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Chapter Text

Maybe coming on this trip had been a mistake. 

Mokuba sighed as he scurried behind his brother, trying to keep up with his long-legged strides that ate up the airport concourses. Seto was in a foul mood. That wasn’t exactly a surprise. He’d seen it brewing all day. His brother had spent most of the flight poring over his laptop, scowling. He’d barely spoken, except to huff at every delay, and when they’d finally landed, he acted like he’d rather be anywhere besides Gotham. 

Mokuba wasn’t sure what he had hoped for. It was just that he hadn’t actually gone with Seto on many of his trips and, well, Gotham City. That was just cool, you know? Gotham was always in the news, the real news, not the gaming news. It had skyscrapers and sports teams and supervillains. Its museums were world-famous. It was on a completely different plane of coolness than Domino.   

 Not that Mokuba expected he’d actually see much of Gotham. He knew his brother well enough to know they’d just be shuttling from hotel rooms to conference rooms the entire trip, with maybe a ballroom or lounge thrown in. He’d be lucky if they even made it out to a regular restaurant, and not just room service or whatever the secretaries had ordered in. Sightseeing was probably right out. Seto wouldn’t want to take the time. 

“You know this is a business trip and not a vacation?” he’d asked when Mokuba had brought up the idea of checking out some of the museum exhibits. 

Yeah, he knew. Mokuba’d honestly been surprised Seto had suggested he come along. He hadn’t even brought up the days of school Mokuba would be missing, or the classwork. To be honest, he’d barely asked.He’d just bluntly told Mokuba he would be traveling to Gotham for a few days. “Roland tells me your schedule can accommodate the trip as well.”

Mokuba had blinked at him. “You mean, I’ll go with you?” 

“Is that a problem?” Seto had frowned, the lines of his jaw tight. 

“No, of course not. Gotham City? That’s pretty cool.” He’d tried to initiate a conversation about the city, but Seto only hummed at him while pecking at his tablet. 

So, weird. 

But then, Seto had been a little off since the Battle City Finals had ended. Maybe it was the sting of being handed another crushing defeat by Yugi Muto, or all the weird stuff that had happened—that always seemed to happen around Yugi—that Seto refused to discuss. Maybe it was the memories of Gozaburo, not quite as easy to destroy as the tower Seto had blown up. Maybe it was just all the energy he’d poured into the tournament, now loosed and directionless. 

At least some of that energy had been directed into Seto’s newest tech project.  He’d started tinkering with the neural links used in the VR hookups pretty much as soon as they had come back from the finals, trying to reverse-engineer the system Noah had used—and develop failsafes for it. Then,the project had morphed into something else, some kind of neural relay system. His brother had been working on the tech for a while, but the past weeks had brought the single-minded focus Mokuba had come to associate with building a new Duel Monsters deck. 

Mokuba had been relieved when  the creative fugue state had broken, and Seto had started showing up to meals again, with the dark circles a little less obvious under his eyes. That was, until Seto had started shopping the tech around. Predictably, there had been a flurry of interest from the military. Or militaries. Of several different countries. Just as predictably, Seto had flatly refused to consider any of their offers. There had been some fights with the board about it. Mokuba had attended a few of the meetings, but Seto had told him going to class was more important, and he had decided not to argue the point. In the end, the board could kick their heels all they wanted. Between the two of them, they held the controlling interest in the company. Seto always got his way. 

“Roland, where is the car?” Belatedly, Mokuba realized his brother was several yards ahead of him, already irritatedly scanning the baggage claims area–and looking with distaste at all the passengers from the commercial flights crowding the space. He hadn’t been pleased they’d been forced to land at Archie Goodwin International Airport. Seto preferred to land his jet at small, private airports, if he couldn’t land at his actual destination. 

Fuguta hurried past him, looking increasingly harried. “It should be just this way, Mr. Kaiba.” 

Mokuba kept his eyes peeled as he caught up with them, but he didn’t see anything particularly Gotham-y about either the airport or the people crowding it. Mokuba hadn’t been in too many large airports, but it looked pretty much like all the others he’d seen. Wide, white-tiled corridors, humming carousels lumped high with luggage, and large display screens set high on every wall.  The soaring ceiling did boast glittering designs in bronze and glass that gave it an imposing feel, but it still felt generic. Where were the gargoyles Mokuba had heard about? The most interesting thing was the graffiti over a stylized Gotham skyline inlaid in bronze and gold against the white wall. 

“Mokuba.” The snap of his brother’s voice broke him off from studying the bright red circled A that slashed over a skyscraper. He looked up to see Seto gesturing impatiently, while Roland hovered nearby, looking stressed and apologetic as he glanced between the brothers.

“Sorry.” Mokuba flashed a smile at Roland as he hurried over to Seto. He liked Roland, and he didn’t envy the man’s job, trying to manage travel details and his brother’s bad mood. 

“Try to stay with us, Mr. Mokuba, sir,” Roland said. “The airport is quite crowded, and the security risks…”

Mokuba laughed. “It’s an airport, Roland. TSA? Security checkpoints? I think you can relax a bit–there’s probably more security here than at the manor. What do you think is going to happen?”

An icy wind swept through the atrium, sending the lights flickering as the overhead fixtures swung wildly, a few of them plummeting to the floor. A few people screamed, jumping back from the shatter of glass and metal. 

“What in the…” Seto’s snarl was cut off by the sharp whine of an alarm, accompanied by flashing red lights. 

Another bitterly cold blast ripped through the air, and this time Mokuba felt the sting of ice crystals against his face. A wall of glittering glass–no, ice–stretched from the doorway to the center of the atrium. At its crest, wreathed in clouds of condensation, was a figure in some kind of silver armor, raising an enormous gun. 

Mokuba felt Seto’s arms go tight around him a second before he was tackled to the ground. Frigid air whooshed over him. A violent shiver wracked through his body, and he felt himself pressed even tighter against Seto’s chest. What was going on? 

“Mr. Kaiba?” That was Roland’s panicked yelp, half-drowned under the still-blaring alarm. “Sir, are you–” 

There was a loud hiss, almost like a hydraulic engine, and then a series of sharp cracks. Mokuba tried to crane his head up to see what was happening, only to yelp backwards as a huge icicle crashed to the ground only inches away. 

“Mokuba!” Seto’s grip on his arm was almost painful. “Stay down!”

“B-but we have to get out of here!” Mokuba protested through numbing lips. The room felt like a freezer. He struggled around his brother to get a glimpse of the man in the silver suit still atop the ice–who was coming straight towards them! “S-seto!”

Something small and dark whizzed through the air. It hit the giant ice wall and exploded in a shower of ice shards. Mokuba gasped, as the man disappeared amid the collapsing ice, but Seto was already moving. He tugged at Mokuba’s arm. “C’mon, we’ve got to go.”

“That’s what I said,” complained Mokuba, but he was moving too, grateful now for Seto’s long legs and quick strides–and his iron-hard grip on Mokuba’s arm, dragging him along at his ruthless pace. 

Several yards away–aka, way too close–the pile of ice shards that had once been the wall was moving too. The man in silver emerged from the ice, still gripping the massive gun. He raised it towards the airport doors, and a stream of ice shot out, sealing the exits with a miniature glacier. 

The room was full of screaming people diving this way and that, yet as the man turned, the spray of ice moving with him, Mokuba couldn’t shake the feeling that he was looking for them. His throat locked up, and he stumbled, nearly ripping his arm from Seto’s grip. 

A dark shape swung through the air, barreling into the ice man’s chest. The gun went flying, ice bursting from the floor where it landed. 

Mokuba’s breath caught. Was that… Batman? Inky shadows seemed to swirl around him as he landed a barrage of kicks and punches on the ice man. Mokuba watched, transfixed. Batman–it had to be Batman, who else could it possibly be?--moved like nothing he had ever seen before.The ice guy was fighting back, but Batman was so fast, meeting every blow with a block, landing hit after hit. Maybe it was the way the flashing red lights glinted off the ice, giving everything an eerie reddish glow, but it didn’t seem real. 

“Hey, you with me, kid?” That was his brother’s voice, sharp with worry. Seto was pulling on his arm again. Mokuba was suddenly aware he was still on the floor where he had landed, in a puddle of cold water that was seeping into his jeans. The air was so cold his breath frosted. 

“Y-yeah,” Mokuba managed shakily. Seto hauled him to his feet. Teeth chattering, Mokuba looked around. “Wher-re are R-roland and F-fuguta?”

“Laying low if they’re smart,” Seto gritted out. “We’ll find them after we get out of here.” 

Get out how? Mokuba wanted to know. The huge glass doors of the airport were barricaded with ice. But he knew better than to argue with Seto at a time like this, and talking seemed a bad way of staying under the ice man’s radar. 

Seto had a plan, of course. He always had a plan. This one involved trying to double back towards the terminal and out through the airfield. Unfortunately, before they had made it halfway there, the ice guy had somehow got his gun back. 

Seto slid to halt as a swirling wall of ice rose in between them and the terminal entrance, cutting them off completely. His hand clenched painfully on Mokuba’s arm. 

Caught off guard by the sudden change of momentum, Mokuba skidded across the floor. His sneakers lost traction as smooth airport tile gave way to slick ice. Only Seto’s death grip on his arm kept him upright as he yelped and flailed his arms, trying to regain his balance. 

The yelling caught the attention of the man in the silver suit. From atop the new wall of ice,he turned in their direction. Mokuba’s breath froze in his lungs as the man leveled the gun towards them. 

For a second, all Mokuba could see was white, a blast of ice heading straight for him. Then there was Seto, blotting out his whole vision, wrapping his arms around him, pinning him to his chest as he whirled. A silent scream was locked in Mokuba’s chest as Seto pushed him down, chin tucked over Mokuba’s head. He couldn’t breathe. The air was so cold. Seto’s arms were so tight. Any second, the ice was going to come for them both. 

And then it didn’t. 

Mokuba’s heart was still hammering as Seto’s arms loosened fractionally around him. A dark shadow swooped overhead. Batman. 

“Are you alright, kid?” Seto took a step back, but his arms were still around Mokuba, and he was looking down at his face. Mokuba met his gaze. Seto’s expression was tight in a way Mokuba had seen too many times and never wanted to see again. 

Mokuba sucked in a breath that felt like icicles stabbing into his lungs. “I thought–” he croaked. 

“Yeah, me too, for a moment there.” Seto’s arms squeezed around him, folding him into his warmth, and Mokuba went willingly. 

“What happened?” Mokuba asked into the folds of his trenchcoat. 

“Batman.” The word sounded flat. “Drop-kicked that freak, made him drop the gun.”

“Is he still…?”

“He ran after that. The Bat went after him, I guess. It doesn’t matter. You’re fine, now. Mokuba. You’re okay.”

Mokuba realized suddenly that he was shaking, his breath coming in big, broken gasps that were dangerously close to sobs. He buried his face against his brother’s chest. And Seto, who was never good with words, was always good with this. His hands rubbed small, steady circles into Mokuba’s back as Mokuba breathed, until the hot, tight feeling crept away from his eyes and the cold, tight feeling eased away from his throat, and every breath no longer felt like a desperate struggle. 

He wasn’t sure how long they had been standing there when Roland and Fuguta approached them, looking awkward, embarrassed, and enormously relieved. Fuguta apologized over and over for the “security failure” until Seto snapped at him and told him to shut up and go get the car if he wanted to keep his job. Fuguta fled immediately, and Seto straightened, as if resettling himself into the CEO of KaibaCorp. Mokuba couldn’t help but miss his big brother, just a tiny bit. 

“Law enforcement is gathering at the scene, sir,” Roland said hesitantly. “They’re collecting witness statements.” 

“All the more reason for us to leave quickly, then.” Seto brushed off the shoulders of his trenchcoat, as he walked across the airport, ignoring the rest of the crowd as if they didn’t exist. He collected his briefcase, which had been abandoned on the ground, and absently checked the catches and locks. “Let’s go.” 

Mokuba nodded shakily, gripping his free hand. “Yeah.” A draft blew across the mounds of melting ice, and he shivered.

The interior of the car wasn’t quite warm yet when he slid inside, but Fuguta assured him the temperature had been turned up. Mokuba curled against the heated leather seat, feeling the warmth slowly begin to chase away the chill. 

Seto slid in beside him, tucking his briefcase against the floorboards. Without a word, he peeled off his trenchcoat and draped it over Mokuba like a blanket. 

“You have to admit,” Mokuba murmured sleepily, as the car hummed into motion, leaving the brightly lit parking lot for the dark of Gotham’s streets. “It was pretty cool. We got saved by Batman.”

Seto made a low scoffing noise as he leaned back in his seat. Mokuba smiled to himself. His brother didn’t like to accept help from anyone. Guess the Dark Knight was no exception. 

“C’mon,”  Mokuba cajoled, “you have to admit that something like that would never happen in Domino.”

“True.” Seto turned and looked out the window. Mokuba watched the lights and shadows of Gotham play across his face. “This city is a shithole.” 

Chapter Text

“Mr. Wayne,” the secretary’s voice came over the intercom. “Mr. Kaiba has arrived for your 10 o’clock.”

“Thank you, Hannah.” Bruce released the intercom button and resisted the urge to rub at his eyes as he stood and made his way to the door. The delicate layer of concealer camouflaging a bruise high on his cheekbone the cowl hadn’t quite buffered wouldn’t stand up to it—and it wouldn’t do his under eye circles any good, either.

He’d been forced to abandon his search for Freeze after the airport attack when he’d gotten word Poison Ivy had completely covered the Gotham Globe headquarters in carnivorous vines. By the time he’d sorted out the situation, hours later, the trail had gone cold, and no hours of detective work in the Cave under Alfred’s disapproving eye had turned up any clue of what his next move might be. He might have actually slept, as Alfred had icily suggested, for all the good it had done.

He should still be in the Cave, analyzing footage, following paper trails, figuring out what exactly Freeze had wanted from the airport. It wasn’t a typical target for him–no medical or scientific equipment or personnel to speak of–which suggested a possible financial motive. But he hadn’t actually made any attempt at robbery by the time Batman had gotten there. He’d been focused on containing–and terrorizing–the civilians trapped at the airport. Fortunately, there’d only been minor injuries, along with the usual hypothermia and frostbite cases, but it’d been a close thing. And there was no telling when it would happen again.

But Bruce Wayne had a meeting scheduled with Seto Kaiba, and it couldn’t be blown off without Lucius having his head. Bruce would still have done it in the face of an actual emergency, of course. But Kaiba had flown in from Domino City specifically for this meeting, and he insisted on meeting with Bruce Wayne personally before he would consider making a deal with Wayne Enterprises for the new neural relay technology his company had developed. Technology Bruce was more than a little interested in acquiring, but more than that, needed to keep out of the wrong hands.

If the technology was everything promised, KaibaCorp was going to be swarmed with offers from at least half a dozen militaries, the US government among them, along with petty warlords, technocrats, and plenty of businessmen willing to act as middlemen. Bruce was determined to secure an exclusive deal for Wayne Enterprises before that could happen.

In the reception area of the executive suite, Lucius was already talking with a young, brown-haired man Bruce assumed was Seto Kaiba.

He’d heard of KaibaCorp and their young, ambitious CEO, but they weren’t a usual business partner for Wayne Enterprises. He trusted Lucius to have done the usual due diligence on KaibaCorp’s books, enough to be sure they weren’t in bed with organized crime, openly doing illegal testing, or using forced labor for their manufacturing. Not that WE wouldn’t entertain a deal with them under the right circumstances—they did business with LexCorp when absolutely necessary, after all—but Lucius would have informed him.

Beyond that, he’d done very little research into Seto Kaiba beyond the basics. Young. Majority shareholder as well as CEO. Inherited the company after his father’s death. Better known for being one of the highest ranked Duel Monsters players in the world, though not the highest ranked. Despite his focus on the gaming world, or maybe because of it, KaibaCorp had only grown and increased in profits during his time at the helm. Much of that could be attributed to their technological achievements,most of which Seto Kaiba claimed to have personally developed. He was known for bold and flashy public appearances and announcements, but his personal life was kept intensely private. His immediate family was a matter of record, but beyond that, the report Bruce had scanned through had left him with little idea of who or what was truly important to Seto Kaiba.

Now, he assessed the man—more of a boy, really. He had to be younger than Dick. Taller than him, though. Not as tall as Bruce, but his slim build emphasized his height. So did his….dramatic… fashion sense, which seemed to tend towards heeled boots and flared trenchcoats with entirely too many belts. He was all sharp angles, except for his mouth, which was a flat line.

“Mr. Kaiba.” Bruce offered his hand, an affable grin plastered on his face. “It’s a pleasure to meet you.”

Kaiba returned the handshake, but not the smile. “Mr. Wayne.”

Never one to be thrown off by a less than warm welcome, Bruce was about to invite the man back into the conference room, when he blinked. Beside the young tech genius, half-hidden behind the bulk of his flared trenchcoat, was a child. A boy, maybe ten or twelve, with long, unruly black hair and wide gray eyes. Despite the differences in their coloring, the resemblance was obvious, and the answer clicked into place before he could even ask Who is this kid? “Ah, this must be your younger brother. Mokuba, right?”

“Yeah. I mean, yes, sir.” The kid extended a hand. “It’s nice to meet you, Mr. Wayne.”

Bruce smiled at the boy as he shook his hand. He couldn’t help but think of his own boys. Mokuba was much the same age as each of them had been when they came into his life. “Nice to meet you too, Mokuba.” He glanced at Seto Kaiba before turning his gaze back on Mokuba. “I wasn’t aware you would be joining us today.” He could think of several reasons he might have brought one of the boys to a meeting like this. He very much hoped none of them applied here.

“Oh.” Mokuba’s shoulders hunched slightly, and his cheeks reddened. He looked up at his brother. “Um, I just wanted to spend some time with Seto.” He put a questioning cadence on the end.

The older Kaiba took a step closer. “I assume that won’t be a problem?” The hard edge to his words was barely veiled by smooth politeness.

“Of course not,” Bruce replied lightly, keeping his body language easy and open. Inwardly, he was scrutinizing The Kaibas’ motives. Clearly, Seto Kaiba wanted the boy here. But why?

He led the way into the conference room. The kid, Mokuba, followed at his brother’s heels, with the two men in suits close behind. He wasn’t quite certain yet of their function. Assistants? Bodyguards? Both? If they were carrying weapons, they were exceptionally well concealed and undetectable to WE’s scanners. They didn’t hold themselves like fighters, either, but it didn’t pay to underestimate your opponents. It was always wise to assume someone like Seto Kaiba would take measures to protect himself.

Lucius was already seated around the conference table when they entered. He rose and introduced himself to Seto Kaiba. His eyebrows rose a little when he noticed Mokuba, but he recovered gracefully as Bruce knew he would, and pulled out one of the leather-upholstered chairs for him. The kid was practically swallowed up in it.

Why had Kaiba brought him? Although young, the head of Kaiba Corp had already gained a reputation as a ruthless businessman. He did not have a reputation for sentimentality. Of course, his greatest claims to fame were in the gaming world. His father had been a chess grandmaster. The son preferred more modern games. What game was he playing now?

Hannah laid a tray with a pitcher of ice water and glasses on the table. “Can I get you anything else, sirs?” she asked.

“Oh just the usual, Hannah. Half-caf cinnamon latte with two pumps of butterscotch, one caramel, and extra whipped cream.”

Hannah didn’t blink, having heard this order too many times to count, and Lucius, to his credit, only got that tiny crease in his forehead that he got whenever he thought Bruce was laying it on too thick. Seto Kaiba, on the other hand, managed to simultaneously look disdainful and nauseated. “Just black coffee,” he bit off. “French press if you have it.”

“Of course, Mr. Kaiba,” said Hannah. She turned to Mokuba. “And for you, sir?”

Mokuba was staring at Bruce with an expression of surprise and delight. “That sounds amazing. Can I get that too?”

The question was directed at Hannah, but it was Kaiba who answered, before she could. “Decaf. Not half-caf. And one pump of butterscotch.”

“Aww.” Mokuba pouted, but it was clearly for show. “You’re no fun, big brother.”

“Hmmph,” Kaiba huffed, but the corner of his lip twitched.

“Come on,” Mokuba pleaded. “This meeting is going to be boring and so long. Don’t I deserve a little caffeine so I can stay awake?”

“Go ahead and sleep, then,” said Kaiba blandly. “I’m sure Mr. Wayne won’t object.” He glanced over at Bruce, though he didn’t seem to expect a response.

“Of course not,” Bruce agreed heartily. “Why, we can get Hannah to bring in some pillows if you need a nap.”

Mokuba made a face. “You know, when you were my age, you drank coffee all the time,” he told his brother in the tone only a disgruntled preteen could truly master.

“You’re not me.” There was an icy note to his voice that hadn’t been there before, and all trace of the smile was gone.

Mokuba swallowed hard. “Decaf is fine,” he muttered to Hannah. He sank back into the oversized chair, pulling his legs up to his chest and tucking his chest against them.

Hannah quietly excused herself after taking Lucius’s order—Americano–and the men settled themselves down to business. Mokuba stayed quiet in his chair, pulling out a phone after a few minutes.

The tension in the atmosphere hadn’t lifted, not even when Hannah returned with the coffees and set a cup in front of Mokuba piled high with so much whipped cream it looked more like an ice cream sundae than a coffee. Mokuba thanked her politely, but only poked at the concoction with the stirring straw Hannah had helpfully left sticking in the drink. Bruce took a sip of his own disgustingly sweet drink (though thankfully with not quite as much whipped cream as the kid had been given), and managed to smile. He used the distraction of the drinks arriving to check just what the kid was doing on the phone. He hadn’t discounted the possibility of espionage or sabotage. Heaven help Lex Luthor if he ever let Tim into his corporate headquarters with a cellphone for ten minutes.

But the kid’s screen just shows a game with animated characters and monsters, and a subtle check of the network shows he hasn’t even attempted to connect to the WiFi, let alone breach any of the layers of firewalls. When Bruce asked, during a lull in the negotiations, Mokuba explained that he was alpha-testing a new mobile game for KaibaCorp.

He perked up as he showed Bruce some of the features he was most excited about. The information was probably proprietary, but Kaiba didn’t seem bothered as his younger brother animatedly explained how leveling worked and how they had interwoven a fantasy quest storyline “kinda like the one for the virtual reality Seto developed that we had to scrap.” He glanced up at his brother at this last. Kaiba’s mouth thinned, but he said nothing.

Bruce poked lightly. “Oh? Couldn’t get the VR to work?” He wondered how Kaiba would take the jab at his technological prowess. This far, the man had proved to be prickly, but the specifications for the neural relay transmitters had been legitimately impressive, as had his thorough command of their details. It was clear Kaiba was the driving innovative mind behind KaibaCorp’s series of inventions and advances.

But Mokuba just laughed before his brother could respond. “Oh, the virtual reality worked fine. Great, actually.”

“Hmmph.” Kaiba looked disgruntled.

Mokuba grinned at him. “It was actually pretty fun, you know.”

“I can’t say I agree with that assessment,” Kaiba said dryly. “The tactile components were more realistic than anticipated, however.”

Mokuba grimaced but the twinkle in his eyes didn’t dim. “Yeah, you could have programmed that part a little less obsessively, you know.” He took a long sip of his drink, getting whipped cream on his lip. “I liked riding the giant chickens through the desert.” He tapped his chin thoughtfully. “The mobile game doesn’t have that. I don’t know if it would be any fun without the VR though.”

There was obviously a lot of context Bruce was missing from this conversation, but it was clear to him that whatever his cold reputation, Seto Kaiba did care for his younger brother. Maybe there was no nefarious reason behind bringing the boy with him after all.

Kaiba cleared his throat and returned the discussion to the terms of use for the neural relay transmitters. He was unwilling to sell the technology outright, proposing instead to license it to WE for “specific approved applications.” None of Kaiba’s proposed restrictions would actually prevent him from copying the technology and adapting it for use in Bat-tech or for the League, which was Bruce’s primary actual interest in the invention. It would, however, restrict ways WE could use the technology, which…wasn’t actually an issue. As Kaiba went through each item, it became clear nearly all of them had to do with use in weapons, or war zones, or sale to entities that were likely to use them for military or paramilitary purposes. Bruce couldn’t say that he disapproved. In fact, it was becoming evident why Kaiba had responded to Wayne Enterprises’ overtures with this in-person meeting, when Bruce knew for a fact LexCorp had been fruitlessly making offers for weeks.

Mokuba drained the last of his coffee drink with a noisy slurp, then flushed scarlet when the men at the table all looked in his direction.

Bruce smiled at him, then glanced down at his watch. An alert had just pinged. “Maybe we should take a break,” he suggested. It wasn’t a Priority One alert, no Arkham breakouts, Joker activity, or world-ending threats, but Oracle had tagged it urgent.

He scanned it quickly while Hannah collected used cups and offered fresh beverages. Another Freeze attack,  this time in the Diamond District, at the Davenport Center. Two attacks in as many days, and both highly public targets in the areas of the city that were… well-policed was going too far, but not subject to as much neglect and corruption as other areas of the city.

With the ease of long years of practice, Bruce kept the frown off his face and out of his voice. “If you will excuse me, something’s come up.” He made eye contact with Lucius and gave the barest of nods. He trusted Lucius could smooth over his departure and handle the rest of the negotiations.

But Kaiba was frowning and looking at his fidgeting younger brother. “Let’s table this discussion for another time, then,” he suggested. He stood, straightening files with a firm, fluid motion. “Shall we say tomorrow afternoon? I’m sure some of these details can be ironed out in the meantime.”

Bruce seized the opening gratefully. It was true, Lucius and his team could go over the rest of the fine print, and Legal could flag anything irregular. If Kaiba wanted more face time to seal the deal? Bruce would gladly give it to him, especially if he could do it after noon. “Sounds great.” He gave him Brucie Wayne’s vapid smile. “Let’s say we ditch the boardroom for the golf course, though.”

“Golf isn’t really my game.” A slight twist of distaste tugged at Kaiba’s mouth. “But I’ve heard good things about the Natural History Museum.”

Bruce wouldn’t have thought that would have been of interest to Kaiba either, but then he caught Mokuba Kaiba’s face. His eyes had lit up, and a huge grin stretched across his face.

“Really?” His luminous grey eyes sought his brother’s. “You mean it?”

Kaiba didn’t smile, but there was a warm light in his eyes there hadn’t been a second ago. “Yeah, kid. You didn’t really think I’d let you come all the way to Gotham and not see anything outside the airport gift shop.”

“I mean, we saw a whole lot more than that in the airport,” Mokuba mumbled, but Bruce’s attention had already moved on to the problem at hand.

He clapped Kaiba on the back. “See you tomorrow then.” He headed out the door, leaving Lucius to handle anything further.

Chapter Text

Bruce Wayne might be an idiot, but he had excellent taste in coffee. 

Mokuba sipped at his second decaf cinnamon latte that Bruce Wayne’s nice secretary Hannah had put in a travel cup for him. She’d also whispered to him that she’d put in two pumps of butterscotch this time, and Mokuba had to agree it was perfect this way. He wondered if he could convince Roland to learn exactly how the drink was made so he could get it at the KC offices too. Roland would probably be willing, but he would probably also insist on telling Seto about it. Which would probably be a whole deal that Mokuba would rather avoid, especially since Seto was actually taking him to a museum tomorrow. 

Mokuba grinned to himself over the top of his latte. He wasn’t sure what he had done to deserve that minor miracle, but he wasn’t going to risk botching it. After the whole airport debacle, Mokuba had been half-afraid Seto was planning on sending him back to Domino. He’d spent half the night muttering about what a joke the airport security was, how disgraceful Gotham’s crime issues were, the indignity of being saved from an ice-shooting robot man by a man dressed like a bat, and more than once, what kind of city he’d brought his brother to. Mokuba was decently sure that Seto would have put him on a plane back to Domino if that didn’t involve sending him back to the  airport. 

“It was nice to meet you,” he said to Mr. Fox, because someone had to be the polite Kaiba brother, and “Thank you so much for the coffee,” to Hannah because it was people like her who actually made the world go round, and Mokuba was determined to never forget that. It was his job to remember things like that, for both him and his brother, and to remind Seto when he had to. Because that was one of the pieces of himself his brother had traded away long, long ago. That was one of the things Mokuba kept for him until he he could find it again.

Mr. Fox smiled at him and told him to take care, and Hannah called him “a little charmer,” and Seto grunted and told Roland to get the car. 

They’d just barely pulled out of the gated WE lot and into the Gotham streets when it happened. 

A bulky black SUV pulled up alongside their car, keeping pace almost exactly with them. Mokuba only noticed at first because he’d been staring out the window at the city streets, but something about it made his stomach lurch in a funny way. He glanced over at his brother, but before he could even say something to Seto, another black SUV came up zooming in the right hand lane and cut in front of them. Fuguta swore, and Mokuba knew with a sickening certainty that something was wrong because neither he nor Roland even threw an apologetic glance in his direction.

The SUV in front of them braked hard. Fuguta swerved into the right lane. Mokuba’s seatbelt went taut, digging into his shoulder and lap. He grabbed at the door handle to steady himself. 

Seto was yelling, a howl of words Mokuba couldn’t make out over the squealing of tires, the roar of engines, and the angry vroom of a motorcycle. The black SUV had followed them across the lanes of traffic, and now it was pressing into their lane, so close Mokuba could see nothing out the windows except black paint, dark mirrored windows, and the ghosts of armed men behind them. He turned to Seto in alarm, when there was a loud pop, and the car lurched suddenly. Two more pops followed, and a horrible grinding noise came from beneath the car. 

“Did they just…”

“They shot out the tires,” Seto said grimly. He was unbuckling his seatbelt, and then he was bending over Mokuba, yanking at the buckle. “Get ready to fight like hell,” he snapped towards the driver’s seat. 

Mokuba’s head bobbed as the buckle came free. His brother’s steely presence all around him was a bulwark, but one he knew he couldn’t stay behind. “Okay,” he said, swallowing hard. 

Seto’s eyes flashed. “Not you,” he growled. “When I say, you’re going to open the door and run as fast as you can.” 

“Run where?” Mokuba fought back panic. They were in a strange city where he didn’t know anyone or anything. A city where people shot ice at you and attacked your car in broad daylight. 

“Back to Wayne Enterprises.” Seto pulled his briefcase up from the floor, and for a second, Mokuba thought he was going to hand it to him. Take the tech to WE, he thought. Keep it safe. 

He held out his hand for the briefcase. “Here. I’m ready.” 

Seto’s eyes narrowed at him. “No. It’s too heavy. It’ll slow you down.” He shifted his body on the leather seat. “Out that door. Now.” 

Men with guns were getting out of the SUVS. Seto opened his door and immediately swung the steel briefcase in the face of the nearest one. Mokuba didn’t see more. He already had his door open and was sliding out. 

As soon as his feet hit the pavement, he was running in a flat out sprint. He heard shouts, was pretty sure that he’d been seen. Adrenaline spiked through him, and he ran faster and faster, feet pounding, heart pounding, as he tried not to think about what was happening to his brother–his brother–and Roland and Fuguta right now. It took everything in him not to try to look over his shoulder, to catch a glimpse of what was happening. 

Help. He had to get help. There were other cars going by, pedestrians on the sidewalk looking at him. Some even called to him to ask if he was okay, but he couldn’t stop, couldn’t slow. He didn’t know this place. He didn’t know who he could trust. No one, apparently. Not in this terrible city where things like this happened. 

Seto had told him to get to the WE building. That’s where he was going to go. 

His lungs were burning, and there was an ache in his side when he approached the lot, but Mokuba didn’t slow until he was nearly in front of the gate. He ducked down, nearly rolling as he tucked himself under the big white arm. The security guard lurched out of the booth, yelling at him, talking into his radio, but Mokuba couldn’t slow, couldn’t listen. “Call 9-1-1,” he tried to shout, but he had no breath left, and it was a cracked and pathetic sound.

He’d almost made it to the big glass-fronted double doors of the WE Tower when a heavy hand came down on his shoulder. The sudden weight, after his long, panicked run, nearly sent Mokuba crashing to the ground. 

“Whoa, whoa there, kid.” The security guard’s grip on Mokuba’s arm wasn’t painful, but it was firm, and Mokuba had to run. His brother needed help, and he… “Quit struggling. This is private property. I’m going to need an explanation of why you came barrelling in like this.”

Several more guards had come out through the front entrance to see what the commotion was. One startled when he saw Mokuba. “That’s the Kaiba kid. I just saw him leave a few minutes ago.”

“Please,” Mokuba croaked. “Please, my brother needs help.” 

“Alright,” said the other guard, the one who hadn’t spoken yet. “Let’s get this kid inside, figure out what’s going on.” 

The fight escaped Mokuba in a long, ragged breath. His shoulders slumped. “Okay,” he mumbled as the security guards herded him through the doors. “Okay, but you have to help my brother. He’s…someone attacked us. He’s in trouble. Please.” 

He kept on repeating it as they guided him back through the marble-floored foyer and made him sit down on a leather couch, as more and more WE employees started to gather around him, and finally as Mr. Fox arrived, banishing staffers and most of the guards with his quiet authority. “Mokuba,” he said, and his voice was so kind that Mokuba wanted to sob in relief. “Mokuba, can you tell me what’s going on?” 

So Mokuba tried. By the time he was done, the back of his eyes felt hot and heavy, his throat felt tight, and Mr. Fox’s eyebrows had climbed sky high. Before Mokuba had even finished, he was issuing instructions and calling the authorities. 

Things just sort of happened, after all. People talked very loudly around him, coming and going, but Mokuba wasn’t really listening to what they were saying. He probably should be, he knew. It was probably important. But he was so tired, all the adrenaline turning straight to exhaustion. His chest hurt, and his legs ached. He just wanted to sit here and know it was going to be okay. He’d done it. He’d gotten away, gotten help. It was going to be okay. 

Wouldn’t someone please tell him it would be okay? 

Mokuba wasn’t sure how long he sat there, slumped against the leather couch. At some point, Mr. Fox patted his shoulder and told him that he had informed Mr. Wayne of the situation. It wasn’t the same as being told it would be okay, but Mr. Fox said it as if it was, which was…Mokuba was too overwhelmed to think about it.

Some time later, someone—probably Hannah—brought him a warm drink. From the smell, it was probably the same kind of cinnamon latte he’d had earlier, but Mokuba didn’t drink it. His stomach felt too twisted up and his throat felt too tight to even think about it. The warm weight of it was nice between his hands, though, and he had to focus on holding it steady so it wouldn’t spill. It was something to do. 

So he sat and held his coffee and let the warmth of it seep through his hands until it wasn’t warm anymore. And then the police came, along with Mr. Fox, his face looking creased and strained in a way that made Mokuba’s stomach lurch. 

“Where’s my brother?” he asked, and he meant to just ask, but it came out harsh and desperate and demanding. 

“We’re trying very hard to figure that out, son,” said one of the police officers, an older man with hair that might have been red once, but now is mostly grey. He’s wearing a tan trenchcoat instead of a uniform, and Mokuba thought maybe that meant he was important? Was that how that worked? “Do you think you can tell me about what you saw?”

So Mokuba went through it again, all the details he could remember. No, he didn’t catch the license plate numbers on any of the vehicles, or even if they had license plates. No, he didn’t see any faces. Just guns. He didn’t want to think about the guns, but he squeezed his hands around the cold coffee cup until the soggy cardboard seam started to give, and then he had to think about making sure he didn’t crack the cup and spill cold, milky coffee all over himself. 

Yes, his brother had enemies. Of course he did. He’s Seto Kaiba. Mokuba said it over again, and they still looked at him like they didn’t understand. 

“People that might have threatened him, son. Might want to hurt him.” The man said it gently, as if he were worried it might crack Mokuba in two, this idea that people might hate his brother, might hunt him, hurt him, try to destroy him. Oh, it had, once. 

Mokuba had been six. 

He’s eleven now. Almost twelve. Half his life, and almost all of it he can remember, as Seto Kaiba’s brother. “Yes,” he said, and the irritation was the thing that started to cut through the fog of shock and fear and exhaustion. “Of course there are.” So many. Always coming out of the woodwork when they least expected it. 

“Okay,” the man said gently. “Do you know who?”

Mokuba shrugged helplessly. He could start naming names - Pegasus, Noah, Lector, Gansley, Crump… but there’d be more, more he didn’t know, probably more Seto didn’t know, and anyway, most of them couldn’t possibly have done this, and even if they could, why would they want to? What was the point?

“The relays,” he said dully, realizing. 

“I’m sorry, son?” 

Mokuba swallowed hard. “There’s this technology my brother was working on, these neural relays. That’s why he’s in Gotham. I think..” he had to swallow again. “I think that’s what they wanted, those men.” That’s probably, too, why they let him go, when he ran for help. They knew he didn’t have the tech. 

“Yeah, maybe.” The man sighed. “We’re going to do everything we can to get your brother back, son.” He asked a few more questions, but Mokuba knew he wasn’t giving very good answers. Finally, the man straightened. “I think we have what we need for now,” he said, but Mokuba could tell he was talking more to Mr. Fox than to him. “We might need to follow up in a day or two if…” he trailed off, glancing down at Mokuba. “We’ll be in touch,” he said instead. 

When the police had gone, Hannah took the cold coffee away before it could fall apart in Mokuba’s hands. She brought him a water bottle instead, and a sandwich, but Mokuba didn’t eat. The water bottle was cold and heavy in his hands. He liked how solid it felt when he squeezed it. 

Eventually, someone else came, a woman with worn black pumps, fuschia lipstick, and a tired smile. Mr. Fox introduced her as the social worker. She introduced herself as Ms. Carol. Mokuba’s hands tightened on the water bottle, and he tried to catch some of its coolness on his fingers. It had gone lukewarm. 

Ms. Carol talked slowly and gently about the fact that Mokuba was now an unaccompanied minor alone in Gotham City with no family and no acquaintances. She talked about how the police had said Mokuba needed to stay in the city for the time being, so he couldn’t be sent back to Domino, even if there was a guardian available there. She asked if there was any family Mokuba had that might be able to come to Gotham on short notice. (No.) She asked if Mokuba had any idea if his brother had designated any guardians for Mokuba in his absence or incapacitation. Mokuba thought maybe it was supposed to be Roland, but Roland was missing too, and the water bottle wasn’t cold at all any more, and the plastic was hot and sticky between his fingers. 

Finally, she nodded, and said that in that case, he was going to need to be placed in temporary custody. A sour taste rose in the back of Mokuba’s throat, and his stomach clenched so hard that he was glad it was empty. Ms. Carol patted his knee and told him it was okay, they had a trusted and experienced foster parent who had already contacted them about Mokuba’s placement. 

At least it wasn’t an orphanage, he thought desperately, trying to wet his numb and dry lips. “Do…I mean, where am I going?” he managed to ask. 

Ms. Carol smiled and rose to her feet as a man came up behind her. “I think I’ll let Mr. Wayne answer that for himself.”

Chapter Text

It could have been an orphanage, Mokuba reminded himself. Or a group home. 

That was the key thing to remember, no matter what awful situation life threw you into. It could always get worse. 

Wayne Manor loomed up at the end of the drive, huge, imposing…familar. 

That should have been reassuring, he thought. The fancy car with its smooth leather seats, the long, winding drive, the gated entrance, dark, sculpted pines and stone colonnades… Well, Mokuba knew what to expect from places like this. Could already imagine the marble floors and soaring staircases behind the mahogany doors. 

Just like home, Mokuba thought, with a bitter twist to his mouth. Except it wasn't. Even though it had been his legal address for more than five years, Kaiba Manor still wasn't home to him.He didn't think it ever would be. 

Home was where Seto was. That was all. That was everything. 

Mokuba swallowed hard. 

He could do this. It was just for a little while. They would find him. They'd get him back, and he would be fine. And then, all this would be over and he could go home. 

Mr. –"Call me Bruce"--Wayne hadn't said much on the drive back to the house. Mokuba was honestly grateful to be left alone, and Mr. Wayne had seemed lost in his own thoughts. But now that they had arrived, he smiled at Mokuba. It looked tight and awkward. Mokuba had seen a lot of awkward smiles today. He didn't smile back. "We're here, buddy. I called ahead and let Alfred know we were on our way. He’s expecting us both.”

Who’s Alfred? Mokuba wondered, but didn’t say, just like he didn’t mention how much being called “buddy” rankled him. It didn’t really matter, did it? He simply followed obediently behind Mr. Wayne as he walked up to the front door of the mansion, trying hard not to remember another time, so much like this one. 

He wanted his brother so much it was like a physical ache.

He dug his nails into the meat of his palms as he clenched his fists. It was going to be fine. He forced himself to breathe. It was just temporary. Just for a little while. 

The door swung open. Behind it was waiting a dignified older man in a butler’s uniform. Mokuba felt a little nauseous. It was probably because he hadn’t had anything but a cup of coffee since breakfast. 

“Welcome home, Master Bruce,” the man said. He turned to Mokuba, “Welcome to Wayne Manor, young master. While the circumstances may be unfortunate, I nonetheless hope your stay here will be pleasant.” 

Mokuba bit back a grimace. It was fine. They could call him whatever he wanted. It was just temporary. “Uh, thanks,” he managed. The words felt strangled. 

“My name is Alfred Pennyworth. It will be my pleasure to make sure you are comfortable here and that you have everything you need.”

“Okay,” Mokuba said, then realized that was rude. “I mean, thank you, Mr. Pennyworth. It’s nice to meet you.”

“Just Alfred is fine.” The man’s eyes looked kind. Mokuba wished he could trust that. “We are very glad to have you here. Now, I am sure you are tired. It’s been a long day. Let me show you to your room. Dinner will be ready in a little less than an hour.” 

“Thank you,” Mokuba said because he couldn’t think of anything else to say. He stepped inside the house, trying to ignore the way his throat tightened. 

The house was pretty much what Mokuba had expected. A grand entryway in marble and carved dark wood gave way to glimpses of rooms full of antique furniture and Oriental rugs. It smelled clean, like orange oil and wax, and Mokuba thought about the small army of servants that must maintain the place. There was no sign of them, however, as Alfred led him up a curving staircase and down the hall. 

“This is the family wing,” Alfred explained. “I know your stay with us might not be long, but I am quite sure Master Bruce would want you close at hand.” Exactly why Mr. Wayne would want that, he left unsaid, and it sent a weird quiver through the pit of Mokuba’s stomach. 

Alfred pointed out the master bedroom at the end of the hall. “And there is Master Dick’s room, although he is currently in Bludhaven.” Mokuba froze. Master Dick? But Alfred continued, “Here is Master Tim’s room. He is out right now, but you should see him at dinner.” 

A few more doors down, Alfred showed him to another room. “And this is you, Master Mokuba.” 

The room was large, maybe even larger than Mokuba’s actual bedroom at the Kaiba Manor. There wasn’t much in it, besides a few pieces of cherrywood furniture, but the bedspread on the large bed pushed up against one wall was striped in pale blue and navy, and two matching pale blue throw pillows rested on the window seat. It might have been a coincidence, a meaningless touch, but it made the place seem just a little homey. 

“I hope you will be comfortable here,” Alfred said gently. “Shall I leave you to settle in, while I finish dinner preparations?” 

It was phrased as a question, but Mokuba didn’t see how he could possibly respond any other way other than agreeing. “Alright. Thank you, Alfred.” 

“You are very welcome.” With that, the butler disappeared into the hall. 

Mokuba collapsed onto his bed, which was pillowy soft, and smelled like fresh detergent, an expensive brand. He hadn’t expected anything less from Bruce Wayne’s house, but it was nice, and for a few minutes, Mokuba just let himself drift into a soft nothingness where he didn’t have to think about anything at all. 

But he’d done too much of that already today, and the physical exhaustion had long since worn away, leaving him restless and jumpy. Besides, he couldn’t afford to waste the privacy. He had no idea how much more of it he would get.  

Mokuba wasn’t exactly sure what Alfred had intended him to do when he told him to “settle in.” All of Mokuba’s luggage was still in the room back at the Orchard Hotel, and no one had discussed whether he’d be getting it back. It wasn’t like he could unpack. The only things he had were the clothes on his back, and the phone in his pocket. 

His phone…he’d completely forgotten about it with all that had happened. Mokuba pulled it out of his pocket. He ruthlessly crushed the wild, irrational hope that he would have a text from Seto, a call, anything. He knew there wouldn’t be. Still, he felt it like a blow between his ribs, the complete lack of notifications. 

Feeling childish, he typed his brother’s name into the search bar, as if it were a spell that could summon him. Instead, it fetched more than a dozen news stories with headlines like KaibaCorp CEO Snatched Off Streets and Seto Kaiba Missing: Kidnapped or Dead? It made him feel sick to click on each one and read it through, but he did. The articles were sparse, the few details repeated and rephrased between the articles in a way that made it clear they’re all working from the same information. 

Mokuba wondered if it was someone from Wayne Enterprises or from the police who had talked to the press. He didn’t think it was the social worker because there was no mention of Mokuba besides “his younger brother was able to escape and reach safety.” Nothing at all about him staying with Bruce Wayne, which Mokuba was pretty sure would make for good engagement, not even in the sketchiest of the publications. 

KaibaCorp stock was gonna tank. Mokuba didn’t have it in him to check the exchange, but he already knew the numbers would be dismal. He couldn’t even blame the shareholders for panicking. Seto was the company. He’d rebuilt the company from the ground up after he’d taken over from Gozaburo. It was his inventions that formed the basis of their entire corporate strategy, and it was him, his face, his dueling skills, his…everything that was the backbone of their brand. What would the company do without him? 

Mokuba’s stomach swooped, and a rush of dizziness came over him so hard that for a moment his vision fuzzed. He sat down hard on the edge of the bed. The phone nearly slipped from his numb fingers, but he caught it in time, gripping it hard until his eyes cleared and his breathing evened. 

It was going to be fine. Once Seto was back, the stock prices would shoot right back up. They’d probably ride the wave of public sympathy and free publicity to even higher profits. It would be fine. 

Mokuba didn’t trust himself to search up anything else about the company or his brother, but there were still things he needed to know. The short amount of time he had left before someone came to fetch him for dinner was nowhere close to enough to find out everything there was to know about Bruce Wayne—but he could at least get some basics. 

A quick look through Wayne’s Wikipedia page cleared at least a few things up. “Master Dick” was probably Richard Grayson, who, apparently, was Bruce Wayne’s longtime ward and, as of a few years ago, adopted son. So that was a relief, even if it was kinda weird that he’d only been adopted as an adult after living with Mr. Wayne for half his childhood. Or maybe it actually made sense. If he could do it again, that’s probably what Gozaburo would do. Take them in, get them out of the orphanage, but hold the legal adoption over Seto’s head until he was sure of him, until he had made him into exactly what he wanted him to be. If he had done that, he would probably still be alive. 

The thought left an uncomfortable feeling in Mokuba’s stomach. It only got worse as he kept reading. Apparently, Mr. Wayne had adopted two other sons: Tim Drake, who had to be the “Master Tim” Alfred had mentioned, and Jason Todd…who died. Mokuba swallowed. That was…wow. That was really sad. 

The Wikipedia page didn’t give any details as to what had happened. Mokuba did a quick search which turned up, wow, a ton of conspiracy theories. Mokuba had only started to read through them when there was a knock at the door. 

Mokuba scrambled to open it. On the other side was a boy a few years older than him, with black hair that fell in soft gelled spikes. He smiled and waved. “Hi, you must be Mokuba. I’m Tim. Alfred said to see if you wanted to come down for dinner.”

“The tire marks are a dead end.” With a few clicks, Bruce sent the Batcomputer’s analysis of the marks to the Clocktower’s systems. “The marks are incomplete, but they seem to be a common make and tread.” There would be literally thousands of SUVs in Gotham with near-identical tires, impossible to narrow the search. “Any success with license plate identification?” 

“I’ve pulled the traffic cam footage, but the cameras on the intersection of 9th and Kane were disabled sometime yesterday. It’s a complete blind spot.” 

“What about the dashcam footage from the vehicle?”

Oracle’s cool electronic voice sounded distinctly irritated. “Deleted. It must have been done from the car itself, sometime shortly after the abduction. Currently attempting to recover the files.”

More evidence that Seto Kaiba’s abduction was a carefully orchestrated plot. Whoever was behind it probably had a member of the GCPD on their payroll—most likely more than one, given how deep the rot ran. 

That payroll also likely included Victor Fries. It had been obvious something was amiss as soon as Batman had arrived at the Davenport Center to find panic, property damage, and civilians trapped behind ice barricades, but no sign of Freeze. He’d suspected a distraction, and the fear had been realized mere minutes later when Agent A had relayed Lucius’s call. With the benefit of retrospect, it now seemed only too likely the airport attack had been directed at Kaiba as well. Once he’d pulled the flight logs and confirmed the arrival time would have placed him at the scene, it had taken no time at all for facial recognition to identify both Kaiba and his younger brother in the cowl footage. 

Bruce exhaled his frustration. He’d missed this. He’d all but stared them in the face, and hadn’t noticed, hadn’t put the pieces together. And now Kaiba was missing, snatched in broad daylight, in an infuriatingly bold operation that had left next to no trace—or rather had those traces swiftly scrubbed clean. 

And there was a scared, devastated eleven year old upstairs. 

Alfred cleared his throat from the top of the stairs, and Bruce forced himself to push away from the Batcomputer. Oracle would keep running facial recognition on camera footage she had access to, but with no current leads, Bruce knew he couldn’t justify skipping dinner for the Cave, no matter how much the need for action burned in him. 

“Let me know if anything turns up,” he told Oracle before signing off. He glanced up towards the stairs. “I’m coming, Al.”

“Very good, Master Bruce.”  The tight, disapproving line of Alfred’s posture thawed into something softer. 

“Has he said anything to you?” Bruce had disappeared into the Cave almost immediately upon returning to the Manor, but Mokuba Kaiba had spent the entire drive from Wayne Towers in complete silence, his expression blank and posture hunched. From what little he’d had time to gather from Lucius, the boy had been much the same for the hours before that, rousing himself only for short bursts to respond to requests for information. 

“Not much, I’m afraid. I thought it best to give the child some space and privacy. He seemed quite overwhelmed.”

It was an understatement. Bruce hated to think of the cheerful, bright-eyed kid who’d chattered about coffee and VR games and had looked like someone had handed him the world on a silver platter when his brother had mentioned going to the Natural History Museum turned so silent and shattered. 

There was every reason to think Seto Kaiba was still alive, Bruce reminded himself. And if he had anything to say about it, he would stay that way. 

Chapter Text

The soft murmur of conversation fell away as Bruce walked into the family dining room. Two mops of black hair, bent close together, swiveled in his direction. 

“Hi, Bruce,” Tim smiled in his direction as he took his seat. Mokuba didn’t echo the greeting, but he looked a little less blank and pale than he had in the car. Bruce hoped Tim had been able to draw him out a little. 

Alfred entered, bearing a steaming platter of pot roast surrounded by carrots, onions, and baby potatoes cooked in the drippings. When Mokuba turned, watching him set the dish on the table, Tim met Bruce's eyes with a questioning look. Bruce gave a minute shake of his head. Tim’s face fell, just for a split second, and then recovered, turning back to Mokuba with a smile and a promise that Alfred made the best pot roast. 

Mokuba blinked. “But I thought he was the butler?” He gave Tim a confused look. “Don’t you have cooks for that?”

Ah. Bruce should have anticipated that Mokuba would have questions about their household arrangements. Dick and Jason had no experience of manor homes or the large staff they usually maintained,  and Tim had been used to the stripped down way the Drakes kept their house with their constant travel, half-closed down with only a housekeeper maintaining it. But Mokuba Kaiba,  raised in wealth and privilege nearly equal to his own, would understand how unusual it was for one man to take on the enormous litany of responsibilities Alfred had shouldered. 

“Well, Alfred’s not exactly just the butler,” Tim was saying. He threw a half-embarrassed look in the older man’s direction. 

“Alfred raised me after my parents died,” Bruce interjected. “He’s family.”

Mokuba’s eyebrows rose, and then his face softened. “Oh,” he said, “That sounds…nice.” 

“No family of record, other than his brother,” Oracle had reported, when he had asked her to look into Mokuba Kaiba’s custody situation. Bruce’s concern at the time had been ensuring the boy’s safety, in the event that he was still a target of whoever had abducted his older brother. It would have been all too easy for the GCPD or the overtaxed Child Welfare Services to deliver the kid straight into the hands of the perpetrators, whether through corruption or lack of oversight. 

But now, looking at the pale, dark-haired kid shrinking into himself from the other side of the dining table, Bruce suddenly wondered about a different custody crisis, one that must have happened just a few years ago when his father died. Seto Kaiba had been young then, barely older than Tim. It must have taken a crack team of lawyers and an iron will for him to have himself declared both legally emancipated and the owner and CEO of his father’s company, with no guardian or trustee holding a leash. How had he also managed to gain guardianship over a child that couldn’t have even been ten years old? Was it simply because there was no one else? 

Alfred served the meal, and for a few minutes the only sounds were the clinking of silverware. The food was every bit as good as Tim had promised, and Bruce was gratified to see Mokuba eating—if only in slow, small bites. Lucius had said the kid hadn’t touched anything he’d been given, earlier. 

“So you guys have a cook?” Tim asked, swallowing a mouthful of roast. “Is this the kind of food you normally eat?”

Mokuba tilted his head slightly. “Um, we do have a cook, but honestly, we don’t have big meals like this very often. Most nights Seto eats takeout by his desk.” He sighed, a put upon noise that sounded strangely reminiscent of Alfred.

“Workaholic, huh?” Tim asked sympathetically. “What do you eat, then?” 

“Yeah,” Mokuba mumbled. “Oh, I eat with him, usually, unless he got really locked in and won’t stop for food. Then sometimes I’ll eat cereal or get the kitchen to make a grilled cheese or something.” He sniffed, and Bruce realized he was suddenly on the verge of tears. 

Crying was a normal, and even healthy response. Honestly, he should have cried long before this. But Mokuba had also barely eaten any of his pot roast and only a bite or two of his potatoes and carrots. Alfred was going to be displeased if dinner ended in tears and an empty stomach. 

“Grilled cheese is great,” he interjected hurriedly in the most soothing voice he could manage. “I love grilled cheese. Tim, isn’t grilled cheese amazing?” 

Tim gave him a long suffering look. “Um, yeah, grilled cheese rocks.”

Mokuba sniffed again, but there was a tentative smile beneath the watery eyes. “I mean, it’s fine, I guess.” He poked at his plate with his fork, and to Bruce’s relief ate a few bites of roasted carrots. 

After an awkward pause, Tim once again took up the conversational gauntlet. He asked light, bland questions about Mokuba’s school, favorite subject, any sports or clubs he was involved with, gently probing for any spark of interest, but getting only short, noncommittal answers in response. Tim took it well. His voice stayed steady and pleasant, his smile didn’t falter. Only the deepening crease between his eyebrows signalled his mounting frustration. He hummed to himself, the same habit he had when searching for inspiration working a cold case in the Batcave. “So, Mokuba, do you play a lot of games?” 

“Yeah,” Mokuba said. He stabbed at his plate. “But not… mostly video games, some Capsule Monsters, stuff like that. I don’t really duel. Not like Seto.” 

It took Bruce a second to understand. Tim was already responding. “Duel? That’s Duel Monsters, right? It’s a card game?”

Mokuba smiled. It was the first smile Bruce had seen from him since he’d left the office to go fight Freeze, even if it looked more amused than happy. “Yeah…it’s a card game. Kinda more like a lifestyle, the way my brother plays it.”

“He’s a very high ranked player, isn’t he?” Bruce asked. It was honestly surprising, given Kaiba’s reputation as a hands-on CEO—a reputation he more than earned, if the meeting this morning was anything to go on—that he found so much time to devote to a card game. Bruce knew that many of KaibaCorp’s products were accessories and other items related to Duel Monsters, though the cards themselves were a product of Industrial Illusions. Perhaps there was some kind of corporate synergy there. “Isn’t he the former world champion?”

Mokuba’s face did something complicated, between a grimace and a laugh. “I’ll do you a favor and not tell my brother you said that.” He sighed. “He’s been in a mood ever since the Battle City tournament ended already. Pretty sure this neural relay stuff is mostly a distraction for him.”

Bruce felt his muscles tensing, even as he deliberately widened his smile and softened his expression. He’d forgotten. Maybe in a second, he’d remember why he was here, and it would all crash back down on him, but if Bruce could, he’d let him stretch it out, live just another moment in a world where he’d casually tease his brother about a slight on his dueling skills. 

Tim had caught it too, but only the slight tightening of his shoulders betrayed it. “Tournament didn’t go so great, huh? Is that when he lost the world champ title?”

Mokuba shook his head. “No, that was a while back, in Duelist Kingdom.” He frowned, suddenly, and his eyes went unfocused.

“Is that another tournament?” Tim asked quickly, pulling his attention back to him. At Mokuba’s nod, he laughed, “Man, Battle City, Duelist Kingdom, you guys sure have fun names for your Duel Monsters tournaments.” 

“I guess.” Mokuba’s smile had completely disappeared, and his shoulders were beginning to hunch back in on themselves again. 

Over Mokuba’s head, Tim sent a meaningful look in Bruce’s direction. Bruce arched an eyebrow. Tim’s eyes narrowed in a look that was practically a hiss. Do something, Batman. 

Bruce held back a sigh. Tim’s faith in his ability to fix any problem he set himself to was…flattering, but Bruce was painfully aware of his limitations when it came to matters of emotion. 

This was Dick’s skillset, not his. His oldest would have known exactly how to charm a smile out of the kid, put him at ease, get him to lay his fear and sadness down for just a while. But Dick wasn’t here. He had his own life, his own city to protect, and Bruce knew better than to think he could whistle him back.

He would simply have to do his best. 

“What kind of game is… did you say Capsule Monsters?”

With a little assistance from Tim, Bruce had Mokuba explaining the rules of a frankly bizarre game where monsters emerged from egg-like containers to fight each other. 

“Like Pokémon,” Tim said, and got himself a five minute lecture on how extremely not like Pokémon it was. Tim tried to fix his face to look serious and attentive, but the corner of his mouth kept twitching, Bruce didn’t blame him. It was endearing to see animation come back into the boy’s face, even if it was indignation flushing the tops of his cheeks and putting a glow into his eyes. 

When it looked like Mokuba’s lecture had just about run out of steam, Tim headed him off quickly. “Wow, sounds very interesting. Wish I could play a game against you, but I’m pretty sure we don’t have Capsule Monsters.”

“No,” Mokuba sighed, subsiding back against his seat, “I don’t have my set, either,”

“I don’t really think we have many board games,” Tim said thoughtfully, “unless maybe from when Dick was a kid…?” He looked at Bruce. 

“Dick was never much for board games,” Bruce said. A burst of fond exasperation warmed his chest at the memories. “Never wanted to sit still long enough.” 

Tim smiled. “Yeah, that figures.” To Mokuba, he offered. “I know we have a chess set, though. Do you know how to play?”

Mokuba nodded, but his mood had dimmed again. “My brother taught me.”  

Mokuba didn’t say much else for the remainder of the meal, and only picked at the rest of his food. Alfred would have to be content with the half-eaten plate, and Bruce would have to be content with the boy’s agreement to play a game of chess with Tim after dinner. 

He couldn’t expect much more out of the kid after he had been through so much. Bruce knew he was in good hands with Tim, even if Bruce could have used those hands downstairs. He couldn’t spare his own, however, so as soon as Alfred began to clear away the dinner dishes, Bruce excused himself to “take care of some business in my office.”

Tim glanced at him, and Bruce could see when he bit off the “Need any help,” that sprang to his lips. 

“You two have fun with your game,” he told Tim firmly, with a look he knew his Robin would read as an order. “And stay out of trouble.”

The chessboard was made of a dark, polished wood, with inset squares of some lighter wood, varnished but unstained. Dark swirls of wood grain stopped and started with each square, as if the whole board were some jumbled puzzle, waiting to be reassembled. 

Tim began placing the pieces—brass and wood in either deep bronze or pale gold finishes—on their squares. “White or Black?” he asked. 

“White,”  Mokuba said, feeling small. It was as good as asking for an advantage, like a little kid wanting an extra turn. But Seto nearly always made him play White, back when they used to play together, and he needs the familiarity of it right now, to sink into the routine openings. Sometimes, when he was a particular kind of move, Seto would purposefully make strange counters to his moves in the early game, abandoning conventional responses for bizarre ones that would weaken his position if Mokuba adapted to them correctly. He was never quite sure if Seto did it to force him to keep learning and thinking, instead of falling back on memorized plays, or if he did it in order to give himself the challenge of winning from a less optimal position. Maybe both. 

But here and now, Tim did none of these things. He responded conventionally and appropriately to Mokuba’s safe, textbook moves. As they shuffled their pawns and knights into position, Mokuba thought maybe he really could could just drift his way through the game, the way Seto almost never let him do. 

But then Tim started talking.

It was okay at first—more questions about Mokuba’s hobbies, games he liked, things he liked to do in his free time. It wasn’t so much that Mokuba minded the questions as he minded the asking. He’d rather have just been left alone to float in the sea of thoughts inside his head. But Tim wouldn’t let him be. He felt like a fish on a line, pulled to the surface over and over.

“So, not really involved much in your school, huh?” Tim asked, threatening a key pawn ith a well-judged jump of his knight. 

“No,” muttered Mokuba, and then defensively added, “I am the vice president of a multi-billion dollar corporation, you know.”  He shored up his pawn structure with his queen’s side bishop.  

“No kidding?” Mokuba wasn’t sure if the little grin Tim shot at him was admiring or teasing. “Yeah, that’ll put a cramp in your homework time, for sure. What kinds of things do you handle as vice president?” Tim moved the knight again, pivoting his attack on the pawn into a threat on the bishop. 

“Stuff. Digital content. Marketing. Overseeing different departments.” Mokuba shrugged his shoulders uncomfortably. “Stuff.” Why couldn’t Tim just be quiet and leave him alone?

That wasn’t fair, he thought, pushing his bishop along three white squares into the safety of his knight’s protection. Tim was just trying to be nice. Probably. 

Mokuba squinted at the older boy as he studied the board, a cold sliver of doubt suddenly slicing through the muddle of worry and tired and fear and don’t think about it that had congealed around all his thoughts. 

The thing was, Mokuba was really bad, sometimes, at reading people’s intentions. 

Seto, he looked at all the world and assumed everyone in it was out to get him. People called him ruthless and paranoid, and maybe he was, but the thing was, he was always prepared for the knife in his back, the wolf at his heels. 

Mokuba had never really managed that. Back at the orphanage, he used to think the bigger kids were playing with him. When they’d laugh, he’d think he’d said something funny. When they demanded his food, his toys, whatever he had, he’d think they could be friends if he shared with them. He hadn’t even realized they were bullying him until he saw how angry Seto had been. 

Even now, Mokuba knew, he’s too easy to take advantage of.  Noah had lied to him, played on his sympathies. Marik had fooled him, along with Yugi and all his friends. And Pegasus…

Mokuba went cold. Pegasus had been Seto’s partner, a respected associate, maybe even a friend. He had sat in Seto’s office, smiling, chatting, even asking Mokuba about games and comic books…until the minute his personal bodyguards had snatched him up, kidnapped him in a bid to take control of his brother’s company. 

“Check,” Tim said softly, moving his rook into the space no longer guarded by the bishop, directly in the line of his unprotected king. 

For a moment, he couldn’t breathe. He stared at the dark wooden rook, and all he could see was the tower of Pegasus’s castle, looming dark against the sky as he was dragged towards his prison. 

Blindly, Mokuba grabbed at the first move he could think of, shoving his king’s side bishop into the rook’s path. 

Tim frowned. “Everything okay?” He took the bishop with the rook. “Check.”

Mokuba leaned forward resting his palms on his thighs. He breathed in slowly, staring at the board as if he was contemplating his next move. It was fine. That was then, not now. This wasn’t like that. It wasn’t.

He was just being jittery and paranoid and jumping to conclusions.

He was fine. 

“Yeah…” Mokuba mumbled, under Tim’s questioning stare. He moved his king a diagonal to the left, out of the line of the fire. “Sorry, just got lost in thought there for a second.” He hesitated, but Tim looked kind and sympathetic. He swallowed. “Um. Sorry if this is too personal, but I was just wondering… you’re adopted, right?”

Tim’s face did something funny. “Yeah…”

“So… how did that happen?”

Tim muttered something under his breath that sounded something like, “Well, you see, when a billionaire loves justice very much…” but then he coughed, and Mokuba lost the rest of it. Rubbing his hand across his forehead, Tim said, “I mean, Bruce decided to adopt me. It’s as simple as that. My dad died, and my stepmom couldn’t take care of me, and so Bruce stepped in.”

Mokuba could tell he was on shaky ground, but he forged ahead anyway. “I guess I just meant why.”

Tim’s expression grew a little rigid. “I don’t think I understand what you’re asking.”

This conversation was not going well. Mokuba wished Tim would make his move so he’d have an excuse to fumble with the pieces instead of looking at him. “Was he a friend of your parents or something?” 

Tim frowned. “Uh, not exactly. They were more like business associates.” He fidgeted with his knight before finally moving it. 

It was Mokuba’s turn to frown. “Business associates? They worked for Mr. Wayne?”

“Not for,” Tim clarified. “With. Have you ever heard of Drake Industries? My parents owned it. It’s a lot smaller than Wayne Enterprises. Mostly focused on medical. Well, it used to, anyway.” 

“It doesn’t anymore?” Mokuba pushed a pawn forward, not caring that it would almost certainly be snapped up by Tim’s king side bishop. He was entirely focused on the older boy and what he was saying…on the terribly familiar pattern his words were forming. 

“The company doesn’t exist anymore.” Tim shrugged, as if it was unimportant. He scanned the board narrowly, as if inspecting for traps, then took the pawn. 

“So your parents were, like, business partners with Mr. Wayne? Then they died, Mr. Wayne took you in, and the company dissolved?” 

“Well, it wasn’t in that order, specifically,” Tim was saying, “but yeah, that’s more or less how it went down.” 

The dark and light squares of the chessboard started to spin and blur in Mokuba’s vision. He swallowed, hard, and then swallowed again, but it didn’t help. He closed his eyes. He could feel Kemo’s vise-like grip on his collarbone, could hear Pegasus’s bombastic laughter, could see Noah’s treacly smile spreading across his face, but not his eyes. Not again. He couldn’t do this again. Not when Seto…

“Hey, are you okay?” Tim sounded concerned now. Mokuba pried his eyes open to see the older boy looking down at him, blue eyes soft with worry. “Look, I know it’s been a really long day for you. If you don’t want to keep playing, we don’t have to.” 

Mokuba shook his head. “No, I’m fine,” he made himself say. If he had learned anything from all his previous kidnappings, it was not to show his hand too soon. He’d made that mistake with Pegasus and again with Noah. Both times, his kidnappers had tightened their grip before he could slip free. Not this time. 

“Let’s finish the game,” he said, recklessly attacking Tim’s guarded bishop with his rook. “And then maybe you can show me around the house.”  

Maybe Tim was an ally. Maybe he was an enemy. But he could be made into a resource, either way. Seto would expect nothing less from him. 

Tim smiled. Smoothly, he took Mokuba’s rook with his knight, simultaneously putting his king in check. “Sounds like fun.” 

Chapter Text

There was a bag over his head, and the taste of blood in his mouth, and he did not know where his little brother was.

His head throbbed, a dizzying, devastating pain so present the rest of the world seemed faraway and fuzzy. Everything hurt. Breathing hurt. Thinking hurt. It would have been easy to let the pain overwhelm everything else, to just surrender to the throbbing darkness.

Seto Kaiba had never done what was easy once in his life.

Breathing low and slow, he fought against the tide of pain and tried to take stock of his situation. Tied up. Bag over his head. Light leaked through it in tiny webbed lines, but only enough to make him sure that real, full light was going to make his head ache like a bitch. He was sitting on a metal folding chair, he was pretty sure. Cheap, lightweight one, by the way it shifted when he did, and cold against his forearms where they were pressed hard against the ridge of the backrest.

He strained his arms against the zip ties on his wrists, ignoring the sting as the plastic cut into his skin. It was no good. Whoever had tied him had known what they were doing. There was barely any give, and the plastic felt strong, thick. No chance he could snap the ties or even work a hand free.

He didn’t think there were any restraints on his legs. He shifted them a little, experimentally, but he didn’t dare kick them out, the way he wanted to. It would attract too much attention, and he wasn’t willing to risk it.

He wasn’t alone.

In the echoey stillness (a warehouse, maybe? An unfinished basement?), he could hear the rustling of clothes and loud breathing of at least two other people, maybe more. He had no idea whether they were his jailers or fellow prisoners.

His gut clenched. Roland? Fuguta? Mokuba? God, he hoped not.

He’d told the kid to run, and watched him take off like greased lightning. Kaiba had bashed the first thug to try to grab him in the face and watched Mokuba whip past two more that had tried to snatch him before an impact had thudded across the back of his head, and a sharp pain had bloomed across the base of his skull. Everything went fuzzy after that.

There had been flashes, here and there — the barrel of a gun pressed against his head—the sound of Fuguta’s pained yelp, and Roland’s voice, strained, telling him to cooperate—rough hands on his shoulders, on his wrists—motion—a car, an SUV, maybe, taking turns too fast—the suffocating darkness of the bag. There’s more, maybe, but he couldn’t remember it now, not with his head the way it is.

The edges have been filed off the pain, but it’s grown, a dull, aching mass weighing on his head, his shoulders, leaking down his jawline and his spine. There were other pains too, an ache in his ribs, a throbbing in his ankle, and what felt like a bruise high on his left cheek. Nothing significant. Nothing even close to what he imagined a bullet wound felt like, so it wasn’t likely he’d been shot.

No, they wouldn’t risk that. The memory of the gun resurfaced, but it didn’t bring with it any fear, just a cold, burning anger. Even when they had it against his skull, he knew they wouldn’t pull the trigger. If they wanted him dead, he’d be dead. So it’s something else.

“Quit your faking.” An unfamiliar voice cut unpleasantly across his senses. Heavy footfalls crossed the space, and then there was a hand on his shoulder, shaking him rough. Pain spasmed through his tender skull. “I saw you try to loosen your wrists. I know you’re awake again. It’s useless to pretend otherwise, Mr. Kaiba.”

Again? The wave of disorientation that swept over him was so strong it nearly made him nauseous. How many times had he been awake before? For how long? Kaiba gritted his teeth.

Suddenly, the bag was yanked free of his head. The sudden, bright light stabbed into his eyes, even half-closed, and Kaiba couldn’t stop his reflexive wince. There was a laugh far too close to his ears, and that Kaiba remembered. He’d heard that laugh before. He hadn’t liked it then. He liked it even less now.

Calloused fingers wrapped around his jaw and yanked his chin upward. Kaiba thought about keeping his eyes shut, but that would only be handing his enemy an advantage out of spite. Kaiba could be petty, but he refused to be stupid. He blinked his watering eyes open to see a man grinning down at him. He lowered the flashlight that he had been aiming straight at Kaiba’s face.

“There we go.” The man’s tone was patronizing, as if he was talking to a truculent toddler. “Wasn’t so hard now, was it?”

It was hard to see the man’s face clearly, his eyes still adjusting to the light. He only had an impression of dark hair, heavy eyebrows, and a craggy, scarred face. No one Kaiba recognized.

“What do you want?” Maybe it would have been better to stay quiet, but Kaiba had to at least make an attempt to assert control over the situation.

“Down to business, I see.” The man chuckled. “I expected nothing less from your reputation.”

Kaiba narrowed his eyes at him. “Wish I could say the same thing about you. Instead, I’m getting second-rate mind games from some no-name who can’t even answer a question.”

BAM. The blinding beam of the flashlight flickered out as the man slammed the heavy metal flashlight against the side of the metal chair. Kaiba’s jaw clenched, hard, at the ringing clang, but he didn’t flinch.

“Pretty mouthy for someone in your position,” snarled the man. “I think you’d better change your tune before you find out just how much you could lose. And I don’t just mean money.”

Kaiba quashed the panicked thought of Mokuba that flared in his gut. “Look,” he said flatly, “I’m just trying to get some answers here. You want me to cooperate? Then tell me what the hell I’m cooperating with.”

“Fine.” The man snapped his fingers, and the other person in the room stepped forward, carrying Kaiba’s metal briefcase. He pointed to it. “Open it.”

Kaiba let out a breath. “Okay,” he said, after a pause. “I’m going to need my hands, though.”

The first man let out his unpleasant bray of a laugh again. “Do you think I’m stupid?” He slapped the metal flashlight into the meat of his hand. “Do you think I’m stupid?” he asked again. Kaiba shrewdly refrained from answering. “We’re not untying you, genius. Give us the combination.”

“I can’t do that.”

“Oh really? So much for cooperation, huh? That really how you want to play this?” The first man grabbed a radio off his belt. “Hey, Otis,” he called into it. “Bring ‘em out. Mr. Kaiba needs a little incentive.”

After a moment, Kaiba heard the sound of a door opening. A sallow, pinch-looking man in a worn-looking green jacket was first, followed by two burlier-looking fellows, who were both pushing forward two men with bags over their heads.

Kaiba felt his insides contract and relax in nearly the same instant. Men. Not boys. Not Mokuba.

He was disgusted, but not surprised when Otis–he assumed the one in the green jacket was Otis–yanked the bag off the closest one, revealing Fuguta’s bruised and terrified face. Kaiba would have bet every dollar he had that the one one was Roland.

The first man drew his attention back to himself. He hefted the flashlight in his hand, a cruel smirk twisting his face. “Care to revise your statement, Mr. Kaiba? Or do you still refuse to give us the combination?”

Interesting. They chose to use a threat against his staff as a first resort, rather than trying anything more than a vague, toothless implication of violence against himself. Seto Kaiba didn’t have a reputation as someone who cared about his employees. If he was conducting this interview himself, he’d have started by smashing a hand, or a foot, or maybe putting some pressure on the bruised ribs he definitely had. Then, maybe pull out the gun–there had to be guns, they’d used them during the kidnapping–to reinforce the point.

It was a good bet that whoever had ordered this abduction–Kaiba didn’t think for a second it was this greasy-haired smirking idiot calling the shots–had left very explicit instructions about not harming Kaiba himself. He could use that.

“I told you,” Kaiba said coldly. “I can’t give you the combination.” He didn’t let his eyes flicker over to Fuguta’s face.

“That’s very unfortunate.” The man jerked his head at Otis, who stepped forward menacingly. Fuguta let out a pitiful noise.

There was a part of Kaiba, the part that would always be Gozaburo Kaiba’s heir, that wanted to let it play out, to see just how far these men were willing to go. Was this all a bluff to them, or were they willing to get blood on their hands? What better way for him to get a measure of his captors–and for them to realize how little power they had over him?

Otis took another step forward. Kaiba closed his eyes. “I didn’t say I wouldn’t,” he enunciated icily. “I said I can’t. It’s not that kind of lock.”

The first man frowned. “What are you talking about? It’s a number lock, alright.” He grabbed the metal briefcase from the second man and nearly shoved it under Kaiba’s nose. “Eight digit combination, right here.”

“I can see that.” He left the you idiot unsaid. “But what you can’t see is the catches along the seam. Just having the combination isn’t enough. If you don’t press it in just the right way, the case won’t open.”

“And I suppose you want us to untie your hands so you can pop them open for us?” The man’s voice dripped skepticism.

Kaiba rolled his shoulders in the faintest suggestion of a shrug. “It’s a delicate process. Easy to go wrong if you don’t know what you’re doing.”

“I think I’ll manage,” snorted the man. “So, tell me the code, and then tell me about these catches.”

Kaiba rattled off the eight digit string. The man fumbled to enter it into the briefcase. His skeptical scowl eased a little when the last digit clicked into place, and he felt the mechanism release. “Don’t try to yank it open,” Kaiba warned. “You might damage it if you open it wrong.”

“I think your fancy briefcase should be the least of your worries right now,” laughed the man, but he didn’t attempt to open the case. “Tell me what to do next.”

Kaiba walked him through feeling for the faint impressions along the briefcase seam. “There’s a trick to it,” he warned. “First, you have to press the rightmost one, then the second left, then the two other ones simultaneously.”

“Slow down,” complained the man. He ran his fingers nervously along the briefcase. “First this one, and then that one…” he muttered to himself. He looked up and glared at Kaiba. “Say it again.”

Kaiba went over the sequence three more times, slowly, clarifying which buttons, exactly, were on the left, and which were on the right, before the man finally dared to try to follow the directions. “Right…then second left…then both…There!” A triumphant grin flashed across the man’s coarse face as an audible click came from the briefcase.

But instead of falling open, a strange popping and hissing came from the metal case. The man dropped it, suddenly. The hard fall jarred the weakened hinges and the case opened, releasing a mess of soggy, yellowing paper dripping a smoking, bubbling substance. The sharp tang of acid filled the air,

“What a shame,” Kaiba mocked. “I did say you might damage it if you didn’t open it correctly.”

The man stared, aghast, at the wreck of what had formerly been Kaiba’s blueprints, technical specifications, and analysis of the neural relay transmitter. “What have you done?” he screeched.

“Me?” Kaiba couldn’t help the grin that sliced across his face. “I didn’t touch the thing. My hands were tied.”

Chapter Text

As far as kidnappings went, this was probably the best one Mokuba had ever had. 

Nobody had grabbed him, tied him up, locked him in a dungeon cell or tossed him into an abandoned warehouse. Yet, anyway. It was a big house, even bigger than Kaiba Manor, and Mokuba figured it probably had room for a couple of cells or an isolated tower room. It probably didn’t need them, though. Tim hadn’t taken him outside, except to point out Alfred’s herb garden and Martha Wayne’s rose bushes, but the estate Mokuba had glimpsed through the windows stretched for miles, manicured lawns and landscaped paths giving way to woods that cut the manor off from the surrounding neighborhood—if you could call it a neighborhood when it was made up of houses nearly as large and sprawling as this one. 

If Mokuba managed to escape the house, he would have a heck of a time getting off the property, let alone back to the city. The thought was like a stone in his belly, but he forced it to the back of his mind. That was a later problem. For now, he needed to focus on familiarizing himself with the house and finding out everything he could from Tim. 

Instead of dungeon cells, Mokuba had seen public ballrooms, libraries, an indoor pool and an outdoor one, two kitchens, and more bedrooms and bathrooms than a small motel. The Manor even had a full gym.

 “This used to be the east ballroom,” Tim had told him, “but it got turned into a gymnasium when Dick was a kid.” Mokuba had figured that meant an indoor basketball court, maybe a workout room, but no, the huge, high-ceiled space was full of actual gymnastics equipment—balance beam, parallel bars, pommel horse, vault, and a trapeze. And tons of gym mats to go with it all. 

“Dick’s an acrobat,” Tim had explained, grinning at Mokuba’s expression. “He grew up in the circus before he came to live with Bruce.” 

“Like the actual circus? With elephants and everything?” Mokuba had never actually seen a circus in real life, but there were always elephants in the movies. 

Tim’s smile got bigger. “Yeah, with the elephants and everything. Too bad he’s not here right now, or he’d totally show off for you.” 

Mokuba had smiled at that, but he also couldn’t help but wonder why Bruce Wayne had adopted a circus performer, of all people. There didn’t seem like there’d be too much overlap with the business mogul skillset. Then again, nobody would have thought to look for one of the greatest tech innovators of their time in a rundown orphanage in the middle of nowhere, either. Besides, maybe Wayne Enterprises had, like, a fitness line or something. “Where is he?” Mokuba asked. 

“He moved out of Gotham a couple of years ago,” Tim explained. “He’s got an apartment in Bludhaven. He comes into town every now and then, but I think he’s pretty busy right now.” 

“And that’s, like, okay with Mr, Wayne?” Mokuba couldn’t imagine that Gozaburo would ever have let Seto, or any of his sons, so far out of his sphere of influence. 

Tim’s face did something complicated. “I mean, not really. But Dick’s an adult, so…” he shrugged. “Bruce just has to deal with it.”

Tim had talked a little more about Dick Grayson, about a weekend Tim had crashed at his apartment—“I swear he has no plates. It’s all bowls. He’s either eating these sugary, turn-the-milk-green cereals, or the best homemade soup you ever had in your life. Nothing in between. Well, and pizza, but he just eats it straight out of the box.”— and about the video games they had played another time when Dick had been in a motorcycle accident and been laid up at the house.  There was obvious affection in the way Tim talked about him, and when Tim said, “I think you’ll like him if you get to meet him sometime,” Mokuba believed him. 

They had ended up playing video games most of the evening. They weren’t as good as the ones KaibaCorp was developing—mostly fighting or racing games—but Mokuba was relieved that Tim had so many games and the free time to play them. He still vividly remembered his Gozaburo had all of Seto’s toys and games confiscated, anything that might have been a distraction from his studies. Whatever else Bruce Wayne had done, he hadn’t done that to Tim Drake. 

His chest felt lighter, looser , and he relaxed into the easy comraderie of games that required no talking and very little thought. Maybe too little thought. He found himself wondering if Dick Grayson had enjoyed these games too, or if—like Mokuba’s own toys had been—they were a privilege of a younger son, an unnecessary spare. Maybe he had, he hoped, thinking of the entire gymnasium full of acrobatic equipment. But Dick Grayson had left the gym, left the games, left the lap of luxury to—to hear Tim tell it—teach tumbling classes and live in a crappy apartment in a different city. And then there was the other boy who had lived here, the one no one had mentioned yet. 

Mokuba’s chest tightened again, and he didn’t ask Tim any more questions. 

The search for Seto Kaiba had turned up frustratingly few leads. The only real break had been the dashcam footage. According to Oracle, whoever had done the erasing had done a particularly thorough job. They were good, surprisingly so, but Oracle was better. 

Unfortunately, the video file Oracle had managed to recover was corrupted, large swatches of it erupting in pixelated bursts of black, green, and white. It was hard to make out enough of it to even isolate the section that corresponded to the Kaiba kidnapping. After several passes through algorithmic filters, Oracle had managed to get a partial plate number on one of the vehicles. She was currently doing the tedious work of churning through every potential match, eliminating the ones that didn’t fit the data they had - size, color, likely makes or models - and cataloging the possibilities. That left Batman the equally tedious task of running down those possibilities, checking into their registration, poking for anything suspicious. Robin had been helping where he could, on both fronts, but Tim had only made it to the Cave late into the night, after Mokuba had finally settled into bed. 

Mokuba. This house was no stranger to hurting children, but Bruce had been surprised at how skittish the kid had become around him. The few times Bresurfaced from his work to check on the boys, Mokuba had become stiff and quiet, barely making eye contact with him. After the third time, Bruce had decided to leave him entirely in Tim’s hands. According to the report he’d made when he came downstairs, Mokuba had opened up to him more. “But he was still kinda weird about stuff, Bruce. Like, he kept asking questions about how Dick and I got adopted.” 

It had sent ice lancing through his chest. Did Mokuba believe his brother was already dead? 

Jim Gordon had met him at the Batsignal, mustache bristling as he went over the case. It wasn’t a promising meeting. The police had even fewer leads than the Bats, and Batman wasn’t willing to share Oracle’s findings. Not when  the GCPD was the top suspect in both arranging the erasure of the dashcam footage and in leaking case details to the press. Gordon blustered a little at that, but he knew as well as Bruce how corrupt the force still was, despite all the work they both had poured into the city over the last ten years. 

“There has to be another angle,” Gordon said, frustrated. “Something we haven’t thought of.” He ran a hand through his rumpled hair. “You still think this is about the technology he was here to pitch to Bruce Wayne?” 

“It’s a working theory.” There was no particular evidence to support it, but there was no evidence to counter it, either. Batman had learned to trust his instincts when it came to things like this. 

Gordon sighed in that particular way he had that meant he was regretting giving up smoking. “You wouldn’t happen to know who else might have been interested in the tech, would you?”

“It’s under investigation.” He slipped a mini tablet from the padded pocket on his utility belt. With a few taps, he sent the list he had compiled, the one begun by Lucius’s office back when WE first began considering putting in an offer, though all traces of the WE connection hah been meticulously scrubbed from the data. “It may not be complete,” he warned Gordon. “In fact, you should assume it isn’t.” There was a nearly unlimited pool of business moguls, government agents,  warlords, and supervillains who might find the invention appealing. The list mostly comprised those who had expressed interest through legitimate channels, although it had been updated with a few obvious additions. 

“Thanks.” Gordon rubbed at his face. “We’ll need to interview the kid again too. See if he knows anything.”

He’s a child. A traumatized child, he wanted to growl, but Gordon was right. Mokuba was the only witness to the crime, and the only one who might have been in Kaiba’s confidence enough to know of any players in the mix. If there was any clue that Mokuba could give them, they needed it. 

It would have been better if he could have questioned the boy himself, at home, in the safety and comfort of the Manor. But that wouldn’t yield information he could share with Gordon, not without raising too many questions and upsetting the delicate balance of trust and secrecy that allowed both of them to be who they needed to be for Gotham. 

He might have risked it if he thought Mokuba would open up to Bruce Wayne. He’d had hope of that when he first brought him home. But with the way Mokuba had been closed off and skittish, it was unlikely to be successful and would probably just make the kid more uncomfortable with Bruce. Questioning Mokuba as Batman was an even worse idea. He didn’t have much more hope of the kid providing anything helpful to the police, but he couldn’t stop 

“We’ll see what he says.” He wouldn’t be waiting for Gordon’s report. He had no intention of letting Mokuba anywhere near the precinct without being right by his side.

“You know he’s the vice president of the company?” Gordon shook his head. “Can you imagine? Twelve years old and, what, running a board meeting?” He let out a short, scoffing laugh. “Of course, their CEO’s barely 18, so…” he trailed off, sheepishly realizing that Batman was no longer anywhere to be seen. He sighed. “Damn it.”

Mokuba wiped his palms on his jeans. They were his own jeans, not borrowed, like the pajamas he’d worn last night, a fact for which he was pathetically grateful. Alfred had laundered his clothes last night. This morning, the butler had laid them out, along with several t-shirts that might have been Tim’s, a pair of brightly colored  polos, one teal, one peach, that Tim whispered had once been Dick’s, and a selection of second-hand jeans and khakis.

 “Master Bruce hopes to be able to retrieve the rest of your things later today,” Alfred had told him kindly. “And we can certainly purchase any other items that you need. But for this morning, unfortunately, needs must.”

Mokuba had considered the borrowed clothes, soft from wear, but pressed into crisp lines. They smelled different.  At home, his clothes smelled like grapefruit and ginger. The scent wasn’t bad. He didn’t think he could have borne it if it had been a cloying artificial scent, heavy to cover up the stink of vomit and sweat that the cheap detergent never quite washed out.  His stomach clenched, and he had to breathe slow for a second. 

This detergent was fine—a faint, expensive-smelling scent of honeysuckle and vanilla. It was just different. The clothes would be different too—unfamiliar textures against his skin, fabrics worn and warped in slightly wrong places. It would be fine. If it came to that. But for now, he needed the armor of his own clothes, even if they did smell wrong. 

He tugged the ends of his long-sleeved shirt down so he could tuck his hands inside them. The police station was cold, ancient AC unit rattling away at full blast, despite the day outside not being particularly warm. Despite that, or maybe because of it, the air smelled stale, like cigarettes and coffee and sweat and dust all mixed together. 

Someone had offered him a cup of coffee, but Mr. Wayne had put his heavy hand on Mokuba’s shoulder and said mildly, “He’s a little young for the caffeine, don’t you think?” and the offer had been rescinded. 

There hadn’t been any coffee at breakfast, either, not for him, even though Mr. Wayne had drunk two mugs straight black. Tim had tried the same, but had been cut off after one. But for Mokuba, there had only been orange juice and the offer of Earl Grey, which Mokuba had turned down. He was condemned to a coffee-less existence as long as he was under Bruce Wayne’s hand, it seemed. Where was Hannah when he needed her? 

He was offered a water bottle next, and Mokuba quickly accepted before Mr. Wayne could find a reason he shouldn’t have that either. He wasn’t thirsty, not right now, but holding it gave him something to do with his hands. 

His heart was pounding so hard he was sure everyone could hear it. When he had decided yesterday that he was going to play it cool and wait for an opportunity, he hadn’t expected one to come so quickly. But as soon as Mr. Wayne had informed him this morning that they would be going to the police station to answer some more questions, thought had hardened into determination. 

The police could help him. When they went to talk to him, he’d explain his situation. Even if he couldn’t prove any of his suspicions, surely he could convince them not to send him back to Bruce Wayne, at least not before he had managed to get in contact with the KaibaCorp offices and put their company lawyers on alert. Surely, if he raised a big enough stink, Mr. Wayne couldn’t just make him disappear. 

He’d reckoned without Bruce Wayne staying in lockstep with him every second since they’d arrived. Mokuba hadn’t even considered that the man would come into the station, though maybe he should have. It seemed like it had thrown the station off too, judging by the way the desk sergeant had straightened up when they walked in, and the whole place seemed suddenly in a flurry. 

Mr. Wayne was a big man. Mokuba hadn’t thought about it too much when they’d first met in his offices, but now he couldn’t stop thinking about it. His presence loomed huge and intense just behind Mokuba,  his hand on his shoulder pinning Mokuba in place. He didn’t grip hard. He didn’t have to. 

“We’ll take you back to the interview room now,” a female officer with dark hair pulled back in a ponytail told Mokuba. Her smile was tight, but not unkind, and his stomach eased just a little. 

But Bruce Wayne was not letting him go so easily. “I’d like to accompany Mokuba.” His hand did not move from Mokuba’s shoulder. 

The officer grimaced. “That’s really not necessary, sir. If you could—”

“Let me rephrase,” Mr. Wayne interrupted. His tone was pleasant, that friendly, disarming smile holding just a hint of an edge, but his eyes had gone hard and cold. Mokuba repressed a shiver. “I will be accompanying Mokuba. Please let Commissioner Gordon know we are here.” 

Her eyes went tight and her smile disappeared, but the officer nodded. She disappeared down the hallway into the warren of backrooms. A few minutes later, a different officer came and escorted them both to a small, gray room with one long, mirrored window. Mr. Wayne’s hand never left his shoulder, not until he was sitting in an uncomfortable folding chair, Mr. Wayne sitting beside him. 

The door opened. An older man walked in, just a hint of red in his gray hair and mustache. Mokuba recognized him as the one he’d talked to after…had that really only been yesterday? Mokuba bit his lip and looked up into his face. Bushy eyebrows nestled over thick glasses. His face looked serious, drawn, and tired, but he smiled when his eyes met Mokuba’s, and his eyes were kind. 

Then his gaze swung up to Bruce Wayne’s. “Mr. Wayne. Thank you for coming in. I’m sorry to have to ask it of you.”

“Not at all, Commissioner.” Mr. Wayne’s posture had relaxed, the dangerous glint in his eyes from earlier gone. “Anything I can do to help. We all want Mokuba’s brother found.”

Something lurched painfully in Mokuba’s chest. Seto. Somehow, he had managed to let himself almost forget that even if he got away from Bruce Wayne, his brother was still missing. 

“We do,” the Commissioner agreed. “Mokuba, I know this might be difficult, but I need to ask you more questions about what happened to you and your brother yesterday.” 

Mokuba swallowed hard and nodded. 

“I’ll be right here the whole time,” Mr. Wayne warned him. His tone was soft and gentle, but he laid his hand on Mokuba’s knee. It felt like a threat. “I’m not going anywhere. Do your best to give the Commissioner all the details you can remember, but if it gets to be too much, you can stop.” 

Mokuba’s stomach churned. The message was clear: Don’t say anything you shouldn’t… or else. But what was Mr. Wayne so concerned about? Just that Mokuba didn’t try to get away…or that Mokuba would say something that revealed Bruce Wayne was behind Seto’s kidnapping too?

He turned his gaze up at the Commissioner, in a mute plea for help. Surely he could make Mr. Wayne leave, if he really wanted to, no matter how wealthy and powerful he was. 

The Commissioner settled into a folding chair on the opposite side of the table. He leaned forward, resting his weight on his forearms so his gaze was on Mokuba’s level. “It’s okay, son,” he said gently. “We’re going to take this nice and slow. If you need a break, take all the time you need.” He nodded up at Bruce Wayne. “You’re in good hands here with Mr. Wayne.”

Mokuba couldn’t help the tremble that ran all down his body. For a second, he couldn’t breathe, and then his breath was coming too quick, in sharp gasps that didn’t give him enough air. It felt like everything was closing in around him, and there was no way out. 

The heavy hand on his knee tightened. Mokuba shuddered. His chest felt like it was collapsing in on itself, unable to expand. There was no space for oxygen, no space to draw a breath. 

The towering presence beside him shifted. The grip on his knee loosened and then fell away. Mokuba sucked in a single, grateful breath, and then there was a hand on his back, and a deep voice speaking low words that Mokuba couldn’t take in. The tone was calm, reassuring, but something in Mokuba’s brain kept screaming wrong, wrong, wrong. 

“Breathe, Mokuba. You have to breathe.” The words cut through the fog, an authority in them that he couldn’t fight against. He breathed, gulping in one breath after another. It helped, but just a little. There was something wrong about the air—too flat, too warm, too little oxygen in it. 

“Good, that’s good. Now can you tell me something you can see?” Again, that nearly irresistible command. Mokuba struggled to obey.

“Um, the table,” he managed. His voice sounded breathy and faint, the words too quick, too high-pitched, but he had said them. “The window. Um…” There was a huge shape, hovering over him, surrounding him, but he couldn’t put voice to it, didn’t want to acknowledge it. “The floor.” He let his gaze drop there, to the uncarpeted concrete. 

“That’s great. Now tell me what you can hear.” 

“You,” Mokuba mumbled. “Your voice.” He thought for a moment. “The air.” The unit rattled and hummed in the background. It reminded him that the air was moving, flowing, despite how it felt on his skin. He took a deeper breath, and this time it didn’t feel so thin. 

“And something you can feel,” the voice urged him. Mokuba swallowed. He thought about the hard metal of the chair he was sitting on. He thought of the soft cotton of his long-sleeved shirt. But there was a pressure on his back and upper shoulders, moving in slow circles, that he could no longer ignore. He trembled. “Your hand,” he said, and he could no longer pretend to himself. Bruce Wayne’s hand. 

The hand stilled and drew away, and Mokuba could feel himself breathing more easily, even though he couldn’t quite bring himself to look up at the man. “That’s right,” he said. “You back with us?”

Where else would I be? thought Mokuba bitterly. Where could I possibly go? “Yeah,” he muttered. 

“That your water there, son?” A different voice—the Commissioner’s—broke in. At Mokuba’s nod, he said, “You want to go ahead and take a drink for me?”

Mokuba unscrewed the cap and took several long sips, while over his head, the two men conversed. “I’m not sure this is the best idea for Mokuba right now.”

“I know it’s rough on the kid, but we wouldn’t be asking if we didn’t need the information. I can try to call in a specialist…”

Bruce Wayne was shaking his head. “I think I should take Mokuba home. Perhaps the questioning might go better in a different environment.” 

Bright panic flared. Mokuba set the water bottle down hastily, sloshing it on the table. “I’m okay. We don’t have to leave.” He couldn’t just give up so easily. Even if the Commissioner was obviously so chummy with Bruce Wayne that he wasn’t going to cross him, there had to be someone in this station who could help.

Bruce Wayne frowned, deep furrows forming between his eyebrows. “I know you want to help your brother…” he began slowly, “but are you sure…”

“Yes,” Mokuba interjected quickly. He shot his eyes towards the Commissioner. “I can answer the questions, I promise.” Bruce Wayne’s frown deepened, but the Commissioner hmmed hopefully. “Just… can I use the bathroom, first?”

“Yeah, of course you can use the bathroom, son,” said the Commissioner. He stood and walked toward the door. “It’s down the hall and to the right. Ask the desk sergeant if you get turned around.” 

“I’ll make sure you don’t.” Bruce Wayne stood too. 

Mokuba’s heart thudded. He wiped his palms on his jeans. “I can go to the bathroom by myself,” he insisted.

“Why don’t you give the kid a minute, Mr. Wayne?” suggested the Commissioner in an unexpected show of support. Mokuba bobbed his head gratefully. 

“Alright,” Bruce Wayne agreed reluctantly. He glanced at his watch. He didn’t say anything, but the message was clear: Be quick. 

Mokuba intended to be. 

As soon as he closed the door behind him, Mokuba’s steps quickened. He knew better than to run, that would draw too much attention. He completely ignored the directions the Commissioner had given him. That would take him deeper into the warren of offices and backrooms, and Mokuba needed to head towards the front. 

 His nails dug into his palms as he rapidly formulated the new plan(s) He would hurry to the front desk, and tell the first officer he found that he was being held against his will. Or maybe he would scream it. Or maybe he should demand to talk to a lawyer. He had a right to a lawyer, right? Or at least to a phone call. He definitely didn’t have any of the KC lawyers’ numbers memorized, though, and Bruce Wayne had his cell phone. 

All plans, half-formed or otherwise, skittered out of his head as he rounded the corner to hear a familiar voice demanding, “Whaddya mean you can’t tell us nothin’? Where’s the kid at?”

“Joey, I don’t think—” A short kid with an absolutely unmistakable head of hair broke off and turned in his direction. “Mokuba?”

Mokuba ran. “Yugi!”

Chapter Text

Dust motes drifted lazily in the late morning sunbeams that poured in from the Game Shop’s high-set windows. Yugi ran a rag over the countertop, but it didn’t really need it. Business had slowed since the boom right after Battle City had ended. Kids who had been inspired by the tournament to pick up Duel Monsters or revamp their decks had already bought their cards weren’t ready yet for more. 

So, there was no one around when Tea came barreling through the Game Shop doors. 

“Yugi!” she gasped, as soon as she locked eyes with him across the room. 

“What’s wrong?” Yugi asked, dropping the rag and moving past the counter towards her. He could feel his other self stirring, emerging from the deep recesses of his soul in response to the distress in Tea’s voice. 

“Turn the news on,” she told him. 

The tv was in the backroom, the one that functioned more as the Muto living room than as part of the shop. Yugi hurried to switch it on, while Tea rapidly typed on her phone. “Which channel?” he asked. 

“The local news,” Tea said. “That’s where I saw it. But it shouldn’t matter.” 

She was right. Grandpa had left the tv on the game channel again, but before he could start flipping, Yugi caught a glimpse of the banners scrolling across the bottom of the screen. “Kaiba’s been kidnapped?” he gasped.

“I came right over as soon as I heard,” Tea said grimly. 

Yugi flipped to the local news channel, guessing they would be running the most coverage. Sure enough, a picture of Kaiba was on screen. “…was in Gotham City for business when his vehicle was attacked by armed men. Reports say the CEO was forced to leave the vehicle at gunpoint. His current whereabouts are unknown. Police have refused to comment, saying the investigation is on-going.”

“This is unreal,” Yugi said, feeling numb. 

Kaiba’s been through worse and come out on top before, the Spirit reminded him, fully emerging from the Puzzle as an incorporeal presence by his side. 

Yeah, but that was different, Yugi thought back. That was Pegasus, and Marik, and magic. That was their world, the one the Puzzle had opened up to him and he was learning how to navigate. Kaiba might not like it, might deny the ancient magic and his connection to it all he could, but it was his world too, and he was nearly as adept at facing its dangers as the Spirit was. 

“What in the world was he even doing in Gotham City?” he wondered aloud. 

The reporter was now discussing Gotham City’s crime rates. Yugi admittedly didn’t know much about these kinds of things—he’d gotten a B minus in Civics, and that was only with a lot of help from Tea—but that was bad, right? Only apparently it was at a three year low? Wow, that city had issues. 

Tea hummed. “The news said it was a business trip?” She shrugged. “Maybe Mokuba knows.” 

Mokuba! That poor kid must have been freaking out right now. “We should call him,” Yugi said urgently. 

Tea looked skeptical. “I doubt we’ll get through to him. I mean, I bet every news outlet in the country is trying to get a quote from him.”

“You don’t have his personal number?” Yugi asked. 

Tea shook her head regretfully. “We should have exchanged, after everything we’ve been through.” 

The little bell over the shop door chimed, and the door slammed as two sets of noisy footsteps thudded into the quiet shop. In another few seconds, Joey and Tristan were coming towards them, Tristan still taking off his motorcycle helmet. “Is it true? Rich boy got kidnapped?” Joey demanded.

Yugi could see Tea starting to bristle, but he heard the concern in his best friend’s voice, despite his flippant words. “Yeah,” he said, gesturing at the television, where the reporter was still recapping the situation, though no new facts seemed to have come in. “I was just about to call Mokuba.”

“Oh man.” Tristan threw a hand across his eyes. “Can’t that kid catch a break for, like, a week?” 

In the end, making the phone call was a team effort. As Tea had predicted, KaibaCorp was the epicenter of a maelstrom at the moment. After the first failed attempts at getting through, they developed a system. Tea kept digging up as many public numbers for Kaiba Corp as she could, and handing them off to Joey and Tristan, who dialed and sat through ring tones and hold music, and button-mashed their way through automated menus. As soon as anyone actually got a real human being on the line, they handed it off to Yugi. There was no guarantee that Mokuba or anyone else at KaibaCorp would want to talk to Yugi, but they were all agreed that he had the best shot at it. 

It took nearly an hour, but they finally reached someone high enough placed to recognize Yugi’s name and maybe his voice–and know that he shouldn’t be shucked off with the same aggression they were doubtless using on nosy media types. “Can I please speak with Mokuba Kaiba,” Yugi asked politely, trying to keep his voice even and kind, though he’d repeated the request at least twenty times to ten different people. The other times, he’d been hung up on before he could even make the request. 

He half-expected to be hung up on this time too–it was what usually happened–but instead, with audible hesitation, the man said, “I’m afraid Mr. Mokuba is…unavailable.” 

Something flickered through Yugi’s gut–a duelist’s instinct, maybe. “What do you mean, unavailable?” he pressed. “Is Mokuba alright?” 

His friends fell completely silent, each of them suddenly completely focusing on his conversation. 

The man sighed. “You’re really Yugi Muto?” 

“Yes, I’m Yugi Muto,” Yugi assured him. His sense of foreboding deepened, and he had to fight to keep the panic from making his words tumble over each other. “I can come in person to your offices, or to Kaiba Manor, or wherever Mokuba is. I just want to talk to him. I think he’ll want to talk to me. Please, could you at least ask him?” 

“The thing is,” the man said slowly. Yugi pressed the phone against his ear, making sure to catch every word. “The thing is, we’re not quite sure exactly where Mokuba Kaiba is at the moment.” 

It had taken nearly an hour to drag the whole story out of the man: how Mokuba had accompanied his older brother on his ill-fated business trip to Gotham City, how KC employees Roland and Fuguta were reported as missing, suspected abducted, by the GCPD, but that the police said Mokuba hadn’t been a victim of the kidnapping. “But we can’t seem to find out where he is,” the man, who had identified himself as Chief Engineer Kuwabara, admitted to Yugi. “We’ve just gotten nonsense about protective custody and such. Of course, our lawyers are on the case, but apparently the Gotham judicial system is pretty unfriendly to outsiders.”

Kuwabara sighed. He’d been doing a lot of that. “Mr. Mokuba hasn’t reached out to you in any way, has he?” He cut himself off before Yugi could gently let him down. “No, of course not, or you wouldn’t have called. But you don’t have any idea who he might have reached out to? Some other connection of his or of Mr. Kaiba’s?” 

Yugi didn’t, unfortunately. He didn’t think Mokuba and Seto had any other family, or friends either, but whole books could be written on what he didn’t know about Seto Kaiba. “Please let me know if you are able to get in contact with him,” Yugi said. “I’ll do the same.” He traded Tea’s cell phone number for a direct line. 

As soon as he got off the phone, his three friends looked at him expectantly. Yugi bit his lip. He knew they’d overheard most of the conversation, but he wasn’t sure how to explain to them what he instinctively felt he had to do.

 “Well?” asked Tristan impatiently. “How are we getting to Gotham?” 

The answer to that question involved two trains, three buses, the filthiest taxi Yugi had ever ridden in, and more of Tea’s carefully stashed savings than Yugi wanted to think about. They had all sworn up and down to pay her back, but Yugi was uncomfortably unsure of how they were actually going to do that. The Game Shop had only been scraping by, and the idea of asking Grandpa to actually pay him had  his stomach twisting in knots. Joey had his newspaper job, but Yugi knew how much he needed that money. Actually, he suspected he didn’t really know how much. Joey had his pride—and holes in the soles of his sneakers.

They’d gotten out of the cab outside police headquarters on the intersection of North and Kane, in what the cab driver said was the Diamond District. Yugi had only seen a handful of jewelry stores, but the businesses that flank the streets were definitely more upscale than the ones they’ve driven past in other parts of the city. 

This is the good part of town, Yugi thought, and Kaiba still managed to get kidnapped here. 

He has many enemies, his other self thought grimly. His presence had mostly receded into the puzzle for most of the grueling overnight trip, except for one bad moment in the Amtrak lot when it looked like they might be mugged, but it turned out just to be a mostly harmless homeless guy looking for change. Now that they had arrived in Gotham, however, the Spirit had emerged, keenly aware of everything Yugi saw and heard.

I guess so, Yugi thought back. Some people might have blamed that on his money and power, others on his abrasive personality. But Yugi wouldn’t judge. He had plenty of enemies of his own, despite having neither. Some people were just cut out for them, he guessed. Like how mosquitos liked some people’s blood more than others. 

Tea paid the cab driver, and they headed for the doors. It took a bit to go through security. They wouldn’t let Yugi through the scanner at the door without taking off the Puzzle, and the officer raised his eyebrows when Yugi hesitated to comply. It made him feel sick to pull the chain over his head, and his hands started to shake when he had to put it in the gray plastic box to go through the X-ray machine. But the officers were getting twitchy–two more had drifted over to the entrance–and they were eyeing Yugi’s bright hair and assortment of belts and buckles dubiously. 

He felt a faint touch of encouragement–too weak for words, just a feeling–from the Spirit, and forced himself to get it over with as soon as possible. Tea had gone first through security. As soon as the Puzzle emerged from the other end of the machine, she scooped it up and kept it safe for him, handing it back as soon as the officers were satisfied with Yugi. He wasted no time in re-securing it around his neck. The heavy weight–so much like metal, yet not quite–settled reassuringly on his chest, and with it, the assurance of his other self’s presence. 

If neither Pegasus nor Marik could separate us, these officers of the law have little chance of doing so, the Spirit observed dispassionately. Yugi knew. But he still laid a protective hand on the chain where it met the Puzzle’s loop. 

Joey and Tristan got through much more quickly, though the four of them still got more than their fair share of suspicious looks as they made their way to the desk. There were several people in front of them, and by the time they made it to the front of the line, Yugi was feeling overwhelmed with the little dramas he’d seen play out all around him. 

And then they hit a wall. 

Despite Tristan’s insistence, Tea’s smooth charm, and Joey’s belligerent questioning, the desk officer absolutely refused to give them any information about Mokuba Kaiba’s whereabouts. He refused to even confirm that Mokuba hadn’t been a victim of the kidnapping, even though not a single news outlet had reported that he was, that he was safe, or even that the GCPD knew where he was. Yugi didn’t even exactly blame him—they didn’t have any credentials, and it wasn’t like they even had a right to the information in the first place. It was just, the information was here, Yugi was sure of it, and if this man wouldn’t help them, where were they supposed to go? They couldn’t exactly scour every city block. 

Joey was getting hot around the collar, and Tea was suddenly spending less of her energy trying to sweet talk the officer and more trying to hold Joey back. Yugi was doing his level best to help, when, out of the corner of his eye, he caught a glimpse of someone—a small, dark-haired someone—walking determinedly towards the desk. He stopped short, looked in Yugi’s direction, and it was him. “Mokuba?” 

“Yugi!” Mokuba was running towards him. Joey and Tristan cut off abruptly, and Tea gasped. 

Mokuba barreled into Yugi’s chest, nearly knocking him over. His arms folded over the kid automatically, while his eyes sought help from his friends. They were already encircling them, a warm, friendly barrier from the rest of the world.

“Yugi,” Mokuba said again, half-muffled from his chest. He pulled back to look up at Yugi’s face. His grey eyes were huge, broadcasting both fear and relief. Yugi had always appreciated how Mokuba left himself open, in sharp contrast to his closed-off older brother, but now a pang went through his chest at how vulnerable he was. “Yugi. You’re here.” He sounded dazed. 

“Yeah, I’m here.” He gently squeezed Mokuba's arm before stepping back. “We all are. We came as soon as we heard about your brother. I’m so sorry, Mokuba.” 

Mokuba ducked his head, but not quite quick enough to hide the shine of tears in his eyes. Tea put a hand on his shoulder. “We’ve been so worried,” she told him. “I know this is so awful. But you’re okay? They haven’t had you in this police station since yesterday, right?” 

Mokuba’s head whipped up. “No,” he said, hoarse and airless. “No, I’m not okay.” He turned desperate eyes on Yugi. “You gotta get me out of here.” 

“Out of here?” Yugi glanced around. “But this is the police station.” 

“It’s not safe,” Mokuba insisted. “I’m not safe. They’re trying to–I’ll explain later, but we have to get out of here.” 

“Okay.” Yugi glanced towards the door. “Come on, guys–”

But the officer at the desk, momentarily thrown off, was frowning at them. “Hold on,” he ordered sharply. He looked at Mokuba. “Aren’t you the Kaiba kid?” 

“Thanks so much for helping us find him!” Tea interposed, with a dazzling smile. Yugi grabbed Mokuba’s hand and began swiftly marching toward the door, Joey and Tristan flanking them. “You’ve been such a big help!” 

“Wait!” He was scrambling now, out of his chair and making his way around the desk. “You can’t just–Hey! I need some help over here!” 

At his yell, heads turned all over the station, and the two officers at the door started moving in their direction. 

“Uh, guys?” hissed Tristan. 

Joey's gaze snapped to his. "Tea, Yugi, get the kid out of here. Tristan, you're with me." 

Yugi sucked in a breath as the two boys rolled their shoulders and threw their chests out, making themselves large, threatening targets, taking up space. This is a police station, he thought wildly. He wasn't sure just how many officers were in the room, let alone the building, but he was sure they were outnumbered at least four times over, and they all had guns. 

But Joey's tone brooked no argument, and there wasn't time. Yugi quickened his step, dragging Mokuba towards the entrance. 

"We'll just be going, then." Tea was still smiling, voice sugary sweet, as she slipped away from the counter and loped, with graceful, long-legged strides, to Yugi's side. Tristan and Joey moved into the space between them and the officer. But the officers from the door were nearly on them, and other figures in the room were moving. 

"I'm going to need you kids to stop right there," the man who had scanned Yugi at the door ordered, his voice gruff and disapproving. His hand was at his waist, uncomfortably close to his gun.

Yugi glanced at Mokuba. His eyes were squeezed half-closed, and his expression looked desperate. “Please,” he breathed. 

Okay, Yugi thought, and felt his own resolve redoubled with the Spirit’s. As quickly and easily as closing his eyes, his soul shifted, letting the other presence within him rush over his senses and letting his own self recede to the background, still aware, still present, but no longer in control. 

His hand let go of Mokuba’s, in the same instant shoving him towards Tea. In a voice that barely sounded like his own, he heard himself say, “Tea, go!” Then, the Puzzle flared, a riot of rainbow light across his soul, and with it a surge of shadow magic he could never have controlled the flow of. The Spirit could, though he seldom called on it.

Every light in the building went out all at once. 

There were shouts and gasps and the sounds of movement all around him and running feet he hoped were Tea’s and Mokuba’s in the absolute darkness. Too absolute, Yugi realized belatedly, with senses half-a-step removed from the waking world. The bright daylight outside the windows was gone, and the shadows were unpierced by even so much as the pinprick gleam of a smart watch or computer display. This darkness was not the absence of light, but an entity of its own, viscous and devouring. Yugi felt the danger of it tingle down his spine. 

 “What the hell is going on?” demanded an authoritative voice, and another added sharply, “Mokuba? Are you here? Where are you?”

Mokuba didn’t answer, which Yugi took as a good sign. Be gone, please, he thought. The electric feeling of danger was doubling with every second, and he now felt the darkness as a pressure along his…skin was the wrong word. The boundaries of his soul. Nausea was starting to roil up from his belly–or maybe some incorporeal part of him that felt like his belly. It was like dueling Pegasus, the sickness, the pressure, the feeling of wrongness worming through him, like quick-growing roots that would savage through him until there was nothing but shreds. 

All at once, the pressure released, light flooding back into the room. 

“Let’s go!” his voice–loud, confident, commanding–called to Joey and Tristan. They lowered their fists, dazed and confused in the light but ready to help all the same. 

“Freeze!” a voice yelled, but Yugi couldn’t feel scared, not with his partner’s fearless spirit at the helm. Joey and Tristan lunged for the door in the same instant a crack tore through the air. 

Power from the Puzzle blasted through him, so swift and strong it left Yugi completely wrung out in its wake. If the Spirit had not been in control, he thought he would have collapsed to the ground, but his legs held him, somehow, as he dashed towards the door as something metallic clattered to the floor, and a voice yelled, “Don’t shoot, damnit!”

The door thudded shut behind them, and they were out in the bright sunlight–or at least what passed for bright in the smoggy Gotham skies. 

“Damn,” Joey gasped. “What the hell was that, Yug?” 

“Give a guy a little heads up next time,” Tristan grumbled, but they were both grinning, flush with adrenaline and success. 

“They won’t let us go so easily,” the Spirit warned with Yugi’s voice. “We have to keep going.” 

“But where’s Tea and Mokuba?” Tristan glanced up and down the street. “We gotta find them.”

“Listen to Yugi, man.” Joey shoved his friend on the shoulder. “Didn’t you hear that gunshot? I’m not sticking around to get shot.” 

And so, as the door of the police station flew open and men and women in uniforms poured out, Yugi and his friends were already running.