Synopsis: Someone has stolen all the money from the Wayne Foundation Youth Charity Fund. Batman and Red Hood go after the man who did it. While doing research on the thief, Tim is hit by a mysterious beam from an odd weapon sitting on a shelf and is de-aged. Oh boy, what are they going to do with a four-year-old Tim?

Part 16: Figuring Out a Way

Damian came out of hiding from in his room. He had been chatting with Iris and with Collin from school. He was passing the linen closet when he heard crying coming from within. He stopped and stared at the door. He opened it up to see a small pair of feet poking out a bit from under a shelf. 'Oh, it's him.' Damian thought. "Drake, why the hell are you in the linen closet?"

"Leave me alone, I'm useless," Tim said, while he was crying. "No one one wants me around like this anyway. Caleb doesn't know me. I couldn't save Christina Finster."

"Useless?" Damian rolled his eyes. "Oh yeah, you're really useless, sitting there sobbing in a closet when you could be figuring out a way to change yourself back. You're the smart one out of us. Your son doesn't recognize you then change that. You're the only one that can get yourself out of this situation seeing how you're the one that put yourself in it."

"I DIDN'T!" Tim yelled back. It was apparent he was extremely emotional right now, much like a four-year-old would be. "I didn't do this on purpose. I got hit with some beam from some crazy old weapon I never saw before. Dick knows about, but he was never allowed to touch it."

"Don't yell at me!" Damina growled.

Tim shrunk a little from Damian's reaction. "Sorry."

"Damn, why didn't Grayson check the damn gun out? He's old enough to do it now. I mean that's the common-sense thing to do if someone ended up in this situation."

Tim realized his emotions were on edge. Even as a kid he was never this emotional, but Damian was right. He needed to check that gun out. "I know where the gun is, but I can't reach it."

"Where's Grayson?" Damian asked, "He should be the one looking at it not you. You shouldn't touch it or be any where near it just in case something happens and clumsy Grayson hits a button. Poof, you're gone, no more Tim."

There was something the way Damian said it that Tim didn't like. Even though he was advising that Tim not touch the the ray gun, he was almost gleeful at the fact of Tim disappearing. He was also implying that Dick would be clumsy with handling that ray gun, causing Tim to disappear. He could almost sense Damian's jealousy. 'You'd liked that, wouldn't you,' Tim thought, but stated instead. "You say I'm the smart one in this family. Then I have to take a look at that gun." Tim crawled out from under the shelf and stood up from the linen closet and went to the elevator since he couldn't reach the clock.

'That stupid idiot is going to get himself injured, then it's going to be my fault, and Grasyon will blame me.' Damian rolled his eyes. "-tt-" Then followed Tim and took the elevator with him since Tim could barely reach the button to get to the cave. Damian watched as Drake raced to the storage room. He watched Tim from the doorway as Tim went into the storage area and went over to where he had been standing when he got hit by the beam. Damian couldn't see Tim's foot brush against something and heard a slight metallic sound skitter along the cave floor.

Tim looked down and found a circular piece of metal. 'My weddingring. It had slipped off my finger when I had been de-aged.' Tim picked it up and placed it in his small pocket. Then he turned around and on a shelf was the strange gun. 'Dick must have stuck it back on the shelf. I have to examine it. I have to know how it works. I'm too short to be able to reach it.' Tim thought of another way he could find out.

Damian moved closer to observe Tim turning back to the file cabinets and starting to search through them. It wasn't long until he saw that Tim found what he was looking for, a folder about the de-Aging Ray. Tim pulled out the folder and, sat on the floor and began to read. A picture of the ray slipped onto the floor next to Tim. Damian reached down and picked it up.

"What did you find out?" Damian asked.

Tim put the folder back after reading it. "Well, it wasn't a total waste of time. I found out who created the ray, but not its schematics."

While Damian and Tim were in the cave Samantha went to find Dick to tell him that Tim had ran off. 'He's the only one who seems to be able to calm him down,' she thought. She used to be able to with their mental link, but that had been broken when Tim was de-aged. She found Dick in the rose garden sitting on the grass with his legs pulled up to his chest. 'Apparently, the rose garden is becoming a popular place to pout.'

'Samantha's mad at me,' Dick thought. 'I knew I should've figured out a way to reverse Tim's growth. I just wanted to spend time with him at that age, just for a little while.'

"Yes, you should've," Samantha said, interrupting Dick's private thoughts. "If you didn't want me to know, you should have kept your mind closed."

Dick hadn't realized he had broadcasted his thoughts to her. "I can't help it. They're on the surface."

"You were being very selfish and that's not fair. You saw how his own child didn't even know that it was him, yet you wanted to keep him as a four-year-old."

"I never got to enjoy him as a four-year-old," Dick shot back.

"Yeah, being selfish," Samantha pointed out. "I'm worried for my babies. Do you know Caleb has been asking for his father, from his perspective his grown-up father? Tall Daddy, not short one that looks like him."

"He's probably mad at me, too," Dick admitted.

"No, he just wants his father back. Caine knows that's Tim, but Caleb doesn't."

"I'm sorry, Samantha," Dick said. "I feel like Tim got injured because of me, too. If I had just put my own needs aside and helped."

"The past is the past. Just fix whatever is going on with Tim. If you hadn't noticed, Damian is sort of pissed off, too. He wants his big brother's love, but you've been too busy with Tim."

Dick sighed, "Yeah, he probably is. I'll see what I can do." Dick stood up and got ready to go back into the Manor and into the cave. He needed to examin that ray. He was no longer a kid, so that meant he could examine it all he needed. 'Let's hope there' a reverse button on that thing.'

Tim noticed there was a puzzled look on Damian's face. "The weapon was created by Hugo Strange. If he wasn't creating monsters, he was trying to find other ways to take over Gotham. That raygun was one of them. Unfortunately, I can't use it to turn back to normal."

Damian pulled a chair over to the shelf and stood up on it. He didn't touch the gun but stared at it. There was something strange about it. There was a strange looking jewel in the center of it. "Does it say how it was made?"

"Let me check, again," Tim looked through the papers one more time and found some notes that were stuck together. He peeled them apart and found a little more information. "The ray focuses through that jewel. It's a cat's eye opal. The thing is there's no reverse on that weapon. It's designed to do one thing, turn adults into children."

"So, if this jewel gives the gun its power, it's sort of like magic, right?"

"Actually, it's more like a laser. A beam is focused through a lense to make it more powerful. I don't know what makes this kind of beam. There are handwritten notes, but no actual drawings showing the compenants."

"Whatever," Damian replied. "That jewel has to have some sort of magical property." Damian reached up to grab the gun. He held it steady and popped the jewel out.

Dick entered the cave at that moment to see Damian touching the gun. "Hey! Get away from that! You could hit Tim with that beam, and he'll de-age more."

"Yeah, care about only Tim why don't you." Damian put the jewel in his pocket and stomped back up to the manor.

"Hey, that's not fair," Tim complained. "Damian actually got me thinking about that gun. Don't chew him out."

Dick cringed. Now he owed Damian a bigger apology. He should have trusted him. "Did you find anything out?"

"Yeah, Hugo Strange made it to de-age adults." Tim continued to think about what powered gun 'It can't be the jewel. That's the lense.'

"Strange did this?" Dick picked the gun up. "I wonder if we could take it apart, maybe see how it works? Maybe we can reverse the beam."

"Unfortunately, we can't use it to change me back. The way these notes are written, I don't think Hugo Strange intened there to be a revese button. Bruce was wise on you not touching that thing. It's actually safer without the focusing jewel so you can handle it all you want. I'm surprised Bruce left it intact. It must have fallen off the shelf when I slammed the file cabinet closed and hit the button."

Dick started to take the gun apart. There was really nothing special about it. "Are you sure? I don't see a jewel in here. What kind of jewel was it?"

"A cat's eye opal," Tim explained. "It sat right in there." Tim pointed to the housing where the jewel sat. "Damian took it."

"Cat's eye opal? Those are supposed to cursed. I remember Catwoman stealing those. She couldn't fence them anywhere. I wonder how Dad got this gun and if he had ever been hit with the beam. Can you image Batman as a little kid? And if he did, how was he able to change back? I bet he was the only one who knows how to reverse it."

Tim felt a weariness come over him despite the fact that Sammie healed his ribs and lungs. Tim looked at his body and realized he still did not have a shirt on since the kidnappers had taken his shirt off him. His body still showed some bruises. Tim realized he was going to be sore in the morning. "Shouldn't you go after the kidnappers?" Tim questioned and yawned. "They . . . " Tim yawned a second time. "They may have left Gotham by now." Tim's eyes were closing by themselves. He curled up on the cave floor, despite it being cold.

Dick smiled at the fact Tim fell asleep on the ground. He picked Tim up and placed him on a gurney in the medical bay, covering him with a blanket. He needed to check the tracking device anyway. Going over to the computer, Dick pulled up the tracking system and checked the status of the suitcase. They were currently heading towards Metropolis. He looked over at Tim and wondered.

'Should I let Uncle Clark get them?' Dick dialed Clark Kent's number. "Uncle Clark, I've got a favor to as you."

Continues with Part 17: Big Brother Jason