Hello World!

Welcome to the last few weeks of summer, in which all prep work for the return of school is done and last minute vacations and camps are attended.

Chapter 15

Three months. Three months. Three months, four days, 22 hours, and seven minutes had passed since that fateful fall day, and they were no closer to finding his son. At this point, the police had about given up, and were looking for Dick's body. Frankly, the only reasons they were still looking for Dick at all was because Commissioner Gordon believed him to have been taken by a terrorist cell that operated on a large scale, and, you know, because Bruce was a billionaire and no one wants to stop searching for a billionaire's son when there was even the slightest chance he might still be alive..

Chances were extremely low that Dick was still alive, but Bruce refused to give up hope, refused to give up on his son. His search had expanded to the entire world after Batman and the team had found evidence at a dock near Savannah, Georgia pointing to Dick having been there. After checking the security footage, Batman determined that Dick had in fact been in the warehouse and when he had arrived. However, due to the lack of security in the warehouse, Batman was unable to determine when he left. A thorough search of the warehouse and all its contents as well as the surrounding area proved that Dick had in fact left. More disturbingly, it had added to Commissioner Gordon's theory of the terrorist cell.

Batman was in the process of searching every ship that had left the dock between the time Dick had arrived at the warehouse and when Batman and Young Justice had found it. It was tough because the port was the second largest exporter in the United States and there was over 3000 square feet of warehouses to search for evidence of his son. The sole advantage to Gordon's theory of terrorists was that he had given it to Batman and the Justice League. They were able to search for their missing bird legitimately. Unfortunately, nothing had yielded evidence.

An alert sounded in the corner of the computer. One of the last ships that they had been looking for had just entered a port in Rhode Island, returning from the South of France.

Batman sighed, and pulled his cowl on. "Come on, Jason." He called to his second, and only remaining, son, who was taking a cat nap in the corner of the Batcave. "Ship in Rhode Island." Jason got up and stretched, and then put on a pair of sunglasses and headed to the batmobile.

"Do you think the Demon Princess has finished cleaning the mountain yet?" He asked.

"Jason, be nice."

Robin's main suit was at the cave. The thrill of wearing it had worn off given the circumstances, and now Jason dreaded it and the disappointed looks that came with it. He slipped on a mask to go with the spare suit that didn't match the main suit exactly. As soon as Bruce deemed that Dick had been missing long enough to disconnect his disappearance with Robin's, Jason was planning to switch to his own identity. He was already working on designing his outfit, with Alfred's help. He was brainstorming new names, but had yet to come up with anything he liked. His only hesitation was that Dick had seemed so happy to have someone who wanted to be him when Dick got too old to be Robin.

The batmobile peeled out of the cave towards Rhode Island. Batman sent a message to Aqualad to gather the team and meet them there. After Zatanna's attack on Robin, Jr., Batman had admitted to the team that Robin had been taken in civvies and that they were having trouble finding him. In that same meeting, from which Rocket had been conveniently absent and which took place in the therapist room free of recording devices, he had told the remainder of the original team Robin's true identity, and, by extension, his and Jason's identities.

It wasn't his first choice, given the way he'd behaved in North Carolina, but the team did have a right to know who they were truly searching for. Plus, half the team already knew, and they didn't need the secret tearing them apart when it mattered. Connor was angry about the secret and M'gann cried, but Kaldur just reacted like he saw this coming. Needless to say, they all received the extra motivation to keep searching for Dick.

Before that incident, they had been searching anyways, especially Wally, Roy, and Artemis. Artemis put two and two together fairly quickly after realizing that Wally wasn't just doing this for her, and that Robin had not been to the cave since about the time of Dick's disappearance, even though he had promised to be in that Saturday. As for the rest of the team, they were simply informed that Robin was out of commission, on a secret mission, and that the search for the missing Wayne heir was of upmost importance.

The team beat them to the port, and got started after showing the crew that they had a warrant to search the premises and talk to the crew members. Superboy and Kid Flash searched the cargo area and passenger rooms, while Aqualad, Artemis, and Miss Martian began questioning the crew. This particular ship, the CS Coyote, doubled at a cargo and passenger ship in order to make more money. It was fairly cheap to travel on, cheaper than cruise ships, but not a lot of people took the voyage willingly. It was much faster and convenient, although debatably more expensive, to fly.

"Yeah, there were some kids on the last voyage out of Savannah, but I don't believe any of them match your description as far as I know." One of the crew members was telling Kaldur when Batman and Robin arrived. Batman stopped to listen.

"How many kids?" Aqualad asked.

"I didn't count, but maybe twenty? There were some chaperones with them. I think a good number of them had black hair, but none of the kids had blue eyes. I mean, none of the ones with black hair had blue eyes. There was one or two with blond hair and blue eyes."

"Were any of them one of these children?" Aqualad pulled out a book with all children they knew of who'd gone missing in the last half a year, including the ones believed to be taken by the terrorist group. The crew member shook his head as he studied the pictures. Aqualad flipped through the pages.

"Wait! Go back!" Aqualad flipped back a page, studying the man in front of him. "That girl," he said pointing to a picture of a twelve year old girl with black pigtails, green eyes, and a big smile with two missing teeth. "I've seen her before, I think. She stuck out because there were only three girls in the whole group."

"Are you certain this was the girl you saw?" Aqualad asked.

"Yeah. Well, pretty sure. Let me see that." The crew member grabbed the notebook and started flipping through it. As he went, he was able to identify five more kids as having been on his ship on the last transatlantic passage and a few from previous voyages. Aqualad marked the ones he pointed out.

"Is that any help to you? We dropped them off in the South of France. We stopped off for some repairs before returning here, to the States, anyhow."

"Did you see who took them?"

"Yeah, they got on a bus. I thought it may have been a tour group or something. Maybe a bus to a boarding school? Traveling by boat is odd when there's airplanes… There was a truck too, but it may have been unrelated."

"Were there any distinguishing signs?"

"Yeah. I remember there was some sort of symbol on the bus, but I don't know if I could reproduce it for you. I'm sorry."

"That is alright. What was the exact date you pulled into port? And around what time did the kids get off?"

"Well, we left on November 14th, and it took about three weeks. I think it was December 5th or 6th. I lose track of dates on the sea. The Captain's log would say for certain. We pulled into port at 9 am, and the kids got off pretty soon after that, I believe. I don't know the exact time because I was busy unloading cargo. The Captain may know more."

"Alright. Thank you. If you think of anything else, please let us know." Aqualad handed the man a business card.

"Glad to help. I hope you find them. I'll see what I can find out. If I'd realized they were kidnapped… I'm sorry."

"Do you think you saw the symbol well enough to have subconsciously memorized it?" Batman interjected.

"Yeah. I suppose so."

"Good. Miss Martian may be able to help you reproduce it. Robin, take him to Miss Martian." Jason nodded and took the man by the hand, leading him away. "Aqualad, talk to some of the other crew members. They may recognize some more of the children and be able to confirm that these children were on the ship. I'm going to talk to the Captain."

"Yes, Batman."

"You need to stop," Alex said.

"No."

"Dick, your hands are shaking. You're going to mess up or hurt yourself." Dick looked down at his shaking hands, and secretly focused on making them stop.

"They're fine. Be quiet. You might wake up Dami. He doesn't sleep well already."

"And you think a stuffed cat—"

"Batcat," Dick interjected.

"Batcat will help?" Alex paused for a second. "Wait, how is that supposed to be a batcat? Are you going to give it wings or something?" He smirked at the long-suffering glare his roommate gave him. "You know. I'm fairly artistic." He gestured to the walls which had small paintings poking out in odd places. "I can help."

Dick sighed and turned back to the half-finished toy. He almost had the face done, glad he'd managed to hide the mismatched but evenly sized buttons.

"I want him to be from me. I have a stuffed elephant at home, and she always helps me sleep. This should help Dami sleep. He won't be perfect, nothing ever is, but I want to make him as close as possible," he looked over the supplies he'd quietly gathered as rewards for translating and with help from Alex and then carefully hidden out of sight of Damian, so that the batcat remained a surprise, and the camera, afraid that the bluemen would try to take the supplies away. "But, if you can find some soft stuffing, that would be great. I think I'm running on the edge of their nerves. Probably won't be able to get much more supplies on my own." He shrugged, "Could you maybe try to find some yellow fabric as well?"

"I'll do my best." There was a moment of silence as Dick turned back to perfecting the cat's nose. "You're still shaking. Please take a break and work on it tomorrow."

Dick shook his head. "They might take me for shots again tomorrow. If they do, I won't be able to do anything on this for a few days. I can barely walk or write after shots as it is. I want to get to the stuffing stage tonight for the head, so he'll be ready soon. I… I want Dami to be able to sleep better."

Alex hesitated, and then spoke in a low tone. "Why do you care so much? We're all prisoners here. What makes him so special?"

"He's my little brother," Dick answered simply yet firmly, committing himself to the fact.

"According to what?"

"According to me." Dick pulled a final stitch through the cat's nose and tied it off on the inside part of the face. He set the needle down and eyed his creation. Deciding it was satisfactory, he switched threads from yellow to white and started working on the mouth.

Alex sighed. "Can you please go to bed as soon as you finish the mouth? The lights are already dimmed. I don't want to find out what happens if you're not in bed when they go out. It's like they're a warning."

"Okay."

"Night, Dick."

"Night."

Dick resisted the urge to reach up and yank down the blindfold as the bluemen led him through the weaving underground hallways. Something felt different from the last few times he'd been taken to get shots. Maybe it was the air? It felt a bit denser, more compressed, but that was probably just his imagination. He had been pumped full of chemicals again last night, after all. They didn't normally go down a few flights of stairs right after the shots… Maybe the elevator was down? Or they took it already and were going to class? It had felt like more time had passed than usual, but, again, drugs.

Dick stumbled on a step and pitched forward, throwing his arms out to catch himself, but the bluemen caught him.

"Watch your step," the one on his right joked. Dick scowled in response. Thankfully, the steps soon ended and he was led back out into the maze. Before too long, they reached their destination.

The room Dick was pushed into felt spacious and had plenty of people in it. He smelled sweat, and he heard voices talking in what sounded like a variant of French or German, but mixed with a lot of gibberish. He was guided gently to the center of the room and turned back the way they came, before they removed the blindfold and began doing some checks. They shined a flashlight in his eyes, had him catch a meter stick a couple times to test reaction speed, and checked his blood pressure, mouth, and ears. Stuff Leslie would always do when he went for a check-up along with a few extra things.

As they were doing that, Dick examined his surroundings. He definitely wasn't in class, but he got that from the moment he walked in the room. Walls were gray, with numerous small bulbs around the walls about halfway up with a few lower or higher on each wall fairly high up, evenly spaced. There were several doctors around the room, three in front of him working at some kind of control table with a computer and a bunch of buttons and it sounded like one doctor behind with maybe…two?... extra bluemen. When he tried to look behind him, a blueman grasped his head and forced him to continue looking towards the door. There was definitely some movement back there, but he couldn't tell what they were doing.

"Shirt off, kid," one of the bluemen grunted at him.

"Huh?" Dick asked, intelligently.

"Shirt off," when Dick didn't comply right away, the man reached down and forced the shirt off, leaving Dick shivering. The other blueman took measurements of heart rate and breathing rate, before pulling back.

"He's all ready, boss." Ready? Ready for what? And the boss is in here? Dick's eyes darted around trying to identify which of the people before him was in charge.

"Perfect. Get him set up, and we'll commence phase two." Wait, there was a second phase? The chemicals weren't enough? Dick felt his googles plucked from his head and then the blueman behind him nodded and grab ahold of his arms, starting to pull him backward. Dick locked eyes on the door past the blueman in front of him and carefully… stomped on the foot of the blueman behind him with all the force he could muster, head-butted the man in front of him, prompting cries from both, and sprinted for the door. He slid under the reaching arms of one of the scientists who rushed to intercept him and flipped over another before slamming into the door. He wasted no time yanking it open. Who left their doors unlocked with loose prisoners? Idiots!

Dick didn't try to figure out where he was going or to think about what he was doing or how there was no way he could escape from the maze without any aid of any sort or to think about the consequences for his actions. He just ran. He did not want to figure out what phase two of the torture would be. He turned corners left and right whenever he came to one to throw off any pursuers, slipping and sliding as he went.

After four turns, Dick spotted a man in a trench coat, not a blueman, in front of him coming out of a room. Dick picked up speed, jumping to flip over the man's shoulders, but the man saw it coming and grabbed his wrists as he flipped changing the momentum to flip the kid onto his back.

Dick cried out and tried to yank himself free, but the delay was all that was needed for blueman to swarm out of the room the trench coat guy had come out of and grab ahold of the young teenager. They put a collar around his neck, which gave him a light shock as it clicked into place. Trench coat guy dropped Dick once the bluemen had a firm hold, and then tied the boy's hands together behind his back.

"No! Let me go!" Dick cried as he looked around, analyzing his opponents and area, looking for an escape. All he truly noticed was that the room on his right, the one trench coat guy exited, was the Target Dump. He got a glimpse of some weak kids hooked up to IVs, before a blindfold was tied around his eyes, causing him to instantly buck his head back and try to shake it off. A hand grabbed ahold of his head and held it still.

"So, you survived the journey," Huh? Dick thought, confused. "Color me surprised. I thought a rich brat like you wouldn't be able to ration his food and water and would run out within a week." It was the rough voice… from the dock! But, what was he doing here? "Hmm, you sure seemed excited to see me, running right into my arms. Although, I suppose, you didn't really see me last time. You were blindfolded then, too. Still, I'm sure we'll have lots of fun together, but in the meantime..." Trench coat guy—who needed a better nickname, maybe… Logarithm? Yeah, that worked—shifted from his spot near Dick. There was a light crackle before Logarithm started talking again.

"Lose something?" Logarithm asked. "He's by the Special Processing Section. Yeah, we secured him. Alright, I'll bring him back." He snapped twice, and the bluemen holding Dick started to drag him back the way he came.

"No!" Dick cried, trying to fight his captors, but their grip was too strong for his weakened body.

"You'll probably have to wait a while." Logarithm continued, walking beside them. Dick continued to struggle and shout as Logarithm spoke. "So that his heart rate calms down to normal, but you might as well hook him up." A pause, Logarithm leaned over, and clicked a button on the side of Dick's collar, causing him to be instantly silenced, like the kids in the cafeteria the other day. "I understand that. You might need to wait a few hours, but the drug combination should still be active until this evening. He'll eventually calm enough for you to proceed, especially if we leave him alone for a while after he's secured. The day is not a complete loss. However, next time, you idiots better remember to lock the door. This can't happen again. Understood? Good. We're approaching the room now."

Disclaimer: I do not own Young Justice or Batkitty. Batkitty (who will be named Batkitty instead of Batcat when Damian receives him) comes from Glimare, who gave me permission to use him. :)

This chapter ran away in a different direction than I planned, especially that last part.

Thanks for all the reviews! Please continue to do review, follow, and favorite! It makes my day!

Someone requested a Jason point of view. Unfortunately, he was being stubborn, so I hope the Bruce POV suffices.

Inkblackfingers, my beta, says "You'll get your hearts back next chapter... Well, sort of."