Thea Drake

Gotham City – The Batcave – 3:47 AM

The Batcomputer's icy luminescence sliced through the cavernous dark, casting Thea's drawn face in fractured cobalt shadows as she fixated on the screen. Before her, the case file of Jasmine "Jazz" Todd—her adoptive sister, her partner, the second pillar of their former trio—glared accusingly from the display, its CLOSED stamp burning crimson against the sterile digital backdrop. The cave breathed differently these days. No sharp clack of Rikki’s escrima sticks striking the training dummy. No whisper of Thea’s own Bō staff cutting the air in practiced arcs. No murmured debates over tactics—just the perpetual drip of limestone tears and the mechanical whir of overworked processors grinding through another sleepless night.

Helena hadn't come down here in days.

Thea didn't need to turn her head to know her adoptive mother's cowl still sat gathering dust on its stand, untouched since the funeral-that-wasn't-a-funeral. The Batwoman's workstation sat dark, abandoned, as if the very idea of the mission had died with Jazz. Even Rikki was gone—her Nightwing gear missing from its locker, the Blüdhaven transfer papers signed and filed before—

"—before the body even got cold," Thea muttered to herself, fingers tightening around her coffee cup. Then, louder, bitter: "That is, if we had a body to begin with. Or are we also pretending we didn't bury an empty casket?"

The words echoed off the cave walls, unanswered.

Her workstation had metastasized across the cave's central console, swallowing real estate with each passing hour. Crime scene photos from the warehouse where Jazz had vanished were pinned beneath half-empty coffee cups, edges curling from condensation. A map of Gotham dominated the main screen, pulsing with red dots marking every false lead she'd chased into the ground. In the corner, Jazz's Robin boots still stood where she'd kicked them off before that last patrol, scuffed and waiting for an owner who wouldn't—

Couldn't—

Thea blinked hard, forcing her attention back to the screen. She zoomed in on Arkham's visitor logs, cursor hovering over an entry from that night—Dr. N. Hodges (visiting hours: 2 AM). Her lips curled. "Bullshit," she muttered to the empty cave. "Miasma's in Blackgate."

For a moment, the cave wasn't empty.

Jazz leaned against the Batcomputer, twirling a lockpick between her fingers with that infuriating smirk of hers. "You're overthinking it, T," she said, nodding at the case file onscreen. "Sometimes a cigar's just a cigar."

Thea scowled. "And sometimes it's a bomb. You'd know that if you—"

"—checked the seams? Please." Jazz flicked the lockpick at her, laughing when Thea fumbled the catch. "Not all of us need to dissect everything like a damn coroner."

The memory burned. Thea's fingers twitched toward the empty space where Jazz had stood, but the monitors flickered back to the present—to the cold, silent cave. To the truth no one else seemed to see.

A wheelchair's quiet whir broke the silence.

Bradley Gordon rolled into the light, his fingers pausing over the tablet balanced in his lap. At twenty-one, he carried himself with the weary authority of someone who'd spent half his life in the cave—first as Batboy, now as the Batfamily's Seer. His mother's tired cop eyes stared out from a face that had long since left childhood behind.

"Thea," he said softly. "You've been at this for 72 hours."

She didn't turn. "And?"

"Your heart rate's spiking. Your keystrokes are sloppy. You're—"

"—the only one still looking?" Thea snapped, finally spinning to face him. Her pupils were blown wide from stimulants, her lips cracked from neglect. "Funny. I don't recall you noticing the timestamps on the morgue footage. Or the—"

Bradley cut her off with a sigh, projecting the data onto the main screen with a flick of his wrist. "Because it doesn't matter. The body wasn't—"

"The GCPD's closed the case!" Thea slammed her hands on the desk, sending a photo of Jazz's empty chair skittering to the floor. Her voice cracked like ice underfoot. "Helena's mourning—locked in her room for days, like she's the only one who lost her! Rikki's running—just like always, off to Blüdhaven before we even had a body to bury!"

She jabbed a finger at Bradley's chest. "You built the facial rec software. You know the blood spatter in that video doesn't match the—"

Bradley grabbed her wrist. His grip was firm, but his voice shook. "Thea. Jazz is gone."

The cave held its breath.

Thea yanked free, her chair screeching as she wheeled back to the screens. "They've given up," she whispered, fingers already flying across the keys. "But I won't. Because I'm the only one who sees past the grief, who bothered to look deeper."

A tear splashed onto the keyboard. She didn't wipe it away.

Bradley watched, helpless, as Thea bypassed his firewalls with practiced ease, her code slicing through Gotham's traffic cams like a scalpel. A warning flashed—ACCESS DENIED: GCPD EVIDENCE LOCKER—but she didn't hesitate. Three keystrokes and Commissioner Gordon's override codes blinked innocently onscreen, hijacked without remorse.

"I'll find you, Jazz," Thea murmured, her reflection warped in the green glow of the hacked servers. "Even if I have to burn Gotham to the ground to do it."

Bradley's hand hovered over the Batcomputer's killswitch.

He didn't press it.

Instead, he exhaled and opened a private comm channel. The line crackled to life.

"I need you to watch her," he murmured, voice low. "Helena's in no state, Rikki's gone, and I can't—" He cut himself off, glancing at Thea's hunched silhouette. "Just... keep her from burning the whole damn city down."

A beat of silence. The comm line hummed softly.

"And..." His voice cracked, just slightly. "Make sure she stays safe. We can't lose anyone else."

The line remained open, static whispering in the quiet cave.

Bradley didn't look back as he wheeled away, leaving Thea to her ghosts—and the waiting silence of an unanswered call.

The camera lingered on the CLOSED case file—then panned to Thea's hand, hovering over the keyboard. Her pinky finger tapped absentmindedly against the wood...

In the same staccato rhythm Jazz always drummed when nervous.

The Batcomputer's glow faded to black, leaving only the echo of Jazz's laughter in the dark.