m y u n i

Well, really, she took it to a garage and called David.

When David finally rolled into the garage, it was in his battered old pickup, the same rust-crowned thing that rattled like a metal skeleton, one headlight dimmer than the other, and the engine coughing its usual protest as he killed the ignition. He climbed out with a tired groan, running a hand through his short, oil-speckled hair. It stuck up in uneven directions, not because he styled it that way, but because exhaustion had long ago won the war.

He was tall in a lanky sort of way, all narrow limbs and perpetual slouch, the kind of man who looked like he’d grown faster than he ever learned to stand straight. Despite it, the years of lifting engines and dragging equipment had carved muscle into his arms and shoulders; wiry but solid, the kind built from long shifts and too many missed meals. His eyes were the most telling part of him: soft, dark, and permanently tired, like he’d been awake three years longer than everyone else.

A cup of gas-station coffee was clutched in one hand, steam curling upward, and resignation hung on him like an oversized coat he never bothered to shrug off.

He stepped into the garage with the slow, familiar gait of a man expecting another mundane night of repairs.

Then he saw the Camaro.

Bathed in fluorescent lighting, polished chrome glowing like gold against the drab cement floor, the car looked absurdly out of place, too fancy for the shabby space, too alive for the silence around it.

David froze mid-step, hand going slack around his coffee cup.

“…What,” he whispered, blinking once, twice, as if waiting for the hallucination to go away.

But it didn’t.

The Camaro shimmered faintly under the lights —almost like it was breathing.

And David, with all his tired eyes and grease-stained hands, suddenly forgot how to move.

“Oh no,” he whispered. “What did you summon?”

“It was free!” Y/N said, lifting her shoulders helplessly.

David gave her a look that belonged in a documentary about people who make bad decisions. “Free cars are how ghosts get you.”

“Cars don’t have ghosts.”

“They can. This one does.”

Despite his complaints, he approached the Camaro with wary caution, circling it like it might pounce. When he finally popped the hood, he inhaled sharply.

“This isn’t… anything,” he murmured. “Not anything human. Not anything manufactured. Not anything I’ve ever seen.”

Y/N peeked over his shoulder. “That bad?”

“It’s… alien,” he whispered.

The moment he said it, the engine hummed.

Soft at first. Curious. Alive.

David lurched backward so fast his back hit a tool cabinet. “Nope. Nope! Y/N, that’s a demon. You bought a demon car.”

“Cars aren’t—”

The headlights flashed.

The radio sputtered.

The chassis vibrated, not like a machine, but like a creature waking from sleep.

Y/N stepped away instinctively. David made a noise between a choke and a prayer.

And then the car moved.

Not forward. Not backward.

Outward.

Panels folded. Tires retracted. Mechanical segments slid into place like a puzzle coming undone in reverse. A metal hand braced against the floor. A face, bright optics glowing blue, lifted toward them from above.

A fifteen-foot robot crouched inside the garage.

“Ohmygodohmygod—” David gasped. “Y/N, get behind me—no, get behind something bigger than me!”

The robot lifted both hands quickly, palms open.

“D–Do not be afraid!” it said, voice stuttering through radio clips. Static. A sports announcer. A soft pop song lyric. Finally, a clearer tone:

“I’m… friendly. Very friendly. Please don’t scream.”

David’s knees buckled. “I’m going to pass out.”

Y/N stepped forward before he could.

Her pulse thundered, terror clawed at her ribs, but something steadier pushed her forward. The robot looked terrified too, optics wide, posture small for something so massive, hands trembling ever so slightly.

“Hey,” she said softly, raising her hands the same way he did. “We’re not going to hurt you.”

He froze, eyes widening with something like hope.

Y/N stepped closer still. “Can you tell us your name?”

The robot’s engine purred nervously. He touched a hand to his chest and cycled through radio static until a clear word emerged:

“Bumblebee.”

David whimpered behind her, “Y/N, please don’t touch the alien.”

She didn’t listen. Her hand reached out, slow and steady, brushing the metal of Bumblebee’s knuckles. The metal shivered beneath her touch.

Bee released a relieved burst of static.

“Friendly humans. Thank the—” static “—universe.”

The moment hung there, fear and awe and something like trust beginning to form.

That was the moment everything in her life tilted.

For the next three days, Bee hid behind the garage, disguised beneath a tarp that could barely cover his hood. Y/N visited him each morning and night, bringing him little things—scraps of metal to examine, questions he answered in clipped radio phrases, even a wireless speaker so he could talk without rummaging through the radio waves.

David oscillated between fascinated and terrified.

One minute, he was lecturing Bee about basic engine maintenance; the next, he was hiding behind Y/N whenever Bee startled at a passing siren.

But something gentle developed between the three of them.

Bee was still on edge, flinching at loud noises, apologizing every time he knocked something over, ducking behind the garage whenever someone walked by, but he warmed to Y/N quickly.

He’d angle his mirrors toward her when she sat nearby, listening to her talk about nothing and everything. He’d brighten his headlights when she approached, like a dog lifting its head when its person returned.

And Y/N… felt oddly safe with him.

Safe enough that for the first time in months, she forgot how messy her life had been in Gotham. Safe enough that she forgot the sinking feeling that always came with missing Tim’s messages. Safe enough to laugh, even lightly, when Bumblebee misused idioms he found on late-night radio.

David, of course, did not forget the danger.

“Something’s going to find him,” he muttered on the third night, quietly twisting a wrench in his hands. “Nothing this weird stays hidden forever.”

Bee stiffened sharply.

His headlights flickered.

He wasn’t wrong to be afraid.

Y/N woke to the sharp, metallic clang of something striking the fire escape outside her window, not the soft rattle of wind or the groan of old pipes, but a deliberate, heavy impact that vibrated through the thin apartment walls. She sat up slowly, heart thudding against her ribs as she strained to listen. The air felt colder suddenly, as though a draft had slipped beneath the door, carrying with it a sense of wrongness she couldn’t quite place. Something was out there. Something too large, too cold, too purposeful.

A prickling sense of dread crept along her spine.

Then a thunderous impact shook her apartment door.

Y/N froze mid-breath. Her pulse roared in her ears as the entire frame trembled beneath the assault. Something was in the hallway; not someone, but somethings, plural, each step sending faint shivers through the floorboards. The hinges groaned under pressure, whining in protest. A mechanical snarl rolled through the cracks of the door, deep and grinding, like metal chewing on metal.

A distorted voice —raspy, modulated, inhuman —slithered through the thin wood.

“Human target… located?”

Her blood turned to ice.

There was no time to think. No time to gather anything or hide somewhere clever or grab a weapon that matters against whatever had just spoken. Survival was instinct, immediate and unforgiving. She spun toward the window, shoved it open, and lunged onto the fire escape just as the apartment door exploded inward in a storm of splintered wood and twisted hinges.

Metal claws tore through her bedroom wall, shredding plaster, ripping apart her dresser, slashing through her blankets as though searching for her in the fabric. She scrambled down the rusted ladder, bare feet slipping on the cold metal rungs. Above her, the sound of destruction filled the night; drawers ripped from their frames, her belongings thrown aside, scanning beams swooping back and forth like hunting dogs sniffing out a trail.

The moment they realized she wasn’t inside, the precision ended. The destruction began.

Explosions rocked the apartment from the inside out. Furniture, the few pieces she’d saved up for, shattered in deafening bursts. Her shelves toppled, glass fractured across the pavement below like falling stars, and the windows blew outward in a violent spray. Smoke curled out of the broken frame as her home —her safe place, her tiny sanctuary —collapsed under the assault.

Y/N didn’t wait to see more. She ran blind through the alley, stumbling over debris, heart hammering with a frantic rhythm that drowned out the rising sirens. She didn’t know where she was heading, only that she had to get away, far away, before those things realized she had escaped.

She made it two blocks before she heard it: the blare of a horn, sudden and startling, followed by the screech of tires making a desperate turn.

Bumblebee barreled into view like a yellow comet skidding across the asphalt, headlights flaring wide with sheer panic. David was already inside, pale-faced and gripping the dashboard with both hands as though it were the only thing keeping him tethered to the world.

Bee swung toward her and slammed to a stop so abruptly she felt the wind of it against her legs. The passenger door flung open.

Radio static burst through his speakers, sharp and frantic. “G–GET IN— GET IN— GET IN!”

There was no hesitation, no confusion, no question of trust. She dove into the seat, and Bee’s tires screamed as he shot forward before the door had even shut, the city blurring into streaks of light around them.

Buildings flashed by in fractured smears of brick and concrete as Bee tore through the streets with the terrified urgency of someone fleeing a nightmare. He swerved between cars, cut corners too fast for physics, and let out panicked bursts of radio chatter whenever a turn came too close.

“They found your home—” static crackled “—tracking me—” another burst “—they know you—heat signature—know you helped me!”

“What?!” Y/N gasped, bracing herself against the seat as Bee hurtled through an intersection. “Bee, slow down! Tell me what happened!”

“I told you!” David squeaked beside her, voice climbing octaves under pressure. “I told you weird things follow you — but this is a new level of weird!”

Bee swerved so sharply that David slid sideways, nearly folding into Y/N’s shoulder.

“S–SORRY—SORRY—SORRY—” Bee blurted, his words jumping between radio clips. “**High-stress rescue driving! Actually very good at it! But also—**static —terrified!”

Even through the adrenaline clawing at her chest, Y/N felt a surge of something steady inside her. She reached out, placing a hand on the dashboard.

“Bee,” she said firmly, trying to anchor him. “Look at me.”

His rearview mirror jerked toward her, the glowing blue reflection trembling faintly.

“We’re alive,” she said. “You got to me in time. You’re keeping us safe. You’re doing it.”

Something shifted in the car, subtle as a breath. The frantic edge in Bee’s engine softened; the jolting panic smoothed into something more controlled, more determined.

His voice, still stitched from radio fragments, dropped into a quieter register.

“I… won’t let anything hurt you.”

David swallowed loudly beside her. “Same. Me too. I trust you, man, just maybe give us a heads-up before doing the drift thing again. I nearly died.”

Bee answered with a tiny, embarrassed chirp of static.

They didn’t slow down until the docks came into view. Cranes loomed overhead like skeletal giants, and cargo containers stacked along the water cast deep shadows across the lot. Bee slid between them with practiced skill, reaching a quiet, secluded corner, and jerked open his doors.

“Inside,” he insisted, voice nervous but resolute. “In. Now.”

David didn’t need convincing; he practically threw himself into the yawning darkness of the container. Y/N followed him, breath shaking in her chest. Bee sealed the door behind them, the metal reverberating from the outside impact, and moved beneath the ship’s ramp before anyone could notice him.

The container trapped all the cold, stale air it had, and every sound felt amplified: the creaking chains, the groaning metal as the ship began to rise, the pounding of her own pulse in her ears. David curled up against the wall, arms wrapped tightly around his knees, trembling with fear and exhaustion.

Y/N sat beside him, drawing in slow, uneven breaths.

Bee’s voice hummed from the small speaker inside the container, low and quiet, as though afraid to disturb the air around them.

“You’re safe.”

A pause, soft static.

“I promise. I won’t let them find you.”

She didn’t know why those words eased her chest, but they did. Even as her apartment lay in ruins behind her.

Even as her life collapsed in a matter of minutes.

She believed Bumblebee. She trusted him.

And she didn’t know why.

By the time they reached the Himalayas, Y/N’s entire body felt like one bruised heartbeat. Cold stung every inch of exposed skin. Bee drove carefully through the narrow mountain roads, headlights low to avoid detection, tires crunching against frost-covered gravel.

David huddled deeper into his borrowed jacket, teeth chattering uncontrollably. “If…. if I get through this,” he said between shivers, “I’m raising my labor rates by forty percent.”

Bee responded with a jitter of static.

“I will pay whatever you want. Just. Please don’t die. Humans dying makes me… anxious.”

“You’re anxious?” David sputtered, turning toward the dash as if it could glare back. “I’m a mechanic! I’m not built for alien warfare!”

Bee whimpered in agreement, steering carefully around a winding bend.

And then, as they rounded the corner, shadows broke away from the cliffs.

Not shadows.

Giants.

Optimus Prime stepped forward first, an immense figure of cobalt and deep red, illuminated faintly by the thin mountain moonlight. Every step he took vibrated through the ground, but his gaze, steady and ancient, held no threat, only recognition and purpose.

Behind him, the rest of the Autobots emerged: Arcee with her lithe, sharp-edged silhouette; Wheeljack sparking lightly as he fiddled with something on his forearm; Ironhide looming at the rear like a metal fortress.

David went completely still.

“This is it,” he whispered hoarsely. “We’re about to be vaporized.”

Before Y/N could respond, Bee transformed so quickly he nearly stumbled over his own footing, planting himself between them and the towering forms like a frantic guard dog.

His radio sputtered with anxious static. “Boss—sir—Prime— I brought humans— they’re mine— I mean not mine— they helped— I panicked— I’m sorry—”

Optimus regarded him with the weary patience of someone who had known Bumblebee a long time.

“You did well,” Prime said, voice resonant and calm, like the rumble of distant mountains.

Bee sagged with visible relief.

Wheeljack peered down at the humans. “Huh. Squishy.”

Ironhide snorted. “And small.”

David clung to Y/N’s sleeve, voice breaking. “I want to go home.”

Y/N didn’t look away from the colossal warriors. “We… don’t have one anymore.”

Optimus knelt, lowering himself to their level without haste, without threat. The cold mountain air hummed around them, and his face, metal and light, etched with centuries, softened.

“You are under our protection now,” he said. “Both of you.”

Y/N hadn’t realized how hard she was shaking until Bee gently nudged a thick tarp toward her with the edge of his foot, as though afraid to startle her by moving too fast.

David exhaled shakily and dropped onto a nearby stone. “I was supposed to have a normal week,” he muttered. “Groceries. Laundry. Maybe catch up on that show I keep missing. Not… this.”

Bee crouched beside them, trying to look smaller than he was, an impossible task for something so massive, but the attempt alone softened the air around them.

His voice crackled gently.

“I’m sorry.”

Another flicker of static.

“I never wanted to ruin your life.”

Y/N pulled the tarp closer around her shoulders, her breath fogging in the cold night air. “You didn’t ruin it,” she said quietly. “You saved it. That matters.”

Bee’s optics brightened, a soft glow of warmth in the cold mountain shadows.

“Thank you.”

The exhaustion finally hit her then — heavy, unrelenting — and she lay back against the stone, David beside her, Bee keeping vigil a few feet away with a low, protective hum.

Sleep tugged at her, heavy and unkind, and she let herself fall into it.

Tim Drake didn’t notice anything was wrong at first.

It wasn’t unusual for him to fall off the face of the earth for a while, at least, not in the social sense. He had a way of slipping into tunnels of focus where time became elastic and days stretched together, indistinguishable except for the color of the coffee he was drinking. He’d disappear into case files for hours that turned into days, or stay awake through a string of stakeouts that blurred into insomnia, or lose himself in a coding frenzy until his entire reality narrowed to a blue-lit screen and the throbbing pulse behind his eyes.

Y/N knew this. She’d always known this.

She teased him about it constantly. Threatened to file a missing persons report if he ignored more than three memes, scolded him for his abysmal response times, and sent him dramatic GIFs of abandoned lovers on sinking ships whenever he forgot to text back. But she never actually stopped sending things. Her messages came in little bursts throughout the week: a photo of her lunch, a rant about someone cutting her in line at the store, a blurry cat that reminded her of Damian, a joke she thought Tim would appreciate even if he didn’t see it until three days later. They were small artifacts of her life, and even if he didn’t respond immediately, she always assumed he would eventually.

Which was why, when Tim finally opened his messages after nearly two weeks of burying himself in work, he felt a familiar guilt pinch somewhere deep in his chest, guilt, but not fear, not yet — as he saw the backlog of everything he’d missed.

He scrolled slowly, giving each message a little more attention than usual, as if making up for the delay through care. A photo of a street vendor selling ridiculous hats. A three-paragraph rant about her neighbor’s terrible cooking smells. A meme that made him snort even though he was alone. A picture of two mismatched socks and the caption, “tell me why laundry hates me.” All of it so distinctly her.

Then he reached the end.

The last message was from twelve days ago, a picture of her grocery cart filled with vegetables, frozen dumplings, and instant ramen, accompanied by: “Tim look at me being an adult (barely)”

He blinked at the timestamp. Then he scrolled again, as if expecting more to appear.

Nothing.

He refreshed the screen, still nothing.

Y/N always sent something even if he didn’t.

Even if he was busy, or unreachable, or drowning in work, she never let the line go slack. She always nudged it, tugged it, threw something across the distance—just enough to remind him she was still there.

But this time, the line was silent. Very silent.

He called her.

The phone rang once before going to voicemail. He didn’t think much of it. Maybe she was out, maybe her battery died, maybe she was talking off everyone’s ears at David’s garage, or lost in some book she refused to let anyone interrupt.

He tried again that night, straight to voicemail.

He told himself it was fine.

He tried the next morning.

No answer.

It wasn’t until the fourth day, after he realized he’d called her twelve times without consciously deciding to, that something sharp and cold settled beneath his ribs. It wasn’t panic, not yet, but it was something heavier than worry. A quiet, creeping weight that whispered This isn’t normal.

His own voicemails filled her inbox: the first casual, the next mildly concerned, the most recent ones clipped at the edges, strained in a way he hadn’t let himself acknowledge.

Still nothing.

No message. No call. 

No, “sorry, phone died.”

No, “lol I was busy.”

No, “I’m alive, leave me alone.”

Nothing. Silence.

Something in him tightened, and before he could think too hard about it, he pulled up another number and pressed call.

Dick answered on the second ring.

Blüdhaven apartment buildings always carried the same bouquet of unpleasant scents: mildew that never quite washed out of the walls, old carpet cleaner, reheated takeout, and the faint metallic tang of water lines older than Dick himself. He’d walked this hallway a dozen times before, each visit familiar in its own shabby way.

But tonight, something was wrong.

The air felt… stagnant. Like everything had stopped breathing. The lights buzzed overhead with a dim, uneven flicker, casting thin shadows that stretched across the walls in long, nervous shapes. Dick slowed as he reached Y/N’s door, expecting to knock and hear her shuffling around inside, maybe muttering about him arriving unannounced.

He didn’t expect the door to be ajar.

Not gently. Not the accidental kind left when someone was juggling groceries.

It hung crooked in the frame, angled downward as though shouldered open by something that didn’t care about hinges or locks. Splintered wood framed the latch; pale, raw, ugly, fanned outward in sharp fragments that still clung to the doorknob.

A breath slipped out of him, thin and quiet.

“…Y/N?” he tried, voice low, cautious, tasting the way it disappeared into the silence.

His fingers pressed against the door, nudging it wider. It swung inward with a tired groan.

The smell hit him first; not blood, not smoke, but the stale, unsettled scent of a home violently disturbed. Like something large had moved through too fast, leaving the air unsettled in its wake.

Then he saw the living room.

And for a moment, Dick forgot how to breathe.

It didn’t look like a person had broken in. It didn’t look like someone had rummaged through her belongings.

It looked like a hurricane had been unleashed inside four walls.

The couch was flipped onto its back, cushions gutted and strewn across the carpet in ragged, cotton-filled heaps. The coffee table was split clean down the center, halves pushed in opposite directions as though shoved with inhuman strength. Her bookshelf leaned against the wall at a precarious angle, half its shelves emptied by force, pages torn out and scattered in heaps, fluttering slightly in the draft from the broken window.

Glass glittered along the kitchen tile like spilled ice. A plate had shattered against the far wall; porcelain pieces clung to it like flecks of snow. The coat rack was snapped. The lamp near her desk was bent in half.

This wasn’t chaos.

This was violence.

Dick stepped inside with careful, deliberate movements, boots crunching over debris. His heart thudded harder with each step as he scanned the room. His eyes tracked corners, shadows, the rise and fall of curtains, listening for breath, for movement, for anything that meant she was still here. Still alive.

Nothing answered him back.

He moved toward the hallway, and that was when he saw it, a dark smear across the plaster, streaked downward in a hand-length arc. Thick. Drying. Dark enough that his stomach twisted sharply.

For one awful second, he felt weightless.

He swallowed hard, dragging a breath into his lungs because the room suddenly felt too small, too close, too wrong.

He reached for his phone, fingers steady though he didn’t feel steady at all.

Tim picked up on the second ring.

“Tim,” Dick said quietly, never taking his eyes off the broken home around him, “you need to get here.”

He didn’t explain. There was no way to explain this over the phone. And Tim didn’t need further detail, not with the way Dick’s voice had thinned.

Dick ended the call, lowered his hand, and stood alone in the wreckage of Y/N’s apartment, the silence pressing in like a second set of walls.

He had seen a lot in Blüdhaven. But nothing like this. Nothing made the night feel this hollow.

Nothing made him feel, for the first time in a long time, scared.

Tim reached Blüdhaven in a time that made Dick mutter something about physics not applying to the Drake family. He didn’t slow down as he crossed the hallway; he barely acknowledged Dick before stepping inside the apartment.

He froze mid-step.

Nothing in his expression shifted, but Dick felt the moment it hit him, a subtle tightening in Tim’s shoulders, a stillness that seeped into the room like cold water. The destruction was impossible to soften or rationalize: the couch overturned and gutted, cushions torn to ribbons; her bookshelf collapsed, half its novels ripped open and strewn across the floor like wounded birds; mugs shattered into glittering pieces; a framed photo smashed face-down, the glass fractured like a spiderweb.

Tim scanned the room with an eerie calm, not dispassion but something far more brittle, focus sharpened to a knife’s edge, the kind used when emotions would only get in the way. He moved slowly, methodically, as though cataloging every wrong thing.

He reached her desk; snapped legs, drawers tossed, papers trampled. He reached her couch; ripped seams, stuffing scattered like snow. He reached the far corner—

And then he saw it.

Her phone lay near the kitchen door, half-buried under torn fabric and broken plastic. The screen flickered weakly, the glow stuttering like a dying heartbeat.

Tim’s breath stilled.

He crouched, lifting it carefully, as if it were something fragile. The screen flickered to life long enough to display her notifications.

Missed calls.

Dozens.

Most from him.

Dick stepped closer, placing a tentative hand on Tim’s shoulder. “Hey… we’ll figure this out. But let’s not jump to conclusions. Blüdhaven’s been dealing with gang issues again. This could be—”

“A break-in doesn’t look like this,” Tim murmured, staring at the cracked screen. “This wasn’t random.”

Dick hesitated. “We… should loop Jason in.”

Tim didn’t object. He just nodded once; short, precise, like flipping a switch.

Dick dialed Jason first. He stepped toward the hallway to take the call, voice low as he explained, “It looks bad. Tim’s here. We need you.”

Jason didn’t even let him finish.

“I’m already across the river,” he said. “Give me ten.”

Dick hung up and returned to Tim, who had coaxed the dying screen just enough to open her voicemail folder. The phone strained, flickered, then finally surrendered to the request.

A list appeared, all from one caller:

David.

Dick swallowed. “Play them.”

Tim did.

David’s voice filled the devastated room, thin and strained but trying, at first, to sound normal.

Voicemail — 6:41 PM “Hey, Y/N. You home? Something weird’s going on at the garage. Bee’s acting strange, keeps making these… noises. Just, uh, call me when you can.”

His tone wavered with confusion, no panic yet, just concern.

Dick lifted a brow at the mention of “Bee,” but said nothing.

Voicemail — 6:55 PM “Y/N, could you text me? Bee’s reading something out there. I don’t know what. He says it’s close. Just… please call me. You’re probably fine, I just—yeah, call.”

His voice trembled under forced calm, like someone trying to convince himself nothing was wrong.

Tim pressed the phone closer to his ear.

Voicemail — 7:01 PM “Okay, seriously, now I’m worried. Bee says whatever’s moving is big. And fast. He’s never wrong about these things. Just tell me you’re awake. Or home. Or something. Y/N, please pick up.”

The edges of fear crept into his tone.

Dick and Tim exchanged a look, the kind shared when both knew something was spiraling out of control.

Voicemail — 7:07 PM This message began with noise, a metallic crash echoing behind David, followed by frantic footsteps and the brief, shaky rustle of the phone being fumbled.

His breathing was sharp, uneven.

“Y/N, listen, something’s in your building. I don’t know what it is. Bee’s tracking it floor by floor. You need to move. Don’t go near the hallway. Don’t look out the door. Just move. Now.”

There was no mistaking the fear in his voice now. It wasn’t theoretical or cautious anymore; it was raw.

Voicemail — 7:10 PM Gunshots cracked in the background; sharp, echoing pops that made Dick and Tim both stiffen instinctively. Someone shouted something unintelligible behind David.

“Y/N, get out. I’m serious. Go to the fire escape. Don’t take anything—just move. Bee says it’s almost...”

A sudden thud cut him off, followed by scuffling sounds, muffled cursing—

And then the line went dead.

The voicemail ended abruptly.

The call log showed the rest: thirty-two missed calls. No messages. No words.

Just desperate redialing, again and again and again, all within minutes.

Then nothing.

Footsteps approached long before Jason appeared—heavy, deliberate, unmistakably his —the kind of stride that announced itself without apology. A shadow passed across the hallway light, and a second later, Jason stepped through the broken doorway, helmet tucked under his arm and irritation already etched into his features.

His expression didn’t stay that way for long.

The moment his eyes settled on the wreckage, the annoyance drained, replaced by something far sharper. His posture shifted, shoulders locking, jaw tightening. He took in the overturned furniture, the shredded cushions, the collapsed bookshelf, the broken glass, the stains on the wall—every detail catalogued at a glance.

“Jesus,” he muttered under his breath. “You weren’t exaggerating.”

Dick gave a short, grim nod. “We hoped it was gang-related. Something simple. But nothing about this fits.”

Jason stepped deeper into the apartment, moving slowly, like someone walking into a battlefield after the smoke cleared. He crouched near the deepest gouge in the wall, fingers brushing lightly along the torn plaster. The cut wasn’t clean. It wasn’t shaped like a blade or a crowbar. It looked… wrong. As if something had torn straight through with a force most humans couldn’t muster.

“No gang did this,” Jason said after a moment. The quiet certainty in his voice sounded almost heavy. “Not their style. Not their patterns. And no human hits walls this hard unless they’re juiced up on something unnatural.”

Dick watched him carefully. “That’s what we thought.”

Jason stood again, dusting off his gloves. “You two clearly know something else. Spill.”

Tim didn’t answer right away. He was standing near the kitchen doorway, the cracked phone still in his hand, his thumb tapping against the edge of the shattered case in a steady rhythm that betrayed the tension beneath his stillness.

Dick exchanged a glance with him before speaking. “We heard the voicemails she got. They paint a picture… but not one that makes sense.”

Jason’s eyes flicked between them. “And you didn’t play them for me why?”

“Because,” Tim said quietly, “you don’t need to hear someone panic for fifteen minutes when they’re trying —and failing —to reach her alive.”

Jason’s expression softened, barely. “Alright. Fair enough. What do we know?”

Tim lifted the ruined phone slightly, as if that alone were the answer.

“Her friend David was calling nonstop,” Tim explained. “Something happened at his garage. Something he couldn’t explain. He warned her that there was movement in her building. Something big. Something that wasn’t human.”

Jason’s eyebrows lifted. Slowly. Not because he doubted them, but because the alternative explanations were all worse.

“And she didn’t pick up,” Jason murmured.

“No,” Tim said. “Not once.”

Jason blew out a slow breath, all traces of sarcasm or annoyance gone now. His voice dropped an octave, the tone he used when things were personal.

“Alright,” he said. “Then we don’t leave this alone. Not until we know what happened, and not until we bring her back.”

Tim nodded once. “We will.”

The conviction in those two words made Jason straighten. Made Dick’s eyes sharpen with determination.

Dick exhaled, steadying himself. “First step is finding David. And figuring out who — or what — ‘Bee’ is.”

Jason grimaced. “Bee? Who the hell is Bee?”

“We don’t know,” Dick admitted. “But David said the name more than once.”

“Then we track him,” Jason said. “Both of them.”

Tim slipped the cracked phone carefully into his jacket, the motion so gentle it looked like he was handling something precious.

“Then let’s go.”

The three of them moved out of the shattered apartment together, slipping into the dim hallway like shadows sharpening into purpose. Their footsteps echoed in unison — a dark rhythm that spoke of urgency, of fear, of resolve.

None of them knew what had taken her.

Not yet.

But they would.

Even if it meant tearing through Blüdhaven inch by inch. Even if it meant stepping into something bigger, stranger, more dangerous than anything they’d seen before.

They would find Y/N.

And whoever had taken her was about to regret ever touching someone the Batfamily cared about.

A/N: I feel like this could be another multi-fic story that I have no business starting

Character Profiles Here:

Y/N: 23 yrs old

Tim Drake: 23 yrs old

David: 23 yrs old

Jason Todd: 26 yrs old

Dick Grayson: 28 yrs old

Damian Wayne: 19 yrs old (idk in any story I feel weird writing about kids unless it's specific to the story - it makes me feel ugh)

The voice that accompanies it is mellow, deep and harmonic despite the annoyance in tone. “Look, it’s too early in the day for this. So do me a favor and just cooperate.”

Blue hair. Eyepatch. Pupils in the shape of a four-pointed star. Fluffy scarf.

You don’t know if you want to laugh or cry because Kaeya Alberich is standing in front of you with a scowl and irritation apparent in his voice. On one hand, this could very well be your salvation if you played your cards right. On another, Kaeya may just be one of the many characters you wish to never be with in this circumstance.

He doesn’t even bother to look at you, gaze scanning through a folder poised in his grasp. Kaeya just sits across from you in the once vacant seat, and you feel queasiness dance in your stomach.

“I am the Cavalry Captain of the Knights of Favonius. You are currently detained for suspicious behavior, according to reports.”

He sounds so monotone– uninterested and exasperated. It’s not at all like the Kaeya you’re used to seeing. Typically, he’s playful and sly which leans into the trickster role most players know him for. Just like everything you’ve experienced thus far, you’re stuck in a state of liminality. You’re teetering between the recognizable and the unknown.

It fills you with dread because you’re acutely aware that you have no understanding of the Kaeya before you.

“It says you entered Mondstadt this morning. When questioned for identification, you were unable to procure any documentation.” He raises a brow pointedly. “You claimed you had memory loss and came to the city for answers after seeing it from the forest you woke up in the northeast of the city– which would be the Whispering Woods. Is that all?”

You nervously blink, “Uh, yes?”

He throws the folder haphazardly onto the table. His actions are very unlike him. This Kaeya doesn’t seem to hide behind any carefree or cunning façade. He’s supposed to be somewhat refined, not at all openly aggressive. You expect him to play you like a fiddle, manipulate you into giving him the answers he wants behind coy smiles and faked enthusiasm. But he isn’t, and it’s making your skin crawl.

“I’m surprised they even put you up for interrogation,” he scoffs, “if it were me, you would’ve been killed on the spot.”

You freeze. “Excuse me?”

This is definitely not Kaeya. You tell yourself he mustn’t be. If he were, he wouldn’t actually hurt someone so suddenly. He didn’t even attack the traveler the first time they appeared, so why would he kill you out of the blue?

He clicks his tongue. “Don’t play dumb.”

Except you aren’t. You’re busy trying to reason out Kaeya’s shift in behavior.

He’s not supposed to be hostile– to a powerless civilian, at least. You have no way of protecting yourself, and you don’t have a vision or weapon. You pose no major threat, given you were easily detained; you don’t possess any valuable information that he could want either.

His earlier statement seemed personal, however. If it were up to him, you would’ve already been dead. He hasn’t done anything yet because something is stopping him, and he’s pissed about it.

You take a deep breath and decide to weigh your options. Your first option is to tell the entire truth about your understanding of the world you’ve found yourself in, and you’re not so sure what benefits that could give you. What you do know is that he could possibly take it as an excuse and send you to a worse fate than being sent to a video game.

The second option is, well, to play dumb. Answer all his questions while concealing the fact that you’re not from Teyvat. Truthful but not completely honest. Honestly, it’s your best bet. It’s the only choice you have that has an opportunity for a brighter outcome. You bite your lip, carefully picking the words about to come out of your mouth.

“I really have no idea what you’re talking about.”

You meet his sharp gaze, and a fury burns behind his pupil. It takes a lot in you not to quiver when the chair from under him squeaks against the floor as he abruptly stands. Kaeya’s strides are slow, his heels clicking against the stone floor. He rounds the corner over to you; your heart drums with his every step.

When you look up at him, you find the devil standing in front of you. The space between you two is only an arm’s length. A bitter laugh escapes his lips. “Who do you think you’re kidding, huh?

“First, the traveler disappears without a trace. No one can contact them, not even that damn dragon.” What? “Then you show up within our walls, wearing their face. You have to know what you’re doing. Just what are you pests planning?” Whose face is he talking about? What does he mean by “pests?”

A burning pain spreads across your scalp, causing you to cry out. His hand has come to pull at your hair, forcing your head into an uncomfortable bend. Fear twists its way to your neck in the form of Kaeya’s palm pressing against your throat. Just a little more pressure and he could restrict your airflow completely.

“I don’t care if you’re involved with them or mocking us, I don’t think you’re leaving this room alive.”