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I. Tim
He wakes fast—too fast.
His eyes snap open mid-breath, hands already curled into fists, heart slamming against his ribs like it’s trying to warn him move move move, and the ceiling above him is—
White. Too bright. Too clean.
Not the bunker. Not the dripping concrete. Not the metal cot where he and Damian slept in shifts, back-to-back so neither of them was ever cold.
He jerks upright.
The room is large, airy, and wrong. He can hear the beeping of medical equipment. He can smell antiseptic instead of gunpowder and mold. The light is soft daylight through a window—something the enemy facility never had.
This should be good news.
His body doesn’t believe a word of it.
Trap, his mind supplies instantly. Simulation. Hallucination. They’re in your head again. Don’t fall for it.
His throat is raw when he whispers, “Damian?”
No chain rattle. No answering breath. No small, irritated sound from the next cot.
He’s alone.
His survival instincts rear up violently. His pulse spikes so hard he feels faint. “Damian.” Louder. Hoarse. “Where—?”
He rips the IV from his arm before he’s fully conscious of doing it.
He staggers to his feet, vision swimming, but adrenaline drags him upright.
He sweeps the room—two exits, both likely watched. Window could be fake. HVAC grate too small. He assesses restraints, equipment, potential weapons.
His voice cracks as he calls again, “Damian!”
An alarm starts wailing somewhere outside. Maybe he triggered it. Maybe they did.
They’re onto you.
You should never have fallen asleep.
You need to find him—now.
He presses a hand against the wall for balance and starts moving.
II. Damian
He comes to slowly, as if his body is reluctant to let him surface.
He feels softness under him. A blanket. A pillow. Fresh sheets. His hand twitches for a dagger he no longer has.
His eyes open.
This room is too big, too open, too bright. A window he doesn’t trust. A door he distrusts even more. Machines hum quietly at his bedside, blinking in patient intervals.
He tastes panic at the back of his tongue like copper.
He remembers the kidnappers’ tricks—false rooms, false comforts, holograms meant to coax them into letting their guard down. He remembers waking up in one, only to find a guard waiting for them, blade pressed to Tim’s throat.
He forces his breath steady, but his chest keeps hitching.
“Drake?” he calls softly.
Silence.
“Tim,” he tries again, smaller.
No answer.
For the first time in weeks, the room is too empty. He curls instinctively away from the door, muscles coiling like a cornered animal. If they're separate, it means someone took Tim. It means this is a threat.
It means attack first, verify later.
The alarm hits like a physical force.
Red lights flash in the hall outside his room. Footsteps. Voices. Damian’s breath stutters—too many sounds, too many unknowns. His mind flashes with memories of guards rushing them, dragging Tim away while he clawed at their hands—
He won’t let it happen again.
He tears out his IV, swings his legs off the bed, and drops into a defensive crouch. Blood roars in his ears.
He’s half a second from bolting for the door when it opens.
III. The Rest
Bruce had just finished signing release paperwork when the alarms went off.
Dick is the first to react. “That’s the east wing—that’s Tim and Dami’s floor.”
Jason swears under his breath. “What, did someone try to kidnap the kidnap victims?”
Cass is already running. Duke follows, calling security to tell them not to use force on the boys.
Bruce’s blood turns to ice.
Trauma response. They’d been warned about this possibility. But hearing alarms blaring is something else entirely.
They reach Tim’s room first.
Or rather—what’s left of it.
The mattress is shoved aside. The monitor ripped from the wall. The window half-shattered from Tim apparently testing it for weaknesses. Tim himself is near feral, standing between the door and the hallway like a guard dog on the brink of breaking his chain.
His eyes lock onto Bruce—and widen in terror.
“No—no, no, this isn’t real,” Tim mutters, stumbling back. “You’re not here. You’re not—you’re one of them. You’re trying to separate us again.”
Bruce lifts both hands. “Tim. It’s me. You’re safe.”
“Don’t—” Tim snarls when Dick takes a careful step forward. “Stay back.”
Dick freezes.
Jason murmurs, “He thinks we’re hostile.”
Tim’s gaze flicks down the hall—toward Damian’s room.
He tenses like a runner waiting for the gun.
“Don’t touch him,” Tim breathes, trembling with exhaustion and fury and fear. “Don’t lay a single hand on him. I swear I’ll—”
A crash echoes from Damian’s room.
Tim bolts.
By the time they reach it, the scene is chaos.
Damian is backed into a corner, chest heaving, eyes wild. Every time someone moves—even slightly—he flinches violently, shoulders jerking like he’s expecting a blow.
Tim bursts into the room, half-falling through the doorway. “Damian!”
Damian jerks—not away from Tim, but toward him, like gravity has finally remembered how to work.
“Tim,” Damian breathes, voice breaking.
Cass sees everything at once: his stance, his trembling, the way he doesn’t blink long enough to risk losing sight of a threat.
He can’t recognize us, she signs quickly.
Bruce’s heart fractures.
Tim throws himself between Damian and everyone else, arms spread wide, shaking. “Don’t touch him. Don’t come near him. We’re leaving.”
Jason mutters, “They’re planning a prison break… from the hospital.”
Dick murmurs back, “We need to get them grounded. Familiar voices, slow movements—”
But Tim is already scanning for escape routes. Damian watches all of them like cornered prey.
Bruce steps forward anyway, voice soft but steady. “Tim. Damian. You’re home. No simulations. No illusions. It’s over.”
Tim’s voice shatters. “That’s what they said last time.”
Damian’s hands curl in Tim’s shirt as if to anchor himself. “We should move. Before they come back.”
“They’re not coming,” Bruce says gently.
Tim shakes his head, backing toward the window, pulling Damian with him. “You’re not real. You’re not real—you’re not real—”
His breath hitches, shoulders shaking.
Bruce finally realizes: they aren’t fighting them.
They’re fighting memories.
And the Waynes step back—hands raised, voices soft, letting the two boys press into each other, terrified but together, until the medical trauma team arrives with sedatives and grounding protocols.
Because right now, the only thing Tim and Damian trust is each other.