Gotham: No Man’s Land. Quarantined by a three mile demilitarized zone, and a military blockade. Home of the damned. The only place eleven-year-old secret peddler Tim Drake has ever known. Tim, like thousands of other orphaned and abandoned children, runs wild among the city. Watching, remembering, extrapolating. Learning. He barters for anything he needs with information. Innocuous facts, like where to find good fabric these days. Dangerous facts, like which crime lord’s lieutenants aren’t as loyal as they could be. Obscure facts, like how the dust settles in certain city lots after a banshee wind.

One day, though, Tim gets in over his head. He notices new people moving among his familiar streets, taking children, and he follows them. They lead him back to Ra’s al Ghul, who is not amused by his little spy.

“Tell me how you followed them, and I’ll let you live.”

Tim offers up a hollow imitation of smile. “A secret peddler who can be intimidated into giving free answers is dead anyway. I’d rather go quickly, thanks all the same.”

Ra’s looks over him, and something about Tim makes him smirk.

“But these answers may be bought?” Ra’s asks. Tim nods. Ra’s makes him an offer: anything, within reason, from beyond the blockade in return for an explanation. Tim considers this.

“A pomegranate,” he says, hazy child-memories of a nanny offering him a cupful of seeds rising to mind.

Ra’s looks at him, considering and strange. “It is done then. Explain.” And Tim does, and then disappears back into the city, never expecting Ra’s to return with payment. It was only the principle of the thing that made him demand pay- he had a reputation to protect. But he no more expected that pomegranate than he did the moon.

But Ra’s does return, with the pomegranate and another question. It becomes a pattern. Tim answers, Ra’s leaves, and returns with payment and another inquiry.

Tim knows Ra’s only as the Child Stealer, just as Ra’s only knows Tim as the Secret Peddler. Tim does work for Ra’s for almost a year, investigating his questions for barter goods.

The last question Ra’s comes to him with is also the largest: ‘Find me the people who keep the city from succumbing completely to chaos, and tell me everything about them.’

Tim does. It takes weeks, but he has Ra’s’ answer. Ra’s gives him his payment (A box of silk ribbons, salt, dried herbs, and a manual water filter) and disappears.

The next time Tim sees Ra’s, No Man’s Land is burning. Ra’s sweeps into Tim’s hidy-hole, and picks him up like he weighs nothing. (Which is very nearly true- Tim is barely four foot three, and weighs only 58 pounds.)

“It would be a waste to allow you to perish with the rest of this fallen city,” Ra’s tells him, pinning him easily despite his struggles. Tim is carried from the building, and Ra’s turns to look at the burning city.

“Beautiful,” Ra’s sighed, and Tim is horrified to realize he can see where Ra’s is coming from.

(This, I can already tell, is going to be That Fic which Ava requested last year. Shota isn’t nearly as bad as some of the other things I’ve written lately. My shame is completely gone.)