Rescue
It was a fairly slow night in Gotham, and Barbara Gordon was bored. Nightwing and Robin were in the Diamond District, and Nightingale in the East End currently, with Batman off-world doing a mission with the Justice League. So far there had only been a few things happening that night, and none of it majorly important - just minor purse snatchings and drug deals going on. So she put the different security feeds of Gotham on in the background just in case something happened, but then turned to her codes for one of her own pet projects.
The Robin Contingencies.
She and Jason had been working on digitizing the different codes before he had been killed - putting them all into a database and making backdoors and sleeper programs that would pick up on the words of a code at any time, when said in the correct order. Whether they were sent as text messages, emails, graffitied somewhere that a security camera could pick up on it, or said somewhere that had an audio recorder, her programs would hear it, and Oracle would know. Oracle knew all, after all.
But when Jason died, she had put the project aside for the time being.
Still, it was time to pick them up again. She hadn’t actually known about the contingencies until Dick and Darcy had told Jason - and as one of the other members of the BatClan, her. When Tim became Robin, all three of them had told him. The only one who didn’t know that they existed was Bruce, and that was how they planned to keep it.
So she set to work, code flashing on her screen quickly enough that even Tim would have had a hard time keeping up with it all.
She didn’t know how much time had passed before one of the codes that she had programmed earlier in the night activated itself - the high-pitched tweeting of birds. More specifically, robins. She thought it was hilarious. And no matter how much her girlfriend rolled her eyes, she knew that Darcy felt the same way.
Barbara wheeled herself over to a different monitor, eyes narrowed behind her glasses. There had to be something wrong with her systems - she had only added in the bird call a few hours earlier, and nothing was going on in Gotham tonight to warrant an emergency being called in.
Twinkle twinkle little bat
The coded phrase came through the secret channels that Oracle had placed everywhere she could - the ten-digit code at the beginning of the message told her that it had come through a phone line.
Barbara Gordon smirked, almost giggling at the code phrase - the twin wonders had an odd sense of humor sometimes. “How I wonder where you're at….” she mused, finishing off the phrase. As she traced the call, starting to dig through security cameras at the same time, she started humming the rest of the nursery rhyme. Still, she couldn’t help the little pit of worry that was forming in her chest - that wasn’t one of the codes that she had added into the computers that night, and Gotham was still quiet. “Now which one of you bats is in trouble this time?” she asked quietly.
A minute later she had her answer, although it wasn’t one that she was expecting. “What the…” she cursed.
That caught everyone’s attention quickly - particularly Darcy’s. “What did you say?” the raven-haired woman asked, alarm in her voice.
“Oracle, is everything alright?”
“Nothing, Nightwing.” Babara said, already switching monitors again. Trying to keep her voice from betraying her fears, she switched over to a private comm channel to talk to Darcy. She tried to stay off of it as much as possible - ever since she and Darcy had started dating, Bruce had been extra paranoid about the two of them talking during patrols. “Hey, girl wonder - please come back to the Cave as soon as you can - I wanna show you something.”
The vigilante didn’t even hesitate. “On my way, babe.” she said, and the tracker in her suit quickly turned and started racing back towards the cave.
It was only a few minutes before Nightingale’s motorcycle came racing into the cave, flipping off of the back of it so that she didn’t have to take the time to park it properly. “Oracle?” she asked, racing to the redhead’s side. “What’s going on?”
“Come take a look at this.” Babs said, not even looking up from her screen. She shifted slightly in her chair, leaning over just enough for Darcy to look over her shoulder without getting a mouthful of hair.
“Twinkle, twinkle….” Darcy mused, her eyes widening slightly as she realized what was going on. “But all the Robins are in Gotham.” she muttered, already putting a hand to her comm to call her twin. “Nightwing, Baby Bird is with you, right?”
“Affirmative.” Dick’s voice crackled through the comms. “Seriously, is everything okay?”
Darcy and Barbara shared a serious look, but the acrobat’s tone was light as she answered her twin. “Get traught, ‘Wing.” she chided. “Everything is fine - focus on patrol.” with that said, she turned off the comm again, turning her attention back to Barbara. “So it’s not a robin, and it’s not the bat.”
“Exactly.” Oracle - because that was exactly who she was in that moment, with the light from her computer screens reflected in her glasses. “So who is it? Only a select few people know these codes - and no one knows how to contact the Cave. It didn’t even come in through my line, it went directly to the Cave.” she pointed out.
Darcy nodded absently - she had taken all of that in when she was reading over everything that Babs had found. “Where’s it coming from?”
It only took a moment or two for Oracle to find that information as well. “Thirty miles out of Nanda Parbat, via satellite phone.” she reported.
“Please don’t let it be Talia.” Darcy muttered under her breath, and Barbara couldn’t help her laughter. “Alright, I'm going to check it out.” she said, already heading for the Zeta Tube that was connected to the cave.
That threw her girlfriend for a loop. “What?” she asked, looking strangely at the other woman.
But Darcy just shrugged. “It’s not me, Dickie, or Baby Bird.” she pointed out, re-fastening the braid that held her hair back. She checked over her utility belt, adding a few extra batarangs to her current stash just in case. “That doesn’t leave many options. So I’m gonna check it out. Who knows? Maybe one of the two is a clone.” she teased.
That was enough to make Barbara laugh, at least. “Can’t be the boy blunder - no one else would wear the monstrosity that he had on earlier.” she shot back, and Darcy laughed in agreement. Still, she couldn’t help the tendrils of worry that were curled up in her chest. “You don’t want to take any backup with you?”
Darcy didn’t answer until after she had input the coordinates that Oracle had given her into the Zeta Tube. “I’ll be fine, Babs.” she said softly, shooting the redhead a reassuring smile. The pair had known each other since they were children, and knew that they weren’t going to stop worrying about each other anytime soon. “You’ll be in my ear, won’t you?”
Barbara nodded grimly. “Every step of the way.” she promised.
Darcy nodded in reply, making a mental note to take Babs somewhere nice after this. The other woman put up with way too much of their bullshit. “Then I'll be fine.”
Barbara just sighed - she knew that there was nothing that she could really do to try and talk the other woman out of it. All that she could do was watch her through the monitors and alert the other bats if anything happened. “Be careful.”
“Always am.”
Despite everything, Barbara couldn’t help the snort of amusement that escaped her. “Liar.” she chided, watching as her girlfriend activated the Zeta.
Almost as soon as the blue light from the Zeta Tube died down, Nightwing’s voice rang through the cave. “Oracle, do you have eyes on Robin?” Oracle rolled her eyes, sighing under her breath as she wheeled back towards the computers.
“They really can’t do anything without me, can they?” she muttered under her breath, going back to her normal position. Still, as her eyes scanned the maps of Gotham looking for Robin’s tracker, she couldn’t help the small smile that crossed her face.
There was no place she would rather be.
8888
Nightingale stepped out of the Zeta beam closest to the coordinates that Oracle had provided her. It was a small village, nothing too special, but she quickly grabbed someone’s laundry that been hanging out to dry. Wrapping one rectangular piece of fabric around her head and draping another over her body, she pulled money out of her utility belt to leave behind to replace the hijab and thobe that she had just stolen. Now that she could move around without being as recognizable, she was looking for the second part of her plan.
Transport.
It took her about ten minutes to find an unattended motorcycle, and another three or four minutes to hotwire it. Finally, she got it started and winced when she heard Oracle snort through the comms. “Took you long enough.” she teased, and she could just imagine the way the redhead’s nose wrinkled up as she laughed. “You’re getting slow, girl wonder.”
“You hush.” Darcy replied, scowling as she drove away, ignoring the angry shouts that she could hear behind her. As much as she wanted to laugh at the frustrated curses behind her - because while she was a hero, there was something that felt so freeing about being bad sometimes - there were more important things to worry about at the moment.
Finally, she arrived at the coordinates that Oracle had given her. “Hello?” she called out, muting her comm when Oracle warned her that that was a bad idea. Babs was going to give her an earful for it later, but it was necessary at the moment. “Who’s here?” even as she called out, she couldn’t help but notice the unnatural silence in the desert. Slowly, silently, she shifted her pose so that she was ready for a fight, one of her hands coming up to pull out her weapon - the electrified rope-dart that she had personally modified.
She was prepared for anything - a hundred and twenty assassins, Ra’s al Ghul himself. Maybe even the Joker having hacked their frequencies to send bogus messages. What she didn’t expect was seeing her younger brother - her dead younger brother, not the one that she had left on patrol with Nightwing - limping out of the desert, a white streak in his hair and bruises covering his body. “Tweety Bird?” he croaked.
Darcy took a step back. “That’s not possible.” she said softly. Even as she moved backwards, though, she was staring at her brother, drinking in the fact that he was alive. “You - you died. We buried you.”
Jason just smiled, looking relieved. “You came.” he breathed out, tears forming in the one eye that he could actually open. “The codes still work.” he wasn’t dressed in the suit that they had buried him in, she noticed absently. Instead, he was dressed in black linen - in an outfit that was so strangely familiar to Darcy. She just didn’t know where she knew it from.
“But how -”
“Everybody praises Robin... singing early, singing late…” he began, and then Jason collapsed. Darcy darted forward, moving to catch him. But she was too late.
Someone else caught him, stepping out of the shadows. Long dark hair, green eyes, murderous intentions - neither of the Grayson twins had liked the woman when she had been dating Bruce. They liked her even less when they found out who she really was.
Talia al Ghul.
“How interesting - the lesser-known Grayson.” the woman purred.
“How interesting - the lesser-known al Ghul.” Darcy cursed mentally - she had jinxed herself earlier with her little joke about Talia. And while she should have recognized the League uniform that Jason was wearing, she had been more than a little distracted by the fact that Jason - who they had buried two years ago - was walking around. “Hello again, Talia.” she said after a moment, eyes darting around as she tried to figure out what would be the easiest way to get her brother away from all of the assassins surrounding them. “Still a pain, I see.”
Talia sneered. “I could say the same thing about you, child.”
“What have you done to my brother?”
“I saved him.” Talia purred, wrapping an arm around his shoulders. “My people found him on the side of the road after he climbed out of his own coffin and brought him to me.” there was so much to unpack in that one sentence that Darcy just pushed it to the back of her mind to panic about later.
“They left you behind, Jason, like I told you.” Talia whispered, leaning closer to her brother and digging her nails into his shoulder. She leaned in closer to him, and Darcy saw red when Jason moved away from the other woman. “They replaced you.” she hissed.
Darcy had ten different arguments ready, but someone else cut into their conversation before she could say a single word. “Jason!” there was a flash of red, green, and yellow out of the corner of her eye - and she winced slightly as Robin came into view.
“Robin!” Nightingale hissed, now moving to try and cover both of her brothers. “What are you doing here? Where's Nightwing?”
Robin pulled out his bo staff, falling into a fighting stance herself. “Back at the cave with Oracle - I locked them out of the Zetas once I figured out what was going on.” Tim was focused in on the assassins everywhere - so focused that he didn’t see Jason at the moment. That was fine in Darcy’s books. Tim practically worshipped Jason’s Robin, and she knew that if he knew the other boy was there he would lose any chance at focusing.
“I'm going to kill you later, Baby Bird.” she said softly, but she still kept him just a few steps behind her. She started eyeing their opponents, signaling to Robin the plan that they were going to use. He nodded in reply.
And then she moved. Her rope dart swung around her as she almost danced through the air, flipping over her opponents and hitting them with her body as much as she did with her weapon. Talia had called her the lesser-known Grayson. It was time to prove why she was wrong. And with every move she made, she got closer to Jason.
“Do you see, Jason?” Talia hissed once the pair stopped moving. “They replaced you.”
Darcy took a step back as Jason’s eyes glowed green. “What? No!” she countered, almost in shock at Talia’s accusation. “Yes, we tried to move on - but we honored your memory. Bruce nearly killed so many villains - nearly broke the moral code that is the only thing keeping him sane at this point.”
The fog in her brother’s eyes lifted slightly as he heard that. “He did what?” Jason asked softly, confusion in his face as he heard that. It went against everything that he had heard over the last few years. He stumbled away from Talia, trying to deal with the new information that he had just learned.
Darcy let her brother do what he needed for the moment - her attention was on Talia. “Come near any of my siblings ever again,” Darcy growled, “and even the pits won’t save you.” Talia didn’t say anything in return - she just nodded once, then melted back into the shadows.
It was over.
So Darcy stepped forward, making sure that her voice would carry clearly when she said what she needed to. Talia had said that Jason had used one of their codes earlier on his own - hopefully, he would remember one when she used it. “Robin Red-breast on the tree,
Do you sing that song for me?”
It was like those words cleared a fog in his head - like they let him know that he was safe, just like they were supposed to. “Tweety?” Jason said softly as he turned in her direction, looking at his sister like he had never seen her before in his life but still knew exactly who she was.
Just like that, all of her worries were gone in one foul swoop. “Hi, Jaybird.” she said softly.
“Darcy!”
Darcy let her younger brother slam into her, holding onto him tightly as they both cried silently. Still, she took a moment to move her hand to press the panic button on her belt that would summon the Big Bad Bat. He needed to know sooner rather than later, and that would have him racing back from whatever was happening with the Justice League. "Come on, Jaybird." She said after a few minutes, picking up her brother - who somehow only looked about sixteen despite the fact that he was supposed to be eighteen. And while he was far too big for her to carry comfortably, it was also fairly obvious that he wasn't going to let go of her anytime soon. "Let’s go home."
But Darcy stopped. Tim was standing a few feet away from the pair, looking awkwardly at both of them.
Jason took a step back, a hurt look on his face. It wasn’t even hurt, Darcy realized - it was like he was losing all hope. “Bruce did replace me.” he said softly.
“What?” Darcy asked, smacking at him out of reflex. “No, he didn’t.”
“Then who’s this?” he demanded, glaring angrily at Robin.
Darcy was about to explain when Tim beat her to the punch. “But you’re Jason Todd.” he breathed, looking up at the other teenager in awe. “You’re my hero - and who could replace you?”
Jason just stared at Tim, mouth open slightly in shock. In that moment, despite everything else going on, Darcy could see the exact second when Jason came to the same conclusion that the Grayson twins had - Tim Drake was to be protected at all costs.
“Come on, Jaybird.” Darcy said softly, slinging one arm around her younger brother to keep him up on his feet, with Tim taking the other side. “Let’s get you home.”
8888
Talia al Ghul stepped out of the shadows, a small smile on her face as she watched the younger bats head back towards their rendezvous point. She had been worried about her beloved and his ability to raise children at first - parenting was not the sort of thing that came naturally to the Detective. But then again, it wasn't the sort of thing that would come naturally to someone raised by assassins, either.
Still, maybe it was time for her to reconsider. Getting her beloved's middle son out of the League had been tricky, and if necessary she would have helped him set everything up to get revenge on those who had betrayed him. But he had other ideas in mind, and activated a code that even her spies didn't know existed. And they had come for him - even the one who had replaced him, knowing details about him that he wouldn't have known without hearing stories.
Still, she couldn't help the pang in her heart as she pulled a locket from around her neck, opening it to look at the pictures inside. On one side was a picture of her beloved - and on the other was a picture of their son. Her father was becoming unhinged again, and this time he wanted to use Damian in one of his plots. Her Damian - her habibi.
And that was unacceptable.
So she had started looking into her Beloved's children - and while it was nice to know that Jason would be safely at home again, that hadn't been her main intention.
She wanted to make sure her son would be safe, first and foremost. And that had been one of the best tests that she could think of. But she hadn’t expected the outcome that had happened. Things had turned out better than she expected - and maybe she could speed up her plan to get Damian out of the League and to safety. Ra’s mental state was deteriorating rapidly, and there was no telling when she would have a better window to do so.
Talia looked up at the sky, judging the time from the position of the moon and wincing when she saw just how late it was. She would have to get back soon if she wanted to get Damian to bed tonight - Ra’s had been sending her on so many missions lately that bedtime was one of the only times she got to see her son anymore.
She had made many difficult decisions in her life, and there were many more that she would have to make. Some she had been sure of. Some, she had regretted after the fact. And while she knew that she had to let Damian go for his own protection, it was still the hardest decision that she would ever face.