Batman makes it across Gotham in record time.

He had to, after hearing Tim's message. How injured he sounded - only able to get out one word. Not enough for Batman to know who was attacking him. Not enough for him to know where he was - if he couldn't trace the location of the signal, he wouldn't know how to save Tim at all.

Fortunately, he can. He arrives at a warehouse surrounded by police and ambulances, parks the car, and recklessly rushes inside the warehouse without finding out what's going on. No one tries to stop him, or even talk to him.

He almost crashes into Damian as he runs through the halls. The kid is holding a bloody knife and a man's head in his hand.

No.

"Father," Damian says, with a slight smile on his face. "I was just about to come looking for you."

"Where's Robin?" Batman asks. He needs to know what's going on with the decapitated man, but Tim could be actively dying, as far as he knows.

"You don't need him anymore," Damian says confidently. "You have me."

And then he tries to hand Batman the head in an incredibly macabre offering. Batman knocks it out of the way and there's a wet splack as it hits the wall. He stoops down a little and grabs Damian's shoulders. "What did you do?" he asks.

Damian is momentarily frozen, eyes widening a little in – confusion? Fear? Batman can't tell.

"Where's Tim?" Batman asks, because he doesn't have time for this. He hates that he doesn't, that he can't be concerned about Damian right now, but it's true. And besides, Damian just killed a man.

"I – He's dead. I killed him."

No.

The hallway seems to start to spin around him, and Batman squeezes his eyes shut. Not again. He can't lose a son again – two sons at once this time, since if Damian really killed Tim, he'll never be able to look at him again.

He takes a deep breath and lets it out slowly. He can't afford to lose his head. As he opens his eyes and the world seems to refocus, he realizes just how hard he was squeezing Damian's shoulders and lets go. Damian hadn't been reacting at all.

"Where is he?" Batman repeats.

Damian looks up at him, eyes wide, eyebrows slightly up, making some expression Batman can't recognize in his current state.

"Damian!"

Damian shakes his head and seems to clear it. "I'll show you," he says, and starts off running.

This was a mistake.

They get to a large open room and Damian points to a pile of boxes and Batman starts frantically digging through them. He pulls out Tim, who's already paler than death with blood coming from his neck. His breath is coming out in shallow wheezes.

Thank God.

He really hates thinking that, when Tim's clearly grievously wounded, but thank God he's not dead.

He grabs some emergency gauze from his utility belt to stop the bleeding.

"Oh," Damian says. "I guess he survived."

His tone is so matter of fact and calm that Batman wants to scream. "But not for lack of trying on your part?"

Damian looks between Batman and Tim slowly. "Let me help," he says, reaching a hand towards Tim. "My mother taught me some battlefield medicine – "

Batman grabs Damian's hand in an iron grip. "Don't you dare touch him. Ever again." With that, he shoves Damian's hand back and the kid takes a step backwards. Damian rubs his wrist.

"Bruce," Tim says weakly.

Batman smooths back Tim's hair a little, trying to comfort him. "You're all right," he says. "Do you have a spinal cord injury?"

Tim laughs a little, still incredibly weakly.

"I didn't stab him in the spine," Damian says.

Bruce glowers at him. The worst part is, he thinks the kid's trying to be helpful.

"S'okay. can move me…" Tim says, and trails off. Batman bundles him up in his cape and starts to carry him out.

Batman calls the Batmobile to come pick them up around back, because otherwise an incredibly unmasked, blood-covered Damian would be in front of about ten of Gotham's finest and fifty witnesses. He piles Tim in the backseat, and then realizes that he can't apply pressure while he's driving. He puts Damian in the front seat and gets in back with Tim, unwilling to risk leaving Tim alone. Then he puts the car on autopilot home.

As they drive, he grinds his teeth in cold rage and worry.

He calls Alfred and tells him to be ready for surgery, and when they get in the cave, Alfred's eyes widen in concern as he sees Batman carrying Tim, Damian covered in blood, and then –

Batman can tell the exact moment when Alfred noticed the bloody knife in Damian's hand. He just says "Oh" and gets this sad expression on his face.

Damian watches intently as Batman helps get Alfred set up for surgery, but Batman never lets him in the actual room. He's not going to.

It's only when he can see that Alfred doesn't need him anymore that he goes back out to finally deal with Damian.

"Why?" he asks finally. He doesn't bother clarifying what he's asking the reason for. If Damian doesn't know –

Well, he's not sure what he'll do.

"He was my rival," Damian says. He's cleaned the blood off his knife and gotten into a change of clothes and looks deceptively like a normal kid. He sounds that way, too – completely casual voice – though still a little subdued – like he's explaining something obvious. "It was my right to replace him. That's how it works in the League."

I did everything the other Shadows did – but better.

Of course that entailed killing people. Killing rivals. It's not as if loyalty or camaraderie would have been encouraged between assassins. The only real loyalty would be to Ra's Al Ghul and his vision.

How did he not see this coming?

"This was a mistake," Batman says.

"What was?" Damian asks. "If you're talking about Drake – "

"I'm talking about you," Batman says. "Letting you have full run of the place."

Damian winces a little in response.

"I hadn't realized how dangerous you were."

Damian crosses his arms. "I never claimed I wasn't dangerous."

He's right, isn't he?

This kid has been practically screaming that something's wrong with him since they met. Proudly announcing his League of Shadows training, not knowing how civilians act, thinking of himself as a weapon…

It shouldn't take the world's greatest detective to figure out. It shouldn't even take the world's worst. All it would've taken was listening and paying attention to what the kid was telling him. But he hadn't. Batman wanted to ignore it. He wanted to believe he could just turn over a new page and Damian would adjust to life in the manor, despite his clearly nightmarish upbringing. He wanted to believe his ten-year-old son didn't already have blood on his hands.

Half of him is wondering if when he wakes up, Tim will agree. If he'll say it was Batman's fault. After all, wasn't Batman supposed to protect him? He did a poor job of it.

"Listen, Father," Damian says. His voice is pitched a little softer, a little gentler than usual, like he's making a peace offering. "I clearly misread the situation. I won't try to kill Tim again if it upsets you so much."

"If it upsets me?" Batman repeats incredulously.

Damian nods.

"Damian, why do you think trying to kill Tim was wrong?"

"Because you obviously view him as a lot more irreplaceable and with more affection than I was imagining…" Damian trails off as he watches Batman's face.

Unbelievable.

"You don't get it. You don't get how it's wrong," Batman says. He rubs his face. "What's more is, I don't think you even get how it could be wrong!"

"I said I won't do it again," Damian repeats, a little sullenly. Like a kid who's mad he's still getting lectured.

Jesus Christ, doesn't this kid have any conscious at all?

"What makes you think I'll let you stay here long enough to try again?" Batman snaps. He feels like he shouldn't have said it – he doesn't have any real intention of letting Damian return to the League of Shadows – but he wants something to get through to this kid.

"The Spook won't hurt anyone ever again," Damian says. "I fought crime. I thought that's what you wanted." He looks down a little. "Then you'd see… what I can do," he finishes awkwardly.

Batman exhales slowly, to not lose his head - again. He doesn't need his judgment impaired more than it already feels.

"Damian," he says slowly, "how many people have you killed?" And he thinks: how many must there be to have him seeming to have no reaction to this, other than disappointment that it didn't turn out how he wanted?

"I'm not sure," Damian says. "I didn't keep track. A lot."

A mistake, Batman thinks again. He might as well have invited the Head of the Demon himself into his house.

"How many people have you killed, Father?" Damian asks earnestly. It's the earnestness that gets to Batman – and that he's looking up at him with those big brown eyes again, hanging on to his every word.

"None," Batman says.

"Oh."

'Oh' is right, Batman thinks.

"I need to find Talia," Batman says. "I need to know what the hell it is she did to you."

" Did to me?" Damian asks.

Batman just repeats himself. "Yes. What she did to you. She raised you as an assassin!"

Damian jerks his thumb at his chest, as if to point something out. "Because I am an assassin!"

"That's exactly what I'm talking about!" Batman says, taking a step towards Damian, who tenses a little but doesn't back away. Batman rubs his face and sighs. He can't imagine getting anywhere with Damian like this.

"Just tell me where she is," Batman says. "Or where she's going. I already know where she was."

"You do?" Damian asks.

Batman hands Damian the security photos he took earlier at the university. Damian makes a disapproving tt noise as he sees them, staring at the man Batman hadn't recognized earlier.

"Who is that?" Batman asks, since Damian obviously knows him. As he asks it, Batman watches Damian's face carefully, trying to find out if he'll be truthful or not.

"One of Grandfather's lackeys," Damian says. "He's not important."

"Damian," Batman says.

Damian sighs. "He likes to call himself the White Ghost. I genuinely don't know much about him. He and Mother had an argument after I got back."

"Got back from what ?" Batman asks.

"I mean, after Grandfather died," Damian says.

Batman narrows his eyes. There's no way Damian thinks that fooled him. "What was their argument about?" he asks.

Damian shrugs. "I didn't hear much. Something about what Grandfather left behind, so it was probably over who's in charge of the League."

Batman has questions – like why this guy would even think he could be in charge of the League, with Talia and Damian being Ra's Al Ghul's only living heirs. In fact, Damian must know something, because he's sure otherwise the boy would have yelled about how ridiculous it was. Well, at least he would have, an hour or so ago. Damian's still been acting slightly off since he tried to kill Tim. Batman's hoping that's good. Maybe the kid finally realized how badly he messed up – though realistically, it's just like Damian told him. Damian hadn't realized he'd messed up at all, he just knew that Batman didn't want him to kill Tim.

"Is Talia hunting him down?" Batman asks, thinking of how she was slightly behind the White Ghost in the trail.

"If she is, she shouldn't be," Damian says. "She should just beat him in a fair fight, in front of the entire League, so no one accuses her of being afraid to try."

"Look," Damian says. "You want to find my mother. Let me help!"

Batman looks down at him skeptically. "Help?"

"He's in Gibraltar!" Damian says, holding his hands out palm up like he's offering something. A desperate note creeps into his voice. "He's staging his operations out of a platform near Gibraltar. If Mother's after him, that's where she'll be – see, I'm not useless!"

"Hmm." Batman scratches his chin. He looks away from Damian. He doesn't want to see how desperate the kid looks, because then he'll start feeling sorry for him. And he doesn't want to feel sorry for him. Not right now. Not when he doesn't know if Tim will pull through.

"And there's a League of Shadows base there now?"

Damian nods. "A base near the garrison. We cleared the place out and killed all the soldiers there." He watches Batman's face carefully, seeing how he'll react. "Then I – I called in an all clear signal. Because I could mimic the commanding officer's voice."

Batman rubs his face. This is ridiculous, he thinks. A series of events that never should have happened.

"The British military is already on its way there," Batman says, thinking of the transmission he intercepted earlier today. "If they get there before we do, they'll blow the entire place out of the water."

Taking all of his hopes of finding out what Talia did to Damian, why she did it, with them.

"There's no way you can get there before they do," Damian says.

Batman shakes his head. "You'll see," he says. "You're coming with me."

Damian perks up a little, like this is a reward.

"Because I can't trust you alone with anyone, Damian!" Batman says. "This isn't a good thing!"

Batman gets Damian armored up in a prototype Robin suit. He's not thrilled about the idea – he feels like it's still exactly what Damian wanted, and Batman's rewarding him for trying to kill Tim. But it is the only kid-sized armor he has, and he's not sending Damian in without at least some protection.

Batman has the brief thought that Damian might wind up just re-joining the League when he sees them. He might not have any loyalty to Batman at all. They've known each other for all of two days. But he'd rather be with Damian and deal with whatever back-stabbing situations may occur, than leaving it for Tim and Alfred.

"Damian," Batman says. "If you're coming with me, you can't kill anyone."

"That's not fair!" Damian protests. Then, he seems to get a hold of himself and says more calmly: "The League of Shadows will almost certainly be trying to kill us. We'll be fighting at a huge disadvantage if we hold back on lethal blows."

"It's not supposed to be fair or easy. You're supposed to do it because it's right," Batman says. But then, he reaches over and takes off Damian's Robin mask. "There. Now they'll know exactly who you are. They won't try to kill you. You'll be safe."

At least, he hopes he'll be safe.

"You do know that not all League of Shadows members can recognize me by sight, right?" Damian asks. Then, he sighs. "Very well," he says. "I swear I won't kill anyone, Father. For you."

Again, Batman's not thrilled with the way Damian phrases the killing as something that would only bother him. But he keeps up with his plan. He doesn't have time to teach Damian ethics – he doesn't even know how.

Batman gives Damian his sword back from the safe, since Damian had only stolen his belt of knives. As he places the weapon in his son's hands, he has the thought that he's making a huge mistake. But if Damian dies because he can't parry someone's blow, that will also be a huge mistake on his part. It seems like the only decisions he can make in this situation are mistakes, and he can only pick the least damaging option.