"Like this?" Sandy asks, taking the same stance again.
Damian adjusts the angle of Sandy's arms just a bit, then he leans back and nods approvingly. "Precisely like that."
Sandy sits up and cheers, thrusting both of her arms into the air.
"All right," Damian says, taking up the same stance Sandy had just been holding but with more precision. "You have the starting stance for beginner's push-ups. Now watch."
"You know," Tim murmurs to Barbara from their spot across the Cave. "Two years ago, I don't know if I would've ever pegged Damian as someone who would be a good teacher. Now?"
"I might have to agree," Barbara murmurs back. "He's doing so well. And while it's pretty basic stuff-"
"Which is all he should be doing with them," Tim says, admittedly a little too loudly.
"Calm down there, Papa Bear," Barbara chides gently. "I wasn't implying anything else."
"Right. Sorry," Tim says. "You were saying?"
"They're just learning pretty basic stuff," Barbara continues. "General fitness, gym games, some sports. But Damian's doing really well on his turns with them."
Tim feels his mouth twist a bit wryly without him intending it to do so. "Everyone's been doing really well with everything with them. But I don't think you asked me to join you just to talk about how well you all are adjusting to my kids."
Barbara gives him a look. "I could have."
"You could have," Tim agrees after a moment. "But I don't think we would've met in the Cave to do so."
"Fair point," Barbara says, and she spins, wheeling across the Cave. "Are you ready to get to our discussion?"
Tim gives Sandy one more look, reminds himself she's safe here, reminds himself that Char and Sonny and Ian are each with other trusted people, reminds himself they're all safe here, and follows Barbara.
Barbara stops in one of the Cave's side rooms, at a table covered in stacks of papers and varied boxes. She gestures to a chair.
Tim seats himself, raking his gaze over the table's coverings. One stack of papers catches his eyes, specifically the paper on top. Almost without thinking, he picks it up, cradling it in one hand, tracing one finger of the other hand over the diagram blazoned across it.
"It's what you think it is," Barbara says quietly.
Tim looks up. Still holding the paper in one hand, he taps his other hand against the collar still at his neck. "There's hope, then?"
"There's more than hope," Barbara says with a smile. "There's a potential solution, actually multiple potential solutions."
Very carefully and deliberately, Tim does not think about what a solution would mean. He knows better than to think about anything that would trigger the collar.
Barbara brushes through the items on the table, sorting through until she's pulled out a thin packet of papers, an electronic tablet, and two boxes, one about the size of Tim's own hand, the other large enough to be maybe the size of Tim's whole torso. She holds out the packet of papers. "Okay. Here's the research and the three we found the most promising."
Taking the packet, Tim carefully flips through it then looks up. "So Ra's pulled a lot of magical strings to get something to work like this."
"According to Constantine, it would drain the life force of just about anyone who tried it before it would work. Only repeated Lazarus Pit exposure got him through it when he did it to you, and if Ra's tried it again, it would kill him to the point that even the Lazarus Pits wouldn't bring him back," Barbara says.
"Good," Tim says grimly. "So that means he can't do it again once we undo it."
And that was exactly the wrong thing to say. His hands fly to his neck as he winces, the collar sending pain burning through each nerve in his body.
Barbara breathes out hard, a sympathetic breath.
As soon as the pain recedes, Tim looks up. "So. Let's try these 'solutions.'"
"First time's the charm?" Barbara says lightly. She pushes the tablet and the two boxes closer. "Which one?"
Tim glances at the tablet. "Do you really think a technological solution will solve something this magical?"
"Ah," Barbara says. She sounds… Ashamed?
"What?" Tim asks.
Barbara turns the tablet on. "I guess I wasn't thinking what you wouldn't know. This line of tech came into play about a year and a half ago."
She taps a few things into the tablet, then flips it around so Tim can see better.
Tim's eyebrows rise high on his forehead. "And this is-"
"It's WEhelpMAGIC, a Wayne Enterprises app that aids civilians in finding assistance to common magical problems," Barbara says, reaching over to scroll through the app, displaying names for different kinds of magic. "Bruce has the next update almost ready, I hear. As time goes on, there are more and more ways technology and magic have been mixing."
"I've missed more than I thought, huh," Tim says slowly.
"In more ways than one," Barbara says. She takes a deep breath. "I know you said you wanted to keep being back as a secret for a while. But how long is a while?"
Tim hesitates.
"And from everyone?" Barbara presses on. "You know, yesterday, I ran tech and comms for a mission. I run plenty of missions, of course, but this one was for different people than I usually do. They did the usual request for support through the Justice League, and I chose to take up their mission support request for this one time."
Tim wrinkles his nose. "And that has to do with this… How?"
Barbara levels him with a steady gaze. "This mission was for Superboy, Impulse, and Wonder Girl."
The words hit him right over the head.
Kon. Bart. Cassie. He's been trying not to think much about anything other than his kids. There had been so much to consider about coming back, so many things that he didn't want to think about, that… He just hasn't really thought about them.
"Let's come back to that," Tim says, trying to keep his voice steady.
"Tim," Barbara says gently but firmly. "They'd want to know."
"Let's come back to that!" Tim repeats. "We were talking about solutions!"
Barbara takes a deep breath. "Right. Do you want to start with the tablet, the wand, or the potion?"
Tim takes a look at the two boxes. "Which one's the potion?"
Pushing forward the hand-sized box, Barbara opens it to reveal a bottle of what honestly looks like a generic-brand miniature hand lotion bottle, with a pump at the top and all. "Apparently, rubbing this potion on a magical item can kind of 'short out' the item for about thirty seconds. While it's shorted out, we just… Cut it and remove it."
"Sounds good to me," Tim says. "Do we have something to cut it with?"
Barbara doesn't answer verbally. Instead, she pushes aside another stack of papers and picks up a pair of scissors, opening and closing them in response.
"Okay," Tim says. "Okay then. Are we doing this?"
"If you're ready, I'm ready," Barbara says, coming closer.
Tim winces in anticipation. Pumping a lump of the potion out, he rubs it between his hands and raises his hands to his neck. "Here goes."
He quickly rubs the potion along the collar, and something changes.
"It tingles?" Tim says out loud. "Is it working?"
"It's glowing," Barbara says, coming even closer. "Here goes!"
Fingers and a bit of pressure at his neck, more tingling, the sound of a snip-
Barbara leans backward. She's smiling. Dangling from one hand is the cut collar.
He's never seen the collar before, except by looking in a mirror to see it clinging to his neck. At that point, it always seemed huge, choking him with its size. But as it dangles from Barbara's hand, it looks… Small.
"Well," Barbara says briskly. "There's that. I guess you're free, huh?"
She bunches up the cut collar in her hand and places it in a box, closing that box with an air of finality.
"Yeah," Tim breathes. Somehow, everything feels exactly like it was before and completely different from before at the same time. "I guess I'm free."