Chapter Text
“Identify yourself,” Wonder Woman commanded coolly after she had affixed her lasso to his wrist while he remained bound to a chair in a Watchtower interrogation room. After Superman had brought him up to the Watchtower, he’d been put into one of the holding cells for several hours until Diana had become available to participate in this interrogation.
Dick rolled his eyes as dramatically as possible since he hadn’t reapplied his domino following his futile identity reveal. “Dick Grayson-Wayne, otherwise known as Nightwing, otherwise known as the first Robin.” It was more or less the same information he had already given this dimension’s Batman, but apparently the paranoid bastard wouldn’t accept it without his wonder buddy’s truth rope to back it up.
Not that Dick had really expected anything less; this was Bruce they were talking about. Why would he be concerned that this method might reveal information that could damage the timeline when it would satisfy his deep-seated need to know every detail about everyone and everything ever?
“Time travel?” Superman asked, glancing between Dick and the dark corner where Batman was lurking for effect.
“Unclear,” Batman growled. “Next question, Wonder Woman.”
“I’m sure Diana would appreciate a ‘please’ in there, Brucie,” Dick said, smiling with all of his teeth. Bruce remained stoic and motionless, but Superman started at the name drop and Wonder Woman’s eyes narrowed shrewdly.
“He knows much for an imposter,” she said slowly.
“Which is why verifying his story is of the utmost importance,” Batman snapped. “If this is a ploy, then someone out there knows too much—”
“Very well. Mr… Grayson, if that is indeed your name—”
“I think B would feel better if you just call me Nightwing,” Dick suggested, and Diana nodded.
“Nightwing, then; can you explain exactly how you came to be in the Batcave earlier today?”
“No,” Dick answered, regretfully honest. “I have no idea what sort of ray I was hit with or where I am relative to where I started the night—or when, I guess, if this is time travel. I haven’t ruled it out. Someone hasn’t let me do the necessary research to make a determination either way,” he said, directing a pointed glare at Batman, who showed roughly the same amount of contrition displayed by your average brick wall.
“What are your current theories?’ Wonder Woman pressed, and Dick sighed. What a terribly broad question to ask the guy hooked up to the Rope Of Compulsively Overshare.
“Ok, off the top of my head? Theory one: Crimens is smarter than we gave him credit for and somehow cracked open quantum physics and then built his little ray gun, then lured me and my br—associates out by staging that robbery so he could lure us into a trap and get us off the playing field. This one seems unlikely for a guy who flunked out of community college before turning to petty larceny, but you never know.
“Theory two: Oracle had mentioned she’d gotten a tip that some of the tech Flash wasn’t able to recover from the S.T.A.R. Labs incident was being sold on the black market in Gotham. It was the Birds’ case so I’m not fully up on the details, but it’s plausible to guess that Crimens got his hands on a piece of it, given the whole, you know,” he said, gesturing to the space around them and then at himself. “Time-and-or-Space displacement I’ve got going on. It’s honestly even possible that he had no idea what it even did when he started shooting it off. Which would suck because no matter how much B—my B—interrogates the guy after the rest of the Gotham crew undoubtedly apprehend him, Crimens himself wouldn’t be able to tell them how to bring us back, so they’ll have to do all their own research and it’ll take who knows how long!”
Dick had registered the slip the moment it was out of his mouth. He was going to chalk that one up entirely to the Golden Lasso’s compulsive power, and then lean into the word babble in the hopes of providing a decent distraction. “Alright well those are my two most likely theories, now let's get into some of the less likely and much less fleshed out ideas I’ve come up with,” he said, voice picking up speed. “The displacement could be an absolutely unrelated event, not at all connected with the mysterious ray of light I remember getting hit with, such as the interference of a fifth dimensional imp—if you guys haven’t met those little assholes yet, you’re lucky. Don’t ever tell them I said that though, and Bat-Mite if you’re listening that wasn’t about you; love ya, Babygirl! Ok next one, it was the manifestation of a centuries old curse that was placed on Gotham that I somehow inadvertently triggered, and I’m not in an actual alternate reality right now, but am instead trapped in some sort of purgatory-like realm, and this is all some sort of test—”
“Enough,” Batman growled as he stepped up to the table and slammed his hands against the metal with an audible clang. Dick knew these tables had been built to withstand Superman-level superstrength, and was honestly a little impressed that the man managed not to wince in the slightest as that had no doubt hurt Bruce much more than it had hurt the table. He glared down at Dick, and Dick met his eyes, lifting his chin and giving him a wide smirk.
“I know that didn’t meet your usual standards for sharing theories about a case, but I’ve spent the past several hours locked in a cell of some variety and haven’t had a chance to gather supporting evidence for any of these. You know, if you’d just answer a few of my questions for once, then maybe—”
“You said ‘us’.”
Shit. Well, he knew the distraction was a long shot. His usual powers of Gaslight, Gatekeep, Girlboss were being significantly impaired by Diana’s stupid rope. Hopefully whatever information Batman was about to pull out of him wouldn’t prove to be too detrimental to his brothers or the current timeline or everything about his life…
“Who else was—“
A bright flash of light filled the room and a robotic voice started sounding through the intercom speaker: “Emergency Alert: Watchtower Integrity Compromised. Follow Evacuation Protocol Immediately. Emergency Alert: Watchtower Integrity Compromised. Follow Evacuation Protocol Immediately.” The alert continued, repeating the information in languages besides English, and the three heroes in the room leapt into action. Superman vanished, with only a quick breeze and an open door heralding his departure. Diana had the Lasso off of Dick’s wrist and coiled back up at her side in moments while Batman was pulling up a read of the Watchtower’s system diagnostics on his wrist computer.
Wonder Woman started to work on undoing the restraints keeping Dick in his chair. “Bruce, we are to evacuate—”
“Something’s not right about this,” Batman muttered, the lenses of his cowl narrowed at the screen. “The alert says the solar shields are down and conditions are approaching hostile to biological entities, but there’s no concrete data that would indicate we’ve started taking any actual damage, let alone the critical levels required to activate the—”
“Then we shall investigate it further from the surface,” Diana stressed as she hoisted the Dick by the upper arm and started to pull him towards the door. Dick placidly allowed himself to be led, for the time being. He would choose his moment.
Batman finally looked up, and he frowned disapprovingly at the pair. “Why is he free?”
“Well we are not going to leave him behind to bathe in unmitigated solar energy! If the shields truly have failed, no one but Kal should be up here!”
Batman grunted dismissively and snapped his gauntlet computer closed, stepping out the door in front of them. Diana pulled Dick out into the hall as well. “I’m going to check on a few things,” Batman announced. “I’ll meet you at the Zeta bay in five minutes—if we are truly approaching critical radiation levels, the suit will provide adequate protection for a brief reconnaissance.” He took a few steps down the hall before glancing back at the two of them. “I suppose it’s prudent to escort our guest to a terrestrial holding cell for the time being, but be sure to watch him very closely—this is a version of Dick, after all. I would be disappointed in my alternate self if he did not have at least five different plans to slip away from you already.”
“Aw, you flatter me,” Dick said with a grin. This was the first time this dimension’s Bruce had actually verbally acknowledged Dick’s connection to his counterpart, and to himself. It’s not that Dick thought Batman doubted him, but it was nice to be acknowledged. “I’m afraid I’m only up to four and a half; my fifth plan is being tragically complicated by the absence of industrial strength solvent.”
Batman didn’t respond to that, but Dick swore he caught the faintest hint of a smile on the Bat’s face before he turned and swept off down the hall. Diana shook her head before starting to lead Dick in the opposite direction. “I would hope you realize that any efforts to escape the Watchtower would have to end at the Transportation Deck, the place to which we are currently headed,” Diana said good-naturedly. “If you are at all similar to the Dick Grayson I know, I do not see any reason you won’t cooperate as we make a reasonable move to avoid potential danger.”
“Wouldn’t even dream of it,” Dick said serenely, offering her no resistance. She was correct, after all; any move to get away from her prior to arriving at the Transportation Deck would be extremely foolish. Besides, Batman was on the right track in thinking that something else was going on here. A very similar diversion had once been deployed in Dick’s own dimension/time by none other than Red Robin when a slight misunderstanding had resulted in Red Hood being captured as a villain by the Justice League while Batman was away. He figured the baby bird had his own plans for how this escape would go. Dick wouldn’t want to jeopardize that, even if he was getting impatient to stop being dragged around by the heroes like he was some mischievous kindergartner who needed to be contained and not a grown ass vigilante with zero ill intentions towards them, as he’d literally just proven via their magical rope.
Ok, maybe he actually was getting bitter about their refusal to treat him like a fellow hero. Good thing his imprisonment-by-Justice-League era was about to end.
They quickly arrived at the Transportation Deck, which was empty for only a moment before Superman reappeared in front of them. “Everyone but Batman has already Zeta-ed back to Earth,” he reported. “He’s doing something in the Server Room. I tried to grab him, too, but he growled and whipped out his Kryptonite shard, so I left. Figured we could switch Bats,” he said, nodding at Dick. “I’ll take this one down and secure him in the Hall of Justice, and you make sure B actually leaves the potentially hazardous space station.”
“Very well.” Wonder Woman glanced at Dick. “I shall see you shortly and we can resume our conversation.”
“Looking forward to it,” Dick said with an innocent grin, although it turned into something much more like a smirk once she’d passed him over to Clark and turned away.
Superman led him along to the entrance of the zeta tube and had just entered his passcode when he went rigid for a moment before abruptly spinning around, his eyes fixing onto a vent cover in the ceiling above them. “Whoever you are, come down from there,” he snapped, voice dropping an octave and sounding much more stern. “Your cover is blown.”
The cover of the vent did slide off, and a small metal sphere fell down to the floor and started rolling towards them. Superman’s grip on Dick’s arm immediately loosened and the Kryptonian shrank back at its approach, a sudden sheen of sweat springing to his forehead. The ball was made of lead and contained a small shard of kryptonite embedded under an aperture that could be covered or exposed simply by twisting. Tim had developed them as a way of countering mind-controlled Kryptonian team members that was less likely to result in lingering symptoms than just lobbing a completely exposed chunk of the stuff at them.
“Sorry about the Kryptonite, Supes,” Red Robin called as he finally slid down from the vent himself and landed in a crouch. His sharp grin matched Dick’s own as he straightened fully and snapped out his Bo. “But you’re holding my brother captive, and I didn’t think you’d just give him back if I asked nicely.”
“You must be the other part of that mysterious ‘us’ Nightwing was just about to explain,” Superman said cautiously. “Are you another future Gotham vigilante?”
“Sure am,” Tim said with a smirk. “Name’s Red Robin. Now would you rather do this the easy way, or the hard way?”
“What’s the easy way?”
“You let Nightwing go, I grab my kryptonite, and you let us go on our merry way through the zeta tube, no questions asked.”
Superman laughed humorlessly. “And then have to explain to Batman why I let our person of interest just leave my custody along with failing to apprehend a second intruder, one who has somehow breached the Watchtower, and who might also possibly be some version of his future son? No, thank you. I’m sure if we all just calm down, we can—”
“Hard way it is, then!” Red Robin said brightly as he lunged forwards and lashed his Bo out to hit Superman squarely in the chest at the same time that Dick took the opportunity to twist out of Clark’s hold. In his weakened state, Superman was easily moved by the unexpected attack and he staggered backwards—right over the edge of the open zeta tube, which flashed its blinding flash and vanished every last molecule of Superman in mere moments.
Tim wasted no time in dashing over to the controls of the zeta and tapping away at the buttons. “Gotta lock it down, he’ll recover quickly once he’s away from the K-sphere,” he muttered. Once he was finished, he glanced back over at Dick. “You ok? Hurt anywhere?”
“Just my pride,” Dick assured him as he rubbed at his slightly sore wrist. Ok, maybe his arm hurt a bit from being yanked to and fro by a couple of heroes with superstrength, but Tim didn’t need to worry about that. “What about you? The others?”
“I’m fine; so is Hood,” Tim reported as he grabbed the sphere and returned it to his belt. “We’re unsure of Robin’s status, but Hood is currently en route to collect him so hopefully we’ll know soon.”
Dick frowned. “Collect him from where?”
Tim grimaced. “Well, the beam that hit us transported us each into the vicinity of our counterparts from this dimension, so while the three of us were scattered across Gotham—”
“Baby bat’s in a League base?” Dick all but shrieked as his anxiety spiked. Oh no. No nono nononono. There was no telling what might happen to Damian— what might already be happening to Damian, they’d been here for almost half a day at this point! “How long ago did Hood leave? What transport is he using? Have we been able to contact Robin or ping any of his trackers or—”
“One thing at a time, Wing, let’s get out of here first,” Tim interrupted as he gave Dick a critical once over. “Where’s your mask and gear?”
Dick scowled. “Confiscated pretty much immediately. I think this B left it down in the Batcave.”
Tim nodded and passed Dick a handful of Birdarangs from his belt. “We’ll recover it soon, then. In the meantime, we should return to homebase so we can regroup and check in on Hood.”
Dick glanced back over to the zeta tubes, which were now displaying an active lock down alert. “And how are we getting back to the surface in this ingenious plan of yours?” he asked. Tim grinned and he whipped what Dick recognized as the keys to a Justice League spacecraft out of his belt. He suppressed a groan. “We’re stealing a Javelin?”
Tim’s grin turned evil. “Correction—we’re stealing the Javelin. We’re early enough in the timeline that they have a one ship fleet!”
Well, Dick could probably kiss their increasingly-fleeting hopes of winning over this version of the Justice League goodbye, but at this point he couldn’t really bring himself to care. Rounding up his brothers before anyone or anything got irreparably destroyed was the clear priority. Still, it wasn’t what he would have guessed Tim would choose as an escape method; stealing a high-profile vehicle seemed really more Jason’s style. “Won’t that get us tracked?”
Tim shrugged as he tossed the keys up into the air and caught them with his other hand, the very picture of nonchalance. “It’s the quickest way to get back to the ground aside from reopening the Zetas and risking a fight with the rest of the Justice League, who are definitely on the highest of alerts about the Watchtower by now. We’ll ditch it pretty quickly after we land and switch to an alternate method, so I’m not too worried about it.”
Dick narrowed his eyes. That all made sense, but for some reason, it didn’t feel like the whole story. He kept his suspicious gaze locked on his younger brother for several long, uncomfortable seconds before Tim let out a small, annoyed huff as he pivoted around and marched towards where their ride to freedom was docked.
“Fine, ok, Jason has already gotten to steal a spare Robin Cycle and the backup Batplane, and he won't stop gloating about it! I’m not letting him win this interdimensional field trip!”
Ah, that made more sense. And it was nevertheless a decent escape method, so Dick would accept it. It was too bad he didn’t realize they would be keeping score, though; he definitely would have made an attempt to nab Diana’s lasso or something as a trophy.
Tim almost couldn’t believe the abrupt lucky turn his otherwise average and boring life had taken today. First, he’d stumbled upon an older version of himself who was a super awesome hacker-fighter-vigilante from another dimension, then he’d learned that at some point in the future he somehow acquired multiple brothers including Robin (or Nightwing, as he apparently starts calling himself, which Tim was willing to work on accepting since it was an objectively cool name), and now—
Now, Barbara Gordon, aka Batgirl, was in Tim’s house. And not only that, but she was sitting with him on the floor of his LEGO room and was listening attentively as he showed off the to-scale replica of Gotham City that he’d spent the last year and a half painstakingly constructing! He was even getting to ask her for feedback on the hypothetical Batman and Co. missions he had mocked up with his minifigures! It was fantastic!
“—so I’m just not sure it’s realistic for Robin to be able to free Two-Face’s hostages from the train tracks and get back up to the roof of the bank to help Batman with all the Riddler goons before the glitter cannons go off, but I also might be underestimating the top speed of his Robin cycle. What do you think?”
Barbara blinked down at him, her brow was furrowing slightly as she thought. “I think you’re right—the train station is halfway across the city from the bank, and you said those glitter canons were on a timer. But I also don’t think it would take your Batgirl minifigure nearly as long to finish her altercation with Catwoman as you’re giving her, and the museum is much closer to the bank than the train station. She would have to be Batman’s backup in this scenario.”
“I see, I see,” Tim said, nodding as he scooted over to the section of the city where he had Batgirl and Catwoman tusseling over a stolen artifact. He hadn’t mentioned it to Barbara, but he was picturing them fighting over a specific ancient tablet that his parents had actually dug up a couple of years ago and had pulled some strings to get it displayed at the Gotham History Museum. When he was playing alone, he liked to pull out the minifigures he’d made to resemble himself and his parents so that he could enact a whole scene where his parents rushed to the museum to check on their prized find and brought him along, and Mini-Tim would help the Batgirl figure out the mystery of how Catwoman had managed to steal the artifact in the first place, and then she would compliment him on his intelligence and invite him to help solve the ongoing situation with the Riddler as well, and his parents would tell him they were proud of him and he’d done such a great job and of course he should go with Batgirl because Robin and Batman and Gotham needed him, and—
Yeah, he wasn’t going to play out that part in front of Barbara Gordon. He had his pride, after all. Instead, he just put Catwoman into the back of a conveniently located prisoner transport car and moved Batgirl over to the Gotham City Bank and stuck her on the roof next to Batman who was still surrounded by thirty Riddler goons, as played by assorted Storm troopers and LEGO office workers. “I see now how that works out better,” he admitted, even as he mourned having to move Batgirl onwards before she would have time to do her scene with the Drakes. Real Batgirl was right, this way did make more sense.
“I have to say, you have done an amazing job with your model,” Barbara said as she leaned over to inspect Tim’s LEGO Gotham Sewer system that he’d built adjacent to the main part of Gotham for when he wanted to do Killer Croc scenes or recreate certain Arkham break outs. “Your sewer system looks incredibly realistic. Did you get a map of the real city’s sewers to go off of, or something?”
Tim shrugged. “Yeah, kind of.” He’d started with the maps that were publicly available in the city archives, but there wasn’t enough fine details for his taste, so he may have done some scoping out of his own with a camera on a drone (and then the drone had gotten stuck and he’d had to go down to retrieve it himself, which hadn’t been his favorite field trip, but it did let him add even more detail to his build). “Hey, let’s play out another scenario! I have one where Calendar Man captures the mayor and holds him hostage in City Hall on Flag Day, and I’d love to hear your thoughts on how Batman could get through the death laser grid!”
Tim started gathering up everything so he could reset the scene, but when he went to grab his LEGO-Batmobile from where Batman had hidden it next to the library, it was gone. He frowned. “Where’d the Batmobile go?”
“Jason picked it up and started playing with it while you were telling me how the glitter cannons were going to open the high security safety deposit boxes,” Barbara informed him. “I think he took it with him when he left the room.” Tim’s mouth fell open in shock.
“And you didn’t stop him?” he cried, because Jason had wandered away ages ago. “You just let him steal the Batmobile?” He shot up and marched towards the door, carefully stepping over the intricate network of roads and buildings spread over the entire room. “The one they have in the officially licensed LEGO Batman set is all wrong, you know; I had to make several modifications to make it accurate to the current model! It took me forever! If he breaks it I’m gonna be so mad!”
That had been the one thing about all of the sudden twists his life had taken since meeting the Older Tim that he couldn’t quite get enthusiastic about: Jason. It wasn’t that he didn’t like the idea of Jason, exactly, because Big Jason—Red Hood—was super cool, and of course Tim didn’t hate the idea of one day having a bunch of vigilante siblings. But the younger Jason was annoying, and rude. He kept calling Tim ‘Richie Rich’ even though Tim had told him that wasn’t his name. He’d tracked water all over the upstairs hall after his shower and absolutely soaked Tim’s Mother’s favorite rug. He had stolen almost all of Tim’s good snacks, the ones Tim bought with his own money because Mrs. Mac wouldn’t buy him anything with added sugar. And he didn’t even show the proper respect to Barbara Gordon—he’d told her she was boring and lame! Barbara Gordon! Batgirl!
Tim really wished that Big Jason had been able to arrange somewhere else for annoying little Jason to stay while they went off on their rescue missions…
But sadly, he hadn’t. Plus, Big Tim had asked him to play nice and keep track of the kid for them and Tim really wanted to show Big Tim that he had what it took to be just like him someday, so Tim was determined to grit his teeth and carry out this mission—he was even going to find it in his heart to forgive the blatant Batmobile theft! Assuming Tim’s precious model was still in one piece when he found them, of course.
“Hey, Tim, wait up! Tim glanced back to see that Barbara had followed him into the hall instead of continuing to admire Tim’s LEGO Gotham; he supposed that made sense, since she thought she was here to supervise him and not mostly just for Jason. “Let’s go find Jason together, yeah? Maybe we can play something he’s more interested in.”
Tim failed to see what was more interesting than playing Batman and Robin with LEGOs (except for taking pictures of the real Batman and Robin, and also probably getting to be a vigilante), but he could be diplomatic. Big Jason had quickly mentioned a few things that other Jason might be interested in before they’d had to leave that he might suggest. “Jason likes books, I guess,” Tim said slowly, reluctant to put an end to this once in a lifetime opportunity of getting Batgirl to fact check his make believe Bat missions without realizing that’s what she was going, but determined to be very mature about it. “I could show you guys my parents’ library.”
Barbara smiled. “What a coincidence, I love books too.”
“I know, you volunteered at the Gotham City library a lot last summer,” Tim said absentmindedly as he turned to resume his search. Barbara made a strange noise that Tim didn’t have time to interpret, because they’d turned a corner and Tim saw the worst possible thing he could think of: his LEGO Batmobile just lying there, abandoned, in the middle of the hallway, and missing all of its wheels!
“Jason stole my Batmobile tires!” Tim wailed as he dashed over to his fallen model and fell to his knees, a sharp cloud of anger and distress rising up in his chest. “I hand-painted those to get the coloration right! It took me three different tries!”
“Hey, it’ll be ok,” Barbara said soothingly. Suddenly a hand was on Tim’s shoulder, only to draw back just as quickly when Tim flinched visibly at the surprise contact. “They’re still LEGOs, right? The wheels should pop back on if we can get Jason to give them back to you.”
Tim sniffed, and realized rather abruptly that a small number of tears had sprung up in his eyes. He discretely wiped his face on his shoulder in an attempt to banish them before gently scooping up the Batmobile. “I just worked really hard on this,” he mumbled. “And Jason didn’t even care about my LEGO sets when I tried to get him to play this morning so I don’t get why he would take it apart!”
“Maybe you can ask him when we find where he’s gone,” Barbara suggested. Tim sniffled one more time before nodding and standing back up so they could resume their search. Jason wasn’t in any of the rooms off that hall, although they did find two of the Batmobile wheels dropped in random places as well as half of Tim’s parents’ clothing strewn about the master bedroom. Nor was he on the third level, where the library was. “We should check the bathroom in the west wing,” Tim suggested when they failed to even find him looting more snacks from the kitchen pantry. “That’s where he spent the night, he probably feels most comfortable there.”
Barbara gave him a very odd look, and Tim realized that he may have accidentally revealed a bit too much about the situation with Jason, but he just gave her what he hoped was an innocent-looking smile before leading her towards the bathroom in question. When they arrived, it was to find a third Batmobile tire sitting outside of a locked door.
“Hey! Open up and give me my last tire!” Tim demanded, knocking on the door with purpose. “It’s not polite to break your hosts’ toys, you know!”
There was no reply from inside, nor any movement. Barbara frowned, stepping up to the door and knocking herself. “Jason? Are you in there? It’s just Babs and Tim, we want to know you’re alright. Can you open the door, or say something? If I don’t get a response, I’m going to have to come in.”
When there was still no reply, Barbara looked back down at Tim and gave him a serious look. “I’m worried Jason might be hurt and unable to respond. Do you know if there’s a key to this door anywhere?”
Tim grimaced. “Maybe? In a drawer in the kitchen? Or would it be in the safe…”
Barbara pressed her lips into a flat line before nodding once to herself and reaching up to pull something out from under her hair. Oh—a hairpin! She was going to pick the lock! “What I’m about to do isn’t really cool to do when someone’s trying to get privacy,” she cautioned Tim as she knelt in front of the door. “I’m only doing it because I’m the adult here and I’m concerned for Jason’s safety, alright?”
Tim nodded quickly and then watched, eyes wide, as Batgirl made quick work of the bathroom door lock—it was surely nothing compared to the sorts of security she was used to running into as she investigated criminals and brought evildoers to justice, but it was still so cool to see an actual superhero using her skills in Tim’s house! He couldn’t help the small gasp of excitement that escaped him as the lock clicked and she was able to push the door open.
Then Tim remembered abruptly that he was mad at Jason, so school his features back into a glare as he marched into the bathroom, ready to give that no-good Batmobile thief a piece of his mind—
—only to be met with the sight of no Jason Todd, and an open window. Oh shit. They'd lost him! Tim gasped. “He ran away!”
Big Tim and Big Jason were gonna be so mad at him!
Barbara dashed over to the window and leaned out, her head whipping back and forth for a moment before she straightened back up and looked down at Tim, her expression serious. “Does your house have exterior cameras?”
Tim nodded and turned, racing back to the kitchen where the tablet with the security program on it had been left. He pulled up the application, tapping his fingers on the case while it booted up. As he was navigating to the playback catalogue, Barbara appeared at his side and held out her hands. “May I take a look?” she asked. Tim forced down a flash of irritation and silently handed it to her. Of course she wanted to be in charge of their investigation, she was Batgirl, and she didn’t even know that Tim was maybe kind-of going to get to be Robin someday and could totally handle this.
—Oh, wait a second, is that what was happening now? Was Batgirl investigating Jason’s disappearance? Was this a case? And was Tim going to get to help?
Of course he was getting to help, he decided, because this was his house and Jason was his—something or other, he wasn’t actually sure what they were to each other because they weren’t really friends and they sure as heck weren’t brothers, but they might be someday, so that meant Tim had to be involved in finding him after he ran off. Ok, it was decided. Essentially, he was Batgirl’s sidekick now, and that meant helping her solve the case no matter what! Tim silently took back all of the ungrateful thoughts he’d been having towards Little Jason; the other boy might be annoying to be stuck in a house with, but his actions had contributed to the best day of Tim’s life somehow getting even better.
“There—I’ve got him climbing out, but… he’s not going to the street,” Barbara muttered, her brow furrowing in concentration. “It looks like he’s… headed into the treeline.”
Tim climbed up onto a stool so he could peer over Barbara’s shoulder at the tablet like a good sidekick. “That forested part of the grounds backs up to the Wayne property," he informed her. "Maybe we should go over there and ask if they’ve seen him?”
Barbara looked at him thoughtfully. “That’s a good idea,” she said slowly. “We can look for Jason between here and Wayne Manor. And I’m actually friends with Dick Grayson, so I can text him and ask him to pull their cameras and check those for us too. And while we’re walking, I have a few questions for you about Jason; how did you say you two met, again?”