A/N: Sorry this chapter is late! Got some help from my sister ThePatriette (who rocks okay, go check her work out on here) and this chapter has finally arrived. The next one will come sooner. Promise. Please review! :)
The word is playing itself over and over in his head, Stray, Stray, Stray, a new identity that he was starting to want and now was a little daunted to wear, and he remembers what it was like when he looked into the mirror and saw someone different.
There's a touch of static on the line or maybe it's something the man on the other side of the phone is meddling with. Maybe a piece of paper.
"Yeah, kiddo, I know you. In fact, I think all of Gotham knows you now, I saw you on TV. How are you doing?"
Tim blinks up at Selina who is staring at the phone, her eyes dark and searching.
"I wanted...to thank you. For getting me out of that."
It's the weirdest disguise Tim has ever worn.
The man chuckles. "I should probably introduce myself as Blackmail."
Selina writes the name down furiously. A name like Blackmail could mean too many things all at once.
"Blackmail," Tim says, slow and careful, "You gave me this number to request an...appointment. C-can you just explain to me what that means-"
"Oh, I guess you're new around here," Blackmail chuckles, his voice light and easy. "You need some help getting what you need? What you want? Now look."
Selina stops writing.
"I wanna help you out. Okay? I wanna help you. You looked like you needed it, and you know, sticking around with Catwoman isn't the best you could do. She's gonna drag you around everywhere and if you use burglary tactics like breaking into a home you don't even know is secure, you're going down and you're going down fast."
Selina shrugs, rolls her eyes. Tim doesn't even know what that is supposed to mean.
"So what do you suggest?"
"I offered my services back at the Caldwell Mansion and I'll offer them again," Blackmail breathes softly, invitingly. "You schedule an appointment with me and I will make sure you can break into a house, you can take what you want, as much as you want, and I will keep you clean. I'll cover your tracks, I'll throw suspicion at whoever comes around; the mother, the father, the politician who wants to get out of scandal. I'll make it so that everyone will suspect everybody else...but you."
"So what happened tonight- last night?" Tim asks in a monotone.
"There wasn't an appointment, Stray," Blackmail says, sounding like he's smiling, smiling like it's easy, it's fun. "You didn't know I was there. I was Alicia Caldwell's official bodyguard."
Alicia Caldwell's bodyguard. Newspaper clippings, pictures of her from the press, maybe the man known as Blackmail will be there and Tim can-
"Why are you doing this?"
"Kiddo, I just want to help," Blackmail almost whispers, his voice low and even. "I was born and raised here and you know as well as I do that there's been a lot of suffering in Gotham by the hands of the rich, the gluttons who roll around in money and never think of people like us. So just think of me...as Robin Hood."
Robbing the rich to feed the poor.
When it was more like helping the poor rob the rich and then tossing the blame and the loss and the blood on the rich.
The levels kept tipping and swaying on each other and the Woman in white, she who Selina said Batman loved the most, visibly flinched under her blindfold.
"Hey," Blackmail breathes after a moment of silence, "You and Catwoman come on and meet me at nine tonight. There's an alley near the pizza parlor, Prezzini's, close by East City Park. We can talk some more then."
Tim shut his eyes tightly, feeling a sudden hard pressure on his right temple, nerves, nerves it's just nerves, calm down- "...okay."
"See you then." A single click and Blackmail is gone.
Selina's eyes turn on him and there's something in her face that Tim hasn't seen in a long time and it's a little shocking; the way her eyebrows are turned up, and the tremble in her lip as she struggles to find words, and the green in her eyes isn't the same glinting emerald.
"Baby… don't," she whispers.
Too late, too late-
Quick like a flash of lightning, Selina's finger darts to the handset and she slams down on the handset button. "No, no, no," she says, rapid-fire, "he's after you, kitten. Don't do this."
"But I'm after him too," Tim says, getting up, unzipping the backpack and taking out his laptop. His hands are shaky.
"No, we don't have to go tonight. We have to go undercover. We start over together and don't come back to the scene." Selina gets up too, standing in front of him, and when his hand turns up the laptop lid, her hands slams it back down. "We are running."
"I told you what I was going to do," Tim hisses, feeling the burn in his chest, "I'm going to throw the odds back to him. He will run. Batman will find him."
"This isn't about Batman!" Selina exclaims. "This is about you!"
Tim winces. That sentence.
It's one piece to a jigsaw puzzle back at home that he completed with Jason once. The piece that just wasn't quite right, close, close enough to ignore it, even accept it. And Jay said it was fine. But it never was.
No other pieces fit that particular one.
He shakes his head, "No, this...this is about Alicia Caldwell."
Selina turns away from him, hand on hip and the other running through her hair, then fingers pinching the bridge of her nose. Tim pulls up the laptop lid.
"If we go over there tonight," Selina murmurs, "and you don't like what you hear, tell me that you'll run with me."
There are words to be said, but Tim can't say them.
"Tell me you'll run," she repeats, louder, sharper.
"I can't promise you that."
Honest, blunt and hard.
Selina turns slightly, and Tim can see the strands of black hair falling back into her face. "If I don't like what I hear...I can and will run."
Tim swallows, looks down at his hands, at the turning of the progress wheel at system start-up.
How did he end up this way?
"I can't afford the risk," Selina says, folding her arms over her chest, tapping her shoe on the ground.
"Because this is about you," Tim whispers.
"Oh yeah," she says loud and clear, looking back at him with that smile that he's been under for the past week, "Yeah, you're right. A girl does what she has to do to survive. I'm not going back to jail and I'm not gonna be under Batman's eyes and I'm sure not gonna get turned in by Blackmail. What if he fails, Tim? What if his pretty game falls through? Then you and I are going to jail for murder and theft, and see where your daddy is then."
"I'm making sure that doesn't happen."
Selina stares at him, her eyes narrowed, smile still there. She laughs a little and scuffs her shoe against the old carpet. "Okay."
"You don't believe me?"
Selina is silent for a moment and then, "I want to," she says simply.
But she walks away from him in silence, her face emotionless. She takes her bag with her to the bathroom and then closes the door, leaving Tim in the room by himself.
The computer has been at the desktop for a long time now. He launches the browser, opens up five empty tabs at once and starts typing rapidly.
Alicia Caldwell.
Gotham City news.
Ugh, where was she the last time I saw her, did I see Blackmail before, maybe she was at some sort of a charity event Bruce had, maybe-
And he remembers, types in "december 2014 charity ball wayne manor" and he knows it well because he had a migraine that fateful night and it was a good thing he was home.
Bruce left the ball to check in on him. He found Tim throwing up in the bathroom, helped him through it and made sure he was focused enough to take a shower, to calm down, to keep from passing out. Bruce didn't go back and Dick took over the charming duties. Bruce stayed until the party was over, until Tim was asleep.
But right before Tim had decided to drop off the face of the earth he saw Alicia Caldwell, dressed in a white sleeveless dress, glittering in the light, and it contrasted beautifully against the dark of her hair and eyes, her sparkling smile and open heart. She asked if he was alright and Alicia Caldwell was the first one to find out that Bruce Wayne's third son was really not well at all.
Tim folds his arms across his chest, trying to push away the harsh memory of just a few hours ago. The bullet in her forehead, the momentary cry of pain, and she was gone.
He's cold in this place. The condensation is building on the window that glows with street lamp light, and there's a car pulling up, engine rumbling and tires crushing old concrete.
The shower runs in the bathroom.
The Internet access crawls.
Gotham city news only loads about halfway and Tim winces at numerous features of the website that just gave up on arriving. A picture of Alicia Caldwell's smiling face from a long time ago, a grainy photo of the blood splattered on the wall, and the screaming headline, "Young Philanthropist Brutally Murdered in Home". And there's Catwoman racing away and there's Stray, halfway across the fence.
The constant question in the summary article, "Where is the Batman?"
The December 2014 Charity Event loads for the most part, and there's press pictures of Bruce and Mr. Fox, and Dick is there too. An interview with Alicia Caldwell.
Tim prays the Internet will allow him one video. Just one.
Tim waits twenty minutes for the three minute video. The red numbers on the old radio clock turn to 6:00.
He plugs his earbuds into the computer and listens to the voice, studies the smile, looks into the sweet face.
The interviewer is asking about how many people are there, what kind of reception they're getting, plans for the next year. How will Christmas be for the poor of Gotham city?
And as she gives high hopes for the next year, explains how many people will be having a real Christmas for the first time in the slums of the Narrows, Tim's eyes latch on to a man in a tuxedo, blurred and out of focus. But Tim can still see the man turn back to and fro from the Wayne Manor staircase to Miss Caldwell and her interview. He is holding a glass of champagne in his hand, and the other is reaching for something...something…
Tim leans forward, pauses the video. The man's hand is close to his ear and he's murmuring something. An earpiece, a communication device. And he looks all around, studying the bust of Bruce's great-grandfather on the ornate table in the foyer.
Tim's fingers glide over the keyboard, click over shift, and control and the number three, saving a picture of the screen to his desktop. He can't be certain, not entirely, but there's a chance the man in the video could be Blackmail.
He was Alicia's bodyguard, he would be there, close by. The earpiece would be explained away by saying that he was communicating with another one unless…
Unless that was the communication between him and the burglar he had an appointment with.
Scheduled burglary indeed.
But no one ever reported anything missing from Wayne Manor that night. Alfred didn't mention Martha Wayne's pearls or any silverware simply walking off the property.
Tim can't explain that away.
He shakes his head, gets up and walks around. He has to go to Blackmail tonight and he already knows he won't like what he hears.
What if Selina leaves him?
She'll be safer without him, they'll be able to split up. And whatever happens to Tim, won't happen to Selina. She'll be better off. But he can't help wondering what it would be like, to be on the run with her. She said she wanted him happy, she wanted him safe, she wanted him free.
Free, free, Tim wanted to be free, he had a small taste of it when he was flying through the air as Stray.
But in this case, he wouldn't be free. Selina wouldn't be free either, because running with the name of murderer over your head undeserved is not freedom, no matter what she says about how it's about Tim, it's about Selina, it's about getting away from Batman. Freedom is justification.
And Tim was never made to run from Batman. He's always wanted to run to him.
How can he earn that back?
The right to run. Selina has it. Tim's worried he doesn't.
