thegoshdarn | (no subject)

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Ra's offered to put the League at her disposal. She could have used that against him, taken the opportunity to memorize his strongholds and bring him down. Maybe she should have; it would have given some point to this useless search she got herself into, looking for evidence that Bruce was alive. But she had Tamara Fox to think about, and, if she's being honest, she doesn't trust her own judgement right now.

(She was so sure. A part of her wants to just keep looking for the evidence she thought she could find, but - it doesn't exist. If it had, she would have found it. Her father's dead, again, and she can't bring Bruce back any more than she could have resurrected Jack.)

Instead, she bargains off what she knows to buy herself and Tam out of the entire mess. Tam can go back to her father and tell him that she brought back Timothea Drake-Wayne, and Tim... she goes home. Well. Assuming she can force herself to make the last few steps towards the Manor's entrance. It's more of a struggle than she'd like to admit to not turn around and go to a safe house to just lie low for a while, lick her proverbial wounds, but she supposes she's done enough running already.

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He can believe that all he wants, but it doesn't make her any less awkward or slightly stiff. Years of Dick hugs haven't made her much better at them except in cases of extreme emotion.

Also, she's not... really sure what she's supposed to do with herself after. So there's that.

"We'll talk, later, about what you can help with" he says as he pulls away, moving to the door.

He pauses just before he leaves, glancing back "i'm glad you came home."

If nothing else, having a job to do makes her more cooperative with his request that she stay home until she's more fully recovered. But. Other people have other plans, as evidenced by the fact that, while Dick and Damian are out, the Manor's security registers someone entering the property and just... standing around there. She switches to the cameras, and. Well.

Prudence. Not someone she expected to see for a while, if at all. Tim doublechecks that no one's actually needed at the monitors right now before sending a message to Dick that she has something to take care of. She also grabs some body armor and her bo staff, just to be on the safe side, although she's fairly certain Pru's here for a relatively social visit, not to fight.

Pru hands her a phone on a secure line when she approaches, and Tim trades her a travel mug of Alfred's tea for her throat that earns her a cautious smile. Of course, any vague camaraderie loses its chance when Ra's starts talking to her.

The Council of Spiders is still active. Not her problem. She owes him for his aid during her search. She'd told him several times that she didn't want his help. Two assassins died helping her. The Widower's appearance had nothing to do with her search. Then Ra's delicately informs her that, because of his connection to the League, Damian is also a target of the Council.

Tim throws the phone at a tree and mutters to Pru that she'll be back in an hour before heading back to the Manor to pick up a few things. Because what she's always wanted for her life was to go back to Ra's al Ghul to protect the Demon Spawn from getting caught up in some kind of sick assassination game. Great.

It's probably not a surprise that Dick's built a feed from the manor security into his gear, it's not exactly the cameras or anything but he knows when the proximity alarm has been triggered, and the fact that Tim doesn't get in touch to let him know about anything makes him wonder, so he cuts their patrol short and heads back just to check. He can always come back out later if it's a false alarm.

He arrives back just in time to see Tim gearing up, and while he tries to hard his immediate suspicion, he's definitely curious.

"Hey Timmy... you heading out somewhere...?"

She's already got the Red Robin suit packed away - she's still not so sure about it as an identity, but it's a tool and it's not immediately traceable back to the Bats, so it'll do - and has just finished picking what kinds of weapons she'll need. She glances up when Dick comes in and says, evenly, "Looks like."

She's not going to feel guilty about running out on him. Especially not when she's doing it to ensure Damian doesn't get caught up in the League's mess.

Well, that's suspiciously vague. He knows he has to tread carefully now, things are just starting to be relaxed between them and he doesn't want to bring back all that tension, but he can't shake the feeling that something's not right about this.

"You need any backup?" he starts first of all, still keeping it casual, he doesn't need to ask her where she's going if he can come along to keep an eye on her, and if she says yes, he also knows it isn't anywhere she's not supposed to be going.

"Not really." Not that she couldn't use backup that she doesn't have to worry about stabbing her in the back (metaphorically or literally), but she doesn't want any more of her family mixed up in this. Besides, Gotham (and Damian) need him here.

"Where you headed?" he asks eventually, unable to think of any other way to find out and deciding she at least deserved him to be honest about his questions, maybe it would encourage her to be honest with him.

To take down a group of assassins that get their kicks killing other assassins doesn't seem like a good answer. She snags the bag she'd been packing from the floor. "There's just something I need to take care of."

That's not exactly a good answer either, Timmy, it's pretty obvious to him that she's hiding something.

"...what sort of something?"

She really doesn't have time for this conversation. Not when there's an assassin waiting around for her to show up.

Blatant lying it is. "The Titans got in contact. I'll probably be back tomorrow."

That seemed...plausible. It could have easily been a Titan that showed up to speak to her. Ok so it didn't exactly explain why she didn't say that from the very beginning, but he didn't want to accuse her outright of lying.
"..okay."

She does feel bad for taking advantage of his trust.

Just not bad enough to drag him into a fight between assassins. She flashes him a distracted smile for being reasonable about it. "I'll check in with you later."

At least that part's not a lie. After she's gone over everything she took to remove or deactivate any tracers on them and is (debatably) safe on a plane out of the country with Pru, she does send a message back to the Manor: He threatened to get Damian involved. I'm sorry.

While there is a distinct part of him that's proud of her for stepping up to protect Damian when it mattered, he still throws things across the room when her message comes through. After everything that had happened, she still thought it was a good idea to do this?

After he had calmed down, and Alfred had imparted his usual pointed wisdom, he had to concede that it wasn't exactly out of character, for any of them, to rush into these things in the name of protecting each other, but he was still angry she hadn't told him.

The trackers were useless, but he still went hunting for any sign of her, trying to track her down the way he had before. It was much harder when she was out of the country, but he was determined.

It doesn't take as long as she expected to deal with the Council. Which is surprising, honestly, but they're a much looser association than she'd thought, come together primarily for the sport of hunting other assassins. Not that it's easy, because Christ no - at one point, the core of the Council essentially attacks her, Pru, and the White Ghost all at once, and she ends up blowing up one of Ra's bases.

(She could have done a lot more damage to the League while she had access to their computers, crippled them at least temporarily, but no. She started this to protect her family - even the terrible, incredibly irritating members - and Ra's would no doubt retaliate. No. Instead, she memorizes as much information as she can and builds in a few backdoors she can use when she's ready. When she starts picking the League apart, he won't know what hit him.)

Now... now, she has to deal with the hard part: going home again. She doubts having told Dick that she was going off to protect Damian is going to buy her much leeway from his anger. She's even relatively intact, with only a dislocated shoulder and the usual assortment of cuts and bruises. Leaving on relatively good terms with Ra's al Ghul, who was oddly accepting of the collateral damage to the League, means she's already been treated by some of the best the League has to offer. They even checked on how well she's healing from the splenectomy.

And seriously, leaving on relatively good terms with Ra's al Ghul. She plans to spend about fifteen hours showering after Dick's done yelling at her.

Coming home like this feels incredibly familiar, except this time she has no apologies. She did what she had to do, and she's not sorry. Despite that, she still half-expects Dick to come out and drag her inside before she can even get to the door of the Manor.

Edited 2015-05-30 15:55 (UTC)

Dick's been hunting for any sign of her ever since she went missing, with no success. Things at home have been hectic and the bad guys of Gotham have been taken out rather more abruptly than they usually would - it's probably the most Bruce-like that Dick's Batman has ever been, and everybody's starting to notice.

He doesn't know exactly why she's disappeared or what she's doing, he doesn't know why she didn't just tell him, and he has no way of knowing if she's going to come home safe. He'd thought they were past this, but apparently not.

When the manor's proximity alarms alert him to her presence, he's out the door just as quickly as she expects, almost running to meet her.

"Tim!" there's a lot of relief in that shout, a huge weight lifting off his shoulders. The upbeat town goes away quite quickly after that "Where the hell have you been?"

Well. He didn't beat around the bush any.

She winces at the question. "It's... You're probably better off not knowing." Plausible deniability, or something along those lines.

"Really, Tim?" Dick raises an eyebrow at her "Do you think that's going to work?"

"Not really." But. It doesn't matter. If she doesn't want to tell him, she doesn't have to. The Council isn't a threat. If she drops the Red Robin identity now, it would be extremely difficult to trace anything back to her.

"...I thought we'd gotten over this, Tim..." he sighs, running hands through his hair.

"If it helps, I wasn't all that happy about going, either."

And she. Should probably just stop letting her mouth say things.

"You didn't even want to go!? How does that help Tim!?"

"I... wouldn't have disappeared without warning if it wasn't really important?" Oh god shut up shut up shut up.

"Really? Wouldn't you?" he sighs "I realise I'm turning into a broken record here, but have you any idea how worried I've been?"

She winces again. "I'm sorry?"

This is going well.