Author's Note:
I split Babs's PoV up into three separate posts because the original chapter was just EXCESSIVELY long, so here's part 2 of her rehashing of the story's events! We're nearing the Endgame people, only three more chapters to go after this one!
Also, this chapter is going up early because I have another long weekend coming up, so I probably won't be able to post tomorrow!
Chapter Twenty Nine: Rule #28.2 – Support Your Family (pt 2)
When Barbara wakes up and eventually convinces herself to check up on the situation her system has been quietly monitoring, she notices that Jason's been logged on almost continuously since he got back to the Manor around 4am.
He's been watching a new tracker he's activated – doing so very carefully, so as to keep the activity from catching Bruce's attention – and that tracker is currently parked outside the particular Gotham Academy campus where Timothy Drake attends middle school.
It's a worrisome observation, but not overly concerning – Barbara doesn't know when he put the tracker on Tim's bike, or what exactly pushed him to do so, but for the moment, it looks like Tim is safe enough and that Jason's got a handle on whatever's got him worried.
Turning reluctantly to her own work, she starts with uploading the pics she snapped with her cowl's lenses before the confrontation yesterday had escalated into a fight – uses those images to scan through the facial recognition programs she has plugged into every database she's ever heard of holding an identity collection.
She gets results on the Tolovis pretty quickly.
All of the information she drags up is… disheartening, to say the least.
She's about ready to admit that the information is overwhelming, about to allow herself to feel so outclassed that she permits herself to take a break she doesn't need – to take a walk or something to let her nerves settle – when Dick texts her, asking her to lunch at the aquarium.
Barbara knows as well as he does that it's not a romantic overture – that it's a careful invitation to discuss something of a sensitive, and likely personal, nature. It's clearly serious enough that she would never dream of refusing him, but she can't say she agrees to the meeting without any drips of hesitation crawling down her spine.
She gets to their usual spot beneath the shipwreck in the shark tank a full forty five minutes before Dick asked to meet – lays back and tries to relax by watching the black tips circle the wreck above her on their serene patrols.
Dick gets there early too, though only by five minutes.
The woosh of the doors at the end of the tunnel is what alerts Barbara to the arrival of someone with very soft footsteps – because they don't make a sound as they tread up the rickety set of metal stairs that lifts up onto the tunnel walkway. Who else but Dick would it possibly be?
She sits up and smiles at him as she scoots down the bench to let him sit beside her.
He smiles back, and the expression isn't pinched with any underlying angst. It's a strange kind of relief that fills her when Dick sits down beside her with a languid sigh that presses their shoulders together, but relief nonetheless – he's deeply concerned, but not overwhelmed by it.
That's comforting, at least.
Mildly.
So it's probably not about a fight with Bruce.
It's probably something about Jason, though probably not a fight with Jason.
And if it's about Jason, it's very probably also about Tim.
Turns out, Dick does want to talk about Tim.
And how he's been running around Gotham at night for waaaaay longer than any of them had realized. How he'd been in the alleyway when they'd first encountered the Tolovis – how he'd gotten his own ID on the perps (which actually deeply impresses some distant part of the hacker side of the girl, a part that's not horrified by all the disturbing revelations of painfully ridiculous child endangerment allegations being made), and how he'd gotten the investigation to move one more giant leap forward by bringing the question of where the Tolovis were hiding out to Catwoman (of all the people Tim could have somehow become friendly with… seriously, this kid will be the death of her).
Dick is terrified that Tim's getting himself into the kind of dangerous trouble the sidekick Bats won't be able to get him out of – at least, not without giving up his secret to Bruce.
It's a valid concern.
Telling B comes up as a possible solution, because B will shut that shit down the instant he figures out what's going on with Tim.
Or, he'll try to.
Tim… doesn't seem the type to take that sitting down.
He's already managed to evade the Bats for years, after all.
And sure, they hadn't been actively looking out for him then, but still…
It's not like Bruce is going to convince him to quit with a stern conversation and some Bat brand intimidation. Tim is either at the downright stupid fearless point in his adolescent development, or he's just ridiculously crafty and determined – or a combination of both… it doesn't really matter anyway, as either of them would render Bruce's usual tactics moot.
Either way, telling B won't help.
But they have to do something, because Tim is worried about Jason – to the point that he probably won't let Jason go anywhere without him – and Jason is dead set on going to investigate the Tolovis' night club hideout tonight…
So Barbara knows she has to intervene, because she won't… she can't patrol tonight.
The thought of suiting up and stumbling upon another alley with a pair of impossibly powerful bad guys makes her stomach sink, and the idea of wandering into another bloody warehouse crime scene – which had probably been a scene of the Tolovis' making – causes her joints to lock up and her sinking stomach to churn with a riotous burst of bile.
Barbara volunteers to play baby sitter.
It's as much for her sake as it is for Tim and Jason's.
They all need a night off; a night away from the insanity of the current case.
Dick is suitably soothed by the time their discussion closes, and he's made sure to check on Barbara herself too – to somehow care for Jason and Tim and Barbara all in one single go of aptly dramatic big brotherly affection.
He helps her stand and literally spins her in a waltz down the tunnel – it's not romantic, and Barbara is suddenly flooded with a feeling of contentment with the realization that she truly doesn't want it to be anything more than what it is. That whatever it is feels more intimate and supportive than anything had felt when they had been truly trying to make the romance work.
They head upstairs, gorge themselves on massive, delicious, salads and discuss the fact that – regardless of Tim's clearly imminent involvement in the Bats' lives on the Crusade side of things – Bruce is already apparently half way to adopting him into the Bats' daytime Family.
Something about a summer camp conceived and engineered specifically to suit Tim's own interests and his natural inclination to get his hands dirty by digging into the problems of modern living by exploring possible solutions through science and engineering innovations.
Bruce is putting in extensive effort on this.
It makes Barbara smile.
Tim deserves a Family.
And while the Bats are a dysfunctional one on their best days, she knows that it's due to an over abundance of caring, and a heavy dash of emotional stupidity, rather than the kind of viciousness or neglect found in other family structures.
The Bat Clan is not a great family, or a truly healthy one, but they are genuinely Family – in a way that makes the fights and drama completely worth the strife. They love each other, and want whats best for each other, even if they show it through… ineffectual gestures.
She knows that Tim doesn't understand what's wrong with his current family situation, why it honestly is questionable enough that she's not sure she can even call it a family situation…
And Barbara thinks she might have a way to introduce him to a different kind of family life – one that might help him start to recognize that what the Bats want to give him is something good by pulling into a real Family.
As soon as she splits with Dick, Barbara calls Jason – predictably, he's already with Tim.
Barbara orders the pair of them over for dinner, non-negotiable, and once she knows they're resigned to coming over, she begins to scheme.
It feels nice to be focused on something important that isn't gruesomely bloody or immediately life-threatening… something that still carries weight and can legitimately change lives, but doesn't have the gore factor that makes the current case so… abhorrent.
Barbara gets Jason to help her cook and leaves Tim to the warm but cautious care of her father – Jim Gordon knows how to deal with kids, unique kids in particular. And he knows how to handle all kinds of trauma that such kids could possibly have encountered.
Tim seems uncomfortable, but he does settle in and open up and relax more than he would've with anyone else sitting on the couch beside him.
Meanwhile, Barbara confronts Jason about his concern for Tim – gets Jason on board with helping her keep Tim on the sidelines, while still prepping him for the inevitable eventuality of Tim joining up with the Crusade.
While talking with Jason about how to keep Tim safe, she spots something about his concern that she is entirely certain Jason himself hasn't noticed about his own regard.
Not only is his reaction hilariously Bruce-like, there's something else in Jason's concern, something genuinely fond in a way that she's never seen from Jason before… He clearly already thinks of Tim as part of the Family – as a part of the Family he's more seriously invested in than he is with Dick or even Bruce. Babs isn't entirely sure what he thinks is behind that, but she knows it will be a fantastic show to watch as it develops and they both mature.
Because, from what she can see, it's not something that's just going to go away.
Even if no one else has noticed it yet.
Which actually makes the next point Barbara needs to bring up even more crucial to the over all safety and sanity of the Bat Clan: Tim needs training.
Maybe not Bat training, exactly – not with Bruce looming above him, and the expectations of Batman hanging over his head, but something… Because Tim isn't going away, and he's already an important part of the Family – doubly so for how he's gotten Jason reinvested in being a part of the Family – which means he's going to have to confront the same dangers as the rest of the Family… Maybe not directly, and dear god she hopes that Tim stays under the villain radar, but still.
Tim is going to be close enough to the dangers of their lives that he needs to be taught some skills to help him get through it successfully.
Jason is not going to like her conclusion.
She tells him about it anyway.
With her father in the other room, exerting influence as Commissioner even in his civilian clothes, it goes over better that it could have – as well as could possibly be expected.
Jason does not like the idea of accepting that Tim is going to be around anything like the dangers of the Gotham underworld, but he does come around to seeing her point about ensuring that he's prepared to face those dangers, regardless. And he sees her point about including Tim as being paramount – if they push him away, it's not going to deter him at all, from anything except perhaps asking for help.
Jason himself is very familiar with the concept… and he's sheepish enough about it to prove to Barbara that he's self aware of his own issues with it. She can tell he doesn't quite recognize her sublayer of chastisement, though – but that's a problem for another day.
Getting Jason comfortable with asking for help is an uphill battle.
Barbara already has enough to work on over dinner.
It's very obvious that Tim is uncomfortable through the entire meal.
But uncomfortable or not, Tim seems like he's enjoying the experience – and with Babs, her father, and Jason all working to help him understand that this is what a family should feel like, Barbara is fairly confident that the experience is going to stick with Tim for a long while.
Even as the night continues and Babs pushes into territory referencing the potential for Tim to join up with the Bats more directly – potential that he, obviously, wildly misinterprets at first because he's clearly an unsocialized ball of angst and self doubt – Tim still seems uncomfortable but happy in a way Barbara hopes she can make stick.
She's confident in that hope being fulfilled by the time Dick shows up for his share of the pot roast she promised him – confident enough to let Nightwing inside and encourage his light hearted banter and teasing. At first, his arrival goes over rocky ground – being that it reminds Tim about the ongoing case and the fact that Babs and Jason should theoretically be working on it with Nightwing directly, but Dick's bright smile and open hearted goofiness get a soft smile settling onto Tim's face eventually.
And Tim's smile means that Jason's glower lets up too.
For a moment, at least.
Jason's glower returns full force as bed time approaches, as Tim's skittish shyness redoubles because he's heard Babs and Dick discussing the evening's Crusade activities and apparently feels guilty all over again for preventing them from handling the situation sooner.
Whlep, it's not as bad a reaction as it could be.
Though, she does note that Jason takes longer in the shower than usual – and that he makes a pit stop when he detours down stairs to the laundry room, a pit stop that probably involves him searching through her emergency storage hidey holes for some of her old Bat Tech prototypes (you can't just get rid of that kind of advanced technology, after all).
She gives it a sweep after she's sure the boys have settled down and discovers that two old coms are missing – nothing that screams 'serious problem', but something she knows needs to be kept under close surveillance. If Jason has a specific worry that he's not sharing, Babs needs to be on top of tracking it – because confronting him on it will not help.
She's managed to convince Dick on that front, with both Tim and Jason, but she's still a decade away from gaining any significant ground on it with Bruce.
The next day, Barbara watches Jason's electronic activity.
She watches him as he uses his phone every five minutes to check on the tracker he stuck on Tim's bike. She watches him get home and use his desktop to nudge at Tim's system, testing the security in a way that she can immediately tell will prove futile and yet won't alert Tim to the careful probing. Jason has something specific he's looking for – something that probably relates to the fact that Tim left class early – but he knows to be cautious in looking for it.
Barbara doesn't know Tim well enough to be certain of his inclination towards desiring perfect attendance, but she can call up his school records to see that he's never skipped out in the middle of the day like this before.
So Barbara does her own probe of Tim's net activities.
Instead of trying to get in to Tim's system like Jason did, Barbara encircles his system with her own and watches where Tim is probing out into the wider netscape. It's not as accurate or as clear a means of watching his activity, but she can tell when he starts digging into the top secret dark servers of secure government agencies by utilizing their inter agency email systems.
She can't see what he's looking for though, not exactly.
And she doesn't know enough about what he's thinking to be able to guess.
It's frustrating.
And worrisome, as Tim's outgoing signals trace through NSA emails into far deeper systems – using back doors into the hidden servers in a way Barbara is torn between calling recklessly inelegant and ingeniously difficult to pin down. The systems he's hacking will definitely know they've been hacked, but he's being so slippery and so obtusely vague and random with the files that he's opening that it will most likely be interpreted as a glory hound hacker going after the net-cred.
Which means the government itself will contribute to the cover up, because they won't know anything in particular was stolen and they wouldn't want to encourage the behavior by rewarding it with fame.
It's risky, but clever – and almost fool proof if it pans out properly.
She knew she liked Tim so quickly for a reason.
But the little idiot is definitely going to get himself into some boiling hot water here soon if he's willing to use such a brute force strategy to acquire information.
Tim doesn't seem like the kind of kid to do that without the prompt of a specific and acute motivation spurring him on… this seems like the kind of last minute recon to verify a hunch before more a definitive action it taken – an action that Tim should not be taking.
Should not even be considering taking…
When Tim pulls out and his entire residence goes tech dark, Barbara sighs and pings Dick – who is already out patrolling as Nightwing alongside Batman.
She finagles a window of privacy for she and Dick to talk.
There is a mugging taking place over towards the West Side, so she doesn't feel too guilty when she chooses to send Batman away. Especially when she gets Dick to admit that there is probably a few very good reasons to worry about Tim at the moment.
Dick's worried now, but Jason's been worried all afternoon.
Barbara texts Jason, gets him to admit that he not only took the coms she already knows he swiped, but also gets him to connect to the conversation she's having with Dick.
He doesn't waste time with fretting uselessly – Jason has a very specific concern: Tim's bike has left the grounds of Drake Manor.
Barbara doesn't quite know what she's feeling.
It's a lot like panic, but… focused.
Getting Tim into Bat Custody is suddenly TOP priority and she knows exactly what is needed in terms of accomplishing that goal – knows that it's worth everything.
Using a tap on the GPS in Tim's phone, she guides Dick and Jason towards him.
He's heading towards a donut shop in Robbinsville, if her intuitive systems tracker has read his GPS history correctly. Which, because it's her, is probably worth betting on.
Barbara realizes fairly quick that it's not going to be enough.
Just getting Nightwing and Jason there won't be enough… Tim's slippery, and by the way he's absolutely booking it across town, he's determined. To do what, exactly, Barbara doesn't know, but he's not going to be swayed from it without a dramatic refute to allowing it.
They're going to need Batman to intervene or they will definitely lose the kid.
And possibly lose Jason too… because he's stopped responding on his borrowed com.
Barbara prays that he's using the other com to track Tim – because Tim seems to have left his phone on the roof of a donut shop where Spolier, of all people, is waiting in a panic.
Jason's location is easy to find as he heads south, because he's definitely using those old coms, and fortunately that means Tim's location is also easy to triangulate. Robin's resourcefulness is truly at it's very best when combined with Jason's natural paranoia and someone with zero self preservation instincts for Jason to fixate on.
But still… They need Batman.
Barbara sends Dick after Tim, and pings Batman to intercept Jason.
Bruce's underlying Papa Bear nature and Batman's military stringency merge to create a rage like none other Barbara has ever personally borne witness to – but she can't be arsed to care while her birds are still flying blind and desperate.
Jason is gonna be in deep shit for this, but she'll help him out of the hole he's dug for himself once they get Tim safely tucked back into his bed.
Barbara somehow manages not to spill too many details on why Tim is running around Gotham and has probably been kidnapped by the Bats' prime suspects in the drug case, or how they're currently tracking him. It's mostly because Batman is so pissed at how Jason's defied orders and is out on the streets that he's entirely consumed with getting his errant son to safety.
Dick has Spoiler with him, trying to catch Tim before his kidnappers arrive at their destination – which will make rescuing him that much more difficult and dangerous.
At this point, it becomes clear that all hands are needed on deck and Barbara starts hurrying through a warm-up routine to get her muscles ready for an unexpected patrol while she frantically shimmies into her Batgirl gear – never more thankful that she's established this safehouse instead of keeping all of her gear at the Cave.
She snags an extra layer of armor for Spoiler's torso – just in case Batman decides, like she did, that excluding Spoiler is simply too inefficient to currently bother with…
Barbara gets to Chinatown faster than she thought was physically possible.
Bruce is in an alley outside a night club called Obscura. Dick is there too.
Jason, however, is inside – with Tim, and Tavian Ross… That name has come up in her research – as an old associate of Rwen Tolovi's, one that's still officially a part of GHOST. It's a name that screams very bad news. Especially when Tolovi shows up, too.
She gets her com synced to the frequency that the other Bats are currently on and listens in with them as Jason selflessly negotiates for Tim's freedom.
He does it in a way that makes Barbara want to strangle him, but Jason manages to wrench an effective solution out of this mess that sees Tim safely and immediately into the hands of those who want to protect him.
Tim is released and Barbara feels something thorny unclench inside her chest.
Batman gives a no-nonsense order to shove both Tim and Steph into the Batmobile – to be ferried to Alfred waiting in the Cave, where they can be cared for now, and dealt with later.
With the youngest kiddos out of the line of fire, attention turns strictly towards getting Jason free as well… but Jason's situation is trickier… and gets even worse as a change of venue comes up… a transfer that's executed by experts in urban warfare…
Following one of the convoys that may or may not be carrying Jason is nerve wracking.
It's even worse as Barbara realizes that their coms are being jammed too, in addition to the GPS… She can't tell when it started exactly, the transition was seamless, but at some point after Jason gets Tolovi to explain a little more about the drug and the organization that created it, the signal becomes garbled. A few words escape clear enough to understand, but none that actually give insight on the actual discussion being had between the ganglord and her brother.
Barbara sinks into a focus beyond conscious awareness.
She has to let her internal emotions hide away in dark corners as things with Jason begin to spiral away – has to, lest she risk a complete break down.
Because Jason is important to her.
And she can't bear to watch him be drugged and bloodied in a bare knuckle fight that is vicious beyond any kind of words she can fathom. It hurts her to watch the situation unfold, even after she's pushed away the part of her that wants to react to that emotional pain.
And then Stray shows up.
With friends. But it's Stray that has her truly interested.
Stray could be any age between twelve and seventeen, could be even older if it's a girl beneath the goggles and careful layers of shape-dusiguising armor – though Barbara thinks it's probably not a girl. Thinks – in the back of her overly focused, overly stressed, analytical mind – that it's probably a boy, probably a specific boy… if Jason's smile is anything to go by…
It's a smile she doesn't think the others have seen on him before.
But it's the same one Babs saw on his face when he and Tim stayed over at her place… when Tim managed nail the timing on the chorus of the drumline on one of Jason's favorite songs while they were playing rock band… It's a smile Barbara doesn't even think Jason knows he's ever worn, telling in a way Jason would never want to be…
And that smile means Stray… Stray is probably… probably has to be… Tim…
Which…
Can't be possible…
Can it?
Barbara latches onto that suspicion as the situation spirals away from her control – she made an attempt to help distract the ring to let Stray whisk Jason out of there, but it got shut down before Jason made it three steps. And as the fight resumes – as it redoubles in the kind of brutality that twists her heart to watch – Barbara focuses on Stray…
She tries to find some hint of Tim beneath the goggles – some hint that Jason clearly managed to pick up on… and tries to figure out why… why Tim would sign up with Selina, why he wouldn't tell the Bats, why he wouldn't have more training before hitting the streets…
All she can come up with is a vague idea that Selina wants an apprentice and wants Tim to be that apprentice, and that he's never taken up the offer… But the need to save Jason made him reconsider, and now he's signed on to a supervillain internship…
It's an utterly horrible, terrifyingly plausible, theory.
Barbara vaguely wonders how binding the agreement is… wonders if it'll at least get him a little training before he's forced into another conflict… She doesn't think Selina would put Tim in danger, not intentionally – she's… a questionable person in some ways, but she's mostly good… good enough to make Bruce, whose whole world is black and white, and right and wrong, see some things in shades of complicated grey.
But Stray has another friend, someone cloaked in loose folds of dark fabric that looks an awful lot like it hails from the same style of garb that the League of Assassins utilizes…
The potential assassin holds Stray's hand – helping Tim through the emotional turmoil of watching Jason in the ring… If Stray really is Tim… he's a much better liar than Jason seems to believe, because his mask of vague disgust and broad indifference is a solid enough poker face that Babs thinks Bruce would lose money on it in a card game.
Barbara is uncertain, and she dislikes being uncertain – but being uncertain of Stray's identity lets her fixate on trying to puzzle through it, and that is a far better thing to focus on than watching Jason fight in this horrid Tolovi drug-induced pseudo-death-match.
So focus on that, she does.
