The math was supposed to be easy. Tim was good at math, generally. Spending an afternoon helping the accounting department of Chapman Principles hunt through their documents for a miscalculation was good for everyone. It was good for the Chapmans' accountants because hopefully they would all get to keep their jobs, it was good for the Chapman family because their business would be able to be back on track quicker, it was good for Jack and Janet Drake because the Chapman family would be more likely to agree to their next business proposal, and it was good for Tim Drake because it gave him something to do to get him out of the house.

Normally, Tim wouldn't need anything extra to do, because he would have plenty to do as Robin, and normally, he wouldn't need so desperately to get out of the house, because he could stay out of his parents' way easily enough when they weren't too mad at him. But this wasn't normal.

For the past two months, a new villain had been stalking his way through Gotham, especially Crime Alley. If the duffle bag full of heads dropped off at the police station hadn't shown how serious the situation was as-is, the guy called himself the Red Hood. That was the Joker's old nickname. And much like the Joker, the Red Hood seemed to have a vengeance specifically against Robin.

And apparently that meant Bruce had to ban Tim from going out.

That part of the math didn't make sense. Lots of villains went after Robin! Robin fought plenty of bad guys all the time, even Rogues, even the Joker! Admittedly, Batman did his best to keep Tim away from the Joker, but that wasn't always possible. And that was okay! Tim could handle himself as Robin. Tim still preened inwardly when he thought of the moment he'd successfully faced off against the Joker one-to-one. He'd flipped the Joker into an open sewage tank and everything! Tim could definitely handle himself against the Red Hood. It all added up and made sense.

Yet Batman didn't seem to see it that way. He'd benched Tim just about a month ago. And when Tim had complained to Dick about it, Dick had taken Bruce's side, talking carefully around the history of the last time a villain had set out a plot so specifically against Robin.

Tim got a little more of the reasoning then. Jason had died at the hands of the Joker. Dick had lost his little brother, Alfred had lost his younger grandson, Bruce had lost his newer son. Tim had seen the aftermath of that more than anyone, probably, both on and off the streets of Gotham. Tim understood that, even though Bruce didn't love Tim, even though Tim wasn't Bruce's kid or really his responsibility, Bruce didn't want Tim to die. That was nice of Bruce. That made sense with who Bruce was. That math did make sense, some sense at least, even if Tim didn't like it.

The math of the accounting department of Chapman Principles, however, didn't make enough sense. When Tim finally found a discrepancy in the spreadsheets, he was rapidly and repeatedly hushed and shooed away. When Tim took that discrepancy further, that's when he learned of his mistake.

The discrepancy Tim found wasn't the one he was meant to be looking for. He'd found evidence of embezzlement, but he'd found embezzling that the Chapmans themselves were doing. He'd really messed up. The Chapmans scolded him and tried to convince him that it wasn't a discrepancy. That wasn't the worst part, though, because then the Chapmans told his parents that Tim had really messed up.

And that? That was when the math became no longer easy, but very hard.

Tim knew how that math worked. It was a rule of equivalents. It was balancing an equation. It was addition and subtraction, plain and simple. Tim had messed up with the Chapman Principles' accountants, so now the Chapmans, instead of being more likely to agree to Drake Industries' next proposal, were actually less likely to agree. Tim subtracted that possibility away from his parents. Now he needed to add a possibility for them.

And unfortunately, the possibility that Jack and Janet wanted was one that was really going to hurt. Not them, of course. They'd never do something to hurt each other. No, it was really going to hurt Tim. But he deserved it. That was just the way the math worked out.

"You need to behave perfectly for this business partner," Jack stressed, pacing back and forth. "He's not the forgiving type."

Tim nodded as he loosened his tie. "Yes, sir."

"And we do mean perfectly," Janet said from her seat. "Whatever he says, whatever he does, you smile and nod and go along."

No matter how much Tim loosened his tie, he couldn't get rid of the tightness in his throat. So he shucked the tie off fully. "Jacket on or off?"

"On," Jack said, at the same time Janet said, "Off."

Tim paused.

Jack and Janet traded glances, having one of those silent conversations between themselves that Tim could never seem to take part in.

"I suppose off," Jack said slowly.

Janet nodded. "And would you say on the chair or on the ground?"

Jack looked around the room, one of the secret meeting spaces they held onto. It had no windows, exactly two doors, and very little furnishings: a long metal table, six metal chairs, and a large metal single-door wardrobe.

Tim could already hear the door of the wardrobe opening, the distinct creak he tended to hear in his nightmares. He tried to ignore the thought. The wardrobe door would be open for real soon enough.

"On the ground," Jack said. "Kneeling."

Tim took off his suit jacket and handed it to Janet.

She nodded and set it aside, then gestured to down beside her chair.

Tim knelt. The fancy fabric of his suit pants did little against the cold of the floor pressing into his knees. Tim focused on that. Every time he was in here, the floor was cold. The cold was a constant, something that made sense in the whole equation. He could focus on that, not on anything else that was coming.

"He should be here any minute," Jack said. "Let's settle in."

"Indeed," Janet agreed.

Jack took the chair on Tim's other side, patting Tim's head and saying, "If this goes as well as your mother and I expect, I'd say we can talk shop on that new camera you were wanting, pal."

Tim nodded but kept silent. If the business partner was going to be there any minute, Tim wasn't going to risk saying anything that could be interpreted as disobedience. Honestly, Tim never wanted to say anything disobedient, but sometimes he ended up doing it anyway. Better not to risk it, especially not now.

That's when the door on the far side of the room opened.

Tim peered over the edge of the table to see a brutish-looking woman stepping in. A domino mask sat over her eyes, but it didn't fully cover a set of scars that stretched from her forehead down into her right cheek. She crossed her arms. "Mister and Missus Long?"

"That'd be us," Janet confirmed. "And you would be Miss Crimson?"

"Yeah," the woman grunted.

"Excellent," Janet said. "And your boss, Mister Rider?"

"The boss'll be along in a mo'. Said he'd got some business to finish up first," Miss Crimson said, arms still crossed.

Janet sighed. "I do hope he does respect our time. It's of great importance in our line of business to be punctual."

"Yeah," Miss Crimson said. "But we aren't all in your line of business, are we?"

Janet paused. She gave a fake laugh. "Indeed!"

Miss Crimson didn't laugh. Instead, she just stood there, arms crossed.

Tim wished she wasn't wearing a domino. If she wasn't wearing one, he could tell where she was looking, try to get a good idea of what he was in for, maybe even be able to identify her later as a goon for some "non-specific" case once he was back to being Robin. And the fact that she was wearing a domino? It didn't add up to a good time for Tim. If her boss was paranoid enough or powerful enough that even his goons wore domino masks…

Tim tried not to shudder. Evidently he failed, because Jack's fingers dug into his shoulder sharply for a moment, then released, another warning to behave.

Miss Crimson cocked her head toward the cracked-open door behind her. "Boss's coming in."

"Excellent," Jack said.

Not excellent. Very not excellent. The very opposite of excellent.

The math not only didn't add up in an easy way, it splintered into fractions right then and there, just like Tim's careful control.

Because when the door swung open, in stepped the Red Hood.