The grocery store is almost a non-event despite the way Tim is waiting for the world to implode every second of the way. Jason tears the list in half and leaves Tim with the cart and the half that is primarily Dick's impassioned pleas for ordinary things.

Since Tim has never been here before, he shops in the most logical fashion possible—one aisle at a time, scan the list, select appropriate items, and cross off as located. Jason apparently shops straight down the list with multiple trips down various aisles, and only reappears to dump his latest armful of supplies in the cart. Tim has to pause every time Jason does that and reorganize their supplies so that things don't get crushed or broken.

Tim only has to double back once. The toothbrush that Jason picked out is unacceptable because Jason is a troll. Tim selects his own, and finds Jason making small talk with the cashier. He plays the surly teenager to avoid questions, and Jason seems to grasp that Tim's very small tolerance for other people has been used up.

For about ten minutes, Tim thinks they're actually going home.

Then the car stops, and Tim looks up at Jason. The man smirks and climbs out of the car. Tim hesitantly follows the older man's lead, but freezes before he can shut the door. It's a skate park—the skate park where the Titans had sometimes met up late at night when things were quiet to train . . . the skate park that he had frequented twenty years ago on days off from school where he didn't have to be Tim Drake.

It's been abandoned.

For a moment, Tim thinks they're here to train. Dick and Jason have a completely different style than Damian. They're more acrobatic, show-people in their own fashion. Damian is the type to end a fight as quickly and decisively as possible. Together they're a balance of grandiose and economical movement. It would make sense for Jason to train him here in all the ways that training with Damian in the cave won't ever cover.

But when Jason finally rounds the car, he has Tim's old skateboard in his hands.

"Have fun. Don't get hurt, or Damian will have my hide."

Tim hasn't been skateboarding since before the Joker. And until just now, Tim hadn't missed it. There had been bigger things.

Robin. Not-Robin. Doctors. Night Terrors. Dick. Death. Damian and Jason. Not-Robin. Robin again.

Tim is good at prioritizing, and skateboarding just wasn't a priority. But now he's miles away from the Manor and the Cave, and years away from the Joker. There's no one to see him, and skateboarding again just might be worth how insufferable Jason will be because of it later.

Tim takes the board and after a couple false starts . . . it's exactly the same.

Tim brings his reports upstairs with him when the others return from a patrol early. Since he isn't even remotely tired yet, Tim heads for the kitchen for a snack.

His . . . brothers . . . pour themselves into kitchen chairs around him once they get around to following.

"Ice, kiddo," Jason commands, and Tim obediently drops his paperwork on the tabletop to fetch the icepacks. In Wayne Manor, the freezer has an entire shelf devoted to ice packs. Jason groans as the ice begins to work on his bruised shoulder. "You know, I'm a reasonable vigilante," Jason grimaces anew, pressing harder into the joint. "I fight giant reptiles, crooked officials, clowns, and a woman with an inexplicable hole through her head. I work with metahumans, acrobats, aliens, and clones. I'll even officially accept my status as a fine-looking zombie."

Dick is rolling his eyes and icing his knee. Damian is fiddling with the coffeemaker so that it dispenses coffee faster, but Tim waits for the point because Jason always has one.

"But this whole flaming canine thing is damn weird even for us."

"Todd has a point," Damian sighs as the coffeemaker begins to make ominous beeping sounds. "Timothy, cups." Tim bounces back to his feet for the second errand, but only because he is taking pity on the others. "This is getting ridiculous."

"Dogs. Just dogs. Every night." Jason leans back far enough to snag his coffee from Damian. "No other villainous activity—just dogs on fire night after night."

"The only thing I can think of is the dogs are finding something—some kind of spill or zone where humans can't get to and it affects them . . . only at night?" Dick yawns. "That sounds stupid." The oldest hums appreciatively when Damian puts coffee into his hands. "We should be seeing it during the day. And there should be other animals affected . . . cats, squirrels, pigeons . . . something, you know?"

"Give me an old-fashioned gang war any day," Damian deadpans, passing a cup of coffee to Tim, and taking his own back to the table. "Grayson is right; this can't be that simple."

Tim nods, adding creamer to his coffee. He has already considered the same problems with that scenario.

"So the real question is: what crime is happening that no one is reporting?" Jason puts in, reaching around and confiscating Tim's coffee. "No coffee for you; it will stunt your growth."

Tim scowls, and ducks Jason's attempt to ruffle his hair. Pity is rapidly evaporating as Tim retakes his seat between Dick and Damian. He shuffles through his paperwork and withdraws the correct file for his working theory.

Dick takes it and promptly frowns. "Lewis Bayard?"

"Right psychosis," Damian nods. "Wrong side of the theology."

Dick grins a little over the top of the file. "He liked your new name for him, Little D."

"Altogether too much," Damian sniffs. "What about . . ." Damian frowns. "Correct me if I'm wrong, but I can't think of a villain this M.O. would fit."

"Riddler?" Dick asks. "Maybe we're just not getting the clues?"

Jason shakes his head. "Nygma makes those things a lot more obvious. Psyche?"

"No," Damian refutes. "Still in Azkaban." There's a silent exchange over Tim's head, and Damian relents. "I will verify to be certain."

It takes a few seconds for it to register that the others have completely discarded Tim's theory. It takes a few more seconds for Tim to cope with that, and he yanks the file away from Dick, throwing it onto the table in front of Damian.

"Tim?" Dick ventures hesitantly.

Tim freezes, still pointing to the tab identifying Lewis Bayard as the White Angel, formerly known as the White Knight. His whole argument is caught in his throat, and Tim doesn't know how to make this any clearer to the older heroes.

Damian's hand closes over Tim's. "I will look into Bayard as well, Timothy."

Tim snorts, sinking back into his chair. Sure, Damian will look into Bayard as a favor to Tim. That doesn't mean Damian will see what Tim sees or draw the right conclusions.

Communication is hard.

Tim is working his way systematically through the villain files, but there are a lot more of them now than before. Four incarnations of Robin, three Batmen, two Nightwings, and the Red Hood tend to rack up a substantial number of enemies . . . even if there were only five individuals playing all those roles.

To be honest, Tim's only gotten as far as the K files and there are some things about Selina Kyle and his old mentor that Tim doesn't need to know. He discards the file and stretches.

If he was in the mood, he could probably convince Damian to spar or Jason to feed him.

Tim isn't in the mood though. He is trying to make his ire obvious, but not-speaking doesn't have the same impact when a person is living mute to begin with. So he's mostly left with avoidance and door slamming to get the point across.

Tim shoves the computer away, and stretches again—this time all the way across his bed. His hand brushes fur; Alfred has joined Tim in his self-imposed exile. The cat is curled on Tim's pillow, sharing dark and light fur liberally on the pin-striped pillowcase. Alfred gives a rusty-sounding purr when Tim scratches behind the cat's ears. The sound resonates as Tim shifts to curl around the cat.

Joker's file is missing. It's a glaring omission in the neatly alphabetized lists.

Tim misses the old-fashioned paper back-ups. He likes to think that the Joker's file would have made a good bonfire, but it's more likely to have been deleted or cloaked somehow in the system. Maybe Dick would help him advance his hacking skills to the correct decade later on.

Later, when he isn't frustrated with the lot of them.

He hasn't come across any other serious candidates for the hellhound escapade so far, but Tim's certain that he's right. The White Angel fits and Tim can't explain it. Literally, cannot explain it.

That doesn't mean he's wrong. Tim can see the MO clearly, and the motive is obvious . . . to Tim at least. He just doesn't have enough evidence.

Tim could get that evidence if he was Robin, but Robin is still out of his reach because Tim refuses to speak. And if he could speak, Tim wouldn't need to be Robin to get the evidence, because he could explain it all to Damian. But if he could speak, Tim would be Robin again . . .

It's a never-ending cycle, and Tim bemoans it quietly as he buries his face in the cat's soft fur. There is no sound to muffle, but he muffles it anyway. Alfred swats at him with an irritated paw, and rolls over to ignore Tim more efficiently.

Lucky cat.

Tim reaches for his computer once more. He can't do anything except compile a list of active villains to check into. These files are all he has right now.

Besides, he hasn't found the file for a villain that went by Psyche yet.