It was just before three a.m. by they time Dick made it back to the centre of Metropolis. There was a cold mist rolling in from the river, gently covering everything it touched in a fine film of water. There were still a few people around, stumbling home from clubs or sneaking around for elicit activities but no one paid Dick any notice. He could have simply asked Superman to fly him straight to Wayne Manor, of course, but he had wanted to walk. He needed to take the time to consider how exactly he was going to confront Bruce. There was a lot he wanted to say, but he could already imagine Bruce's response.

Protocol dictates a check in every thirty six hours if I have to go dark, Robin. Thirty six hours have not elapsed.

You should have stayed in Gotham and worked with the commissioner, Robin.

I told you that If I am ever absent you should do as Superman or another leading member of the Justice League instructs, Robin.

Using the zeta tubes and speaking to Luthor was a foolish risk, Robin.

Dick found himself getting worked up just imagining the responses. Confronting Batman right now was probably a bad idea, but there was nothing in the word he wanted to do more. The thought was all consuming. When his phone started to ring, therefore, and it was a private number; to his mind it could only be Batman. He answered it without a second thought.

"Hello?" said Barbara.

Dick felt his heart stop for a second. He froze in the middle of the square he was walking through and looked around wildly, expecting to be being watched by Lex or one of his goons. There was no one near by though and he was nowhere near the Lex Corp building.

"Barbra?" he said breathlessly. Eagerly pressing his phone against his ear as though that some how brought him closer to his best friend. "Barbara it's Dick! Are you okay? Where are you?"

"Dick? I don't understand. Why are they letting me speak to you?"

"They? Who's they? Where are you Barbara?"

"I- I don't know. Somewhere near Gotham I think. There are men here. They are dressed in green with the question marks but I don't think they work for the Riddler. Dick, is my dad there?"

"I'm, I'm sorry Babs. I'm not with him. He's looking for you though. He's doing everything he can to find you. Is there anything you can tell me-"

"Yeah, I can tell you something." said a new voice. It was low and gruff and sent shivers down Dick's spine. "And then you can tell Bruce Wayne."

"Bruce? Wait. No, I haven't seen him! I don't know where-"

"Tell him he has six hours to turn himself in. At nine o'clock; we start giving Gordon his precious daughter back. Piece by piece." with that the line disconnected.

Dick knew there wasn't any point attempting to call back. He plugged his communicator into his phone to see if he could run some sort of latent trace, but the line had been secured and he'd been too distracted in the moment to run the trace live. He looked around the square again, certain someone must be watching for his reaction, certain this was another test by Luthor to prove he was Robin despite his convincing performance, but there was no one nearby and Dick didn't have any sense of being watched.

Dick spent the next minute or so just looking down at his phone. He'd just spoken to his best fiend. The girl he had been letting down for the past twenty four hours. The girl who was apparently going to be chopped up if he didn't find Bruce in the next six.

His first instinct was of course to continue with his plan. He had been on his way to confront Bruce, after all, so he could simply carry on and insist he turn himself into the police. There was something stopping him though. The guilt he had been suppressing all day had finally boiled over. Any confrontation with Bruce now would lack all satisfaction so instead he used his communicator to tap once more into the emergency bat-signal and left another message.

"Bruce. I know you are listening to this. I imagine you are also monitoring my phone and that you heard the call I just received. You need to turn yourself in by nine or I am telling Commissioner Gordon everything. Barbara is more important than your secret."

I should be too. He wanted to add but he didn't want to risk Batman dismissing his entire message as 'emotional'. Instead he hung up, and switched back to his regular phone. He called a new number. One he should have called a long time ago.

Despite the late hour, Commissioner Gordon picked up on the second ring. He sounded exhausted but Dick knew that his determination to find his daughter would power him for the next week if it had to.

"Richard, where are you? I have been trying to contact you all day."

"I know. I'm sorry. I just got overwhelmed. I mean there were superteens in my house and then the break in and Bruce being gone and Barbara and Alfred. I just-"

"Wait, Alfred?"

"Yeah. I haven't heard from him. I think something might have happened."

"Is that why you are calling?"

"Right, yeah, I mean no- I'm calling because I just spoke to Barbara."

There was a pause and all the noises of the other officers speaking and moving around suddenly quietened on the other end of the phone. When Gordon spoke again, his voice sounded further away and Dick knew he had been put on speaker phone.

"Tell me exactly what happened."

"My phone rang. It was a private number so I thought it might be Alfred or maybe it could have been a ransom demand for Bruce. Then Barbara spoke. She was confused why they were letting her speak to me and when I asked where she was; she said she thought she was still close to Gotham. She said the people holding her were wearing the Riddler's uniform but that she didn't think they worked for the Riddler and then she asked for you. That's when someone else took the phone. They said if Bruce didn't turn himself over by nine this morning…" here Dick hesitated, the Commissioner didn't need to hear the threat exactly, "Well, then it would be bad for Barbra."

Again there was a long pause and the voices of the GCPD precinct resumed- louder and with more urgency.

"Dick," said Commissioner Gordon gently, "I need you to be honest with me. Do you know where Bruce is?"

"I'm sorry. I really don't. I've been trying to contact him all day. I really think he is in trouble, sir. I just don't understand why the people who kidnapped Barbara don't seem to be the people who have kidnapped Bruce. None of this is making any sense and I am so tired."

"Hmmm-" considered the Commissioner. "Do you need help getting back to Gotham?"

"No, sir, I am headed to Metropolis Central Station right now. There is a train to Gotham in twenty minutes.

"Okay, don't leave the station when you arrive. I will meet you there."

Xx

There weren't a lot of people on the night train- mostly drunks getting home after a long night and stock traders heading into Gotham early to watch the European markets. Dick settled into a seat in the emptiest corner of the carriage and once more pulled out his phone, this time calling Wally. His best friend had already tried to call him four times that night.

"Dude!" exclaimed Wally, "Where have you been? I was worried!"

"I'm sorry. I was working with Clark. I think I found evidence that Bruce is safe."

"Isn't that good news? I sounds like good news, why do you sound unhappy."

"Why were you calling?" countered Dick who wasn't in the mood to discuss Bruce's failings as a guardian.

"Right! Okay, so we think we found an old deleted email on the drive you pulled from Lex's computer. It's written in code and we don't know who it was for but it indicated that the plan was for a coordinated attack on Gotham's infrastructure. Hospitals, schools, stations etcetera. All to happen at night with minimal casualties. We assume so Lex could respond with a big check on the first news cycle without having to fake too much empathy."

"Did it give times? Did you tell the League? How bad is this attack going to be?"

"Well that's the thing. It was meant to happen about an hour ago and nothing happened. I mean it is possible we got the code wrong or the email wasn't relevant but nothing has happened for a while now. It's been hours since the last sighting of an escapee. Luthor seems to have gone to bed."

"Huh-" said Dick, pausing a moment to process this latest development.

"It's weird right? Everything was going great for them. We had no clue what they were up to. They had all their criminals ready. Lex was gloating to you he was so certain. And then nothing."

"Was it though? Going great for them, I mean?" said Dick, deep in contemplation- the mysterious message from Barbra's kidnappers came to mind and now he calmed down: a new word popped into his head about the way the kidnapper had spoken: desperate. "I mean let's assume the Court of Owls was for whatever reason working with Luthor and that this was all one big unified plan: They didn't catch Batman; the Joker disappeared; they broke out more criminals than they planned; they didn't kidnap Bruce Wayne and instead ended up with his butler. There is no way half of the stuff that has happened could have been planned. I don't think they know what's going on any more than we do at this point. They probably thought Batman would have been waiting for them if they tried to attack Gotham tonight."

"Do you think he was?" asked Wally. "I mean he must have been doing something all this time."

"Yeah, he must have. Seems like I'm the last person he's willing to tell though."

"Are you okay? The team have all gone to bed. I can come back to Metropolis if you want?"

"Thanks Wally, but I'm good. I'm going back to Gotham. Now I know Bruce is safe, I need to focus on Barbara. You get some sleep too. I'll call you tomorrow."

"I think you are doing the right thing, Dick. Just let me know if you need anything."

Dick nodded, though of course Wally couldn't see him, and he hung up the phone. Had Bruce done something clever to stop the attack? He couldn't decide which he would prefer. For Bruce's plan to be working and his isolation to be worth while. Or for Bruce to be impudent, trapped as he was in the shadows and the Batcave, and for that to teach him the value of team work.

Xx

True to his word, Commissioner Gordon was stood on the platform when, a little over forty minutes later, the train pulled into Gotham Central. Dick had originally planned to do some more research during his journey, but the tiredness had finally overcome him and he had spent most of the journey dozing in his seat.

Standing before Commissioner Gordon was a thousand times worse than it had been when Clark had tracked him down. He could see the pain in the man's eyes at the continued absence of his daughter and Dick knew his own actions had only made things worse.

"You did the right thing by calling me." said Gordon after a moment.

"I'm sorry I took so long to do the right thing."

"Come on." said Gordon.

There was a police cruiser waiting outside. The young officer in the driver's seat switched the flashing lights on as they travelled through the city to get the Commissioner back to the GCPD HQ as quickly as possible. Gordon meanwhile, sat in the back with Dick. Neither of them spoke for a few minutes and it felt like Gordon was waiting for something. Perhaps he hoped Dick's late night call meant the boy was finally prepared to admit the sins of his guardian. To Dick's surprise, however, it was Gordon who had news.

"There's been a development." he said.

"Barbara?" asked Dick hopefully, and the man shook his head.

"Edward Nygma."

"They found him?"

"Yes. In Canada. According to the evidence collected he's been there for almost two weeks."

"Two weeks?" repeated Dick and he was finally able to meet Gordon's eyes, "But that means-"

"Yes. The attacks were faked. So were the photos of Nygma and Bruce. He's wanted for other crimes, of course, and the Canadians are going to extradite him once he's answered a few of their questions, but well-"

"I don't understand. I thought people saw the Riddler during the first few attacks."

"The Riddler, yes, but he wears a mask and CCTV can't positively ID him as Nygma. We all thought it was him because well- this is Gotham. Our criminals have distinctive signatures and we don't see copycats often at all. Most people know it is safer to invent a similar act like Puzzleman or Clue Master than it is to directly plagiarize."

"Yes-" agreed Dick.

He felt like his mind was going to explode. Regular CCTV and police equipment might not have recognised Nygma but the Bat-Computer had. Dick had spent all of Monday night looking into the crimes in Gotham before the team arrived. As far as he had calculated; Nygma had had his fun in Gotham over the weekend and then disappeared before things escalated on Monday afternoon with the attack on Gotham Academy. Dick didn't know if Nygma had been part of things or if his crime wave had been a huge coincidence Luthor and his accomplices had taken part in, but he was certain that Nygma couldn't have been in Canada for two weeks.

This had to be Batman. He must have somehow planted Nygma in Canada; given him a reason to keep quiet, and then forged the records. The Riddler was the biggest link between the crime wave and the accusations against Bruce Wayne. If that was a proven deceit, the rest must be too.

"So you believe me then? That Bruce was kidnapped? That someone is framing him?"

The Commissioner considered this question. Dick could tell he was beginning to believe it and that Gordon's like of Bruce Wayne was helping with that decision.

"I'm not willing to rule anything out entirely." he said finally. "But if Bruce does turn himself in then I will hear him out."