No Warnings (again, i think)

November 5

The flight over to Gotham should have been calming. Of course, that would be asking for too much. Robin was no fool, he knew leaving his brother alone with the Team was a shit plan but unfortunately, it was the better of two evils. Had they gone together, either the entire hero network would stay down and make it infinitely harder to fix whatever happened. Or they would both get accused of whatever imaginary wrongdoings they picked out of the lineup of delusions.

Phantom also didn't know all the protocols yet, understandably so, but right now was not the moment for training. They could go over everything again after they fixed the world for the N'th time. It was something they did on the regular so learning some annoying code and backdoors into the GCPD's ancient hardware should be a piece of cake.

Should being the keyword here as the sheer seniority of the GCPD computer system should qualify it for hospice care.

Going into camouflage the moment they entered city bounds, Bioship took him straight to the main GCPD building. Predictably so, the entire thing was in lockdown, forcing Robin to access it through the rooftop vent system. The beauty of the old building made it a regional landmark, but also still so easy to slip into if one knew where to look. And of course, they'd never patch the rooftop entry ways for Bat access when needed.

Dropping down in the main bullpen, he immediately spotted Barbara and Bette. While Barbara was still trying her best with the old tech, Bette was delegating tasks to other students he recognized from school. At least he knew the academy would get a nice reputation boost after this whole mess was over. While they wouldn't do anything for him personally, it's probably for the best that poor little Richard wasn't running out and about on the streets. The headmaster would probably lose his head if anything were to happen to the currently sole Wayne heir while working on the academy's behalf.

"Robin!" Bette excitedly called out, handing the stack of papers out to Zayne to continue handing out tasks. "Finally, it took you ages to get here." She softly punched his shoulder, smirking at Robin's head roll.

"Yeah well, it's bound to take some time when I wasn't on location." He softly shoved her shoulder, smiling at the blonde before walking over to Barbara. His second favorite ginger looked like she was a few seconds away from testing out the maximum velocity a computer could handle hitting the brick walls. "Fear not, my stressed friend, your savior has arrived." He joked as he rolled Barbara's chair away from the desk.

"Savior my ass. You couldn't fix it earlier, what will being here change?" She grumbled, tiptoeing her way back to the desk to watch whatever stunt Robin was about to pull.

Robin turned slightly, just enough so she could see his ever-present smirk before he'd do exactly as said. Pulling out the cable from his glove, he jammed it into the old tower. The poor thing huffed with effort as he immediately began sifting through every bit of security he could handle without the power of the Batcomputer backing him.

It definitely didn't add to the pressure of needing to get it done as quickly as possible so he could make it back to Happy Harbor while he had multiple sets of eyes on him. Totally not. Because that would imply he wasn't used to being watched as he worked his magic.

But what would he know, he was just so untrustworthy they always had to look at what he was doing.

Cracking about every joint in his body, he waited for his program to run its course. "How's she been?" He asked between shoulder cracks, relishing in the perturbed look on Bette's face.

Barbara grabbed the physical checklist they had to make while waiting for the computers to work. "Most gang activity is on pause, probably because the ringleaders are MIA. But there have been a handful of break ins reported already, mostly coming from around the Narrows and the Brewery."

"There were a handful of issues in Bristol but that were just some idiot freshmen trying to help without knowing what to actually do." Bette chimed in, trying to look away as Robin had twisted himself a full 180° to crack that annoying spot in his back.

Saving her from his increasingly pretzel like stretches, Robin's program finally brought the locked systems to life. "Okay, let's see what we're working with." A lot of the newer things were currently still down, secretly having been tied to the BatComputer just for safety precautions. Precautions that were now biting them in the ass. Perhaps setting up a local server would be a whole lot handier than relying on just the Batcomputer.

Issues for later.

After some more prodding and a few curses thrown at Jim's amazing password choices, he finally got his hands on the emergency broadcasting options. It really said a lot that they had an entire list of preset warnings for every single one of their rogues. Robin had to bite his tongue to not comment on how every single Gotham flavored option was above the standard 'seek shelter until a trusted authority figure comes to get you' broadcast.

Getting it up and running, they could hear the faint echoes of the speakers crackling to life all over the city. With any luck, their neighbors across the water could hear it too and set theirs off as well. Metropolis had no heroes protecting her now that Superman was missing and Conner had still yet to be included as her guards.

Unfortunately, that would become his issue sooner or later if Clark couldn't stop wearing his ass as a hat. But he did promise Bruce to stay off the Kryptonite so he had to find other options to exact his revenge.

Again, issues for later.

Now that the broadcast was up and running, and the system files for all in need children were accessible, his job here was done. "Okay, who all needs a lift to their nearest location?" A few of his schoolmates raised their hands, mostly those who were going to less pompous areas than they were used to. At least Bette had the foresight to pair them up before sending them off.

Gathering everybody outside, Robin stood before the group. "Okay, you can come out now. These civilians are helping out and need a ride." He spoke into the nothingness. Some students exchanged worried glances, probably thinking he and Phantom were about to pull another Halloween stunt on them. It did bring him great joy when a handful of them shrieked in surprise when he felt the familiar presence behind him. "Everyone, this is Bioship. She's a friend, be nice." He warned, signature glare adorning his features before melting back into a smile as Bioship allowed everybody to board.

Bioship took her new passengers with grace, making seats for everybody so the group was comfortable. Well, as comfortable as a civilian could be inside a sentient alien space ship. Getting to their drop zones wasn't too hard either, creating a ladder when fully landing wasn't an option. At least he would be able to report later that everybody was on their best behavior. Maybe he could still score something by association if his class kept up like this.

By the time they got to dropping off the last few students closer to the not so nice areas of Gotham, they had managed to run into Cujo as well. The poor pup had a few children following him, trotting along with Bioship's flightpath. It wasn't even him who spotted Cujo, Bioship did so all on her own. Not knowing why he didn't expect it, at least now he had some good news to share with Phantom. Bioship liked Cujo as much as she liked them so it had to count for something.

"You can go back after this. We'll fix the Zetas and go back that way. See if M'gann needs you for something and be safe." Robin bid his goodbyes to Bioship, sending her off to drop Cujo's kids off at the GCPD building before returning to Happy Harbor. That was the worst part of it finished, the public part. Now all that was left to do was get to the Batcave, fix that bondage hell of a system and get his little neighbor boy over to Babs and Bette as well.

Nothing much.

Cujo was surprisingly fast for having a human passenger clinging onto him. Not on top of him, oh no, onto him as Cujo for whatever reason decided staying in his cute cuddly form was the only option for travel. Dick had to white-knuckle his collar the entire way over. Not out of fear of falling off, oh no, more like gravity would do it's thing with the amount of times Cujo jumped over things without a single warning. The use of his ghostly powers also didn't help one bit as the smallest slip up would mean Robin wasn't protected anymore.

Before he knew it, they were already at the front steps of the manor. Keeping his hand on Cujo to stay out of sight, he took a deep breath and let himself be dragged into the building. Finally out of view of any spying eyes, he dropped down from his furry ride.

The air was uncannily still. The ever-present breathing of the woodwork and soft rustles of Alfred doing Alfred things. All of it was missing.

Against better judgement, Dick couldn't help but check anyway. Who knew, maybe something else than just straight up vanishing happened, or it having some odd age limit. Of course, he couldn't blame himself for being disappointed when his search ended up fruitless.

Cujo wined softly, pushing his snout into Dick's hand. Giving in to the demand for pets, he tried to stop the flood of fear and worry from overtaking him. It was silly, for somebody of his experience to still be dragged down by useless emotions. But how could he not. He wasn't strong and hardened like Bruce. Stubborn, yes, but behind the Bat shaped shell he built for himself, he was still the same boy who lost everything once before.

Distant rustling from the East wing dragged him out of his thoughts, hope flooding him once more that he just overlooked something. Dual trotting barreled down the stairs as the all to familiar feline pair launched itself at the boy. Screaming what could only be catty obscenities, Nanaki and Shiro clung onto him. Getting a face full of fur, Dick didn't even care if breathing became optional. Hugging them as tight as was safe, he let himself fall victim to his emotions for just a moment.

Emptying out the bucket so it wouldn't spill over later at a less opportune time, so to say.

It felt nice. Cujo in his back, monochrome fluffballs in his face and arms. Soft breathing accompanied by dual yowling. It was about as home as home could feel without the people in it. Breathing in the scent of cat one last time, he set them down with a few too many claws in protest.

"I can't fix the computer with you guys on me." He defended himself against the continuous screams. Sighing to himself, he relented and let them crawl back onto his shoulders. With his two passengers and Cujo trailing behind, he swiftly made his way over to Bruce's study. Opening the passageway was a lot easier than he thought, Nanaki swatting at the clock hands until they hit the correct time. How the cat knew was beyond him. But they were Selina's cats so he didn't want to question it too much. Who knows what they got up to in their previous lives.

Maybe he could ask Frostbite to look into it? He seems like a guy with connections to figure that kind of stuff out.

Finally making it down into the Batcave, it felt at least a little more lively as the bats chittered on the ceiling. Usually by this hour they would already be out and about. Perhaps they also felt the shift in the atmosphere and chose to stay where it's safe. A whole lot smarter than he was, that's for sure.

Still, he couldn't help the tiniest of smiles from gracing his lips as he looked up at them. The sense of familiarity in his current predicament was more than welcome. Definitely when he had to make sure none of the cables they liked to munch on were causing an issue as well. It wouldn't be the first time. It hadn't caused a catastrophic system failure before but that was just a mess waiting to happen. For someone as paranoid as Bruce was, he really didn't think the flying mice part of the cave through.

With a tiny chuckle to himself, he set to work once more. Vowing to make Bruce personally clean up all the bat guano, he made sure everything was in functioning order. A few untangling of wires here and some tape there and the cable hell was set to his best ability at the moment. He couldn't complain about how absolutely ruined his gloves were, not when he was 10 feet away from a new pair. But he could still make a stink about it later. Alfred would surely back him up.

Speaking of backing up, it was high time he tried to boot the system. Hoping he could prevent an electrical fire in case internal components were shot, he stood at the ready with the heaviest of heavy duty fire extinguishers Bruce allowed him to handle. He wasn't taking any chances when the last proper maintenance on Bruce's beloved baby was a good few months overdue. Maybe he could rope Selina into bullying Bruce into fixing the mess he called a computer.

Years worth of upgrades mixed with less than up to date hardware was bound to cause more issues than he already had. Greatest detective Cujo's fluffy behind, the man was as much of a disaster as any other man his age. He just happened to have a few more braincells and a lot more money than the average dude.

Though Bruce would deny it until his final breath, of course. He quite liked his reputation. Dick couldn't blame him, either, said reputation got him things as well. Mostly scary dog dad privileges with the other heroes but it was a win nonetheless.

Privileges he wished worked on civilians too at times. Mostly times like right now. Dick was waiting for the diagnostics to run, going through the protocol handbook to make sure he didn't miss anything, when the fluffy trio made their presence known.

Or more like, made somebody else's presence known.

A chorus of hisses and growls was directed at a distant corner of the Cave. Fluffed up fur and flattened ears being the biggest warning that they didn't like whatever was slowly inching closer.

Trying to be as quiet as he could, Dick grabbed a handful of batarangs. Ready to defend the should-be-unknown hide out, he stalked closer to the noises. Stilling his breath, he found a perch right above the small opening. He would have let it be, would have ignored the noises of upset, but the fact there were clearly human grumbles echoing in what was undoubtably some type of tunnel was too much for him.

So he waited, still as a gargoyle and waiting for the intruder to show themselves.

"TIMOTHY?!" He screeched out, lunging forward to hold Cujo back from getting a taste for Gotham elite. "What the- how the- since when?" Dick's mind was spiraling down the tracks, running himself over in the endless loop of how the fuck did his neighbor boy just crawl out into the Batcave.

"In order?" Tim got up, failing to dust off the copious amounts of grime he collected on his way over. "Wanted to come see if you needed help. Heard the emergency broadcast come up so I knew you were back in town. Your house isn't the only one build over the cave system. I've been trying to map them out for ages now and finally found the one that connects us." He counted off his fingers, ignoring how utterly stumped Dick was. "And I'm going to need some clarification on question 3. Did you mean like knowing about the cave system or knowing about all this?"

"Yes." Dick's voice barely cracked to life, still too far in a daze to really function. His neighbor kid, his 9 year old Gotham High Society neighbor kid, was standing in the Batcave. Coincidentally on the one day Bruce wasn't there to have a stroke at the very sight of him. No, it was Dick's cardiovascular system turn to be tested by the universe.

"Gotcha." Tim shot him a double finger gun before walking past the stumped teen and confused pets. "I didn't find the caves until like, hell, a year ago maybe? As for knowing about all this. Probably like? I don't know, a month or two after...you know. You never forget the sight of Grayson acrobatics so it didn't take much." Silence fell over them, the steady hum of the computer and the occasional chitter from a bat being all that blanketed them. Dick walked forward, autopilot keeping him from stumbling his way over to the main chair. Tim followed after, stopping at the secondary chair that was off to the side.

"I-" Tim awkwardly cleared his throat. "I was there, you know." He didn't speak loudly, but there was no need for it. The echo in the cave did enough to carry his statement over to Dick's still rebooting brain.

"You...what?"

Tim shrugged, scuttling over when Dick started rolling his way. With nervous hands he pulled out the one image he held close for the past few years. Not even his parents knew he had it. Looking Dick over one last time, he handed over his most precious possession.

Dick took the picture gingerly, like it was made from the most fragile glass to ever exist. It was a clearly well worn image, edges betraying its age despite how well the actual inked part was taken care of.

Right there, in perfect resolution, were his parents. Not just them, but also Danny and himself. If he had to wage a guess, he'd be willing to bet his entire future on the fact that the little boy on their shoulders was Timmy himself. But they were all in their costumes. Danny and he never wore his costumes outside of practice.

Except

Dick looked up, tears fighting with the mask glue as he couldn't even remember the picture being taken. Yet here this boy was, keeping what could very well be the last image of his little family being together safe for so long. They looked so happy, so lively, so painfully perfect. Just like he remembered.

"I still remember being so excited to see you guys' performance." Tim mumbled, keeping his eyes trained on his hands. "Mother had promised to try and invite you guys to my birthday if father liked the show enough. I'm pretty sure they would have said yes if it wasn't for..." He cut himself off, not wanting to force either of them to go down that route. Not now when there were clearly other things to be handled.

"I never gave up on looking for him, by the way."

Dick finally managed to look up, forgoing all of Bruce's rules as he ripped off the mask. The glue had begun to sting his eyes worse than the tears ever could. It was going to have to be replaced anyway so why suffer any longer. There was no secret to his identity anyway. "What do you mean?" He felt like he was the child, the unknowing soul being granted wisdom beyond his comprehension. But he couldn't help but keep asking questions when it felt so out of the blue.

Tim rolled a little closer, pointing at the image again. "That's Phantom, right?" And there went another identity. "I was so sure there were two of you, but the news never covered what happened to him. For a while I thought you two were just trading places all the time, Parent Trap style." He laughed, albeit hollow. It was a silly but oddly plausible theory to have. "Then a certain new kid gets spotted on patrols with Robin and Catwoman. And since you still look near identical, it really doesn't take too many braincells rubbing together to get the gist of who it could be. I wasn't sure when he popped up during Halloween. But then he called earlier and failed so spectacularly at being you, I knew that couldn't be the case."

Dick's eyes flew open, eyebrows attempting to explore the ceiling as he gawked at Tim. "You knew it was him? That early already?" Another question to add to the pile of being outsmarted by this literal tiny civilian child. Maybe it was for the best that Bruce wasn't here to witness it all. He would have had their heads for being so open about everything back then. If this kid knew, who else figured it out?

"Yeah, well the cadence didn't match." Tim looked over the picture again before giggling to himself. "Really, it was like he had no clue what a child my age should sound and act like. Please, get him some media training before you unleash him into the wild again." Tim cautiously looked around, ignoring just how badly Dick's brain broke from everything going on at once. "Or maybe not. It was funny seeing how far I could push it until he realized. Pretty sure he didn't."

Dick's head hurt so, so badly. Getting an anvil dropped on him would have hurt less. This whole time. 5 entire years. This kid knew. His own little neighbor, the one he babysat himself. All those times he spent hiding casefiles or evidence he forgot to put away before Tim came over. Completely for nothing.

Hiding Danny this whole time. Also for nothing. If one kid could figure it out, maybe they weren't up to the task of being heroes with secret identities. Clearly they were shit at keeping secrets.

Dick was pulled out of his thoughts at the methodical ticking of the Batcomputer. Stupid silver triggers that Bruce insisted on. "Hey, no, don't touch tha-" Once again, Dick was bested by a kid that didn't even hit double digits yet. While he was too far lost in his own brain, Tim had rolled over to the center console and followed the handbook to a T.

Somehow he had already started the system reboot, completely on his own. Unprompted at that. With only Bruce's guide to help him understand. A guide written for somebody that should already have the knowhow of starting the reboot without crashing everything.

Maybe this kid had potential they didn't notice before. He was hoping he did, more like Bruce would agree, because that made being outed by him so much easier on his soul.

Once again, before he could even process everything, it was over. Softly pushing Tim's chair out of the way, Dick ran a final diagnostic just to make sure the Zeta wouldn't do something it wasn't meant to do. He didn't want to risk more Danny's running around.

Luckily for everybody, it looked like the shut down and subsequent reboot went completely according to protocol without any damage, as intended. That was as much good news as it was bad news. Because that meant Bruce really was gone and Danny, him and Cujo were the last under the Bat name currently.

Stumbling over to the changing rooms, he washed off the old glue before setting a new mask in place. Making sure to grab a new pair of gloves as well, he walked over to Tim once again. "Come on, short stack. Time to drop you off before I head out again." He grabbed the keys to the Batmobile, forever grateful Alfred pushed Bruce into giving Dick permission to drive in emergencies.

Tim lingered in the chair, fidgeting with his fingers as he looked at Dick through his lashes. "You know, I could stay." He proposed, pulling out what could only be described as the best attempt at puppy eyes a human could be capable of. "Be your guy in the chair, you know? You might need somebody with Batman missing."

Unfortunately for Tim, he was more than used to Danny trying to pull the same shit on him for nearly their entire life. "Yeah, no, I am not letting you stay in the Batcave without supervision. Or Batman's approval." Because Bruce would definitely have his head if he let Timmy alone without permission. That was if he didn't have roasted bird for dinner for even letting this all happen in the first place.

Well, maybe he could sway Bruce with the security footage of Dick literally having to wrestle this demon child into the Batmobile and having to tie him up with the backseat seatbelts in such a way he couldn't escape, again.

Seriously, what were the Drakes feeding this kid?

After what was undoubtably way too long, he finally managed to be on his way. Cujo sat in the passenger seat, wagging along as they made their way over to the GCPD building once again. At least, until Cujo spotted something and dove right out of the car. Having no time to question it, Dick set chase after the glowing pup.

Now Bruce really couldn't argue against letting him get more driving practice in as he absolutely nailed chasing a ghost of all things. As he rounded the corner, he could see Cujo had found a kid wandering the streets. He shouldn't be surprised, really, the Alley was full of kids and very little volunteers willing to go that far to get them.

The moment the kid saw the car roll up, he looked ready to bolt. Unfortunately for him, he was about 20 pounds of air and had Cujo holding onto his very distressed red hoodie. Looking at Robin approach with that gut wrenching look all Alley kids had, he did his best to seem the least threatening possible.

"Whatcha want?" The boy asked cautiously, trying to take a step back but being blocked by Cujo. Getting fed up with the pup, the boy picked him up, almost hiding Cujo completely in the excess fabric of his hoodie.

Robin smiled softly, the sight being both quite adorable as it was heartbreaking. He got why Bruce hated going to the Alley, why he never patrolled there. But these were the exact people they were failing by ignoring the area that needed them most. "Seems like you got my dog." He watched the boy tighten his hold on Cujo.

"I found him first. How do I know he's yer dog?"

"Well, first off, he found you." The crinkle in the kid's nose at the correction was all Dick needed to keep going. "Secondly, he's technically my brother's dog. He'd probably want him back."

Another suspicious nose crinkle later, the boy outright glared at him. "Prove it."

"Cujo." At the sound of his name, the pup immediately reacted. Going intangible, he ran over to Robin and floated up into his arms. Smirking triumphantly, he looked over the boy.

With a shove of his hands into his pockets, the boy huffed. "Yeah, fine. Have fun with him, I guess." The boy looked at Cujo one last time before turning on his heel and walking away.

Dick knew the boy had no real place to go, not dressed like that and so keen on trying to keep Cujo by his side. "Hey, tell you what." He called out, getting the boy to turn around again. "If you do me a little favor, I'll make sure to come find you later to hang out with Cujo again."

The boy eyed Robin suspiciously, almost as if he was a common thug trying to solicit work from him. Which, considering where they were, probably wasn't too uncommon. But it was hard not to know who Robin was, so he knew well enough that the kid was just bluffing earlier too. "I aint doing no weird jobs for you, Birdbrain."

Robin bit his tongue, laughing at the common insult wasn't the right thing to do at the moment. Not when the kid could still bolt any moment. There was something about this boy that pulled Cujo to him so there was a pretty high chance that if the kid ran, Cujo would chase him once more. That was about the last thing he needed right now.

"Nothing too weird." He smirked as he let the roof of the car slide open, letting the kid see Tim trying to break out of his seat belted restraints. "I was just hoping you could keep an eye on shortstack over there until I get this whole mess sorted and he can be brought back to the science lab he escaped."

At Tim's muffled yet clearly indignant cries of protest, the boy actually broke into a grin. "So a glorified babysitter, huh." Still not fully convinced, however, he did wander closer just to admire Robin's work.

Taking the risk to swing one of his arms around the boy's bony shoulders, he held up Cujo close to the kid's chest again. "I'll let you hold him during the drive over."

With Cujo wriggling in his arms, trying to get close to the boy again, the kid really didn't have a choice but to agree. Hiding the smile on his face at getting to hold the eager pup again, he climbed into the passenger seat.

"Hey, I never consented to this!"

"I did."

"And I never consented to you breaking in, so tough shit, Tim."