Chapter Text
Even from almost halfway across the Watchtower, Clark kept a careful ear towards the Medbay where Bruce and his brood were currently holed up. Various members of the JLA, including Clark, Oliver, and Wally, had just finally succeeded in ushering the last of the trio of Titans off, having finally convinced the three kids to go back to their homes and check in with their various relatives.
Two of those three had been dead less than 24 hours previously, after all. There was a lot of catching up for them to do.
Clark’s heart was still warm after seeing Kon, alive and well after almost a year and a half of being gone. He had managed to pull a brief explanation out of the boy- something with the future and traveling back in time?- and that had been enough for the time being. The two of them may have never been close, but Clark had nonetheless mourned the boy's loss. He couldn’t wait until he was free from his standby shift to go and join the reunion happening in Kansas.
Wally, standing near Clark’s side, was even more noticeably ecstatic over the return of the boy who was more or less his little brother. The two speedsters had taken previously a couple laps around the Watchtower to catch up on everything before Wally had finally ushered the younger boy towards the Zeta’s alongside his friends.
Diana had chosen to escort Cassie off herself, the pair of Amazon’s going who knows where to celebrate the successful mission and return of her friends. Clark had given up on following all the ins and outs of Diana’s culture years ago, but the two of them had both been excited so he didn’t question it that much.
There was a plan in place for all of them to reconvene at the Tower later, a large party already being organized by those still residing back in the San Francisco base. Of course, all of them were a bit reluctant to celebrate fully when one of their friends was currently unable to attend.
The three kids had all been reluctant to leave the Watchtower with Tim still unconscious and healing. From what Clark had overheard there had been a fair bit of physical damage taken by the boy during his… rescue, and everyone involved had been very concerned. Luckily, the kids had all eventually given in with enough prompting by their mentors and assurances that they could see him again once he was awake. Probably.
It was good that the Titans had eventually given in. There were some conversations that the Justice League would need to have now, and the topic would not be something that those three should be a part of.
The Justice League’s questions needed answering. What has Tim, the former Robin, been doing for the past year?
There were a lot of rumors, starting almost as soon as the kid had dropped off the Justice League’s radar just days after the announcement of a new Robin. Secret discussions abounded behind Nighwing-turned-Batman’s back about how the former Robin was lost in grief, about why he had been replaced as Robin, about how he disappeared seemingly into nowhere in search of a dead man. Of course, when Bruce had actually returned it had been a surprise, and many of those initial opinions on the boy had been tactfully pushed aside as if they were never there.
But Tim hadn’t returned with him, and there was new information revealed. That Tim had somehow ended up allying himself with Ra’s al-Ghul, going as far as to be claimed as his official Heir. He was even running actual missions. That didn’t sound like a move by someone who was being forcibly held by an enemy. People had died on some of the missions he was said to have led. And then apparently the Bats and Titans had tracked Tim down to one of Lex Luthor’s bases, a place they now highly suspected was developing new weaponry. What on earth had he been doing hanging out with Luthor?
Clark focused again on the sounds coming out of the Medbay. A steady beeping, machines whirring, seven distinct heartbeats. The occasional whispered conversation passed between two or three of them, just mundane topics that revealed little to no details. Mostly they were silent, only conveying the occasional shifting of fabric or half-suppressed sighs. The Bats all knew better to discuss sensitive details in a place filled with superhumans who could eavesdrop. Nonetheless, part of Clark still wished that they would.
He just wanted to understand what was going on.
“This whole situation is a mess,” Oliver said suddenly, summing up Clark’s thoughts perfectly. “We’ve got dead kids coming back to life, and then they go and rescue a third who had all but landed himself on our watchlist over the past few months. We’ve given the Bat’s a lot of leeway over the years, but I’m not so sure about this one. It still seems like the kid just straight up lost it and went bad.”
“I’m not sure,” Wally chimed in carefully. “All the Bats are very insistent that anything he’s said to have done with the Assassins was done under duress. They’ve all been focused on basically nothing but tracking him down for months now, haven't they? Why make the effort to bring him back if he had actually betrayed them?”
“Covering their asses,” Oliver scoffed. “They lost track of a kid that they knew was unstable when they should have kept an eye on him, and now he’s gone and teamed up with one of the Justice League’s greatest enemies. Maybe even two of them, depending on what exactly he was doing at one of Luthor’s bases when they picked him up. They’re just covering up their mistakes. Probably gonna lock the kid up somewhere in the Batcave and tell us all that he’s retired. They’d better, at least. I certainly wouldn’t trust him to run loose after everything.”
“Let’s not be hasty,” Clark jumped in, before the conversation could escalate any further. “There’s still a lot of information that we don’t know. Until we’ve heard from Batman, and probably Tim himself, we should try to not pass judgement. There may be some details we’re missing.
“Yeah, you’re right. We need more information before we can start making any demands,” Wally sifted impatiently before continuing. “But one of you guys has got to be the one to tell Bats that we have to have a meeting to discuss what to do about his latest assassin kid.”
---
Ra’s al-Ghul was furious.
That was the majority of what Pru was getting out of this meeting, basically the only important detail if she was honest with herself. All she knew going in was that Tim had been gone for almost a week on a undisclosed mission with no contact, and all the sudden there were more forces being dispatched to wherever Ra’s had seen fit to send him, and a bunch of the higher level assassins currently in Sanctuary had been summoned to Ra’s side with practically no forewarning a mere hour later. So the eight or so of them had gone, obviously. You didn’t ignore a summons from the Master.
And then, when they arrived, the guy just started going off like he had completely lost it.
It was extremely unsettling, to bear witness to a man who possessed so much power having what more or less amounted to a full mental breakdown. It took close to twenty minutes of listening to him rant about betrayals of trust and failed strategies before Pru had finally received enough context clues to figure out that this had something to do with Tim. That the kid had managed to get away somehow or, more accurately, he was broken out. Stolen, as Ra’s said. Tim was stolen from him, because somehow his greatest enemies (translate: the Bats) had pulled one over on the old goat. Whatever ‘ally’ Ra’s had aligned himself with in an attempt to throw the Bats off of Tim’s trail after their last encounter had somehow failed spectacularly and allowed the very people they were supposed to be keeping Tim away from to sweep him away, presumably back to Gotham.
Hence why Ra’s was blowing a gasket.
Pru had never seen the Master like this, if she was honest. Only the highest ranked assassins were allowed near Ra’s within a month or so of his latest dip in the Pit, and she had only reached near that kind of rank ever since she started working so closely with Tim. She had always suspected that the first week or so post-Pit must look a lot like this. Eyes alight with a poisonous fury, a manic edge to his words and movements, enough to make even the most fierce warriors fearful for their safety.
Pru had seen Tim through a couple of his earlier episodes, she was familiar with how the Pit honed a person's instinctual edge to defend and attack, how it broke a person down until they were just a ball of primal emotion that overwhelmed a person’s higher thinking abilities. Tim had always been dangerous, and he definitely was when stuck in that haze. It always took a couple of people and a lot of time to calm him down.
Tim’s directionless lashing out had nothing on Ra’s al-Ghul’s unfiltered fury.
But, what really caught Pru’s eye was the fact that even the most veteran assassins in the room, the ones who certainly had seen Ra’s during his pit-crazed days, were also equally surprised and a slightest bit nervous over how… unhinged Ra’s was acting today. Like they hadn’t ever seen him this far out of his mind before, even fresh off a near-death at the hands of his enemies. Even his closest allies had no clue how to react, mutely listening to his rambling that occasionally lended itself to instructions on how to prepare for an assault on some Alaskan base. To start refreshing the protocols on the best ways to wage war against Gotham.
And the guy hadn’t even been in the Pit recently. Which meant that Ra’s might actually be starting to lose it.
Pru could hear the rumors spreading already, even as she made a quick run through the mess hall on her way back to her room. How Ra’s was more furious than he had ever been in recent memory. How Ra’s was out for blood this time. How the ones in charge of the failed mission, both League and the allies present, had been sentenced to death on sight.
More interesting to Pru, though, were the rumors surrounding Tim. The Heir. How Ra’s was claiming that he had been wrongfully taken and had to be retrieved as soon as possible. That he had been swayed, perhaps a small moment of rebellion, but that Ra’s was positive that once he had returned home to the League he would be quickly reformed to stand at Ra’s side once again. All the damage that his abduction could cause, mentally and physically, could surely be corrected, and things would return to normal once again.
And yet there were whispers, both from those loyal to Tim and those against him, that the loss of the Heir hadn’t been an abduction. That Tim’s previous argument with the Master had finally prompted him to break away from Ra’s control once and for all, ready to forge his own path and create his own empire to oppose the League. Their base moral differences in what the League should be had finally grown too insurmountable to overcome. The Heir was building up for a coup.
Perhaps most intriguing, though, was how many of those who had been previously enamored with Tim’s message of ‘protection, not death’ seemed to be debating the validity of following the Heir in this new direction. With the Demon’s Head seemingly slipping into yet unseen levels of insanity and the Heir seemingly on a collision course against that one way or another… to whom should they give their alliance?
If they could make a break away from the League without being caught… would they take it?
Pru was extremely certain that at least for some of those who were originally sympathetic to Tim the answer would be a resounding yes.
Finally reaching her room once again, Pru roughly threw the door open into her private quarters, letting it close loudly behind her and cutting off the questioning eyes of those who wanted to know what one of the Heir’s closest allies would do next. From their various positions scattered around Pru’s sitting room, the other four of Tim’s hand-picked Lieutenants looked up to glare at her for the unnecessarily rambunctious entrance. Pru just grinned.
“Look alive boys and girls, we’ve got some work to do.”
---
Cass sat alertly next to her little brother, determined to make sure he stayed safe while they were forced to stay in this unfamiliar territory. Her protective instinct pulled her to bundle the too-small boy up and hide him away deep in the recesses of Wayne manor, with layers of protective security and even more protective family members to protect him from the world. But she was forced to stay put.
Most of the others had long since been ushered home to sleep and prepare, but Cass had insisted that she stay in the Watchtower with Bruce. She would leave when Tim did.
Little brother, her little Timmy-bird. So hurt, in so many ways. She had seen the scars, seen the internal conflict. His brain was confused, Pit-Instinct and Tim-instinct fighting each other. She would do whatever it took to help him. Even if that meant protecting him from their family.
The others were also protective, but in different ways. For Bruce, Dick, and Stephanie the urge to protect him was interlaced deeply with guilt. Guilt that they had, indirectly or not, caused this to happen to their little Robin. For Bruce this was expected. Practically his whole life was crafted around his feelings of guilt, him always working to do what he had to to decrease that debt to the world. He didn’t have to, Cass knew. Especially not this time. She could see how Tim still trusted him more than the others. She couldn’t let Bruce unintentionally turn his feelings of previous inadequacy against their efforts to help Tim heal.
Dick and Stephanie were a bit different than Bruce. Their guilt ran deeper, but they were also both much more inclined towards ignoring their wrongdoings in the assumption that they would be forgiven. She had seen it, back in the warehouse, when they had tried to talk to Tim. That solution wouldn’t work this time, Cass knew. She would have to watch, to make sure neither of them tried to push Tim too quickly and instead accidentally sabotaged their efforts.
Damian was hesitantly protective, still unsure of what to make of this boy who had come before him, who he had replaced just as Tim had gone and unintentionally replaced Damian as Ra’s Heir. He was wary of Tim, even as he still slept. Too many bad experiences and bad interactions layered on top of each other. He was trying-protective, despite fearing what Tim’s recovery might mean for him, knowing that this is what was expected of him as a family member. Cass would watch, to make sure that his fears of inadequacy didn’t cause the boy to regress towards his early feelings of superiority as a defense mechanism.
Jason, surprisingly enough, was the one that was currently giving Cass the least cause for concern. Sure he was rough around the edges, still fighting off his own traumas, but his protectiveness was cautious and with intent. He understood Tim’s mind more than anyone in the family besides Cass herself seemed to, and despite his slight fear of rejection by the younger brother he had most wronged, he was also by far the best suited to help him in this circumstance. As long as he wasn’t pushed away by the family, she suspected that Jason would be Cass’s best ally in helping Tim.
The Titans had been protective, too, but it wasn’t the same. They were not normal humans, not Gotham, not Bats. They looked for Tim, but didn’t understand that the Tim they remembered was gone. Might never return. They would have to learn, though, if they wanted to help. Cass was hopeful that they would learn. Tim trusted them, especially the two boys. They needed more allies outside of the family.
The rest of the people she had seen in the Watchtower worried Cass. Set her on edge. None of the others in her family had seemed to notice the cautious edge in the others’ eyes as they brought Tim in and set him up to heal. They were not protective-guilt-love. They were fearful of Tim. It was confusing.
Bruce hadn’t seen the looks, too focused on Tim. The others hadn’t seen, unaccustomed to reading people at a glance and forced home too quickly. Jason had been nervous, but he was still like that around most heroes outside of the family and his friends. Maybe he noticed subconsciously.
Cass would just have to protect Tim herself, she decided as she once again scanned over the face of her sleeping brother. There would be no one better than her. Cass would guard him from the harsh outside world that judged those forced to make hard decisions when pushed into a corner, and she would do what she could to combat his internal enemies as well.
She hadn’t been there for Tim when he needed her back then, but she would help him heal now. She could protect him here until he was allowed to go home, and then she would stay by his side there. She knew it would be a lot of work, it would take a lot of time to rebuild what was lost.
But Tim was worth every moment.