Archive of Our Own

When Emily exits the elevator after a frustrating lunch date with her mom, she’s almost bowled over by Garcia, running down the hallway like a small, particularly colorful and stressed-out train.

“Sorry, sorry!” Garcia says and catches her tablet with a clatter of painted nails against the cover before it can slip to the floor. A paper file isn’t as lucky, and Emily bends down to gather the scattered papers.

“What’s going on?” Emily asks, deciding to skip the pleasantries altogether. “We got a case?”

“Yeah, and it could be a bad one,” Garcia says and accepts the offered file. “Thanks. Anyway, come on, I’ll explain in a minute.”

With those words, Garcia runs down the hallway, the edges of her orange cardigan trailing behind her like a real-life version of those speed lines you might see in a comic strip. Emily furrows her brow and hurries after her.

The rest of the team is already filtering into the conference room when they arrive, and Emily sits down in her usual chair. Her tablet is waiting for her on the table, and Garcia passes the paper file to Spencer as she walks past.

“An hour ago, three 15-year-olds were reported missing in New York,” Garcia says without preamble and clicks her remote. Pictures of three boys show up on the screen. On the left, a blond boy with square glasses and a blinding smile. In the middle, a black-haired one with a wide nose and heavy eyebrows. And on the right, a brown-skinned boy with black hair and the faintest shadow of a scowl. All three of them have been photographed from the shoulders up wearing black blazers and a tie. School photos, if Emily were to guess.

“They were on a three-day excursion with their art class – they’re originally from Gotham,” Garcia continues. There is an instinctive recoil around the table at the word ‘Gotham’. The city’s reputation precedes it. Emily has never been – it is the one city even her mother will not enter for a gala, so there’s never really been any reason to visit the City of Crime. There's something almost ironic about these three boys leaving their hellhole of a city, only to find trouble outside it, Emily thinks.

“The art teacher took them to the Alsburrow Museum, divided them into groups of three, and told them to find a piece to analyze. They were supposed to meet back up with the rest of the class two hours ago. When they didn’t show, the teacher got museum staff involved. And when that didn’t work, they called the NYPD, who then called us.”

Derek taps his screen, lines appearing between his brows. “They’re 15-year-olds, right? Is there any chance they just decided to skip class?”

“Local PD considers it unlikely,” Hotch says. “The teacher swears these three boys wouldn’t do that, and all attempts to contact them have gone straight to voicemail. Besides, it’s not a risk we’re willing to take. We’ll finish the briefing in the air. Wheels up in 20.”

“Here’s what I don’t understand,” Rossi says and leans back in his seat. The rest of them look up from their tablets to look at him. “Assuming there is a crime here, how did the unsub get them out of the museum? We’re talking about three strong boys in the middle of the day in a crowded place. Why didn’t anyone notice anything?”

“Maybe he used a ruse or a discrete weapon,” Spencer suggests. “He could hold a knife to one of them, then threaten the other two into compliance.”

“I’d buy that with one victim or maybe two. But three?” Derek says with a shake of the head. “Too many variables. And they would have had to pass the security guard at the entrance. Why wouldn’t they try to get help?”

“If they even went out the main entrance,” JJ reminds and brushes a long strand of blond hair back behind her ear. She has been growing it out for a while now, but the added length still annoys her sometimes. She hopes she remembered to put a hair tie in her go-bag. “He could have used the staff entrance if he had access.”

Emily rubs her thumb over her nails. She isn’t biting them yet, but JJ knows it’s only a matter of time. Emily’s nails are the first to go when she feels stressed, and a case involving kids is about as stressful as it gets in their line of work. “What if he knew them? If he got them to leave voluntarily, it’s no wonder no one saw anything.”

There is a few seconds of silence only broken by the rustling of Spencer’s paper file and the jet.

“You know, it’s highly unusual for an unsub to take three kids at once. Preferential child offenders usually only kidnap one victim at a time,” he says.

“Trafficking ring?” JJ suggests.

“But these are low-risk victims,” Emily disagrees. “Trafficking rings thrive on anonymity. They take homeless kids, runaways, kids from low-income households ... kids who are continuously failed by the system. These three are from a prestigious private school.”

“Everything about this case points to a highly organized unsub,” Rossi says. “It takes skills and planning to pull something like this off. He chose these three victims specifically.”

“Which is why victimology will be our most important tool in catching him,” Hotch says. “Garcia, what do we know about the victims?”

“Let’s see,” Penelope’s voice sounds from Derek’s computer as she begins typing away, “our first victim’s name is Daniel Cobweather. Comes from an upper-middle class family. His dad is in sales, and his mom is a well-renowned doctor. He has two younger siblings who attend the same school.”

She makes a little surprised noise.

 ”Interestingly enough, this is not the first time Danny has been kidnapped. He was held for ransom eight years ago after his dad received a bonus at work. The kidnappers weren’t apprehended, but Danny was returned safely after the ransom was paid. He was also involved in a bus jacking two years ago when Jonathan Crane, AKA Scarecrow, took a school bus full of kids hostage.”

“Kidnapped three times in eight years?” JJ asks, taken aback. She can’t help it; her first thought goes to her own son. This job has never been easy, but in some ways, it has become even harder since Henry was born. “What are the odds of that?”

“Astronomically low,” Spencer says. “Unless you specifically live in Gotham or Blüdhaven.”

“The good doctor is correct,” Penelope says. “I’m looking at some crime statistics right now, and I am learning all sorts of things I would rather not know…”

“Garcia.”

“Right. Our second victim, Kevin Bayle, is from a middle-class family. His moms are an accountant and a researcher at Gotham University, respectively. And guess what, Kevin was also on the bus when Crane took the kids hostage.”

“And the third victim?” Hotch asks.

Penelope rapidly types something, then goes still. “Holy cow.”

“Garcia?”

“Our third victim is Damian Wayne, son of Bruce Wayne – yes, that Bruce Wayne. His dad owns Wayne Enterprises, so it goes without saying that he’s uber rich. Damian has three older brothers – two adopted, one foster – and one adopted older sister. I don’t know anything about his mom, she’s not in the system, but it seems like Damian was living with her until he turned 10, at which point she handed over custody to Wayne. And yes, before you ask, he was also on the bus.”

She inhales sharply.

“And that’s not the only police file on him. Apparently, he’s been kidnapped nine times since coming to live in Gotham. Four of those were mass abductions like the bus jacking, the other five times he was kidnapped for ransom.”

The startled silence only lasts a second.

“With Daniel Cobweather’s kidnapping, that makes 10 cases involving a kidnapped child in the past eight years,” Derek says and places his tablet on the table with more force than strictly necessary. JJ knows him well enough to know he’s gearing up for an angry outburst, but she can hardly fault him for that. Derek responds promptly to injustice. His empathy for the victims burns so brightly that he simply can’t shove those feelings down the way Emily or Hotch do. JJ understands. The two of them are the same that way. “Why weren’t we ever called in?”

Spencer grimaces, likely also having caught wind of Derek’s mood. Spence is notorious for having a hard time reading people’s emotions – surprising for a profiler, but he more than makes up for it in other ways – but he has been getting better at it. Especially when it comes to the team. JJ is proud of him. “Because it’s Gotham. Gothamites are notorious for disliking outsiders, they prefer to handle everything in-house.”

 ”I’m sure those kids also preferred that,” Derek says sarcastically. Emily catches JJ’s eye briefly, but they don’t say anything. There’s nothing to say, really, since everyone agrees with him.

“Garcia, was anyone else from the art class also on that bus?” Hotch asks, entirely sidestepping Derek’s comment and getting back on track. It’s easy to mistake the stoic face for indifference, and JJ did in the beginning when she was still getting to know him. Now, she sees the tense line of his jaw and guesses that he is probably thinking about Jack. As the two parents on the team, a case like this one is personal for both of them.

“Checking ... oh yes! Two girls named Amanda Rand and Holly Mason.”

“Tell local PD to get them into protective custody immediately.”

“Consider it done.”

“And what about the victim’s families?”

“They’ll be there at the station within the hour. Apparently, Bruce Wayne has a private jet, so they’re already in the air.”

There’s a few raised eyebrows at this, but JJ supposes it isn’t too surprising that a businessman of Wayne’s caliber has a plane.

“Alright, thanks, Garcia. We’ll look into the bus jacking, but considering that both Daniel and Damian have been victims of other crimes, we need to also comb through those. And there is also always the possibility that this is totally unrelated to any of the previous kidnappings.”

Hotch looks up at each of them as he speaks. “Prentiss, Dave, the three of us will go to the precinct and interview the families. JJ, you’ll interview the teacher and classmates. Make sure to ask Holly and Amanda about the bus episode. Reid and Morgan, you’ll go to the museum. See if you can find out how the unsub got them out.”

There are nods all around before the six of them refocus on their files and silence descends. Daniel Cobweather’s smiling face stares hauntingly up at JJ from the screen.

“Mr. Wayne, my name is Agent Hotchner with the FBI,” Aaron says and extends a hand. As the other man shakes it, Aaron’s profiler-brain automatically makes a few observations.

Bruce Wayne is well-dressed in the casual way that means a slightly wrinkled dress shirt and slacks, but no tie. The shirt is a tasteful purple that compliments his eyes. A man who cares about his appearance but doesn’t want to look like he’s trying too hard. The similarity between Wayne and Damian is striking, in both jawline, hair, and eyes. His steps are long, confident, and his handshake is firm. A self-assured man who is used to taking action, then.

“It’s nice to meet you,” Wayne says. He gestures to the boy at his side, an athletic, dark-skinned boy wearing a much more casual jacket, then to a balding man in an immaculate suit standing slightly behind them. “This is my son, Duke, and this is Alfred Pennyworth.”

He doesn’t offer an explanation for Pennyworth’s presence. Aaron might have guessed ‘grandfather’, if not for the surname and the fact that the murder of Martha and Thomas Wayne was front page material.

“You wanted to talk to me, correct?” Wayne continues before he can get a chance to ask.

“Yes,” Aaron says and notices how Wayne doesn't immediately ask about his other son. You know, the missing one. He files the thought away for later. “Please come with me.”

He leads Wayne to an empty conference room and doesn’t comment when Duke and Pennyworth follow without asking permission. He had actually assumed that Pennyworth might have come along to keep Duke company while Wayne is otherwise occupied, but the boy doesn’t seem inclined to wait outside in the slightest. Maybe it just goes to show that father and son are more alike than Aaron first noticed.

“I’d like to preface this by saying that we’re doing everything in our power to find Damian,” Aaron begins and watches the other man sharply. “At this point we consider it unlikely to be a ransom kidnapping. But since Damian comes from a wealthy family, I’d like to go over the protocol for ransom calls with you.”

“I understand,” Wayne says. “We have unfortunately had quite a few kidnappings in our family. It’s well-known that we have the money to pay ransom. That attracts kidnappers in a city like Gotham. I try to prepare my children for it the best I can, though. Damian has gone through self-defense training, and he also has thorough training on what to do in a hostage situation.”

That’s news to Aaron. It probably won’t help Damian a lot, given that it looks like this unsub is skilled, but even something small can make a difference.

“I suspect this is not your first briefing on ransom calls, then, but let’s go over it again just to be safe,” Aaron says, hoping that the other man will actually take it to heart and not just assume he knows everything already. He launches into the typical explanation of how the FBI will be monitoring all Wayne’s phones and explains how to respond to any call made – don’t antagonize; keep them on the line for as long as possible; ask for proof of life. Wayne nods along to everything, clearly already well-versed in the protocols.

“Next, I’d like to ask you some questions about Damian. Understanding exactly who he is will help us figure out where he is.”

“Of course,” Wayne says, a line that may be caused by worry appearing on his forehead. For a parent whose child is missing, he is remarkably calm. Then again, if Damian has been kidnapped nine times over the past five years, Wayne might be getting so familiar with the process that he’s able to hide his discomfort. Aaron hopes that’s the explanation. “What do you need to know?”

“Would Damian leave his class on his own? If he was bored, maybe?”

Wayne shakes his head. “No. Damian loves art museums. Art is his passion.”

“Have you seen these two boys before?”

Aaron places two pictures on the table. Wayne leans in to take a look.

“No,” he says. “Are those the two other missing boys?”

“Yes, we–”

“I’ve seen them before,” Duke interrupts. He sinks a little in his seat when all three adults turn to look at him. So not entirely as confident as his father, then. “I go to the same school.”

“Does Damian know them well?”

“Not as far as I know. Dami is, uh, not the most social kid.”

Aaron shoots a questioning gaze at Wayne, but it is Pennyworth who answers first, voice crisp and distinctly British.

“Master Damian is a very gentle boy who has always preferred animals over people.” Aaron almost misses the actual content of the sentence, mind stuck on the very first word. Maybe Pennyworth doesn’t have a familial connection to the Waynes after all. He could be an employee at their house.

“What about at home? Is he social there?” Aaron asks, because as much as he is confused by Pennyworth’s position in the Wayne family, it doesn’t matter much right now. He can ask Garcia to figure it out later.

Wayne and Pennyworth share a look. “More so than in public,” Wayne settles on.

“Damian has four siblings, correct? Is he close with them?”

“Yes,” Wayne answers without hesitation. 

Aaron looks down at the tablet in front of him. “I can see here that Richard Grayson is also registered as one of Damian’s legal guardians. That’s your oldest son, correct?”

“Yes.”

“Why would Richard be registered as Damian’s legal guardian?”

“I was hospitalized after a terrible accident a few years ago,” Wayne says. “Dick – that’s my son – took custody of Tim and Damian while I recovered.”

Aaron can’t tell what it is, but something feels off about that statement. Still, if his career has taught him anything, it is to trust his gut.

“I imagine that that only strengthened the bond between Richard and Damian?”

Wayne nods. Is he imagining it, or is there a tenseness to Wayne’s jaw?

“What happened when you were well enough to resume guardianship of Damian and Tim? Were Richard and Damian happy when things went back to normal?”

Duke looks back and forth between the two of them, and Aaron can tell he has hit a point of contention, based on the teen’s sudden nerves. Wayne doesn’t react visually, except for the faintest twitch of his mouth. Pennyworth’s face remains impassive, though his gaze flicks to the father and son next to him.

“It’s been a difficult transition for all of us,” Wayne says with a deflection that reminds Aaron of a politician’s. But maybe it’s not too surprising that a prominent figure like Bruce Wayne has undergone some media training. “But we’re all quite happy with the way it is now. I’m lucky that all my children, including Dick, visit home regularly, so Damian still sees him all the time. And if anything should ever happen to me again, Dick is registered as both Damian and Duke’s legal guardian. Just to be safe.”

“I see,” Aaron says. “We’ve had some trouble contacting Richard, so we haven’t informed him about Damian yet. Would you happen to know where he is?”

“Master Richard is on vacation,” Pennyworth says. “When we received the news, I reached out to him immediately. He did not answer his phone, but I left a message. I would expect him to return home as soon as he is able.”

“Dick is traveling through an area with bad cell service,” Wayne supplies, “so it may take a little while before he hears it.”

“And what about Damian’s mom? Is she not in the picture?”

“No. Damian hasn’t seen her regularly since he was 10.” Once again, Wayne’s face remains mostly the same. And yet Aaron gets the feeling that Damian’s parents didn’t part on particularly good terms.

“What’s her name? She’s not in our files.”

“She wouldn’t be; she’s not American. Her name is Talia al Ghul, but I doubt you’ll be able to reach her. I don’t think she even has a phone.”

Aaron jots down the name. “Why did she give up custody?” he asks.

“Her father got very sick, and she didn’t feel like she could take care of both of them.”

“And has she ever been back to regain custody of Damian?”

“A few times. Damian would rather live with me, so I’ve never let her take him.”

The words let her tell Aaron everything he needs to know about Bruce Wayne. He’s not surprised by the picture the words are painting. While the media might know the billionaire as a ditzy, good-natured partygoer, there are, in Aaron’s experience, very few rich men who don’t become dangerous when things don’t go their way. Wayne is the kind of man who can make or break a career by making a few phone calls.

But Aaron isn’t the kind of man to play politics.

“I pulled some files from Gotham City’s police department,” Aaron says. “Damian has been involved in nine kidnappings in five years.”

“Yes. Like I said, it unfortunately happens a lot in our family.”

“I am specifically interested in a bus jacking incident two years ago.”

“The 3rd of November. Jonathan Crane, AKA Scarecrow, held a bus full of Gotham Academy students hostage for four hours before Nightwing and Red Robin managed to free the hostages,” Wayne states promptly. “Five out of 22 hostages were dosed with fear toxin, with two of those in critical condition. You think there could be a connection?”

Aaron blinks. He looks at the man in front of him, then blinks again. “You have a good memory,” he says, though the statement is really a question.

For the first time since they met, Wayne looks a little patronizing rather than stoic. “My son was on that bus, agent. He was among the five dosed victims. I will remember that incident until the day I die.”

Which sounds reasonable in theory. Sometimes a traumatic event can imprint on you, make you remember sounds or smells or other small details you wouldn’t otherwise. But a parent whose child is missing? Their thoughts would be constantly circling around their child’s safety. A stray thought might occupy them, but only for a moment before their attention snaps back like a stretched rubber band.

Wayne remembering the day is more than reasonable. But no ordinary parent would remember the number of hostages or even what happened to the rest of the kids once they learned their own was wounded. Can the Wayne family’s many kidnappings really explain that sort of emotional detachment from such a traumatic event?

“You think there might be a connection?” Wayne repeats, and Aaron realizes he’s been quiet for too long. It isn’t often he feels this wrong-footed during an interrogation, let alone an interview with a victim’s family.

“It’s possible. The two other boys were also on the bus during the incident, so we’re looking into it.”

Duke frowns, looking away. Aaron catches it. “You think it’s unlikely,” he states, the question clear in his tone. 

Duke’s cheeks turn a shade darker. “It’s not impossible, I guess. It’s just ... Scarecrow keeps to Gotham, so it’s definitely not him. And there are so many kidnappings, hostage situations, and rogue attacks each year that you’d be hard pressed to find three Gothamites who haven’t been part of the same attack. Especially when they know each other and even go to the same school. I’d bet you’ll find more overlapping events if you look closer.”

Wayne nods in agreement, and Pennyworth tilts his head slightly as if to acknowledge the point. Right, Aaron reminds himself, City of Crime. That’s going to make it difficult to figure out whether any connection between the victims is important or just a freak accident of Gotham’s long crime reports.

He shifts in his seat, then continues on with the interview. Wayne keeps answering his questions with a stoicism he has never seen before in a victim’s family member. Even though it is helpful for the interview, he finds himself feeling sorry for the missing boy. He hopes Wayne is hiding his emotions, rather than lacking them.

Derek’s gaze glides over the high, sand-colored walls that stretch into a vaulted ceiling. In front of him is a marble statue, the inspiration of which is so indecipherable that it must be modern art. There are several other, similar statues along the walls, as well as a number of paintings. Three giant doorways and a smaller staff entrance lead out of the room. Behind him is a giant window. The view would be more impressive if it didn’t look straight into the buildings on the other side of the road, but at least it lets some natural light in. 

The Alsburrow Museum is one of those newer museums that hasn’t quite figured out what kind of museum it wants to be yet. It lives in a six-story building that definitely wasn’t meant to be a museum originally. To Derek’s trained eye, it is clear that the doorway on the right cuts into a loadbearing wall from the way that a thicker support beam has been inserted along the top. The first room they walked through was so wide that it had clearly been two rooms in the past, and now that the separating wall is gone, the roof feels too close. This is the first room he has seen that really screams museum.

“Okay, so the teacher stood here,” Spencer says and positions himself in the middle of the room to demonstrate. “He divides them into pairs of three, then sends them out to analyze a piece. No one remembers which way they went.”

Derek scans their surroundings with a critical eye. Which way does a group of teenagers go in an art museum? He knows where he would have gone at 15-years-old, but somehow he doubts three aspiring artists would care as little as he does for the art.

“We know these three students aren’t slackers. They wouldn’t go with the first piece they saw; they’d want it to hold some meaning,” he says.

“Damian comes from an old, wealthy family. That could suggest an upbringing where classical art was favored over modern,” Spencer says. He flips through the pictures Penelope sent them on his phone. “And from what we’ve seen of his own works so far, I’d say his inspiration also leans toward classical.”

“Modern art doesn’t really fit in with Gotham’s whole aesthetic,” Derek agrees. “They would probably also continue further into the museum rather than go back toward the art they’ve already seen.”

The two of them follow the opening on their left. They walk past some impressionist paintings and continue down a hallway before finally stopping by a stained-glass window. A lamp has been placed in the alcove behind it so that the reds, blues, and greens fall over the floor in thick beams. It’s a gothic style illustration of a noblewoman picking a rose under the full moon.

“Something tells me this is the sort of art they’d appreciate in Gotham,” Derek comments. 

Spencer wanders over to read the plaque next to the piece. It takes all of two seconds before he’s finished with it.

“It’s a pretty noticeable piece,” he says. “There’s a good chance they would have seen it and maybe even chosen it as their project.”

“So I want to kidnap three 15-year-old boys from the middle of a museum in broad daylight. How do I do it?”

Spencer frowns. “They are from Gotham and have all been victims of other crimes before. They probably wouldn’t go with just any stranger they met.”

“So I can’t use a ruse,” Derek says. “Maybe I already know one of them?”

“Maybe,” Spencer says. “But wouldn’t they find it pretty surprising to meet someone they knew outside of Gotham?”

Derek thinks for a moment. He has a point. Besides, Hotch said the three boys weren’t friends, just classmates. Would there be one person who knew all of them well enough to convince them to come with him? “Okay. Say I really did have a weapon. How would I go about making sure no one notices?”

Spencer turns to take in the whole room. “It’s not a very big room. If you waited for the right moment, you could probably get them while no one was here, then take them out the staff exit over there.”

“Possibly. If I had to wait, I’d do it...” Derek eyes the few sculptures and paintings in the room, “over here,” he finishes and walks over to a statue. It is intricate enough in design to not warrant suspicion for lingering, and it’s a good vantage point with sightlines to both the hallway and the staff door. The statue might even have shielded the unsub from other museum guests’ view.

“So I pretend to study this statue while I wait,” Derek says as Spencer catches up to him. “When the room is empty, I slowly move from the statue to this painting. I look at it for a few minutes to keep my cover, then I finally walk the last stretch.”

He walks toward the glass mosaic. “The kids think I’m just looking at the art. Then when I’m close enough...”

He quickly grabs out toward Spencer, using his phone to demonstrate how he’d threaten him with the weapon.

“I’m a 15-year-old boy,” Spencer continues, holding his head still above the phone as if it were a real knife. “My first emotion is confusion, then fear. I’ve never experienced anything this scary. I can’t even yell for help. When you ask me to slowly walk to the staff exit, I don’t even try to run.”

Derek releases him and shakes his head. “I just don’t buy it. Again, with one victim this might be possible. But these are three boys from Gotham. Hell, all of them have been kidnapped before. How does one guy get the jump on them?”

“Unless it’s not one guy,” Spencer says. “We could be looking for a team. One of them takes a hostage, and the other one stands between the remaining two and the exit. That could be enough to deter them from running. We could even have as many as three kidnappers, one for each kid.”

Derek nods slowly. “The exit doesn’t need a keycard or code, so they wouldn’t even need to work here.”

He opens the door and looks into a stairwell. “No witnesses in here, it seems. And it goes all the way down to the ground floor.”

“It would explain how no one saw them leaving,” Spencer agrees. The two of them follow the stairs down and leave the building through the staff entrance, which requires a pin from the outside but is open from the inside. Derek hopes this might be a wake-up call for the museum and they update their security once this is over. Otherwise, they’ll probably be getting a visit from the White Collar division before the end of the year.

They end up in an alley between the museum and a boring, grey apartment complex on the other side. The two of them look at each other, then Derek takes out his phone. It may be a longshot since there seems to be no cameras here, but maybe Penelope can find a video of a car leaving the alley.

“So, what do we know so far?” 

The team settles down heavily around the conference table. The families of the three victims are still waiting for news in the breakroom, so they’ve drawn the blinds in the little conference room they’ve been assigned. They’d rather not have anyone sneaking a look – whether on accident or purpose.

“The unsub definitely used the staff exit,” Derek says. “It’s still unclear exactly how they got the kids to leave. It could either be someone they knew or a team of unsubs with weapons. We think it’s unlikely a ruse would have worked.”

“I agree,” Aaron says from Dave’s right. “According to Wayne, Damian has extensive kidnapping and rescue training, not to mention that he’s already been kidnapped several times. A kid like that wouldn’t be susceptible to a ruse.”

“From what I heard from Daniel Cobweather’s family, I don’t think many Gothamite kids would be,” Dave agrees. Why any parent would willingly let their child live in that hellhole in the first place is beyond him.

“I spoke to the teacher and the other kids,” JJ says. “No one noticed anything or anyone weird the first day of the trip. And if there is a Scarecrow bus jacking connection, then I haven’t been able to figure out why our unsub wouldn’t target Amanda and Holly.”

“Maybe because he didn’t get the chance,” Emily suggests. “We put them into protective custody immediately.”

“This is an organized unsub,” Derek disagrees. “If he wanted Holly and Amanda, he would have had a plan for how to take them. I say the Scarecrow thing is a coincidence.”

“We don’t have many leads then,” Dave voices the problem with this. It would have been so nice to have an earlier crime to compare this one to … except for the fact that more crime scenes mean more victims. They’ll have to find another way to catch this guy.

“Garcia, where are we on the museum staff?” Aaron asks. 

“Clean as a whistle. Not even a parking ticket so far. I’m still running down family members and acquaintances of our victims.”

“What about the traffic cams?”

“Yes, I meant to get back to you on that. I’ve got a van leaving the alley by the museum and a partial on the plate. I’m running it right now.”

Aaron goes quiet in that brooding way of his that suggests he is thinking about something. Dave’s attention doesn’t leave him; Aaron usually only needs a short moment to gather his thoughts. And sure enough, “Garcia, I need you to look into Damian’s older brother, Richard Grayson.”

“Sure thing, boss,” Penelope says immediately, the sound of fingers flying over a keyboard in the background. “Richard John Grayson-Wayne, born to a John and Mary Grayson while on a tour to Germany with their circus. He was ...”

Penelope makes a displeased little sound. “He was orphaned at age 8 while on a tour to the states, when his parents suffered a terrible fall during their trapeze act. The police suspected foul play. Bruce Wayne, who had been at the performance, took young Richard in. He participated in his first gala at age 10 and soon became known as the charming ‘Richie Wayne’.”

Most of the table nods along to this. Richie Wayne is not as famous as Brucie Wayne, but he does occupy various gossip columns every once in a while. And Dave, who is old enough to remember the media freakout from Wayne’s decision to foster the kid, has heard most of this before.

“Richard’s life with Wayne wasn’t all roses and rainbows, though,” Penelope continues. “I have a sealed juvie record here, and according to his school, he had some anger issues and got into a few fights. Things at home were also dicey, and he and Wayne had so many problems that Richard moved out at age 16. He moved to Blüdhaven and became a cop and later a detective. And ... oh! Apparently, Tim Drake is not the second Wayne son. 12-year-old Jason Todd was adopted right around the time Richard and Wayne had their falling-out. He didn’t show up in my initial search because he’s deceased.”

“Cause of death?” Emily asks.

The phone line goes quiet. 

“Garcia?”

“Suspicious circumstances involving a kidnapping,” she says quietly. “He was found brutally beaten to death three days later. Police never found the killer.”

Dave’s stomach contracts to the size of one of those olives he keeps in his cupboard for decorating his martinis. Though it's the job, he doesn't really want to ask for any more details.

“That can’t possibly be a coincidence,” Derek says.

“You know, I’m not so sure,” Spencer says. “With the number of kidnappings in the Wayne family, it is perfectly reasonable to think that one of them could end in a death.”

“Was Grayson ever questioned after his brother’s death?” Emily asks.

“Seems like the police talked to him briefly, but he was never considered an actual suspect,” Penelope says. 

“What motive could he even have for being behind it?” JJ asks, looking slightly pale herself.

Derek makes a half-shrug, eyes still skimming through the file on his tablet. “Could be simple greed. A billionaire takes him in as a foster, and everyone thinks he’s going to be the next owner of Wayne Enterprises. Then he and Wayne have a falling-out, and Wayne gets a replacement kid that he actually adopts. He gets rid of the kid. A few years later Wayne adopts Grayson, which makes Grayson feel secure enough in his inheritance to actually get along with his new siblings.”

“Damian is Wayne’s only biological son, right?” Emily adds. “It makes sense Grayson would feel more threatened by him than the others.”

“And Grayson could probably convince Damian to follow him out of the museum,” Derek says. “It would even explain why we haven’t been able to reach him yet.”

“Then why does he take all three kids? Why not just Damian?”

“Maybe to conceal his real target. Or because they were witnesses.”

“I’m not convinced,” Dave says. “Damian has been in the family for 5 years. Why now?”

“Damian is getting closer to adulthood, so he feels more threatened,” JJ suggests. “It was the same with Jason; he was also killed at 15.”

“No, I don’t think that’s it,” Aaron says. His voice is enough to catch everyone’s attention immediately. He just has a sort of quiet assurance that shines through his every word. It’s part of what makes him a great leader, in Dave’s opinion. “According to Wayne, Grayson and Damian are very close. Besides, if anyone is threatening Grayson’s inheritance, it’s Tim Drake – he already has experience as CEO at Wayne Enterprises. I think it’s more likely that this is a form of parental abduction. Dick wants to be Damian’s parent again.”

“No matter the motive, he would be criminally sophisticated enough to pull it off if he’s a detective,” Dave says. 

“If we’re considering a parental abduction, then we should also look into Damian’s mom. Wayne said she had attempted to get custody a few times, right?” Emily reminds. 

“That’s a good point,” Aaron says. “We’ll look into it. But I don’t want you focusing so much on Damian’s family that you can’t consider other possibilities. In the meantime, we’ll put an APB out on Grayson and Talia al Ghul.”

JJ sighs heavily and stares out the car window. Small droplets of rain trickle down the glass. They pass a barber shop, then a flower shop. It’s late enough that both are closed by now, even though the sun hasn’t set yet. Damian, Daniel, and Kevin have been missing for eight hours by now. Everyone is long past the hopeful “maybe they just decided to skip class?” and they now consider it a certainty that it’s a kidnapping. With JJ’s expertise, she ended up being the one to inform the press. She has been itching to get out of the precinct ever since. Which, in hindsight, might be why Hotch assigned her to the job, when Penelope finally got a location for the van. The plates are taking a little longer, since they’re registered in Gotham and poor record-keeping is on Gotham’s long list of vices.

“What’s on your mind?” 

JJ glances briefly at Emily. Her friend’s demeanor has gone soft in the way that JJ knows only happens in the team’s company. Her eyes are fixed on the road as she drives. That somehow loosens JJ’s tongue a little.

“Henry’s kindergarten went on a field trip last month,” she admits. He came home raving about giraffes and seals and lions and could they please please please get a pet monkey? JJ laughed and asked why they would do that when they had one already. “It’s just ... cases with kids are hard.”

“They are,” Emily agrees. 

“It feels like they have been getting worse ever since I got Henry,” JJ continues. “Logically I know he’s safe back home with Will, but then I look at the case files, and suddenly I’m not so sure. What do I do if something happens to Henry someday? How do I carry on while knowing I won’t be able to protect him in kindergarten or in school or at a friend’s house?”

“It’s a balance,” Emily says and casts a glance over her left shoulder before she turns. “I grew up with an overprotective mom who never wanted me to leave the house unless it was for a formal dinner.”

JJ looks at her friend. Though she tries not to let it, her upbringing does slip through sometimes. Like in the way her back is perfectly straight or her clothes immaculate or her ankles steady even in high heels. It’s so different from how JJ was raised, and she cannot say she envies her.

“I hated it,” Emily continues bluntly. “It was suffocating. Still is, sometimes. I know we see a lot of terrible things in this job, but don’t let it turn you into my mom. Don’t do that to Henry. He deserves better than that.”

“You’re right,” JJ sighs. “It’s just hard to live with sometimes.”

“It is,” Emily agrees. “But if anything ever happened to Henry or Will or you, all of us would drop everything to help you in a heartbeat. You know that, right?”

JJ smiles a little, the knot in her throat finally loosening. “I know. Thank you, Em.”

They turn around a corner.

“It should be somewhere around here,” Emily says, and JJ turns back to her window. It’s still drizzling outside, and the grey light has washed the world’s colors away, leaving only slowly filling puddles and grey concrete. The sidewalk is abandoned. That may be why she spots him so quickly.

“Hey, isn’t that...?”

Emily stops the car in the middle of the street, and the two of them exit, hands automatically closing around their guns. 

“FBI! Step away from the vehicle!”

The man stiffens slightly, his hand freezing around the van’s door handle. A blue hoodie obscures his face, and the leather jacket he is wearing on top of it doesn’t do much to deter the rain. 

“Put your hands behind your head and turn around slowly,” Emily orders.

The man hesitates, and JJ’s grip tightens. Then with a slow-moving grace, he turns to face them, shooting a grimace their way like he already knows what their reaction will be. He’s right. Because holy shit, that’s...

“Richard Grayson?” 

Dave, Morgan, and Aaron watch through the one-way window as Emily enters the interrogation room.

“Good evening, Mr. Grayson,” she greets as she sits down in the chair opposite him. “I’m Agent Emily Prentiss with the FBI. I’m here to ask you a few questions.”

Grayson nods. They let him stew for fifteen minutes before finally sending Emily in – anything more would be too great a waste of time in a case this urgent – but he hasn’t show a single sign of unease during that time. Only a slight restlessness that could just as well be attributed to worrying about his little brother.

“We have been trying to get in contact with you all day. How come you haven’t answered your phone?”

“Like I’m sure Bruce told you, I was on vacation in an area with bad cell service. When I heard the messages on my phone, I got on the first plane I could find.”

A convenient excuse. But at least the story shouldn’t be too hard to verify – or disprove, rather. Airports have some of the best surveillance in the world.

“And why didn’t you call us back immediately when you landed? Or while you were waiting for the plane?”

“My phone died shortly after hearing the messages.” He winces apologetically. “There wasn’t much reason to keep it charged when I didn’t have any service anyway. But one of the messages included the precinct’s name, so I figured there was no reason to wait for it to recharge.”

“Convenient,” Morgan mumbles. Aaron couldn’t agree more.

“Does this van belong to you?” Emily asks and places a picture on the table between them. Grayson shoots a quick glance at it before saying, “No.”

“And yet we found you next to it with your hand on the door handle,” Emily says. She leans forward. “In your own words, you knew the exact precinct to go to. But instead of going straight here, you took a detour to find this van.”

Grayson’s lips get thinner. Emily waits for a beat, then continues once it’s clear he isn’t going to answer.

“Mr. Grayson, you’re a detective with the BPD,” she says. “I don’t think I have to tell you how this looks. You have been out of contact ever since your adoptive brother went missing. And I think we both know that CSI will find fibers and hairs from the missing kids in the van, which is why you don’t want to be associated with it. But we also both know that it’s just a matter of time before our technical analyst digs through your entire life. If that van is connected to you in any way, we’ll know. If you weren’t on that plane, we’ll know. This will be much more pleasant for all of us, but especially you, if you don’t waste our time.”

“Am I under arrest, agent?” Grayson asks. His tone isn’t hard per se, but it is unrelenting. Firm. He’s not intimidated by Emily’s words, and if it were another guy, Aaron might have guessed misogyny. But something tells him that Grayson isn’t the type to be intimidated, whether by men or women. In Aaron’s experience, that makes him that much more dangerous, because it suggests his confidence could be based on actual skill rather than prejudice.

“Not yet. But you will be when the DNA analysis of the van comes back positive.” Emily matches his tone, stating it as a fact rather than a possibility. This is why Aaron chose her for this interrogation – a guy like Grayson needs a firm hand. He needs to perceive his interrogator as an equal, because he won’t reveal anything to someone who’s not.

“He wasn’t behind the Jason Todd kidnapping,” Dave observes. “Emily has consistently called him ‘Grayson’ instead of ‘Grayson-Wayne’, and he hasn’t corrected her yet. He didn’t even react when she put emphasis on ‘adoptive brother.”

“He also refers to Wayne as ‘Bruce’,” Aaron adds. “Someone trying to assert his position in the family would call him ‘Dad’.”

“It can still be a parental abduction,” Morgan says. “It’s a pretty damning piece of evidence to be found with the van they were abducted in.”

Dave tilts his head to acknowledge this. In the interrogation room, Grayson looks intently at Emily, then sighs.

“I know it doesn’t look good. A smart man would ask for a lawyer. But since I actually want you guys to find my little brother, I’ll hold off on that.”

The threat is clear: if they keep pressing him, Grayson will lawyer up. Which will halt their investigation considerably. Aaron wonders if Wayne will pay for Grayson’s lawyer, or if the possibility that his adopted son may be behind his other son’s disappearance will be enough for him to leave Grayson to fend for himself. Not that Wayne showed much compassion for his son’s situation during his interview. Aaron feels sorry for the young boy, who has a father who apparently doesn’t care, a brother who may be involved in the kidnapping, and two siblings who didn’t even show up at the police station. Maybe he should look into Damian’s homelife once this is all over, and Damian is – hopefully – back safe and sound. Just to make sure he isn’t being actively neglected.

“As for your earlier question, no, I wasn’t on vacation.”

Grayson’s straightforward answer surprises all of them for a moment, but Emily covers it up quickly, tilting her head slightly and waiting for him to continue.

“I’m a detective. When B heard about Dami’s kidnapping, he called me and asked me to investigate. I said yes. That’s why I was looking at that van. That’s all there is to it.”

“Why wouldn’t you leave it to local law enforcement?”

Grayson levels her with a look. “Would you leave it to local law enforcement if someone in your family went missing, Agent Prentiss?”

A string of memories flies through Aaron’s mind, almost too quickly to identify. But no. They would definitely not sit back and wait for someone else to solve the case if a loved one of someone on the team was in danger.

“And yet you didn’t take a personal interest in the Scarecrow incident two years ago. You didn’t even show up until the hostages were released. What makes this kidnapping different?” Emily continues mercilessly, stepping around the question entirely. Another reason why she is right for this interrogation: she gives no indication that he hit true with that last remark, even though the team still has some very fresh wounds from the Doyle incident.

While Grayson’s demeanor wasn’t friendly before, it stands in stark contrast to the downright iciness that suddenly bleeds through his body.

“First of all, don’t assume you know anything about me or what I felt about that bus jacking. I may not have arrived before the hostages were released, but I stayed at Damian’s side all night while he fought off the toxin,” he says coldly. “Secondly, I am personally investigating this case because I want to make sure someone competent does.”

“The FBI and NYPD aren’t competent enough?”

“I’ve lived in Gotham and Blüdhaven for most of my life, agent. I have personally seen both the police and the FBI in action, and I would not want to entrust my brother’s life to either. I am taking a ‘personal interest’, as you call it, because Batman and his birds don’t leave Gotham.”

“You would trust vigilantes but not the FBI to rescue your brother?”

Grayson snorts and leans back in his chair. “Go back through the case files on Damian’s other abductions, and I’m sure you’ll figure out why,” he suggests.

“He’s not wrong,” Spencer says. He has spent the past few hours reading through all the case files pertaining to Damian’s, Kevin’s, and Daniel’s abductions. At the look he receives from the rest of the table, he continues. “No, really, he’s not. Gotham and Blüdhaven are both notorious for their corrupt law enforcement. In all nine of Damian’s kidnappings, the city’s vigilantes were involved in the rescue to some degree.”

“So he could be telling the truth,” Emily concludes.

“I think he is.” JJ rubs her temple. Behind her on the wall, the clock ticks steadily on. It’s been 10 hours since the boys disappeared, and night is upon them. The fact that the kids are still out there is grating on everyone’s nerves. “Everything points toward him and Damian having a great relationship, and Wayne and Pennyworth even admitted to lying about the vacation. He was just worried about his brother and wanted to save him.”

Rossi frowns, finger slowly tapping on the file in front of him. “Even so, there’s something odd going on here. Grayson must be one hell of a detective if he found that van faster than we did.”

“He must have had help,” Derek says. “A source inside the precinct, maybe. He’s a cop, it isn’t a reach to think he could have a contact here.”

“That’s a worrying thought,” Hotch says. “If someone inside the precinct helped him, then they ignored the APB. But it’s unlikely this source will leak anything to our unsub and Grayson is already in custody, so that’s not our main concer–”

The door bursts open, and old instincts have the agents going for their guns before they realize it’s just the precinct’s captain, looking slightly harried.

“It's Kevin Bayle,” she says before anyone can ask her what’s going on. “A patrol car just picked him up outside a warehouse by the harbor.”

“Hi Kevin,” Spencer says softly. “My name is Spencer. This is my colleague. Her name is Jennifer, but we usually call her JJ. Would it be alright if we asked you a few questions?”

Kevin burrows slightly further into his mother’s side and sends them a distrustful look. His eyes have been darting around ever since he arrived at the precinct 10 minutes ago, going from his parents to his shoes to the door. He's still covered by the shock blanket the paramedic gave him after having checked him for injuries.

“It’s alright, sweetheart,” his other mom promises from her place next to them. She has wrapped an arm around both of them, shock blanket and all, and doesn’t seem inclined to let go anytime soon.

Spencer adds as much sincerity to his voice as he can, willing Kevin to understand. “We just want to help Daniel and Damian.”

The boy nods once. Spencer knows that’s as much invitation as they’re going to get, so he goes on. “Can you tell us what happened at the museum?”

“They waited until we were alone.” Kevin sniffles. “The tall one had a knife, and he – he held it right here, under my chin.”

He puts two fingers to his pulse point as if to check his heartbeat. His eyes water, bushy eyebrows scrunched tightly together as his lip quivers. “They wanted us to go with them. Said they were gonna – they were gonna ... if we didn’t. I panicked. I couldn’t move. And that made him angry.”

He wipes his nose on his sleeve. JJ crouches down in her chair to look him in the eyes. Choosing the two of them was a strategic choice from Hotch’s side; Spencer who looks young and non-threatening, and JJ’s maternal demeanor to remind Kevin of his mothers. 

“What happened then?” JJ gently prompts.

“They started arguing.”

“Who? The people who took you?”

Kevin nods. “The short one didn’t think the tall one was doing it right. And then suddenly Damian spoke up. He calmed them down and even got my legs working again. And then the two of them took us down a staircase and into a van.”

JJ and Spencer share a short look. Trying to talk down an unsub takes guts. Doing so successfully takes skills. Damian’s kidnapping-and-rescue training must have paid off.

“Do you know where they took you?” Spencer asks.

“They stopped after a little while, and then they had another fight about something to do with the van. Then the small one left for a while before he came back with another van they wanted us to get into. They took us to the warehouse after that.”

“What did they do while you were there?”

“Argued, mostly,” Kevin says. “The small one wanted to let Damian go, but the tall one didn’t. But the small one kept insisting they had to do it right. Then Damian started talking. It was really weird.”

Spencer frowns and leans forward. “Weird in what way?”

“He said some really odd things. Like, he called me and Danny his brothers and made up some story about how we had been on a trip to the museum with our parents.”

Kevin looks up at them, bewilderment briefly overtaking the clear terror on his face. “That suddenly convinced them to let him go. But Damian pointed out I was the tallest of us, and then they decided to let me go instead. I – I didn’t know what to do. I don’t even know what sort of vigilantes operate in New York. But then a – a police car saw me and picked me up. I showed them the warehouse, but it was empty by then.”

Spencer’s heart bleeds for this kid who apparently trusts the police so little that he wouldn’t even contact them after being kidnapped. He knew police corruption ran rampant in Gotham before this case, of course, but he is beginning to think he should look more into it after the case, too. Maybe he can help raise some awareness about it or even help clean out the FBI office there.

“Can you describe the two men?” JJ asks.

“Uh, the tall one was thin and had dark hair. The small one was blond and smelled like cigarettes.”

Shortly after, JJ and Spencer thank Kevin and his parents for their help, asking them to remain at the precinct until the kidnappers have been apprehended. The door clicks softly behind them as they leave to find the rest of the team.

“We had the profile all wrong,” JJ says breathlessly as they hurry through the bullpen.

“Yeah,” Spencer agrees. “It was never an organized unsub.”

Derek traces a finger along the map of New York Harbor in front of him. 

“I don’t think I’m going to find them on Bay Street,” Penelope says through the phone’s speaker. “None of my cameras are picking anything up. Why aren’t my cameras picking anything up? What’s the point of living in a surveillance state if–”

“Baby Girl,” Derek interrupts, knowing full well she will spiral otherwise.

“Sorry. It’s just so frustrating...”

Derek knows exactly what she means. There are still two kids out there. Every minute counts.

The door bursts open, and Spencer and JJ hurry in.

“How did the interview go?” Hotch asks.

“We figured out the profile!” Spencer says quickly. Everyone stops what they’re doing to give him their full attention.

“We looked at the abduction itself and concluded that the unsubs had to be organized and criminally sophisticated to pull it off.” He gestures to the notes on their whiteboard, eyes sparkling. “But we were wrong! Our unsubs didn’t plan this crime ahead of time. It just appears that way because they’re copying a crime of an organized unsub. A crime they were the victims of themselves.”

“Both unsubs, but the smaller one especially, are very eager to ‘do it right’,” JJ explains. “We think the abduction is a reenactment of an experience from their own lives. That’s why they let one of the hostages escape.”

“Then Daniel, Damian, and Kevin were victims of opportunity after all,” Rossi says. “What about these three boys set the unsubs off?”

“You know, part of it could be a physical similarity to the unsubs themselves,” Spencer suggests, hands flying around him, unable to contain his restless energy. “According to Kevin, one of them was blond, and the other was dark-haired. If there was a third boy with dark hair among the victims of the original crime, it could explain it.”

It’s a good theory, but it’s not enough. Two dark-haired boys and one blond is not a terribly unusual combination. There must be something more to it. Normally, this is where Derek would look back into the kids’ files and find something unusual that could explain the unsubs’ interest. But these three kids’ lives contain nothing but anomalies. Fucking Gotham ... wait. Wait a minute. 

“Gotham,” Derek says. “This mystery crime you’re talking about must have happened in Gotham. That’s the connection. Damian Wayne is relatively well-known because his dad is the symbol of Gotham itself. Knowing that the three kids were Gothamites was what triggered our unsubs.”

“Garcia, I need you to dig into child abductions in Gotham,” Hotch says.

“I’m going to need you to be more specific, because that is a depressingly long list.”

“Based on our unsubs’ mental age and assuming they would have been around 15 at the time of the crime, it would have happened maybe 10 to 15 years ago,” Rossi says.

“Look specifically for abductions involving three boys, with two of them having black hair and the third being blonde,” Emily adds.

“They’re probably brothers,” JJ says.

“They would have been kidnapped from a public place,” Derek says. “A museum, a park, a library...”

“One of the children might have escaped on his own,” Spencer adds. 

“At least two of them have since moved to New York,” Hotch says. “And one of them, if not both, drive a van.”

“And bingo!” Penelope says. A case file pops up on Derek’s tablet as she talks. “12 years ago, Michael, Liam, and Frank Nelson were kidnapped from a museum in Gotham after their dad got in trouble with a local gang. But something went wrong, and Michael managed to escape after 10 hours in captivity. The criminals fled their hideout with Liam and Frank in tow, but the GCPD managed to track them to an abandoned factory by the docks. Frank was killed by one of the kidnappers when the police cornered her. The Nelsons moved to New York shortly after. Michael has a van registered in his name, and Liam’s card was used at a car rental today.”

The three boys’ pictures show up on Derek’s screen. Frank, Michael, and Liam. Two dark, one blond.

“Garcia, we need all addresses of abandoned factories near New York Harbor,” Hotch says as he rises from his chair. A moment later, they’re all running to the cars.

Dave and Derek step out of the car as three squad cars pull up behind them with silent sirens. Aaron, Spencer, Emily, and JJ are headed to other locations, so it’s just going to be the two of them and the local reinforcements. 

Dave draws his gun, keeping it pointed downwards. He’s already wearing his bullet proof vest and comm.

“Remember the Nelsons are trying to reenact an old crime,” Dave says to the police officers. “This could mean Daniel Cobweather will get a chance to escape. Damian Wayne will most likely be better guarded, and maybe even held hostage. If that happens, let one of us take point on the negotiations.”

The officers nod, and Dave turns back to the building. With a single gesture, he sends three officers around the building, while he, Derek, and the remaining two officers take the front.

The door creaks loudly as they fan into the room, guns held high. It has an open floorplan with two assembly lines running through. Forgotten crates stand haphazardly near the old, rusty garage door. A balcony runs around the entire room, overlooking the ground floor. Two staircases, one along the left wall and one along the right, lead up there. The far wall has three doors leading further into the building.

They spread out to cover more ground. Derek and Dave end up sneaking down the middle row, Derek covering their right while Dave covers their left. It’s quiet except for the soft tapping of their shoes on the floor. Too quiet for a factory which is supposed to be filled with the hum of machinery. Dave has never been a fan of horror movies – he sees enough of that on the job, and something with romance and clever musings about life is more his style anyway – but the team watched one together maybe two months ago on Derek’s insistence. In his inexperienced opinion, this place has the makings of a horror movie set.

A gunshot tears through the silence. The wide, empty room distorts the sound, so all they can do is press themselves down next to the conveyor belt and hope it shields them from the shooter. 

Dave eyes the walls, the doors, the other conveyor belt, index finger resting along the side of his gun while he searches for the unsubs. Derek taps him on the shoulder, then gestures to a shipping crate near the end of the assembly line. Dave nods. 

“Be advised, at least one hostile in the main room,” Derek says quietly into his comm. “Armed and dangerous.”

“Copy,” an officer’s voice crackles. “Entering building now.”

Despite his knees definitely being too old for it, Dave and Derek crawl parallel to the assembly line, keeping their heads down. There is another shot, but whether it’s aimed at them or one of the officers is impossible to tell. Then, as they reach the end of the conveyor belt, they finally see the other side of the crate.

The first person Dave notices is Michael Nelson. He stands close to the crate’s corner, his dark hair messy like he has been running his hands through it. He’s wearing scuffed jeans and a band t-shirt filled with holes, but the most noticeable thing about him is his hands; one is closed around Daniel Cobweather’s arm, and the other one is holding tight to a gun. Liam is standing a little further back, holding onto Damian Wayne and his own weapon.

“Michael and Liam Nelson!” Derek says loudly, his gun already pointing toward Michael. “FBI! Lay down your weapons and step away from the kids!”

“No! Stop where you are!” Michael yells, grip tightening as he brings his gun close to the kid. Daniel’s Adam’s apple quavers, and he leans away from his captor. He’s hyperventilating, though the terror he must be feeling has killed the sound in his throat. Behind them, Damian is watching with rapt attention, face grave but otherwise blank. “I’ll kill him! I swear, I’ll kill–”

“No one needs to get hurt,” Derek says soothingly. “What happened to Frank was wrong, but taking it out on this kid won’t make it better. Put down the gun, and we’ll help you find the people responsible for your brother’s murder. Help us bring them to justice.”

“You didn’t care about us then, and you don’t care about us now!” Michael yells. “Where was the FBI or the great Batman when we were kidnapped, huh?! No, he’s going to die so–”

“No! You’re not doing it right!” Liam screams, taking everyone by surprise as he kicks his brother’s knee in. Michael loses his grip, and Daniel stumbles away from him. Dave wastes no time in pulling him away and down behind the conveyor belt. Michael moves to pounce on his brother, but Derek is quicker, slamming him into the floor and keeping him down with a knee on his back. Dave keeps his gun trained on Liam while Derek cuffs Michael.

“It’s not – it’s all wrong!” Liam continues frantically, gesturing wildly with the gun. “I told him Liam is supposed to escape!”

“Liam is safe now,” Dave assures, observing the man closely. The delusion seems more pronounced in this brother; Michael was at least capable of separating the two kidnappings in his mind.

“That’s how it was,” Liam nods vigorously, gun coming up to rest upon Damian’s temple. Dave feels every muscle in his body freeze. “Michael and Liam escape while Frank dies.”

The gun is pressed against the kid’s head. If he fires now, there is nothing Dave can do to save him. Liam’s movements are jerky, his face flushed with excitement. Dave has to say something. Now.

“My name isn’t Frank.”

Dave’s brain stalls. Slowly, all of them turn their attention to Damian Wayne, face still carefully blank. If not for the tense line of his shoulders, Dave might have thought him ignorant of the danger he is in.

“I – what?” Liam says.

“My name is Damian,” the kid says. Dave’s jaw just about drops to the floor. Is he ... interrupting his would-be-murderer just to say that? Shock does odd things to people, but still. 

“Shut up!” Liam hisses. Dave can’t help but privately hope the kid will do just that. He opens his mouth to interject but loses the sentence he was about to say when Damian’s left hand suddenly pulls his attention with a wave, shielded from Liam’s view by the kid’s own body. Then, his fist curls together, leaving only three fingers sticking out. It must mean something, because the boy’s eyes bore into his, full of some kind of intent Dave can’t decipher.

“I don’t care what your name is. I’m going to kill you, and then the FBI and Batman and everyone will finally understand what we–”

“We’re in New York,” Damian cuts in, either unaware or uncaring of Dave’s internal panicking. He curls one more finger in so that only two are sticking out, and – oh. Two. God, no. Dave’s 15-year-old hostage is counting down, and if Dave doesn’t figure out a way to stop this in the next few seconds, said 15-year-old is going to do something stupid and get shot right in front of him.

“No, we’re not,” Liam disagrees. “You’re a Wayne; you live in Gotham.”

“But you took me while I was on a trip to New York,” Damian insists. “Which is outside Batman’s jurisdiction.”

“Batman and his birds always save the Waynes!”

“When we’re in Gotham,” Damian says condescendingly, a second finger curling on his left hand. One. “I’m afraid your little cry for attention has been for nothing, because Batman doesn’t care.”

Liam’s face flushes a deep red, his whole body shaking with emotion. The gun moves the tiniest fraction away from the boy’s temple, and Damian moves. He twists his right arm out of Liam’s grip, batting the gun away from his head faster than Dave can follow the motion. It goes off a millisecond later. The kid drops, and for a moment, Dave thinks he has been hit, but Damian is already back on his feet, now several feet away from his abductor. A gunshot follows closely behind as Dave puts a bullet in Liam’s chest. Liam goes down.

“Are you kidding me?”

Dave turns to look at the scowling teen, but he is already approaching Liam again. With a kick, he gets the gun away from the kidnapper’s slack hand, then bends down over him as if he wasn’t just holding aforementioned gun to the kid’s head.

“I counted down so you could be prepared, not so you could shoot him,” Damian continues, voice almost scolding. Derek and Dave can only gape. In all Dave’s years with the FBI, he has never seen anything like it.

“Don’t just stand there, call an EMT!”

Dave fumbles to do just that, while Damian tries to staunch Liam’s bleeding. Derek is still holding Michael, which leaves Dave to help Damian with Liam’s wound. The EMTs enter only a moment later, having waited for something like this right outside the building.

“Male between 25 and 30 years old, unconscious but breathing,” Damian says clinically as they rush over. “One GSW to the chest. Lost consciousness almost immediately. He suffers from a delusion, but has no auditory or visual hallucinations, to my knowledge. I recommend restraining him so he isn’t a danger to himself or others.”

The EMTs glance at Dave in surprise but quickly shake it off in favor of getting Liam onto the gurney. A single EMT stays back while the rest of the flock practically run out the door. The ambulance’s sirens start blaring only a moment later.

The remaining EMT looks Daniel and Damian over and declares both of them free from any major injuries. They will both need to have a more in-depth examination, both to make sure they are alright and to document any injuries for the court case, but it will do for now. She wraps a shock blanket around each kid, then turns to see if Derek, Dave, or Michael need her. But everything went off – mostly – without a hitch. Instead, she puts an arm around a shaking Daniel Cobweather’s shoulders and starts leading him out of the building. Derek passes a thrashing Michael Nelson over to the officers.

“Bayle?” Damian says.

The word doesn’t register in Dave’s brain. He’s probably a little in shock himself, he thinks numbly. “What?”

“Kevin Bayle, our classmate. Is he unscathed?”

Oh, Bayle. Kevin Bayle. The kid wants to know if his friend is safe.

“Yeah. He’s safe. He’s with his family.”

Damian releases a breath Dave hadn’t realized he was holding. A full body tremor goes through his body, then his expression smooths back into something calm and unbothered. As if only allowing himself one second to process the terror he must’ve just felt. Dave has never seen a kid, no, anyone be so in control of their body language. It’s disconcerting. 

“I’m glad,” Damian says, face neutral once more. “Now, would you mind taking me to my own family?”

Dave nods. “Right. This way.”

He leads the kid toward the door. As they walk, his adrenaline-fueled brain registers movement on the balcony, and his head snaps to look for the source. But there’s nothing.

“Agent?” Damian asks.

Dave’s eyes linger for a moment. He could have sworn he saw two figures up there...

“It’s nothing,” he says. “Come, let’s get you back to your family.”

To no one’s great surprise, Emily and Spencer reach the precinct before Derek, Rossi, and the rescued kids. So do JJ and Hotch. The four of them missed all the action, so while Derek and Rossi have to coordinate with the EMTs on scene and make sure the Nelsons are properly secured, Emily gets to break the good news to the Waynes – Hotch takes the Cobweathers, leaving JJ to talk to the Bayles while Spencer gets started on the paperwork.

The first thing she does is release Grayson from the interrogation room. It’s maybe a little mean to have left him in there for so long – especially since he must have been worried sick, and his family right outside might have alleviated some of the stress – but in their defense, everything after Kevin’s escape has been a blur. And Emily’s guilt is not strong enough to prevent her from realizing that Grayson would probably have gone straight back to his own investigation if given the chance. Maybe it’s for the better that he’s been in here all evening. This way they at least knew where they had him.

Grayson’s eyes snap up to her as she enters, though his body language remains laid-back. It’s the kind of looseness that is a little too deliberate to be natural. The display sets off warning bells in her head, despite already knowing he is innocent. Trusting the wrong person can get you killed when you’re undercover, so noticing these things has become second nature to her. Unfortunately, her instincts don’t care that she isn’t undercover anymore or that the paranoia is mildly disruptive in her daily life, to say the least.

“We got him,” she says without preamble, because if it were her, she’d want to know right away.

Grayson sucks in a breath. “Damian?”

“He’s safe,” she nods. “He’s on his way here now.”

Grayson’s relieved exhale dispels some of the tension in his body, and when he stands, the movement looks much more natural than before.

“Then it seems I judged you wrongly, agent,” he says, the ghost of an apology gracing his words.

“And I you,” Emily returns, brushing it off. Grayson sends her a small, crooked smile. “Come on, I still need to tell the rest of your family.”

The room is much more full than last time Emily saw it. Wayne, Pennyworth, and Duke are still there, yes, but so are two men and two women Emily hasn’t met yet. One man is sitting at the table, laser-focused on something happening at his phone, exhaustion evident in the slump of his shoulders. He is easily recognizable as the famed co-CEO of Wayne Enterprises, 20-year-old Tim Drake. Cassandra Cain, less recognizable if not for the fact that she is surrounded by more well-known family members, is sitting criss-cross on a chair, head leaning on Wayne’s shoulder. The remaining two are completely unknown to Emily. A woman with blonde hair and an oversized, purple hoodie is sitting on the table, reading over Tim’s shoulder. Her eyes are drooping, and she is absentmindedly sipping from a to-go cup that says ‘Tim’ on the side. Neither of them seem to mind. The last person in the room, a tall, muscular man in a leather jacket, is leaning against the wall. His gaze flicks to the door as Emily and Grayson step in, eyes startlingly green.

“Dami is safe,” the unknown man says. It doesn’t sound like a question, but it must have been, because there’s no way he could have known that. 

“Yes,” Emily confirms, “he’s on his way here now.”

Leather Jacket and Grayson share a look over Emily’s shoulder. It reads as amused to her, though the joke flies over her head. It makes her a little uncomfortable. She’s not used to feeling too slow to read a social interaction.

“You have my sincerest thanks, agent,” Wayne says warmly, rising from his seat to shake her hand. “Having him back home will be a great relief to all of us.”

“Except Dami,” Tim snorts, barely looking up from whatever he is writing. “He’s gonna be pissed his trip was cut short.”

Personally, Emily isn’t convinced Damian’s return will be a ‘great relief’ to the rest of the assembled either. Wayne, Grayson and Duke have been much too stoic throughout the whole process, and Cassandra, Tim, and the two strangers didn’t even show up at the station until the kidnappers were already apprehended. It’s something of a coincidence that they happened to get here just as the case was over, now that she thinks about it. 

“I’m happy we could help,” she says easily, ignoring Tim’s comment. “Now, there are a few practical details we need to go over before Damian can come home.”

She launches into an explanation of the typical procedure for taking Damian’s statement and getting him a full hospital check-up, as well as some advice for how to handle Damian’s trauma in the future. Normally, she would save this conversation till after Damian has been reunited with his family, but all the evidence points to Wayne being fully able to focus, despite everything. He nods along at all the right places, keeping a completely straight face through all of it even though a few of the room’s other occupants snicker at Emily’s suggestion of therapy. 

Not long after, the door opens again, and Rossi and Damian step through it. Grayson, closest to the door, lights up in a blinding smile and throws his arms around the kid. 

“Dami!” he exclaims, excitement evident in his voice.

“Richard.” The kid’s tone is surprisingly measured, but Emily spots a small smile, half-hidden behind Grayson’s shoulder.

“My turn,” Leather Jacket says, pushing Grayson out of the way. He gives Damian a tight hug that has the kid’s feet leaving the ground. 

“Todd,” Damian protests half-heartedly. Leather Jacket – Todd, apparently – puts him down.

Pennyworth steps forward to give Damian a hug, too. He puts a hand on his shoulder as they pull apart and says, “I’m relieved to see safely returned, my dear boy.”

The area around the door quickly gets crowded, so Emily and Rossi move out of the way. Cassandra ruffles Damian’s hair with a small, contented smile, Tim pokes fun at him in an obviously relieved tone, Duke expresses his happiness, and the woman in the purple hoodie loudly exclaims, “Where is my hug?!”

“Ask Richard for one, I’m sure he would be happy to indulge you,” Damian suggests to Grayson’s agreement and Purple Hoodie’s disappointment. 

Wayne slowly makes his way to the middle of the group, and the others give them space and fall silent, as if something special is about to happen and they’re afraid to ruin it.

“Damian,” Wayne says and puts his hands on the boys shoulders so that they are facing each other directly. “I’m glad you’re safe.”

He draws the boy into a hug. This apparently breaks the spell, because the young adults cheer as one and pounce on the embracing father and son (Pennyworth following more sedately), quickly turning it into a nine-way group hug full of pointy elbows and complaints. The sight settles something in Emily as she realizes that for all the Waynes oddities, they really do care for each other.

Red Robin and Spoiler spotted in New York, the news article proudly declares when Aaron opens his phone to text Jessica he’ll be home in the early hours of morning. He skims the first few lines, mildly intrigued.

The two Gothamite vigilantes were seen in New York earlier tonight on Staten Island, where they prevented a mugging. Red Robin and Spoiler are rarely seen outside Gotham, and some speculate they may have been responding to a Teen Titans or Justice League level event, though this is still unconfirmed...

The BAU stays in New York long enough to take Damian’s and Daniel’s statements. While Aaron’s main focus of course is on their wellbeing, he has to admit that he is curious. Damian is an interesting kid.

But as it turns out, Damian’s interview ends up being an endless string of interesting questions with less than interesting answers. How did Damian deescalate the Nelsons’ fight at the museum? He has five siblings; he is used to volatile arguments. (“Five? Don’t you have four siblings?” JJ asks in confusion. “Jason didn’t stop being part of our family just because he died,” Damian says firmly, a statement which seems to carry a lot of emotional weight for the Waynes, considering the sudden change of atmosphere.)

How did Damian disarm a man with a gun? He has been receiving self-defense lessons ever since he came to live with his dad. How did he guess the Nelsons’ delusion and know how to use it to his advantage? Well, they were talking pretty loudly when they were arguing, and you pick up a few tricks when you’ve been kidnapped on multiple occasions. Gotham is practically ground zero for violent crazy people. 

It is only later, when they are sitting on the plane, that Morgan voices what all of them are thinking: “I just don’t buy it,” he says. “I don’t know what, but something is off about the Waynes.”

Aaron knows exactly what he means. While Damian’s explanations were reasonable – or, as reasonable as possible, given that the word ‘Gotham’ was involved – they weren’t the truth. Or at least not the whole truth. Damian has a good grip on his body language, and he could probably have fooled most people with it. But Aaron and his team are profilers. To them, the carefully controlled reactions are just as telling as any sliver of real emotion. He was hiding something. But why?

“I’ve never heard of a hostage behaving like Damian did,” Emily says.

“I’ve never seen anything like it,” Dave agrees, and Aaron believes him. He has seemed to be in a sort of daze ever since the arrest, eyes not quite focusing on the person speaking, but rather staring into the distance. It’s a little unsettling; Dave is their star negotiator, and he has been with the BAU long enough to have investigated almost every evil out there. He’s not supposed to be this shaken up after a case.

“Not only did he figure out the Nelsons’ delusion and use it against them by playing along, he was also able to recognize when it became too dangerous to keep playing along,” Reid observes. “That shows more talent for profiling than most agents show in an entire career.”

“Not to mention that he talked down his kidnappers at the museum,” JJ adds. “That takes courage.”

A troubled line appears on Dave’s brow, and he shakes his head. “You’re missing the point,” he says. “Liam Nelson held a gun to the kid’s temple right in front of me, and he wasn’t afraid. Or, if he was, then he hid it so well even I couldn’t see it. He wasn’t crying. He wasn’t shaking. He took control of the situation like it was nothing. He stayed calm, even after the danger had passed.” 

“He even scolded us for shooting Liam and stayed to help the EMTs,” Morgan adds emphatically like he’s relieved someone finally put words to his thoughts. Dave probably did, seeing as the two of them are the only members of the team who got to see Damian Wayne in action.

“Experience?” Emily suggests. “He has been kidnapped before.”

“Living through one traumatic event is more likely to make the next one worse instead of easier,” Reid disagrees. “Of course Damian is a special case, considering both the sheer number of times he’s been kidnapped and the city he grew up in, but he seems remarkably well-adjusted for someone who has that much trauma.”

“So he either has a world-class therapist or he’s better at hiding his tells than most people,” JJ concludes.

Dave frowns again, clearly not entirely happy with either explanation. 

“I think the last one,” Emily says. “Grayson was the same; it could be where Damian got it from.”

Only ... that doesn’t quite explain the mystery that is the Waynes, does it?

“No,” Aaron says slowly, thinking about Bruce Wayne’s calm demeanor as he discussed his own son’s kidnapping. “I think it’s more likely both Grayson and Damian got it from either Wayne or Pennyworth.”

“What makes a whole family that good at hiding their emotions?” JJ wonders, looking slightly disturbed.

It’s silent for a moment while various awful ideas flash through everyone’s minds. Aaron’s first thought is abuse or neglect, but that doesn’t quite fit with what he saw at the precinct after Damian had been reunited with his family. The affection they had for each other seemed genuine. But what other reason could there be?

“You know, we never found out how Grayson found that van before us,” Morgan remarks.

“Like you said, he must’ve had a source inside the precinct,” Emily says. “Maybe an old friend from the police academy.”

“Or Wayne bought someone,” JJ supplies. “He spent all day at the precinct, and we know he was behind Grayson’s investigation in the first place.”

Reid shakes his head. “I don’t think that’s it. I think he found it on his own.”

“He would have to have access to New York CCTV to do that,” Emily says doubtfully. “Not to mention that he would have to be a brilliant detective to figure out how Damian and the other kids left the museum in the first place.”

“No, think about it!” Reid says and leaps from his seat, unable to keep still as he explains. His eyes already have that far-away look to them that means he is seeing connections that no one else can. “If Grayson had a source in the police, he would know we had already found the van and were on our way to investigate it. Why show up himself and risk getting caught? I think he was genuinely surprised we found the van as quickly as we did.”

Emily nods slowly. “He did seem surprised that we managed to close the case.”

“What was that thing he said in interrogation?” Dave asks.

“‘I am personally investigating this case because I want to make sure someone competent does’,” Reid quotes promptly, despite having only seen the video footage once. 

“Even so, Garcia was in charge of tracking down the van, and she’s the best there is,” JJ says. “Do we really think Grayson could keep up with her?”

“He had help, just not from the police,” Aaron says, the puzzle pieces clicking into place right before his eyes. “Tim Drake, Cassandra Cain, and their two friends didn’t show up at the precinct until after Damian was safe.”

“Would they be much help, though?” Morgan asks. “Drake and Cain have no law enforcement background.”

“But the other two could have,” Dave points out.

“And Drake would have the connections and money to find a competent hacker,” Emily adds.

“Which brings us back to the original point,” JJ says. “That sort of behavior is not normal. Not even for Gothamites. So what makes the Waynes so different?”

Silence descends on the small plane as each one of them thinks. Oddly enough, Aaron’s thoughts circle mostly around Wayne. 

Aaron knows he isn’t always good with emotions. He feels very deeply for other people – it’s the reason he was drawn away from a lucrative career in law to a dangerous job with bad hours at the FBI in the first place – but he’s not good at showing it. Emotions just don’t naturally show on his face. Instead, he has to make a conscious effort to smile when he is happy or frown when he is sad, and even then the expression looks too little or too forced. It’s why it’s such a relief that the team is full of profilers. They see right through his body language and just understand what he really feels. But even so, it is something he has been struggling with for years, and he’s had to learn to be extra careful to show he cares with his words.

If Aaron’s measure of the man is correct, then Bruce Wayne is much the same. He looks collected when he should be worried. Content when he should be happy. Grave when he should be distraught. But where Aaron fell apart when Haley and Jack were in danger, Wayne just ... kept going. The added pressure on his shoulders didn’t make the cracks wider. It fortified him, forced him to be even graver and more collected than usual.

Aaron knows Wayne’s type. He’s a fixer, unable to sit back and let someone else solve his problems. It’s what drives him to fund half the charitable projects in Gotham. It’s why he adopts every child he comes across with a sad backstory. It’s also why he couldn’t trust the police and FBI to investigate his son’s kidnapping, and instead reached out to his eldest son, the detective. Evidently, he has passed that trait on to his children, because the skills with which they approached their little private investigation were nothing short of extraordinary. 

Even so, it is jarring. Aaron doesn’t keep up with celebrity news, but everyone has heard of Brucie Wayne. Nice and outspoken, but also somewhat air-headed. In other words, nothing like the man Aaron just met. Which can only mean one thing: Brucie Wayne is an act. A good one, but an act nonetheless. But why? Yet another mystery to add to the list.

Aaron doesn’t quite know what connects the dots for him. Maybe it’s the fact that Wayne is intentionally dumbing himself down in public. Or maybe it’s the odd confidence Aaron saw in him during their interview, as if they were equals in the search for Damian. But no matter what it is, it gets him thinking. About Damian, confident and in control when he should have been scared. About Grayson, going off to investigate on his own because he couldn’t trust the FBI the way he did Gotham’s vigilantes. Then there is also Drake and Cain, as well as their two friends, helping Grayson behind the scenes. And a news article this evening, declaring that Red Robin and Spoiler had been seen in New York. And what about Grayson? Did he not make the same stunt two years ago, only showing up to the Scarecrow kidnapping after Nightwing left the scene?

Bruce Wayne. The white knight; the symbol of everything good in Gotham. One of the few men willing to pour his heart and soul into saving a city that is overflowing with crime and corruption.

Batman. The dark knight; the symbol of Gotham’s long nights. The man who loves his city so much that he is willing to put his life on the line and clean up its streets himself.

Bruce Wayne is a fixer. He can’t stand back and let other people solve his problems. Batman is one man’s desperate crusade to rid Gotham of its crime. Is it really such a reach to think the two men could be one and the same?

Aaron looks up at his teammates, all of them still in deep thoughts. Each of them has seen a little of the Wayne family up close, and none of them are idiots.

“The Waynes may be an odd family,” he says carefully, “but we closed the case. To my knowledge, the Waynes haven’t committed a crime, so I think we may have to accept that this is a mystery we will never know the answer to.”

It is silent for another moment as each member of the team ponders these words. Once again, Aaron is grateful for their ability to see through him and understand what he is trying to say even when his demeanor doesn’t show it. 

“I think you may be right,” Dave says slowly. “Not all mysteries in life have a satisfying conclusion, but we solved the case and saved the kids. I say we take the win.”

One after one, the rest of them nod or voice their affirmations. The air is charged with unspoken secrets and a solemnity that speaks to the magnitude of the mystery they stumbled upon. It’s a secret that has the potential to ruin or even take lives. It’s also a secret that they’re technically supposed to act on. A secret, that protects vigilantes and allows them to keep operating outside the law. And yet there are no people in the world Aaron would trust to keep it better.

The Batcave is almost empty when Dick enters, which would be odd, if not for the fact that most of his family is still sleeping upstairs. It was very late by the time they got home yesterday, and by the end of their family movie night, it was even later. They fell asleep in a pile afterwards, and it’s still early enough that Dick had to shimmy his way out from underneath Jason’s legs (thrown over his stomach) and Steph’s arm (which was what woke him in the first place when she smacked it into his face). He thinks he saw Cass crack an eye open as he left, but she didn’t even raise her head from where it was resting on Tim’s thigh, so he’ll take it as a win. 

Kidnappings are always stressful for all of them, even though they are somewhat commonplace. A kidnapping of one of their civilian personas carries the extra difficulty of added surveillance on their family while they are trying to hunt the kidnappers down. Bruce usually takes the brunt of it, having to stay behind and play Bruce Wayne while the rest of them get to suit up and save whoever got kidnapped. This time, though, Dick also got a taste of the helplessness that comes with sitting in a police precinct while someone else is saving his little brother. He hated every second of it. Only the knowledge that Tim, Steph, Cass, and Jason were handling it kept him from blowing his secret identity out of the water and running from the FBI. Bruce must have felt the same way, because even though he has difficulty saying it, he was the one who suggested doing a movie night instead of patrol. Which ... wow. If you had told Dick five years ago that Mr. “The mission always comes first” not only let them off the hook but also stayed home himself for a whole night, then he wouldn’t have believed it. Dick and Bruce have had a lot of problems over the years, and B still has a long way to go, but he really is getting better. It’s the sort of thing that makes Dick feel all light and hopeful for the future. 

Speaking of Bruce, he was the only person missing (besides Alfred, who must be in the middle of preparing breakfast) when Dick woke up. So it’s hardly a surprise when Dick walks into the cave and finds him sitting in front of the Batcomputer.

“So,” he says, draping himself over the high-backed chair to look over his dad’s shoulder. “Investigating the BAU now, are we?”

B grunts an affirmative, eyes barely leaving the FBI’s file on Agent Derek Morgan of the BAU. Dick recognizes him from the precinct, but he didn’t interact much with him. 

“Damian’s kidnapping got messy. He had to use a lot of his skills to keep the situation under control. It could pose a security risk.”

“You think we have a blown cover on our hands?” Dick asks, looking over the file with a little more seriousness. 

“It’s possible. The BAU have a very high closing rate.”

Dick mulls this over for a minute while Bruce closes the file down and opens another. This one seems to contain details on an undercover mission Agent Prentiss went on recently. A breach of Damian’s secret identity could be disastrous, especially because the rest of the family’s identities would most likely be unraveled with it. Possibly even a some of the other major players in the Justice League. Even discounting all that, the idea of the FBI figuring it out anyway after a whole day of downplaying their abilities stings a little. Though the BAU did turn out to be much more competent than Dick had dared hope when he first heard the FBI was stepping into his brother’s case.

“What’re we gonna do about it?”

“I’m running a thorough background check on all of them now,” Bruce says. “If any of them are dirty, we may have to take them in. No matter what, I want to have them under surveillance for a little while. Maybe an undercover operation to figure out how much they know.”

Dick nods. “You know, they found Damian not long after we did. If they’re not dirty, they could be formidable allies.”

Bruce grunts consideringly. “I’ll bring it up at the next League meeting.”

Dick leans closer to get a better look at the computer, now displaying Agent Aaron Hotchner’s file. Something tells him this isn’t the last they’re going to see of the BAU.