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WHEN: New Years' Night.
WHERE: Miscellaneous rooftops and alleyways.
WHAT: Tim goes on patrol.
WHO: Red Robin, Artemis, and anyone else who prowls the roofs at night is welcome to join.

The snow was starting to melt. It made running around on the rooftops a little warmer, but a lot more dangerous. That was probably part of the appeal. Tim still made nightly patrols, but they'd gotten shorter and shorter for months now -- after Jason left; after Cass vanished... crime wasn't high enough on the island for there to be much of a point. Maybe once a week, he stopped a mugging, but other than that, it had become just a quick, hour-long prowl, exercise and training and looking out to see if anything newer and stranger had taken over the island.

For the last week, he'd been out three or four hours every night. It wasn't that he needed to clear his head. Or at least, it wasn't just that.

There was someone else out here too -- and whoever it was didn't answer on the radio frequencies he shared with Steph and Torchwood. So every night, he made another try at this little game of cat and mouse -- bat and bird? -- trying to get a closer look.

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She'd considered not patrolling. The crime rate seemed pretty low, it wasn't like this place needed her, and she wasn't planning on staying. Getting a job was a necessity.

But she couldn't stay away long. She excused it with needing to keep her fitness up, the same reason she went on runs in the park carrying twenty pounds on her back. She excused it with needing to stay sharp so she wouldn't be behind her team when she got back. But what it boiled down to, even if she didn't like thinking about it, was that she needed to remind herself that she was one of the good guys. Here, back home, wherever she ended up.

One of the good guys.

So here she was, out again despite the quiet, crouched on a rooftop. She had been considering whether to pack it in for the night or not, but then she'd heard the noise. Someone else on rooftops, in the middle of the night? She spun around and raised her bow, string taut.

"Who is it?"

"I think that's my question."

Tim slides out of the shadows to her side, the black kevlar-reinforced leather of his cape draped around him, hiding most of the red in his costume. He says a silent thank-you to Bruce for all the practice he's had with this trick.

"You're new," he says. Not a question.

She spins again and backs up. He could make the distance easily, still, but she'd have let the arrow go by then. Artemis' first instinct had it aimed at his throat, but she lowers it slowly for his central chest. Bone or not, blunt arrow or not, it would still hurt like hell.

"Maybe. You're way too young to be Batman." But that's definitely a costume that's - Batman-esque. She can't think of anyone else in the Justice League who dresses like that.

"If you'd been here long, I would have seen you before now."

He pauses. Smiles a little. She's not aiming to kill. That doesn't mean she's on the up and up, but it makes him a little more trusting. Just a little. He holds up his hands, palms out, to show that he's unarmed.

"You don't much look like the Green Arrow, either."

"So you've been here a while."

She lowers the bow slowly, but he's seen her reaction time. It can be up again as fast as she wants it to. She knows for a superhero being unarmed doesn't even remotely equal not being dangerous.

"No." She frowns. "Who are you? You're not Justice League."

"Red Robin," he says, shortly. "You?"

He hadn't thought he would react quite this... territorially. But Batman's standards are a little hard to overcome. New Moore is, on some level, his city. He needs to know who he's working with. Not... not that he has a right to stop her. He's seen how that went with Steph. He knows better than to claim authority. But the terse, intimidating persona is still hard to get away from.

She can't say Artemis. She'd never really expected to give out her name - criminals didn't need it, and with her team using her real name was just easier and it didn't matter - none of them were going to accidentally stumble across her in Gotham. (Except for Robin, and even that was a one-time thing so far.) Stall, she thinks. Stall.

"Red Robin? Isn't that name taken already?"

"Batman's not keen on sharing that kind of information," he says, and then, generously, relents. She's not accusing him. Her body language says defensive, combative, moreso than a moment ago. He can think of a few reasons why that might be.

"Let's just say there's more than one bat-kid in the belfry," he offers. That shouldn't tell her anything she doesn't know.

But she does know something about Robin. Some Robin, anyway. And he's never heard of her. Huh.

"No there isn't." She says it warily but firmly, taking another step back. "I work with him. There is definitely only one Robin, and he's way younger than you."

There is something really off about this. Is it another time thing, like not matching with the other two Gotham-ites? Whatever it is, it's probably not good.

"One Robin," he says, visibly startled. And now convinced of his private theory. Hair, skin tone, offset timeline, recent arrival. Only one answer.

"Artemis," he says after a moment. "For the Greek goddess? Appropriate, I guess."

She scowls. He hadn't even needed a name to go on. One of these days she should get a full body costume with a full cowl and just glare at people when they asked who she was. Batman did it.

"It was my mother's choice," she says. "Is this a timeline thing again?"

"Maybe. Might be more complicated. If you only know about one Robin, I know who you mean -- and I know everyone he worked with. I don't recognize you. So either he's better at keeping secrets than I am at cracking them--" his tone of voice makes it clear that this is incredibly unlikely, in his opinion -- a bit of arrogance that sounds less like Batman and more like the Robin she knows -- "Or something unusual is going on. Given the island..."

Sort of a foregone conclusion.

"It's something stupid and irritating," she finishes for him, and puts her bow back in the quiver. There's still her crossbow in easy reach, and she's beaten one Robin in hand-to-hand. This one's bigger and stronger, but that's mostly been a given in her training.

She rubs her forehead, an exercise in futility given the mask, and scowls. "Batman's keeping the team pretty quiet. I don't know, maybe we never come to light. Maybe we disband before anyone finds out about us." Maybe some of us die, she thinks, but doesn't voice it.

"Maybe," he says again. Obviously not convinced. She's not part of the Titans. The Outsiders? He thought he knew every line-up they'd fielded with Dick on the team... and when Dick joined, he was already Nightwing. Would Bruce really have hidden something like this from him?

More importantly, could Oliver Queen have possibly kept the existence of any sidekick hidden for long, even if she didn't last? That would be a real stretch.

"That's less important," he says after a moment. "What matters is that you're here, now. This island doesn't really need vigilante crimefighters. But it does need defenders. Detectives. People who will intervene when it pulls nastier tricks, and who will work to find out what it is that we're all doing here. Who's in charge, who's keeping us here.

"How to get home."

He lets that sink in for a moment.

"So. I've never heard of you. You've never heard of me. But we need to figure out if we can trust each other."

She shrugs, trying to dispel the queasy feeling in her stomach. She can't think of any good reasons he doesn't recognize her. The costume, that she can see herself ditching. Being a vigilante? Either she died, was irreparably crippled, or she did what her dad had always said she would. None of the options appeal to her.

"It doesn't matter," she says, forcing the fear out of her voice. "I'm from before you. Whatever happened to me doesn't affect you at all." Just her. "I don't know about trust, but I am working for the same goals you are. Getting home, mostly. If people need defending - that's kind of part of my job description. I'm willing to work with you."

Trust matters. At the moment, it matters to Tim because he's still trying this kinder, gentler, more open thing -- and because if they work together for more than a few weeks at most, she's going to figure out who he is. Being one black-haired kid in Gotham City is one thing. Being one black-haired Gothamite on New Moore... a little more conspicuous. But he doesn't want to share with her until he's sure.

"It's hard to operate as a free agent here," he says, instead, stalling. Thinking. "This kind of thing is meant to have a more substantial budget than we can handle. I know someone who might be able to help with that, at least a little... but they're going to want an evaluation. To know you're worth the security risk. Anything you can think of that would hyelp me convince them?"

"I don't think so." She says it as simply as she can. Her family certainly won't help. What is there, what does she know that will convince this strange Robin? "With the timeline - I'm new to the game. I could tell you the secret identities of Kid Flash, Miss Martian, Aqualad, and Superboy, but they aren't really mine to tell."

She pauses and looks at him. "At least not to a stranger. Because it's not just me that has to convince you I can be trusted. How do I know you're on the level? Just because you say you work with Batman doesn't mean you actually do." She can feel a headache oncoming again. "Bit of an impasse, I guess."

"Not so much," he says after a moment. That's not a line-up she could have worked with without him knowing about it. The timeline is all wrong, in any number of ways. Especially if she worked with Dick. And that means... alternate worlds, at a guess. There are more than enough to choose from.

It makes things more complicated, and less. Much less likely she was trying to trick him, somehow. No reason to make her story that complicated. And if she isn't willing to spill any details on M'gann or Kon... well. She'd be able to figure him out eventually, anyway.

He reaches up to pull off his hood, shrugging it down to his shoulders.

"Let's test your detective skills," he tells her. "Does this convince you I've worked with Batman?" Hee feels a little guilty -- he's essentially giving her Bruce's secret as well as his, not to mention Dick's... but building a team that can get everyone off this island is worth it.

There's a very long pause. Tim Drake-Wayne, huh? It made sense. There were only so many Gotham natives that she knew of in New Moore, after all, and it fit him following her better than any other explanation. But then - she frowned, thinking back. How interested he'd been in her knowing Dick.

Dick, who'd said We'll laugh about this someday, who smiled at her in the hallways like he already knew her. Who moved with the same assurance as Robin, if you were only looking for it. Who had become the ward of Bruce Wayne not long before Robin showed up. Bruce Wayne, richest man in the city and notorious socialite and - Batman. He was Batman. Holy shit.

"Yes," she says slowly. "Yes, I guess it does." She can't hold back her sudden laugh. "So that's what he meant. And the -" Shaking her head, she grins. "Your adopted brother is a troll. Sorry I can't do anything so dramatic to convince you. But I can promise I'll do whatever I can to help get everyone home."

"Not giving up M'gann and Kon to back your case was pretty convincing, actually," he tells her, with just the slightest smirk. Dick was a troll? They'd laugh about that, eventually. Whenever he saw Dick again. "though it convinced me of something else, too. It's not just our timelines that are messed up. Where I'm from, I'm the only Robin who's been on a team roster with Superboy and Miss Martian. The ages just don't match. If they do where you're from... I haven't worked much with alternate universes, but I'd bet that's what we're dealing with now."

"Everyone's entitled to a secret identity," she says. "But I guess you know theirs already after all."

She breathes a sigh of relief. "That's - actually really reassuring. If you were from my future, and - I wasn't there." She shrugs, uneasy. "Well, it's not the best thought."

Alternate universes, though, that's a weird one. There was an incident once that was rumored to be the Justice League from an alternate universe, but nobody ever figured out much about it and the Justice League didn't really talk about it. Alternate universes were a whole shenanigan-level up from the stuff her team dealt with.

Deals with. The stuff they deal with, present tense. "Okay, so, alternate universes. With that more or less out of the way - you said you work with someone, here? I don't need names, but I am interested in what you can safely tell me."

"Call it a group of concerned citizens, pooling resources. It doesn't hold a candle to the Justice League, but the island's Police Department is... compromised, at best. Their agenda is keeping things calm and under control. Ours is figuring out what's going on and keeping everyone safe. A database, a central HQ for storage and staging, a very slowly expanding bank account and a few people to network with... that's all we've got."

"You can count on whatever contribution I can offer," Artemis says. "It looks like I've got two jobs now and I may not need all the money for building my stuff if business is as slow as it seems. If it involves trying to get out of this place and back home, I'm in. There was - stuff back home. I have to get back. The sooner the better."

"I understand."

After a moment, he pulls his hood back on.

"Well. One mystery solved. How about a night-time tour of the island? I'd call it a patrol, but..."

"But there's nothing to beat up." Artemis shrugs. "I guess I should be thankful for that, but it's a weird idea."

She pulls out her crossbow and checks to make sure it's loaded with a grapple line.

"But yeah, that sounds fun. After you."

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