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There was the glint of a spinning metal projectile slicing through the air and Dick ducked under it. It missed him by a hair's breadth and buried itself into one of the trees behind him.

Jason cursed and they both dove for cover.  Dick looked over at the weapon embedded in the wood and…

A batarang.

He stood up abruptly. "Tim!" he called into the trees. "Tim, are you out there?"

Standing up proved to be a mistake because another batarang came flying at him. He barely managed to dodge this one as well.

"Tim, stand down! It's us!"

There were no follow up batarangs, but neither was there a response from the jungle.

Jason finally poked his head out. "He done with the tantrum yet?" he asked.

Dick rolled his eyes and took a step forward, beckoning Jason to follow.

"Tim, we're coming in there, okay? We're here to take you home. Are you hurt? Are you able to respond?"

Dick took a few steps forward and then another batarang came whistling toward him. It thunked into the ground at his feet and he jumped back a step.

Dick held his hands up hastily in a gesture of peace.

"Okay, okay," he said. "If you don't want us to come to you, then why don't you come to us?"

There was no rustle of leaves to give away his movements, but suddenly Tim was standing in the treeline.

Dick took in the sight of him. Tim looked the worse for wear. The detective in Dick started analyzing every detail. The Red Robin cowl and cape were missing completely, as well as the red outer layer of Tim's suit. That left him in nothing but his black under armor. Still sturdy and protective, but not as effective as it would be with the rest of the armor. 

Tim's face was covered in thin scratches—He'd run through the jungle at least a few times judging by the number of them. 

There was a yellowing bruise on his forehead near his right temple. He'd taken on a pretty nasty head injury, but it must have been a while ago. The bruising was almost gone now.

There was a sling across his chest, hanging unused. It was obviously cut from the material of Tim's cape, and from its position, Tim would have been using it to support his left arm. It hung unused now, and by the way Tim was holding his arm, Dick assumed that it was either some kind of muscle injury or maybe a hairline fracture. He didn't seem to be favoring it enough to suggest a more serious break or dislocation.

Tim's bandoliers had been removed like the rest of his suit, but his belt was still slung across his narrow hips. Twin daggers were tucked into the belt, one on each side. Dick didn't recognize the style to be anything that anyone in his family used. Tim must have picked them up sometime since he left.

The ghost of a five-o-clock shadow touched Tim's face. Even though he was 21 now, he'd still never been able to grow much facial hair. He moaned about it frequently.

His lips were dry and cracked, and there were dark circles and heavy bags beneath his glazed over eyes.

Dehydration. Extreme exhaustion.

"Hey, Timmy," Dick greeted. "You have no idea how good it is to see you. We thought we were never going to find you."

Tim blinked, looking back and forth from Dick to Jason.

"Hey, kid," Jason said. "Glad to see you haven't joined the Dead Robins Club yet."

"Timmy, are you gonna...say anything?"

Tim let out a stuttering exhale and suddenly dropped onto the sand, his legs folding beneath him.

Dick rushed to his side. "Hey, hey, you're okay. Are you hurt?"

"Just…" Tim gestured to himself vaguely. "Just the arm and the head, but they're fine. I'm fine, I'm just gonna…" He leaned into Dick's side. "I haven't...There are...bad guys. They keep finding me. Haven't slept. Need to...Will you watch? So I can…"

Dick pulled Tim against his side. "We're here now, it's okay. Just rest, we'll keep you safe."

Tim slumped into him and was completely out almost immediately.

"We need to get somewhere safer. It's too open here." Jason knelt down and scooped Tim up into his arms. Dick could carry him, but it would be a lot easier for Jason.

They found their way to Tim's camp by following the trail he'd left through the forest. It was extremely subtle—no one else probably would have been likely to notice it, but Dick and Jason recognized the methods Bruce had taught them all to cover their tracks and they could see signs of it here and there.

The camp definitely was not meant to be a permanent one. Tim's cape was draped over a branch and spread out at an angle, the end anchored to the ground by the weight of a few stones. It made a small tent—one large enough to protect someone from the rain, but it didn't leave a big enough space beneath it to lie down. Dick could picture Tim sitting beneath his makeshift shelter, knees pulled up to his chest, head leaning back against the tree. Maybe dozing, maybe staring off into the jungle, ears straining for the sound of the brush of leaves, the snap of a twig. Anything but actually sleeping.

Dick kicked the stones away and pulled the cape down from the branch. Jason lay Tim down gently and helped Dick wrap him snugly in the cape. Tim didn't so much as twitch. He was dead to the world.

Dick and Jason just watched him in stunned silence for a while.

"Fuck," Jason breathed finally. "It could be worse, but he's in pretty bad shape."

"I'm glad it's not worse," Dick said, "but we need to get him back to the Cave ASAP."

"He's been here, what...six days? You think he's slept at all?"

"The human body can only go so long without sleep. Four days of sleep deprivation causes full blown psychosis. He didn't seem all that coherent, but he eventually recognized us, I think. He has to have slept at least a little.

"I guess it doesn't really matter, anyway. He's asleep now. We need to keep him that way as long as possible while we try to find a way out of here."

Dick exhaled slowly. "Yeah. That's the problem, isn't it? How?"

"Well. Let's start with what we know." He held up a fist and started counting, extending a finger for each point. "One: Magic island. Fries technology. Two: Too far to travel to the nearest land by any watercraft we could possibly make ourselves. Three: Tim said 'bad guys.' If they're serious enough that he's this worried about them, then we should be, too. 

"We'll start with the first one. Magic island. Logically, a magic island has to have some kind of magical source, right?"

"Logically."

"Don't be a smartass. I'm the magical expert in the family here, so my word is law as far as you're concerned."

"What makes you the magical expert?"

“Uh, maybe the fact that I can use magic to summon magic fucking daggers? And spent some of my formative years with a bunch of magic monks in a magic fucking land?"

"You... what?"

"Oh, did I never mention that? Huh. I could have sworn I brought that up at some point."

"You definitely did not bring that up at any point. I would remember."

"Well, anyway, that makes me the expert here."

"...can I see them?"

"No! I'm not a circus sideshow!"

"I resent that."

"So anyway, if we find that source we may be able to either disrupt or destroy it. Hopefully the comms are salvageable and we can repair them once the magic is gone. The plane is way too complex to even attempt to fix, but we should be able to call for help. Hopefully our trackers will start working, too."

"So, oh great and powerful Oz, how do we find this source?"

"That's, uh...a good question."

"Yep. A real expert."

"More than you!"

"So much more useful than me, obviously."

Dick looked down at Tim's sleeping form and Jason's gaze followed his.

"Shit," Jason breathed.

"Yeah. He's been here almost a week. He'll know." Dick sighed. "We'll give him a couple hours, at least."

——

Tim was swimming through a thick sludge. He could sense light somewhere above him, but it was much too hard to reach it. He had the vague feeling that he needed to swim up toward the light, to breach the surface, but he was warm here. Warm and comfortable and safe for the first time in days.

He tried to stop swimming, tried to let himself sink back down into the warmth, but something was pulling at him. A voice, a distant tugging sensation.

Someone was calling him, he needed to…

Tim tried to blink his eyes open. His lids were too heavy, he could barely even lift them into slits. His eyes were gummy and sandy at the same time. The light was too bright and he couldn't make out anything but vague shapes through his barely-opened eyes.

His mouth was so dry it physically hurt, his teeth felt fuzzy, and his tongue was thick in his mouth. His head was pounding and his entire body ached. His arm was the worst— the sharp throbbing pain had never gone away, but he'd learned to push it to the back of his mind. He'd had to. There was nothing he could do about it here, and he couldn't afford to let it slow him down.

He couldn't slow down.

Couldn't...What was he doing? He wasn't moving, wasn't running, wasn't watching his back. What was going on? He couldn't think, couldn't make his way completely out of the sludge he had sunk into.

He could hear voices. Voices should scare him, should put him on instant alert, but...they were familiar. They made him feel safe. He trusted the voices, trusted them to protect him when he couldn't protect himself.

He let the voices wash over him and let the sense of safety drag him back down.

But they only grew more insistent and the tugging sensation returned, pulling him back out of the warm place.

There was something cool and wet being run across his face. It felt good. He found that some of the gumminess in his eyes was cleared and he could blink them open a little wider. The light was still too much for his pounding head but he was starting to feel more like he wasn't supposed to be sinking back down again.

The tugging again and suddenly the world tilted and he felt the blood rush from his head, leaving him dizzy and nauseous and he was all of the sudden reminded that gravity existed. He recognized that he was sitting upright now (he'd been lying down before?), and he felt the pressure of someone's hands supporting his back.

The voices were still there. Rising and falling a cadence that could only be speech, but someone must have plugged his ears with cotton because he couldn't make anything out.

He blinked again and found that he could open his eyes almost all the way.

Being able to see, though, did not translate to being able to comprehend what he was seeing.

There were two forms gathered around him. He could see more clearly now that his eyes were open and some of the blurriness had subsided, but his brain just didn't seem to be able to process what he was seeing.

He was looking at a face. Someone...a man? Was speaking to him. The face was familiar, but he didn't have the mental capacity to reach deep enough into his memory to pull out the necessary information to spark recognition.

He knew he was probably hallucinating again. That had started...a couple days ago? He'd lost track of time. But he was beyond caring if this wasn't real. He wanted it to be real, so he might as well pretend it was, just in case.

He tried to focus on the words again and found that he recognized some of them and his brain allowed some of them to process.

"--ow to find the source? Come on—eed you—ake up, Timmy. I'm sorry, I know yo—but we need to get you out of here. We need your help."

Help? Someone needed his help. Helping was his job. He was Robin, helping people was what he did.

"Help?" He croaked.

"Yes! We need your help, kiddo. We need—ell us where the source of the island's magic—ou know where—? 

The island. He was on the island. He'd forgotten. The source. They wanted to know where the source was? He knew that. He knew that. Didn't he? He…

"I forgot," he said. "Sorry, I…"

He was so tired. That's what this sensation was. He hadn’t been able to get hardly any sleep while he was here. They'd been hot on his tail relentlessly. He'd barely had time to rest.

But the safe voices were here now. He could sleep.

He closed his eyes again and leaned back against the arm that was holding him up.

"No, kid, we just need you to—for a little—enough to tell us w—"

Tim couldn't help. He felt bad, but he wanted to sleep more than he wanted help. He knew that was selfish, but he was so tired.

And anyway he didn't remember where the source of the magic was. Maybe he'd be able to remember when he'd gotten some sleep.

——

After those few hours were over, Dick shook Tim's shoulder, trying to rouse him gently. There was no telling how Tim would react to being woken suddenly when he'd been on edge for so long.

It turned out that Dick didn't need to worry.

Tim blinked groggily but couldn't seem to open his eyes. Dick pulled his canteen out and poured a little water on a corner of Tim's cape. He ran it over Tim's dirty, scratched face. Tim leaned into the touch and hummed contentedly.

"We need to get him up," Jason said. "Get his blood flowing a little. It might help."

Dick grabbed Tim by the shoulders and pulled gently while Jason slipped his hands behind Tim's back and helped lift him upright.

Tim blinked his eyes open a little wider.

"Tim? Can you wake up for us?"

Tim blinked some more and finally seemed to be able to open his eyes almost all the way. His eyes focused on them, but Dick only saw confusion—there wasn't a single spark of recognition. 

"Are you with us, kiddo? We didn't want to wake you, but we need to get off this island. There's magic killing our tech. Can you tell us how to find the source? Come on, please, we need you to wake up, Timmy. I'm sorry, I know you're exhausted, but we need to get you out of here. We need your help."

Tim blinked again, something sparking in just eyes. "Help?" He croaked.

"Yes! We need your help, kiddo. We need you to tell us where the source of the island's magic is. Do you know where it is?

"Of course that would be the one thing he latches on to," Jason said.

Dick shot him a withering look. "You're not helping."

"He's too out of it, Dickie. His brain's not online and we're not gonna be able to jumpstart it. He needs more sleep."

Tim's brow pinched. "I forgot," he said, face going slack when he failed to bring up the necessary information. "Sorry, I…"

He closed his eyes again and slumped back against Jason.

Despite Jason's insistence that Dick's efforts were futile, he protested when Tim started to go limp. "Hey, no kid, we just need you to wake up for a little bit. Just long enough to tell us where the source is. You can remember, I know you can. That big brain of yours never lets anything go."

But it was too late. Tim was out.