Tim Drake had been running across Gotham's rooftops for years. Starting way back in Dick Grason's Robin days. He sort of remembered the time before Dick had become Robin, but it was vague, like most memories you have when you're little. Back then, Batman had been whispered about as a demon. A true creature of the night that you would be better off avoiding if you cared about living. One of his earliest memories was listening at a keyhole, hearing his parents talk about the strange and dangerous creature haunting Gotham's nights.

When Dick had become Robin, things had changed. Batman had changed. It became Batman and Robin. never one without the other. Gotham got a light who flew through her skyline, joining her dark knight in his quest. Later, unknown to either the shadow or the light, a small photographer joined them on her roofs.

Tim had watched as Dick and Bruce fought together, and he had also watched them fight each other as Dick grew up and started to rebel against Batman. Tim was there in the shadows when Robin became Nightwing and Jason Todd became Robin. And he was there for what happened after that.

After a long day at school, when most of his classmates were arriving at their own homes and greeting parents, Tim came home to an empty house, again. He didn't bother wondering where his parents were, he didn't need to. He had installed a tracking program in their phones last time they came to visit Gotham.

Making his way into the kitchen and setting his school bag and jacket on the counter, he began his daily routine by emptying his lunch box and washing it in the sink before prepping something for his dinner and the next day's lunch. Today he grabbed a box of macaroni for dinner, and while he waited for the water to boil, made himself a PB&J sandwich for the next day. Dishing the mac and cheese into a bowl, he ate his dinner at the kitchen island. Usually this is the point in his routine when he would pull up YouTube or grab a book to entertain himself, maybe pull out his homework if he was feeling productive. Tonight though, he just ate his food in silence, lost in thought.

Finishing his food, he stood and washed both his dish and the pot he'd cooked the noodles in, before making his way up to his room. Closing the door behind him, he knelt next to his bed and reached underneath it to pull out a small box with a lock on the side. Pulling a key out of his pocket, he opens it, revealing a pile of photographs. He pulls out two of them, and sets them side by side on the hardwood floor of his bedroom. Two Robins, flying through the smog of Gotham.

Dick had swung like he was born to fly, but Tim had always loved watching Jason swing through Gotham's streets. Jason was Gotham's, and Gotham was Jason's. He would swing from building to building, through the streets and alleys. Where Dick had seemed to leave even gravity behind, Jason had always been tied to Gotham even as he flew through her skies.

Tim held up the photo of a smiling Robin and spoke quietly into his empty room. "Batman needs a Robin, Jason. He's become violent and angry. People, regular innocent people, run from him in terror. Dick won't come back and you're... gone. So I have to step up."

Tim gingerly put the photos back into the box and hid it back under the bed. Passing back through the kitchen, he grabbed his jacket and made his way through the empty halls of Drake Manor and out into the chill Gotham night.

"I promise I'll make you proud, Robin."

Tim was patrolling on his own tonight. Batman was off world, and while Oracle and Batgirl were around somewhere, he had decided to just leave them to it and go at it alone tonight.

Seeing the bat signal appear in the sky, he adjusts his swing to take him to where he knows the commissioner will be waiting for them.

Seeing commissioner Gordon standing next to the bat signal, Tim lands silently behind him. "Commissioner."

The man turns around and greets him in turn, much too used to their habit of appearing out of the shadows to be startled anymore. "Robin. Just you tonight?"

"Yeah. If it's something big I'll let Batman know, but otherwise it's just me."

Gordon makes a noise of agreement and pulls a manila file folder out from his coat. "Yeah, I think you'll want to bring this up to him. Something's happening in Crime Alley. Over the last couple of months there's been an increase in the number of arrests made," he says, handing the folder over to Robin.

His domino mask pulls at his brows as his forehead creases in confusion. "Okay, that sounds like a good thing. What's the catch?"

"Almost all the criminals arrested confessed without any push."

Robin knows just how easy it is for a petty criminal to walk out of the GCPD with only a slap on the wrist and pocket book a few bills lighter. Something, or someone, is convincing them that they are better off in jail than on the street, and he highly doubts that it's a sudden guilty conscience.

The commissioner's thoughts had apparently followed a similar trail as he explained that further investigation had shown just that, petty drug dealers brought in for selling to kids, only to walk out of the station due to 'lack of evidence'.

But unlike those who had confessed and stayed in prison, these dealers were shot dead on the very steps of the GCPD.

"Any suspects?" Robin asks.

"Two. A new player, and The Red Hood."

The Red Hood Jason.

Tim does his best to not let the sudden spike of adrenaline that comes from hearing about his predecessor show on his face. "So you think that the criminals are turning themselves in to avoid being killed by Red Hood?"

Gordon nods. "Possibly, but there's also this new player, Lady Chance." He gestures to the folder, and Tim flips to the next file, which, though sparse on any other details, has a photograph of a woman in a red and black spotted suit. "Looks like she started out as a regular street vigilante, but now there's rumors of her working as The Red Hood's enforcer, or even his partner. She's the one who actually brought most of the criminals in."

Robin ponders that for a moment, before flipping the folder closed and tucking it into his suit. "Thank you, commissioner. I'll bring this up to Batman. Have a good night."

"You too, kid. Stay safe out there.

It was an accident that the last stretch of Tim's route took him through Crime Alley. That is, of course a lie, he was Robin, he knew exactly what he was doing, but that's what Tim would tell Batman when he asked.

It was reckless of him to travel through Jason's territory, and yet he did it whenever he thought he could get away with it.

Maybe he wanted a rematch with Jason. Return the favor from when he had beaten him up in Titans tower and ruined his childhood dream of meeting his Robin.

There was a joke about never meeting your heroes here somewhere he was sure.

Bitter? What are you talking about? He wasn't bitter at all.

The fact that he wasn't bitter was probably why he decided to confront Jason's new partner without any backup.

He swung down onto the roof she was standing on silently, but somehow she still noticed his presence and turned around to face him.

"Who are you?"

He analyzed her. There was something off about her features. Even as he tried to analyze her he couldn't seem to get a feel for her age, or even any distinguishing features. It wasn't that she didn't have any, more like his mind wasn't able to remember her face, despite currently looking at her.

"I'm Robin, my question is who you are, Lady Chance."

She tensed up further when he mentioned her name. "That's none of your business, kid."

He ignored the dig at his age. "I beg to differ. You're in Gotham and working with a crime lord, that makes you my business."

She glared at him. "I'm in Gotham to help, and that's all you need to know."

"So then why work with Red Hood?"

"If I can do more to help the people here by working with someone else, even if I don't always agree with how they do things, then that's what I'll do."

Tim scoffed mentally. Rather Idealistic words from a criminal. "I'm sorry if I don't think that working with a crime boss is the way to do that."

"You might not see it, but Hood is helping the people here." Her voice took on a bit of mournfulness. "Maybe it's not a perfect solution, but I gave up on perfect solutions a long time ago. He's trying to help here, and it's working. That's enough for me."

"Aw, I appreciate it, Chance." Tim spins to confront the new voice, and sees Red Hood standing behind him. "As for you, replacement, it's time for you to leave."

Tim's hand closes on his bow staff and he sees Hood's hands extend towards his own weapons. Looks like he was going to get that rematch after all. He leaned forward onto the balls of his feet, ready to move as soon as the fight began. In his peripheral he kept an eye on Lady Chance. She was an unknown element, and unknowns were dangerous.

His mind was racing, creating and discarding plans at a rapid pace. Then Hood looked over to Lady Chance, and sighs. Removing his hands from his weapons, he turned his back on Tim.

"Go home replacement. Batman doesn't need another dead sidekick," Jason says, before jumping off the roof.

Tim looked over to where Lady Chance had been standing, only to find that she had disappeared as well, leaving him on the roof, alone and ready for a fight that apparently wasn't going to be happening.

Robin had delivered the commissioner's file to Batman as promised, but Tim didn't tell him about the confrontation on the rooftop. Tim was pretty sure that he knew anyway, The Batman always found out eventually, but if he wasn't gonna ask then Tim wasn't gonna tell.

It was several months later before the two crime lords came back on the bat's radar. After confirming that it was indeed Red Hood and his new partner who were responsible for the deaths and arrests, Batman had marked the case solved and moved on. As long as The Red Hood wasn't hurting innocents then The Batman didn't need to get himself involved. Bruce didn't need to confront Jason.

They went back to the status quo, Batman ignoring Red Hood, and Jason ignoring Bruce. That changed when the Joker kidnapped Tim.

The Joker had escaped Arkham, and so far there had been no word on what he was doing. He hadn't been seen at any of his usual haunts, there was no whispers among the goons about new jobs, and there weren't any big purchases or thefts that would indicate a scheme afoot. Batman would know, they had checked, thoroughly.

It seemed that Joker was staying quiet, which, when it came to the Joker, was far more worrisome than the alternative.

Then Tim had gone missing.

When Bruce realized that Tim hadn't said anything over the coms for over fifteen minutes he had done his best not to panic, but when Tim hadn't responded to his calls any attempt at shoving down the fear that was bubbling in his stomach became meaningless. He had ordered Oracle to track Robin's position and had immediately started searching outwards from where he had last seen Tim.

"B, I can't track him."

Bruce almost missed his swing. "What do you mean you can't track him? Where was he last?" he asked, growling at her, fear climbing up his throat.

"His com is down, and so are the secondary and tertiary trackers. I'm sending you the last logged location, but the alley is empty."

"Roll back the footage, find out what happened!" He snapped at her, immediately swinging to the location she sent.

"I'm working on it!" She snapped back at him. The com line went silent briefly before there was a choked gasp on the other end.

"What is it?" He landed on the roof he was swinging over. "Oracle report!"

"Bruce," any reprimand he would have had for her use of his name over coms was cut off by what she said next. "It's Joker, Joker has Tim."

Bruce froze, his mind becoming nothing but a screaming loop of 'not again not again not again'.

Pulling himself out of his burgeoning panic attack, he tuned back in to what Oracle was saying. "I'm going to try and trace the van on the cameras. See if I can figure out where he took him."

"Get Alfred to help you, and call Dick. Send the Batplane to pick him up."

"On it Batman. We'll find him."

The 'we have to' hung silent in the air between them.

Dick was holding himself together by a thread. He didn't know how Bruce would react to losing another Robin. He didn't know how he would react to losing another little Brother.

When Babs called him and told him that they needed him to find Tim before it was too late, he dropped everything and climbed the nearest roof so that the Batplane could pick him up. Babs patched him into the coms on his way over to Gotham, so when the statement came over the coms, he heard it loud and clear.

"This is Red Hood. Robin is at the abandoned funhouse at Amusement Mile. He is injured but alive. You're welcome."

"Jason?" Dick asked. "Jason is that you?"

There was nothing but silence on the other side of the com.

"I have a read on Robin's Communicator," Oracle reported. "Robin's at the funhouse... just like he said."

Dick grabbed the controls for the Batplane and deactivated the autopilot, changing his heading and increasing the throttle.

Batman's voice came over the coms. "Affirmative Oracle, heading there now."

Dick shook his head and pulled himself together. Jason said that Tim was injured, so it was important that they got there as soon as possible. "Nightwing to Oracle, I am also enroute. And Jay, if you are still listening, thank you."

Dick arrived to see Batman untying an injured but awake Robin. As he walks further into the building he sees what is left of the Joker, neck broken and body unmoving. The part of him that is angry and jaded, the part that he does his best to keep buried and hidden, covered with puns and quippy jokes, starts laughing. He chokes on it.

Finally, the damned clown is dead. After everything he'd done, the friends he hurt, the family he killed, he was dead. And good riddance to him.

It's Tim's hoarse voice, hoarse from screaming, that brings him out of his dark thoughts.

"They saved me." Dick hurries over to him and Bruce, who is holding his now untied Robin so very gently as he checks him over for injuries. "Lady Chance and Red Hood. They saved me."

Dick runs his hands gently through Tim's hair. "Yeah they did, didn't they baby bird."

Bruce pulls out one of the painkiller pens he keeps in his belt and injects it into Tim's side. He flinches, before beginning to relax into Bruce's arms. His eyes begin to drift close as the drug starts to work, and Dick continues brushing his hands through his little brother's hair.

"My Robin saved me," Tim whispers, as his eyes close and his breaths even out, and his words hit Dick right in the heart.

Dick would love to hug his little brother tight to himself and not let him go, but he contents himself with listening to his gentle breaths.

He and Bruce both sit there and just listen to Tim's breaths for a while before Bruce breaks the silence. "Oracle, send the Batmobile around to pick us up, and tell Agent A. to prepare the medbay. Robin has multiple broken bones and lacerations. We seem to be in the clear when it comes to internal injuries, but I can't be certain."

Most people, if they were to look at Batman, would see a stoic wall, unfeeling and unreadable, but Dick had been fighting with Bruce for years. He could see how worried he was in the way his eyes wouldn't leave the rise and fall of Tim's chest, and in the way his arms cradled Tim's head, as though he was trying to protect him from the world.

"Understood Batman. The Batmobile is already enroute, it will be outside within the next few minutes," Dick let out a breath, and he could see Bruce untense just slightly at her words as well.

"Thanks Oracle," he said.

"No worries Nightwing, just get Robin home safe."

"Yes ma'am." He could practically hear her rolling her eyes.

"Oracle out."

"See you in a bit, O."

The Batmobile pulled up and he and Bruce carefully lifted the sleeping Tim and placed him in the car. As Batman moved to the driver's seat, Dick looked up to see if he could spot any sign of a red helmet. Seeing nothing he sighed and turned back to the car.

"Thanks for saving him, Jay."