A/N: I do not own these characters, they are the property of DC Nation. Thanks for keeping up with this! Review! Review!


Chapter 27:

Monday, 12 September 2013

8:23 AM

Tim's POV:

His eyelids heavy Tim forces himself to raise them and looks around to find out what is making him roll back and forth. Despite blurry vision he discovers he is in his room at Wayne Manor so he turns over and stuffs his face into a pillow deciding he's too exhausted to investigate further. The whole weekend is a sleep-deprived hazy memory of endlessly searching for any sign of Cassie or her captor and though Tim can't coherently remember much while half asleep, he does remember that they came up empty-handed. Before he falls back asleep ice sprouts from the back of his head and slips down the side of his face and neck into the pillow. Tim shoots up with a hoarse yelp trying to shake off the sudden cold.

"What are you still doing asleep?" Tim blinks at the sudden brightness, the edges of his brain and vision still bleary from sharply disturbed sleep. When it clears from his eyes he finds Bruce standing at the end of his bed a scowl plastered to his face. "School started 20 minutes ago, why are you still here?" He throws a finger at Tim's alarm clock, Tim registers the time but only wonders if he slept through the alarm, that didn't typically happen. "You haven't even changed." Tim looks down at himself still in his Robin uniform, the material wrinkled in places and his cape folded into knots hanging off his shoulder, absently he pushes it over and onto his back. He looks back up at Bruce, the light behind his head stinging Tim's eyes

"Did you really just say I'm late for school?" The sleep finally dissipating Tim remembers Bruce's confession from Saturday night and his eyes turn cold looking upon the man he was supposed to think of as his father.

"You are." Bruce turns to exit the bedroom stopping at the door only to add, "Get dressed now." Tim can hardly suppress the sharp angry scoff.

"Are you serious?" Tim swings his legs off the bed surprised to find that he managed to remove his shoes when he got home at 3:00 AM. Bruce stops just outside the doorway and Tim stares incredulously at his profile. "Cassie is out there somewhere in the clutches of the monster that killed her mother and you expect me to just… go to school" Bruce angles his face away and Tim explodes jumping to his feet. "Are you just going to sit there and act like this isn't happening?! This is your fault!" At that Bruce steps back over the threshold of Tim's doorway his eyes warning. He makes like he is going to yell as well but then seems to think better of it.

"Get on your school uniform and get going. We are not arguing about this, do you understand me?" His voice holds a finality Tim wants to ignore but doesn't after so many years of yielding to it, instead he just shakes his head making his dissenting opinion known. "Hate me all you want but you're going." He leaves Tim to grudgingly throw on his school uniform.

Almost 45 minutes later Tim walks through the doors of GA without his school tie, his hair still a mess from the pillow, and dark circles dripping under his eyes. In the main office he explains his tardiness is due to car trouble and considers walking back out the door despite Bruce's threat that he would know if Tim decided to go anywhere else. The dean issues him a detention slip for the tardy and dress code violation and sends him off to second period calculus. The class is close by so he makes it in time for the last ten minutes and the entire class turns to stare as he enters, drops the late pass on the teacher's desk, and takes a seat his eyes finding one empty desk; Cassie's. This was the only class he had with her because several juniors took calculus and Cassie happened to be one of them. Seeing it empty he has to avert his gaze thinking about how much he wants to start searching again and how much he wished Dick had broken Bruce's nose when he attacked him at the Cave.

"So Mr. Drake, can you tell us where our friend Miss Grayson is?" Tim clenches his fist wanting to punch his teacher for asking the question but anchors himself in his chair, "I would think you would know." Tim shakes his head trying not to make eye contact with anyone. The teacher gives a disappointed hmph and begins giving last minute announcements that Tim can't bring himself to care about. His brain works in an angry circle between the betrayal of Bruce's secret, the waste of time he was spending sitting at that desk, and anxiety over what could possibly be happening to Cassie. People start packing up and heading out of class, Tim hadn't heard the bell. He slings his backpack over his shoulder and starts for the door like everyone else but turns with a growling inquiry at someone's tap on his shoulder.

"Oh, sorry…" Standing before him clutching her calculus book is a girl with an oval-shaped face, warm hazel eyes, and light brown hair piled on top of her head with two pencils holding the bundle in place; Leslie. "Didn't mean to, um, annoy you?" Tim rubs his eyes trying to wipe out the frustration and remembers her name.

"Sorry Leslie," He looks back up at Cassie's best girl-friend, afraid of what's coming. "I'm just tired. Did you need something?" She raises her eyebrows at him.

"Tired is an understatement. You look awful, no offense, but you do." Tim shrugs and repeats his question wanting to get away from her. She's too closely associated with Cassie and the more he sticks around the more he wants to jump out the window and search. "I was just wondering if you knew what was up with Cassie. I was supposed to get together with her this weekend but she never responded to my texts." Tim has to look away but he looks in the wrong direction, toward Cassie's empty desk in the corner near the door. For the first time instead of feeling angry thinking about her he just feels terror. His eyes burn with the possibility of tears as he comes to the realization that Cassie may never come back. There's a very real possibility that they will never find her. Or find her too late and that desk will stay empty forever. He grips his hair trying to pull out the thought, "Tim?" Leslie's voice sounds scared and he can see that now she knows something is wrong.

"I'm sorry… uh…" He clears his throat and steels himself once more, "I have to go." Without looking back or a care for Bruce's threat he flees the school.