Blood Borne
A Word: Ibid.
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Tim's just getting into the groove of fighting when the riot breaks as quickly as it had started. He comes down on a man's arm and feels the bone snap before he's spinning away for another target that isn't there. He's gone down an alley away from the orphanage, chasing the more dangerous looking people to prevent them from turning things deadly. He's surrounded by whimpering and cowering people who flinch back from him as he walks. People stream by both ends of the alley, and Tim watches as a group of whit faced people turn in to use it but abruptly abort their move when they see him there.
The street outside the orphanage is eerily empty when he gets back to it. Small groups of people scuttle past him. Their eyes darting away superstitiously from him as they go. One of the buses is still there, tipped on its side, but the others are no where in sight. Steph paces along the side of the bus facing upward like it's a catwalk. Glaring at the people who pause close to her until they run. Tim doesn't see any sign of the reporters or the police.
"Things look clear on the street," Tim reports and Steph turns to nod at him. She jumps down easily from the bus to meet him. Her boots are scuffed and er left glove has an odd stain on it that he doesn't even try to figure out. "As clear as it can."
The street is a mess. Doors and lower windows are smashed out all down it. They're mostly apartment buildings in this area, and Tim can see the gaps in the curtains on the upper levels of them. Invisible eyes peer through them at the street below, and Tim hopes the people on the lower levels were smart enough to head upward when this all started. There's a smattering of damage from the guns none of them had been fast enough to take out of the picture, but at least there are no still bodies on the ground waiting for a bodybag.
"Robin's inside," Steph says with a tilt of her head to the orphanage which is absolutely ruined. The fence as survived but not much inside of it has fared as well. Tim frowns at the ruin of what he'd always thought was a pretty good selection of equipment and toys for the kind of orphanage it was.
"We still have people inside," Babs says and Steph immediately turns to stride in. Tim follows close behind and scans for movement in the broken out windows. "Third floor, rear section."
"You take left?" Steph tosses the question at him even as she starts jogging the other way.
Tim shrugs and turns left. Taking off at a slow jog so he can still scan the windows. He doesn't see any movement, but he hears the tell-tale echo of something heavy being thrown as he goes over a line of storage sheds that've been set in a line to block off the back courtyard area. There are bodies lying on the ground when he turns the corner a split second before Steph. Glass glitters around them and Tim's willing to bet the bodies are lined up in a perfect trajectory from the area Tim recalls is kind of like a gym.
"Do you even need us?" Steph asks with an exaggerated sigh. She's halfway through one of the windows but Tim can still se the flash of Damian's vivid green.
"No," Batman strides out of the broken double doors and surveys the yard. It's a trick of the mind but Tim still thinks the whole yard darkens with his presence. Batman belongs to the night and everyone is conditioned to it. "These are the last."
"Did we learn anything from them?" Steph asks, her voice floating out because she's climbed in all the way. "All I got were really badly informed people trying to run away. Hey, reel it back Baby Bat!"
Tim can hear a muffled sound that only his many years as a vigilante allows him to interpret as the sound of reinforced boots thudding into soft flesh. A few months of knowing Damian in any capacity fills out the rest of the unseen picture and Tim doesn't feel compelled to check further on it. He follows after Bruce instead as the man stalks away.
"The children," Bruce demands as he shoots off the grapple Tim didn't see him pull out.
"Safe," Babs responds immediately. Her words sharp enough to let him know she's running off four or six different feeds right now. Probably running interference with all the things getting uploaded to the internet from this little event. "RH is off comm right now, running interference on the docks. The kids are already out of the city."
On their way to Metropolis which has several well-funded orphanages that have been very happy to take the kids in for a while. Tim swings up over onto the roof Bruce is inhabiting now and pauses even as the man keeps going. He's got a destination in mind, but Tim's going to wait for Steph and Damian before following. He rolls his right shoulder back and feels the slight resistance that means he's going to have to take care with it or the next few days are going to be painful for him.
He hates baseball bats sometimes.
"How are the tests coming along?" He asks as he watches Steph chase out a visibly fuming Damian. The boy is taking this hard, and Tim doesn't blame him for the extra kicks he's delivering to the downed muscle.
"Finished," Alfred cuts in smoothly, and Steph and Damian go still on the ground. They all wait in silent anticipation. "None of the children are a match."
Tim sighs in relief even as he feels disgusted at the senseless violence that is even more senseless now. They don't have the blood sample to run tests against, but just about every system in the world has a sample of the Joker's DNA. Running paternity tests is adding time to a test that already is pretty lengthy in the first place. Tim thinks that time is going to lead to more destruction and harm before this thing is over with.
"Run the other samples," Bruce says. It's infinitesimal, but the tightness that's been chasing the man is eased. Just that last, smallest bit.
"Already started," Alfred says in a tone of voice that's not so slightly scornful. "I dare say those shall be done by the time you return as well."
"Good," Bruce replies and Tim hears the sound of approaching sirens. Ambulances, because the police have to already be nearby somewhere. There's probably a blockade nearby that they fell back on with the buses that didn't get tipped. "We'll go from there."
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Tim remembers when getting into the WE tower used to be a challenge. One that had everything to do with the unpredictability of the employees. Now it doesn't even matter if they're seen or not. People expect them it seems, and Tim's not entirely sure he'll ever get used to the wide-eyed looks of amazement he gets when he runs into them on the rarely used stairs.
"Isn't there a smoking area?" Steph asks with a smirk that makes it all a joke even as the interns scramble to stub out the cigarette's they'd both smelled as soon as they started up the stairs. Her hand is heavy on the small of his back. Pushing him even as he wants to stop and freak the men out. Just a bit because finding the people too lazy to go down a few dozen flights of stairs -there's an elevator so there's no excuse- has been something he's been wanting to do for a month.
"Sorry, sorry! We'll just, uh," one of the men manages to stutter out before trailing off as Steph doesn't let up on her pushing, and they leave the men behind in a matter of seconds.
Tim turns his head to frown at her but doesn't say anything even as they both hear the furious whispering that starts up. The conversation carries really well in the stairwell and Steph just grins back at him until they reach the floor of the lab.
"You can set up a camera to chew them out about it later," she promises as soon as the door is shut. The floor is quieter than it usually is at this time of the day, and Tim wonders if the employees have been let go early after the frenzy of testing. "We've got bigger asses to chew right now."
"Nice image, BG," Dick says and Tim looks up to see the man hanging out of a door down the hall. He's grinning but Tim knows his mask is going to be hiding some major bags. He's spent the past fourteen hours in flight after all. Even after picking Cass up, Tim doubts the man would have given up the controls to her. It's just the way he is. "I'm sure it's going to haunt me for weeks to come. Thanks for that."
Alfred's touch is evident in the conference room. There's food and coffee and bottled water laid out on a side-table because the oval table is covered in files. The paperwork generated by all the testing scattered everywhere. Bruce is looking through the computer reports though. Damian is curled up on a chair in the corner. His booted feet propped up on the wall and cape wrapped around him as he sleeps. The boy is better at catching naps than any of them combined, and Tim's more than a little envious of that ability.
Cass has made herself a little spot on the table to sit on. She's cross-legged and methodically working her way through a monster mash of three different sandwiches. She smiles at him with her eyes and tilts her head towards Steph.
"Please tell me we've gotten incredibly lucky and found our guy," Steph slides into a seat close to Cass and aims her pleading to the pointed ears of Bruce's cowl. Firmly in place even though WE is almost as secure as the Cave. He doesn't look up from the computer but the lines around his mouth go a little tighter. Steph groans and slumps over the table. Her bright hair flipping over Cass' closest knee. "Of course not. We're never lucky."
Dick doesn't chime in with a poor joke about getting lucky which speaks loudly about his level of alertness. Tim himself doesn't even try to sit down. The chairs in the room are well-padded and he knows himself enough to know he'll be joining Damian if he tries to sit in them. Tiredness is tugging gently at him now that the adrenaline of a riot isn't running through him.
"We don't have much else at this time," Babs' voice doubles oddly. Coming through the comm and the tiny speakers of the laptop. "The police are just starting to chase down the leads we've checked out, and all the other players are spinning their wheels looking for any rumor."
"You said Red Hood was running interference," Tim says, his eyes flickering over the printed papers he can see. "What for?"
"A rumor got going that the children were going to be moved out over the water to keep them safe," Babs says with a snort. "He went to bust the morons looking to check every shipping container leaving, and put his name out there as someone very interested in finding the Joker's kid."
Red Hood's absolute hatred of Joker is something that is well known in the city. Having him throwing in for the hunt won't raise any eyebrows even though it should. It's a good tactic and Tim thinks that was what Babs had wanted to discuss with Bruce privately. It's not the kind of plan the man would trust unless it came from him first after all.
"Alert me if he finds anything," Bruce says as he shuts the top of the laptop with a final click. He sits back in his seat and there's just enough of a slump in his posture for Tim to know that even he's running close to empty. Which means he was due for some much needed rest hours before the DNA match was made yesterday. "We can't do anything until something gets shaken loose."
The admission is grudging and Tim grimaces at it even as he agrees. "We have about five or six hours before night falls. We'll probably get more leads then."
Or find more rumors to stomp out. Which amounts to the same thing really. Rumors lead to dead ends a lot, but sometimes they turn up truth too.
"Get some sleep," Bruce orders and it's not something he has to repeat for once.
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