a/n: Right. Not too sure about this chapter. It kind of wrote itself, this one, and yes, stalls when it comes to plot a bit. But hopefully I'll be able to tease out the parallels I'm trying to draw in Bruce's experiences over the next few chapters. Any comments/crits very much appreciated (and grammar misses), and thanks to all for reading!

Chapter 18

2006:

"No, no I don't believe that, Turner," Dick laughed as he leaned further back into the couch he was currently slumped upon.

"I'm telling you, man, Redhorn, spotted boxers," his friend laughed beside him, "and they never caught the joker who loosened the bolts on the toilet door."

"I'll bet not," came a voice from behind them as Kaitlin swung herself over the side of one of the armchairs, a glass of punch in her hand. George had suggested 'juicing it up' on the way back from the store, but knowing that they could be on call any moment, the rest of the team had rather sensibly deferred on this, one of the rarer nights when most of their batch were off duty.

"So, bud, you need to now regale us with stories of richness and grandeur." George Turner said as he sipped on a can of beer that he had procured for himself, nudging Dick slyly in the ribs. The rest of the gang murmured amused assents, causing Dick to lift up his hands in mock surrender.

"I've not idea what you're talking about. Aww, c'mon, guys."

"Nah, pal. Not since we've found out that you were the ward of Mister Bruce Wayne," the last name was rolled off his tongue and thrown in the air where it seemed to float with strip lights outlining it. Pink strip lights. The intended audience oohed on cue in appreciation. Dick smiled and shook his head, letting his head fall to the back of the couch.

"You guys know already, it was a big hous-"

"It had two wings. You make it sound like it was just your larger than average bungalow," Kaitlin burst in. Jake, seated on the floor beside the coffee table, looked up at and cocked and imaginary gun in his hand which he pointed at Dick.

"Now look 'ere, son," he said, squinting at Dick and deepening his voice in joking menace, "We just want to know what this, ehm, this Mister Wayne was like, see. The butler and huge amount of pocket money you had we've got down pat." Everyone chuckled, including Dick.

Dick took in a deep breath. "Bruce?"

"First names, we are!" Dick cast a half annoyed glance at the voice, waving it away with a hand and a grin.

"Not much to say." Awws of disappointment resounded in a chorus, and Dick folded his arms till they were silent again. Though really, what was there to say about Bruce? That he was a cold faced small hearted little man who didn't really offer much in the familial department? Or that behind that you could tell that he did actually care some, and that probably was the most frustrating part about having to live and, well, generally share the same breathing space as him, breathing space possibly being a two mile radius? Because the man just would not show it.

"He was pretty busy most of the time," he began. Well that much was true. "Mostly business."

"And a busy nightlife, I'll bet, eh,?" Turner said, waggling his eyebrows. Dick laughed heartily at this.

"You guys have no idea..." he grabbed a handful of chips from the bowl in front of him and let the intermittent speculation begin. Busy nightlife, indeed. Yeah, chasing a bunch of criminals, not so much being a ladies' man contrary to the media. Dick grinned at his colleagues, though still feeling the strange urge to defend Bruce somewhat. Make up for all the times he'd made fun of him.

"It's not what you think, guys, he actually was a pretty good role model," when it came to justice, hardball, and intimidation (very helpful in police training). A couple of modules in angst on the side if you needed it, too.

"For the ladies?"

"Anything but!" See now, that much was pretty true. When you had a father figure, big brother figure, ack, someone you-really-looked-up-to figure who kept stopping himself from expressing any show of concern, or approach the dreaded L-o-v-e word, it didn't do very much for your emotional development. Alfred was a godsend in this department, for the both of them. The conversation began diverting to the recent developments in Turner's mishandled love life (fitting really), and Dick left the group and walked towards the kitchen as the phone began ringing. Taking a casual sip from his glass, he picked it up and placed the receiving end to his ear.

"Grayson here."

"Dick," the baritone was familiar, and strained. The voice came again, "Dick. I need your help."

Bruce never asked for help. Bruce asked, no, Bruce ordered you to check out Zone 5 in the north east precinct while he did the south side, or at best, he requested some information about the underworld dealings between Gotham and Bludhaven. Bruce did not ask for help. Then the word 'Tim' cropped up, along with 'missing', and Dick Grayson felt his throat go dry and ears go deaf in an implosion of sound.

"I'll be there as soon as I can," he managed. Now to tell the rest that the party was over.

The cave was about as dank as it had ever been when Dick descended its steps, but it was the uneasy silence that caused the hairs on his arms to raise. It seemed that even the bats knew that the main other occupant was in a dangerous, tenuous mood. There was barely an echo as his feet hit the metallic surface of one of the platforms, the absence of the clink somehow eerier than if it had been there. The air was heavy. Bruce stood unwavering in front of the screen, fingers moving endlessly across the keyboard. His shoulders were stooped, hunched over in an almost gargoyle like fashion, mimicking the many sentinels that grew from Gotham's skyscrapers.

"Bruce."

Batman turned his head a mere fraction, a nod of acknowledgement that would have otherwise gone unnoticed in other company.

"How long?"

"Thirty seven hours, now." Long after a missing persons report had been filed, no doubt. Dick felt a tightening coil in his gut, almost feeling insulted that he had not been told before. He quashed it. He'd been on an extended tour of duty the past few hours before as it was, and Bruce must've known that. Trust this time for Bruce to step aside when it came to his life. Dick winced at the irony, and it didn't stop the uneasiness that threatened to kick him in the stomach with explosive panic now. People had gone missing before. Even him. Regular part of the hazards of the job, as it were, but Bruce's reaction now was getting to him. Or had it always been this way? Had he just never noticed?

"Thirty seven hours and nothing," Bruce ground out, pressing both palms into the edge of the console, leaning on it as if it were the only thing holding him upright. Dick suspected that wasn't too far from the truth. "Barbara has been sent home. We have spent this whole time trying to even gain one lead. Nothing." Bruce clenched a fist and turned around, pounding it into the armrest of the chair behind him, then surged away all cape and fury and loathing to stare at the empty uniform case against the wall.

"Bruce." Unsure, Dick reached out a hand to his shoulder. It had been hard, years ago, when he saw his mentor turn into a soulless machine that disregarded the very fabric of family that Dick had tried desperately to piece and hold together since his parents' death, a cloth he had thought that at the very least, Bruce would be cut out of. Even a little bit, even if the cloth was just patches on the torn jacket sleeves and trousers of the emotionally closeted older man. It had been hard, thinking perhaps that his take on things had been clouded, tinted in a hue of juvenile angst that came with growing independence, that his initial lashing out had been unfair. Coming to terms with the fact that yes, things changed, he changed, and that was that. He changed. Well, so had Bruce, and so would Bruce, and that was that. Such was life, as they said, and his methods, often seeming so contradictory, were at their core out of concern for his fellow man. The years had helped Dick come to terms with all that. Now what was hard was looking at the man that even in his coldness could wield a stolidity and control so masterful it commanded obedience and deference show signs of crumbling. The man's huge frame was still, but Dick could feel the muscles drawn taut over the frame, tense.

"No note, no demands, no word. Streets are silent. The only thing that cropped up was..." and here Bruce's voice made a miniscule hitch. Dick had to concentrate on his own breathing before he collapsed under the weight of his mentor's emotional burden spilling over to add to his own.

"...cartel."

Trafficking. Of course. They'd got wind of a South American ring making inroads in the seedier areas of the east coast. Children, boys or girls, it didn't matter. For drug peddling, couriering, cage fights, and other illegal activities that made Grayson's blood run cold and boil at the same time just thinking about it. And the grooming process involved, the way they broke you.

"Tim did say that he'd picked up something about it a week ago. But I put him under strict orders not to investigate on his own on the ground." Bruce looked up now at the cave ceiling, its abyss corresponding to his thoughts. He shook his head absently. "He wouldn't have."

"We'll find him. We'll bust every ring and cartel in action if we have to." Dick said, trying to inject some sort of authority into his words and failing miserably. Bruce didn't seem to notice, even seemed to gain strength from them as he straightened.

"I understand if your commitment to your city prevents you from assisting..." Bruce began. Funny how his acknowledgement and benediction of Dick's chosen residence had to come at a time like this.

"Hey," Dick cut in, "I'm here now, aren't I? He's your ward, isn't he? Kinda makes him my brother. Maybe Bludhaven's my city now. It doesn't stop this from being family." He almost wanted to bite his words back as he sensed Bruce slumping even further mentally. Of course the callous, rigid brute cared. Batman and Bruce Wayne were both eight years old every night, and every night they set out to stop another life being mindlessly gunned down, falling like so many pearls glinting in the streetlight. That was bad enough. It was worse when it was someone close, even if Batman would never admit it.

"Can you go undercover?"

"I'll get all that back log of leave cleared out."

"I cannot let Barbara go out alone." The man was scared. He didn't want more losses, and yet, he couldn't stop Barbara from doing something, or had no strength to, even for her own safety. Barbara had less experience, not just in their field but of life in general. He'd thought once that Bruce was selfishly exposing her to danger when he included her in his circle. Now he would hazard a guess that Bruce partly believed that circle a circle of protection for the younger crime fighter. And now he was scared, not that anyone except those who knew him well would be able to tell. But Dick was one of those people, and Dick knew he was afraid. This scared Dick.

"Don't worry, Bruce. We'll find him." He didn't know then that they would still be at a loss three weeks later, when Bruce's dogged pursuit, wearied and with increasing frustration was more with the hope to reclaim a body than any living soul. Undercover, he would report his findings long after even Alfred had retired, let alone Barbara in the cave. He would move through each cartel, infiltrating and busting each trafficking movement between Gotham and Bludhaven, seeing the empty eyes of children sequestered in containers and backrooms, cursing the people who would exploit them in such a fashion, cursing himself for not being able to spot the eyes of Timothy Drake among them, and hoping against horrible hope that he was actually among each crowd he encountered while knowing that those eyes, hopeless and helpless would be the stuff of his nightmares in the years to come. He received that fateful call from Bruce just before he and Barbara sped away to the Arkham ruin as he was engaged in rescuing about fifty children from a ship about to depart for Honduras. Even then, he didn't know that what had happened to Tim was so much worse.

2041:

Barbara Gordon sat at her desk with a pinched expression on her face as she reached for a flask of the strongest coffee she always had prepared for nights like this. She took off her desk phone headset and began pacing the office absently. The girl, shivering and in tears had been found beside a motorcycle towards the fringes of the central sector, a brown synthetic leather jacket wrapped around her, and what she had recognised as an old school camera on seeing it. So far there had been no ransom note, though the words 'HA HA' had been scrawled, no, burned into the old concrete where Dana Tan, the girl, had said her boyfriend had run off to. That boyfriend happened to be Terrance McGinnis, better known in some circles as a juvenile troublemaker turned personal aide to Bruce Wayne, and in even smaller circles as Gotham's current Dark Knight.

To say that Barbara was worried was an understatement. To say that she was also furious would be hitting the nail smack on the head. She had told Bruce. Warned him. Warned the boy as well when she first found out. Then they had inevitably gone complacent. That was it. She'd lowered her guard again, as if the bite of bullets in her shoulder had not been enough, as if watching Timothy Drake's lost eyes through his time of therapy for months were nothing but a dream. Barbara had long stopped entertaining the notion of heroes and the glory that came with it. There was too much at stake when you began trying to live the life of myth. Wasn't that a paradox anyway? Human lives were grounded in so much reality. Her father was a hero. Her father was a cop, and a good one too, and god help her so she would be. Playing dress up and running around in a cape? Placing yourself above the law, overriding the police protocols and standards? Stuff and nonsense. Dangerous nonsense.

A blip at her desk took her away from her musings. A simple message hovered on the screen, suspended in all its superiority.

"Need the bike. And the camera."

Bruce, you thoroughly infuriating man.