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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.

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"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.

Despite the bio-toxin, Tim is able to note the deliberate care and the way Bruce's hands move as if used to exerting a gentle touch - which registers as odd, even if he can't put as much thought into that as he usually would. The ringleader of that little group had wanted him sensate but helpless, able to feel things - if he'd been as dosed up as the girl, they wouldn't be having this conversation, for a start. He gets the feeling that Bruce might have preferred that.

But since they're talking, he's putting as much concentration into it as possible, the effort unusually visible.

"So this isn't your first visit to another world." Since he knows about them, enough to know that they don't exist for him. And that's... a cold, stark thought as it percolates through his head. A Batman without Robin is nothing but grim darkness, controlled violence teetering on a spiral of self-destruction without another presence to alleviate that darkness - without someone else to focus on protecting at his side, and therefore to focus on protecting himself for their sake.

He has a feeling this Bruce might not see it that way.

"I guess it's difficult knowledge to deal with." On both ends.

Bruce has walked through enough worlds to know about the version of himself who raises these children for slaughter, and he hates the knowledge of it. He knows there's more to it, between the injured way Grayson had flinched silent on the subject and that woman with the mask and her infant. There's more of them, he knows it. And it's completely unacceptable. Tonight is easy proof of that.

He considers expressing concern - discards it.

"The older one was more competent." Deliberate. His voice is flat, and he cuts off the edge of the violet suture thread. He doesn't want to use names; he got along with Richard. Even liked him, grudgingly. It's unsettling, now, to know that this Tim isn't the one he interacted with, doesn't know the older boy that he knew.

"You should consider a real job." He starts on the last cut.

Barely a flinch, and it's more self-reproaching than anything - he screwed up tonight, and he knows it. He still would have acted to save the girl if he had a chance to re-do things, but he should have just moved to beating up the thugs instead of trying to stay low-key. Sometimes, subtlety just isn't the right choice.

"Duh. Everyone likes Dick best." He says that like it is an inevitable fact, not sarcastically - although it might not be true of his friends like Conner, there's an undeniable air of awe around Nightwing that they fall into, as well. And Dick is just... impossible not to like. He doesn't expect to match up to that in comparison.

And as for competence, he'll just have to work on it.

"I've been looking." In between working on other things, to varying degrees of success.

"You've been here for almost a month."

It would sound like somebody's nagging mother if it wasn't so flat and creepy. Why are you watching him, Bruce? (...Why does that need to be asked?)

With his injuries patched up - and comments about Dick thoroughly ignored - Bruce wipes any remaining blood down and cleans up his work. Tim'll be fine. They aren't the prettiest stitches in the world, but they'll work just fine; Bruce has always been better at getting injuries than mending them. He rises, goes across the room to the small kitchen to put the tools he was using in a steel tin he's presumably keeping for sterilization, and then gets a glass of water. Not for him.

He sits back next to Tim and places the glass near the younger man's head, eying him with an air that says perhaps he should take this opportunity to hydrate himself. "It'll be out of your system by the time you wake up."

He doesn't even ask about Bruce watching him, it's expected. And after tonight, he's grateful for it, even if it does result in not-quite-nagging about his state of employment.

He raises an eyebrow at the water, but moves to take it - clumsily, but he manages not to drop the glass. Drinking takes a concerted effort with his co-ordination still royally fucked up, and he takes it slow, just sipping the water. It helps him feel a little better, at least, although it's frustrating to feel like he could fumble at any second. He hates being drugged, there are zero pleasant associations for him.

"Alright. I wasn't sure which skills I should really be flaunting on the job market."

He pauses, considers. But there's no way Bruce isn't aware of Conner already, just from the network. "My friend is more concerned with finding a way back. ... He'll be worried when I'm late back, but that's... not abnormal."

Not the hand-to-hand combat skills, young man.

There's a pause, and it almost feels incredulous, even though his reaction is more uncertain than irritated. "Do you want to see him now?"

Bruce doesn't sound like he believes Tim really wants to see anyone - or have anyone see him - like this.

But dad, what if he wants to work in the arena.

He blinks, and pauses to think about it for just a second, but the answer is absolutely certain. "He's my best friend, Bruce. If there's anyone I'd want to be around me right now more than him, it'd be Alfred." Best friend, indeed.

That's where he turns a little more subdued. "But that doesn't mean I want him to have to see me - when I'm this messed up, no." There's a sense that he's being protective of Conner, strangely enough. He doesn't like reminding his meta friend that he's breakable and simply human, not in such visceral ways, and it would further mean exposing him to elements that are very much Bat rather than Super.

He doesn't want to work in the arena, because Tim isn't a moron.

There's no reaction past his first assertion, and Bruce waits for the but he knows his coming. As he thought; and so it's a non-issue. (If Tim had been contrary and said yes, call him Bruce would have simply shrugged and refused. This is already one more person than necessary in one of his safe houses.)

He's quiet for a while, watching him.

"Go to sleep."

It's more gentle than one might expect, and too soft-spoken to be a real order - he's not used to giving orders, but all the same, it's clear he's not used to anyone just not listening to him, either. Bruce stands up again, and goes to pull another blanket and pillow from the closet for Tim, who should be pretty exhausted by now. They'll deal with getting him back to his friend in the morning, when his head isn't full of xenian toxins.

This is true, he's not letting Conner know it's even a possibility to work in the arena, either.

Technically Tim could call Conner himself, all he has to do is say his name with the right tone of voice, but that little trick is for absolute emergencies and best kept a secret - even from Bruce, at least for now. And it would be kind of rude to just have a metahuman coming crashing into his safehouse after he went out of his way to both save and care for him, so. That option is safely discarded.

It takes him a moment to lay down after Bruce tells him to sleep - or suggests it, in that soft tone of voice, but it's nonetheless clear that Tim is expected to listen - and he is utterly exhausted. Even if he wanted to stay up any longer and feed the sparks of curiousity about this Bruce buzzing through him, he knows it's a bad idea - he'll just end up saying something nonsensical or regrettable or both, or throwing up on Bruce's couch, or something.

He made the mistake of wearing boots with far too many buckles for him to manage to unfasten by himself, so he just flops over on his side and curls up gratefully under the provided blanket. He really does have a knack for making himself small.

"Thank you. ... And sorry I screwed up."

He doesn't answer; he's not going to give him any more shit for it (he's been through enough), but it's not going to tell him that it's fine, either (it isn't). It is what it is, and while it is not Tim's fault, because being assaulted is never the fault of anyone besides the person doing the assaulting, there is a difference between the girl he traded places with and someone who wants to be a crime fighter. These are the risks. The judgment is just as brutal and unfair.

Bruce rises, leaves him, and goes about doing something else - silently. He won't wake him up at any point. Tim needs the rest.