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Who: Tim Drake-Wayne (in clever disguise) and Bruce Wayne (doesn't need a disguise)
What: Terrible ideas in undercover investigation go terribly.
Where: The Vault
When: A couple of days throughout the week that make sense!
Warnings: TBE STILL; mention of sexual activities and death; drugging, bondage, and assault.

It sucks to be stuck in a world completely separate and disparate from his own. Even with Conner there as a friend and support, Tim still hates being dragged away from home, and his family and other friends. He can deal with it, of course, he isn't about to let a little case of multidimensional kidnapping stymie him or stop him doing what he's always done, he just doesn't have to like it. So when he's not working (very slowly) on the possibilities for getting out of here, or looking into the job and housing market to prepare for the exit strategy to be a very long one, or keeping Conner company so neither of them get too bummed out or screwed up by this place - in between all of that, he's been doing his best to investigate the criminal state of Baedal. Carefully, he doesn't want to draw attention to himself - not from the criminal element or the militia, not just yet. So it's mostly been plain-clothes snooping, listening for rumours, talking to the right people or simply engaging the long process of finding out who the right people to talk to are. Some parts of the city remind him of Gotham, especially the underbelly, but the people are different, and he needs to build contacts, form a network, before he can really get anywhere.

Not that that stops crime from happening, still, and not that he's going to wait until he's in a completely secure position to start combating it.

One of the places he's heard rumours about is the Vault. A relatively new adult club offering entertainment from the sensual to the... less than reputable, from all accounts. It seems like a good place to start - it's new and popular enough to be attracting some of the larger names or their scouts, he's sure, and clubs like that are often a hotbed of illegal activity he should be keeping an eye on and working to shut down even if he magically doesn't manage to pin down any druglords or gang leaders.

He doesn't have much spending money just yet, so he has to work his disguise to a budget - nothing elaborate, jsut simple and effective. So the first time he shows up at the Vault, he has cheap but effective wash-in wash-out red dye in his hair, spiked into a different style, and simple black clothes on - trousers with a few decorative straps, leather boots, and a mesh shirt with leather straps that draw attention to certain areas but do nothing to hide the various scars he carries. He couldn't really afford enough make up to cover all of them effectively, even just his arms, and the kind of people he's looking to draw in most likely won't mind, so instead he's making a point of showing them off. That first time, he doesn't get in too deep, just hears some meaty rumours and buys or is bought a few drinks that he doesn't drink most of, and is left feeling that there's more to this place he needs to uncover.

It's the second time he shows up, with a reasonable gap not to seem over-eager but not so long he's unfamiliar, that he gets in a little deeper. He takes in a stage show and catches wind that he should really check out the more private offerings, and that's promising. He notices one or two familiar faces, some he's talked to and others he'd only seen before they vanished silently, while mingling in the main room - he recognises one of the men who seems to be a reoccurring but silent presence as someone he's gathered from eavesdropping is called Tom, but again, he isn't approached, and he carefully picks a moment when Tom isn't in sight to slip towards the more private, quieter areas of the club, just in case he's internal security of some kind.

His first stop is the bathroom - easy to explain, easy to eavesdrop, and often a first pick for an out of the way meeting place to conduct illicit transactions. And just as popular for consuming drugs, too, so he's hardly surprised to encounter a small huddle of junkies of some kind - it's in their body language and the suspicious looks they throw at him as he seemingly obliviously, seemingly drunkly sways his way into a stall. And then they apparently forget he's there, speaking in loud whispers to each other. Mostly nothing, but maybe he can overhear something useful about their suppliers, or names of drugs to look into.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

All in all, The Vault is probably becoming too small of a venue for him to really do any good at; in being a regular, he's both easily accepted by the house front employees, but he's also highly visible. Between that difficulty and the fact that he's been increasingly busy with his other endeavors, Bruce hasn't spent as much time around the club as he had been, for a few weeks - he pops by to see Hasi, or walk a friend home, but mostly, he's been scarce.

So it's luck, really, that he manages to catch sight of what is obviously Timothy Drake in a costume.

He remembers with needle-sharp clarity despite the years between it, standing on a hotel terrace and saying Your brother's one hell of a manhunter. It's more irritating than he wants to deal with, but what's even more irritating is the sense of inevitability that comes with it. Of course one of them (one of them, perhaps it's uncharitable to liken these boys to cockroaches, but-) is here, doing a mockup of what he's doing. He only wishes he could be surprised.

He's not sure how good of a look Tim gets at him (nor is he sure how much that matters), but what he does make sure of is that he doesn't get a second look. Bruce keeps his distance, effective and precise. It's how he misses Tim slinking off into the bathrooms, but then, even if he'd seen it, it's unlikely that he'd do anything about it; not only is paying those soft-hearted kids any attention like feeding a stray, drug deals aren't on the level of things drawing him back to this club.

Tom signs himself into the red rooms, like he's done the last few times he's been to The Vault, unseen by anyone who might recognize him.

He sticks around the bathroom long enough to pick up a couple of names to look into later, drugs or people he's not entirely sure on just yet, and slips out like he was never there. Just another patron enjoying themselves and not worthy of note, honest. Drugs are a continual problem in Gotham - and everywhere else, but Gotham is where he usually deals with it - and he's not going to ignore the leads he has. Though it might get a lower priority than other things, depending on just what he manages to dig into.

Back out in the club, and he avoids the main room - he doesn't qualify for the large VIP area, hanging chandelier-like over everyone else in a shining testament to decadence, so he explores further into the club's lower level. At first it seems like the red rooms are another VIP area, but it turns out that he just has to sign his name - so Alvin Draper, as he's been calling himself, signs the dotted line and strolls on in. He's trying to walk the line between new, slightly vulnerable face and not a "tourist" - and that's a little difficult when some of the areas back here are fairly open.

And open about what's happening.

It's not his first time in a sex club, although those times were decidedly infrequent when he was Robin (and he's certain that was delibrate on Bruce's part) and always in costume, so it was more a case of busting in and asking questions, or gathering evidence when no-one was there conducting... business. And even in Gotham, most of the clubs saved the BDSM for behind closed doors.

There are some closed doors in the red rooms, which just makes him a little more suspicious considering what's on show, but exhibitionism is a kink and a preference for privacy isn't a bad thing. Still, he makes a note to investigate as inconspicuously as possible, once he's done navigating the more public rooms and appearing interested for other reasons than he is.

Some of it is just bondage, yes, but the problem with the rooms you have to sign a waiver to get into is that those waivers don't exist to track and check their patrons - they exist to protect the club. A few times now, Bruce has ended up chatting quietly and tying knots, but then again, he's also quietly broken a few bones and dragged out a predator who won't be coming back. His habits - voyeuristic, in either case; even his participation is removed, observational, and fully clothed - have earned him a slender handful of friends, and one of the high stakes cocktail waitresses who steps down the red-floored hallways is always happy to come and chat with him about who's here and doing what.

He isn't just roughing people up out of the goodness of his heart - though that's not out of the equation - and he has a specific goal, tonight. Filmed media is rare, in Baedal; it tends to be live streaming or naught, with playback technology off the CiD networks limited. Still, where there's a market, there's an interest, and the market that's irritating the hell out of him is one that thrives in dangerous clubs like these: snuff films. Bruce has already tracked down and made contact with one star, an immortal violet-skinned girl who'd been happy enough to talk to him about it just for the company.

So here's here, listening to his friend the waitress talk, sitting in a glass-walled viewing room somewhere in one of the catacomb knots of the red rooms, waiting.

It takes Tim some time to move through the various corridoors, and he deliberately takes time over it, observing and exchanging a few words with both waitresses and various patrons. For the most part, it seems like the activities on display are consensual, and the participants are either in it for the enjoyment or the paycheck, which is about what he expected. Still, he can't shake the feeling that there's something more questionable than whips and chains hiding somewhere in the heart of the club.

He works his way deeper into the red rooms, and eventually he wanders into the same glass-walled viewing room as Tom. He's still not sure about this guy, and the fact that he's here and simply watching just ticks off against Tim's internal list, but so far there's no reason to confront him. So in fact, he avoids him, almost veering around him without a second glance. As much as he might have liked to sit in that viewing room for a moment and used it for its express purpose of observation, it still wouldn't solve the issue of looking behind locked doors.

Not that he's having too much luck with that, back in the tangled corridoors, and he's not quite to the point of peeping through keyholes just yet. Listening outside doors, yes, but that can be disguised a bit easier. In a questionable stroke of luck, he spots a small knot of men (one obviously xenian, the others dubiously human) with a girl at their centre. Her movements are unco-ordinated and a pair of the men are more or less dragging her along. It's possible that she's had too much to drink, but much more likely she's been drugged, and neither option is actualy good.

Tim moves to intercept, feigning a very slightly drunk sort of sway to his movements - being underestimated is still one of his better weapons. "Hey, why're you guys dragging that kinda clearly off her face girl around?"

The group don't take too well to the sudden interruption, but Tim can practically feel the apparent highest ranking one of them rake his eyes over him - taking in the scars, and an ugly little smile blossoms on his face. "Why don't you come and see, kid. Seems like it might be the kinda scene you're into." As he speaks, a couple of the men move around behind Tim and herd him closer in, towards the girl, so he gets the distinct impression he isn't so much being given a choice here.

And that works, he needs to not only get the girl out of this situation but deal with whoever's organising things, so. He worries his lower lip for a second, affecting that obviously nervous, but intrigued look, before answering. "... I like my ladies a little more compis mentis, but sure. Why not. Since you fellows seem so friendly."

So he manages to get himself escorted, reasonably confident that he can deal with whatever lion's den he's walking into.

Apparently, Bruce has to work on his kneejerk reactions, because even though he doesn't think he responds to catching sight of Tim, his companion actually asks him if he's okay a few moments later. She is, at least, easy to distract; or else she pretends to be, which he's going to buy for now. A recognizable lackey with a recognizable briefcase full of equipment slinks by in a hallway barely-visible from the observation room, and Bruce begins to excuse himself -

- when a nearly-incapacitated woman stumbles into the room.

It doesn't take long to sort out what happened, and he's able to get the girl out and leave her under the capable care of his waitress friend; he doesn't stay. He heads right back inside, and goes to find the wayward young man he doesn't actually want to see.

The heavy hitters aren't here, so it's probably just reconnaissance and soft-core 'fun'; no one's slated to die on camera, tonight, but there's plenty to pay for that a body can live through. From a logistical point of view, this is both good and bad - it's good that Tim has involved himself and thus saved this woman, it's good that there is potential recognition between them so that Bruce (Tom) has an opportunity to ground purpose behind his concern for the younger man, versus appearing to come to the aid of a complete stranger; it's bad, however, that he's being forced to make a move this early, when the chief target he wants a fix on isn't here.

It doesn't occur to him that Tim might not need the help.

Tim doesn't consider himself to be in need of help.

He's very glad that the men decided he was a more interesting prospect than the girl and let her go, and he hopes she managed to find her way to somewhere safe to sleep off the effects of whatever they dosed her with - he'll have to check on that later, and if she instead stumbled into more trouble, he'll be just as hard on himself as he deserves. He'd still like to trace these people back to their head, since these minions don't seem to be quite as sharp on organisation as they should be to make a successful living at this.

As he gets ushered into a room with more than enough forms of restraints decorating various surfaces and a handful of questionable stains around as well, he implies that, just a little - "Quite a set up you've got here. Kinda doubt you put it together all on your lonesome." Which gets him another nasty little smile.

"Show us you got more than a pretty face and a big mouth, and maybe I'll introduce you to our employers." He hears the lock click, heavy and cold in his ears after that offer.

And it's an offer he was looking for, so he repeats the established nervous tic of chewing his bottom lip as he seems to consider it. "Your bosses looking for anything in particular? I'm noticing a disparity -" and he lets his hands get cuffed, he's not bound to anything else yet and capable of comensating for having his hands tied in front of him - "between me and the girl you drugged. As physical criteria go."

"Oh, they're flexible. Are you?"

"Wait and see."

Yes this situation is totally under control.

The recognizable lackey (production assistant, properly) is the first person he finds, even though he's not with the others. He's in a private room that Bruce nicks the lock open to easily, kicking the hell out of some kid who's got his hands tied, recording the entire thing. Wordlessly, Bruce yanks him back and jams his hand into his neck until he passes out. The kid on the floor protests at first, until Bruce barks at him to take the cash and double up on shifts. Placated, the escort snaps his nose back into place, grabs his jacket, and primly exits, leaving Bruce to search his new unconscious friend, and liberate the camera.

With product stolen, it's a money issue, and not a justice one. There are plenty of other outfits who'd pull something as graceless at this; let them claw at each other for a while.

It's a longer process to find the people he's really looking for - he can't appear to be anyone besides Tom, and though the escorts will keep quiet about him mugging someone because they like that he hangs out and tips for nothing, scanning the place like he would in another situation will only wreck his cover for future endeavors. So he's methodical and attentive, but slower than he'd like to be. Clock's ticking, Wayne.

Even with his hands tied, Tim is fairly certain he can still take the men in the room if things start going further than he'd like. The only unknown variable is the xenian, and he's fairly good at improvising when it comes to dealing with metas, so he should be alright as long as he doesn't sustain any injuries that tip the balance against him too far. ... Apparently a little bit of cutting is within that margin of acceptable risk, but he'd still prefer to avoid it if possible. So maybe he'll just try talking some info out of them, then beating more out of them after that. Looking like he's still willing to play along, if acting feisty, is part of the plan.

"So, you gonna give me any names before we get any more friendly?" He shakes his hands a little, implying considering how far I've gone on good will alone. He doesn't think anything much of the xenian moving to put a hand on his shoulder, herding him over towards a long table-like piece of furniture. It's kind of standard strong-arming.

Except then he starts feeling distinctly light-headed, losing co-ordination and feeling like he's moving clumsily.

Oops.

It's really kind of a shame that he hadn't known enough about the various xenian populations to realise that this guy is a member of a race capable of secreting a substance from their skin that has... interesting effects on humans. He'd been the one responsible for drugging the girl until she was nice and compliant, in fact. This isn't a mistake Tim's going to make again, but it's really enough of a mistake right now to have him cursing himself. Should have moved straight to beating information out of them.

"Not a heavy dose for this one, Carl." He hears the voice almost like it's coming through water, and that's a bad sign, but what a normal name. "We want him to be able to feel it."

As the xenian releases his grip on Tim's shoulder and backs off, he can mostly feel himself getting hauled onto said table by the other men, his hands pulled over his head and the cuffs attached to some kind of fastening. "I don't remember agreeing to the drugs," and oh, his words are coming out a bit slow, and he has to concentrate to keep up Alvin's twang of accent. "Wreck the threads and I wreck your face, took me forever to find a shirt I liked."

He hears some laughter echoing in his head, and feels his feet being strapped down as well, and then there's a pause - setting up filming equipment, not that he's quite capable of registering that consciously right now. And then there's a crushing pressure on his throat, making it hard to breathe, and the all too familiar feeling of something cutting into his stomach, very lightly and slightly weird feeling with the drug swimming in his system and messing with sensation. He thinks he might have made a noise, or tried to.

Possibly he was trying to swear at them about his shirt.

There's more than one cloister with a lookout, in this place, and the number of them tonight fuels him through sheer annoyance - someone watching a room he's not looking for starts in, trying to harass him for being a creep, hanging around watching. Bruce punches him, crushing his nose and part of his cheekbone, and the guy crumples to the ground. He's moved on before the muffled What the hell was that?! exclamations from inside the room make it out.

Finally, he finds who he's looking for. Quietly, because he's still himself, now, even though he's supposed to be Tom, Bruce comes up beside the lookout, who's already giving him a suspicious look.

"What the hell do you want?" A typical inquiry.

"I'm looking for someone." Well, he is. Bruce keeps his voice soft-spoken, looking at first at this man and then past him, even as his personal space is crowded in an attempt at intimidation. He can barely see what's going on in the room, but the familiarity of a profile and his gut instinct tells him he's in the right place.

So he shoves forward - it's almost graceful, even if the man he's now practically toppling over shouts as he does it, forcing them both into the room. The larger man falls backwards, disrupting the scene playing out and landing all eyes on Bruce.

"Sorry," he says, and doesn't sound very apologetic at all.

There's a completely surreal moment of silence in which everyone just looks at him, confused, and then the sharp-featured man who was directing Carl - the one Bruce recognizes - barks out a harsh laugh. "Are you drunk? This is a private room, pal."

Bruce doesn't say anything. He's looking at Tim - not at his face, but at his hands, then the blood on his stomach, and the man bent over him. In his peripheral vision, he sees the man on the floor and the xenian (whose biology he's familiar with) come towards him. He glances to the ring leader, brief- "He's with me."

No ultimatums, no threats, no bartering. No one here is ignorant to that kind of declaration; Bruce would like them to back the fuck off and let Tim go.

Maybe it'll work.

Their leader grins, edged. "Looks like we'll have a double act, then."

Maybe it won't.

The big guy he knocked over a moment before lunges for him, and Bruce steps back, trips him, grabs the back of his shirt as he staggers away and uses it to knock the wind out of him as he yanks it before hurling him into the xenian. The guy in charge is an easy mark, Bruce clocks him and slams his head back against the wall and he's out to the tune of the last guy's alarmed shouting - the big guy and the xenian are back, by then, but the small space isn't doing them any favors. He lets himself get tackled against the wall and then jams the heel of his foot into the big guy's knee, cracking the cap of it. He's done. The xenian gets hit with a small end table until he gives up trying to move - Bruce isn't interested in touching his skin long enough to even punch him. That leaves the one holding the razor blade over Tim, who doesn't put up much of a fight when Bruce grabs his hand to knock it away, then hauls the guy off him by his hair.

It's at that moment that Shira, his waitress friend, skitters into view through the doorway, one of the bar tenders over her shoulder. "Holy shit! Oh my god, Tom, is kicking the shit out of people what gets you off?"

(She seems more impressed than disturbed.)

"Sorry," he says, for the second time, and now he does sound a little apologetic.

It is kind of hard to see everything unfold from the prone position he's been strapped into on the table, and that's not helped by the fog of drugs permeating everything. Mostly, he gets the noises, loud and comfortingly familiar since they mark violence happening to people who definitely aren't him, and an impression of movements that skate around the edge of familiar and back into really not. The best look he gets at his saviour - Tom - is when he's hauling away the man with the razor blade, and oh. He should have figured it'd be him.

There's a name on the tip of his tongue but it's not right, and it's one that he definitely shouldn't be saying in the middle of a strange club full of strange people doing strange and violent things to each other, and still potentially him, because he doesn't know why Tom has decided to stick his neck out and drag him out of the clutches of this specific peril - he's with me, he'd said, but Tim is most distinctly not with him, to the best of his knowledge. Is he about to be?

Anyone who can take out a room full of career criminals that quickly does bear further investigation, so maybe he should go along with that, for right now. As long as it doesn't involve more knives. Or more drugs. He would really like to skip those.

Banishing the name he can't say, he rolls out the Alvin identity, the twang and slightly drawling effect of the drugs heavily evident. "I hope you're planning to pay, 'cause I'm pretty sure they wrecked my shirt. I told 'em not to."

That could refer to... a couple more things than the shirt, of course.

"Shut up," Bruce deadpans immediately, and it's neither companionable nor cruel, just... detached, because he isn't interested in dissecting whatever the hell is going on, there. Maybe he doesn't recognize him - and that would be fine, except that his luck never holds out quite that long. Shira and the bartender are twittering in an impressed way, ooing and aaing over the damage dealt. (It's just that kind of a club.) He asks if her boss will be pissed, and she just laughs.

It's all surreal. Bruce moves back and jimmies Tim's handcuffs off (magic). Once he establishes that the wounds on his torso are superficial, he hauls him up, familiar enough with the effects of that particular toxin to know he'll be disoriented for a while and nauseous later but otherwise fine. "You're done for tonight," he informs him, right back to the soft-spoken tone he used earlier, and doesn't make eye contact. Behind them, Shira kicks the ring leader in the back of the head when he groans, and he falls back into unconsciousness.

The deadpan is what catches his attention, oddly enough - the way it's detached. Another familiar note, but it doesn't quite match up. Of course, that could just be the drugs messing with his thought processes. Still, he narrows his eyes slightly and takes in as many details about Tom as he can. Including the fact he knows his way around handcuffs and the way he doesn't make eye contact.

Interesting.

And that answers whether Tom is just looking to have his own fun with Tim, it seems - and a relieving answer it is. Because the better a look he gets at Tom, the closer he is, the more Tim is realising he might not be able to take him out in a fight while he's in this state. It'd take observing his fighting while not drugged to be any more precise, but he gets that feeling.

"... Okay. Ow." He says, more subdued and quiet and with less of the heavy accent. Not matching the soft-spoken tone, but quieting - relaxing, maybe. Which fits just fine with Alvin Draper being brash and then relaxing once he's sure he hasn't just fallen to a bigger predator. "I'm with you. ... The girl?"

What a disturbing mind you have, Tim.

(Then again, in this setting...)

"Out," he says, but to Shira and the other employee, not Tim - who he's just going to.. cart along with him, yes, okay. Shira teeters ahead of them on her spindly heels, plainly entertained. (This shit is the norm, and it's not like her indestructible form and decades of combat training will ever land her in too much hot water in this place, but it's always nice when people she likes do sweethearted things.) She asks, "Do you want me to call Hasi?" and Bruce wrinkles his nose slightly. "She's not going to do anything besides give me crap for not paying one of your girls," he answers, talking over Tim like he's not there. And it's not true, anyway, but by now everyone knows who he usually comes to visit, and who to report gossip to. She'll hear anyway.

Shira lets them out one of the employee doors that takes them through a back hallway and out to the alley behind the building, and Bruce keeps quiet the entire time, aside from quietly saying goodnight to Shira, who twinkles her fingers at them before going back inside.

Bruce doesn't let go of Tim's elbow when they're out - he walks him along, steady. And silent.

That is rude, Tom. And again familiar in a niggling way, but only faintly. Tim perhaps knows a few too many brusque people prone to bouts of silence.

He lets himself be escorted out, and then... walked along, Tom's grip on his elbow constant but not tight, or worrying. It's less coercive than the hands on him earlier (that he's trying not to think about) and more reassuring, somehow. Mostly because Tim is fairly sure he'd fall flat on his face without some kind of support, with the way his legs feel.

He lets Tom guide him in thoughtful, slightly dizzy silence, spending the time observing and trying to focus his breathing and body on sobering up, but eventually breaks the silence with a single, simple enough question. Said quietly and softly and with a mild resignation to not actually getting an answer, all things considered, but he's nothing if not stubborn in trying.

"Why?"

In truth, he'd rather not be touching Tim at all, not because of any issues of wanting to crawl back into his little hermit world (well, not entirely), but rather because he can't imagine Tim would like to be touched right now, in any capacity. But the bio-drugs in his system means his choices are let Bruce guide him along, or fall. He keeps his touch clinical.

It takes him a while to respond. "I didn't think you'd regenerate."

Griss Twist is close to Bonetown, and though Bruce knows he could be 'home' in a few minutes, he chooses to take them across the river into Brock Marsh instead; he's got a few hole-in-the-wall safe houses by now where he doesn't live, just uses for emergencies and storage. Once they're on a main road, he gets the younger man into a rickshaw taxi -

- and just stops, looking at him with an almost blank expression, standing aside it.

At length, he discards the idea of just telling the driver to take Tim on his own back to the Valhalla Inn, and then sits next to him, quietly delivering the address.

"She's fine." (You know, by the way.)

"Oh." No, he wouldn't have regenerated. So: "Thanks."

Bruce is right in that assumption, which is proved when Tim gets into the rickshaw and promptly scrunches himself up into the far corner as much as possible. Part of him is expecting to just be sent off to the Inn alone by his mysterious saviour, but it's a reflexive sort of prepartion in case he isn't, and it turns out to be warranted. The confines of the rickshaw are close, but there's enough space to have space, a comfortable gap between them on the seat, and Tim is very good at making himself small.

But he's fine, okay.

"That's good." So it had been the presence of the girl that had lead Tom to hunt him down, after all. Not just a coincidence (it never is). "I wasn't exactly - in a position to check for myself."

"A lot of the girls that work those rooms do so deliberately, and have the physiologies to enable it," he tells Tim, still not looking directly at him, as if the lack of eye contact will somehow give him more space. "She wasn't one of them. I'm sure you saved her life."

For the first time, Bruce wonders if he's wrong. Maybe this isn't anyone he truly recognizes, and maybe Tim doesn't recognize him at all. But he can't be completely wrong, can he? It's too much of a coincidence, even if he'd like it to be. He should have sent Tim off by himself. (He couldn't.)

"That toxin'll wear off in about six hours." Bruce doesn't ask him if he's okay. He doesn't really look okay, but talking about it - especially with him - isn't going to be much help. At least, not in this little cab. So he keeps quiet besides that, and is thankful for the small miracle of the nearness to their destination.

Tim thinks he recognises things, tiny ticks against a certain internal list, but then it's just off, and he's too young and brown-eyed and brown-haired and, of course, Tim is sitting here with red hair and it's not as if he was able to put as much effort into his disguise as he usually would, but. If it's him, he'd have said something by now.

So it can't be. It's got to be down to the drugs and wishful thinking, projecting in his addled state.

"I had a feeling there was something like that going on. I didn't really mean to walk into it." But he hadn't exactly had a choice, when that choice was get involved or let a girl die. "You undoubtedly saved mine."

And that's as much as he's going to talk about it, he feels.

He's slipping out of his Alvin persona and back into Tim just a little, and takes a moment to re-focus. That was sloppy - it's difficult to concentrate on maintaining the act with the bio-toxin screwing with him, but that's not an excuse that flies.

"You could have ditched me." Better.

The way this Bruce interacts with people is, yes, different; it comes and goes, in ways he can't know about, and had Tim not being himself but been the elder sycophant, maybe Bruce would be speaking to him differently now. But he just doesn't know what to say.

"I could have hauled you out when you first walked in, too."

That sounds flat and a little irritable, beneath the surface of the oddly quiet way he talks. His accent is sometimes indistinct, the washed-out bland Americanness of someone who's either had a long time to practice sounding like what he isn't, or a long exposure to sounding like something else entirely. It's in those little cracks that the old, Palisades New Jersey starts to creep in. (The more emotional he gets, the more Gotham bleeds through in his voice.)

They stop in a busy, gritty area of town, with cramped street-level shops and noisy, run-down blocks of apartments built on top of them. Bruce pays the driver and then helps Tim get out. To get where they're going, they have to go down an alley and find the back stairwell behind a building whose ground floor houses a corner market and a coffee shop, so that they can climb a dark, narrow stairwell into the rows of industrial apartments.

Tim makes a small, non-committal noise at that, and drops it - because the response itself is sticking in his mind, the tone and content of it. Why would Tom have had cause to haul him out as soon as he walked in? He's old enough to be there and hadn't been getting into anything suspicious right away. No, the only reason to do that would be if Tom knew him, and didn't want him getting tangled up in anything in the first place. But hadn't acted on that. Because Tim doesn't know him.

Or not quite.

He spends the walk and subsequent climb to the apartment in silence, both dizzy and unsteady, and thoughtful. All the little ticks are lining up, puzzle pieces fitting, but the picture is a little off still. And if he's wrong, he really doesn't want to get too weird on Tom out in the street or dark alleyway.

Tom, Tom, Thomas.

He waits until they're actually in the apartment, small and bare and ringing of safe house, before speaking up. In his own voice, though if this approach backfires, it'll be difficult to blame that part on the drugs like the rest of it.

"You're using your father's name."

The apartment is small, and might be cramped if it was properly furnished; there's nothing in it to give any clues about who might inhabit it, no leftover plans, no forgotten laundry. It's immaculate, but not dust-covered, so he does use it, apparently. He directs Tim to sit down, flipping on the light in what passes for a living room, before going to pull out the appropriate supplies from the medical supply drawer of a cabinet.

When he's there, Tim makes his assertion, and Bruce stills. He doesn't freeze, he just pauses.

It's neither the flat-out determination of his identity he logically expected, nor the doe-eyed inquiry he feared. It's worse.

So he just doesn't say anything. He picks out everything he needs to go about fixing the cuts on Tim's stomach, because as small as they are, they've really bled, and they need to be cleaned and sealed. Infections here are unpredictable, thanks to the vast mixing of germs and matter from across the multiverse.

When he turns, he meets Tim's eyes for the first time, silent and stony but without any denial.

That's about right. And he feels kind of dirty for taking that tack, but it cut to the heart of the matter.

And put up Bruce's walls, probably.

"... Sorry. It was the easiest approach to blame on the toxin if I was wrong." Which is still playing dirty pool, he knows. The toxin could also be affecting his judgement in tact, and in fact probably is, but it's not an excuse, and it's not worth voicing. Bruce knows the effects of the toxin better than he does, anyway.

Some day, maybe Bruce will stop carrying that target over his heart, but it hasn't happened in his experience, and this Bruce is - so young. Different. In ways Tim has noticed, and ways he's sure he's missed, his mind skittering away from having to accept that this is a different Bruce, one who knows him but wanted to avoid him. But he's also sure he won't appreciate being compared. Who would?

"You could have just said."

He isn't teared up, there's no emotional quivering edges to him; he's uncomfortable, yes, but it isn't because someone mentioned his father. (Hell, he'll talk about his parents, and at length, given the right opportunity.) It's everything, it's this whole stupid situation, that could have been avoided if his alternate self (selves) wasn't doing this. Everything goes back to that, and the coldness it makes him feel. This boy shouldn't be able to hit that button; he shouldn't know it exists.

Bruce goes to his side, directs more than nudges him to settle where he needs him so that his wounds can be looked at. He pushes his sleeves to his elbows, takes off the bracer on his wrist, cleans his hands - doesn't respond. Not until he pulls a pair of latex gloves on.

"I was hoping I wouldn't have to."

Maybe Tim wouldn't have recognized him.

Maybe Tim wouldn't have gotten himself tied up and drugged.

Given the circumstances, it may not be that reassuring that Tim trusts Bruce to direct him to move around a little and treat his wounds - not that he would exactly have much choice in the state he's in, but even so, there are signs that he's relaxed his guard since his identity clicked. Not fully, this isn't his Bruce (his father), but enough to notice.

His eyes are harder than when he was younger, too, but still betray expression, even if it's just a flicker of clouded hurt - he presses his mouth into a flat line, and it's gone.

"You seem kind of young to have met me, let alone be angry with me."

Because why else would Bruce want to avoid him? But there's still the sense of things not quite fitting together, and it's irritating.

Bruce flicks his gaze up, brief. I'm not angry. He's just irritated, Tim, this is pretty much the default state of Bruce Waynes in any reality; if he was angry, the entire block would notice.

The worry with cuts - beyond the fact that Tim has puny human antibodies from just his own Earth - is the possibility for them to react with the bio-toxin, or pass it to Bruce if he touches his skin for too long or, worse, his blood. So the care he takes is deliberate, even though it's clear from the way he works that his touch is normally a gentle one. (Odd.) He cleans them, presses down carefully on Tim's abdomen to make sure there's no swelling or signs of irritation from the toxin in his blood mixing with the air, and then cleans them again so he can stitch them up.

Finally: "None of you exist in my world."

It's one hell of a loaded statement.