I still don't own anything that belongs to DC Comics; otherwise, it wouldn't belong to DC Comics, now, would it?

Rated T for violence, some language, and possibly some character death later on

Author's Note: This is my take on what would've happened in Red Robin had Tim Drake really gone the way of the antihero more than he did in the later issues. I just think it was kind of weird how he was all dark and then got chipper again all of a sudden. Not that I don't like it, and I know there are explanations for it and all, but just humor me, okay? I'm trying to tell a story here.

Five passports, from different countries, forty-six United States driver's licenses, sixteen fake IDs, thirty-two alternate license plates for his car, and a sum of nearly seven hundred disposable, untraceable cell phones, credit cards, debit cards, ATM cards, and anything else even potentially able to be tracked. That was what Cassie Sandsmark saw the first time she went down into Tim Drake's safe house.

She'd known he'd set one up in San Francisco; she'd just never bothered to check it. If Tim had something to hide, she decided, he wouldn't have constructed his base so close to the Teen Titans so as not to risk them figuring it out. Of course, he might've just gone ahead and done it anyway, given he always was the best detective on the team, but that didn't mean she wasn't a puzzle-person, too. She liked mysteries, despite what it might've seemed. And Tim was always a big mystery to her, the biggest mystery she'd ever known. In fact, if mystery had had a name, it was Timothy Jackson Drake. And going through his things, examining everything he'd stored up in his little safe house, she realized that she'd never actually, truly known him. She'd never actually known who he really was, who he'd claimed to be. It scared her, figuring out now how seemingly skilled—and experienced—he appeared to be in at least this aspect of espionage. If that was true, then how much of the Tim she'd known had been a lie, just another ploy to get closer to someone he needed to take down? That was probably the worst thought of them all, and she couldn't shake it after it was there, no matter how hard she tried to. She just…couldn't, not standing here, looking at these fake passports and identifications.

It was almost incriminating, the things Cassie was seeing there. True, she couldn't actually arrest him unless she had proof that he'd done something criminal, and even then, it wasn't technically an arrest because she wasn't part of the local law enforcement or anything, but the whole scene still made her skin crawl. This was Tim Drake, her friend, somebody she'd been best friends with since as far back as she could remember. She would die before she told him this, but she picked up her fearlessness and boldness from him, back in their Young Justice days. She'd looked at him like something of a role model, not because he was Robin and had always seemed so much more famous, so much better, somehow, than any of them, but because he was the kind of person who'd fight to stay alive until the moment he died. She'd liked that about him, and, observing him and the way he led, she came to be like that, too. Now, she couldn't believe that that boy had become…this. She guessed, in a sense, that it was just one more step in his fight for survival, but that didn't make it any easier to deal with.

Cassie decided she'd drive herself insane if she just stood there and stared at the driver's licenses all day, so she moved over to the computer to search through the files. Once she turned it on, the screen sprang to life, bright blue and demanding a password she couldn't give. She chewed nervously at her lower lip, thinking desperately what the password could be. She hadn't thought about that. She'd forgotten about it until that moment.

The logical choice would be something familiar to him, something he'd remember, she told herself. So…let's try "Robin".

Her fingernails clicked rapidly over the keys, only for an "access denied" message to appear before her on the screen, followed quickly by the password box yet again. She sighed, mentally scolding herself for the stupidity. Use Tim-logic, Cassie. The first choice is never the right choice. She hurriedly typed in "Jack" and received the same response as before. The last option she could think of that could work for a password was "TCCB", the initials of the first names of their foursome (Tim had always loved that abbreviation, anyway). But this time, when "access denied" materialized onscreen, red lights began to flash all around her and an alarm wailed somewhere in the building. "Intruder alert," a computerized voice announced monotonously. "Intruder alert."

Cassie panicked, quickly scooping up a few passports and fake ID's off the table before taking off toward the exit. As she flew, a pair of boots rammed her in the back, sending her down to the ground. She hit and rolled, immediately coming up on her knees, ready for a fight and reaching for her lasso, which was still coiled at her belt like always. Her hand stalled when she saw who stood before her, hands planted firmly on his hips and his black hair disheveled and hanging in his angry face. He'd grown a little since she'd seen him last, which was interesting, considering that'd only been about six months before. He'd put on a few pounds—all hard muscle, judging by the force with which he'd slammed her down—and was a couple of inches taller, too. He didn't look like he'd been out doing any hero work, since he was just in jeans, a red T-shirt, and his favorite leather jacket, but, then again, he wasn't doing much hero work anymore these days. She sat back on her haunches, licked her lips, and asked, as casually as possible, as if she hadn't just broken all the rules of his property, "Hey, Tim, what's up?"

Tim shook his head at her, obviously furious beyond words (for the moment, at least). "Intruder alert," the computer insisted. "Activating defense protocols in three…two…"

"Abort," Tim interrupted it. The alarm cut off abruptly, and the whine of the sirens went silent. He tapped his foot against the cold tile floor, shaking his head again, making no move to help Cassie off the ground or acknowledge her presence in any way beyond antagonism at that point. Staring into the once-gentle green eyes that had locked onto her face, Cassie saw they'd gone as cold and unforgiving as a winter storm, harsh and cruel and quite frankly not the eyes she'd known, not the eyes she remembered. In all the years the two had known each other, even when he refused to remove his mask around her, Tim had never looked at Cassie like that before, not until now, when she'd discovered his little pet project or whatever this was to him.

At long last, he held out his hand to her, and she thought he was trying to help her up until she realized all he wanted were the ID's. She reluctantly handed them over, and he tossed them back onto the table. When it became clear that he refused to be a gentleman, she pushed herself off the floor, brushing off her jeans with slender, graceful hands marked with calluses from handling her lasso for years. "So, you're a spy now or something?" she remarked, not meaning for it to sound as repartee as it had.

Tim ran a hand through his hair before getting right up in her face to grind out, "I thought I told you to leave me alone, Cass."

She scoffed. "You did. I just didn't think you knew what you were talking about."

Was she aware that she sounded like a jerk? Yes, she was, and she was okay with it. She wanted him to know that she wasn't very happy with what he was doing.

Tim was ruffled a little bit by her brusque response. "Okay, look, you've just broken rule number one of 'Tim's Space': stay out of it. Now, you want to tell me why you're breaking into my safe house, going through my stuff, and hacking my computer—sloppily, might I add?"

Cassie pushed away her discomfort with the situation and let her fury replace it for the moment, letting it driver her words and thoughts and make her into the kind of person she knew she'd have to be to get through this fight without killing him first, running away, or both. "Oh, I'm sorry, I thought you wanted me to be there for you," she said sarcastically. "My mistake, I didn't know that in 'Tim's Space', friends don't get to show concern for other friends!" She took a deep breath, collecting her composure. Blowing up at him won't help him any, Cass. "Tim, I just…I care about you, okay? And you've been acting really weird lately, and I just wanted to see what was wrong. I…I figured this was as safe a place to find out as any, you know?"

Tim snorted, "Didn't know you liked getting in over your head."

The caustic remark cut deep, and Cassie thought he said it like it was bound to happen, like it was just one more disadvantage of "knowing" him…like he would be the cause of it. She wasn't going to let that happen to them, but she didn't quite know what to say to him then to show it. So, she just stood there, silently, watching him. He seemed to have forgotten she was there, all of a sudden, and he started to rearrange his things, sliding them into drawers in the desk and file cabinets and packing some into a backpack he'd slung over his shoulder that Cassie had to wonder how she'd missed. He went to computer, but then he turned around at stared at her for a few minutes. She realized suddenly that he was going to log on, so she turned away to give him "password privacy", as he'd always called it in the Titans. She turned back around when she knew it was safe to see that he'd plugged a jump drive into the computer and was rapidly downloading all his files onto it. Word documents, Excel charts, photos, evidence, everything that he could possibly need went onto that little red flash drive. Cassie found herself shaking her head at her friend. He was acting like he was going to be doing something top-secret but totally important, something she wasn't privy to. No, it was worse.

He acted like he was on the run.

"Tim, talk to me," she coaxed. "What happened to you? Let me help."

Tim looked back at her over his shoulder, not stopping the transfer of files to the drive. "You know how you told me that, someday, all that brooding was going to come back to bite me in the butt?"

Cassie nodded, remembering the joke. Apparently, it wasn't such a joke to him.

"Well, this is me, biting back. Now, if you'll excuse me…" Before she knew it, he was stuffing the flash drive into his pocket, slinging his backpack back over his shoulder, and stalking toward the door. "I've got some keeping up to do."