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His return to consciousness was slow and hazy, so even if Bruce hadn’t remembered the knockout gas, he'd have known he’d been drugged. He missed the immediate clarity he usually woke up with. It was so much more efficient when one needed to escape dangerous situations.
The one upside, he supposed, was that when your senses come online one at a time, you can pay significantly more attention to each individually.
For example, the air obviously stank of sweat, but with only olfactory signals being processed, Bruce could also smell old, thick blood. Ominous.
He could hear other people breathing, but no movement. A few intent seconds told him there were (approximately) half a dozen others in the room, most or all of whom were still, calm, asleep, or some combination thereof.
Bruce decided not to open his eyes just yet, instead focusing on the feeling of Kevlar encompassing him, exacerbating the heat in the room, but the absent pressure of the cowl on his face. Identity compromised. Not good.
His arms were chained securely over his head (potentially problematic), but curiously his feet were still firmly against the floor. Whoever had taken him apparently wanted to avoid permanent damage, then. For now.
None of the other people in the room had stirred yet. Were they unconscious, or merely being still? Or were they perhaps feigning sleep, as Bruce was?
If they were hostiles (and conscious) there was no reason for them not to wake him right now. So either enemies had made the very stupid mistake of leaving Batman unsupervised, or…
No. God, please, no.
Allies. Allies had been knocked out and imprisoned with him.
But not just allies. His kids.
This was a risk any time any one of them went out, and Bruce knew that, and he struggled with it every day. This was a relatively common occurrence, a drugged out, chained up bird or bat, and Bruce might’ve thought he’d be over the rush of pure terror by now, but no. Every damn time someone hurt his kids, or even got close, he completely froze, for a split second, stomach twisting and mouth going dry, remembering rattling breaths, cold skin, still chests, whispered pleas, spreading bloodstains.
And this was all of them . Someone had his entire family.
Dick, hanging limp, with a puffy black eye and one knee twisted horribly out of place.
Jason, jacket and helmet gone, bleeding from a gash across his cheek.
Tim, who, without his cowl and cloak, looked impossibly young and small.
Stephanie, split lips parted, head resting against one of her raised arms, and wrongly still for someone so full of life.
Damian , his baby, literally stood up on a box so his shackles wouldn’t dangle him a foot above the ground, cloak and costume ripped from what must have been a brutal sword fight.
Their captors had even taken Cass, which was damn near impossible. Her head drooped all the way forward, her hair hiding her face, but he assumed she was maskless like the others.
And they had him, too. Bruce’s one comfort when his children were threatened was knowing he could do something about it. Now that task would be significantly more difficult.
Bruce forced his attention away from his children, reminding himself that they were all breathing evenly and without difficulty, and that meant that, for a definition of it, they were ok. He looked now at the room itself, hoping it would tell him something about where they were.
The cell was stone, old stone, dimly lit by a torch outside in the hall, beyond a thick wooden door that had a barred window no longer or wider than Bruce's arm. The room was square, holding two captives against each wall, except the one with the door. He could see no cameras or listening devices, but that didn’t mean there weren’t any.
A soft moan to his right. Bruce turned in time to see Jason’s eyes flutter open, immediately widening and hardening as he took in their surroundings. He looked around, and met eyes with Bruce.
“Are you alright?” Bruce asked.
“Peachy,” Jason almost definitely lied. “You know where we are.”
Bruce did. He took a deep breath before he nodded. At least it meant there’d been no identity leak, he supposed.
Jason leaned his head back against the wall. “God, I wish I could be wrong once in a while.”
“You were wrong last night,” Dick rasped. He kept both eyes closed, but grimaced as he shifted more weight to his good leg. “You said we were totally gonna be fine.”
“It’s called boosting morale, Dick-shit, there were children present.”
“‘m not a f’ck’n chile,’” Tim protested sleepily, before whining, “‘m hoooot.”
Some small amount of tension was beginning to ease as each child (because they were all children to Bruce, all his children) woke and spoke, proving they were alive, were alright, were not yet doomed by his failure to protect them.
Not yet.
"Don't think it's the time to make those jokes, boy wonder," Stephanie said, sounding more awake than anyone.
Tim squinted and glared at her. "W'sn't try'ng to."
"Would you all shut up?" Damian complained. "I already have a migraine."
Cass didn't speak, but Bruce saw her lift her head. She peered around the room and frowned before glancing at him. He wished he had some kind of reassurance to offer her.
He knew who he was up against, just not what.
"Y're not special, demon, we've all got headaches."
"Guys, don't call him that."
"S'rry, mom."
"Kids," Bruce cautioned, hearing footsteps down the hall. They fell silent immediately, exchanging wary glances with him and each other.
A shadow blocked out the light as the lock grated. And then, "Hello, Detective."
"Hello yourself," Tim quipped. "And then goodbye yourself."
" Tim," Bruce scolded under his breath.
But Ra's al Ghul only laughed. "Not you, my young Detective. This time my purpose is with your father."
"And what is that purpose?"
Though no light shone on Ra's's eyes, they glittered an unnatural green. They were so very different from Damian’s and Jason's eyes. So much colder. Even in anger, Jason's and Damian's eyes were warm.
" Punishment," Ra's whispered, prowling closer. "We had a bargain, Detective, and you broke it."
He had? When? How?
"Unknowingly," he whispered back, unable to summon more volume in his panic. "Unknowingly and unintentionally, I swear."
He would never… not when…
The children were all staring between Bruce and Ra's, wary and confused. Jason's and Tim's frowns were especially dark and thoughtful.
"It matters not to me whether you were aware or intent. And by now, it matters not to you either. The punishment has already been dealt, and I came here already intending to offer you a way to escape it, if you can."
"What the fuck does that mean?"
Ra's's lip curled as he turned towards Jason. "It is as impressive as it is irksome, boy, that still you are incapable of holding your vulgar tongue in the presence of your betters."
“What the fuck does it mean, Ra’s?” Bruce asked, glancing around to silently warn his children that it was not the time to get involved. A few did seem inappropriately amused by his repeating Jason’s choice word, but thankfully they kept their comments to themselves.
“It means, Detective,” Ra’s said irritably, “that shortly before you all awoke, one of your children was forced to ingest a poison of my own design–”
“What?”
“You fucking bas–”
“Shhh!”
“-- the effects of which will become fatal in a little over one hour.”
Bruce could hardly breathe. The rattling breaths, whispered pleas, he could hear them all, see the tears and the bloodstains. All six children were yelling in fury now, which voice would he never hear again? But…
“You said there’s an escape,” he gasped out, forcing his gaze back to the smirking face. “What is it?”
Ra’s’s smile widened. “I will return in exactly an hour, and with me, I shall bring the antidote to the poison, which I shall administer to a single child of your choosing. Your escape from grief depends on your ability to correctly deduce which child I have sentenced to death.”
“You’re sick,” Tim hissed. “You understand how absolutely fucking sick you are?”
“My young Detective,” Ra’s almost crooned, familiar and condescending in a way that made Bruce’s stomach turn, “surely you understand that I don’t care?”
He turned, cloak swirling as he exited. “I shall return in one hour, Detective. Choose wisely.”
The door closed and locked.
“Oh, so it’s vulgar if I say fuck, but Tim and Bruce both get free passes?” Jason complained immediately. “What kind of backwards classist shit is this?”
“ That’s what you’re worried about?”
“Tim, why the fuck does Ra’s call you–”
“And here I thought this kind of shitshow only existed on A-Oh-Three.”
“--such a greasy… I don’t know animals, Dami–”
“ENOUGH!” Bruce hollered.
They instantly fell silent, so that all Bruce could hear was his own pounding heartbeat.
One hour. One hour to work out Ra’s al Ghul’s scheme, or one of his children was going to die.
“Report,” he choked out. “Dick, start.”
Thank God, Dick didn’t protest. He only closed his eyes for a moment, grimacing, and listed, “Hell of a headache, slightly dizzy, but both of those could be concussion. I don’t actually want to know what’s wrong with my left knee, but it definitely happened during the fight, and the cramps on the right side are probably from the unequal weight-bearing.”
“Report any changes. Jason.”
“Cuts and scrapes, but nothing abnormal about them. Couple ribs cracked, maybe broken.”
“Are you having trouble breathing?”
“No, B, I’m fine.”
“ ‘I’m fine’ is not a viable answer in present–”
“I mean I know what broken ribs are, and this is it,” Jason overrode loudly. “I don’t need you and Ra’s jumping on my word choice.”
He glared flatly until Bruce muttered, “Fine,” and turned to Tim.
“Fucking hot as hell,” the boy whined, glaring at Stephanie’s hastily aborted giggles. “Vaguely ready to puke, but that’s probably seeing Ra’s. Or anxiety. Or anxiety because of seeing Ra’s. But natural.”
Bruce wasn’t going to take a word of that lightly or at face value, but for the moment he turned to Stephanie, immediately to his right.
“Sore and bruised,” she said. “Also kinda hot, but I do have a thicker cloak than most of you.”
And the room is unnaturally warm, Bruce noted. It could well be to disguise symptoms such as fever, thirst, or sweating. Of course, if the poison was Ra’s’s design, he’d never be able to identify the substance or make a match to a symptoms list. Just one more twisted way for Ra’s’s ‘mercy’ to slip out of his hands.
“Damian.”
“Only flesh wounds and a migraine. I do not think it is me.”
“Why, because Ra’s is such a fantastic grandpa?” Jason asked drily. “Really, kid?”
“Because he values the al Ghul bloodline too much to destroy its only male heir,” Damian countered. “If he were a trillionth the grandfather Pennyworth is, he would not have taken myself and my family captive to force Father to watch one of us die.”
“That’s the lowest fucking bar–”
“Cassandra,” Bruce interrupted.
“Muscles sore,” she said, “that’s all.”
Ok. Alright. The boys and Stephanie continued to bicker and scoff, but Bruce turned inward, analyzing. Right now, it seemed that the girls were in the best physical shape of them all. If anything but heat, thirst, or sweating changed in them, he’d have an immediate answer. But he figured Ra’s would know he would assume that, and so might have ignored the girls as possibilities entirely…
Unless he’d concocted a poison whose physical symptoms were invisible until death. But how could that be? Something fast enough to cause death in a mere hour had to have some kind of noticeable physiological effect, even if only the victim could detect it, and his child would tell him if that were so.
But Ra’s did have a thousand years of knowledge about medicine and assassination, not to mention mystical resources such as the lazarus pits. If anyone could produce a symptomless poison, it would be him. So technically, Bruce couldn’t rule out anyone on symptomatic grounds.
“-- I would have poisoned Drake–”
“Fucking love you too, you little shit–”
“Do not joke about this, you two.”
“-- but it’s not me, because Ra’s still wants my babies, he can’t–”
“Back the fuck up!?”
“ Ex-fucking-scuse me?”
“WHAT?”
Even Bruce turned, shocked, to stare at his third son, who was very red in the face, and seemed to be trying to shrink in on himself despite the shackles making such a feat impossible.
“Can, can we, can we maybe just pretend I didn’t say that?” he squeaked.
“ No,” Bruce and all of his sons said together.
“Right,” Tim muttered. “Ah, fuck. Me and my fucking mouth, ok.” He took a deep breath and sighed, refusing to meet any of their eyes as he explained, “It was when you were, uh, absent, B. After the whole falling off the WE building thing–”
“The what?”
“I caught him,” Dick said, “it’s fine.”
It did not at all sound ‘fine’ to Bruce, but he decided to talk about it later, when there were no timers counting the end of his child’s life.
“Anyway, um, the long story short was that in that whole fiasco, I royally pissed off Ra’s and decimated the League’s tech support, and that’s why he kicked me out the WE window, but anyway, after he cooled off, I guess? He decided to be impressed. So since I told him I’d never fucking join the League, he decided the next best thing would be to have his like… sister or something? Um… There’s, uh, there’s really no good way to say this. He decided he wanted his sister to have my baby, because his blood, my brains or something I guess, but I really don’t think genetics work that way, but, uh, yeah, he probably still wants that, so he probably wouldn’t kill me, and that, that whole, y’know, all of it is probably why I really want to throw up.”
Thirty seconds of silence followed Tim’s explanation. A massive portion of Bruce’s terror corroded into disgust and horror as he imagined – tried not to imagine – a faceless, eons-old woman forcing herself on his teenage son.
“I want to throw up, too,” Jason muttered. “And kill him.”
“That didn’t happen, right?” Dick asked, voice high. “Tell me that didn’t happen.”
“Didn’t happen,” Cass spoke up. “Stopped her.”
“You knew?”
She just shrugged. “Didn’t happen.”
When they got home – all of them – Bruce was going to have to hold a long review about reporting essential information. But for now, he had to determine if Tim’s physical distress was caused by emotional distress or Ra’s’s poison. Tim had a horrifying point – Ra’s would be unlikely to risk the loss of what he considered a valuable asset – but the man worked in complicated, unfathomable ways. He probably had just as many reasons to kill Tim as to spare him.
“So…” Damian’s voice shook slightly. He seemed unable to look at Tim. “Likely not me, and likely not Dra– Timothy.”
“If he thinks Tim’s going to fucking give him an heir though,” Jason said, “he might kill you to uncomplicate the line of succession.”
“What if something happened to the baby, though?” Steph asked. “Wouldn’t he keep Damian around as a backup?”
“Not if plans to keep Tim and force him to keep making babies until one meets his standards,” Jason countered. “Bastard never said he’d let the rest of us go just because one dies.”
Tim blanched, and Bruce fought the urge to throw up himself. Dick shuddered, eyes somewhere far away, and Bruce desperately wished he could enfold them both in his arms. Wished he could protect them, all of them. But Jason had raised a terrifying point.
“We have to start ruling out some people!” Damian was protesting “We’ve wasted ten minutes already!”
“Used,” Jason corrected. “We’ve used ten minutes. Checking for symptoms and motives is not a waste of time, it’s all we can do.”
“Check in again,” Bruce said, closing his eyes. It was too soon. If he checked in every ten minutes, that would take more than half of the time he was allowed. But right now he needed them all to stop talking over each other, needed to think .
“No change.”
“No change.”
“I threw up a little in my mouth at the baby machine comment but I think it got rid of the nausea?”
“No change.”
“No change.”
“No change.”
Alright. The girls. Both had started alright, and after another ten minutes, they were still alright. It wasn’t proof, not that the poison was symptomless or that they would not still develop symptoms, but he could turn to motive, as Jason had pointed out.
Cassandra’s very birth had been commissioned by Ra’s at the behest of David Cain. As far as Ra’s was concerned, she was a weapon forged for him by a trusted servant. A valuable one, not to be thrown away lightly. He also must be aware that her understanding of her own body was beyond any of the others’, and that it was highly possible for her to detect and report even subtle effects of poison as it worked on her. All logical reasons for Ra’s not to choose her.
But would he assume Bruce could calculate that and choose her anyway? He didn’t think so, not when he considered the last point. Ra’s wanted Bruce to fail, and Cass was most likely of the six to help him succeed.
Cautiously, speaking slow, he voiced his logic, hoping his children would be able to find counters or confirmations that he couldn’t.
“It is true, Grandfather would not be likely to risk losing Cassandra’s abilities.”
“Or risk her abilities foiling him,” Tim agreed.
“He’s also sexist as shit,” Jason said. “In his mind, losing a daughter would never be as devastating as losing a son.”
Cass herself nodded. “Don’t think it’s me.”
“But you’ll tell me immediately if anything changes.”
She nodded.
“To Jason’s point,” Stephanie said, “I’m also a girl, and I’m technically the next-door-neighbor in the sitcom that’s inexplicably always at your house. I don’t think he considers me all that important.”
“His mistake,” Tim said, kicking out to nudge Steph’s foot with his own. She smiled at him.
Bruce shook his head, seeing her face so bloody and bruised it was damn near unrecognizable. “Ra’s will never understand that you are just as much a part of our family as any of the others,” he murmured. And that losing you again would be agony.
“He’ll never understand it,” Dick said, “but that doesn’t mean he can’t understand the fact that that’s how you feel. He’s devoid of the feeling of love, not the concept. He could well try to consider us from your perspective, but his own view is so fucked up that yours gets twisted, and that’s why he sees the losses as unequal and deduceable.”
“Oh, fuck,” Tim whispered.
Oh, fuck, indeed. It was one thing to consider the way Ra’s valued Bruce’s children. It was another to consider how Ra’s would expect Bruce to follow his logic, and yet another to consider how and whether Ra’s would choose to subvert those expectations.
It was something else entirely – something sinister and dangerous and foul – to consider how Ra’s expected Bruce to value his own children. How he might think Bruce could rank them, favor one above another.
But it would make sense.
If Ra’s wanted to punish Bruce – he still wasn’t sure what for, he’d been so careful – he’d choose to kill the child who he thought Bruce would grieve the hardest. And since Bruce had no answer for that, he’d be guessing nearly blind. And then he’d have to consider Ra’s’s expectation that Bruce would guess correctly by that twisted logic, and would move to some point down the list where his own value (who he had no use for) would match with Bruce’s (who he couldn’t bear to lose).
He immediately re-evaluated Cass and Steph, revulsion physically rising in his throat as he forced himself to view them through an unholy lens combining his and Ra’s’s views. Jason was right that Ra’s viewed daughters as lesser (think how he treated Talia), and it seemed an in-character assumption to say Ra’s would expect Bruce to see girls the same way. Add that to what he’d already concluded – Cass was too valuable to Ra’s and Steph too ‘worthless’ – and he still felt confident that the victim wasn’t one of them.
“--his own biases get in the way, though?” Jason was saying.
“Oh, most definitely,” Tim agreed. “Good and bad.”
“ Good biases?” Steph said doubtfully.
“Well, all of them are fucked up,” Tim shrugged, wincing, “but I mean like… Take Dick. He’s basically B’s ‘firstborn son,’ and Ra’s thinks that’s like, the best you can possibly be. ‘Good’ bias. But he also thinks adoption doesn’t count, and also also shits on Dick for being A) Romani, and B) from the circus. Bad bias.”
“Your logic has merit if not your terminology,” Damian admitted. “But I have also heard him praise Richard’s prowess as a warrior. He could feel that such skill outweighs his heritage, especially if he thinks he’s considering Father’s perspective.”
“Or,” Jason countered, “Ra’s stays in his own head and decides Dick’s powerful enough that regardless of how fitting a punishment, he needs to take him off the board.”
“I really, really can’t tell if I’m supposed to be flattered or insulted right now,” Dick murmured.
“Can you think of any reasons Ra’s would want to keep you alive?” Bruce asked, thinking of Cass, Tim, and Damian. “Or you, Jay?”
Dick frowned, shifting his weight again. Bruce could see him gripping the chains in his fists, trying to hold himself off the ground. He ached to help the boy sit down.
“I don’t know…” Dick said slowly. “I’ve interacted with him least of all of us except Steph.”
“I mean, he put a hell of a lot of resources towards training me,” Jason said, “but that was all because of Talia. And he’s never made a secret of the fact he thinks I’m lower than bedrock.”
There was a vaguely breathy quality to Jason’s speech. Bruce narrowed his eyes, watching his second son’s chest rise and fall, wishing the armor didn’t hinder his view.
“Any reason either of you could think of that he’d want to…”
“Kill us?” Jason asked, grinning wryly. “Other than the fact my existence pisses him off, no.”
“I mean, he hated me when I was a kid, and probably still does,” Dick said, “but what villain can’t say the same?”
“It’s possible,” Damian said, voice small, “that he holds you responsible for my falling away from the League’s teachings. It… it was only under your tutelage that I stopped…”
Bruce started to reach for him, to pull him close, but the shackles arrested the movement. He felt a surge of fury at the added cruelty. It wasn’t enough that Ra’s threatened to take a child away from him, he had to prevent Bruce from comforting any of his children, too?
“I say this as lovingly as I say anything to you, demon,” Tim spoke up, “but that was a group effort. Dick didn’t do that alone, and Ra’s knows it. He told me as much, once.”
Tim’s breath was also abnormal, but quicker rather than labored like Jason’s. His face was a strange mix of pale and flushed, and Bruce didn’t know if it was caused by the combination of fear and heat, or if it was a symptom of poison.
Not the girls. Physically, could be Tim or Jason. But that didn’t mean it was one of them for sure, not yet. Dick was good at hiding pain, and if Bruce knew his oldest son, he’d rather die than mistakenly take the antidote and watch a sibling perish. And while it didn’t seem as though there was history between him and Ra’s to build motive for killing or sparing, Ra’s could well use that fact to throw them off.
“Report again.”
“Can’t tell if the migraine is going away or if my leg just hurts so much worse now.”
Right. Bruce eyed the swollen joint, unsure if it was broken or dislocated, but knowing that if Dick’s pain was centered there, it could make him ignorant to the effects of poison. His brow and hair were soaked with sweat, but it could be from the general heat of the room, or from the exertion of trying to hold himself up with his arms.
Dick was indeed powerful, and Bruce’s oldest partner, as well as Damian’s and Tim’s mentor. If Ra’s believed Bruce was planning to oppose him, he could well want to remove Dick from the field. Dick was no use to Ra’s himself, after all, so even if, in his bigoted mind, he considered Dick, as a person, lesser than the others, he would be an easy choice to balance Ra’s’s value with Bruce’s.
Still a possible victim.
“Think I can confidently say ribs are broken, not cracked.”
Jason’s voice still had that subtle, breathy quality. His eyes were pained and jaw tight, but not obviously so. Bruce reflected that Jason, like Dick, would also rather die himself than take the cure from someone else. Breathing difficulties could be a sign of a crushed or punctured lung, if the ribs were indeed broken, and having his arms raised would only exacerbate that. Or the ribs could merely be cracked, and Jason was misattributing the effects of poison.
Having trained Jason was no reason for Ra’s to consider him an investment worth keeping, after all. Perhaps, if Jason had still been antagonistic to the rest of the family, Ra’s would spare him in the hopes he would take out one of the others, but they all knew Jason was now more likely to cut off his right hand than to raise it to anyone in the room. And Jason knew League secrets, had been returned to his current state against Ra’s’s wishes, and came from origins Ra’s did indeed consider the lowest of low. And for what Ra’s could think of Bruce’s opinion… Jason was his prodigal son. The one he’d lived without? The one he couldn’t lose again? The one who had hurt him, or the one who he never wanted to hurt again?
Bruce’s head was pounding, trying to figure it out. Still a possible victim.
“I’m gonna be completely honest, it’s hotter than ever right now and I kinda can’t breathe. Also my heart’s going crazy and I’m point-two seconds from throwing up again, but that's normal for a panic attack, and–”
“Tim, deep breaths. In… out…”
“Stop panicking and confusing us, Drake!”
“Timbit, breathe, it’s ok–”
“Tim, hey, look at me, it’s gonna be ok–”
Panic attack or poison? The symptoms were dangerously matchable with either, and nothing else could physically be causing those things. The heat itself wasn’t that intense, even factoring Tim’s lesser resistance to it.
Ra’s had apparently tried to kill Tim before. Tim had proven himself dangerous enough to warrant murder as a precaution, and Ra’s didn’t let crimes against the League go lightly. But if he… if he was so obsessed with Tim’s abilities, why would he kill him? But if he wanted… If he wanted Tim’s… child, he could have… he could have taken what he needed while they were all asleep, and kill Tim now to satisfy his vengeance. But Bruce could remember the chill down his spine at the possessiveness in Ra’s’s voice when he called Tim my young Detective. Why would Ra’s kill a coveted prize? Then again, if Tim was so valuable to Ra’s that he desired him for himself, he could just as easily care only to take him away from Bruce, both to cripple Bruce’s supposed efforts against him, or because he thought Bruce favored Tim above the others for the same reasons as Ra’s.
Still a possible victim.
But at least his breathing was calmer, and he hadn’t vomited yet, so Steph shakily said, “I’m ok. Like, seriously, truly, ok.”
She was pale and sweating, but she’d complained about heat from the beginning, and the situation was as stressful as one could be. Ra’s saw little to no value in her and had no fear of her, and likely expected Bruce to feel the same. Probably not the victim.
“No change.”
Damian looked neither pale nor flushed. He was sweating some, but again, they all were, and his breathing was completely normal. The migraine could still be a symptom of poison, but Bruce expected that other symptoms would be presenting themselves by now, more than half an hour post-administration, if poison was the cause.
And he’d had a point, when he said how much blood mattered to Ra’s. And while Ra’s could assume blood mattered to Bruce, causing him to favor Damian, he thought even Ra’s could see that that was not the case, not when the other five in the room shared no blood at all. And likely, blood mattered too much to Ra’s for him to use its worth against Bruce. Whatever Ra’s wanted from Tim, Damian’s lineage was more direct, and he’d welcome his grandson back before he’d remove him from the path of a nephew.
Probably… Probably not the victim.
“All good.”
And Cass did indeed appear healthiest out of them all, and would know immediately what was wrong. Ra’s saw her as a weapon before he saw her as a girl, and would be more interested in wielding her himself than removing her from Bruce. Probably not the victim.
“I think…” Bruce hesitated, not wanting to say it, and make it real. Not wanting to consider that he could already have made an irreversible error in counting out three of his children. Not wanting any of them to think that his puzzling through Ra’s’s cruel, twisted, toxic logic meant Bruce at all agreed with him.
“Go on, B,” Jason said, “who’s the favorite child?”
“Do not joke about this, Jason!”
Jason flinched and dropped his gaze. Bruce closed his eyes and took a deep breath. “I’m sorry.”
“It’s fine.”
“No, it’s not, I shouldn’t have–”
“I said, it’s fine–”
“I can’t–” Bruce’s voice shook “-- risk my last words to you being a chastisement, Jason. Let me tell you that I’m sorry. That I shouldn’t have taken out my fear and anger on you.”
Jason glanced back up. His eyes were vaguely glassy, but Bruce didn’t know if it was emotion or pain.
“Ok,” he said quietly. “Apology accepted. As you were saying.”
Bruce swallowed. “I think it’s either Jason, Dick, or Tim.”
He briefly explained why he doubted Ra’s would choose Damian, and they all nodded, even Jason.
Halfway there, assuming he was right, with roughly twenty minutes to go.
Bruce resisted the urge to check in again, instead turning to Tim and asking, "Is there anything more that happened while I was lost that could point towards Ra's either wanting to kill you or spare you?"
Tim cringed, and Bruce wished he didn't have to ask. Wished he'd been there. Wished Ra's al Ghul… but if he didn't exist, neither would Damian.
"I guess…" Tim said slowly. "When he wanted his sister to… y'know… the Court of Spiders was, uh. Basically hunting me for sport."
Bruce closed his eyes, reminding himself Tim was still there . Still alive.
For now.
"I'll hunt them for sport," Jason growled.
"You don't have to, it's ok now. Um, but anyway, they caught up with me the same time as Ra's's sister, and apparently he didn't much care if I died afterward as long as he got… that. So. I…"
But Tim suddenly went white, eyes shooting wide in panic, and his breath picked up threefold.
"Tim?"
"Oh, God," he whispered. "Oh, God, oh, fuck, oh, hell, what if he's doing that now? What if, while, oh, God, he could, oh…"
"Tim!"
But Tim lurched and threw up, starting to tremble.
"Oh, God," he choked, tears spilling out. "What if, what if he, what if she– Don't touch me!"
Steph and Jason both jerked away, having tried to knock their boots gently against Tim's. Bruce strained, wishing he had the strength to rip the shackles right from their mooring, wishing more than anything he could go to his son and chase away the waking nightmare in his eyes.
The back of his mind wondered if it was a trauma-induced panic attack or poison-induced fit of paranoia.
"Tim!" he called, because it could wait, it had to wait, he had to help his son, "Tim, sweetheart, please, look at me. It's alright. It's alright right now. No one is touching you. No one is going to touch you, you're safe."
Tim's wide, teary eyes found Bruce’s at last, his breaths slowing to match those of everyone else's in the room as they guided him (Jason's were shallower than the rest).
"But what if they already did?" Tim whispered.
“ If they did,” Jason rasped, “I’m gonna kill him.”
“We’ll figure it out, Tim,” Dick promised, looking worriedly at Jason and flicking his eyes back to Bruce. “Whatever happened, we’re all going to get through it together, ok?”
“Ok…” Tim’s voice trembled. “Ok, ok, ok.”
“Jason,” Bruce said, wishing he didn’t have to move on like this, “status report, then tell me if there’s any other reason Ra’s could have to…”
Jason rolled his eyes and huffed, “Alright, yeah, it’s not easy to breathe right now, but that’s fucking normal for broken ribs, believe me. ”
“This is not the time to reference–”
“Damian, not now. Jason, go on.”
“I guess Talia would be pissed, not that that’s ever deterred him.” Jason had to pause to breathe in and out a few seconds. “But it’s really not like I’ve done anything to piss him off.”
“You backed out on your word,” Damian said quietly. “You swore to destroy Father’s team and then joined them. If Grandfather wants to punish a broken promise…”
Poetic indeed. Too obvious? Or so obvious Bruce would dismiss it immediately and Ra’s would have doubled back?
“Dick?”
Dick swallowed hard. “No change,” he said quietly. “And I don’t think I’ve ever expressly pissed him off or endeared myself to him.”
So of the three remaining…
Ra’s might take delight in killing Tim, or might be eager to keep him alive. He almost definitely considered Tim as above the other two himself, but it was difficult to say whether he thought Bruce ranked Tim higher than his brothers or not. And though Tim was physically a mess right now, every symptom matched the ones he displayed during a panic attack, which the situation gave good cause to trigger, and seemed to calm the way panic attacks did.
Bruce was leaning away from the thought that Tim could be the victim, but he wasn’t ready to say it aloud.
Ra’s would delight in killing Jason, that was becoming clear, and had no reason to want to keep him alive. He considered Jason the lowest of Bruce’s sons, and apparently held Jason to a broken bargain of their own. But how did Bruce think Ra’s believed Bruce saw Jason? He still didn’t know. Ra’s could assume Bruce must have similar biases against Jason’s background, could think Bruce had lost love while Jason had fought against him, could even think that since Bruce had lost Jason once, he’d be numbed to losing him again. But Ra’s could also realize that no part of Jason’s past mattered to Bruce, nothing lessened his love, and losing him once had nearly caused him to lose himself. If that were so, it made Jason the ideal choice. Someone Ra’s wanted to kill, and someone who he believed Bruce would most want to save. And Jason’s breathing had steadily gotten worse, and he continued to be dangerously dismissive of it.
It felt like the writing was on the wall. But what about Dick?
Ra’s just didn’t seem to care about Dick. He wouldn’t delight in killing him, though he might see it as a strategic move, but he neither had any particular reason to spare him. Of the three, Dick landed squarely in the middle of Ra’s’s own estimations, his age and birth order being overshadowed by his heritage and adoption when compared with Tim, but overshadowing Jason’s. When it came to what Ra’s assumed Bruce thought? Dick was his firstborn, his oldest partner. He was also the one who most staunchly refused to let Bruce call him son, and their relationship had been the most complicated one by far. Physically, Dick had the least concerning symptoms of the three, unless he was disguising it, or unless it was being disguised from him.
Bruce didn’t know what to think.
“Check in again.”
“Head, shoulders, knees, and toes,” Dick joked weakly. “Migraine, muscle, dislocation, muscle again.”
Pale, sweating, grimacing. Heat? Pain? Fear? Poison? But his self-diagnosis made sense.
“How many times… do I have to tell you… it’s a couple of broken… fucking ribs?”
Pale, not sweating, not as much, virtually expressionless. And while Jason normally could be trusted to accurately assess his own injuries, his sacrificial nature and the way he’d tried to avoid acknowledging a problem at all made Bruce wary of accepting it as truth.
“I can, I can breathe better now. Still wanna throw up. Heart’s fast. I’m leaning towards it being panic.”
And if his breathing could improve, that did seem more likely. Physiological responses couldn’t be altered as well as emotional ones could, and Tim had told them all about the traumas Ra’s had inflicted upon him, no doubt reliving them in a way he hadn’t for over a year. Holding Tim captive like this, subjecting him to the fear and panic and uncertainty, could be Ra’s’s vile way of splitting the difference between the urges to kill and use Tim.
“I’m leaning towards that, too,” Bruce admitted, hardly above a whisper. “Ra’s’s selfishness is greater than his cruelty. He’d rather… rather keep you for himself, I think, than take you away from me.”
Tim swallowed and nodded, chewing his lip before asking, “What about the lazarus pit?”
"Not likely," Jason said. "They're too un… unpredictable. He won't want to… risk your sanity, not if… not if he's interested in your brain."
His breathing was very labored.
"And the rest of you, just to be sure?"
"Fine."
"No worse than when I awoke."
"All ok."
Dick or Jason. He'd gotten it from six to two, it was Dick or Jason, but which one was it?
Footsteps down the hall.
"Oh, fuck."
"I'm gonna throw up again…"
"Boys–"
"It's not me, Bruce–"
"Jason,” Dick murmured, “you can't brea–"
“ For God’s sake, I know what broken–”
“Your time has ended, Detective.” Ra’s entered, holding up a dark glass vial in one hand. “Choose.”
Bruce looked desperately between his sons. Dick’s eyes were closed, but so were Damian’s, against the light, and Dick’s breathing was normal. Jason’s was ragged.
He shook his head violently, glaring at Bruce. “It’s not–” He started coughing.
“Jason.”
“No!”
Ra’s didn’t react, just turned and crossed the distance to Jason, dodging when the boy kicked out.
“ NO, I told you, it’s not me–”
“Hold, still, boy,” Ra’s snarled. He grabbed Jason by the throat, arcing his head back and forcing the vial between his lips and teeth. Jason writhed, but only a pale blue dribble of liquid spilled out the corner of his mouth.
Tears ran down his cheeks, and Bruce thought he was crying, too. He had to have guessed right. He had to. Ra’s wanted Jason dead. He knew what losing Jason had done to Bruce the first time. It was Jason.
Ra’s stepped back, eyes glittering with anger, but not victory, watching as Jason tried to spit out the antidote. He started coughing again, but it would take time to produce an effect, that was all.
Tim was hyperventilating, tears streaking down his face as he watched Jason sobbing and coughing.
Stephanie tried to shush Tim, calling his name, telling him everything was alright, even though she was pale and weeping too.
Damian was rigid, face puckered like he was about to cry, staring at Ra’s.
Cass was frozen, eyes wide with horror, staring at the floor.
Dick was pale, eyes still closed, but breathing–
Not breathing.
Hanging limp.
“No,” he whispered. “No. No, no, Dick!”
“What?”
“Dick?”
“Grayson!”
“ Damn you!” Jason screamed, and Bruce didn’t know if he was coughing or sobbing, because the coughing wasn’t going to go away, because it wasn’t caused by poison, it was… it had only been broken ribs. “ Damn you, Bruce, I TOLD YOU IT WASN’T ME!”
Ra’s was laughing.
“You should have listened to your guttersnipe, Detective,” he jeered. “You guessed wrong.”