Gotham was dual parts ugly and beautiful. Even at night the city glowed. Glimmering yellow, blue and white lights with the occasional flash of neon reflected the starry sky. Or they would, if the night sky weren't filled with smog. This just made the city seem brighter, like it was incased in a glowing, dirty cloud. And flying through this cloud was Kon, thinking that it was no wonder Tim was so good at finding shadows to hide in. In Gotham you were either in the shadows or in the spotlight.

But damn, it was noisy as fuck.

Kon listened. He drifted upwards, letting all the sounds flow in. Rising higher and higher so that he was above the Gotham cloud, there above the city he floated. High enough to be mistaken for a bird or a plane, he listened.

It had been too long since he'd heard Tim's voice. Too long since he'd seen him – but this wasn't so unusual, they were both very busy. School and family and fighting crime – of course they couldn't always meet. But Kon knew even if he called Tim in the middle of a gang war Tim would pick up (this he knew, unfortunately, from experience).

And yet for the past few weeks, Tim had been silent.

Kon had called the mansion. Alfred had answered then proceeded a rigid dance of stalling, evading, stalling, and then evading once more before he finally gave some excuse and wished Kon a good day. Barbara and Dick didn't know anything (or at least claimed as much), they only told him to ask Alfred or Bruce, both of whom said nothing.

Kon knew when he was being given the runaround, he was a teenager – avoiding unwanted subjects was a skill he knew well enough to detect when it was being used against him.

Either the Bat-family knew and weren't talking (for whatever reason) or they'd lost Tim and were being too Bat-y to ask for help from someone with super hearing who could see through walls.

So Kon listened.

Not a sound escaped his hearing… and it wasn't pleasant. Besides the harsh sounds of gunfire and sirens there were the words he caught as well. There was a lot of hate that went around in the city below him. The more he listened the more he wanted to find Tim, snatch him up, and take him someplace warm and sunny where they could make love on a beach all day.

It felt like he floated there forever, just waiting for Tim's voice. He tried not to worry, tried not to think of all the horrible things that could happen to a fragile human being. Tim wouldn't be happy if he knew Kon called him fragile.

A baby cried, a bank alarm went off, a voice laughed – familiar. Catwoman. He'd let Batman handle that one (ew, he was going to hear that).

Turning his attention back to the task at hand, Kon thought that perhaps he should go back over and try to listen for voices that sounded like of Tim's 'identities'.

He groaned at the thought. "Fuck this is impossible!" He should have known better, it was impossible to find Tim unless he wanted you to.

Still, the young superhero stayed put. If Tim wasn't disguising his voice then Kon couldn't hear him because he wasn't talking – and all the frightening thoughts that accompanied that theory flooded his mind. So he listened.

"Superboy."

"Shit," Kon sighed.

He lowered himself, feeling angry, annoyed, frustrated, and a little unnerved; Batman had found him. The dark prick was standing on a rooftop not far from where Kon had been hovering. The young superhero thought that for a guy with no powers Bruce seemed to have an uncanny ability at finding metas.

"You shouldn't be here," Batman said, his voice, Kon thought, sounding much like death's. He was giving Kon his best Bat-glare (similar to the Tim-glare but harder and lacking all semblance of cuteness).

"I just dropped by to see Robin," Kon said as casually as possible, "He's expecting me," He lied.

Batman's eyes narrowed and Kon tried not to squirm under his gaze. "Since when?"

"Um…" 'Shit,' he thought, 'There's no way he doesn't know I'm full of it.'

"A few weeks ago."

Batman kept glaring.

"So, I heard a bank alarm go off over thataway," Kon pointed a general direction. "And I uh… thought I heard Catwoman's voice. Maybe you should…"

The dark knight didn't move, not even an involuntary twitch. Kon had a feeling he was being sized up beyond his weak lies and bad attempts at changing the subject.

"Robin isn't here, I sent him away on an assignment. Go home."

"But—"

"Now." The dark vigilante forced his face to soften (which was sort of alarming). "I'll tell him to contact you next time I see him."

And that was that. It wasn't good enough for Kon, but it was going to have to be, that was all Batman was going to give.

Kon left the city.

So Tim was away on some assignment – what else was new? He thought, 'Couldn't he have at least called to say he'd be quiet for a while?' After all, they were dating, albeit covertly, but still. At least Batman would make sure the little prick called him when he got back.

He couldn't believe he'd tried to lie to Batman though… Tim was probably one of five people on the planet who could pull that off. Kon wasn't sure who the other four were. Dick, maybe. The Joker, perhaps.

"Wait a minute!"

Kon halted mid-flight, hovering somewhere over Pennsylvania.

Batman had said he'd tell Tim to call him. Sure he may have been lying, but Batman had said he'd tell Tim to call Kon. Something was wrong. First, Tim went on some mission without telling him, then no one would fucking tell him about it, now Batman (the Batman) was trying to reassure him by saying he'd have Tim call him? Kon was under the impression that Batman wanted him and Tim to associate as little as possible.

What was going on?

Kon turned around and headed right back the way he'd come. He wasn't the detective Tim was, but he'd be damned if something suspicious and potentially ominous were going on with his boyfriend and he just sat on his ass. Secret mission or no, he'd suffer the consequences later, he was going to find Tim.

4 Weeks Ago

Gotham glittered grotesquely, yellow lights on a black canvas, mocking the pure stars above. Not that anyone could notice. No one in the city had seen the stars in a long time.

Yellow grey smog cloaked the grim metropolis like a fog, glowing where the lights were brightest, but only aiding the shadows that filled its darkest corners and in turn, concealing those rats that hid in their cover. But the shadows were not home to evil only.

A flash of gold and red disappeared around an air vent. A small, shadowy figure swung from one roof to another. Lithe limbs darted undercover, seeking the shadows and watching everything, the streets, the next roof, and the windows below.

Tim was tired, but he operated well on 'tired'. He'd had almost no sleep in the last few days, but, at the risk of sounding cliché, 'crime never slept' and so neither did he.

The young hero stalked past the roof's ventilation shaft, going unnoticed even by the pigeons roosting there.

White lenses glinted in the light of the streetlamps below. The neighborhood seemed quiet, Tim was almost suspicious, but was half-hoping it wouldn't be too good to be true and he might go home, get something in his stomach, then get three hours rest before school.

A cry for help got his attention and in a second's time he had launched a grappler and was soaring through the sky in mimicry of his namesake.

He spotted the woman as she called out again.

A pretty, young lady out on the streets at that time of night (and obviously not working a corner) should have caught the young hero's attention, but his focus instead fell on the two thugs approaching her.

One grabbed her arm just as Tim soared in; a swift kick knocked him to the ground. The woman yelped as she was thrown against a row of trashcans, toppling them over. The second attacker snarled and drew a knife as he turned on Tim.

He swiped across and the Boy Wonder dodged, then punched hard. The man's nose crunched under his fist. The thug stumbled back a step and the boy followed through. Grabbing the man's knife-hand, as well as his lapel, he pulled hard, then swept the man's feet from under him from behind his knees.

The would-be-attacker landed heavily and didn't have time to recover as Tim rolled him over and bound his hands behind his back.

Seeing that his first target was unconscious he took a moment to play the savior.

"Are you alright ma'am?" He offered a gloved hand and a somewhat unnatural smile.

In the single second he saw the spray canister in her hand he thought that getting mace-d seemed like a good ending point for the evening. As the mist hit his face he had just enough time to realize it wasn't pepper-spray before his legs turned to jelly and he collapsed to the ground, darkness on him in a moment.

The Boy Wonder woke up and knew he was in trouble. He was strapped to a table. An operating table perhaps? His gauntlets were missing, as were his boots and his belt. How anyone had gotten those off without inflicting lots of personal physical pain was a mystery to him.

He tried his bonds and noticed two things. Firstly, the familiar feeling of dried blood on his ear as well as an unfamiliar emptiness there: someone had removed his communicator and they hadn't been nice about it. The second thing he noticed was that his bindings were made of leather with shiny new buckles. He would have preferred locks; he had more trouble with straps. He shimmied his hands and feet, and then tugged. Pretty tight, but leather could be worn.

In the mean time he looked around and tried to gather his surroundings. He was in a room with no windows. The walls and what he could see of the floor looked as though they had once been managed to some extent, but had since fallen into the hands of the elements.

Cabinets lay against one wall, while on the opposite wall was a long counter with a sink and still more cabinets, all in a state of disrepair. The wall Tim could see over his feet wasn't a wall at all but a ragged, blue curtain. By tilting his head and arching his back the young hero could see the wall behind him. There was a door there, but where it led he couldn't know. There were also several machines, which he knew to be medical in nature, although the feeble light given off by the swinging light bulb above him gave them a sinister appearance.

The room was large enough to accommodate a large group of people so long as they gathered around the room's center point – him. This, coupled with the machines led Tim to conclude that he was being kept prisoner in an operation room.

To his knowledge, no hospitals had been closed or abandoned within the past few years, save one, although 'hospital' stretched the very limits of euphemisms.

Arkham Asylum had recently suffered another escape attempt. The city finally gave up on the building with its minimal security and bad track record. The inmates were moved to a more high security building while Arkham was partially demolished and its remains abandoned to rot.

And apparently become infested.

The door squealed open and Tim stopped squirming as soft, confident footsteps came around the side of him.

"Oh, you're awake," The weak lighting illuminated a demented grin. "Hope you're well rested," the Joker turned round to the countertop and began to slowly pull items from the cabinets above.

He turned slightly and his yellow grin glinted over the bone-saw in his hands. "We're going to have a busy day."

"You've kidnapped Robin again," Tim finally spoke, "I've heard this one before." He tugged at the straps some more.

"Really? No, no, this one's a little bit different." The boy's eyes widened slightly as a crowbar entered the dark clown's hands. He was quick to hide the change in expression, but the villain must have noticed, for he laughed and threw the rod over his shoulder. He picked up a scalpel and rolled up his sleeves, revealing white chalky skin. "Same joke," he approached the young hero, "different punch-line."

1 Week Ago

The sky was heavy with dark storm clouds, illuminated by the city lights so that it took on a red shade. Under this bloody canopy, Arkham lay partially half-destroyed, a rotting wound to blemish one of Gotham's few green places. After so many escapes by inmates the asylum had been moved to a more secure building, leaving the old one to remain as rubble.

Bruce plowed through the asylum's front gates and tore up the winding driveway. Barbara had to admit, she was very frightened at what they might soon find. She was also wary of Bruce - besides driving like a maniac, he was heading straight into what was definitely a trap and he wasn't being too careful about it.

Only a few hours early they'd received an invitation to some inconspicuous rooftop. They'd found a giant purple jack-in-the-box with a heavy latch on the lid. This should have been surprising, but to the two weathered vigilantes it wasn't so unusual. They kept their distance and Bruce threw a bat-arang at the box's latch. Instantly it sprang open and out popped the jack. It bounced back and forth momentarily, just long enough for them to see its face. In the next moment the face split apart, revealing a concealed grenade, which somehow sprang its own pin. Without speaking Barbara turned and grabbed onto Bruce. He'd already fired the grappling line and the two of them swung out of danger as fireworks, smoke, and colorful confetti exploded behind them. This wasn't too unusual either, but they'd both seen the jack's mannequin head.

The jack's face, before it had split, had been wearing a domino mask just like Tim's.

When the fireworks quieted, Bruce approached the jack-in-the-box's remains. He picked up a dirty rag that had been wrapped around the jack's neck and Barbara saw it was a torn straightjacket.

"Arkham," Bruce said.

And that was how Barbara found herself in this situation.

Bruce kicked the door in with a bang. He stormed in and Barbara followed just as rain began to pour down outside. A flash of lightning lit up the night sky and briefly threw their horned shadows into the asylum's darkened hallways.

They passed several open doorways. Barbara hurried ahead to check each and found only piles of bricks and beams and other rubble.

Barbara wished Dick were there, but Bruce hadn't wanted to contact him. She should have called him. Tim had been missing for three weeks. She should have called Dick, and Kon, and maybe Bart. Tim had been gone so long…

The claw of guilt in Barbara's chest staved off the excited, nervousness that usually came when she was headed into danger. The thought of what she and Bruce might find tonight made her stomach churn and her limbs go heavy. She tried not to think of what happened to Jason.

The building was silent but for the rain hitting the roof, and the occasional drop of water dripping from leaking ceilings. Like the whisper of a ghost, a murmur of sound came echoing down the halls. As they got closer the sound became more distinguishable. It was a woman singing.

The two of them paused for a moment, trying to discern the sound's direction. Bruce indicated down the hall.

Here, it was good they'd paid Arkham so many visits in the past. The two knew that down the corridor lay the operating theater and that there was more than one entrance. They exchanged glances and without a word, Barbara took off up a staircase that she knew would take her to the theater gallery. Bruce took the direct route, straight to the theater stage.

"…If that diamond ring turns brass, Mama's gonna buy you a looking glass…" This close, there was no disguising the high whine of Harley Quinn's voice. "And if that looking glass gets broke—" Harley's voice cut off at the sound of a loud bang.

Barbara hurried. She arrived in the theater gallery to see a strange scene below.

The room was large with dozens of chairs raised high above a circular platform at the center – a stage where doctors once presented everything from new findings to live patients, tied down and displayed as oddities. A circus for doctors.

It was here that the girl-clown and her joker had set up what looked like a film set of a cozy kitchen. There was a small circular table with a blue tablecloth and chairs that looked like they might have been taken from the asylum's employee break room. White cabinets were set against a salmon, striped kitchen wall, complete with windows and blue drapes to match the tablecloth. They'd even made a little den on top of a wire ramp along the back wall, complete with couch, lamp and television-set.

No one noticed Barbara slip in. She crept to the very lowest seat in the gallery and crouched down, waiting and watching.

"There's no Robin here," Joker played innocent.

"Maybe he means our little Jay?" Harley suggested sweetly.

"Of course – that's it!" Joker snapped his fingers. They both looked over toward a darker corner of the theater, where one section of the wall gave way to an opening covered with a dirty, blue curtain.

Bruce roughly pushed Harley out his way as he went to this opening.

For a second the two clowns just smiled. Then Harley crouched by the table, "Uh-uh, no peaking!" and she suddenly pulled a bazooka from under the tablecloth. There was a huge 'bam!', Bruce turned just in time to be caught in what looked like a tangle of red ribbons. They wrapped around him tightly as the force of the blast knocked him off his feet.

Barbara jumped up, bat-erang already out but Bruce looked her way and raised his hand under its bindings. 'Wait,' it said. She nodded and silently slid out of sight once more.

"Mommy's little helper!" Harley chirped, patting her weapon. Joker kissed her cheek merrily and then turned to speak to the bound vigilante, ignoring the adoring look his partner gave him as she stroked the kissed cheek.

"You know Bats, we've been doing this little run-around of ours for years," he said. "It's been loads of laughs but the sad fact is: none of us are getting any younger."

Harley, set down her bazooka, strolled over and added, "That old clock's a-ticking!"

"Quite right, Poo," the Joker dripped sweetness. He turned back to Bruce. "And Harley and I were thinking it was time to start a family - add a Joker Jr. to our merry brew." He turned to Harley as though expecting her reply and it seemed to Barbara that this entire thing had been rehearsed.

"But rather than go through all the joys of childbirth," Harley took her cue, "we decided to adopt."

Barbara could hear what they were saying but didn't understand it – or rather the part of her that did understand shoved the thought away and grasped for another.

The two demented clowns took each other by the hand and strolled over to the blue curtain. The Joker narrated merrily, "We couldn't do it legally—"

What did this have to do with Tim? Barbara felt guilt and fear clawing up from her belly and she struggled to swallow it down.

"—But then we remembered you always have a few spare kids hanging around." The two dropped hands and walked to either side of the curtain.

Suddenly more than anything Barbara didn't want to see what was behind it.

The Joker's grin couldn't have gotten any larger. "So we borrowed one." In unison they pulled back the curtain.

Barbara found herself standing, wanting more than anything to look away but too transfixed with horror and disgust. She gripped the bat-erang so tightly in her hand that it hurt; she didn't even notice. All her senses were fixed on the darkened room behind the screen where a small figure lay on a rusty operating table.

"No…" Bruce said.

"My god…" Barbara hadn't meant to speak but the thought spilled from her lips.

"He needed a little molding, of course. What kid doesn't?" Joker held up a remote in his hand and pressed a button. The operating table moved, scooting out into the light and towards the demented clown. "But in time, we came to love him as our own." He looked down at the figure with mock tenderness, leaning over he waved a finger at it like you would an infant.

Joker smiled with demented, fatherly contentment. "Say hello, Jay Jay,"

A small bit of air squeezed through Barbara's lips, giving just enough oxygen to her brain so she didn't do something stupid or embarrassing as the small figure emerged from the shadows, laughing gently.

His face was white but for his blackened lips and the dark circles around his eyes. His short, dark hair had a greenish tinge and was spiked up in an impersonation of Joker's slicked-back look. A purple suit identical to the Joker's hung off of him. He'd shrunken around the shoulders and chest as though he hadn't eaten since he was taken away and his painted face was strange and warped by a disturbing grin, but there was no doubt. Standing there with a grotesque smile to match his 'fathers' was their own Robin, Tim.