Chapter Text
Jason wasn’t 100% convinced even after he got a second opinion.
It was to be expected since their family had a penchant for wariness and persistent doubts. He was reluctant to leave Tim alone with Damian, pacified only a smidge when Tim told him he’d been dealing with this for a while now, but, after a lot of talking, he eventually managed to kick Jason out of his room.
Once Jason was out of the room, Tim used that time to think, and Damian’s rummaging around served as distant background noise. With Jason gone, Damian had no trouble taking proper form. He walked around the room and explored what was available. Distantly, Tim heard him digging through his sock drawers. Then he was messing with desk supplies and playing with an empty waste basket.
Tim didn’t put all of his focus on what Damian was doing. He was still trying to figure out why Damian left in the first place. He had scolded Damian before, but it’d never driven him away. What had compelled him to follow Jason?
He didn’t want me to go into that building.
Tim plopped onto his bed and stared at the ceiling.
Did he sense something that I missed?
He could ask Damian about it, but that wouldn’t go anywhere. Damian refused to use the hand signs that Tim had taught him, and he was insistent on making noises that had no meaning. He also never caught on to texting. Tim tried to teach him how to use the phone for communication’s sake, but Damian had eaten every single model Tim had given him.
It wasn’t a dangerous mission. I mean, there was a lot of sketchy stuff down there, but we didn’t run into any problems. Why would he be opposed to going in?
Tim rolled onto his side to watch Damian walk around with the waste basket on his head. There were rolled up papers all over the floor. An empty pack of gum was squashed flat against the carpet.
There’s something he knows that I don’t.
Damian bumped into the wall and then lifted the waste basket up a smidge. He corrected himself and turned around. Tim’s eyes trailed after him as he wobbled towards the closet. He extended one arm out as if he were blind.
What is his connection to this investigation? Maybe he’s related to the lab itself?
Tim frowned at the thought.
That couldn’t be right.
Dot-Lab might have tried a taste of meta experimentation, but Damian wasn’t a meta, and Dot-Lab had closed down before they could really learn anything about metas anyways. Then again, what did he really know about Dot-Lab? Why would they have any interest in Bruce’s son? He hadn’t been a meta either.
Or had he?
As Damian tried on one of Tim’s shirts, Tim realized he could find out more if he went downstairs. Then again, who knew how much information that computer stored? Enough to take up weeks of their time? Months? Maybe he was being optimistic by thinking Bruce had already found something.
“Hey, wait a second,” Tim began, pulling himself off his bed, “you can’t wear that!”
Damian looked at him with his nose high up in the air, all full of pride, self-satisfaction, and smugness. He knew exactly what he was doing. He was forcing Tim to get out of bed because he was wearing one of his shirts, and soon, he’d be wearing zero shirts. Already, the shirt was being absorbed into Damian’s body. Once, Tim thought it was just the way of things because Damian was an eldritch creature, and maybe, like Kori, he couldn’t wear normal clothes, but now he was fairly certain Damian just liked to mess around.
“What did I say about taking my clothes?”
Tim tried to pull the shirt off of Damian’s body. Damian chose to fight against him, wrestling in a corporeal form instead of the opposite, and that momentarily surprised him. Damian was fully capable of phasing through people, sinking into the ground, and more. He could think of a dozen instances in which Damian used his abilities to get away.
This time, he was eager to test his strength against Tim’s.
“You little gremlin,” he said as he tugged the shirt over his head.
He probably would have withdrawn it completely if Damian didn’t grab onto it with a death-grip. All of a sudden, they were playing a game of tug-of-war, and maybe Tim would have been amused if the thin material didn’t rip like a piece of paper.
All of a sudden, he was stumbling backwards, and Damian plopped back on the floor with surprise in his body-language. He held the shirt up, examining it with those strange eyes of his. Tim did much the same, except he was staring at the part held in his own hand. He found himself at a loss of words, but that didn’t last long. He opened his mouth, having every intention to complain, but then he saw how small Damian looked, cowed and submissive as if he expected to be abandoned.
Damian meekly approached Tim, after getting up, and handed him the half of the shirt that he was holding.
Tim considered it and inwardly debated on how he was to address this issue. Freaking out wasn’t going to be an option, not when Damian was acting so timidly, and he wasn’t going to hand out a punishment for something that Damian had probably intended to make a game out of. This was an accident. What would the point be in bringing contention?
Tim took a breath.
“It was ugly anyways,” he said with a half-hearted shrug. He tossed the piece he held over his shoulder and pretended to be completely disinterested in its fate. Truth be told, he actually rather liked that shirt. Even if he hadn’t used it often.
Damian seemed to be a little hopeful as Tim grabbed the piece offered to him and did the same thing. Then he placed a hand on Damian’s shoulder and steered him towards the door. “Let’s get out of here. It was getting cooped up anyhow, don’t you think?”
Damian seemed a tad clueless as Tim ushered him into the hallway. He probably would have remained in his corporeal form if footsteps didn’t echo down the hall, the kind that didn’t belong to Tim or anyone Damian knew, so he sunk into the ground at record speed and hid in the closest shadow. Tim’s.
Tim inspected the newcomer and gave him a friendly smile. “Alfred.”
“Master Tim,” Alfred greeted, “I was just about to retrieve you. I’ve made a large dinner and I want everyone available to participate in it.”
“Awesome,” Tim agreed without giving it a second thought. “Is Bruce going to show up?”
That was a trick question. Tim doubted he would be there, but he wanted to hear an update on his adopted father’s condition. Was he still in the cave? Did he find anything?
“I’m afraid he won’t be joining us,” Alfred informed. “He’s engrossed in his research, and for good reason. I’ll be sending food down to him later. To be frank, I wouldn’t even dream of inviting him to leave. I know better than to think he’ll agree, or that he’ll abandon his search when he’s closer than ever before.”
Tim joined Alfred in stride as they headed towards the dining room together. “Can’t blame him,” he said after a moment of reverence.
“Yes,” Alfred sighed, long and drawn out. “I can only hope he’ll find good news. He may not have been the most excited man in the world to learn he was going to be a father, but he never shied away from it either. As time went on, I think he warmed up to the idea. When the babe was born, I know he fell in love the moment he saw him.”
“Really?” Tim had never heard about any of this.
“He’d been prepared for the little lad, but he didn’t think he’d make a great father. He had a lot of grievances with the idea.”
“But he adopted Jason, and he took in Dick, and me too,” Tim pointed out. “What sort of grievances could he have had?”
“He took you all because he has a big heart.” Alfred explained. “Despite what he might claim, he has a soft spot for children. He might not confess it, but he’s a very emotional man. He can’t find it within himself to stand aside when someone is in trouble, no matter the scenario. The baby he had with Lady Talia was different though. He’d suddenly become responsible of bringing someone into this world, his world to be exact. A cruel one, if he’s to be believed.”
“It can’t be that cruel,” Tim thought, but then he grimaced.
The kidnapping. Right. Talk about an insensitive reply.
“Sorry, maybe it’s not my place to say,” Tim immediately backtracked. “Call it a gut feeling, but we’re going to find out what happened to his kid, and then we’ll finally be able to put his mind at rest. Then he can heal. And I mean really heal.”
“I like your positive way of thinking,” Alfred said. “I feel much the same. I know Master Jason likes to think that the young lad is gone for good, but I have the suspicion that—”
“Best not to get your hopes up is why,” Jason snorted as they walked into the dining room. He was playing with a cup of water, tapping the rim, and tilting the cup side to side atop the table. “What are we going to do if the kid’s long gone and buried? It’s going to kill Bruce, that’s what.”
“Now, now,” Alfred said in pacification, “we mustn’t leap to such conclusions. We’ll deal with that when we get there.”
“Don’t try to dismiss it,” Jason said, grabbing his fork to point it lazily in Alfred’s direction, “you know I’ve got a point.”
Dick knocked Jason with his elbow and Jason dropped his fork to rub at the offended spot. His arm.
“Dude,” he complained.
“Stop talking like that, we don’t want Bruce to hear,” Dick hissed. “He’s already killing himself down there, so don’t add more to his plate.” Dick glanced around the table. Cass was present, sitting across from him, and Barbara had showed up too. “Let’s support Bruce with everything we’ve got, alright? He needs us, and he needs this closure. Whatever happens, we’ll be there.”
“Has he found anything?” Tim asked as he pulled out his chair.
“Nothing so far,” Dick admitted. “He’s just getting started. There’s a motherload of information in that thing. It might take him more than a few days just to get through it all. I’m planning on helping him out where I can.”
“With my assistance,” Barbara volunteered herself. “After looking deeper into Christopher Wile’s history, I have some questions I want some answers to.”
“What questions?” Dick asked.
“When Bruce questioned him, he couldn’t seem to remember much of anything about the lab he worked for. All he shared was that he knew something about Bruce’s kid, and that everything he needed to know was documented in the computer. Talk about suspicious, right? He claimed to have only ‘recently’ remembered it.”
“Maybe we don’t know the whole of what Bruce asked him, or how he answered,” Dick suggested.
“Bruce reported the whole interview and put it in the bat-computer,” Barbara said. “Why would he omit anything from his report? He’s not the type to skip out on details.” Barbara gave Jason a pointed look and Jason scoffed and then rolled his eyes at her. “There’s something off about this Wiles guy. It’s not just him either. I looked into some of his co-workers, and they all seem to have a rather large gap in memory.”
Tim felt sick to his stomach.
“Do you think someone tampered with their memories? Is that what you’re saying?” Dick questioned.
“I’m not ruling out the possibility but—”
Tim turned out Barbara’s next words as he recalled exploring the labs and then… that strange moment happened when he saw that room. His head had ached and then he’d heard those phantom voice in his head. His phantom voice. Like a distant memory waiting to come out.
Jason stared at Tim from across the table as Tim came to the revelation that maybe he had more to do with Dot-Labs than he originally thought. This couldn’t be a coincidence. He didn’t believe in such a thing.
“You okay?” Jason asked gruffly. He tried to hide his concern by sounding as grumpy as possible, but Tim could see through his poorly hidden care.
“Yeah,” Tim answered as straightly as he could. “I’m okay.”
Maybe he needed to go back to Dot-Labs.
Or maybe he needed to investigate Christopher Wiles himself.
No, Tim decided, looking down at his carefully prepared food, I need to investigate my own history.