It's not two seconds later that Damian's stolen phone, still in Steph's hands, starts ringing. Steph fumbles with it for a second, taken off guard by the noise, before she manages to answer it, even if it's just to silence it. She breathes a soft, "Hello?" not even knowing who's on the other line because she'd been too busy trying to shut off the ringing to check.

"Steph?" Tim whispers on the other line. "Don't come out of the room and don't unlock the door. Not for any reason. You understand me?"

"What?" Steph asks, her brow furrowing. Tim sounds scared. "You haven't even been gone a whole minute yet, what could you have possibly-"

She stutters to a stop at a thump and a curse from the other line that she can't hear from the bedroom. Which means that they're not in the hallway anymore. Which—that couldn't be possible, could it? Bruce had literally closed the door behind them just a moment ago. There's no way that they could have gotten far enough to be out of earshot already, even with crazy bat skills.

"Tim?" she asks.

There's a long pause where there's nothing but silence on the other end, and Steph's heart is about to beat right out of her chest with anticipation. She meets Cass's eyes from where her best friend is perched on the edge of the bed next to Dick and Damian. Damian's taken over Jason's old job of murmuring to Dick, keeping him awake, so he hasn't been paying attention. But Cass has, and Steph can see the same kind of fear she feels as her stomach drops down to her feet reflected in Cass's dark eyes.

It's not reassuring.

"Crap," Tim whispers, and Steph's breath catches. Tim doesn't like to curse often, but when he does, Steph knows that means there's trouble. "Crap, I've gotta go."

"Wait!" Steph whisper-yells. Even Damian's looking over at her now. "You can't leave me with just that, you bimbus. What's going on? Where are Bruce and Jason?"

"Don't leave the room, Steph." Tim repeats. "And keep the door locked. I'll call back when I can."

And with that, Tim hangs up on her. Steph sits there, staring at the phone screen in absolute disbelief, because she cannot just believe that Timothy Jackson Drake-Wayne just did that to her, and the next time she sees him, she owes him a brick to the face.

Angrily, she switches the sound off on Damian's phone and throws it onto the bed within easy reach of any of them.

"Steph?" Cass prompts.

"'Stay in the room,' he says," Steph mutters under her breath. Cass cocks her head to the side, and Steph huffs, plopping down on the bed. She whispers, "I don't know what's happening."

"You're...scared," Cass says. It's not a question.

Steph snorts. "Understatement of the year. This is the most freaked out I've been since the Zombie Tim incident last year. And that was a literal nightmare, Cass."

Cass breathes a whisper of a laugh. "That was funny."

"To you, maybe," Steph scoffs. "You weren't the one who had to help strap him to his bed. You know he carries knives now?"

Cass's face is carefully blank.

Steph stares. "What do you know?"

"You said...now." Cass bites her lip, before she leans in and whispers conspiratorially, "Tim's carried a knife since he became Robin. You just..." She shrugs. "Never knew."

Steph moans pathetically. "And you did? What the hell, Tim?"

"Will you quit talking about Drake's neuroses?" Damian hisses. He gestures at Dick, who looks like he's losing the battle for consciousness pretty spectacularly. The sight of it has Steph snapping back to attention, a trill of fear flitting back into her stomach. Damian scowls at her and continues, "We've got other things to worry about."

A glance at Cass tells Steph that Dick's mental state is going to have to be up to Steph and Damian. Her eyes are in constant movement, now that she and Steph are finished speaking. It's probably just for show, and that just convinces Steph that if she had to trust someone with protecting the room, she'd more than likely always choose Cass.

Okay. She nods at Cass, and Cass nods back, stands up, and stands in the middle of the room, body deceptively relaxed. Steph leaves her to it and turns back to where Damian's fussing over Dick.

And yeah, he's fussing. And she thought Dick could be an overprotective mother hen.

"He still awake?" Steph asks.

"No thanks to you," Damian snaps.

And damn. Are his mother hen feathers ruffled. Steph holds her hands up in surrender and scoots closer on her knees to Dick's other side. Dick's bed is large enough for like, five people, so it's upsetting easily, and she spends a second on wishing that she could steal one of these mattresses for her apartment, because then she'd probably sleep like a baby.

Getting off track. Back on task, Brown.

Steph settles down on the other side of Dick's head and leans over him a bit. Dick's glazed eyes catch onto her face and he grins at her again. "Hi," he breathes.

"Hi, Dick," she says. "How're you feeling?"

"Head hurts," Dick tells her. His eyes drift to catch onto Damian's face instead, and he says, "Hi, Dami."

"Hello, Richard," Damian says. It's quiet, though, and it's soft and gentle. Oh god, is he a mother hen. She wonders who's worse, Damian or Bruce. "Your wound has finally stopped bleeding."

Steph finally makes herself look at the cut on Dick's forehead. Damian's right. It has stopped bleeding, and even though the towel on the bed next to Damian is almost drenched in blood, his wound looks pretty clean. Which means Damian had been taking care of it.

"Has it?" Dick asks. "Was I hurt?"

"Yeah," Steph says. "Do you remember what happened?"

Dick stares at her for a long moment, before his eyes scrunch up. "My head hurts," he repeats.

Steph laughs lightly. "Yeah, concussions will do that to you."

"I think I remember Jason?" Dick murmurs. "Or was it Tim. I know I definitely...maybe saw Bruce. I think. He was saying something about Alfred. But I can't remember all of it. Was it important?"

Steph shares a glance with Damian. "No," she says. There's no way she's going to burden him with this right now. Not when he's so injured and barely functioning. Heck, the guy was an unconscious lump on the floor not ten minutes ago. "Nothing to worry about, Dick."

Dick frowns, and Steph can tell he doesn't quite believe her, but he moves his head just bit towards her and winces, and that effectively ends that conversation.

They wait around the room for another five-ish minutes. Cass doesn't move much, and Steph doesn't distract her. Damian is keep up a stream of questions to gauge how bad Dick's concussion is—it's pretty bad, but Dick's slowly gaining more and more awareness as time passes, which is a good sign—and when that fails, Damian starts insulting Dick's "incompetence," which just makes Dick laugh breathily.

And holy wow, Steph thinks she caught a few half-smiles from Damian during that conversation. She's glad that the kid knows how to smile around someone.

Steph's just about to die of some combination of anxiety and boredom, and she finally whispers, "They should be back by now, right? Or at least have reset the breaker, right?" No one answers her. She sighs. "Right. Of course, it can never be that easy."

Cass tenses. Steph grabs Damian's phone off the bed and Dick's nearest trophy, holding her makeshift weapon high up in the air as she walks towards Cass. She joins her best friend in the middle of the room, and they watch the door. Damian's gone quiet, and the only sounds are the sounds of their breathing and light footsteps in the hallway.

"I swear to god," Steph breathes, the trophy trembling in her hands.

She feels so naked and exposed in a dress and heels—without a mask. Without any real weapons—and her heart feels like it's about to beat out of her chest. She has basically no info about anything going on, and there all split up from each other, and the anxious curl in her gut needs to go away.

"I swear to god," she repeats. "If I die tonight, I'm coming back as a ghost and spray painting the car of whoever murders me. I'm gonna paint cuss words so bad even Jason will have to avert his eyes."

"Steph," Cass murmurs. It's disapproving.

"Bite me, Cass," Steph murmurs. She's terrified, and Cass knows it. She talks when she's scared. It's not her fault.

Okay, alright. So maybe she could shut her mouth for right now.

"Sorry," she whispers. Cass hums. Steph blows out a breath. "I didn't mean it."

"I know." Cass's eyes stare straight through the door. "He's here."

There are a couple of light taps on the door, and Steph's gaze snaps to the locked wooden door. None of them move. Steph doesn't even think any of them breathe.

"Steph?" Tim's voice comes from the other side. Steph wavers, her brows furrowing upwards in concern. Tim sounds scared. "Steph, let me in. Now."

Stephanie's moving before she can even think about it. She only falter when her and is hovering over the lock. She meets Cass's and Damian's bright eyes, and they both nod after a moment. Steph opens the door.

Tim stumbles in. He's alone.

"Close it," Tim breathes when Steph doesn't move. She's too busy staring in shock at Tim's disheveled appearance. His dress shirt is ripped, part of it tied over the bottom half of his face like a mask. Tim starts gesturing at her wildly. "Close it, close it, close it!"

Steph shuts the door and locks it.

"What happened to you?" Steph wonders. Tim rips the cloth away from his face. His eyes are wide and his hair is a mess, and there's blood trickling from the corner of his mouth. "You were gone less than ten minutes, Tim! And where are Bruce and Jason?"

"I don't know," Tim huff out, his hands coming up to cover his face. "I don't know where they are. We got split up."

"How did you get split up?" Damian demands. He's standing up now, and Dick's sitting up halfway, looking terribly pale and pretty much like he's about to get out of bed and find Bruce himself. "I knew I should have gone."

"If you had gone, there wouldn't have been anybody to come back here and warn you guys!" Tim snaps.

"What does that mean?" Dick asks quietly. Dick's arms are trembling as they support his weight, and his bright blue eyes meet each of theirs as he searches for an answer. His arms give out a second later, and Steph tenses, but Tim beats her to him. He helps Dick into an actual sitting position against the headboard, and Dick's hand becomes a vice around Tim's wrist. "What—what's going on?"

Tim looks like he's about to cry, and Dick melts.

"Hey, hey. Timmy, you're alright." Dick pulls Tim towards him, because even concussed, Dick's still a big brother. Tim miserably leans into the hug. "It's going to be okay, Tim."

"It's not, though," Tim says. His voice is hoarse, but there aren't any tears. Tim takes a deep breath, and then, "We didn't make it to the breaker. They're smart. There are traps rigged around the entire manor, and one of them involved fear toxin. Jason got caught up in it. He ran away, and Bruce went after him."

"Bruce's phone," Cass says.

Tim shakes his head. "No answer."

Steph blows out a breath. "This is why we don't Scooby-Doo."

"So what do we do now?" Damian asks quietly. He looks—scared. There's a set to his jaw that's determined, but there's something in his eyes that has Steph's insides curling again.

Nobody has an answer for him, though.

She grits her teeth and digs the heel of her palms into her eyes. Who cares if she messes up her makeup. This situation is too crazy to even care at this point. With Dick barely able to sit up, Bruce and Jason gone, Babs out of town, Alfred locked up in the Batcave, and the police locked outside, it's just the four of them.

Somehow, Steph thinks, they've got to figure out how to get out of this mess. All on their own.