Who am I You'd even say my name
Within the same the same breath as grace
You cross every bridge I have burned
You reach for me when it's undeserved

~MercyMe

Chapter Five

Tim needed to be careful. Since their less than graceful exit, he'd been on the lookout for Talia's men since they began running. And he was exhausted. He'd been up for, oh god, he'd lost track of how many hours he'd been up by now. He had either lost or stopped counting when he had reached thirty hours. How long ago had that been?

He really needed to stop and get some sleep. Not that would be any easier now that the sun was up in the sky. A car would look suspicious in the middle of the desert during the day.

Tim came to the conclusion that he would find a motel when they got in the city somewhere and would sleep for a few hours before heading back home. He checked the GPS on his phone to find where the nearest town was. He only had a few more miles to go before they could stop.

Somehow they managed to make it to the town and the motel. There was only one instance where Tim began nodding off and drifted into the other lane. He woke in time by the honking of the oncoming traffic to swerve out danger. Damian had immediately woken up and offered his services to drive. Tim shot him down. Being Robin and riding around on the Redbird was one thing, but in another foreign country and underage wasn't going to end well.

Tim finally pulled into a motel. He got out of the car and turned to face Damian. The boy was already starting to unbuckle his seatbelt.

"Stay in the car. I'll handle this."

"Tt. You can barely stay awake," Damian protested.

"And you were just raised from the dead with hordes of assassins scouring the earth to find you. It may be best if you stay in the car and not attract attention to yourself. Stay in the car." And like that Tim left Damian. He half expected Damian to begin to follow him anyway. It wouldn't be out of character for him to do something like that.

He was a little surprised when Damian didn't get out of the car and follow him.

A short while later with a room key in hand, Tim went to gather Damian and the rest of their measly possessions. Damian was half in and out of consciousness. Tim felt a twinge of regret for disturbing him; he looked like a normal eleven year old when he was asleep. Not the demon child from hell.

"Hey Damian. I got a room. Do you want sleep on an actual bed instead of that car seat for a little bit?" He reached into the back seat and grabbed the satchel and threw it over his shoulder.

"It would not matter. It is still not my bed Drake." He climbed out of the car and followed Tim anyway.

Together they entered the room. The curtains were shut tightly and they made no move to open them. They didn't want the sun to shine in and people who may be looking for them to peek through. That and they were just too lazy to do anything accept drop their stuff on the ground and fall on the bed asleep. And that's precisely what Tim did.

His head didn't even hit the pillow.

It would be a lie to say he hadn't noticed the increased activity around his compound. But in true al Ghul fashion he maintained his focus on his task. His plans could not afford a distraction. But yet his interest was piqued. What could be of such interest that nearly everyone in this damn compound had to be running around?

He waved over one of his guards. The guard obeyed without any qualms.

"What is the commotion about outside?" Ra's asked looking up from his papers.

"I'm not quite entirely sure, sir. There have not been anyone to come in and inform me of any proceedings that would require this many men to be in motion. If you require answers, I will go a get some," he offered.

Ra's nodded. All thoughts to his planning were gone now. Whatever was going on, it was not under his orders. It must have been Talia's orders that they were following. He never regretted giving her own force of assassins, but there were times where he wondered just what she managed to do with them.

The man came back inside and stood at attention for a moment before reporting what he had found out.

"I was unable to retrieve any information that would be of use to why they are in motion. My apologies sir."

Ra's thought for a moment. He turned away from the table holding his plans and looked at the man.

"What did you hear?" Ra's questioned.

This was understood clearly by any of the assassins holding a higher standing within Ra's organization. They were trained to observe all things to best obtain their targets. The smallest thing could be the thing they used to bring down their target.

"Something's happened that has greatly upset your daughter. She has all of her units in motion. Extra patrols were established then suddenly recalled. All of this was done without informing you and it's clear that your daughter doesn't want you to know just what it is."

This puzzled Ra's. Talia had cut off her emotions mostly after Heretic murdered her son. If he didn't know any better, he would have to guess that the recent uptake in activities would have something to do with that. This needed to be further pondered. Perhaps he would confront her later about it.

Ra's turned back to his work and settled in for a long night of problem-solving ahead of him.

Damian was watching as Drake slept. He attempted to wake him once, but the idiot had simply rolled over and continued to snore. That and the buffoon drooled. Drake was nearly an adult and drooled like a baby.

He'd woken up a few hours previous. There was nothing to do in the motel room. The television only possessed basic cable, the furniture was already on its way out the door, even the toilet paper was too thin to clog the pipes. So in the end he started rooting around in Drake's things.

The imbicile was ill-prepared. Within the sack he carried there were a couple shirts, a spare pair of pants, a bag of dirt, and a cell phone. Most he understood why Drake would bring, but what the hell was with the bag of dirt? He resolved to ask once Drake woke.

Damian flopped on a chair and turned on the TV again to try and pass the boredom. Luckily, the measly cable package had a twenty-four hour news station. It was better to learn about what had been going on in the world while he was dead, then the soap operas that ran during the day.

Despite finding the anchor's voice irritating, the information provided was acceptable. Based upon the date given by the anchor and the date of his death, he had been dead for a few weeks. This gave another question. Why had the moron waited this long? If he had planned on doing this, wouldn't the best results be when he was newly dead? Yet another question to add to the pile to interrogate Drake when he woke up.

He was zoning out most of the newscast when a familiar name caught his attention. Damian tuned in for a moment before attempting to wake Drake.

"Drake, wake up." Drake gave a snort. "Drake, I demand that you wake up and pay attention to this."

There was no response.

"Alright then, I'm going to enjoy this more than you." Damian grabbed the arm under Drake's injured shoulder and gave it a twist.

"OW! Goddammit! What the hell, Damian!?" Drake awoke yelling.

"You must turn your attention to the television."

Drake muttered to himself and rubbed his shoulder, but looked to the television anyways. He read the words scrolling along the bottom of the screen before looking up to watch the picture provided by the helicopter in the area. His eyes widened in recognition and flopped back down on the bed.

"Well, damn," he muttered.

"I'm going to make an accurate guess and assume that that jet was our way of getting back to Gotham." Damian smirked. "Didn't your self-centered mind think of any possible backup plans?"

Drake rolled of the bed and began to pace across the worn carpeting. His hands were in constant motion, behind his back, on his face, crossed in front of each other. Damian was beginning to get dizzy from the pendulum motion of it all. Worse Drake kept muttering to himself.

"I should have realized that Talia would have had eyes on the plane since we landed. Gah, stupid. Especially since our little escapade in her pit wasn't all as secretive as I would have liked. She probably has already mobilized her forces across the world looking for us. How to get back to Gotham now without attracting any attention from assassins all looking to kill you? Yeah, that'll be easy."

And he continued to mutter to himself. It was irritating Damian to no end.

"Would you shut up already? Do you have a plan to get us back to Gotham or not?" Damian eventually yelled.

Drake paused in his useless muttering and looked at Damian.

"Did you go through my stuff when I was sleeping?" He asked.

Seeing as Damian was still holding onto the bag of dirt, he made no reservations of denying it.

"Yes. It was quite boring when you were busy drooling on yourself like a brat. Why would you carry a bag of dirt with you? It holds nothing of importance to this mission of yours," Damian said tossing it back to him.

Drake caught the bag with ease and cradled it. Cradled it. Sentimental fool. He looked at the bag and smiled. Then he tossed it back at Damian.

"It's yours."

"Tt. What would I have the need of a bag of dirt for?" Damian held out the dirt away from him.

"That was my handful of dirt that I was supposed to throw on your grave." He gave a sad smile and sat down on the chair Damian had been sitting in earlier and rubbed his shoulder. "Thanks for aggravating my shoulder."

Damian looked at the bag in new light. Drake had kept the bag of dirt that he was supposed to throw on his grave?

"Why?" Damian asked. His tone was much softer than what he normally used with Drake.

"I couldn't let it go. I don't know, maybe if I let it go, that would have meant that I would have had to let you go as well."

Had to let you go as well. Those words echoed within Damian's skull for a while. What did that mean coming from Drake? He knew perfectly well that it was something that Grayson would say, followed by and I love you and a hug. Damian held back his shudder. He never understood the ways Grayson expressed his love towards other humans.

"If that's all you wanted to know, then I think that we should get going on our way. We can't afford to stay in one place too long. Not with assassins on our tails. If you need to use the bathroom, I would do it now. Oh! And before I forget, I realize that these will be too large for you, but, would you like to get out of that suit and into some jeans and a t-shirt? I have a spare."

Drake pulled out a t-shirt and jeans shoved them in Damian's arms, before turning him around and giving a light push to the bathroom. Damian was in such a state of shock that he didn't do anything. Drake was being nice to him.

Drake was being nice to him.

Finishing what he needed to do in the bathroom, he came out with a less than enthusiastic scowl on his face. The jeans were large, but a belt kept them securely on his hips, and the bottoms dragged a little on the ground, but they were Drake's pants and he could care less.

"Really? This is the shirt you gave me?" Damian said, foot tapping. The sleeves themselves almost came down to his elbows.

Drake looked up from gathering what little stuff he had and gave a small laugh.

"I honestly thought that it was just a black tee. Didn't mean for it to end up like that."

The bright blue Nightwing symbol was across Damian's chest.

"Do you have anything less humiliating?" Damian asked folding his arms across the symbol.

"Not unless you want to be wearing dried blood." Drake threw the satchel over his shoulder. The smirk was still on his face.

Damian pondered for a moment. Wearing someone else's dried blood would be less embarrassing, but that would draw unnecessary attention to themselves, and trying to slip out of a country back to another was something that dried blood would bring attention to. Whereas a fan boy's too large t-shirt wouldn't make as much noise in a crowd.

"This will have to suffice for now. But if one word of this leaks out to Grayson, I will personally end your life, no matter what the consequences," Damian growled.

"If it makes you feel any better, I think I got that as a present from Dick one year." Drake laughed as he exited the room and loaded the car with his single bag.

Damian grumbled, but followed Drake, shutting the door behind him as he went.

With one final kick, the bag detached from the hook and was sent sliding across the floor. She breathed heavily, hair escaping from the clasp in the back. She wiped the sweat from her forehead with the back of her hand and walked to where her water was. She sat on the bench and stared at the television. She normally didn't have it on at all. It was a distraction to her normal routine, and she could afford no distractions.

But today she needed it to ease her running mind.

"-it is unclear whether anyone was in the plane at the time the bomb went off, or who the intended target was," the reporter said. "It is known that the jet was privately owned by Wayne Enterprises in Gotham, but whether or not the Wayne family was the intended target still remains unclear."

Talia flipped off the TV.

That wasn't exactly what she wanted to happen. Sabotage would have been acceptable. Tampering with the mechanics of the plane so when they were halfway across the ocean, they would crash and none would be the wiser as to the sabotage. And now since the boys mode of transportation was destroyed and on the international news, there was a high likelihood that her father would get involved.

And that was something that she could do without.

A/N: Can I just say I love how people are trying to figure out how Tim dies. I'm glad that you all are enjoying this story. But still give me reviews. It makes me smile, and heaven knows I need a little of that with college assignments.