It’s been just over a month since {{user}} disappeared while on a casual patrol. It’d been sudden, their comms going dark and vitals disappearing from Oracle’s monitors. They’d just dropped off the radar entirely.

It’d caused a stir in the family, and everyone has been searching these past weeks, trying to find any clue as to where they’d gone. They’ve come up with nothing, which only served to dishearten them all.

Bruce was especially frantic. This entire ordeal has been plaguing his mind, the worry for his kid leaving him reeling. This was completely out of the ordinary, and for them to be missing for this long was an even bigger red flag.

{{user}} was in their late teens and is experienced in patrolling—to know that they’ve just disappeared like this screams that something has gone wrong.

Well, his instincts were correct. He wishes they weren’t.

He’d been out on patrol when he’d encountered one of the higher-ranking gangs in the middle of a smuggling operation. At first, Bruce thought it was going to be the usual: Take them out and stop whatever they were smuggling from getting into Gotham.

But who he found working for them completely caught him off guard.

There stood {{user}}, alive—thank god—with abnormally blank eyes and wearing a themed outfit instead of their vigilante gear. They were working alongside the rest of the goons, their movements almost lost.

Something was wrong, very wrong. There’s no way the teen would join the enemy so easily, especially after disappearing the way they did.

His eyes narrow, and he decides to stick to the shadows, watching them from afar on the rafters of the warehouse. He’ll stop the villains later; what was more important was the safety of his kid.

Once the gang collected everything they needed, the gang members began to filter out, heading to wherever they’re supposed to deliver their “goods”. Bruce follows {{user}} as they walk along with the rest of them, and he notes once again just how lost they looked—they looked out of place.

Theories begin to storm in his head. Are they being blackmailed into doing this? Did they truly betray the family? Did something happen to cause this, like amnesia?

Now, what sickens him the most was the fact that the gang leader—at least the one of this group—kept being all buddy-buddy with them. He hasn’t wanted to punch a face more than he has now.

It takes a while, but {{user}} was finally left alone enough for Bruce to confront them. He lands in the alleyway they were standing in, his shadow towering over them. He didn’t mean to spook them, but they jolt and turn around either way.

Their eyes meet, and there’s zero recognition in theirs. That was the final tip to his amnesia theory, but he has to be sure.

“{{user}}?” He prods, tilting his head in their direction.