Peace and routine lasted for a little while. It was Wednesday. Hump day.

Bruce came home to:

"Boys! No sliding on the banister. Boys! No running in the house!" Alfred called authoritatively. Alfred looked over at Bruce seeming a little flustered, his hands were covered in the meatball mush. He'd been preparing for dinner.

The thundering footsteps had headed toward the den.

"You spore! Do you know how long it took me to finish that?! Give it back," roared Tim.

"You can't send this to school! I keep telling you! It's not allowed. It's not safe! Stop chasing me!" Damian had some serious volume going.

There was a horrendous crash. Tim screamed, "My homework!"

Bruce tossed his briefcase down and toed off his shoes and hurried to see what was going on.

"You stupid little shrimp. I just wanted my homework," Tim was climbing off of Damian who looked ruffled but not injured. "Seriously? You torched it! Can you not stay out of trouble, mischief, my room, my homework, or freaking anything! I haven't gotten a good night's sleep in months thanks to you. It's all about you isn't it? The world, Bruce, Alfred, everything. Don't you or anyone ever think of anybody else?"

"I don't, I um.." Damian started hiccupping he was trying so hard to surpress emotions. He was so completely focused on Tim he hadn't noticed Bruce come in.

Bruce flicked the lights, "Boys. Tim. My office now. Damian. Sit right there on that couch don't move. I want to talk to you next." Bruce watched for a moment to be sure Damian wasn't actually hurt before heading purposefully down the hall.

Tim sat stiffly in the chair in Bruce's office.

Bruce closed the door then sat down. "Talk," he ordered firmly.

"He stole my homework and torched it. He ripped it up and put it in the fire place."

"So you tackled a four year old? Timothy the things you said to him. Honestly I think you were right about needing sleep. No patrol. Bed tonight and for the rest of the week."

"He's five and he started it."

"Two weeks. Four years old," Bruce clipped out in a very Batman tone.

Tim sat there for a bit before huffing. Okay, four verses five was an identity secret, talking back, 'he started it' was a grade schooler arguement; Tim could admit to himself he had walked into the second week of grounding.

"I wasn't trying to tackle him. I was just trying to get my homework." Tim spoke in a more reserved tone.

"I'll talk to him about that in a bit. I'm talking to you right now. You're still a part of this family Tim. Him here doesn't change that."

"Doesn't it?" asked Tim wearily.

"Well, I suppose now you also have an annoying little brother who helps Alfred make peanut butter cookies for you even though he thinks they're an abomination against cookies. Yes, he's been waking you up early in the morning to play with him. He insists on hugs everytime you leave or enter the house and I gather he won't leave you alone while you're trying to do your homework."

"He doesn't like peanut butter cookies?" interrupted Tim incredulous.

"Go to your room and redo the homework."

"I can't. It was a series of worksheet questions from school," protested Tim.

"Call a friend and get a copy of the questions. You're smart enough to solve something simple like that on your own when you've had enough sleep. GO."

Tim wandered off up to his room feeling wretched and exhausted.

Bruce walked back to the den. Damian was sitting on the couch, sort of like he'd been asked to. He was sitting upside down pouting furiously. He'd pushed every pillow and couch cushion onto the floor and shoved the coffee table as far away as he could reach without leaving the couch. He was still hiccupping. Every hiccup he'd hold his breath to try and swallow down the hiccup before gasping with a shuddering breath. Bruce walked in front of him and knelt down. Damian looked at him and Bruce had him sit up properly.

"That's not the way to calm down. You can't hold your breath. Breath long and slow. Follow me." Bruce modelled long slow calming breaths. When Damian had stopped hiccupping, he spoke, "Alright, fix the couch cushions and the coffee table and then it's your turn in my office."

"Why did you destroy Tim's homework?" asked Bruce sitting back at his desk.

"He was writing about volcanos and lava. Of course he can't do that. I tried to tell him but he wouldn't listen!" explained Damian fiercely.

Okay. I'm missing something here, thought Bruce. "Why can't he write about volcanos?"

"At school? He was going to take that to school?! If everybody knew about lava and volcanos and eruptions there would be mass panic!"

Huh? thought Bruce.

"Some of the biggest cities in the world are located right where the continental plates meet and some of those things that look like mountains like Mount Fuji in Tokyo are secretly huge volcanos. I remember when Red Tornado and, and Yellowstone and Dr. Morrow and it could have wiped out half of North America and the weather disruptions.." Damian looked intensly concerned.

"Stop!" spoke Bruce finally cluing in. "Just stop Dick. You're confused. Volcanos aren't a bat secret. What happened at yellowstone is but not the rest of it. Everyone knows about volcanos. Tokyo has a whole bunch of scientists, seismotologists that pay close attention to Mount Fuji to make sure it won't erupt. Tectonic plate movements are monitored so in places like California they'll have advance warning of eathquakes. Hawaii gets thousands of tourists daily that like to come watch the lava flows. Volcanos and lava all that stuff is on nature shows on TV all the time."

"Saysmot.. uh, Tech on it? Umm.. I don't understand. Talk slower please with smaller words. I can't lip read that fast," Dick pleaded looking confused.

Bruce sighed and then looked over to an extremely out of date set of encyclopedias that had been in the office since the office belonged to his father. He went to the set and took out the V encyclopedia.

"Do you know what an encyclopedia is?" Bruce asked.

Dick shook his head.

"An encyclopedia set is a little library of common knowledge. If it's written here, everyone has known about it for a long, long time. These were published," Bruce checked the date on the inside. "These were published thirty years ago. Look up volcanos."

Dick turned to the index and then flipped to page 78. He read silently for a little while before closing the book. He looked up embarrased, "Errr... oops?"

Bruce chuckled a bit and ruffled Damian's hair. "Next time if you're not sure if something's a secret or not check with Alfred or me first. Okay chum?"

Damian nodded. "I should appleyes. Tim was really mad."

"Apologize not appleyes."

Damian looked thoroughly confused again. "Apollo guys?"

"I'll come with you while you say SORRY," spoke Bruce enounciating carefully. "Don't take anything Tim said to heart. He's exhausted. You remember tired grumpy hero protocol right?"

Damian nodded, sitting quiet but fidgety for a while before asking, "Am I not allowed to play with him in the morning any more?"

The sad puppy dog eyes were out in full force. Bruce steeled himself.

"Everybody around here wakes up soooo late and when the suns up, that's it I'm done. No power ever will make me go back to sleep. It's quiet here a lot."

"We'll figure something out," answered Bruce.

Damian knocked on Tim's door. Tim begrudgingly opened it. "Sorry..." spoke Damian looking at Tim's shoes then running away mortified.

"DAMIAN!" called Bruce. "... never mind." Bruce told the empty hall.

Tim gave Bruce that exasperated, 'would you look what I have to deal with' look that teenagers do so well.

"In his mind he had a very good reason for destroying your homework," protested Bruce.

"Really," deadpanned Tim.

"You know how most of the world remains blissfully unaware of alien invansions, mind controlled Justice Leaguers and atomic bombs in the sewer?"

Tim raised an incredulous eyebrow.

"Volcanos, lava, earthquakes are pretty scary stuff. He went on missions with the team dealing with them. He has a whole bunch of jumbled up knowledge that he's probably not really old enough to deal with. He was trying to protect what he thought were secrets."

Tim rolled his eyes. "That's stupid," he muttered.

Not long later, Damian knocked at the door again. He had a print out he held out for Tim. Still looking at the floor he said softly, "I checked all the security footage. These are the best images I could get. You still can't make out questions seven or eight but you can re-copy the rest."

Tim took the copy and Damian fled.

Damian's upset was noticable during dinner. He was quiet and he ate maybe one meatball and a slice of cucumber. Bruce frowned and looked at Alfred then put in a quite call.

Tim was vaguely horrified when Batman got out a tiny little Robin suit and dressed Damian in it, cast and all. The tiny little utility belt had four pockets with who knows what in them. Batman fitted a black child seat into the Batmobile and helped strap Robin in.

"He's not," sputtered Tim. "He wouldn't!" Tim looked at Alfred. "I'm grounded but but he's four, deaf and has a broken arm and he's going out?"

Alfred looked pretty calm.

Tim was still sputtering when the Batmobile pealed out of the cave.

"Master Timothy, Robin is going to help Oracle tonight. You are to be in bed in an hour. Would you like to help me in the kitchen?" asked Alfred dryly.

Tim blinked. Oracle? He was going to help with research? Tim looked over at Alfred. Help in the kitchen, he wondered. Alfred never ...

"Okay, okay I get it. What kind of cookies does Robin like?"

"I thought we could make sugar cookies shaped like dinosaurs. His favorite cookies are chocolate chip however I try to avoid chocolate when he is already having trouble sleeping," answered Alfred.

"The Robin suit he was wearing, was it fully kitted out?" asked Tim curious. Batman and Alfred were just getting Damian out of his hair for the night. The cookie baking was a not so subtle dig to remind him to try to be nicer. Tim rubbed his tired eyes.

"The mask has simple protective lenses. The vest is bullet proof with bio metric readouts, trackers and a distress signal built in. The pants are tight knit Kevlar and therefor slightly fire and cut resistant. The footwear, cape and single glove are all decorative but basically functional and the belt has a single folding baterang, a few smoke pellets, a small first aid kit, the web shooter Spiderman gave him and snack pack of apple slices. Batman did not think it appropriate to outfit him with a grapple gun at this time."

It was just real enough not to be a Halloween costume but not really designed for street use. Tim fell to musing. He didn't really like the person he'd been tonight. He didn't need Alfred's reminders to go to bed early. He was exhausted and he had green dye from the dinosaur cookies staining his fingers. He hoped getting out of the house wearing the Robin suit cheered the little guy up.

In the morning Tim woke, looked at the clock, panicked, gathered his papers for school and dashed out the door with a piece of toast in his mouth and Alfred calling something to him. The geography work got handed in fine and his first class went well. The math teacher gave him an odd look when he handed in his math assignment. Tim looked at the clock in math class as lunch time approached and groaned. He'd forgotten his lunch and his wallet at home.

"Mr. Drake though your math assignment is top notch and I appreciate that you've done several extra questions, I really would rather you completed your work in pencil rather than crayon and I have never seen such terrible hand writing. Every 4 was written backwards and it was difficult to follow your work when none of the writing proceded in any kind of a straight line."

Tim's eyes went wide and he started frantically rumaging around in his backpack until he pulled out another set of papers. "Sorry, sir. That's my little brother's. Here, here's mine. He likes to help me with my homework, whether I want it or not. We kind of had a blow up about it yesterday and things got a little mixed up."

"Crayon?" asked the teacher.

"He's four," muttered Tim embarrased. "Math is more fun in rainbows."

"So he copies your work?"

"No he does his own work then checks mine over for mistakes because he gets ridiculously excited about math. The rest of the subjects he just asks a million questions about, until it takes me an extra hour to get my homework done. Oh and he sings preschool songs in Spanish off-key whenever I'm trying to do my Spanish work. If I have to listen to, 'La Rana Cantando Debajo Del Agua' one more time I'll scream."

The math teacher raised his eyebrows a little, put the papers down on the desk, drew a large happy face on it using Sarah Graham's pink sparkle marker and handed it back. "Thank you for the use of your marker Miss Graham."

Sarah Graham gave Tim a mocking little wave and twirled her hair.

Tim shrunk down in his seat. He was glad to escape to the mountain at the end of the day. He was looking forward to sparing practice.

^ŏ^

The Bludhaven Bombastic House of Fun was a dance bar. The money from the human traffickers had led here. Black jeans, a concert tee and sunglasses at night were enough of a get up to get past the bouncer. Jason wove his way across the dance floor through the pounding music. It was black lit, had fluorscent paint splatters glowing everywhere and a huge stereo and light show setup. He sat down with a drink where he could see the administrative door and the bar and two familiar red heads sat down next to him all friendly like.

"Roy, Harper, what brings you to here?" asked Jason with gritted teeth.

"No I'm Roy, he's Harper," corrected Arsenal.

"You see, a little birdie was all excited to learn that we're, wait for it?" grinned Red Arrow.

The pair put their arms around him and got right in close to his face before cheering.

"TWINSIES!" they both roared with laughter.

"Oh joy!" snarked Jason.

"We're the most bad-" Arsenal started.

"Now Roy don't dare use such inappropriate language. Were you going to refer to your posterior?" scolded Red Arrow chortling.

"We're rough around the edges and our birdie friend knows it so he trusted you to us," finished Arsenal.

"He said he asked you to make temporary style change on his behalf so rather than disadvantage you he sent backup," explained Red Arrow.

"He asked me not to kill anyone because he helped me with some research I needed and he didn't want to feel responsible," whispered Jason. "He knows the whole clone thing was kind of a not so good, messy, ugly Joker fart right?"

The red heads shrugged.

"I kind of like having a, forever got a bro in my corner positive swing put on it," answered Arsenal.

"I'm done with the pity parties, whether they were thrown by me or someone else," added Red Arrow.

"So you're Roy and you're Harper," confirmed Jason pointing to Arsenal then Red Arrow.

They nodded.

With a resigned amused look on his face Jason raised a glass, "To the Baby Bird's conniving plans. May the Bat be blind!"

"Here, here!" toasted the twin red heads.

^ŏ^

"Leslie I battle, Alfred battles to get him to sleep at night but he's always up at dawn and then he insists on passing out in the middle of the day which only makes things worse." Bruce complained over his coffee.

"You've got quite a problem there," Leslie answered with a smile. "So many interesting things happen at night in Wayne Manor. He's young enough that there is a good chance he hasn't out grown the need for a nap yet and his body clock is programmed to wake at dawn from years of getting up to feed the circus animals."

Leslie's teasing tone softened. "The nightmares will ease eventually. Bruce I know you don't want to have anything to do with the League but the core Leaguers are his safe happy place, especially since the circus his other safe happy place, can't be a part of his life. They wouldn't understand a de-aged time travelling mini hero. You can't hide the League from him too."

"Maybe the young team but not..." Bruce didn't even bother to finish because Leslie was giving him that look. It had been a good thing for earth that Batman had stepped out of the League, Bruce thought in protest. Mind controlled Leaguers, the Reach,... Batman hadn't been involved in the League and had instead been much less visible. He supported the Team in Robin's memory but there were years there when he kept almost exclusively to Gotham. Who knows how things would have happened differently if Batman had still been a League man and had been taken down with the rest of the League on the Fourth of July; not to mention the resultant disaster with the Reach later.

In a world where Robin hadn't disappeared who knows how would things have played out differently, Bruce thought for a few moments. Bruce didn't want to trust Clark at all. Dick had been in Clark's care when all this started but he was also one of Dick, Damian's favorite people. Bruce didn't trust Clark but he did trust Mrs. Kent, Clark's mother. Bruce had also worked with Conner quite a bit.

Damian's morning had been spent at the hospital. He had the new waterproof short arm cast on. It was still green but it was much more comfortable. He'd spent the rest of the morning with hearing specialists. Bruce took the morning off work. Every appointment took forever because Bruce had asked a million questions of every doctor.

When they got home, Bruce told him next week he was starting at a preschool so he'd have friends to play with. It was run out of the Saint Agnes School for the Deaf. Bruce wanted him to learn sign language. Doctor Leslie had scheduled some kind of surgery for November and that was supposed to fix things but still, why did he have to wait so long for the surgery and why did he have to go to a special preschool instead of a regular one?

He was going to spend Saturday and Sunday at Superman's farm. That was kind of cool. Damian wasn't really sure this wasn't all punishment for burning Tim's homework. He wished Bruce would explain why he was doing things instead of just... well it felt like Bruce was trying to get rid of him. First there was the trip to visit Oracle, now Superman, and preschool too. All of it at once just seemed confusing. He asked Tim about it and apologized again for burning the homework.

Tim ruffled Damian's hair. "Bruce isn't trying to get rid of you. He's being overcompensating Bat-Dad. Trust me the last thing he wants to do is share you. He just thinks it's the self sacrificing responsible Dad thing to do. If it makes you feel any better, I'm locked out of the mountain so I can spend time just him and me because apparently I'm being neglected with a new little brother in the house. I have a nine o'clock bed time for the next two weeks because he's been working me too hard and I have to go to a ball game with him tomorrow. D, I hate baseball. It just isn't my thing and I'm over the whole homework thing so you can stop Apollo guys-ing for it. You don't have to let me sleep in every morning D. How's this, I'll leave my school tie on the door if I'm really bushed but otherwise you can get me up?"

"Okay. ...And Alfred worked with me to figure it out. I know it's apologize."

"D? After six am, not before." Tim warned then he teasingly pouted, "Oooh.. I liked Apollo guys. It was funny."

"A ball game sounds like fun."

"So does Conner's farm. Megan's planning to stop by too. They're looking forward to seeing you."

Regarding the missing years. So...

Basically in Robin's absence, Batman filled the gap when it really mattered. Details have changed though, Superman didn't used to be on earth when the Flashes stopped the MFD,... As one of my readers once said consider this Earth 16 (b).

Naughty Bruce, even you forget and call him Dick sometimes.