Chapter Text
Twenty to Three on a Gotham rooftop, a phone is found by Batman.
His attention had been brought to it by the sound of a clatter.
When he had investigated the noise he found the phone screen down on the edge of the roof. Yet there’s not a soul around who could have dropped it.
Looking down shows an empty street and around shows no places for someone to hide on the roof he stands.
Had it been thrown?
Picking up the phone for further inspection shows that the device itself is an older model, not so old it would be unusable but old enough that it would be a cheap and easy to buy phone. However it is not the model that catches the mans inspecting gaze.
The phones been modified with a few things that civilians wouldn’t normally need. An antenna sticks out of the headphone jack on the top, from the bottom right speaker he can see wires poking out and the back has a panel screwed and taped on. A quick job that looks amateurly done. But done well enough that it should work for some goal.
Pressing the home button gets no response from the phone and the power button gives just as much. It’s either broken or dead.
For now he tucks it into a pocket to inspect further later as chatter comes from his comms and he moves on with his patrol.
—————
A little over three hours later, back at the cave after patrols have come to a close for the night now turned morning. The phone is set down by the computer where Tim as Red Robin works on a case he’s been handling without rest.
Jason, still dressed as Red Hood, is standing nearby bothering him and Steph, Duke and Damien are milling about doing their own thing around the cave.
The phone catches Tim’s eye when it’s set down near him. He decides to try and take a little break from looking at the computer screen just to piss Jason off a little bit more.
He’s been trying to get onto the computer for the past twenty minutes now and Tim’s sure he’s about to be steaming with impatients
”what’s that?” Tim asked as Bruce went to find a charger for the odd phone. He isn’t given a response so he picks the phone up and inspects it himself. Taking mental notes of its oddities, they would not need a phone like this, he hasn’t seen any of their rouges with a device similar and anyone he can really think of needing it wouldn’t have been on Batman’s route last patrol.
“it’s not one of ours.” He muses mostly to himself while pressing the power button. Nothing happens.
”I found it on a roof, it didn’t seem to belong there.” Bruce responds tightly after finally returning with a cord and portable power bank. Tim takes the items and plugs the phone in.
”can you get off the computer already, I’ve got better things to do then be here.” Jason snarks from beside the pair as Tim fiddles with the phone. The phone makes a charging noise but the screen stays black.
”You can always leave, not like you have to stay here.” Tim tries the power button again as he speaks only to be met with nothing. Maybe the screen is broken, he could try plugging it into a laptop and get its data like that.
He turns in the computer chair without getting up, he knows he has a laptop that’s disconnected from the network around here somewhere.
“You’re really starting to get on my nerves with this shit.” Tim ignores Jason and instead looks for the laptop he had tucked away over here just incase.
He finds the laptop he was looking for and starts plugging the phone in.
“don’t ignore me, shithead!” Like a toddler throwing a tantrum Jason grabs the phone that Tim had just set down.
Bruce is about to step in when it looks like a fight may happen only for the phone to vibrate and start up with a green swirl animation that’s turning counter clockwise to the edges of the screen until it’s one color of electric green.
Tim stands to get a better look at it and Jason takes the chance to steal the computer. Leaving the phone dropped into Tim’s hands.
Tim frowns at the older before turning to the phone over only to find it black screened again.
The screen had worked when Jason had held it, yet it doesn’t when Tim or Bruce hold it.
It doesn’t even show up on the laptop he has it plugged into.
Tim looks at the phone, at the laptop then at Jason who’s typing something on the Bat computers keyboard.
He has a theory to test.
”Hey, hold this.” Tim shoves the phone into Jason’s hand and quickly turns to the laptop as the phone boots up and as Jason yells at him about being annoying. But the older continues to hold the phone as it plays the non standard animation.
The phone pops up on the laptop just after the device fully turns on.
Both Jason and Bruce are now looking over his shoulder at the computer then at the phone still in Jason’s hand.
The Home Screen is a picture of a star filled sky with evergreen trees and snow below. It shows the time and date and has no password or pin needed when Jason swipes up on the screen.
Going through the phone is rather easy as theres virtually no security on it.
Well. There’s none at all other than the phone only turns on when a certain criteria is met. Which Jason somehow met.
Not that the phone seems to need security as there isn’t much on it.
Its usage started just about four months ago, the first thing being done on it was a few phone calls all to various numbers that aren’t linked to any phones in active usage.
No calls are answered none have been received either.
After that the owner had sent what was either coded texts or keyboard smashes to the same numbers they called only for the texts to not go through. There isn’t much else in the phone until Tim opens the phones Gallery from the computer.
There they are met with hundreds of photos and videos.
The first few photos are blurry and shots of random things somewhat low to the ground on the street of Gotham, they are more than likely mistakenly taken photos.
After those is the first video in the gallery. The thumbnail is of a watery blue eye that takes up most of the screen the rest of the screen is taken up with pale skin mottled with light freckles and dirt.
They play the video.
It starts with a split second of that eye before the phone is lowered to show the front of the persons hoodie as they set the phone against something.
Sniffles and heavy breaths make it known that the person has been crying. When the phone is set up the person sits back into frame show that the phones owner off a very young child alone in what looks like a dusty store room with a pile of first aid supplies next to them.
The child themselves seems to be a pale five to seven years old, young boy with blue eyes and raven black haired.
His face is contorted in barely contained frustration and his cheeks are wet with already shed tears.
Tim can hear Jason say something about adoption bait from next to him.
The kid is dressed in a dark gray hoodie, black athletic shorts and dirty gray sneakers. The hoodie is much to big for him and there’s and illegible logo on the front that’s faded and stained from use.
Something about the video is unsettling and Tim can tell it’s the same for Bruce and Jason who are now watching the video from besides him.
The video continues with the kid lifting the front of his hoodie with a hiss of pain.
Tim sees the way both men on either side him tense. He doesn’t blame them since his own body is doing the same as he sees what lays underneath the kids hoodie.
Bandages, scars and cuts, and lots of them. But that isn’t the worst part, the worst is the long vertical wound that runs along the boys navel, running up further underneath bandages which in turn run further underneath the hoodie that isn’t pulled all the way off, just held up in the kids teeth as he starts to try and apply bandages to the deep wound that sluggishly bleeds. It doesn’t show much signs of healing but it doesn’t seem to be bleeding all that much.
The kids little hands-god he’s so young- struggle with the bandages and medical tape, they fold on themselves or just won’t comply with what the kid -a really wounded kid- wants.
The kid gets more and more frustrated before just bursting into tears. He sobs nonsense words with the hoodie in his mouth for a moment before dropping it and saying something about how his sister would have known what to do and that he wishes he could just go home.
He lets a few sobs rattle his little body -definitely on the younger side of the estimation- before he inhales a deep breath, steels himself. Only sniffles once more then applies the bandage, sticks it with tape then retrieves the phone.
The video ends with a shot of the kids tear stained face looking off screen.
Things are quiet for a while before Steph speaks up from behind them. “So is he like auditioning for the next Wayne kid or something?” Tim turns to settle her with a stare rivaling the patented bat-glare before immediately turning back to the laptop to get more data. Behind him all of those who were in the cave are now watching the situation unfold.
Bruce is already getting Oracle to find anything she can on the kid.
Tim hears her voice in his own comms as he gets all that he can on the video.
“already running his face through my recognition software, B.” Babs’ voice is the background music to him reading over the details from the video, no location active on the phone when the video was taken but it’s time stamped to have been taken a week after the phone had been used to make those calls and texts.
“I’ve got several videos from surveillance cameras in Burnley and Crime Alley that flagged for the kids face, oldest is about five months old, most recent was just over three hours ago.” Babs says as the videos appear on the Bat computer.
The oldest video shows the young boy wondering the streets in just his hoodie, no shoes, just socks too big for his feet. He looks lost and confused, the way he moves lets them know he was likely already hurt at that point.
The next few videos show the kid either alone or with a small group of older kids. He always looks a little apprehensive or upset. But he’s usually just passing the cameras before disappearing off screen before the next one can catch a glimpse.
Babs also sent a video of the kid running from around the corner of a building holding his nose as it gushes blood down the front of his hoodie, he runs off screen towards the edge of Burnley that leads closer to the Bowery.
”from what I can tell he has no known identification I can find or parents on file, he doesn’t match any missing children reports either.” Her keyboard sounds over the line. “The kids he is seen around though were suspected to have been part of a drug ring we recently took out that was based in Old Gotham but they all weren’t in the area when the bust happened. Most of them were runners for the ring.” Drugs? Would some dealer do this or maybe someone higher than that. Maybe the kid was used to conceal something through customs based on that injury. With how there’s no missing persons report he may have been sold or trafficked from out of state. Maybe out of the country.
Tim is distracted from his thoughts by the sharp exhale from Jason. He can feel the anger boiling off of the man, he doesn’t even need to see his face to know.
“You said he’s in The Alley?” His voice is sharp and clipped.
“Possibly, he’s really good about avoiding cameras but I do have more clips of him in Burnley than I do of him in The Alley.” Babs says and it does little to nothing of easing the rising anger in the man.
The most recent video of the kid plays showing him jogging through the streets towards the edge of old Gotham he’s pretty far from the usual places he had been seen. Bruce says something about this being right after he found the phone and right around where he found it. The kid looked scared runs a while before disappearing from any camera view. He reappears on a camera in Burnley much too soon for someone to have walked or even run, looking tired and limping with each step. He turns into an alley way and disappears from view again.
“That alleys a dead end and he hasn’t emerged since the video was taken.” Babs speaks over comms again.
“do you think he’s still there? I can look when I go out for my patrol. I’ll even leave early.” Duke speaks already dressed in his costume.
Bruce finally looks away from the security footage of the kid he somehow managed to miss on a rooftop just to look at his own collection of kids.
He can only muster a Batman patented grunt in response.
They need to make sure this kid is okay.