Meanwhile at the old Bank of Gotham building.

Five soldiers dumped their captive, Red Robin, into a metal chair to be brought before the crime family's boss. They had bound him tightly, each leg to a front leg of the chair, his chest to the backrest and his hands behind him.

Still badly dazed from his fight against the twenty-odd gang members and his fall to the atrium floor, Tim struggled futilely against his bonds. There was a rude pounding in his skull and he felt dizzy and tired as he tried to take in his surroundings. There were people surrounding him, he surmised, but he couldn't quite make them out.

A man approached him to test the strength of each of his bonds. Satisfied, he looked to the boss, and gave him a ponderous nod. Then boss then gave his soldiers the signal to bring the young hero out of his daze. Another criminal approached with Tim with potent smelling salts, held them under the hero's nostrils and then gave Red Robin a sharp slap across his face. And then again.

Tim took the stinging blows with dignity but the skin of his face was reddening and smarting as he realized where he was and remembered what had happened. He blinked up into the light and the large frame of the shape of the mob boss seated above him on a podium.

"Where-" he noticed that his voice is hoarse so he cleared his throat and increased his volume so as not to show meekness or fear. "Where am I?" he asked.

"You have the honor to be in the presence of His Radiance, Gavrilo, and that question is the only one you will be granted," said one of the gangsters. The eagerness of the solider's tone was notable. It was clear that these men exulted the man whom they served.

The boss, Gavrilo, was a gaunt, middle-aged, flaxen-haired man, and his expression held none of the eagerness or exultation that those of his men did. He held out a hand for silence and then stood up out of his own chair, descended from his podium and began to circle the captive.

"You came here for secrets, little hero," said Gavrilo, oddly in a voice that was soft, quiet, almost inaudible and bearing no trace of the accent of his soldiers. Red Robin had to strain to hear it. The boss continued his circling and his soliloquy. "But it is secrets that we seek from you."

Gavrilo climbed his dais, took his seat again and steepled his hands underneath his chin. His pale eyes bored into Tim's masked ones, impassively. "You are the protégé to the one they call the Batman, are you not? We know you have many secrets indeed."

Three men approached Tim, each stopping at arm's length away from where he was bound. He strained against his binds, testing them. They were tight and expertly made. And all of his gear and weapons had been taken from him.

"Your task is simple," continued Gavrilo in his soft, deadpan voice. "I will ask you a question and you will answer truthfully and to the best of your knowledge."

Tim glared defiantly at the boss, mentally preparing himself to not give away any information that would harm anyone. Especially those he held dear.

"Who is the Batman?" said Gavrilo.

"The Greatest Detective in the World," responded Tim. "The Caped Crusader, the Dark Knight of Gotham. And when he finds out what you and your gang are up to, he will bring you to justice."

Whack.

One of the three gangsters smacked Tim brutally across the face with a gloved fist. Tim's jaw pulsed in pain and he couldn't help but wince slightly.

"No games," said the boss sounding tired and bored. "You knew what I meant so I will ask again. Give me the name of the man who wears the mantle of the Bat."

Tim glared defiantly and said nothing.

Thud came the fist again to his face.

Whack came another fist in quick succession from a different direction.

Tim's mind reeled. He groaned in pain, spit out a wad of blood and turned his gaze back to Gavrilo.

"Who funds the exploits of the Batman?"

When Tim had no answer, the three thugs each struck him in quick succession in the rib cage, knocking the wind out of him and causing him more immense pain.

The criminals were experts with this business and interrogated their captive like a well-oiled machine. Tim realized that he wasn't going to last long against their blows and knew that he needed to either find a way to escape, or be rescued by his brothers before the thugs resorted to more invasive methods of eliciting answers from him. Either way, he resolved to die before disclosing any information.

After a few more minutes of questions and beating, Tim found himself panting in pain and struggling to keep the dark spots dancing in front of his vision at bay.

"What is the location of the Batman's base of operation?"

No response from Red Robin.

Thwack.

"Does the Batman use safe houses around the city?"

No response from Red Robin.

Thwack thwack.

Tim was struck with an uppercut so forceful that for a moment he thought it was going to tear him clean out of his binds. But that would be to good to be true. As he recovered his composure again and readied himself for the next set of questions and subsequent blows, a newcomer to the chamber spoke up and made himself known.

"You're wasting your time," called a clear, confident voice from somewhere in the rafters. "He's been trained by the best."

Tim's heart leapt in his chest. His ears were ringing from all the blows he had taken but he would recognize that voice anywhere and under any circumstance. He knew his brothers would come to his aid!

The group of thugs, including their boss glanced angrily to the ruins of the ceiling above.

"How did he get past our perimeter!" shouted a thug reaching into his holster for his weapon and pointing a handgun toward the direction of where he'd heard the vigilante's voice.

"Who cares! Get him!" responded another gangster doing the same.

"Like I said, he was trained by the best. And so was I," said Nightwing as he leapt off from where he had been perched and into the fray, taking out ten thugs before Tim could even blink.

Nightwing looked to the chair where Tim was tied up and in a matter of seconds was running toward him, flipping and dodging bullets and knives and fists as he made his way to Red Robin.

"Brace yourself, Red!" called Nightwing to his brother as he threw a charge at the floor beneath Tim's chair. Upon impact, a the charge exploded and Nightwing dove at Tim, forcing the two heroes through the open hole in the floor to the level below.

Nightwing wrapped his arms protectively around Red Robin as the two collided on the ground below, and Nightwing took the impact. He leapt up, tossed a smoke bomb up into the open ceiling for more cover, and deftly sliced away the binds that tied Red Robin to the metal chair. He flung the chair up into the plume of coverage smoke. A clang could be heard as the chair connected with a face, eliciting several shouts of pain from the gangsters. Dick reached down to pull Tim gingerly to his feet.

"Are you aright?" he said looking worriedly into Tim's eyes and giving him a searching look. Tim's face was battered and bleeding and the swelling had just begun. He reached down and wiped away a stream of blood that was flowing out of the younger hero's nose. "No time for a throughout exam I'm afraid. Your ribs ok? Hows the head?"

"Fine," said Tim breathlessly and wincing through inflamed cheek bones. "But that was my second fall of the night."

Dick frowned. "I'm so sorry, bro. How dizzy are you? Can you walk?"

"It's not too bad and I think so," said Tim staggering to get his footing. Dick reached out a strong arm to steady him. He grabbed one of Tim's arms and draped it over his shoulders, taking his younger brother's weight, and then guided him toward an exit. The two heroes made for a door that would take them to a room on the outer perimeter of the building where they could escape through a window and grapple to safety.

But gangsters that Dick hadn't seen on his infrared scan of the building appeared from every direction and the two heroes soon found themselves cornered.

Dick noticed a weak spot in one of the buildings old partitions and Spartan kicked a large hole in it and guided Tim through it to another room.

"Short cut," he declared enthusiastically, trying to keep his younger brother's spirits high.

However, the room that they breached was also infested with gangsters. Some of which held guns and open fired on the pair before they could find another way out. Alone, Dick would be able to dodge each and every bullet, but supporting and guiding Tim's weight was a different matter entirely.

Tim knew this and he groaned in despair as he watched Dick take a protective step in front of him and shoot his grapple gun into the ceiling. But the extra weight on Dick's cable slowed their ascent and the sound the bullet made as it entered Dick's left thigh was enough to make Tim want to cry.

Dick barely even noticed the bullet, as he was so focused on getting his little brother to safety. "Just a knick," he said to Tim encouragingly. "I know another way out!"

But Nightwing's last known clear path of escape was longer clear. As he approached the large window that he was going to use for his and Tim's exit, twenty armed men flooded the room and trained all of their weapons on the two vigilantes.