Wow. The response to this story so far has been incredible. Your awesome reviews are what inspire me to keep writing, so thank you so much! Just a warning, this story is going to get even darker, and I am changing the rating to M for the dark themes, violence, and of course, Jason's language.

The Collector, AKA Silas Hawthorne, age thirty eight, was supposed to be dead. Silas was the sole inheritor of a vast fortune after his parents had been violently murdered when he was nine. He spent much of his fortune on the rarest of artifacts, and when that was gone, he turned to illegal means of acquiring what became his obsession. It eventually became his undoing, when experienced thieves broke into his manor house and took everything after mutilating his face and leaving him to burn to death in his own home. The body the police had found was burned beyond recognition, and it was assumed that his greed and madness had killed him.

Batman knew better.

There had been rumors on the streets for quite some time, about a new player who called himself the Collector, but until this point, Batman had known nothing about him. The string of missing young prodigies, ages ranging from eleven to sixteen, along with the Morgan girl's testimony, could only be the work of such a man, and the evidence of his identity pointed straight at Silas Hawthorne.

After hearing Elyssa Morgan's terrifying account, Bruce had wanted Dick as far away from the case as possible. With that many missing children, both Bruce and Jason knew what they would find once they caught up to the Collector. As their luck would have it, Dick came down with the flu, and combined with the misery of nursing bruised ribs from his stunt at the Gotham Bridge, it was the perfect excuse to keep him uninformed.

Days went by as they waited for the Collector to show himself, to strike again, since his latest acquirement had escaped her fate. To their frustration, he stayed hidden.

The big break in the case came when Elyssa Morgan suddenly recalled that she had heard the sounds of the ocean during her captivity, and remembered seeing a flashing light in the distance while she had escaped. At last, they had a clue, and it didn't take Batman long to discover a large manor on the outskirts of Gotham near the lighthouse, that had been purchased just six months ago, exactly when the kidnappings had started.

Jason had had a bad feeling leaving Dick so ill and in pain to go on patrol, but Batman had discovered the possible living location of the Collector. And there was no way that Jason wasn't going to help put that psychopath away for good.

The mansion that stood before them seemed ominous and eerie. Jason wasn't sure if it was because of the gothic designs, or the knowledge of what they would most likely find inside that made it so. There were no lights lit, no one in sight. Batman and the Red Hood entered the manor.

They communicated without words, slipping into the shadows stealthily. Jason went upstairs, while Batman took the ground floor. Jason adjusted his grip on his gun as he slipped down a darkened hallway, checking each room briefly as he passed them. An unholy smell, foul and terrible, filled his nose as he got closer to the door at the end of the hall. He fought to keep his dinner down as he wished fervently that his helmet did more, but nothing could block the stench of death.

His face was grim as he approached the door, gun raised. Jason thought he knew what was behind this door as he recalled the words of a broken young girl who had barely escaped a nightmare. Steeling himself, and suddenly glad that his young partner wasn't with them, he opened the door.

Jason's stomach lurched violently, and he had to close his eyes for a moment to get himself under control.

It was the trophy room.

Propped up in glass cases, as if they were nothing more than dolls, were the broken bodies of the missing teenagers.

"Fuck," Jason breathed out shakily as horror swept through him. He'd seen horrible things in his life, but nothing, nothing like this. Next to each case were framed photos and newspaper clippings detailing each child's life, talent, and success. All of these children, so young, so gifted, with so much potential to have incredible, influential lives, were gone; tortured and murdered by one of the sickest psychopaths Jason had ever encountered.

There was a whisper of movement behind him. Jason whirled, gun raised, stomach clenched. Batman stood in the doorway, his narrowed gaze taking in the absolute horror of the room. Jason breathed out heavily, lowering his weapon. "Anything?" he asked, his voice hoarse.

"The Collector isn't here," Batman said after a long moment, his own voice tense.

"Damn," Jason swore, trying to squash down the anger and disappointment. He moved further into the room, unable to keep still as he imagined the most violent ways he knew to kill a man. His brow furrowed as he noticed a doorway covered by a thick, heavy curtain.

Dread curled inside of him as he reached for the curtain, not knowing what he was about to find, but suddenly terrified.

Jason jerked the curtain aside.

He blinked. Once. Twice. His brain was unable to make sense of what he was seeing, and it felt as if he was falling, though he knew he was still standing in the Collector's trophy room.

A large, vibrant poster, somewhat faded, was framed in the center of the wall. Jason knew it well. The same poster hung in Dick's room in a similar frame, which was why he couldn't even begin to understand what it was doing here of all places. He vaguely registered that his body had begun to shake as he took in the array of photos, clippings, and brochures on the wall before him. On the shrine before him.

Dick's face smiled back at him. Pictures of his brother plastered the wall, some recent, some going all the way back to when he was a little boy in the circus. Newspapers advertising the Flying Graysons and their incredible feats sat below the brochure for Haly's Circus, which was right next to an article about Mary and John Grayson's deaths.

Ice shot through him, and it was suddenly hard to breathe. "Fuck," the curse came out first in a whisper, then in a horrified shout. "Fuck!"

He was panicking, but that word didn't even begin to cover the all-encompassing terror that he was feeling.

The next victim to be added to the collection was Dick.

"Jason!" strong hands seized him and turned him away from the nightmarish shrine. Jason got the feeling that Batman had been shouting his name for quite some time.

A loud beep began to suddenly emit from both of their belts, and they looked down in unison to see a small red light flashing rapidly.

"The manor," Jason breathed, his eyes widening.

But Batman had already turned away from him and was running full force out of the room. Jason tore after him.

"Alfred!" Batman's hand was against his cowl, radioing first the cave, then, receiving no answer, ringing the manor. "Alfred, come in!"

There was no response.

They were too late. The front door of the manor was wide open, the furniture in disarray. Alfred lay in a crumpled heap next to the fireplace, a poker still in his hand.

"Alfred!" Bruce rushed to the old man's side, carefully feeling for a pulse and checking for injuries. His pulse was steady, and he seemed unharmed. Bruce quickly pulled a vial of smelling salts from his belt and held it in front of the butler's face.

Alfred's brow furrowed, his face twitched, and he began to cough as his eyes fluttered open. His face twisted in confusion, then Alfred's eyes were widening in alarm, and his hand gripped Bruce's gauntlet. "Sir! Master Dick-"

"He's gone," Jason said grimly as he came down the stairs from checking Dick's room. His hands curled tightly into fists.

Alfred paled further as Bruce helped him sit up on his own. "My God, that monster took him."

"What happened?" Bruce demanded, unable to disguise the fear in his voice.

"I don't know how they got past the defenses, sir. The sensors didn't even pick them up!" Alfred put a hand to his head miserably. "The next thing I knew, they were barreling down the door. I managed to hit one of them, but then both of them came at me with chloroform. I'm so sorry, sir!"

"It isn't your fault, Alfred," Bruce said grimly.

"What are we waiting for?" Jason demanded. "That mad man has Dick! We need to go after them, now! Before-"

He trailed off, his eyes squeezed shut as he tried and failed not to imagine the fate that awaited his kid brother.

"He won't take him back to his mansion," Bruce mused darkly. "The Collector must be taking his victims somewhere they can...perform for him."

"And with Dick being an acrobat..." Jason's mind thought rapidly through the possibilities. "The old circus grounds?"

Bruce shook his head. "Too obvious. He'd probably go back to wherever the other victims were forced to perform. He'd need some sort of stage, " his brow furrowed in thought before his gaze snapped up sharply. "The Cascade Theater."

"The what?"

Bruce was already on his feet. "It was abandoned twenty years ago after one of the falcone shootings. It's surrounded by foreclosed and broken down buildings. No one would ever hear or see anything."

"What the hell are we waiting for?" Jason demanded.

"Call the police, Alfred, and tell them there's been a break in. Tell them I'm at a conference in Metropolis and took Jason as my guard," Bruce ordered, tension pouring off of him.

"Yes, sir," Alfred nodded gravely.

Jason rushed after Bruce into the cave, praying that they weren't too late.