Warning! The following chapter includes not-particularly-well-researched passages detailing the mechanics of a plane, first aid for an injured character, and the physics behind air travel. But worry not! Everything has been phrased so it sounds like the author knows what she's talking about.

Content warnings can be found at the end of this chapter.

With a strangled gasp, Tim fell to the ground again, feeling the wind leaving his lungs. He took a moment to just lay there and catch his breath, as Ra's had stopped his attack.

"My, my, it seems that I'm lucky that you apparently suck at combat," Ra's sneered, looming over Tim with his arms crossed.

"You're—hilarious—" he managed to choke out in between lungfuls of air.

"Up," Ra's commanded, just as he had the past five times he'd beaten Tim.

"Yeah, yeah—I'm—coming—" Tim rolled over onto his stomach and pushed himself off of the ground with a grunt.

"Again."

"Again?" Tim heard the strangled gasp of Neville's from somewhere on his right. "But he's hurt!"

Ra's made no indication that he had even heard Neville, but he swung his leg at Tim again, which the boy managed to block this time.

Two minutes later, Tim was back on the ground, gasping for breath.

"Detective!" Ra's said in mock surprise. "Why, Damian could have lasted another five minutes at least!" There he was, trying to get into Tim's head and feed off of his insecurities like always.

"No—shit—!" he coughed, getting back up. "What—else is new—?"

The next time Tim fell, Ra's tossed him a wooden gun staff. "Let's see how you fare in your element." Ra's himself readied a pair of sai, waiting for Tim to get up again.

Tim twirled the staff around in his hands a couple of times, getting a feel for the weapon and how it moved. Ra's, however, did not seem intent on giving Tim any time to prepare, and he rushed at Tim with sai readied.

Tim really was in his element, even more so than Ra's apparently realized. Did the Demon's Head know that Tim had spent an entire month at the beginning of his Robin tenure training with Lady Shiva just like this? He would have a collapsible staff, she would show up with an unfamiliar weapon, and he would spar her until he could get a hit on her. He'd spent an hour sparring against her while she wielded twin sai.

It was clear that Ra's was not expecting the ease with which Tim now fought. It took a couple of minutes, but Tim finally managed to disarm the man. He swung the staff at Ra's head, stopping right before he would hit the man's neck.

Well, that's what Tim should have done when sparring with anyone else. Instead, Tim followed through on his blow, and Ra's choked, dropping to the ground.

He deserves it, Tim thought to himself bitterly.

The man quickly brushed off his shoulders and got back up. "In a normal sparring match, one does not take the final blow, Detective," he wheezed, his voice strained.

"Good thing this isn't a normal sparring match, then," Tim replied, feeling incredibly satisfied that he had finally taken Ra's down today.

Of course, it was all fun and games when he was the one winning. It was less fun when Ra's handed him a pair of eskrima sticks and himself readied a pair of tonfa. Sure, Tim was good with eskrima, but it was nothing like his expertise with a pole staff. This was only made more apparent when Ra's got a hit in on Tim's chest that sent him reeling.

Tim gasped for a breath and was suddenly hit with another sharp pain, like Ra's had just given him another blow. Did he seriously…? Goddammit!

"You broke my ribs, asshole!" Tim hissed, doubling over, which only inflamed the injury.

"Oh, don't be dramatic, Timothy," Ra's replied nonchalantly. "I fractured them."

"How—how many—?" he gasped, dropping his eskrima and feeling around his chest, being extra gentle in order to not aggravate the injury.

"I went for three, but I might have gone overboard," admitted Ra's, sounding not-at-all sorry about it. "After all, this isn't a normal sparring match, now is it…"

Tim groaned, steadying his breathing. "F-fuck—fuck you—old—old man—" he whispered, not willing to muster up the strength to speak any louder.

"Again."

"Are you insane?" Neville shrieked. "You broke his ribs, how can you expect him to fight back?"

"Timothy is capable of far more than you think," Ra's chuckled, retreating to get another set of weapons off of the wall.

"But he—!" Neville stopped when Aruna leaned over to him and whispered something, shaking her head. He bit his lip, clearly uncomfortable with the concept of staying silent, but then he nodded at Tim resolutely.

This time, Tim barely managed to catch the folded three-section staff due to a brief moment of hesitation when he realized that twisting his torso was torture for his ribs. He only had a moment to see Ra's readying a pair of kama before he was shoved to the ground by a well-placed kick without even a chance to utilize his staff. Tim couldn't hold back the cry of pain he let out when his back hit the floor; his ribs were clearly not enjoying all the action.

"Detective," Ra's sneered, dropping to pin Tim down, "you've grown soft."

Tim's breathing had become very labored at this point, and each attempt to inhale felt like he was trapped under a collapsed building. "S-shut—up—"

"You lack the proper instruction necessary to bring out your full potential," he added, and then, because this was Ra's, he pressed his knee down on Tim's ribs.

Tim let out a strangled, "GAH!" and slammed his fist down on the ground as hard as he could in an attempt to block out the pain.

"You will never be strong enough without me, Detective."

"I'm n-not—" he whispered, each word taking an incredible amount of energy out of him, "—gonna—join your—your s-s-stupid—cult—!" He had more he wanted to say, but Ra's had taken his kama and was pressing the handle down on Tim's throat, making any speech effectively impossible.

"But you want it," Ra's sneered, leaning over so that their faces were uncomfortably close to each other. "You can try and try to deny it, but, at the end of the day, you desperately desire my—"

"Stupefy!"

In a flash of red light, Ra's was thrown off of Tim, collapsing to the ground, motionless, and Tim was finally able to catch his breath, rolling his head to the side to seek out the source of this spell.

Over against the wall of the cave, Neville, still flanked by assassins, was frozen with his manacled hands stretched out in front of himself and a face of shock like he had just performed his first Kamehameha. He couldn't stop glancing back and forth between Ra's' fallen form and Aruna.

"I-it worked!" he stammered, gesturing in Tim's general direction. "Holy mother of Merlin, it worked! I—I did wandless magic!" He stared down at his hands, as though waiting for them to burst into flames.

Tim was staring at Neville himself in much the same manner. To say that wandless magic was incredibly advanced would be an understatement. Being able to concentrate your innate magic without a focus like a wand was something few wixen could do. And here, right now, Neville Longbottom, by all accounts a slightly below-average wizard, had just knocked out Ra's al Ghul of all people.

"Geez, Neville," Tim chuckled weakly as he lifted himself off of the ground, "where'd you learn how to do that? I'm pretty sure Harry never taught us that in any D.A. meeting."

"H-he didn't!" said Neville, turning to Aruna. "She—" He winced. "Sorry, I didn't catch your name—uh, you said that I should try to cast the spell since I would have a clear shot."

Aruna shrugged. "Lazarus Pit," she said simply. Tim knew that the Lazarus Pit bolstered certain kinds of magic, but he had never imagined that someone like Neville would be able to channel his magic, wandless, on the first try.

Tim looked around the room. There were a dozen assassins, all standing at attention like nothing had even happened. "All right, then," Tim coughed, clearing his throat. "Then I guess we'll be taking our leave."

He glanced over at one of them, who was standing near the weapons' rack. "Umar, right?" he asked, pointing at the assassin, who gave a curt nod. "Cool. Where's our stuff, Umar?"

The man immediately glanced over at another assassin and nodded at her. She stepped forward, hands folded behind her back. "I shall take you to your stuff, Master Timothy."

Tim really hated when they called him that. He knew it was a basic translation of a formal Arabic title, but 'Master Timothy' was reserved for Alfred Pennyworth and only Alfred Pennyworth. Not that anyone here knew that, and not like Tim was actually going to tell them that and insult their English skills. The language was hard enough as is without some white guy coming in and demanding to be called something special.

"Thanks," said Tim, as though none of that was running through his head. "And…you are…?"

"Hadiyya," she replied, already walking out of the room. Tim hurriedly gestured for Aruna and Neville to follow, who were both in the process of magically removing their manacles.

Tim kept the assassin's pace, taking the time to note the heavy gauntlets hanging from each arm. "Oh, hey, you must be Sumayya's younger sister!"

"I am."

As they twisted and turned through the complicated cave systems of Nanda Parbat, Neville started walking next to Tim, shooting him worried glances every couple of seconds.

"Are you sure we can, uh…trust them…?" he finally blurted out, probably a little louder than he had hoped, because he hurriedly turned like he was expecting Hadiyya to attack him.

Tim would have shrugged if it didn't hurt his ribs so. "They're extensions of the Demon, their job is to listen to the Head. And since the Head is currently incapacitated and he clearly didn't explicitly order them to keep us detained, I can technically call the shots unless Ra's wakes up and says otherwise." Tim paused. "He's not gonna wake up any time soon, is he?"

"Probably not," said Aruna, which was oh-so-comforting.

Neville cocked his head, frowning. "Wait, so you work with these people?"

"Not if I can help it, no," Tim grumbled. "Hence the apparent need to kidnap me."

Neville did a double take. "Why do they want you so much?"

Well, I'm actually the protégé of the World's Greatest Detective, whom Ra's al Ghul once trained, and he and Ra's have different ideas of how to make a change in the world. Ra's has been struggling to find a worthy successor, and since Bruce and Damian both have renounced him, he's made me his new pet project. Not to mention that he's definitely still pissed about that time I blew up all of his bases. So, yeah, he's really intent on taking me on as an apprentice all Darth Sidious-like. And he may or may not have a creepy…attraction to me. Is it sexual? Is it romantic? Is he a pedophile? I'm still trying to figure that out.

"Ra's wants me to be his successor," Tim explained plainly. "I don't." He could tell that Neville had a million more questions on his mind, but he refrained from asking any more.

"Master Timothy," said Hadiyya, sliding a door open into what looked like a small storage room packed with tools for cleaning weapons and sharpening blades. In three separate piles, their pajamas had been neatly folded. Tim handed Aruna and Neville their clothes, and he grabbed his own, quietly pocketing the amulet that had been sitting atop them as inconspicuously as possible.

Neville looked down at his clothes, then back up at Tim. "Um…so how are we actually planning on, um, getting back?" he squeaked, looking ashamed for having to even ask the question.

Ah, yes. A plan. That would be good. "I thought we'd just take a jet and figure something else out on the way back to Britain."

There was a brief moment during which Neville and Aruna stared at Tim like he was a stranger. Then, they asked in unison, "What's a jet?"

"And Muggles have a non-magical way to make these—" Neville gestured to the aircraft in front of him, "—fly?" Aruna wordlessly patted it on the side, like it was an animal that needed affection.

"Hop on and you can see for yourself," Tim said as the boarding ramp slowly lowered to the ground. "It's only a matter of time before—"

"Did I give you permission to leave, Detective?" a voice echoed throughout the cave.

"Speak of the devil…" Tim hissed, ushering Aruna and Neville into the jet. "All right, enough gawking, just get on."

"Was that the cape guy?" asked Neville nervously, looking over his shoulder as if expecting to see the man right behind him.

"Yep." Tim pressed the button to retract the ramp. "And that's our cue to get the hell out of here." The ramp, however, made no move to shut itself.

"Shit." Tim rapidly pressed the button, his heart pounding in sync with the crescendo of footsteps echoing around the hanger. Ra's must have taken remote control of the plane minutes ago, seeing as he was always ten steps ahead of Tim. Their only chance of getting out of here was for Tim to manually wrestle said control from Ra's, which could take several minutes, seeing as he didn't have any of his usual tech on him right now.

"Someone's coming!" Neville squealed, backing further into the plane.

"Yes, and they're going to come for this ship," Tim said. He then placed a hand on Neville and Aruna's shoulders. "And it's up to you two to hold them off until I can get this thing in the air."

Neville swallowed nervously. "U-us?" he repeated, pointing back and forth between himself and Aruna.

"Just cast some spells like you did earlier, and you'll be fine," Tim told them in the most convincing show of confidence he had faked in a while. There was a moment's hesitation during which he contemplated giving further instructions, but the truth was that he had no idea what he was doing. He almost never did. With a curt nod, he bolted to the cockpit, opening the doors with some quick hotwiring of the keypad.

Okay, okay, okay, what have we got? He rushed into the cockpit, glancing around and drinking in every detail as quickly as possible. The most obvious thing that he saw was a small light above him that bathed the room in red. But the flight instrument system was familiar, at least. Bending over, he ran his hands over the panel, trying to pinpoint the system's features.

First thing's first, I gotta get this thing on, he thought, but a quick once-over told him that, since the panel lacked any slot for an ignition key, there was probably some kind of passcode necessary. He redirected his attention over to the main display screen. There was no button to turn it on, so he tapped the screen, hoping for some sort of response.

Appearing in bright red letters was:

SYSTEM ON LOCKDOWN

Tim immediately dropped to the ground and began poking his head underneath the dashboard, trying to ignore the way his ribs burned when he lay down.

Come on, come on, there's gotta be one somewhere… The red light reflected off of an object, catching Tim's attention. It was a small, flat multi-tool, the kind one might keep close in case of emergencies. Or in case people were trying to break into their plane.

"Now we're cooking with peanut oil," Tim whispered, snatching the tool out of its hiding place.

In the distance, he could hear Aruna and Neville simultaneously shout—

"Stupefy!" Neville gawked again when he saw the way the spell just sprung from his hands. He was even more astonished when nearly a dozen soldiers were blasted back.

He let out a breathy, staggered laugh, turning to Aruna. "Aruna, did you see that? Did you see how many of them I got?"

She looked at him with wide eyes. "Protego!"

Neville gasped, turning around just in time to see a sharp metal weapon hurdling towards him, only to bounce off of the freshly-cast charm.

"Focus," she told him, sounding neither angry nor annoyed.

Neville nodded, his heart still pounding from seeing that Muggle weapon coming straight for him. He had never really thought Muggles a credible threat before, but, seeing these people rushing at him, he could honestly say that he didn't know if Aruna and he could hold them off. There were just so many of them…

From inside the ship came a muffled, "Okay, just hang on for, like, five minutes, you two, I'm almost done!"

Oh, right. Tim was here. Tim knew what he was doing. Tim was going to get them out of here.

Neville took a deep breath, thrust out his hands, and prepared to cast his next spell.

"Yes!" Tim whispered to himself, pulling the small black box out of the mess of wires he was looking at right now. Intelligent as Ra's was, technology had never been his strong suit. It was nothing short of a miracle that Ra's had installed hardware into the planes to shut them down instead of programming the system itself. That meant Tim didn't have to crack any passwords. All he needed to do was—

Snap! As he yanked two of the wires on the box out, the red light turned off almost immediately. He grinned like a madman, sliding over to his right to unscrew another panel. Now, all he had to do was get the engine running, and then he could finally be out of this God-forsaken fortress. Locating the battery wires went much faster, as he had hotwired cars and planes alike under Bruce's tutelage. All it took was a couple twists, and all the flight instruments came to life simultaneously.

He crawled out from under the dashboard and started flipping switches as quickly as possible. Check the fuel, move the throttle, set the mixture—

"Detective," the voice of Ra's boomed from outside, "I don't think your friends can last much longer."

He almost hit his head in his hurry to crawl back under the panels.

"We're fine, Tim!" Neville shouted, his voice hoarse. "Don't listen to him!"

Tim bit his lip as he started to touch some exposed wires to one another. Come on, come on, just start! After six tries, there was a great tremor, like an aftershock, and the jet began to rumble.

"YES!" Tim scrambled back to his feet and rushed back to where Aruna and Neville were holding off the assassins. He pointedly ignored the shuriken jutting out of Neville's thigh and slammed the door closer. At once, the ramp retracted itself, and a large sheet of metal dropped down, blocking off any future intruders. The moment he could confirm that it had indeed closed, Tim spun back around and slid into the pilot's seat, flipping the switches above him mainly through muscle memory.

"You two need to hold on to something!" he shouted as he began the vertical takeoff.

"WHAT?" Neville's exclamation could barely be heard over the roaring engines.

"YOU NEED TO—dammit, we don't have time for this!" Tim shot up from his seat and ran over to where Neville was leaning haphazardly against the wall. Without waiting to ask for permission, Tim wrapped an arm around Neville and started helping the boy towards the cockpit. Aruna followed without any direction needed. As quickly as possible, Tim eased Neville into the copilot's chair, wincing at the way Neville gripped his arm in pain. After buckling him up, Tim jumped back into his own chair, but not before making eye contact with Aruna, pointing her to a long, vertical handlebar, and pantomiming her grabbing said bar.

"This is your last warning, Detective."

"Yeah, I don't think so," Tim said, mostly to himself, and realigned the thrusters, zooming out of the cave's natural opening and into the ever-violent winds of the Himalayas.

It took a solid hour for Tim to navigate their plane out of the Himalayas, a turbulent period during which he deliberately ignored Neville's constant screams every time the plane rocked, shaking his head whenever the boy would look to him for answers. Once, Tim reached over and slapped Neville's arm when he moved to grab the shuriken still imbedded in his leg, but that was their only interaction. Only once the skies were clear was Tim able to set the autopilot and unbuckle himself and Neville, leading him back into the cargo area where the roar of the engines would not be as deafening. As expected, Aruna followed wordlessly.

The moment he sealed the door to the cockpit, Neville began spouting off questions like he was reading off of a list. Tim ended up missing the first ten or so questions, his mind slowing down as the adrenaline began to fade. He took a deep breath, leaning back against the door and sliding down to the ground, where Neville was gesticulating wildly, making up for the lack of activity in his legs.

"—keeps roaring like it's going to eat us?"

"There were so many little things in there, what could they possibly be for?"

"And that belt from before! Did you think I was going to run away or something?"

God, we're lucky to be alive, Tim thought, running a hand through his hair. Those Stunners were strong, but I'm not sure these two would've lasted much longer if Ra's had ordered them to take lethal measures. Hell, if Ra's wasn't in such a good mood, I'd probably be back in that training room getting my ass handed to me by him.

"Oh, oh, and those moves you did when—Tim?"

I completely forgot what it's like fighting against someone like Ra's with civilians. It's a miracle I even managed to make it out of there. I didn't realize how rusty I am until now. I can't believe the assassins were willing to take my orders. If they hadn't…

"Tim?" Neville asked, lowering his voice. "A-are you okay…?"

"Yeah, I'm fine," Tim instinctively replied, waving a hand at Neville.

Aruna squatted down so that she was at eye level with the two of them. "No, you're not."

Tim groaned, pinching the bridge of his nose. "Well, I will be," he said. At least, once my ribs heal. And all these stupid cuts and bruises from sparring.

Neville gave him a whole three seconds of silence before hesitantly saying, "So…um…I don't really understand, well…anything that happened in the past couple of hours…" He turned his head away from Tim, as though he was ashamed of this fact.

"That's okay," Tim assured him, steadying his breathing. "I'd be surprised if even half of that made sense. But, first thing's first—" He grabbed the multitool from his pocket and then started to take off his deel. "—we need to perform some first aid, or you're gonna lose too much blood." His coat was filthy from being tossed to the ground one too many times, but the tunic underneath was relatively clean, so Tim opted to sacrifice that instead. Using the small knife, he began to tear off some large strips for a tourniquet.

"You can't just heal it?" Neville whispered, watching Tim work.

"If you can find a wand for me, go for it," he replied. "But I don't think that little Lazarus trick you pulled back in the caves will work right now." I've already wasted enough time as it is, Tim chided himself. Anyone with half a brain would have helped you dress the wound right away, but unfortunately, I'm an idiot, so here we are.

"Lay down and put your legs up here," Tim ordered, gesturing to a low metal shelf. "Now, tell me, do you feel dizzy? Nauseous?" Doesn't look particularly pale, but he's sweating a lot…At least his pupils aren't dilating.

Neville shook his head. "Should I?"

"It's better if you don't," Tim told him, wrapping the first strips of cloth around Neville's thigh. "How much does it hurt?"

Neville clenched his fists as Tim tightened the makeshift tourniquet. "It—I'm—I'll manage…" So he still is feeling something. Good. He hasn't gone into shock. "Can I pull this thing out now?"

"No, it's slowing down the bleeding."

Neville swallowed nervously. "H-how long until I can see a Healer?"

Tim closed his eyes, trying to do the mental math. After he had disabled the jet's tracker and enabled stealth measures, he had set their course to London, hoping that, by then, he'd have come up with a way to get them back to Hogwarts, a magically-warded castle.

So, from here to London…maybe…five hours at the least. "Too long," Tim muttered to himself, wracking his brain for any idea on how to get back quicker.

"And…um…how are we going to get back to Hogwarts?" added Neville.

Well, it has to be some form of magical transportation. There's only one train to Hogwarts, and it doesn't run all year-round. We can't use Floo or Portkey into the castle, magical transportation is impossible, even Apparition. So, maybe we get as close to the castle as possible and then walk the rest of the way? Maybe—maybe through Hogsmeade? It's a magical village, and I know that Apparition is possible since I experienced it firsthand. But…none of us know how to Apparate or make a Portkey, and I don't know what fireplaces are connected to the Floo Network…

"If we can get into Hogsmeade, we can get into Hogwarts," Tim said confidently, like this was a real plan.

"But how do we get to Hogsmeade?"

Ha. Good question.

"Well, Floo, Portkey, Apparition…" Tim suggested. "All things none of us can do." If only I knew exactly where Grimmauld Place was—no, no, that place is supposed to be top-secret anyways…

Neville and Aruna watched Tim recede into his own mind, tending to Neville's wound while muttering to himself and shaking his head every so often. Then, Neville perked up. Initially, Tim thought he had touched something or handled him too roughly, but Neville looked almost hopeful, if Tim had to guess.

"U-um…" the boy started, staring up at Tim. "I—well, maybe—not to—I mean—I might have an idea…?"

"Shoot," Aruna said, nodding at him encouragingly.

"Uh—well—um—my fireplace at home is connected to the Floo Network…" he stuttered, "and—well—we don't live in a fully wizarding neighborhood, so it's not like we'll have any trouble finding the place through any wards…"

Tim paused his work, mulling this over in his head. "That's…" Just when he had been in need of inspiration, someone had provided it for him. Huh. He'd forgotten the benefits of working with other people. "…perfect, Neville. Where does your family live?"

"Well, it's just Gran—I mean, just my grandmother—but we live in West Newby, in Dorset." He stopped talking for a full ten seconds before whispering, "Um, I think I'm getting dizzy."

"Okay, take a deep breath," Tim said, and he wasn't quite sure whether he was talking to Neville or himself. Theoretically, Neville could last the next five hours as long as they continued to put pressure on the wound and didn't keep the tourniquet on for too long at a time. But five hours was a long time for someone to be without medical attention, especially someone like Neville who wasn't trained in the art of 'pretending-my-body-doesn't-hurt.'

Well…if these two had already witnessed everything with Ra's al Ghul…Tim didn't see the harm in introducing them to some more aspects of his secret life. If it would help Neville get healed sooner, who was Tim to deny the use of one of his best resources?

"Hey, Aruna, I need to get back to the wheel—you have to help keep pressure on Neville's leg, okay?" She nodded, following his instructions without any further complication.

"If you guys feel weird, it's because I'm bringing the ship down to a more reasonable altitude," he made sure to warn them. After all, there's no use opening the doors if this whole place is going to depressurize and send us hurdling down to Earth.

"Okay," he said, stepping back into the cabin. "I'm about to open the door, so don't freak out or anything." Neville, who was already pretty freaked out as it was, nodded sternly. Before the boy could voice his concerns, Tim grabbed a handle on the wall and pressed the button to open the ramp.

The plane was immediately flooded with the cold winds of the sky, threatening to knock Tim down were he not so tightly clinging to the side of the plane. With his other hand, he placed his thumb and index finger between his lips, inhaled through his nose, and let out a long, sharp whistle, followed by a short one, and then another long one.

I know you're listening, buddy.

Long. Long. Long. Pause. Long. Short.

Tim was still in the middle of finishing his last whistle when he heard a sound like the crack of thunder.

"So, you won't reply to any of my letters, but you're perfectly fine summoning me in a non-life-threatening situation. That's cold, dude."

Tim chuckled, too overjoyed at the sight of a familiar face after being alone for so long to worry about the fact that his chest felt like it was ablaze. "Hey, Kon."

:3

CW: difficulty breathing, descriptions of first aid for a serious injury