It was funny, Tim thought a little bitterly as his hands were tied behind him and his ankles bound with parachute cord, how things worked out sometimes. Here stood he and Dick, both highly trained in numerous forms of combat, both members of an elite band of heroes, and both forced by circumstance to allow themselves to be pinioned and held hostage while the outside world was being shaken apart. Add in the force field and the weird attraction he felt towards the girl currently holding a rather large shotgun on his brother, and the whole situation passed into the realm of surrealism.

"Sit," the older female ordered him. Tied as he was, he fell backwards into the wall with a jarring thud and winced as a hundred different points on his abused body complained. A moment later he felt an unpleasant tug on his wrists. Craning his head up, he found that a length of taut rope now connected his arms to a hook fixed into the wall above him, severely limiting his range of movement. It was no problem, really – he would still be able to wriggle free of his makeshift cuffs in a minute or two when it was time – but it wasn't going to be a comfortable wait for his opportunity to strike. Planning ahead, he began to flex his fingers, trying to keep the blood flowing to them despite their wrenched and pinched position.

Charity was standing over him suddenly, still holding her weapon. By bending to the extreme limits of his leash he found that he could look around her and catch sight of Dick, who was putting on a show of struggling to remain upright without his crutch while his hands were dragged behind him. Their eyes met, and Dick's gaze traveled suggestively between him and the girl. Talk to her! Tim read in his brother's expression.

Oh, yeah, there's an idea, he griped. Talk to her, flirt with her, get her to spill a few beans...but that's your forte, Dick, not mine. Shit... He had to try, though, especially when he realized that she was wearing a look of mingled interest and confusion that was a perfect match for the way he felt at the moment. "Um...hey," he tried to smile. It felt wrong on his face, and he knew it probably looked more sickly than charming, but it was the best he could do. "I'm...my name's Tim."

She blinked at him for a moment before she answered. "Are you seriously attempting to flirt with the person who will have to kill you if he" - she twitched her head towards Dick, who had dropped to the ground with a yelp of pain - "tries anything?"

"He won't try anything," Tim assured. "He's kind of busted up for that, you know?" Although if you'd seen him wallop on that bear the other night, you'd be calling me a liar right now, he thought. "I just thought...um..." It would be much easier to do this if the feeble overhead light wasn't shining so attractively off of her curly hair, or if she would at least just look somewhere other than straight into his eyes. "...Well, if you're going to be guarding us, we might as well get to know each other, right?" he managed finally.

"Charity," a warning came from the elder villainess as she straightened from her task. "These are outsiders. Remember that."

"I know, mother," she rolled her eyes without turning around. "I'm eighteen, not eight, thanks. I think I know by now that everyone who isn't you is an outsider."

The older woman's mouth tightened. "Just remember all of the efforts I've made," she reminded. "That your...your father made."

Charity seemed to tense at that. "I'm aware, mother."

"...Good. Then I'll leave you to it. Don't trust them for a moment." And then she was gone, vanishing back into the main part of the cave.

There was silence for a long second after that. Then Charity turned on her heel and walked towards the third wall of the vaguely triangular room. Settling back against it so that she could see them both clearly, she held the gun across her legs, keeping it ready to turn it on them at any moment. While she was facing away Tim caught another significant look from Dick, and steeled his nerve. "So," he tried again, "yeah...have you ever-"

"I'm not going to tell you anything, you know," she cut him off.

...Well, so much for that. He had to fight to keep his shoulders from slumping. As nice as it had been to be the object of feminine attention – a position more usually held by his brother – on this trip, a part of him was seriously wishing that this particular girl had gone after Dick instead. I can lie to the faces of mind readers, I've outsmarted some of the cleverest people alive, and I can even occasionally sneak something past Batman himself, he rued, still gaping at her comment, but ask me to sidle my way into a woman's good graces and I'm shut down faster than Damian at an etiquette competition.

"Tell us any of what?" Dick broke in, his voice bordering on panic. It took Tim a second to decide that he really was faking the emotion. "Look, lady, we don't know what's going on here, okay? I mean, we were just hiking when that earthquake hit, you know? We weren't looking for trouble. When your mom stepped out with that gun...what do you have us tied up for, anyway? What did she mean about prepping for 'New Madrid'? You guys part of some crazy right-wing sect, or what? Aren't...aren't you...what the hell is this place?"

"...I hope you aren't as stupid as your friend is, uh...Tim, right?" Charity saidcontemptuously.

"Hey!"

"It is Tim. And he's not stupid," he frowned at her. He knew he needed to stick to the story Dick was laying down for him, but it was much harder than usual in front of her. Damn it, Drake, pull yourself together! "We...we really don't know what's going on. I mean...we thought we were the only people back here this week."

"Yeah!" Dick latched onto his last sentence. "We're supposed to be the only ones! I paid premium for exclusive permits! There's not supposed to be anyone here, and they definitely aren't supposed to tie us up and hold us prisoner! I swear, I'll have my money back for this..."

Jesus, bro, spreading it on a little heavy over there? Tim winced. Glancing at Charity, though, he found that the act was working. Her lip was curled, and her fingers tightened their grip on the gun as she glared at what was clearly her least-favorite captive.

"Money," she scoffed. "That's all you people care about, isn't it? Your precious money. Thousands are dead from the quake that went off under our feet alone, but do you spare a thought for them? No. No, it's all about how you've been inconvenienced. You're not even upset that the shaking caused you injury; you're upset that you didn't get every ounce of value out of your ridiculous luxury purchase. My god," she shook her head. "...I hate to say this, but mother was right all of those times she told me that outsiders are too vain and greedy to be allowed in decent society."

Tim's mind flew, processing everything that had just been said. Seeing a potential way to ingratiate himself with the girl, he leaped on it. "People...people died in that quake? Thousands of people died?" he breathed, not needing to force the disbelief thickening his voice. While he had expected that such a powerful tremor had caused loss of life in the nearer cities, he hadn't been anticipating such a high casualty rate. If thousands were dead, he wondered, what had the quake registered on the Richter scale? More importantly, how had Charity and her mother caused it?

Charity turned back to him, her face suspicious but softer than it had been when she'd regarded Dick. "...Yes. Thousands."

"But...you said that many died from the quake here 'alone'. You don't mean...there weren't others? Other earthquakes?" He forced his eyes wide. Tell me how many. Tell me how ruined the world outside is.

She gave another one of her long blinks. "...I've already said too much. And you," she aimed at the older man, "have also been too outspoken. Your money back," she sneered. "Grow a conscience, why don't you?"

None of them said anything for a while after that. Dick sank back against the rough rock wall with a perturbed look and appeared to go to sleep. Tim wasn't sure if he was still acting or not – the older man had a reputation for being a phenomenal fake sleeper, and after the last few days he wouldn't have blamed him for catching a little rest while he could – but either way his silence might lead into another shot at Charity. "...Your mother...uh..."

Her gaze zeroed in on him, making his tongue tie. "What about her?"

"She...well, she mentioned your father. Is he...he's dead, isn't he?"

She drew a sharp breath. "Mother didn't say that," a snarled reply came.

"I know she didn't. It's just...my parents are gone, too, you know, so I can sort of read the signs." He shrugged as best he could with his wrists hammocked between his shoulder blades. "I didn't mean to pry, I just thought...you know...it's something we have in common."

"Yeah, well, that's about all we have in common, so just...just drop it."

It was really sad, he lamented as he watched her dab at her eyes, how often the fact that his parents were dead came in handy. For all that he felt the urge to tear up right along with her, though, he couldn't let his opportunity to exploit the weakness he'd found in her walls go by. "...My parents were murdered," he whispered. "Not at the same time, but...still murdered."

Her lips pressed down into an apt imitation of the look her mother had worn as she'd left the cave. Damn, did I overstep again? he frowned. Sure, she'd told him to drop the topic, but mentioning the way his parents had died normally elicited sympathy, not anger. I don't know what I'm doing, Dick. I wish you'd drop that...well, that dickish persona you seem to have adopted just to set yourself up in her mind as a foil to me. Then maybe we could get something out of her, because none of my tactics are working... To be fair, Dick had been the one who had inspired Charity's highly informative monologue a bit earlier; that didn't help their cause now, though.

"I guess maybe we have something else in common, then. But that's it," she swore. "Nothing else."

...Wait, that worked? Oh. "So...your father was murdered, too?"

"It might as well have been murder. People don't care for each other unless there's something to be gained from it for them; it's disgusting. Being...being afraid is no excuse not to at least try and save someone's life, even if you don't know them."

"Yeah," he nodded. "...I agree. It's not. Is...is that what happened-"

"Stop," she ordered as the sound of footsteps echoed into their little chamber, drawing closer. Standing up, she brushed a bit of dust from her pants and shot him an uncertain look of appraisal. "I don't even talk about that to mother, so I definitely don't want to talk about it to a...an outsider. Greed and gold...that's all you and your friend really care about, isn't it?"

"No," he shook his head. "It's not."

Her expression wavered momentarily, but her mother came into the room before he could probe to determine just how deep that flicker of questioning went. Damn it! I was finally getting somewhere. Maybe. I think…

"Go get some sleep," the elder commanded, taking the gun. "I'll watch them for the next four hours, and then we'll switch again."

"Have you done it?" Charity queried, her voice shaking slightly. "New Madrid?"

"Not yet."

"...Okay. Goodnight."

"Goodnight."

"Night," Tim pitched in. It earned him a glare from the older woman – there was no way he'd get so much as a scrap of information from her, he was certain – but that little flutter ran across the girl's face again. 'Outsiders,' he pondered as she disappeared and her mother took up the guard position. When was the last time you were allowed out into the world, Charity? And if it's been a while, just how curious are you about what it's really like?

They were questions he couldn't answer without speaking to her longer, and that wouldn't be happening for another four hours, at least. He hated to wait that long, especially since it wouldn't be exceptionally difficult to free himself, get the gun away from Charity's mother, and tie her up. There were so many things they needed to know… Were there other locations like this in the world, all covering some great earth-shaker that would have to be dismantled? Was this part of a larger scheme they would have to tackle before the planet was safe? They were urgent questions, but if he acted too fast and they both refused to talk as a result he would never get the answers.

Besides, he grimaced, tackling the equipment next door without someone who knew what they were doing beside him might very well be suicide or, worse yet, murder. If it was truly set up to cause a quake elsewhere in the world, it might take nothing more than the brush of a button to kill even more innocent people, and that wasn't something he could live with. On top of that was the risk to their masks; why would two simple civilians stop running away from being held at gunpoint to destroy machinery the purpose of which was a mystery to them? It would be questioned, not just by the women but by anyone else the real story was ever leaked to.

He would have to wait, and that was that. If he was going to just sit here, though, he might as well rest so that he would be ready for action when the time finally came. Letting his head fall back against the wall, he closed his eyes. We're working on it, Bruce, he spared a thought for the man who was no doubt still hovering high above them and worrying. We just need more time...