"...Robin."

The boy stiffened. Flash had departed the medical bay several minutes earlier, leaving him alone with his thoughts. He'd been briefly distracted by the tactical concepts the speedster had mentioned, but he'd circled back towards his guilty conscience before long. Lost in self-disdain and feeling as if he might lose control of his tears again, the last thing he wanted to hear was his father's voice. "Go away," he muttered.

He hadn't really expected his request to work, and it didn't. Instead of fading back into the hall, the cowled figure came forward from the doorway and joined him at the window. "You're still allowed in the cockpit."

"So what?" he spat. "It's not like there's anything I can do up there."

"No. Not really." A beat passed. "I retraced your route to the water source."

"I know." He'd gathered as much when the strange half-floating lake had come into view below his window. "Did you...did you see them down there?"

"...No. I didn't. There appears to be a steep drop between the edge of the plain and the water. If they were thinking, they got what they needed and then moved away from the cliff in case of aftershocks."

Or they never got there at all, he gulped. Or they got there and fell in. Or... He shook himself. Or they did exactly what he just suggested. If anyone could guess how Nightwing and Red Robin were likely to react in a crisis, it was Batman, who had trained them both. "Mm..."

Several awkward minutes went by without a single word being exchanged. Eventually the man cleared his throat. "We can begin a broader search under magnification, but you'll need to come up front for that. The more eyes on the screen, the more likely we are to find them."

Damian finally looked up at the figure beside him. "When I wanted to start doing that exact thing yesterday you said it was pointless," he accused, crossing his arms. "So what's changed? Has your ability to pick out distant anomalies suddenly become superhuman, or are you just out of other options?" The question came out harsher than he'd intended it to, but he didn't apologize. He wasn't the one intruding on someone else's private time, after all, so why should he?

Batman flinched. His mouth opened as if he was about to offer a retort, and then closed again. "...The latter," he managed. "But you already knew that."

"Yeah. I did." As nice as it was to win even the smallest of arguments with his mentor, the verbal victory gave him no joy now. If even Batman was out of ideas that didn't involve scouring seven hundred square miles inch by inch, their mission was in serious trouble. "...Father?" he broached slowly, his ire draining as he sank back into the knowledge that he might never see his brothers – not even the annoying one – alive again.

The title earned him a sidelong glance. "Yes?"

"If they don't...I mean, if they can't...if they..." He couldn't finish. No matter how he phrased things, his words were going to imply that Dick and Tim wouldn't succeed in the task he'd dropped on their shoulders. That in turn would be an assumption that they were going to die in the attempt, and he refused to speak such a thing out loud.

"I don't know what we'll do then, Robin," Batman answered his unfinished query. "...I suppose we should just feel fortunate that they were in the right place at the right time."

Something similar to that thought had been in his own head when he'd been debating whether or not to tell the men under the dome about the mission that only they could undertake. It sounded incredibly callous now, though, and he wasn't afraid to say as much. "'The right place at the right time'?" he gaped. "'Fortunate'? They're going to climb mountains with crutches, bandaged limbs, and a probable concussion, and you call that 'fortunate'?!"

"...Wait, what?"

It was a shocked-sounding civilian Bruce who spoke from underneath the Bat's ears, and the shift in tone was enough to knock him momentarily off track. "What, what?"

"What did you say, about...about their injuries?"

"Oh..." He had told Batman that they were hurt, but looking back over the last hour he realized that he hadn't gone into details. "They...Grayson's walking with a crutch. Not a very good one, obviously, but he seemed...he seemed to be making it work. One of his legs was wrapped below the knee, so I guess that's why he needs the support. He had some gauze on his forehead, too, like he'd taken a hard blow. I don't know that he's concussed – he didn't act off, at least – but he must have been bleeding to require a bandage there. And his arms..." His arms and hands, all sliced up and rubbed raw, would have made marvelous training displays of defensive wounds, he gulped.

"What about Tim?"

"Drake looked good compared to Grayson. He had a couple of taped fingers and some dings, that's all." He hesitated, unwilling to give the third Robin any more credit than was absolutely necessary but unable to forget the mess of fresh scabs showing below the edges of his cut-off pants. "His knees looked painful, as well. Rather like...like someone had tried to put them in a food processor."

"...And they've gone after a madman like that?"

"...Yes." On my advice. They're climbing mountains in pieces because...because I told them they had to save the world.

"Oh, god..." Batman moaned, and turned away.

Damian didn't need to see past his mentor's lenses to know that the eyes behind them had closed. "...I'm sorry," he whispered. He had held up through aftershocks, the discovery of the force field and their impotency against it, and even his visits with the trapped men, but hearing such a pleading, helpless tone come from beneath the cowl was too much. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean...I didn't want..." And then he slumped to the floor, exhausted, overwrought, and horribly heartsick, and began to cry.

"Robin..." There was a clunk as Batman settled down beside him. A second later a hand – an ungloved hand, his mind noted absently – landed on the back of his neck. "...Robin, it's not your fault."

"It is!" he sobbed. "It is my fault! I...I shouldn't have told them. I should have just pretended that we didn't know anything. If you had seen them...I didn't want to send them, I swear, but I didn't know what else to do!"

"...Damian-"

"No! Don't tell me not to blame myself! Just...just don't be stupid like that. Just leave me alone..."

But the thumb slowly circling the spot where his spine met his skull didn't stop, and the warmth soaking into his side didn't draw away. "It's not your fault," a gentle rumble promised. "...It's mine."

Blinking rapidly, he lifted his head from his knees just enough to look over. "You mean because...because you didn't let me talk earlier?"

"Partially, but...I was guilty long before that, as well. I knew there had been suspicious earthquakes around the world of late, but I kept that information from them. I knew – or I should have known – that you wouldn't respond well to being sent back to the house last night, especially after you specifically requested to stay out here and help. More than anything, though, I knew that if something came up that they could get their hands into, they would. And I knew that," he grimacing bitterly, "because that is exactly what I trained them to do, and exactly what I've trained you to do, too."

But you had to do that, the boy frowned. What good are we if we don't jump into bad situations and try to set them right? Still, it did appear to have backfired spectacularly in this instance. Yes, Dick and Tim were under the force field with their adversary, but just because they'd leaped into action didn't mean that they had the strength or the supplies to see it through. "...What's that thing Grayson says all the time?" he sniffled. "The cliché?"

"Which one?" The man almost managed a weak smile. "He has a collection of them."

"The one about...about good deeds?"

"'No good deed goes unpunished?'"

"Yeah," he agreed as he drew the back of his hand across his upper lip. "That's the one I was thinking of."

"It's certainly appropriate in this case."

"You trained them to do good deeds-"

"-And you made the difficult decision to tell them that the world needed them to perform one."

"And now we're both suffering." Tim's lacerated knees appeared behind his eyes again, and he couldn't help but shudder. If Drake had uncovered injuries like that, he could only imagine what Grayson's leg must look like beneath its bandage. "...But not as much as they are, and are likely to."

"You're right. And that, Robin, is why you and I are suffering; because they are."

"It's stupid. It's stupid to care," he complained. "It just makes you hurt. It just makes you suffer."

"I know. But sometimes you simply can't avoid it."

"Hurting?"

"Caring."

"...Yeah," he sighed. "I know."

"Mm...good."

"Good that I'm in pain? That's nice."

"Good that you care. You knew what I meant."

"...Yeah," he repeated. "I did." Neither spoke for a moment. "I just want him back, father. I just want him home safe. Drake can come home too, just...just so long as Grayson comes back so I can make sure he knows that I don't...I don't hate him..."

"He knows, son. Trust me, he knows. Dick's greatest talent has always been knowing the things that his loved ones can't say out loud; trust in his skill."

"It's not a very useful one for him to have in his current predicament."

"I used to feel the same way, until I saw what love can motivate him to do."

"Yeah, but what good is it if it motivates him to do something that will get him killed?!" His fist had bounced off of the wall before he even realized he'd formed one. "We need him alive, damn it!"

"Yes, we do. But that's where you have to trust in Tim."

"Hmph." Although he was feeling less hostile towards the younger of the missing pair than he could ever remember being before, he was far from ready to heap praise and confidence upon him.

"I mean that. I agree with you that Dick is likely to do things that he shouldn't and to push too hard, and that he'll do those things out of a sense of love and duty. But Tim, while he feels those emotions as well, has a bit more practical of a head on his shoulders. Pair that with how much he cares about Dick, and there's no one better suited to restrain him just enough to keep him from getting himself killed while still helping him to get the job done."

"...I figured you would be the best at that."

"No. I once thought that I was, but I know myself better now. When it comes to my children – all of my children, Robin, not just the two of them – I am over-protective by nature. That is why you all have to buck the reins from time to time; because I occasionally pull back too hard."

It was a startling admission, to say the least, and it left Damian boggling. "If I take that as an apology," he said eventually, not looking at the man's hidden eyes, "will you accept my saying that we generally forgive you in kind?"

A short chuckle sounded. "You're still in trouble for not listening when this is all over, but...that seems like a fair trade."

"...Okay. Good." Shaking off the fingers on his neck, he stood. There was still guilt lingering in his chest, and the fear bubbling below it hadn't cooled a single degree, but for some reason he felt better after the talk they'd just shared. "...Do you still require assistance in the cockpit?" he asked slowly.

Batman rose, pulled his glove back on, and sent him a look that he would have sworn was a faint-but-proud smile. "Yes," he answered. "Your assistance would be appreciated."

"Then let's go." Even if they found nothing, he mused as they walked out of the medical bay, actively doing something together had to be better than sulking alone.