Oh my god I'm so, so sorry this took so long. I like being busy, but I go a little crazy without some writing time every day or two so this hasn't been the best week ever.

That morning when he heard them come in Dick decided to get out of bed to talk to them, knowing that it was probably a bad idea. But they weren't arguing the same way they had the night before and it was worrying him.

Neither of them looked half as bad as he felt, so that was a relief. So much of a relief he almost sat down on the floor to catch his breath. A quick examination of that idea led him to the fatal flaw in it – getting back up, so he decided against it.

Leaning against the Cave wall pretty hard Dick smiled at his brothers and asked, "how'd it go?"

"We didn't find him," Tim said. Damian just glared.

"Sorry," Dick muttered. "You guys go to bed. I'll see if I can find something else."

"Or you could go back to bed too," Tim pointed out, but he was clearly too tired and pissed off to put a lot of effort into it.

"Okay," Dick agreed.

Everyone headed off in the direction of where ever they were going to sleep. Dick thought about it for a second. He'd gotten out of bed just fine. How hard could it possibly be to get back into it?

When he woke up in his bed a few hours later so sore he could hardly move he decided that it was probably harder than he thought it was going to be. There wasn't any food waiting for him this time, but that made sense. He'd told Tim to go to bed, not to prepare him breakfast. That made him feel like a better, if very hungry, person.

Waking up, not being able to move, starving and knowing that some crazy ass assassin was out there popping people and more or less driving his brothers crazy was kind of making this a day he wasn't sure he really wanted to go through at all but since he was awake, again, he decided he'd just have to deal with it.

The easiest thing to deal with was the pain. The pan meds were still hanging out on the table with a half consumed bottle of water. He gulped down a fistful of pills that would have made Alfred use his full name if he'd seen it, jammed his face back into his pillow and waited for them to start working. After a few minutes of counting his own heartbeat he lifted his head up again and slowly pushed himself into a sitting position.

After a while he managed to get himself upright, onto the floor and slowly shuffled over to the computer chair. It had wheels. Once he was in it he dragged himself along the walls until he found some food in the bar fridge he's put in when he started as Batman, mostly to keep milk in, and that he assumed Bruce would take out shortly. Apparently Tim had foreseen this because it was fully stocked with Alfred approved sick people food. He rolled the chair back to the computer and stated working on problem number three. The crazy assassin.

If tracking him directly hadn't worked out there had to be a way to anticipate him, who he would go after next, who he would beat be hitting next. Dick started cross referencing the victims with one small fraction of the Batcomputer's brain and then going through the news for any other possible victims.

Filtering through endless news reports was actually surprisingly tiring. So much so that Dick needed to pause long enough for a short nap.

It was about noon when Damian came down. He looked pretty pissed off. Not good.

Of course by now Dick had a standard procedure for pissed of Damian worked out. Step one was determine if he wanted to talk about anything, and if he did, move on to step two. If he didn't then step two was stay as far away from Damian as possible, unless of course the kid was doing something super self destructive.

"Grayson," he said as he took a bite out of the banana that was apparently his breakfast. "What are you doing?"

"Just working on something," Dick said. "Trying to figure out who hired boring normal assassin in this town. Doesn't he know that you can find way cooler help?"

"Apparently not," Damian muttered. "Are you better today?"

"Yup getting there," Dick agreed. "You know where Tim is?"

"Why?"

"Breakfast," Dick answered.

"I can get it," Damian informed him, grumpily. "What would you like?"

"At this point, I'd go for pretty much anything," Dick said. "Toast would be good."

"Fine," he agreed. "Stay here."

"I promise," Dick answered a little playfully. Damian didn't seem to get the joke though as he disappeared upstairs.

Dick waited until Damian was gone, then he pushed the chair back, and started to count. "Yeah!" he crowed as he sat back down. He was breathless and he could feel his heart beating like it was going to break its way through his rib cage but he was still grinning.

"Grayson, what are you doing?" Damian asked scornfully, coming down the stairs with a few pieces of toast and a cup of juice.

"Standing!" Dick said cheerfully. "That was a whole two minutes." Damian scowled at him.

"Here is your breakfast," Damian said. "Let me see what you are doing."

"Go for it," Dick agreed, jamming toast into his mouth. Alfred would probably have smacked him with a spoon if he'd seen that.

Dick ate and watched Damian go through his work from the morning. He was good, he was very good. Sometimes Dick wondered if all the other Robins would surpass him eventually. Well, Tim would for sure, and probably Damian too, if he could just check the attitude for a while. Bruce would help him be better, Bruce would make him the best Robin ever. Damian did deserve that chance and every time Dick repeated that to himself he almost convinced himself that he didn't mind at all.

"What?" Damian asked him suddenly.

"Huh?" Dick asked, pulling himself out of his thoughts.

"You were staring at me," Damian informed him.

"Sorry," Dick said. "I was just thinking."

"About what?" Damian asked.

"Nothing," Dick said. "This case. Something about it is bugging me but I can't figure it out. I don't know, it feels kind of familiar."

"My father must be so proud of your genius detective skills Grayson," Damian said.

"Thanks Damian," Dick agreed. "I'll figure it out and let you know."

"Oh, I'm reassured," Damian muttered. "I'm going to go punch something."

"Go for it," Dick said. As long is it wasn't Tim's head Dick was pretty comfortable with that.

Damian got up and left, leaving Dick alone to work. Or nap. Napping seemed like a good idea too.