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Chapter 13

Sacrifice

Left alone in the silence, Tim had only Timothy's whispers for reassurance.

"They'll come." The voice sounded absolutely certain, probability calculated to the nth degree. What had Dick said? Timothy had an uncanny capacity to prepare for probable outcomes. "Bruce will figure out Ra's' plan. They'll come." Had Timothy known it would come to this? Had he known Tim would be here, in this very room, offered up by Ra's?

Somehow he thought Timothy planned for everything. Still…

"Other people can't be relied upon." Other peopled died, like Jack, like Janet. Other people had their own problems to deal with, like Dana. Other people always left him alone in the end.

"They'll come."

"I stabbed Damian. I hurt Jason. I cursed them." Was Jason even alive? The last he'd seen of the older boy, Jason had been shouting at him to run even as the demons closed in. Had he escaped? Even if they came, they'd have to wait for sundown.

No, better to work at the problem from his end.

Tim closed his eyes and forced himself to relax, to ignore the hitch every time he breathed, slow the flow of his blood seeping out, and think. He couldn't help anyone, least of all himself, if he couldn't get his arms and legs free. He didn't know much about demons other than the little he'd read after he'd found out they were pursuing him. He did know he needed something pure as a weapon, but he was woefully short on fire and the free salt packets he'd seen in the kitchen were little use now. There was salt in more immediate sources, of course: 0.6% was the concentration of salt in human blood, 0.9% in human tears. Neither was pure enough to stop a demon. Tim tried anyway, carefully abrading his wrist against the rough grip of claws he could feel somewhere in the darkness holding him down, twisting until his wrist was sticky and coated, but the demon didn't let go.

Tim growled in frustration. If he'd been held down any other way—ropes, cuffs, chains—he could have gotten free. There were flaws in those bindings, weaknesses he could exploit. But not like this. Not with his wrists and ankles held submerged impossibly in shadows by creatures that never tired. Bruce or Dick or Jason might have been able to fight that kind of tireless strength. They might have been able to pull themselves free. But not Tim.

It was strangely ironic that he would have had the strength to break himself free if he'd let Damian finish changing him. He hoped the other boy was all right. He'd intended to incapacitate him, use him to detain the others from looking for him, but he hadn't meant to curse him. Or Jason.

Funny how events had changed his perspective. What had he been mad at them for? Even Damian had just been trying to do what was best for his family: getting rid of the weak link.

Tim let the tension in his fists slacken, let his contemplations lull him into quiet malaise. Even Timothy seemed resigned to their situation, whispering ways to hold out instead of ways to get free.

Time ticked by, paid in heartbeats, felt in the spreading fingers of fire through his abdomen and the weight of worries: had Ra's' plan succeeded? How many people were dying, tearing each other apart, while he lay trapped? Was Bruce fighting the man? The silence in the penthouse was deafening. Darkness descended, plunging the world outside the windows into an all-consuming night that might never lift.

Tim drifted, the pain fading with the colors in the room and the slowing of his thoughts. Even the bright pain of the curse, spread now across his chest and into his limbs, felt muted and far away. Everything was cold.

"They'll come," and maybe it was his own weariness, but even Timothy's voice sounded tired.

"They'll come," Tim repeated wearily, his breath misting against the glass, just this once letting Timothy in, because right at that moment he couldn't find a single difference between them and what did it hurt to hope? He'd spent so much time fighting the voice in his head, pushing it away, he'd never given it a chance. The last twenty-four hours had found him listening to it more and more, until here now, at the end, Timothy didn't seem like such a threat. The silence felt like an accord.

Too bad that understanding came only now, with his strength ebbing away, drained from him like everything else.

And then, suddenly, the demons let him go.

Groggily, he turned his head to look around, frowning, surprised to find himself alone. He didn't know why they'd released him, but he knew he wouldn't get a better chance. Shaking off the foggy stupor that had overtaken him, he painstakingly rolled off the table, hitting knees and elbows jarringly against the floor. The drop couldn't have been more than a foot, but his breath whooshed out, and he lay still for a minute fighting to get it back. It was harder than he'd thought. It had taken too long, his strength sapped with his blood.

Ignoring the far-off hissing from somewhere deeper in the penthouse that told him his captors were only preoccupied, not gone, he tried to pull himself up using a nearby wall for support, managing a pathetic attempt that left him shaking on his knees. Fresh blood seeped from his abdomen at the effort. Not nearly enough. It smeared in streaks all over the hand-lacquered wall he leaned against.

There would undoubtedly be salt in the kitchen. He could use it against the demons when they came back. He had to hang on. He couldn't let Ra's win. But it was taking all his strength just to lean against the wall and breathe through the pain.

A sudden echoing crash caught his attention from somewhere in the rooms beyond, the distinctive hissing of a demon, like steam escaping vents in the earth. It abruptly cut off, and he tensed, waiting. Motion out of the corner of his eye had him struggling up again, reaching along the bookshelf to curl fingers around the heavy metal of a bookend.

He needn't have worried.

"Tim!" He slumped in relief, knees giving out, fingers falling away from the makeshift weapon. Jason caught him before he hit the floor, pressing him close for all of the second it took to lay him back down on the table. Tim hadn't dared hope to see the older boy again. Now the relief was a sharp ache in his chest, stinging at the edges of his vision. Jason was safe. Jason had survived the onslaught of demons and darkness that had taken Tim away the last time he'd seen the older boy. Not that it mattered anymore. There were more important matters at hand.

"Dagger's not… carrier." He caught at the strong arms—this was important—met green eyes unwaveringly, and forced the words out. "Ra's is."

Dick was suddenly there too in his Nightwing guise, taking in the sight of him, sucking in air with a hiss. Tim saw the reality of his state there, because the blue of Dick's eyes was bleak. Too late. Tim felt the truth of it. He felt it in the lack of sticky blood pooling beneath him, in the lethargy stealing over his limbs. He felt it in the cold that had long since settled rime-like on his skin, thick and heavy.

It was always cold at the end.

"Hang on, kid." Jason knelt to reach his side, mouth pressed to the sluggish seep of blood from the puncture wound. Tim's fingers tightened on Jason's jacket, his eyes catching Dick's, trying to convey the urgency of the message.

"Stop Ra's."

"No, Timmy." Dick came around the table to kneel at his other side. "I'm not going to fail you a second time." Tim knew there were a lot of people who might pay for that decision, knew that saving the people who could still be saved should have taken priority, but he couldn't bring himself to feel anything but relief.

"It's so cold."

Dick leaned forward, resting his forehead against Tim's—an intimacy Tim might have found awkward and uncomfortable at one time. Now the contact felt somehow reassuring. Dick's hands on either side of his face were warm. The curses Jason hissed against his side—you idiot, can't stay out of trouble, can't leave you alone for a minute—between flicks of his tongue, were heartening. Just having the two of them there made everything a little easier. Whatever happened, he wasn't alone.

"It doesn't have to be. You could stay with us."

Stay with them. It sounded so nice when put that way. Better than the alternative.

"If you want me to let you go, I will." Dick's impossibly blue eyes were drawn with desperation. "But don't make me, please."

Timothy had chosen to accept that offer. Timothy had chosen to stay with them forever. Why?

"I cared about them." Tim couldn't tell anymore if that was Timothy's thought or his own. It was the same anyway. The tightly coiled pain eating at his chest and abdomen flared up suddenly, spreading, and Tim clenched his teeth against the increased agony.

"Please don't leave us again," Dick begged, arms wrapping around him protectively (as much as they could with Tim laid out flat), and despite everything, Tim had to admit that it felt good.

"Will I still be me?" If he died, he couldn't break the curse, couldn't stop Ra's. That was the only thing that mattered. He definitely couldn't deal with that man as he was. It should have been a logical choice, but he needed to know… needed to believe he wouldn't be the one stuck in the mirror when it was over.

"In every way."

"Jason." Dick blinked. Even that close, it was nearly too quick to see. More of an afterimage or an impression. Tim clarified. "Want Jason… to do it." Dick pulled back, taking Tim in, but he nodded. If he felt put out in any way over Tim's choice, it was drowned out by relief.

He hurriedly moved out of the way, making room for Jason, who scowled as he took Dick's spot.

"If this is really what you want, I'll do it."

"I trust you."

"Save it." Jason's green eyes narrowed on his, fierce and hot. "I'm going to strip you of your control, take you apart, burn away what's left." Tim almost smiled, because that was the kindness he expected from Jason.

"I've died before," he assured. The memories flashed in his head with the words, a sickening shock of déjà vu, and then an entirely different bout when Jason bit sharply into his own wrist and pressed it to Tim's mouth.

He was lying broken on the concrete. It had always been just a matter of time. Jason was calling his name, falling to his knees, slitting his wrist…

The flash was too fast—a freeze-frame moment in someone else's life, the end dissolving into reality and the half-phantom, but all too real, feel of blood dripping into his mouth, coating his tongue.

"This is going to be worse," Jason assured. "Drink it." Those green eyes were uncompromising, leaving no room for disobedience.

Tim didn't have the strength to fight that command. His mind shied away from it—from the sense memory of Ra's' blood, not so long ago, in his mouth and coating his tongue with its poison—but his body obeyed, jaw working, swallowing convulsively. When the wound knit closed, leaving Tim swallowing emptily, Jason reopened it. Tim's fingers twitched where they lay still and forgotten on the glass. His limbs felt heavy, sluggish, useless things. It was only Jason's hold keeping him up, the force of Jason's will moving him, like marionette strings.

Someone's hand clasped his own. Someone's tongue traced the self-inflicted scrapes along his wrist, washing away the sting with wet kisses. That had to be Dick, that distracting press of lips against his skin.

Then Jason leaned down, lips a whisper at the skin of Tim's neck.

"My blood will remake you, you don't need yours," he warned, and Tim hissed as the other boy's fangs clamped down hard through the skin and drew the stagnant trickle of blood out. The part of him that was logical and calculating panicked at that point, because he'd been bleeding out for some time. Even if Jason said he didn't need it, he did. He did.

Jason had been right about taking him apart. It was a strange thought.

For a minute, the logical part of him could only stand there, fascinated by the mechanics. He was dying—or rather, Jason was bleeding him out past death, heart stuttering, stilling, but he wasn't dying. He should have been, but he wasn't. Jason's blood was in him now, changing him.

"Now we come again to the beginning. Now we are whole." Tim couldn't tell if the elation was his. More and more the distinction between him and Timothy was thinning. Bits of Timothy's world were bleeding into his own. There were too few differences between them, and Jason's mouth pressed tightly to his throat, swallowing what mortality he had left… it was crossing a line. Some irreversible and critical difference. But there was no other choice.

At some point he began shaking, and Jason withdrew, fangs retracting, the warm press of his mouth receding, to pull him into a hold that was almost kind. The world blurred, its edges becoming less substantial and less important than the warmth curled around him, the tremor of too-strong arms trying to be too gentle, the knowledge that he wasn't alone. Tim lolled in the security of Jason's hold and the support of Dick's fingers twined with his own. Everything else was distant emptiness in comparison. Again those green eyes sought his, swimming above him, forcefully taking hold.

"You won't feel any pain until you wake up." Tim felt the words sink in, take hold, and realized it was a command. Something more powerful than anesthetic. An uncomfortable prickle chased itself up Tim's spine—a warning of things to come, the faintest hint of old memories on the edge of recall. It was going to be bad.

The shaking became cramping, light at first and then more severe, muscles seizing up. It didn't hurt—a strange absence of pain when he was sure he should have been in agony. But even without the pain, his body felt the strain.

He arched back in Jason's hold, spine bowing, entire body straining for air he suddenly couldn't seem to get enough of. He shoved at Jason's arms, pulled at Dick's hand still clasping his own, digging his nails in when the pair of them only clamped down harder, restraining. Someone placed a placating hand on his forehead, murmuring soft things, probably Dick, but it was white noise. Impressions he'd remember hazily later, but shoved aside for now.

Reality rolled—that nauseating disorientation of déjà vu layering over the world—but there were real hands where he could feel the phantom press of fingers, real blood covering the coppery tang in his mouth. He couldn't distinguish between the two.

"Jason!" he called out desperately, grasping for anything to ground him, and there might have been hands clasping his, whispers he couldn't catch, but if the older boy responded, Tim didn't know.

Consciousness pitched high and black.

Tim awoke with a shuddering gasp, eyes snapping open, wide and… blind. For a full second he couldn't see past the deluge of sensations and information inundating him. Not just the physical impressions that were suddenly assaulting him—warmth beside him, sticky blood across his abdomen, the still-fire burn of the curse, the nearly immaterial brush of air currents—but the memories. Never before had he woken up with such an acute sense of the enormity of the situation, how much was wrong and how little time he had to fix it. Never before had he woken up knowing he hadn't known any of that minutes before. He'd been blind for decades, unable to remember who he really was or what mattered, memories moth-eaten by mortality. Now the cobwebs had been cleared away and he could see what lay behind them.

There was no more voice in the back of his head whispering things he'd forgotten. That voice was his now. It had been his all along. And that was… frightening.

He took a minute to breathe—he knew how to do it efficiently now, one of the memories that was new and very, very old—in and out, steady and rhythmic, trying to integrate the two sets of experiences.

It was strange to wake up and find he could recall more than a century with perfect clarity, to realize that in actuality he'd had access to those memories for about a week now, ever since Bruce had told him to remember. He hadn't been able to handle the influx of information then, hadn't been capable of processing it. Now he could. The depth of it left him gasping breathlessly, grasping for familiar pieces to ground himself.

He'd been afraid earlier of losing himself to Timothy, waking up as someone else, but it was rather that he'd found there was more of himself than he'd realized, the pieces of his memories rearranged and put in order. He was complete for the first time in a long time.

He sucked in one last steadying breath, bolstering himself against the world using the newly returned knowledge and control he hadn't possessed for decades, and sat up in a single swift arc, knife-sharp at the fulcrum of his waist, because he knew how to use this body. Knew the coiled tension and power. Knew its limitations and its superiorities, down to the tiniest flick of its fingers (and if he wobbled just a bit at the end, well, it was still just as new as it was old). And now that he could see them…

His hands were still covered in intricate black brush strokes. Ra's had said Bruce's immortal curse wouldn't override his own, but he'd hoped now that he wasn't the source... Perhaps he'd been under its influence too long. Perhaps the dagger's curse was simply stronger.

He curled his hands into fists—black striated fists—gaze flicking finally to meet the unblinking stares of the two other people in the room.

The others watched him, appraising. Two sets of considering eyes, following his minutest movement. His brothers.

He had brothers. The knowledge—definitely a solid knowing with no room for uncertainty—was both elating and astounding, and it felt like seeing them, really seeing them, for the first time. Not an hour ago he hadn't even been sure they really cared about him.

Tim blinked, briefly completing the sweep of black patterns over his eyelids and down his cheeks.

"Timmy, listen," Dick hurried to say. "We've only kept you from dying, the curse will still…"

"Consume my soul," Tim finished. "I know." There were probably a dozen tells: the confidence with which he said it, the briskness, the too-quick adjustment (because it was a return, not an initial induction) to the enhanced quality of sounds and textures, to an enlarged awareness of the world. Everything about him gave him away. He knew the people standing before him: their tells, how they looked when they were angry, how they laughed. He knew himself in ways he hadn't in a long time, and he couldn't hide that.

"You remember," Dick said, studying him. "Everything?"

"Everything." And then Dick was hugging him, crushing him in his enthusiasm, babbling excitedly.

"Timmy. I knew. All this time."

"I know, Richard. Dick." He hugged back, as tight as he could, because Dick didn't need to know how much he was still hurting right now—crippling pain, coiled and flaring. Dick didn't need to know that it was hard to stand. And he definitely didn't need to know how hard it was to keep everything straight, to hold on to the present. "And it's Tim."

"Still Tim?"

"Still Tim," he confirmed.

"We missed you so." But Dick didn't get any further than that before Jason jerked Tim suddenly free of his hold, the other boy's hand clasped painfully tight around his upper arm, green eyes disbelieving.

"Timothy?" he demanded, and Tim knew instantly this reunion was going to hurt more. "Is it true?" There was no way he could make it easier. He shifted from foot to foot, considering his answer.

"Yes." Tim held still, letting the older boy map the differences, letting him decide for himself. This was what really mattered. He saw Jason's decision coming before it hit—read it in the narrow slant of eyes, the tremor in well-defined muscles, the angry turn at the corners of his mouth. All tells he knew as well as his own. Jason's fist collided with his face. Tim took it, letting the force of it rock him back. He saw it coming, but he still took it.

"Jason!" Dick exclaimed.

Tim's face stung. Jason hadn't pulled that punch one bit. He licked the blood from his lip and smiled.

"It's good to see you too." This time, when the same fist came for him again, he blocked it, and only wondered for a second that he could block it now, never mind the strange belief that he'd always been able to. He'd put Jason through a lot, but he couldn't afford to be beaten to a pulp right then, because he remembered the plan now, remembered that there had been a plan. "We need to–"

"No! You don't get to just pretend everything is all right!" Jason cut him off, gesturing sharply, hands extending his frustration in quick, sideways slashes. "You don't get to just wake up and pull this on us!"

"Jay, he's been through a lot…" Dick started, nearly overtop of Tim's own, "I'd hardly say it was so easy." But Jason was still going, overriding them both.

"How could you do this? Don't you know how much we wanted you back, and now…" He grimaced before forcing the rest of the words out. "So help me, if you've hurt that kid…" Jason took a threatening step forward, hardly restrained by Dick's hand falling on his shoulder—Dick, who was looking between them, seemingly at a loss. Tim's eyes widened at the realization of what had incensed Jason.

"Nothing like that," he replied earnestly. "I swear."

"Where is he?" Jason pressed on, pulling against Dick's grip. "What have you done?"

"It's still me." Tim felt flustered by all the accusation, but also, strangely buoyed by the fact that Jason was worried for him—him, the one he felt he was, rather than the one he now knew he'd been. "I can now handle some of the memories I lost, that's all. They've affected my mannerisms." He'd been holding himself too tightly, he realized, hiding behind the perfect control he'd had when he'd been another person. He let some of that go, shrugging off the layers of precision and restraint like a jacket, so the older boy could see the insecurity and weariness underneath. Jason stared at him for a full minute, green gaze boring down. Whatever he saw there, he did finally lean back, some of the tension along his shoulders and hips disappearing.

"Are you all right?" He still looked unhappy about it.

"I'm fine." Tim's mouth quirked into a thin, stretched smile. It was strange to feel guilty about a decision part of him was certain he'd never made. Strange to worry about how that decision had affected a brother a part of him still felt he'd only met a week back. Strange to realize how much that brother's opinion meant to him. Still, there wasn't time.

The older boy glowered, not fooled. Of course he wasn't. Even if it had been a hundred years, Jason could still read Tim's tells better than anyone. And he'd seen now what Tim was hiding.

"You're not as okay with this as you want us to think." Jason's arms folded across his chest in brooding anger.

"Be that as it may," Tim replied, gathering himself, "we need to stop Ra's before his demons spread the curse across the city."

"We know about the demons," Dick jumped in when Jason looked like he'd protest. "They're attacking people indiscriminately on the streets. Batman and Robin are a little behind, trying to hold them back. What's going on?"

"My plan didn't go as smoothly as I'd hoped." He smiled that thin smile again. That's what he got for trying to coordinate a couple thousand variables over the course of a century. Contrary to Dick's consistent teasing that he could account for anything, not everything had gone right.

"What plan?" Jason demanded.

"I think you have some explaining to do." Even Dick looked dubious.

"The plan to use Ra's to buy time to break the curse."

"Wait. You planned this?" Dick's eyes widened as the ramifications dawned on him. "Coming back? Your death? Everything?"

"You decided on a plan that killed you?" Jason's hands were fisted and he looked about a half-second from punching him again.

"It was an acceptable plan."

"It was not an acceptable plan." Jason gritted his teeth, patience visibly fraying, and couldn't keep his voice from rising angrily. "Dying is not an acceptable plan!" He was shouting by the end of it, unable to contain the outrage and anger and hurt. "What part of that was acceptable?"

"It worked, didn't it?" Tim retorted. He didn't want to talk about this. It was easier to be angry than to admit how disoriented he felt, how much he needed their support just then.

"Do you have any idea what you put us through?" Jason demanded.

"Why didn't you ask for our help?" Dick asked, still wearing that betrayed frown.

"Could you have done it? Could you have killed me?" Maybe it was harsh, but he didn't have time for kindness, and he felt just the tiniest bit satisfied when they flinched. "The curse would have consumed me otherwise, a death I could never have returned from." He'd spared them. He'd even assured he would return to them, and they were angry with him?

"I can't believe you went to Ra's before us."

"We don't have time for this." Tim gestured impatiently. "The world will–"

"Let the world rot!" Even Jason seemed taken aback by the vehemence of that exclamation. He took a calming breath. "You're barely standing right now, how do you expect…?" But whatever he was going to say got cut off by the sudden black shadow sweeping into the room, tailed by a boy in colorful attire.

"Enough." Batman's voice alone had them all at instant attention. His cape was tattered, long tears torn out of it by whatever trouble they'd encountered on the way up. Featureless white lenses turned on Tim, pausing to take him in, cataloguing the differences Dick and Jason had noticed earlier, what those changes meant. Tim knew the instant Bruce realized it by the way he froze. For a full minute the man might as well have been a statue, so struck by the form of his lost son found here again so unexpectedly. Tim straightened under that gaze, forcing himself not to sway.

"Bruce," he said softly, offering himself up to that examination, not daring to reach out, and watched the man's lips work soundlessly to form words.

"It's him, B," Dick said reassuringly, watching too, and finally the man's lips pressed together tightly, swallowing down the questions in favor of the current crisis.

"You will explain later." Batman held his gaze for another second—perhaps unwilling to relinquish the sight of the soul he'd thought lost to him, perhaps fighting the urge to demand answers now—before turning to address the others. "We need to find Ra's."

"I know where he is." Like a compass arrow swiveling back to north, those blank lenses landed back on him, all of them: Dick and Jason, Damian where he'd come to rest by Bruce's side. Tim held them. "I know what to do. Let me face him." There was a wave of instant protests.

"Little Brother, no."

"Have you looked at yourself lately?"

"Tt. I knew you were slow, I didn't know you were stupid."

A raised black gauntlet stopped them. Bruce was still studying Tim, weighing different considerations now.

"This is my fight," Tim urged. Mentally, he willed the man to believe in him. He knew it must look like one lowly demon could keep him down with a single toenail. He knew what he was asking of the man—how much he was asking. The past week, the man had tried to protect him, tried to lock him away from the world to keep him safe. It hadn't worked. It had only bread animosity and resentment between them. Now, knowing he was the same person who had already lost to Ra's once, he was asking Bruce to let him go, to treat him as an equal once more, to rectify those mistakes, even if it meant losing him again.

"He's dangerous," Batman said—it was Batman, sizing up a protégé.

"Yes."

"You're injured and weak."

"Yes," Tim replied again, chin still held stubbornly high. Bruce's eyes closed behind his cowl—Tim couldn't see, but he knew it anyway—lips tightening against a decision that put his heart at conflict with his head.

"Not alone."

Tim smiled, relief flowering under the bright rays of that trust.

"B, you can't seriously think he's fit to–"

"And not like that," Bruce continued, cutting Jason off even as he eyed Tim's disheveled apparel.

"Of course not!" Jason was still scowling. "Look at him! He's barely standing!"

"Jay's got a point," Dick said, shifting worriedly from foot to foot.

"Jason." He was all Bruce now, a tired father reaching out with his voice (the way he couldn't with his hands) to assuage the demands of his two lost sons. "Show him." Jason only bristled at the reprimand.

"How can you let him kill himself again?" he demanded, but Bruce had made up his mind.

"Show him," the man repeated.

Tim thought at first he wouldn't listen—Jason stared Bruce down for a full minute—but finally the older boy turned stiffly, picking up a suitcase by the coffee table Tim hadn't noticed before.

"We have something for you. Bats thought it might help. We figured you'd try something stupid." He flipped the clasps, displaying the red and black contents inside, and for that moment pride replaced his disapproval. Jason patted it. "We've upgraded a little since you've been gone."

"What do you think?" Dick asked. When Tim could only finger it, wordless, Dick continued. "I told Jason it needed more blue." Jason snorted.

"Keep your design flaws to yourself."

Tim laughed, an honest laugh, even if it wracked him with spasms of pain he carefully hid.

"It's perfect."

"Oh!" Dick said. "I brought something else to arm you with." He pressed one hand flat to Tim's heart and with the other pressed a yellow stick-it note into his palm. Tim looked down, surprised to find the crumpled remains of the note he'd left on his laptop—the one piece of information he hadn't been able to find. When he looked back up, Dick leaned forward, pressing more firmly against his heart, and whispered, "It's here."

"You guys always bring me the best presents." Tim grinned, only to have Bruce recall him to the solemnity of the situation.

"Robin and I will keep the demons below occupied." Batman's hand clapped him on the shoulder, and Tim knew it was the biggest show of trust the man could make, letting him handle a situation so dire on his own. He nodded tightly, accepting that responsibility, the weight of it. In response, the hand on his shoulder squeezed once and let go. The hesitation then, just the smallest lull before turning away, was all Bruce—a father not knowing if this would be the last time he'd see a son. "Robin, come." Batman looked down at the brightly colored boy at his side before turning and disappearing into the hall, Robin trailing after until he was no more than the flicker of a yellow cape around the corner. Tim watched them go.

They'd barely disappeared before Dick stepped in front of him, hands on hips.

"You're not getting rid of us," the older boy said, scowling warningly, like he thought Tim might protest.

"We're not leaving you," Jason agreed, and looking between the two of them, Tim knew he wouldn't be able to make them go. He felt only relieved by that.

"I wouldn't have it any other way."

Author Notes: How many of you already know what's in the case? Jason was holding a piece of it in ch. 10. I got a solid chewing out from my beta over this chapter. I was having so much fun writing superiorly-awesome-vamp-Tim that I forgot to write Tim. So I had to go back and humanize him a bit. Make sure it didn't look like Tim disappeared. Oops. I've rewritten large chunks of this at the last minute, so I hope it works out.

I'm so excited, Ladelle wrote a drabble for my JayTim Persona prompt! And she did such a good job! I just want more! She took it a different way than my own story, but it's so good! I'll post a link on my profile. (I want to write more on this myself—I'm so proud of this little plotbunny)

Also, the sequel to HOL is up—the first chapter anyway. It's called Affected Family, and despite how much Dick and Damian are in the first chapter, there is a large amount of Tim and some Jason coming up.

Oh! In case anyone didn't connect it (because I realized the other day I never did directly restate it), when Timothy says "He knows and he's coming" in chapter 5… The answer, obviously, is Ra's knows he's alive, where he is, and he's coming.

Finally, some bad news. I know I said I was hoping to keep to a two-week posting schedule all the way through the end of this fic, but my husband got a job in another county and we're officially moving, and while that's good for us, it does mean that I strongly suspect I won't be here to post the next chapter on time. Expect delays. (there are only two chapters left!)