Bringing My Children Home
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Disclaimer: I am only borrowing the Bat family to practice my art.
Chapter Twenty
Tim
With the threat of Talia returning, life felt tenser than before. Tim was frustrated by the distraction, when he was in the middle of rebuilding the Titans on the weekends, and trying to hunt down several conmen who had gone missing. Dick and Jason believed they had moved on, but Tim thought it was odd how they so abruptly vanished. These two men and one woman had been running scams together for over a year, but within days of falling onto Robin's Radar, they were gone.
Traces of their lives led to one day, and then there was nothing about them. Most of their belongings were left behind, rents and debts were left unattended, even a Doctor Appointment and a date with their current mark were missed.
"Still looking for the Seversons?" Steph asked, as she and Damian emerged from the training room where Dick had been working with them.
"Yeah. The money trail is being elusive."
"They used cash a lot," Damian pointed out. "Grayson said that was very hard to track."
Ignoring the boy's smug, observant eyes, Tim tapped his stylus against his nose. Bruce had not decided to close the case, but had told Tim to do what he needed. This was not so rare anymore. Bruce let Tim handle many cases on his own. It was clear Bruce was of the same mind as Jason and Dick, but he was willing to let Tim figure out what was bugging Robin.
"Why do you continue with the case, when Father and Grayson believe it is not worth their time?" Damian demanded, stalking over to glare down at Tim's tablet. "What is making you so obsessive about a trio of two-bit cons?"
"They aren't two-bit cons for one. They stayed off the radar in Gotham for over a year. They have run very sophisticated cons here, but I have yet to discover others across the country, even though I know what to look for. They are too smooth, not to have done it before. Their disappearance is strange. Most cons I have shut down usually try to erase their traces before disappearing. Here we have bills, appointments, even an unfinished job."
For a moment, Tim forgot who he was talking too. A huff made him remember, and he glanced angrily at Damian. The boy was not looking at Tim, but down at the pad, where facial recognition scanned through security cam footage from the day the trio disappeared. He looked deep in thought.
"What do you care?" Tim tilted the tablet away from the kid.
"I am trying to figure it out before you do," Damian said bluntly.
"Do your own research then," the teenager snarled in return.
Dick
"Drake is completely obsessed with that case," Damian scowled, as Dick and he sat on the roof looking at the stars in a cool fall night. "No one else seems to think it's important."
"It probably is important," Dick answered. "We can't stop all crime, and we can miss things. Tim has an instinct for catching those things that slip by."
The twelve-year-old frowned, looking up at the sky, as if he could see the secret of why this bugged Tim. Dick let him think, hoping to learn why Damian had returned to observing Tim again. Cass was furious. Jason was ready to start sleeping in Tim's room again. They had valid concerns that Talia's appearance was some sort of signal to Damian, to proceed with another attack.
The eldest brother did not believe that was the case, but even he was on alert.
"You have all, even Father, said you did not see it, but none of you have made Drake stop. Isn't that a useless waste of his time if no one else is bugged by it?"
"If he had been proven wrong many times before, then yes, but Tim doesn't have a record of being wrong."
"Is this a family thing?" Damian sat up and demanded. "You let Drake do what he wants to teach him?"
Dick laughed.
"Oh, Dami, you aren't wrong that letting someone learn something through experience can be a good thing. That doesn't mean you can't protect them if they could be harmed by the experience. This instance is not one of those things. There is something in the disappearance of these three. To Tim, it has become more important to find out, but the rest of us have other cases we believe are more pressing."
With a huff, Damian dropped back onto his back. He glared at the sky.
"There are too many rules about family, and half of them contradict each other."
"They aren't rules," Dick explained. "It's ideas of how to be a family. Not all of them will work for everyone."
"That doesn't make sense. There should be something for every situation."
"People don't work like that. It's like… like fighting. If I spar with Bruce, I must be quicker and hit harder, but if I spar with Tim, I should be slower and watch him for tells more than anyone else. So, Steph and Jason and Cass all need and want hugs all the time, but you and Bruce and Tim need to have more warning, so you understand it isn't a bad thing."
Damian's scowl turned into a thoughtful twist of his lips. Pleased with how serious he was taking the conversation, since Jason or Tim would turn it into a joke, Dick let him think.
"Do you need to be hugged a lot?" The boy asked, in an embarrassed tone.
Dick blinked and had to keep from bursting into laughter. It would be easy to turn it into a joke about Octopus Dick, but the question was very quiet and worried. This was Damian at his most sincere and vulnerable.
"My parents hugged me all the time. When I woke up, when I left the trailer for anything, before a performance, when we made it to our trailer for dinner at the end of the night, before bed. It was the hardest thing about living with Bruce. He didn't hug. I think he was too hurt.
"I demanded to be hugged and eventually I conditioned Bruce to be more physically affectionate. It started out for me, because I was missing my parents, but I saw Bruce grow happier the more I hugged him. Everyone grew happier, even if they thought I was just being silly. So, I do want hugs, but giving them out is just as good as getting them, so I don't need them."
Damian was silent for so long, Dick wondered if he had fallen asleep. He let Damian be, knowing that sleeping or thinking would be best without further talk. It was cool out, so eventually he would have to bring the boy inside. There were those who said Richard Grayson could not be silent, but they were wrong. He loved to talk, but silence was not uncomfortable.
When Damian moved, sitting up, Dick turned to look at him with a smile, sitting up himself, aware they should probably head in. Everyone else was on patrol, and Alfred could use a hand. As he began to rise, Damian crawled the couple feet between them and sat in front of the surprised older brother, face twisted in concentration. Dick held still, letting him think.
Then he leaned forward, wrapping small arms around Dick's broad, muscular chest. Dick gently wrapped his own arms around the smaller body, letting Damian dictate how close they were and how long the embrace lasted. After two heartbeats Damian broke away, and raced for the window. He scrambled through. As Dick followed him, he heard Damian's race to his bedroom.
Bruce
"He's watching, not attacking," Bruce said calmly, as Jason paced in front of his desk again. "It is nothing none of you have not done. I don't know what Damian is looking for, by watching Tim. He uncovered the worst things that could be used before he attacked him."
"I still don't like it. Plus, Tim is distracted by the Severson case. It would be an opportunity."
Bruce sighed as he raised a brow at Jason.
"What opportunity? Damian is usually with Dick, and you are usually with Tim. I believe you are still working on the extortion ring in Leslie's neighborhood. Has that stalled since Tim became so focused on the missing conmen?"
Jason threw up his hands and stalked out, complaining about deaf dad's and precocious little brothers, with a host of names for the extortionists he had undertaken to find months before. Despite his irritation with Jason's irritation, Bruce never tired of the close relationship between Jason and Tim. Because of Tim's awe of Dick, the teenager never fully allowed himself to be Tim with Dick. Jason, on the other hand, had needed Tim's hard work to manage the exacerbating madness of the Lazarus pit.
Like Bruce himself, Jason's need had made Tim more open with them. He had had to save them from themselves. Their imperfectness had made it easier for him to approach.
Bruce could only enjoy his silent study for the few minutes it took to finish Bruce Wayne's emails to Lucius Fox. He then had to head down to the cave as well.
Damian was sitting on the bottom steps, staring at the busy cave. On the lowest level, Jason was shouting something about his bike, while Cass watched him unmoved. Steph and Dick were in the lab, their chatter escaping into the main room, where Tim was in front of a computer bay, scrolling through his files. Bruce paused by Damian to study the boy's demeanor and focus. He was watching Tim closely, but there seemed no threat.
"I'm the link?" Tim suddenly shouted, leaping away from his computer. He turned around, eyes wide with shock. "I'm the link."
"What are you talking about?"
"Each of their last three cons is connected to me. The first was Mrs. Macintyre's sons. They were tricked into donating money to a false charity."
"That was the Baptist Church? A lot of people gave money," Bruce replied. Tim ignored him.
"The second was the teachers of Brentwood school, being tricked into buying into real estate that didn't exist."
"That's the school your parents sent you to a couple years back? More than they were tricked," Jason pointed out.
"The last con they successfully pulled was on Mr. Prinz, my father's former CFO. They got him to purchase fake diamonds. That's the one that eventually led me to figure out who was involved."
Bruce frowned, no longer able to consider it a coincidence. This was worrying. To target people like that meant they were targeting the Drakes, and possibly Robin. No wonder it had bothered Tim.
"So why did they leave?"
"I don't know. Something… Jason, the extortion ring, who do we know they've hit?"
"The clinic, the youth center, the shelter, a liquor store, the dinky Museum about the Circus, the martial arts dojo, and that tech repair shop…"
"That's part of this too. Something else... has Cluemaster explained how he got past security, how he even knew Stephanie came to the gala?"
"No," Dick said softly.
"So, what is it? How is all this connected?" Steph asked
"I'm not sure, but I think… this is a test, or a trap. I…" Tim stopped and stood still. "I think, Talia may have something to do with it."
He dove for his computer again, bringing up the security logs for his parents' empty house. "I think they're hiding on my parents' grounds."
Stephanie
Cass and Damian stayed behind, but everyone else accompanied Tim, in full suit, to the empty, locked house. The moment they were in the yard they knew someone had been there. The security had been circumvented. Since Tim no longer lived there, it had not been checked often.
Steph and Jason both reached to stop Tim, but he dodged and ran for the house.
Steph had only been there a few times, since the Drakes had disapproved of her. After being locked up for a year, the covered furniture looked foreboding. Knowing that Tim had been lonely and hurt here gave the house a dark feel. Jason rested his hand on her shoulder, since everyone knew not to touch Tim when he was so focused.
No one spoke as Tim examined each room. The kitchen had been disturbed. Dick bagged the three glasses left in the sink. When they headed upstairs, Tim stopped at a hallway end table that had been uncovered. A picture of the three he had been searching for sat there.
Every upstairs room was locked, except for Tim's old bedroom. Tim nearly went in without checking for traps, but Bruce finally stopped him, while Dick and Jason did the examination. The room was bare of everything but a tv table that had been moved in. There was a glass vase filled with a green liquid, a green flower the only plant.
"That's the pit," Jason exclaimed, flinching away from it.
"Get back, now!" Cass growled into their comms.
Cass
Damian stiffened when he saw the image through Bruce's cowl cam.
Cass saw it out the corner of her eye and spun around to where the boy was standing, arms crossed, and face dark. He knew what that was. Something was wrong.
"That's the pit!" Jason exclaimed.
"Get back, now!" Cass yelled, before spinning around again and grabbing Damian by the shoulder. "What do you know? What is that? Is this your mother?"
He shook his head minutely, the fury and jealousy suddenly mingling with fear. Cass grabbed his throat, threatening him.
"It's not Mother! It's Grandfather." He shouted.
She recoiled from him, recognizing he was stunned. The implications of it being Ra's, and not Talia, frightened her more than anything else in her young life. She had been raised to be the deadliest, greatest assassin in history, she had run into the service and the family of the smartest, greatest man of his generation, she had faced some of the greatest warriors in the world, but nothing scared her more than finding her brother had attracted the personal attention of the Demon's Head. Damian was furious that Tim had been given this, perhaps having expected it himself, but enough of him belonged to Bruce and Dick that there was also fear.
Jason
Tim was the only one not watching every shadow as they headed back to the cave. It would have been hard for him to, since the other four had surrounded him. A vague understanding, that the whole scam and extortion cases had been a test from Ra's, made Jason more nervous than the sight of the pit waters. The test was for Tim. The only other person Jason knew that had attracted such attention from Ra's, was Bruce himself.
They all knew Bruce was on a whole other level mentally, even compared to some of his children. Only Tim could match wits with the Bat on a regular basis. It was why the grown vigilantes, Dick, Jason, and Babs still put themselves under the Bats authority. Certainly, they all had their moments where they could out think Bruce, but it was only Tim who could follow Bruce's silent leaps of logic. It was only Tim who could speak out against the Bat's plans regularly, and have the Bat stop to listen.
Rogues and allies alike had noticed the difference in this Robin. Tim even had a few Rogues who targeted him, instead of the Bat. This, this was a whole different ball game. This was not just a Gotham Rogue, this was the head of a worldwide terrorist organization.
This was the man who tricked Bruce into believing Jason was dead for over two years.
"Pillow Party tonight?" Jason suggested. As they reached one of the entry points into the cave, Tim glared half-heartedly.
"I don't think there will be a choice in the matter tonight," Stephanie answered, bluntly. Dick was talking softly over the comms, to Oracle. With a glance backwards at Tim, Bruce headed for his computer bay. This was a large matter for more than just Gotham. The Justice League would be put on alert, the European, Asian, and African superheroes would be put on an alert. Maybe even South America and Oceania.
Jason slung his arm around the shorter teenager who looked like he wanted to dart for his computer bay.
"Take a moment to think, Tim," He said softly. "Ra's used Dick and me as pawns. Even what he did with me was more about disrupting Batman, than turning me into one of his soldiers. This is something different. This is dangerous territory."
Tim frowned for a few moments, staring at the back of Bruce's head. As interesting, and disturbing, as it was to see how tense the Bat's shoulders were, they were just a fuzzy focus point as Tim thought. Jason could see the same tenseness in everyone's features.
This was big. Jason tugged Tim closer, but had to let it be a brief hug, a silent oath to the little brother. Tim squirmed away, heading for Damian, curiosity, anger, and resentment on his face.
Damian
If there was anything that could have made Damian more jealous of Drake, this was it. Grayson, Brown, and Father had helped see that it was normal that Drake was closer to Father. Drake had been with him for almost four years now and Damian only five months. The preteen had almost been ready to let that slide.
Now, again, Damian hated Drake more than anyone, anything in the world.
Now it was not only Father and Father's family choosing Drake over Damian, now it was Grandfather offering Drake an important position. Mother would never dare challenge Grandfather. Damian had failed her plans anyway. Drake had the attention of Damian's Father and Mother.
It was not fair.
"What does this test mean?" Drake demanded. "The green rose obviously is something about a new beginning or a new life. What does the Demon's Head want with me?"
The worst part of all, was that Drake did not even realize what he had done. He had no idea that he had taken every single place that should have been Damian's. To him, this was something unusual to be investigated, something dangerous to be approached cautiously. And, it was dangerous. Grandfather had not lost the Demon's Hand Invitee for three or four generations.
It was something originally meant for Father. Mother had always spoke as if it would come to Damian, since Father had no desire for the role. Now even that was not true. Mother had lied, again.
"The Demon's Head has chosen you as his next protégé, to become the Demon's Hand, the second place in the League," Damian said dully, not daring to voice the fury that was coursing through his blood, tensing his limbs.
"Why me? He already asked me to join and I said no," Drake looked irritated. Of course, he would not appreciate the power he was being offered. He could not even see that his refusal meant nothing. Grandfather wanted Drake. This, this could get very dangerous.
"He thinks you are still of a malleable age. By the time he was ready to offer this to me, I had flagrantly disowned and damned the league," Father spoke up. "He thinks if he gets you now, he won't run into the same stubbornness he did with me."
"So how do I let him know he's delusional?"
Damian choked, half in shock, half in amusement. No one in the league dared talk about Grandfather at all. Here was the brilliant boy chosen to serve Grandfather as second in power, and he called the Demon's Head delusional. Drake would not serve Grandfather.
Drake was going to die.
"As far as I know, there is no way to officially decline. Ra's has spoken, so he believes that is the end of the matter."
Father looked troubled, Grayson looked troubled, everyone was filled with the trouble coming upon them. Damian should have felt completely elated. Drake would not serve Grandfather, which meant Grandfather would kill Drake, which meant Damian would have the place in Father's home he wanted. Only, the boy felt dread. There was a reason Grandfather had not managed to get rid of Father. Battle was coming.
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