Praesidium (Protect)
Tim had been searching for any lead he could find in his notes and files. All he knew so far was that there was a sex trafficking lord picking up kids all throughout Gotham.
Was he a bit out of his league?
Maybe.
Was he going to stop looking?
Most definitely no.
There was no evidence of a particular age range for the kids. So far, from missing person reports, the kids abducted were aged two to fifteen years old. Sick bastards. Why would anyone even think about having any type of sexual relations with a fucking two year old?!
Yep. This world was definitely fucked up. But Tim already knew that. As did Jason.
Tim had talked to Jason a few times throughout this case. He doesn't know much about it from his time as Red Hood and his contacts haven't told him anything except that they were likely international sex traffickers.
Jason hadn't provided any new information, but he had said he'd keep an ear out for any intel. Jason had mentioned his current case involving Bane after exchanging information about Tim's case. Jason had asked me if there was anything important that he should know about.
Tim's POV:
I gave him headway and told him about all of Bane's usual hangouts and hideouts, along with information about where he gets his venom supply, though this information was ever changing and could be out dated. I asked him if he wanted backup because Bane is a heavy hitter. He declined my offer, unfortunately. He said that he'd be fine, but I know that I am going to be the one patching him up and telling him "I told you so" in a few days.
Third Person:
That was the last conversation that Tim had with Jason and that was a few days ago.
It has been awhile since Tim has talked to the rest of the family as well. Everyone was either out of the city or out of the country. Alfred was in London doing…I don't know, Alfred things. Who knows what he does. Batman and Robin are in Russia on some case while Bruce Wayne and his young heir, Damian Wayne, are in Russia on business. And Dick? Tim called him 10 days ago and told him that the Titans needed his help, but that he was preoccupied with this obnoxious case and asked if Dick could go instead. As expected, Dick hasn't called or texted since he got to the Titans Tower. He's probably spending time with the Titans, causing havoc and fighting alongside them once more, even if it was only temporary.
Tim decides to hit the streets once more as Red Robin since it was still early in the night.
It was almost the end of his patrol when Tim caught wind of a lead on his case and hurried to the docks where the traffickers were said to be hiding their "shipments". When Tim got there, he turned his thermal lenses on and scanned the outside of the building.
No one was there.
'Perfect' Tim thought with a small smile.
He broke into the warehouse with stealth that would put Batman to shame and thermally scanned the inside of the building as well. The only heat source, though it was small, caught his attention. He walked along the rafters and stood above where the heat source was coming from. It was an old, yet sturdy, locked shipping crate and depending on the size of the heat source, the lock was not to keep someone in, but to keep people out.
Tim approached the crate slowly and picked the lock in less than five seconds. He grabbed his collapsible bo-staff, flicking it out once it was by his side, and a small flashlight from his bandolier and cautiously peered into the crate looking all the way to the back.
Inside the crate sat a lonely, torn, old, and dirty car seat. It looked as if it had been pulled out of a dumpster. As he got closer, he put his bo-staff away as there was no imminent threat. He rounded the dirty, abandoned seat and what he saw shook him from head to toe.
There in the car seat, lay a sleeping infant.
An INFANT!
Sleeping like nothing was amiss about its' current situation.
On instinct, he crouched down in front of the seat. He unbuckled the already ripping straps of the seat and took off his cape and laid his cape down next to the seat. He tenderly lifted the baby out of the seat so as not to wake the poor thing and wrapped the infant up in his cape.
The baby could not have been more than two months old. At the very least, the infant had clothes on. Unfortunately, it looked like it hadn't been fed properly and smelled like it hasn't had its diaper changed in quite some time.
He called the Redbird to the warehouse after he wrapped up the baby. He rushed out of the warehouse so he could meet his car and held the infant close to him as he climbed in. He kept the infant in his arms the entire way to his closest safe house. He took the now awake and screaming baby into his safe house and quickly changed into civvies before grabbing the child and removing the overly spoiled diaper.
'Oh. It's a girl.' Tim thought to himself after removing her diaper.
He grabbed the smallest blanket in his safe house and wrapped the girl in the blanket before taking her back to his car which has been switched to its civilian mode. He held the girl as he drove to the nearest 24 hour Walmart in hopes of buying all of the necessary things to care for this child for a few days until he figured out what to do with her.
After thinking carefully, Tim determined a couple things. One: He couldn't give her to the GCPD. She would only end up in the city's corrupt foster system. He wouldn't wish that on any child, let alone an infant. And two: There was no point in trying to find where she came from. She had been in that warehouse less than a day. With the way her diaper was soiled and the fact that she looked underweight, she probably wasn't getting the care that she needed.
She wasn't wanted.
Tim would figure it out, but for now, he bought all the necessary items for the baby girl (okay, he really needed to call her something instead of baby). He bought a variety of items including diapers, wipes, destatin (he had to ask a woman at the store what he should use), a few baby blankets, formula, clothes, binkies, etc., etc., etc.
After getting everything in his car, including the new car seat in which the child was held, he drove to his actual apartment instead of one of his safe houses (though this apartment of his is also used as a safe house). The little girl fell asleep in her seat so he left her in his living room while he grabbed all the bags and boxes of items and lugged them up six flights of stairs.
'Dick cannot say I don't have upper body strength!' Tim thought to himself. Dick always teased him about his size, but…then again…Jason and Damian did to…bastards.
When he brought the last of the items upstairs to his apartment, the girl had woken up and was screaming bloody murder! He went to the infant and got her out of the car seat, grabbed the bathing tub, a fresh diaper, the destatin, baby soap, and a warm pajama onesie and headed towards his bedroom.
He left the diaper, destatin, and onesie on his bed. He proceeded to his bathroom and ran some warm, shallow bath water and set the bathing tub and soap inside the tub. He took off the dirty and soiled onesie she had been wearing and tossed it into the trash.
Tim put the baby in the small bathing tub and proceeded to wash her as gently as possible. He didn't want her to get sick because of the dirty water or make her rash worse than it already was by rubbing the tender area. After washing until all the dirt and waste was gone, he put her in a towel. He looked at the bath water and it was a murky, dirty brown color and it smelled like feces and urine. He finds himself asking her, "What happened to you?"
He drained the tub and took the infant (this name thing is getting ridiculous now) to his bedroom and laid her down on his plush queen sized bed. He applied destatin after drying the girl and put on the fresh diaper. He put the warm pj onesie on her and headed back to the bags in his entry way and pulled out a bottle, a tin of formula, and a baby blanket using one hand. He set the baby in the car seat while he prepped a bottle.
Tim washed the bottle out and filled it with warm water, then formula. He looked at the infant, shaking the bottle to mix the powder into the water as he walked back to her, and she was now staring at him with big, stunningly blue eyes. He picked her up from the seat and situated himself in his rocking chair. He put a pillow underneath his arm and rested the baby and his arm on top of it. Tim put the bottle to her mouth. She suckled greedily at the bottle.
How long has it been since your last bottle, little one? Tim thought.
Tim smiled at her as she looked towards him again. Why did she have to be so damn cute? Her hair, like his, was black. Her eyes were strikingly blue. They were like looking into the clear ocean upon a restful beach.
Tim allowed her to drink, checking every now and then on his posture so as not to lean her too far back.
Once the infant was done, Tim draped a nearby cloth over his shoulder and patted the baby's back. She burped not moments later with some liquid. He figured this would happen. He has seen a few mothers on the street do this as well as movies that had babies in them. Who hasn't? Though he didn't expect the smell of it. It was a strange smell.
Tim put the girl back on his lap and put the baby blanket around her. She looked sleepy so he rocked the chair, but she wouldn't fall all the way to sleep, so he tried the next best thing.
Tim hummed one of the songs Jason had hummed to him when he was comforting Tim after a nightmare. "Lean on Me" by Bill Withers. It was totally cliché.
Nearing the chorus of his humming he looked down and saw the girl sleeping peacefully in his arms. Tim sighed, contemplating whether or not he wanted to risk waking up the baby girl in his arms by standing up.
He just stared at her and before he knew it, he had drifted off to sleep.