers sliding easily onto the keyboard like it was his native habitat, Jason found a wall to lean on.

The White Ghost and the Expediter both approached Wilson.

Wilson was still in civilian clothes, combat trousers and a canvas jacket and an eyepatch, but anyone who knew anything would know Deathstroke on sight, and neither of these two men were stupid.

"Deathstroke," the White Ghost said carefully.

Wilson cocked the eyebrow over his working eye. "White Ghost," he drawled. "I trust Ra's has good reason for dragging me in so gracelessly."

"The League values our relationship," the Expediter said smoothly. "And would never so impugn your honor as to offer to contradict your current contract. We only hoped," he started hesitantly.

"That an accord could be reached, within the terms of your current job, that you could help us as well," White Ghost said.

The Expediter nodded. "You would, of course, be compensated."

Wilson regarded them evenly. "Tell me what you want me to do. I'll decide if it fits the current constraints of my contract."

Jason kept his eyes on his brother, listening carefully to the conversation. No one but Jason and Tim knew Wilson didn't have a contract, though the puppies might guess.

Pru was leaning at his shoulder, and Owens was still flanking Wilson. Z stood at Tim's shoulder, looking back over the room. Covering Tim's back.

"Perhaps we move somewhere more quiet?" The White Ghost suggested, casting a scornful look in Jason's direction.

Jason bared his teeth in a rictus grin at him and watched Wilson follow him out. He hated having to take it on blind faith, but he would trust Dick when he couldn't trust his own senses, so if his Pretty Bird said Wilson would put Dick's happiness over anything but a contract, he would just have to trust that meant Wilson would keep them alive for Dick. He would also have to trust Talia's judgment about the puppies, but he hadn't expected any backup in the pit of vipers that was the League of Assassins, so the betrayal of the three of them would be less catastrophic than suddenly having to fight Deathstroke.

Tim spun his chair around to look at them. "All right," he said. "There are five or six spiders left. So we're going to lay a trap."

The thing about the League of Assassins was that, with the exception of some leadership positions like the White Ghost, they were a loosely amalgamated group of independent operators with loyalty to the same man. However, there were people of renown in the organization, people who held respect, if not direct command.

Combined with Ra's general orders, Z standing at Tim's shoulder had turned the rank-and-file assassins in the room into Tim's obedient servants, possibly even against the Expediter—who wasn't well liked among the peons. Push come to shove, Jason would be interested to see who they picked, if it came to a confrontation between Tim—and Z—and the White Ghost.

Tim's plan was straightforward: they set a series of fake hits, so the Spiders would strike for the assassins, and teams would lie in wait for the Spiders instead. Wilson was summoned back from his negotiation with the Expediter and the White Ghost, since they knew the Spiders wanted him dead.

The first conflict came when Tim wanted to send Wilson on one of the hits.

"It makes sense, you would call him here to hire him, to send him somewhere."

"It conflicts his current contract with us," the White Ghost growled.

Wilson met Jason's gaze across the room and expressively rolled his eye.

Jason took this to mean that they'd hired Wilson to kill Jason if Tim stepped out of line, and they didn't want him unable to carry out his task.

"Surely there's someone here in Istanbul I can pretend to assassinate as bait," Wilson interjected before the argument between Tim and the Ghost could get too heated. "And then come back once I'm done, while the rest of the plan moves forward."

"Fine," the White Ghost gritted out.

Z was selected to stay with Jason while everyone else headed out, Wilson to Istanbul proper alone, because he'd proved he didn't need a support team to kill a Spider, Tim and Pru and Owens to Stockholm, and a third team to Rio de Janeiro, under the command of the White Ghost himself.

The Expediter re-took his seat at the command console, and said dismissively over his shoulder, "It's a long flight to Rio. Z, take him to the quarters he's been assigned. I'll send someone for you when things are moving."

Z bowed silently and gestured at Jason to follow him.

Jason followed obligingly, and tapped his ear questioningly.

Z nodded, but passed a hand casually over his eyes.

Jason nodded back.

In a spare, small suite of rooms, likely intended for Tim as well as Jason, with notable bars on the small windows, Z leaned his back on the door to the hallway.

Jason propped his hip on the table that was the only furniture in the room other than two uncomfortable looking chairs. Trap, he signed at Z.

Z nodded. "You should make yourself comfortable, maybe even sleep," he said aloud. He signed, Trap for us?

Jason shrugged. "Don't know if I can sleep," he said. "But I'll lay down for a while." Then he did no such thing. Depends on who us is, he replied in sign. Ra's has a bigger plan than just having Red eliminate the spiders.

What? Z signed.

Jason shrugged again. Red might have a guess. Spiders not stupid either.

Z grimaced. I'll put some others on alert, he offered, and then slipped from the room on silent feet.

Jason lay on the bed in coffin-like room, barely bigger than the bed it contained. His fingertips itched for the phone he'd surrendered to Z, for a cigarette even though he'd quit as Robin and never taken the habit back up since the Pit, for his guns, even if just to clean them. He tapped a mindless pattern on his stomach, traced the seam of his pants, patted over each of his pockets.

He startled, finding his phone in his hip pocket. He stared at it for approximately five seconds, doing math in his head, and then texted Dick, I hate waiting.

The bubbles of Dick's typing appeared almost immediately. Then stopped, then reappeared, and then stopped again. Finally, U ok? came through.

Jason rolled his eyes. Fine, he answered. Timmy's playing with Ra's al Ghul like a cat plays with a spider. I'm playing hostage, and I'm bored.

Bubbles again, and then a long stillness. Finally, Dick said, You are not reassuring me.

Jason sent him a selfie, still laying in the bed, domino on, but whiteouts flipped up, crooked smile on his mouth.

Got Tim's data packet for the JL, Dick said instead of replying in kind. They've got all the experienced time travelers on it.

Jason sent a thumbs-up emoji. Then the eyeballs. Then a question mark.

Dick replied with a selfie. He was in civilian clothes, in the dining room of the manor, and he'd intentionally caught himself mid-eyeroll. Alfred's sleeve was just visible behind him. His hair was too long, and he had dark circles under his eyes, but his cheeks were still full and his color was good.

Jason nodded approval. Sleep more, Pretty Bird, he ordered.

When I'm dead, Dick replied. You need anything?

Nudes? Jason replied.

Dick replied with the middle finger.

Ra's thinks he's running the game, Jason sent, more seriously. Keep your eyes open.

Promise, Dick replied. T's keeping her ears to the ground.

Tell her her people don't suck, Jason said, the best way he could thank Z for returning his phone.

A few breaths with no bubbles, and then Dick replied, She's insulted you ever thought they might.

Miss you, Pretty Bird, Jason said.

Another brief pause, and then Dick said, I miss you too. But not as much as Will does.

Jason felt himself smile. How's the college search going?

He's committed to NYU for civil engineering, Dick answered.

There was a distant clunk noise, and the tenor of the noise of the air circulation changed.

I gotta go, he sent Dick. Love you. Then he stuffed his phone in his pocket and rolled out of bed. He felt it buzz against his leg, but ignored it. He didn't need to check to know that it was Dick telling him he loved him back.

Jason put his back to the wall by the door, breathing slowly. When it opened on silent hinges, Jason waited to see who was slinking in.

It wasn't Z, so Jason hooked an arm around the ninja's neck and hauled him back into his chest, sliding a short knife from its sheath on the ninja's belt and sliding it under the man's jaw.

"Wait!" the ninja gasped.

Jason politely waited, blade still resting against the man's carotid.

"Z sent me," he said. "He said to say, Spiders in the compound."

Jason waited a moment more, and then released the man. "Shocked," he drawled.

"Follow me," the ninja said. "Z has fortified the command center."

Jason nodded, and followed. He kept the knife, though.

The sound of gunfire heralded the combat zone long before the two of them made the command center, and Jason and the ninja both lightened their steps and pressed closer to the walls.

At a hallway nexus, broad and sweeping, seven League ninjas faced off against a giant spider-man creature and a guy with eight guns instead of arms.

Jason closed his eyes a moment, shaking his head, and then he glanced at his guide.

"Our path is down the third hall," the ninja said. "I am to bring you, not engage."

"Not sure we can avoid it," Jason said, watching two ninjas go down under a spray of gunfire. Another was swept off his feet, swung at one of his fellows, and then had one of his arms ripped clean off.

His ninja guide grimaced.

"I need cover," Jason ordered, and lunged into the fray before the ninja could stop him.

A moment later, a flashbang and smoke grenade went off, one after another, in nearly the center of the nexus.

Jason slammed both boots into gun-arm-guy's chest, and did a handspring away. The spray of automatic fire followed him around in a sweeping circle until the giant-spider-man bellowed in pain as the bullets impacted.

It didn't look like any were serious, but they did penetrate, so Jason would take the win. In the swirling smoke of the grenade, Jason grabbed a sword off a fallen ninja, dodged a grab from a giant humanoid spider, and buried the blade in the space between carapace-plates on the spider-torso. The thing shrieked in rage and pain, and backhanded Jason into the wall.

Jason rolled away from being crushed, and stumbled to his feet.

The three surviving ninjas, plus Jason's newest friend, had converged on gun-arms and were spinning him in circles, trying to dodge the gunfire. One darted in, too fast to stop, and jammed something in the barrel of one of the guns, which promptly exploded as the guy tried to fire it.

Gun-arm-guy yelled in pain, and a ninja swiped his head off with his sword.

Giant-humanoid-spider bellowed rage, lunging for them.

"Scatter!" Jason's guide ordered, and the ninjas all bolted down different hallways.

Giant-humanoid-spider followed the one who had killed gun-arms.

Jason's guide nodded sharply, and gestured for Jason to follow him down the third hallway. "That was clever," he said.

Jason paused to steal one of the unattached guns, and all the ammo he could fit in his pockets. Then he followed.

Once again, they stopped just outside of a hallway nexus, to peer around the corner. Jason had to wonder if the League intentionally designed their buildings to make creeping and spying easier.

Two women and a man were standing around what had to be a door, but it was so covered in writhing, heaving spider-bodies that it was impossible to tell. The man was holding his hands out, like a magician doing a spell. Or like a meta, controlling the spiders.

Jason grimaced again. Gross. He raised the gun, aiming for a shoulder shot.

The ninja touched his shoulder.

Jason waited.

"Where are Wolf and Goliath?" one of the women asked. She gestured at her companions, and they checked each doorway, one at a time. Jason's stealth suit and the ninja's black robes kept them in the shadows out of sight. "They were supposed to bring us someone who could open the door."

"These ninjas are too loyal. They'll die first."

"I can make them," the man said, twiddling his fingers and making the spider-mass on the door writhe. "A few eggs in their brain, and they'll be mine."

Jason felt himself nearly gag. Gross.

Before Jason could react, the ninja had lifted the gun from his hands and shot the man in the head. "Never," he snarled.

One of the women cried out in shock. The other whirled on them so fast Jason almost missed it. She grabbed the ninja by the face, hissing, "You bastard!"

He gurgled foam and folded to the floor, taking Jason's gun with him.

Jason lunged out of the way of a high kick from the other woman. He dodged an open handed blow from the girl who could kill with a touch, and twisted, forcing them to dodge each other if they wanted to get at him.

"You are not of the League," the woman who seemed to be in charge said slowly, looking him over.

Jason stared at the two of them. The door to the command center, no longer covered in spiders, was closer to them than him, and he couldn't open the door either. There was a giant humanoid spider running around somewhere, and he didn't know this base. One of these women killed with a touch. The other was an absolute unknown, but had the power to command the other Spiders.

Jason turned and bolted down the nearest hallway. He had promised Dick he was coming home.

There was a beat, and then a shriek of fury, and the sounds of footsteps in pursuit.

Ahead of him, a security camera flashed, two long, two short. There was a pause, and then another burst, two long, two short.

Z, Jason thought.

Another camera flashed, further down the hall.

Jason followed.

The next camera swung left, so Jason turned left.

The woman who could kill with a touch shrieked fury behind him.

Gunshots ahead, down the corridor, and Z turned him right before he reached them.

"Goliath!" the woman in charge bellowed.

Jason kept running, moderating his breathing. Jason wasn't fast, not like Tim or Dick, but he had the stamina to go for a long time. Hopefully long enough to get ahead enough that Z could lock a door between him and his pursuit.

Jason emerged into the vehicle bay. There were dead ninja everywhere. This must've been where the Spiders began their initial assault.

A car had just come to a stop when Jason bolted in, and Jason wavered, trying to decide whether to run or fight, when Wilson got out of the car.

"Fuckin' great," Jason wheezed, bolting around to the driver's side of the car.

"Kid?" Wilson said, surprised. Well, it wasn't like Jason had ever been glad to see him before.

Then the pursuit entered the vehicle bay.

"Ah," Wilson said, and drew his sword with a broad grin.

"You!" the woman in charge hissed.

Wilson bared his teeth. He was in his armor, now, sans mask, and he looked smugly satisfied. "How many of you am I going to get to kill today?" he wondered.

Jason swiped a gun from a dead ninja. "Is it already a positive integer?" he wondered.

"Nerd," Wilson said, and planted a boot in the midsection of the girl with the killer touch to keep her hands from his face.

"That's killer-touch-girl," Jason warned.

"I am the Wanderer!" she snarled.

"Cool," Jason said. "Don't care." He pumped three rounds center mass in giant-spider-guy (he'd heard them call him Goliath, but if they were going to be touchy about names, he was going to avoid them on principle). The bullets didn't seem to make much a difference, but it did clear Wilson's flank so he could focus on the two women.

"Heard from Red?" Jason asked Wilson.

"We were radio silent," Wilson answered.

"So he doesn't know the spiders are here," Jason observed.

"I'd be surprised if he didn't by now," Wilson said dryly.

"Fair," Jason said. "But not likely to get back from Sweden before we're done here."

"No," Wilson said, casually beheading the Wanderer.

The woman in charge reeled back with a hiss. "Back," she ordered, and she and giant-spider-man vanished back into the tunnels.

Wilson rolled his eye, glancing at Jason. He had a red mark on his cheek that was crusting and pusing.

"You all right?" Jason asked, worried in spite of himself, gesturing at his face in explanation.

Wilson jerked his chin at the headless Spider at his feet. "Got a touch in," he said, sheathing his sword. "Probably would've killed me already if it was going to."

"Real gross though," Jason observed.

Wilson brushed a gloved hand over the scaly rash. His mouth turned down on the opposite side. He grunted.

"Z and the Expediter are holed up in the command center, keeping an eye on things," Jason said. "And most of the ninja are either in hiding or dead."

Wilson hummed. "What's the plan? We follow the Spiders and I see if I can get a daily hat trick?"

"Your mission got intercepted," Jason realized.

Wilson nodded. "Girlfriend wanted revenge for the three I'd killed already."

"And the rest came here to spring the trap," Jason agreed.

Wilson shrugged. "And now they're down to two, and there's no way they get what they want, now."

"Red's probably on his way to piss in their cereal, but I suspect he has plans for Boss-bitch, at least," Jason agreed. "So let's put a pause on killing the rest."

Wilson's eyebrow cocked. "Not going to protest potential future murder?"

Jason scoffed. "You have me confused with a different bird," he said dryly. "I'm the one known for the duffel bag of heads."

Wilson rolled his eye. "All you birds and your penchants for drama," he grumbled. And in a line Jason only hated because it was something he would say, demanded, "All right, what's the plan till little red riding hood gets back to grandma's?"

"The implication that Ra's al Ghul is the grandmother is a little gross," Jason said, instead of answering, since he didn't have a plan beyond 'don't die, keep Tim alive, get home to Dick.'

"Isn't he already grandparent to one of your little brood?"

"Only by an accident of nature," Jason retorted.

A red light flashing vigorously on the camera by the door caught Jason's attention.

Wilson made a curious noise.

"Z," Jason said, moving closer to the camera, but staying out of line with the doorway.

Red. Radio. 1 hour, the camera flashed.

Jason nodded sharply. "Red'll be here in an hour," he told Wilson, though he would've been shocked if the mercenary didn't know morse code.

"So, plan?" Wilson asked again. "I could just kill the giant one," he added hopefully.

"I'm going to start calling you Deathstroke the Exterminator, eager as you are to kill spiders," Jason muttered.

Wilson barked a laugh. "I'm just saying, it would be a way to kill an hour."

Jason rolled his eyes.

Stop. Bickering, the camera flashed. Signal. Jam.

Jason nodded, absently pulling his phone out to check. WayneTech phones ran on a narrower frequency band than other market phones, but it was only about half a chance that his phone would beat this specific jammer.

On the screen, his unread message from Dick blinked despite the 'no signal' error.

Love you too. Be careful, Dick had sent, as expected. Unexpectedly, he'd added, Come home soon. Jason's throat tightened briefly, and then he pushed it away.

Far away, someone screamed.

Jason grimaced, and made a call. "All right, here's the plan."

Wilson turned from his perusal of the Wanderer's body. His head tilted, used to emoting in a full-face mask.

"Go kill the big fucking spider," Jason ordered.

Wilson showed teeth in a vicious grin. "With pleasure," he growled and unsheathed his sword. He started down the darkened hallway.

"Try to leave the woman alive," Jason called after him. He wouldn't be heartbroken if none of the Spiders survived their run-ins with Deathstroke, but he couldn't shake the sense that Tim had a plan for Silk.

Jason then turned his attention to the vehicle bay. The signal jammer would probably be in here, if he was right and this was where the spiders had started their assault.

He started where there were the fewest dead ninja, suspecting they probably tried to start with stealth, but by the time he'd circled the edges of the bay twice, he was beginning to suspect his assumptions were wrong.

He moved to the center of the bay, where the most bodies were, seven fallen assassins all piled awkwardly around and atop each other. There were vehicles of all kinds all over the bay, including a section of planes in the center, and a helicopter (there had been two, but Tim's team had taken one) near the eastern bay doors.

The pile of slain ninja was under one of the planes. The fanciest one, to Jason's admittedly undiscerning eye. Jason nodded to himself, recognizing that he should've worked this out sooner.

It took Jason ten minutes to find it, but he finally found the signal jamming device wired into the starter battery of the plane. He disconnected the power, and then smashed the transmitter for good measure.

His phone, in his thigh pocket, almost immediately started buzzing. Jason turned towards the door to the bay that he and Wilson had been using, increasing his pace to a trot when he heard, distantly down the hall, a spider-y bellow of fury.

He checked his notifications as he trotted. It was nineteen texts from Tim, in increasingly vehement capslock, and one more text from Dick: ignore me. I just miss you.

Jason paused in a sheltered alcove to text Dick, miss you too, Pretty Bird, and I think we'll be done soon. I'll keep you posted once Red's finished his game with Ra's and your one-eyed pussycat eats the last spider.

Then he texted Tim, You need any spiders living?

Why would I? Tim replied immediately. Also, answer the damn question.

Jason scrolled back up to find the initial question. Tim had asked whether the White Ghost had come back yet. Not yet, he replied. Comms only just back up, so Z may know more.

Jason tucked his phone away and continued to follow the sounds of gunshots, spider-screaming, and crashing.

Wilson was, against all reason, engaged in hand to hand combat with a humanoid spider twice his size in what appeared to be some kind of training room. A number of training dummies and agility apparatuses had been unceremoniously scattered, and the room was littered with injured League members in various states of rendering aid to each other.

The Spider-woman who'd been running the show was in several pieces near the door, and a wounded ninja lay propped on the wall beside her, his sword still dripping her blood, his leg tourniquetted above the knee in deference to the giant, ugly bite wound on his calf.

Jason knelt next to him. "You need anything?" he asked in the League dialect.

Green eyes glared from behind the face mask. "Only to see that thing killed," he spat.

Jason nodded, and moved to the next group of injured assassins. They were rendering mutual aid to each other, applying pressure and using bits of their own clothing to staunch bleeding wounds. One was using a sword to splint an obviously broken leg. "Need anything?" Jason asked.

"First aid kit in the head," one of them said, tipping her chin towards an alcove that hid doors. Jason jogged around the edge of the room, dodging flying dumbells as Wilson and the spider-thing continued to wreck the room in the process of trying to kill each other.

Jason retrieved the first aid kit from both bathrooms, and dropped one with the woman who'd requested it before kneeling next to an unmoving assassin under a sideways weight bench. Pulse was steady, breathing stable, and the bloody wound on his temple indicated cause of unconsciousness. Probably he'd taken the weight bench to the head, Jason thought wryly, and shifted him carefully to rescue-position.

The next group happily took the second first aide kit, and continued tending to each other.

The last unmoving assassin was dead, neck obviously broken by an impact with the wall at high speeds.

Done with his sweep of the room, Jason leaned on a wall to watch Wilson try to choke out a giant spider-creature. "Are you done yet?" he asked.

Wilson grunted a curse in his direction.

Goliath didn't look to be bothered by the choking. Did spiders breathe? Jason had no idea.

Jason checked his phone, absently stepping back into the alcove by the bathroom to avoid any other flying exercise equipment.

Landed, Tim had reported six minutes ago. Three minutes ago, he'd added, White Ghost here too; mad, stay clear.

Jason scoffed. He sent Tim a blurry picture of Wilson, hacking at one of Goliath's legs with his sword.

Tell him to hurry up, Tim replied. Evac in twelve.

Jason sighed. "Can you hurry up?" he yelled at Wilson.

Wilson shouted back, "Listen, do you want to do this?"

"Thought you wanted your hat-trick," Jason retorted. "I'll tap in for you any time you get tired, Old Man."

"We in a rush?" the woman who'd asked for the first aid kit asked him.

Jason shrugged. "I expect explosions in ten minutes or so," he replied.

She immediately started issuing orders. The mobile assassins started heaving up their unconscious compatriots, and made their way out of the room. Hopefully Z was spreading the same message among those of his compatriots he cared about.

Another crash from the battled between Wilson and the last Spider, and the mirror down one wall shattered. Wilson rammed a mirror shard into one of the multitude of eyes.

Goliath shrieked fury and pain.

Jason winced. "Are we there yet?" he drawled loudly.

"Fuck you, kid," Wilson snapped, and jammed his sword down the spider-creature's throat.

His death throws leveled another weight bench.

Wilson stepped lazily out of the way. He retrieved his sword when things stopped moving, and then looked at Jason. "We on a timeline or something?" he asked.

"Six minutes to boom," Jason replied.

Wilson rolled his eye. "You could've said," he grumbled, and headed for the door, trusting Jason to follow.

Jason jogged after his longer strides, falling in at his flank just like he might've with one of the Bats.

As they jogged along, emergency lighting began to flash in the corners of the hallway intersections. "Oh, we're warning them," Wilson observed. "That's generous."

"You thought Red was going to explode an entire base full of people?" Jason inquired dryly. "Red," he repeated, just for emphasis.

Wilson inclined his head in silent acknowledgement. "That bloodthirsty little shit?" he asked. "Yeah, I kinda did."

Jason… probably had to acknowledge the truth of this observation. Tim absolutely was the most vicious of all of them. Bruce would've carried the injured assassins out himself. Dick would never blow up the base. Jason… would've warned them, just as Tim was, and then not mourned anyone that didn't make it. Honestly, if Ra's al Ghul were here, Jason thought Tim might've left him. Tim was pragmatic that way. He grunted acknowledgement.

They jogged back into the vehicle bay into Z coordinating organized chaos. Owens was at his shoulder using his laser sight to emphasize Z's directions as assassins loaded rapidly into vehicles.

"Where's Red?" Jason asked Pru.

She tipped her chin.

In another entrance to the bay, Tim was in a all-out brawl with the White Ghost. His staff was unfurled, and they were moving faster than Jason had ever seen Tim move. The Expediter was nowhere to be seen.

"Exy?" Jason asked Pru.

Pru grinned fiercely, a sloping shrug of pantomimed false sympathy rolled across her body. "Such a dreadful shame about the spider that got him," she drawled.

Jason followed her gaze to Z, and showed his own teeth in a matching vicious grin. Good. The Expediter had been a vicious, controlling asshole, who'd wielded League Assassins for his own benefit one more than one occasion. Ra's didn't care, because the Expediter—so far—hadn't conflicted with Ra's desires, but the League members had known.

Tim stunned the White Ghost with a vicious staff-blow to the temple. To Jason's eye it looked like as much luck as skill, but fights were like that. It certainly got more than one admiring glance from the various assassins in the room.

Tim looked for Jason, and their gazes met across the room, despite domino masks. Tim's head tilted. Jason shrugged. He certainly wasn't Dusan al Ghul, who Jason had at least respected, but Fadir Nasser wasn't the same breed of monster as Ra's or the Expediter either. He was a fanatic, a true believer who worshiped on the altar of the Demon's Head, but he had his code, and he followed it. Probably the League was better with him than without him.

Tim nodded. "Take him," he ordered Z.

Z nodded, and the White Ghost's unconscious form was slung unceremoniously into one of the rapidly dwindling number of vehicles.

"Time to go," Tim called to Jason and Wilson.

"Let's get the fuck out of here," Jason agreed, heading for the last remaining helicopter.

Tim met him there, gaze sweeping over Jason, just as Jason was looking him over, both of them checking the other for visible injuries.

Wilson shoved past them into the pilot's seat of the helicoptor. "Thought we were on a timer," he said.

"We are," Tim replied as they buckled in. "And it's getting very short."

They made it out just barely in time, and Jason whistled between his teeth as they watched the rolling explosion take the Cradle down to its foundation. "Man, Timarind, you don't fuck around," Jason said admiringly.

Tim flashed him a grin. "Hardest part was getting the code written with the Expediter breathing down my neck," he said, shrugging. Then his phone rang in his lap. He chewed his lip as he looked at the screen for a long moment. Then he scooped up the device and held it to his ear. "Ra's," he greeted, voice going cold and narrow as a stiletto. "Hope Nanda Parbat didn't get too warm for your liking."

Tim went tight around the eyes while Ra's spoke to him, but his face stayed smooth.

Wilson had his head tilted like a dog, clearly listening. Jason couldn't hear anything except the smooth tenor of Ra's voice, couldn't make out the words, but he trusted Tim to handle the old goat.

"I told your White Ghost, and I'll tell you," Tim said coolly. "I'm coming for you."

Tim's jaw ticked at Ra's reply. After a moment, he exhaled long and slow. The call had ended.

"An eye for an eye?" Wilson asked quietly.

Tim lifted his chin. "We're going to Gotham."

"Thank Christ," Wilson said feelingly. "I've been hoping for that since Paris."

Jason touched Tim's shoulder. "What's in Gotham?" he asked quietly.

"Text Dick," Tim answered. "Ra's is coming for Wayne Enterprises."

"Is it possible," Dick asked on the phone as they waited in a private departures lounge in Istanbul's airport. "That he's actually after Drake Industries, and not WE?" He was on speaker, and the rustling in the background suggested he was suiting up for the night.

"Possible," Tim said, "But kind of unlikely. Owens offered to go back to my parents' dig to make sure they're safe," he added. "And the rest of the DI board isn't important to me like Lucius is."

Jason grunted. "He's always been fixated on B," he added. "Timiflu is just an extension of B to him anyway. Kept calling him 'Young Detective.' Think he even remembers DI exists?"

Dick made a muffled noise that might've been a smothered laugh. "Fair question," he agreed.

Tim made a face. "All right, our flight just got called," he said. "We'll text from New York. Be home soon."

"Love you, Pretty Bird," Jason added.

"You too. See you soon," Dick agreed.

Jason hung up the phone, and then followed Tim out into the airport proper to board their flight. Jason was flying under the same ID he'd used as Tim's bodyguard for DI, so they were continuing that fiction. Tim mostly ignored him, working busily on his laptop until he fell asleep over it somewhere above the Atlantic.

Jason gently swiped the laptop, and stashed it in Tim's carryon, and then tilted Tim's seat and tipped his head onto a pillow.

The flight attendant smiled at him.

Jason ducked his head bashfully. Then he settled in on his phone, continuing the string of emails Tim had been sending. The wifi was on DI's bill, so Jason cheerfully took advantage.

Dick was on patrol, so Jason didn't bother him, but he did keep a steady text exchange with the Cabinet, as well as a few brief exchanges both with Donna Troy and Cassie Sandsmark, as Tim had passed Jason's contact information over before passing out.

Then Will texted him, Batman says ur coming home.

Jason replied, Flight lands in New York in four hours. May be a bit before I get back to the Alley, though.

Anyhting we can do to help? Will asked immediately.

Jason tapped his lip, thinking. No new patterns, he replied after a few minutes. Badguys are legion, and very dangerous. But.

Promise, Will sent back immediately. But what

Eyes open, as much of the alley as can be covered without people changing patterns.

What are we looking for? Will asked.

Ninjas, Jason answered.

Will replied with a thumbs up.

Jason let himself smile. Then he texted, Be CAREFUL.

Not interested in fighting a ninja, Will replied promptly. Eyes only, he promised. Out windows whenever we can.

Good, Jason answered.

Alley Kids mobilized, Will replied after a few minutes of silence. Emphasized eyes only and the danger, and how mad you'd be if anyone gets hurt.

Mad won't even begin to cover it, Jason answered.

Will replied, We hear you. After another few minutes, Will texted, Have you slept?

Jason huffed a soft laugh. Waiting on word from a few people, then I promise I will sleep for the last three hours of the flight.

K, Will replied. You be careful too.

Promise, Jason replied. Then he flipped chats to see that Donna Troy had texted him her ETA to Gotham. Arsenal was with her, and Flash II and Tempest would follow in another hour. Jason updated Tim's running document on the Batcomputer server.

Cassie Sandsmark replied ten minutes after that that Young Justice would be in Gotham by dawn. Jason updated the document, and then tucked his phone under his thigh where he would feel it buzz. He leaned back his seat, folded his arms over his chest, and closed his eyes.

Sleep came quickly, and if he dreamed he didn't remember. Tim woke him as they began their descent.

"Good work," Tim said quietly, looking at the server-document on his phone, checking Jason's updates.

Jason flashed his teeth. "Nothing seems to have gone terribly wrong while we were asleep, anyway," he said dryly.

Tim scoffed. "He won't strike till he knows I'm back in Gotham. He'll want me to see what he's done."

"I for one," Jason replied dryly, "Cannot wait to see what hellfire T plans to rain down on her father for this."

Tim scoffed. "I'd feel sorry for him if I wasn't so annoyed," he said.

Jason ruffled his hair and wrestled Tim behind him as they disembarked, like a good bodyguard.

Tim was rolling his eyes extravagantly when Jason got him down the gangway, but Jason just tucked him into his side and bullied his way through the crowd towards the luggage claim.

Once they were out of the crowd, Tim took the lead, and Jason followed him through baggage, car rentals, and into the parking lot. Then he swiped the keys from Tim's hands and got behind the wheel.

Tim rolled his eyes again, but settled without protest in the passenger seat, and his laptop was out and open before Jason even got out of the parking lot.

"Message from Z," Tim reported.

Jason hummed, merging aggressively into New York City traffic, cutting off a cab, and making a right turn across a lane of traffic. He ignored the blare of horns and merged despite the person behind him's entire unwillingness to let him, and turned for the highway.

"They've been called to Gotham. It goes down tonight."

Jason grunted, forcing his way onto the freeway despite literally everyone trying to refuse to let him merge. He slapped the back of his hand, middle finger raised, against his side window. "Okay, do we know what 'it' is yet?"

"Not yet," Tim said grimly.

Jason's phone buzzed in the console.

Tim scooped it up, pointed it at Jason's face, and opened his messages. "Um," he said after a moment, "Someone called #2 Nightwing Fan just sent you the eyeball emoji, the ninja emoji, and the hospital emoji?"

"That's Danny," Jason said.

Tim was silent for a moment, but Jason didn't dare take his eyes off the road to check on him. New Yorkers were more cutthroat drivers than Gothamites, for sure. "Did he- are there ninjas in Crime Alley?" Tim asked.

"Probably Doc Thompkins," Jason said. "I dunno where he'd be that he'd use the hospital sign except there."

"What the fuck," Tim said feelingly.

"Text him a question mark. The emoji, not the font," Jason ordered.

"He says, 'On the roof. Stalkers,'" Tim reported after a moment.

"There you go," Jason said. "Assassins stalking Doc."

"Did you- did you mobilize the Alley kids?" Tim asked.

"Will did," Jason replied. "I just told them I wouldn't be mad, I'd be disappointed if any of them got hurt."

Tim scoffed a half laugh. "We should get someone there," he said after a moment. He sounded uncertain. Well Jason could solve that problem.

"Contact's 'Artemis. Not That One.' Tell her, and I need you to type this verbatim," Jason said firmly, "Strike one to Clinic. Spell out one, not the numeral. Then, Code Mauve, guard Doc, captain on deck."

"Mauve?" Tim repeated. "Nerd," he said fondly. "Captain on deck?" he checked, drawing the words out as he typed them.

Jason nodded.

"What's all that?" Tim asked.

"That's Delia, and I'm sending Strike Team One to the clinic, high priority, high danger. That's mauve. Captain on deck means I'm not there, so she's in charge, and she can use her judgment about lethal force."

Tim hummed. "You have the most obscure contact list," he said, clearly scrolling through.

"Who are you looking for?" Jason asked.

"Dick."

"Oh come on," Jason said. "Use that brain of yours."

"Oh," Tim said, clearly reaching the 'p's. "Of course."

Jason huffed fondly. "Yeah. What do you need that you can't text Big Bird on your phone?"

"He'll answer you faster," Tim replied, already typing.

Jason rolled his eyes.

"Who's Anne Hathaway?" Tim asked. "She says there are also ninjas searching Burnley?"

"That's Will," Jason answered. "Probably passing intel from one of his friends."

"Why?" Tim said.

"Were Anne hath a Will, Anne Hathaway," Jason intoned.

"I hate you," Tim muttered. "What could they possibly want in Burnley?"

"Ask him where," Jason suggested. Finally, the road opened up, and Jason accelerated significantly.

"Corners," Tim reported after a moment. "But that's near- oh shit," he said. "Bernard."

Jason frowned at the dashboard. "Your conspiracy buddy?"

Tim made a noise like a choking rooster. "He's- it's- Jason!" Jason didn't look to see, but he would bet Tim's cheeks were scarlet. They always were when Bernard came up in conversation.

Jason laughed. "If they're searching they haven't found him yet," he told Tim reassuringly. "Text him to stay inside, or not to go home if he's out, and then we can get him to safety out from under their eyes."

"Ra's is going after people," Tim said. Then he made a noise. "That's not, it can't-" he broke off. "Think," he muttered to himself.

Jason waited. Tim could think circles around any of them but Bruce, and between Ra's al Ghul and Tim, Jason would bet on Tim every time.

"He wants Wayne Enterprises," Tim muttered. "He's going after people. He wants Bruce's legacy, and he wants to punish me. Leslie, Bernard. Z said they'd all been called in." Tim exhaled sharply through his nose in annoyance.

Jason's phone buzzed in Tim's hand.

Tim said, "Dick says no one's had eyes on Hush all day."

Jason made a noise of affirmation, so Tim knew he'd heard. T had been keeping Thomas Eliot on a short leash, making sure he didn't do too much damage to Bruce's reputation, but trotting him out periodically so Brucie could go to events. If he'd suddenly decided he'd be willing to risk Talia's ire, something had changed in Gotham's landscape, and Jason desperately hoped it was Ra's and not some other, new problem no one had discovered yet.

"It's a game," Tim grumbled.

"I hate games," Jason said dryly.

"Lies, you love Bat-Bingo."

Jason scoffed. "I tolerate Bat-Bingo, because the stakes are worth it. Why do you think I've derailed every family game night since I came back?"

"Because you like winding Bruce up even more than you like winning," Tim said flatly. "But I prefer to choose the game."

"Then flip the board," Jason answered. "It's what I do when none of the rest of my derailment plans work."

"Yes, I know," Tim grumbled, because he had taken a Game of Life car to the face last game night. The he hummed and started typing busily again, doubtlessly arranging the chessboard of Gotham to his own liking, instead of Ra's'.

Jason focused on the road, and let Tim puppet his show. When the sounds of typing from the passenger seat finally slowed, Jason asked, "So what are we doing when we hit Gotham?"

Tim answered, "Returning the rental car."

Jason blew out in annoyance.

Tim relented. "There are three properties that belong to League shell companies. I suspect which one, but we need to check each of them."

"We're not splitting up," Jason said quietly.

"Time-" Tim started.

"No," Jason said.

Tim sighed. "Okay, we'll start at the one I think is most likely."

Jason said, "Thank you."

Tim made a grumbling noise in the back of his throat. "I'm fully capable."

"I know," Jason said. He held up a hand to stop Tim from continuing. Then he fumbled for the words for a moment. "This is your show," he said finally. "For me, all I've been doing is you. Don't die, keep you alive, get home to Dick. That's it, that's the plan."

Tim sighed softly, something shifting in his posture in the corner of Jason's eye.

"We're not home yet," Jason said carefully. "So I can't- I need to keep with you."

Tim reached silently over and squeezed his wrist. "I hear you," he said finally. "I don't- we're going to talk about this later," he added. "I don't need to be protected." He sighed again. "But I hear you, and we'll stay together."

"Thank you," Jason said again.

After a lingering moment, Tim asked, "So what's my contact name?"

Jason chuckled. "Figure it out, Timbabwe."

"Well hopefully not that," Tim grumbled, and turned back towards Jason's phone.

They hit Gotham just in time for rush hour, and dusk was falling by the time they left the rental agency on the lightrail, Tim swaying in Jason's lee as he typed furiously on his phone.

In the Bowery, they both suited up in one of Red Hood's safehouses, and Hood, glad to be back in the jacket and helmet, followed Red Robin through the city, back towards Midtown and Wayne Tower.

"Report," Red Robin said.

"Batman and Robin, suiting up for patrol," Dick said, already in the Bat's low rasp.

"Batgirl," Steph said brightly. "On the border of the Alley and Burnley."

"Oracle eyes in the sky," Babs said. "Good to hear your voice, Red."

"Good to be home," Tim said quietly.

"Hood?" Babs asked.

"Here," Jason said. His phone was buzzing against his chest, in the inner pocket of his jacket. "Also glad to be home."

"Glad to have you," Dick replied warmly. Damian tutted in the background.

Jason held his phone out so Tim could see the screen.

"Opening salvo's been made," Tim told their allies. "An attempt was made on Doc's life, at the clinic. Red Hood's gang intercepted, and she's unharmed."

"We'll be on the alert," Oracle replied. "Keep us in the loop."

"Promise," Tim agreed. He tipped his head at Jason, and readied his grapple.

Jason followed his little brother through the city, keeping to the shadows, keeping behind and to the side, a silent shadow in Red Robin's wake.

The building held by the League's shell company was a high rise, and the executive suite stared right at Wayne Tower. Jason almost snorted aloud; no wonder this had been Tim's first guess at Ra's location.

They infiltrated by roof—only a danger from birds, so it was rarely as tightly protected—and moved slowly down towards the executive floor.

Tim's gauntlet screen lit up on the landing of the executive floor. He bared his teeth at Jason in a fierce grin.

Jason nodded once.

Tim strode right in the door, and Jason followed in the moment of the swinging door. He ducked left, into the shadows of the secretary desk, as Tim proceeded straight into Ra's al Ghul's command center.

"Forgive me, Master," an assassin was saying. "Our attempt on Thompkins was a failure. We're prepared for the consequences."

"Good," Ra's drawled. "Before you die, who stopped you?"

"Red Hood's people were at the clinic in force," the man replied.

Ra's didn't say anything, but a muscle in his cheek ticked. "Does anyone have eyes on Red Robin?" he asked finally.

The radio crackled, and someone on the other side, replied, "All other operatives are in place, but no one has visual on Red Robin."

"Disappointing," Ra's said. Then he sighed. "Kill them all. Is that clear?"

There was a radio crackle, and then nothing.

Tim stunned the two assassins still waiting to die because they'd failed to kill Leslie. Then he strode over to the circle of light from the window. "Hello Ra's."

Jason continued to wait in the shadows.

"Timothy," Ra's said. He sounded delighted. "I am impressed you found me. Was it worth compromising your family?"

Tim laughed. "Who's compromising? Report," he said, into the radio he'd taken off the downed assassin.

Ra's looked, for the first time, like things might not be going according to plan.

The radios in their hands both crackled, and it made the calls echo in clear surround sound.

"Superboy, reporting in," Kon's voice said cheerfully. "Alfred Pennyworth is just fine, and gave me a cookie."

"Arsenal, reporting in," Roy announced. "Commissioner Gordon is just fine. Did try to tell me to get out of Gotham, though. Guess the lack of welcome isn't just the Bat."

"Wonder Girl, reporting in! Barbra Gordon saved herself, and I'm just basking in her glory," Cassie announced.

Bart said, "Selina Kyle is super fine, and this might be the best day of my life." There was a beat, and then, "Oh, this is Kid Flash."

Donna radioed next. "Troia. Bernard Dowd is safe and comfy eating pasta in a safehouse."

Garth said, "And Lucius Fox has many questions, which I have assured him he will get answered at a later date. He is unharmed, however."

Jason grinned.

"Really grandfather?" Damian said coldly. "Ninjas? I am offended."

Ra's looked like he might grind his teeth down to stubs.

"Father," Talia said.

Ra's went entirely still. Something crunched in the plastic of the radio. Thankfully, Tim's was still broadcasting just fine.

"I am not offended," Talia said, her smirk audible in her voice. "I am embarrassed for you. Red Robin has outclassed you at every step. And now he will defeat you utterly."

"What have you done?" Ra's snarled at Tim.

Tim scoffed. "You tried to play with me. This is me, refusing to play. Did you think I was going to run myself ragged all over Gotham trying to protect everyone? I'm not Batman. I have friends."

Jason bit his lip to stifle his snort.

Movement in the shadows across the room caught his attention.

Jason slid a gun from it's holster, thumb on the safety, waiting for the moment, or waiting for a noise to cover the catch.

"Your assassins have been stopped," Tim said coldly. "And now I'm going to stop you."

Ra's stared at Tim for a long moment. He was waiting for something, but Tim didn't give it to him. "Very well," Ra's intoned, drawing his sword.

Jason waited, eyes on the shadows. Tim had a very clear purpose, to take as much time as possible, so despite the churning in his gut and the pounding of his heart, Jason waited.

Jason stood and waited while Ra's al Ghul kicked the shit out of his little brother.

"Is that all you've got?" Tim snarled, shoulder dislocated, one lens of his cowl shattered, blood dripping from his nose.

Jason thumbed the safety off his gun under the crash of Tim getting slammed into a table.

"What are you doing, Timothy?" Ra's asked, suddenly drawing himself up short.

Tim bared his bloody teeth. "Isn't it obvious? Giving Lucius and Hush time to file the paperwork."

Ra's stuttered.

"Bruce Wayne just stepped down as CEO of Wayne Enterprises," Tim said. "His controlling shares have been split between his sons, and he's named me acting CEO until the Board can vote to formalize it. You can't touch it," he taunted.

Ra's was staring at him, eyes burning.

Tim continued, "Hush would've signed it over to you, folded like a wet paper towel under threat, but when Flash II got him away from your assassins, Talia easily convinced him to sign it to me instead, particularly with backup from Tempest. You lost, Ra's."

Ra's blinked. Then he said quietly, "Well done, Detective."

Then he kicked Tim out the window.

Jason shouted, and opened fire, already sprinting towards the window. One bullet caught Ra's by surprise, and caught him in the shoulder. The others missed.

The old fucker was fast.

But not fast enough to avoid the sword-blade from the shadows, which separated his head from his shoulders.

Jason startled.

Slade Wilson stepped into the light of the window. He flashed Jason a smug grin, tipped his chin towards the shattered glass, and stooped to gather up the body.

Jason decided he didn't want to know, and turned to see what had become of Tim.

The shadow of bat wings swept across Wayne Tower, and Jason felt himself breathe again. Dick had Tim.

When Jason turned back to the room, Wilson and al Ghul were both gone. Jason sighed, and leapt out the window himself, grapple at the ready.

No matter how badly he wanted to follow Batman and Red Robin back to the Cave immediately, Jason did the responsible thing and swung through the Alley. He hugged Will and Danny, and told the Alley Kid network to stand down because the ninjas were defeated. He checked in with Turk and Jenkins, thanks Delia and Hank in person, and generally let himself be seen (and hugged—a lot).

Only then, as midnight drew close, did Jason allow himself to head back to the Cave.

Alfred met him by the Batcomputer. "Master Jason," he said warmly.

Jason left his helmet on the desk and leaned into the old man's embrace. "Alf," he sighed.

"Welcome home, Dear Boy," Alfred murmured. "Now," he said, stepping back smartly and smiling at Jason. "Go, clean up, change. Master Tim woke an hour ago, and he is as well as can be with a dislocated shoulder and broken collarbone, and everyone is upstairs awaiting your presence."

Jason nodded. "Thanks, Alfie," he said, and obeyed the order to shower and change.

The den was a riot of noise, Titans and Young Justice talking over each other, two speedsters making anything too much to contend with. Damian and the younger Jon Kent were tucked into the window seat in the kitchen, when Jason swung through for a water and one of Alfred's special hydration mixes.

Selina and Talia were at the bar, keeping one ear on the den, and one eye on Damian.

"T," Jason said. "Mama Cat."

"Tiger," Selina said, and the two women caught him between them. He'd never expected a mother after the death of Catherine Todd, never mind his hopes for Sheila Haywood, and now he had two. It was a lot, and it was wonderful.

"Well done," Talia said quietly, squeezing his shoulder.

"We're proud of you," Selina added.

Jason hugged them tightly, and didn't complain. His eyes were stinging a little.
"Everything okay here?" he asked.

"Dick's in the den," T answered, mouth curling mischievously.

"I did miss you, too," Jason grumbled.

"We know," Selina promised. "But Dick missed you more."

Jason sighed, and headed for the wall of noise that was the den. He wasn't entirely surprised to find three assassins in among the young superheroes. Pru was arguing vehemently with Cassie Sandsmark, while Bart Allen buzzed around them. Owens and Roy Harper were clearly arguing about rifle specs. And Z and Garth seemed to be in a deep discussion of something that looked serious, based on their thoughtful expressions.

Tim, arm in a sling, was propped between Kon and Bernard Dowd. He smiled at Jason when he saw him in the doorway, but didn't interrupt Bernard's rapidly moving hands as he talked about something with vigor and enthusiasm. Jason thought he caught the words "secret identity" off the boy's mouth, and decided he didn't want to know.

Dick was tucked between Donna Troy and Wally West, their legs entangled and his head on Wally's shoulder.

Wally saw Jason first. He nudged Dick, and when Dick turned to look, Jason was treated to the sight of Dick's true smile, the broad, warm, light one that everyone in the family watched for, and horded jealously.

There was just enough time to register the smile, and then Wally had deposited Dick in Jason's arms bridal style and vanished back to the sofa with Donna.

Dick laughed and looped his arms around Jason's neck. "Hi, Jay," he said breathlessly.

"Hey Pretty Bird," Jason agreed, tucking his face into Dick's neck and clinging to him. "I'm home," he said quietly. "Brought Tim."

"You did good," Dick murmured into his hair. "You did so good, Jay."

"I'm so tired," Jason murmured.

Dick kissed his temple. "Tim said the same thing. Kon and Bern agreed he could wait up for you, but only if he then went straight to bed."

Behind Dick, Tim protested noisily, "I can walk!"

Jason lifted his head to see that Kon was carrying Tim towards the stairs. Bernard was leading the way, obviously giving himself door-opening duty, not that Kon truly needed it.

"All right, Hood is home. Disperse!" Dick ordered the room.

"Aw, man," Roy complained. "You're no fun!"

"You can argue about guns in the morning, Arsenal," Dick said, Nightwing Command Voice in full swing. "Bed time, now."

"Oh wow, Rob was not kidding about that voice!" Bart said. "I was halfway to the bedroom before I knew what I was doing."

"Why did you come back?" Cassie drawled, shoving him towards the stairs too.

"To complain, obviously," Wally said, ruffling his cousin's hair. Garth had his arm slung around the speedster's shoulder.

"You know you're less intimidating when you're being carried like a pretty, pretty princess," Donna told Dick, pausing to kiss his cheek as she, too headed for the stairs. She was gently shooing the three slightly bewildered-looking assassins before her.

"I'm always the prettiest princess in the room," Dick said, somehow managing to keep his face straight through this baldfaced bit of nonsense. It made Donna laugh, though, which made Dick grin.

Then they were alone in the den, Dick still curled contentedly into Jason's arms. "Update from Clark," Dick said. "They're making good progress with B. Maybe a week, maybe less."

Jason felt his heart lurch. Even with Tim's proof, Jason hadn't really let himself think about their dad. But B was coming home. Tim was safe. And Jason was back home with Dick in his arms. He sighed, tipping his face back into Dick's neck. He didn't have any words.

Dick stroked his hair. "Come on Jay," he murmured. "Let's go to bed." Maybe a touch sheepishly, he added, "It'll have to be your room. We put Donna in mine."

Jason laughed softly and turned towards the stairs.

"I can walk too, you know," Dick said wryly, kicking his feet absently where his legs draped over Jason's arm.

"Let me," Jason replied, and held Dick tighter.

And Dick let out a soft sigh and rested his head on Jason's shoulder, the tiny crinkle between his eyes, which had been in every selfie, every video chat, finally smoothed.

Jason kissed the place, and then carried him up the stairs.