Chapter Text
Bruce’s hands itched. It was a feeling he knew from years of painstaking experiences with several young people under his wing – young people that tended to get themselves into trouble more than the average kid their age.
He’d learned throughout his life to partly suppress his need to know everything all the time, but there were limitations even he couldn’t surpass.
Jason was missing.
Technically – Barbara would say – he was off the grid, just as he’d said his current mission would require him to do, but he had also given a rough estimate of three days in the dark.
That had been five days ago. Which was why Batman was currently scouring the last safehouses he knew Jason had been in despite his family’s attempt at rationalization.
The comm crackled in Bruce’s ear.
“Nothing on the east end, B, totally empty, no signs of forced entry or struggle.”
Bruce exhaled at Dick’s voice.
“Check the next, Nightwing.”
The comm clicked off. A sigh came from another channel.
“You know he’s likely just being held up because of some technicality, Arsenal and Starfire both have confirmed they knew his whereabouts two days ago.”
Barbara. Bruce didn’t respond. Despite the reason in her words he still kept a steady move towards the most promising safehouse – he wanted to find something about his second oldest’s current whereabouts.
The place was a small, unassuming apartment in a decent neighborhood for Gotham’s standards. A camera nearby had caught Jason making his way out of the area right before he’d gone dark.
Bruce grappled his way up the fire escape and disarmed the window, carefully making his way in – Jason was one of the best of them at setting up traps.
The apartment appeared lived in, though nothing perishable or dangerous seemed to be left in plain view.
Bruce pressed his finger to his comm.
“I’m at the safehouse before the main intersection on 5th. Going through the place now.”
He received a quick “copy that” from Dick and a hum from Cass, who was currently patrolling nearby.
Bruce began walking around the rooms, going through all the possible hiding places. The living room, empty. The kitchen, empty. The bathroom, hiding a few rolls of bat-tech foam gauze disguised as plain. The bedroom, empty.
As he was leaving the bedroom, though, Bruce’s eyes locked on a small bedside table. Call it intuition, but he reached for the drawers, slipped them off and dumped them on the unmade bed. He looked at the panel that sat inbetween the drawers and ripped it off.
“Found something, Oracle.”
He knocked on the panel. It was hollow. Glued together, judging by the smell, and not booby trapped. There seemed to have been some confidence in whatever hidden not being compromised. Bruce grabbed a small saw from his belt, and began opening the makeshift box.
Once one side was off, Bruce peeked in. Inside was something resembling a flash drive.
-
Once Bruce had untaped the drive from the bottom of the box and given it a quick once over, he’d called Cassandra to deliver it to Barbara.
Judging by the unusual metal attachment, it hadn’t been made with any kind of common earth technology in mind, and knowing Jason’s base of operation for a time had been Koriand’r’s ship he’d taken a guess that it was meant to be compatible with that.
He didn’t have the time to take a crack at it himself. He was still meant to go on regular patrol along with Damian, so he entrusted Barbara with checking the drive’s contents. No doubt along with needing to be adjusted to be read by any of their computers it would be encrypted. Unless it was just some useless, empty thing.
Bruce felt his heartrate rise for the umpteenth time thinking about his son.
-
Patrol was brief and stressful. Damian didn’t even complain when Bruce called it short, and the whole way back to the cave was doused in silence. The second he stepped out of the batmobile Bruce marched to the main computer, leaving Damian to head to the showers.
The bright screens flickered on around him as he sat, and he pressed the mic on his ear.
“Oracle, what’s the status on the drive?”
“And hello to you too.”
Bruce gave a small grunt of dismissal. He knew Barbara was aware of his state, and any other time he might have felt slightly unburdened by her light tone, but he couldn’t help how tightly wound he felt. Barbara must have caught on, because she shared part of her screen and began talking.
“As you expected, the drive was in fact tuned to be read exclusively by technology like the one making up Starfire’s ship, and while that was time consuming but straightforward to fix, it was also encrypted.”
Bruce’s teeth clenched around nothing.
“Can you decrypt it?”
Barbara scoffed. Bruce didn’t ask again. He looked at her screen showing an almost completed status bar.
“It’s just going to take a little more.”
Bruce glanced at the screen showing the current time. It had been several hours already. Was there that much data inside the drive? What had Jason gotten himself into?
There was no way Bruce could have gotten out of the suit and made himself relax until the decryption was done, so he just sat silently, willing his blood pressure to stabilize.
Dick entered the cave, likely having been made aware of the drive and Bruce’s single-minded focus. Bruce could easily recognize each of his kids by sound alone, and didn’t miss a beat when he felt the oldest settle behind him to look at the screens.
Tim’s steps also appeared from the stairway leading to the manor, stopping beside Dick.
Bruce tried his best not to grumble something about the possibility of the drive containing information that could put them at risk. His children were no longer children, and they could be trusted in aiding him if necessary. His main concern now was locating one of them. Knowing that he was okay. That Jason was okay.
The small chime of a completed task reverberated within the cave walls.
Bruce immediately leaned forward as a variety of folders appeared on Barbara’s shared screen. He looked at their names. His eyebrows furrowed.
“Uh, that doesn’t seem to be related to his current mission, B,” Dick said. Tim let out a small hum that sounded like agreement.
The folders were organized by names – Jason’s, Roy’s, and Koriand’r’s – plus a date and some with places. Bruce’s eyes flittered to a random folder at the bottom that read “Kory – 14/06 – Island 27”. He clicked on it, and pictures started loading.
Barbara was silent. Bruce clicked on the first picture. It was Roy Harper asleep on a couch – he recognized the interior as a tamaranean ship. He clicked forward. Still Roy, asleep, this time closer. He clicked forward again, and again.
Jason sitting at the beach, looking towards the water, someone must have taken the picture by his side. Jason looking straight at the camera, a small frown on his face. Him far away, walking on the shore. A picture of the sunset. Flowers. A few cats by some palm trees.
A huff of air came from behind Bruce. He recognized it as Tim. It didn’t deter him. He went back, scrolled down and saw a folder with Roy’s name, dated not long before Jason went dark. He clicked on it. The thumbnails of more pictures appeared, and he clicked on the first.
Jason and Koriand’r. It looked like he was sitting on her lap, or reclining against her. She was kissing the side of his face. He looked relaxed, his eyes hooded, not protesting at the show of affection.
Another click. Jason sitting on the floor beside her. He looked similarly to the previous picture – relaxed, calm. He was holding something in his fist. Starfire was pointing to it with a playful expression. The thing was half hidden behind Jason’s hand – it was some plastic, colorful object. It looked like–
The screen turned black. Bruce blinked. Then his jaw clenched.
“Oracle.”
“I’ll look over everything myself, check for any clue in the most recent photos. I’ll report when I’m done.”
Bruce’s hands shot to the keyboard, trying to connect back to the clock tower computer.
“Oracle, I need to be able to look at the contents of the drive.”
His hands kept moving. He looked at the screen. Nothing.
“Batman, stop it.”
“Oracle, I need to see those files.”
Silence. An inhale of breath behind him – Dick about to try and dissolve the tension. But Barbara came in again.
“I will look over everything myself. I have already gone over several photos. It’s private things that don’t seem to be related to our work at all. Out of respect for your concern I am going over them despite this, but just like each one of you Hood is entitled to his privacy. I’ll let you know if I find anything of note.”
Bruce gritted his teeth. He tried to counteract Barbara’s upped defenses again, but to no avail. All he was doing was making her lose small amounts of time to counter his tries, he knew.
A hand settled on his shoulder. Dick’s.
“You know you can trust her with this, Bruce, come on.”
Bruce didn’t move away from his keyboard. He tried again. A new screen appeared. Barbara’s face flickered in front of them, her eyebrows cinched in a frown.
“Stop. You’re only slowing me down, do you want to find him or not?”
Bruce sighed, trying to will his voice to not sound demanding.
“And what’s more important, finding him or making sure whatever it is that’s in there stays private?”
“Bat–“
“If it’s inappropriate pictures, god knows I can take it after years of working with teenagers before they learned how to properly clear their online activity, Oracle. I doubt there’s anything in there that would phase me enough to look past the fact that Jason is missing and I’m trying to find him.”
The name slipped out easily. The connection from the tower to the cave was secure, but it was a deviation from the norm while Bruce was still in the suit. He could feel his sons’ eyes burning his back. The hand on his shoulder retracted.
Barbara sighed, but her voice remained firm.
“It looks like something is happening to Hood that”–she paused, inhaling–“appears – from what I can take from it based on my knowledge – to be related to his trauma. It seems to be a good thing, and it looks like instead of fighting it or hiding it he’s not only working with it but also letting his friends help, and I’m not about to let that be ruined by your need to have your own eyes on everything. As I said, since I’ve already seen I’ll be the one going over the rest of the files, and let you know if I find anything. That’s all.”
The screen disappeared, Barbara going silent with it. Bruce stayed still for a moment, looking down. Tim moved beside him.
“You know if there’s one person that can look over everything properly it’s her, Bruce. She’ll know something in no time.”
Bruce knew Tim was right. He was keenly aware of Barbara’s competence. His hands moved back to the keyboard anyway.
“…really?” Tim whispered. He paid him no mind. He typed the command he knew would allow him to access the files again, even if it meant slowing Barbara down once again. He had to see. It was Jason out there, gone dark, likely alone, possibly hurt.
Possibly hurting others, a buried voice retorted in his head. He shook it away.
The folders reappeared. He barely heard the curses coming from the bright green screen that flickered on by his side, Dick’s attempts to reason with him, and the half-hearted reprimand from Tim. Bruce clicked on the first folder, and looked.