Chapter Text
Tim sat slouched in front of the Batcomputer, one leg propped on a pillow balanced atop a chair Alfred had dragged over with theatrical reluctance.
It was a compromise.
If Tim insisted on manning comms while his broken leg healed, he would do it while adhering to Alfred’s strict—and deeply inconvenient—recovery regimen.
He hooked two nimble fingers as far under the cast as he could manage, twisting his wrist at an uncomfortable angle in a doomed attempt to reach an itch hovering just out of reach.
“Robin,” Bruce’s voice cut in over the comms, low and focused. “Do you have eyes on the suspect?”
Tim glanced up, attention snapping back into place. On the largest monitor, a grainy security feed showed the front entrance of an old apartment building in Crime Alley.
“Not yet,” Tim said. “He hasn’t left the building. No alternate exits, no basement access, no movement on the roof. Unless he’s developed teleportation in the last six minutes, he’s still inside.”
A faint huff came through the line. Jason, probably.
Bruce said nothing. Which meant either approval or annoyance. With Bruce, the distinction required years of field experience and at least three traumatic childhood events.
They were currently staking out a known location tied to the man who had put Tim in his current predicament. Just thinking about it made his leg throb.
Last week, a fire escape had given out beneath him.
That was the simple version.
The less simple version involved a drug trafficker, an ambush, Jason shouting his name from two rooftops over, and Tim misjudging the integrity of a rusted fire escape by exactly one broken tibia. There had been one awful groan of metal beneath his boot, one suspended second where his stomach forgot gravity, and then the alley floor had rushed up hard enough to knock the sound out of him.
Not all of it, though.
The scream had been loud enough for Jason to abandon the chase.
Tim still felt strange about that.
They’d only patrolled together a handful of times without Dick or Bruce there to mediate, and Jason had still come for him. Had dropped everything and come for him.
Jason had then thrown him over one shoulder and lectured him the entire way to the med bay.
Which, technically, counted as being taken care of.
Tim was counting it.
Tim reached for a pen on the desk and slid it carefully into the cast, wiggling it until the itch finally eased.
His eyes slipped shut for half a second in relief.
Then he heard it.
A footstep.
Almost nothing. Barely more than a shift in the air behind him.
He turned expecting to see Alfred, but the figure standing behind him was tall, broad-shouldered, and impossible.
Cape. Cowl. Armor. The same severe line of the jaw beneath black kevlar. The same shape cut out of every nightmare Gotham criminals had known to fear.
For half a second, Tim’s brain stalled.
Bruce was in Crime Alley.
Tim had seen him less than a minute ago on the northeast rooftop feed, crouched beside a broken gargoyle with Jason two buildings over. Bruce was not here. Bruce could not be here.
And yet Batman stood in the Cave, silent and still, staring at him.
The white lenses moved over him with clinical precision. Bare face. T-shirt. Cast. The pillow under his leg. The lack of domino.
Tim’s stomach dropped.
Shit.
He moved first.
The pen struck toward the soft seam under the intruder’s jaw. The man reacted instantly, one gauntleted forearm coming up to block. The hit glanced off armor with a sharp plastic crack that echoed too loudly through the Cave.
The intruder did not stumble.
Tim did.
Pain climbed his leg, hot and immediate, but he pushed it away.
The pen became a blade in his hand. Not a good one. Not even close. But Bruce had taught him how armor failed when it had to move. Under the cowl. Beneath the arm. Inside the elbow. Between plates. Places meant to flex.
Places meant to break.
The intruder caught his wrist.
Tim went with the twist before it could snap anything, dropping his weight and ramming his shoulder into the man’s ribs.
The impact jarred through him.
The man barely shifted but for the first time, something like surprise flickered behind the white lenses.
Good.
Tim hooked his good leg behind the intruder’s ankle and threw himself backward. It was ugly. Desperate. Too much strain on too many healing things.
It worked anyway.
The man stumbled.
Tim used the fraction of imbalance to drag himself up and around, locking his free arm across the man’s throat in a hold Dick had drilled into him until Tim could do it half-asleep and concussed.
For one breath, he had him.
Then the world moved.
Tim’s stomach lurched as the intruder dropped backward with all his weight.
They hit the stone hard.
Something in Tim’s chest cracked.
The pain was immediate and bright, a white flare behind his eyes so sharp he forgot where he was. His mouth opened around a small and humiliating sound he didn’t mean to make.
The intruder rolled with brutal efficiency, pinning him before Tim could gather enough breath to fight. A forearm pressed across the top of his chest, not quite on his throat, but still making it hard to fully suck in a breath.
Tim clawed at the gauntlet uselessly, his nails scratching at the kevlar.
The Cave lights haloed behind the cowl, throwing the man’s face into darkness. He looked like Bruce from this angle. Not close. Not similar.
Exact.
Except Bruce knew him.
Bruce would know him.
The lenses stared down. Studying him to an intense degree.
The man’s head tilted, almost imperceptibly. His gaze dragged over Tim’s face again, slower this time. The bare skin. The split-second panic Tim couldn’t quite force down. The cast. The bruises half-hidden beneath his collar from patrols he probably should’ve skipped.
The intruder’s shoulders lowered. It almost seemed like he was about to let Tim go.
Then his hands shifted. He seized Tim’s wrists and shoved them down against the stone.
“Who are you?” he growled.
Tim blinked up at him.
For one stupid second, the question made no sense at all.
“What?”
The grip tightened and Tim’s bones creaked beneath it.
“How did you get in here?”
Tim scanned for anything he could use. Pen, too far. Utility belt, not on him. Crutch, against the chair. Chair, overturned. Comms—
His comm.
It wasn’t in his ear anymore and he couldn’t see it.
“I won’t ask again.”
He bucked upward, hard. The man simply drove a knee into his side to keep him still and pain exploded through Tim’s chest.
A scream tore through him before he could stop it. It echoed violently through the cave.
Then, the pressure suddenly vanished.
Tim dragged in air that felt like glass.
The ceiling blurred.
The white lenses above him dipped, then jerked strangely out of focus.
For one disoriented second, Tim thought the man had moved.
Then the body slumped sideways.
Alfred stood behind him, expression showing something colder than anger. One hand held an empty syringe. The other caught the intruder before his skull could crack against the floor.
“There,” Alfred said, breath clipped. “That will do.”
Tim let his head fall back against the stone.
The Cave was cold beneath his cheek.
“Are you alright, Master Tim?”
Tim laughed once.
It came out wrong.
“I’m okay.”
Alfred looked at him.
Tim amended, “Mostly.”
Alfred was on him in an instant. His hands were gentle but not hesitant as they moved over Tim’s shoulder, collarbone, ribs.
Tim tried to bat him away and Alfred ignored this completely, used to stubborn birds and bats.
“I said I’m okay.”
“And yet,” Alfred said, placing both hands on Tim’s shoulders and pressing him firmly back down when he tried to sit, “you appear to be on the floor.”
Tim grimaced. “That happens.”
“With alarming frequency, yes.”
Tim tried to look past him.
The intruder lay still on the stone, cape spilled around him in a dark pool. Even unconscious, he looked wrong. Too familiar to be safe. Too impossible to ignore.
“We need to take off the cowl,” Tim said.
“You need to remain still.”
“Alfred—”
“Master Tim.”
That tone ended wars.
Tim shut his mouth.
A faint crackle came from several feet away.
Voices.
Not clear at first. Just static and distortion, then Jason’s voice, sharp enough to cut through stone.
“Tim! Talk to me!”
Tim turned his head.
His comm lay near the overturned chair, blinking red against the floor.
Alfred stood and crossed to retrieve it. The movement was smooth, but Tim saw the tension in his shoulders. The tightness around his mouth.
Alfred put the comm in his ear.
“Master Bruce.”
Whatever came through the line made Alfred’s eyes flick once toward Tim. Then toward the unconscious man on the floor.
“There has been an unexpected situation in the Cave.”
A pause.
“Master Tim is injured, but conscious.”
Tim closed his eyes.
Of course that was the version Alfred chose.
His ribs throbbed with every breath. His leg had begun to ache in earnest now, a deep, punishing pulse beneath the cast. He could feel sweat cooling along his spine.
Across the Cave, the intruder didn’t move.
But Tim could still feel the weight of his stare.
Even with the lenses shut.
*******************
The comm in Bruce’s ear crackled once.
Then again.
Violently.
Bruce’s head turned before the sound finished, eyes leaving the apartment building across the street. The suspect was still inside. Third floor. East-facing unit. One heat signature pacing near the window, right where Tim had said he would be.
Tim, who was supposed to be in the Cave.
Tim, who had been annoyed five minutes ago about Alfred confiscating his coffee.
“Robin,” Bruce said, already moving toward the edge of the roof. “Report.”
Static answered.
Two buildings over, Jason went still.
Bruce saw it in the corner of his eye — the abrupt shift, the way Jason’s shoulders squared beneath the leather jacket, the way his hand went to the comm at his ear. A second ago, he had been leaning against the brick lip of the roof with his helmet balanced against one hip, radiating boredom so aggressively it had almost become a tactical distraction.
Now he was already walking toward the fire escape.
“What the fuck was that?” Jason said into his comm.
Bruce lifted one hand, signaling for silence.
A dull thud came through the comm.
Then another.
Distant. Muffled. Stone against bone, maybe. Or armor.
Bruce’s jaw tightened.
“Robin.”
Nothing.
Jason broke into a run.
The fire escape screamed beneath his boots as he dropped down the first flight. “Tim,” he snapped into the comm. “Answer me.”
There was movement on the other end. A crash. The scrape of something heavy skidding across the Cave floor.
Then Tim made a small and terrible sound.
Jason’s bike roared to life below.
Bruce stepped off the roof before he could even process he was moving.
His grapple fired and caught the next building, line snapping taut as it yanked him through the narrow gap between rooftops. Gotham blurred around him in wet brick, broken neon, and the yellow smear of streetlights on rain-slick pavement. Wind tore at the edge of his cape.
“Robin,” he said again, lower now. “Answer me.”
Static hissed.
Jason’s voice cut through, louder from the open comm. “Tim!”
Another impact.
Then a voice.
“Who are you?”
Bruce’s hand slipped.
For half a second, the city tilted.
His boots struck the edge of the next roof badly, one heel skidding over loose gravel. He caught himself against a rusted vent hard enough to dent the metal beneath his palm.
The voice coming through the comm was roughened by static and distance, buried under the Cave’s echo, but it was frustratingly familiar.
“How did you get in here?”
“What?” Tim rasped. He sounded hurt.
Bruce was running again.
Bruce dropped from the final roof into the alley where the Batmobile waited in shadow. The canopy unlocked before he touched it, responding to the emergency signal in his gauntlet. He slid inside as the engine woke beneath him with a low, violent growl.
“I won’t ask again.”
Jason swerved into traffic ahead, bike cutting between cars with vicious precision. A taxi blared its horn as he missed the bumper by inches.
“Bruce,” Jason said through the comm.
The anger in his voice had sharpened into something unstable. Every word came clipped at the edges.
“Who the hell is that?”
Bruce pulled up the Cave security feed.
The screen flashed black.
Connection interrupted.
He tried the secondary cameras.
Black.
The Batcomputer diagnostic pinged back with three error codes and a frozen image from less than two minutes ago: Tim at the computer, leg propped up, head turned slightly like he had heard something behind him.
Then nothing.
Bruce forced the Batmobile into the street.
“I don’t know,” he said.
The admission sat in the air heavily.
The Batmobile surged forward, tires shrieking as Bruce forced it through the intersection without slowing. Red light. Horns. A delivery truck braking hard enough to fishtail. A man on the sidewalk shouting after him.
All of it thinned beneath the sound of static in his ear.
“Tim,” Jason said again.
His voice dropped lower this time.
“Come on, replacement. You’re pissing me off.”
No answer.
Bruce’s hands tightened on the wheel.
The Cave was fifteen minutes away at standard emergency speed. Eleven if he rerouted through the tunnel access beneath Robinson Park. Eight if the south gate wasn’t backed up with the usual Saturday night traffic.
The numbers arranged themselves automatically.
Each one was unacceptable.
Another sound came over the comm.
A scuffle. A strained breath. Tim moving, maybe fighting.
Then the scream.
It tore through the channel hard enough to distort, clipping into sharp digital static at the edges. Jason cursed, loud and vicious, the sound swallowed by his engine.
Bruce’s foot pressed harder against the accelerator.
The Batmobile responded like an animal released from a leash.
For one long second, there was only Tim’s ragged breathing.
Wet. Shallow. Too fast.
Then silence.
“Tim.” Jason’s voice changed completely. The anger stripped away, leaving something raw beneath it. “Tim, answer me.”
Bruce’s eyes stayed fixed on the road.
He saw every possible route at once. Every red light. Every blind corner. Every civilian vehicle drifting too slowly into his path. He cut left over the median, clipped the edge of a newspaper box, and sent loose papers exploding across the windshield like startled birds.
“I’m five out,” Jason said tightly. “Maybe less.”
His bike roared louder through the comm, wind tearing at the microphone. Somewhere in the background, someone screamed at him from another car.
Jason screamed back.
Another burst of sound came through Tim’s comm. A choked gasp. Movement close to the mic. Fabric dragging over stone.
Bruce stopped breathing.
Then—
“Master Bruce.”
Bruce exhaled once.
Sharp. Controlled.
“Alfred,” Jason cut in immediately. “What happened? Is Tim okay?”
“There has been an unexpected situation in the Cave,” Alfred replied.
His voice was smooth and controlled as always, but Bruce heard the strain beneath it.
“Master Tim is injured, but conscious.”
Bruce’s grip tightened on the wheel. “Status.”
“Suspected rib fracture. Possible aggravation of the existing leg injury. He is alert enough to be argumentative.”
Jason made a sound that almost became a laugh and died halfway there.
Bruce swallowed once. “The intruder?”
A pause.
“The intruder has been sedated.”
Bruce’s eyes flicked to the dead security feed.
“Identity?”
Another pause.
“I believe,” Alfred said carefully, “that you should see him for yourself, sir.”
The Batmobile’s engine filled the silence that followed.
Jason’s voice came through first.
“What does that mean?”
Alfred did not answer him.
Bruce stared at the road ahead, at the dark mouth of the tunnel access opening beneath the park like a wound in the city.
“We’re returning now,” Bruce said.
“I would recommend expediency, sir.”
The line clicked dead.
Neither Bruce nor Jason spoke.
The Batmobile accelerated harder.