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“I hate you,” Jason deadpanned with a face devoid of any emotion.
“I know,” Tim stoically replied.
“You ruin everything.”
“I’m aware.”
Everyone except he and Tim were out of commission due to a mysterious alien virus. On top of having to find a cure that very well may not exist, Jason was having his worldview shuffled around like playing cards.
“The pyramids weren’t built by aliens. You can’t tell me such an influential part of ancient human civilization isn’t even human.”
Sheepishly, Tim says, “They could’ve just stuck the component inside the pyramid rather than building the whole thing if that makes you feel better?”
“It doesn’t,” comes Jason’s annoyed reply. Shrugging, Tim turns away to keep tapping away at the Batcomputer while Jason begrudgingly resumed readying the jet. The cave lapsed into a thick and tense silence as the two worked. Even though the other Bats were currently stable, there was a real chance things could turn deadly at some point.
Everyone but Tim and Jason had entered into a mysterious temple-like structure on an island that only resurfaced from the ocean floor once a millennia. Bruce had picked up some strange signals from the temple, so they went to investigate while the two boys were patrolling and investigating the perimeter. The only reason they even knew that anything went wrong was that Damian’s snarky comment was interrupted by a loud “Gas!” before everything fell silent.
The amount of time it took to extract everyone from Batman to Black Bat was far longer than anyone would’ve liked, and that’s without mentioning the time it took to travel back, decontaminate, examine the patients, and figure out everything they could about the virus.
There was nothing to research because there was nothing like it in their databases and all of their alien contacts were radio silent for a deep space mission. So, the two standing Bats experimented in the lab while Alfred oversaw the downed heroes. While Jason broke down the chemical structure of the virus and attempted to find a cure, Tim tried to find any connections to the alien temple that could lead them to the cure.
After several grueling hours of this, Tim broke the silence with a loud, “I’ve got it!” Quickly, Jason set aside his research to hover behind his brother’s workstation. Across the multiple monitors were stills of the temple’s walls taken from the Bats’ cowl footage. The columns of hieroglyphs etched in the stone didn’t make any sense to him, but according to Tim’s chicken-scratched notes, he did.
“You find the cure?” Jason asked anxiously as he tried to decipher his little brother’s handwriting.
To his infinite disappointment, Tim shook his head. “No, but I know where one is!”
“Well, spit it out then!”
Shifting a bit nervously, Tim said, “About that. It’s in Egypt.”
Which is how Jason ended up dragging Tim away from the Batcomputer and chucking him into the jet before quickly taking off for a potentially alien and almost definitely hostile pyramid. After Tim’s initial grumbling at being manhandled, the ride was silent. It was so quiet that Jason found it suffocating.
But then Alfred’s voice crackled over the speaker’s, and Jason sorely missed the blissful silence at his solemn words. Damian’s vitals were dropping, and Steph’s weren’t far behind. The elderly butler hypothesized that the younger you are, the more susceptible you are to the virus.
Jason’s knuckles turned white from where his grip became punishing on the controls. Whatever alien designed/incorporated this virus was ignorant or sadistic. He spent the rest of the flight mentally tearing apart the monsters that put that cursed virus on Earth. And if his family died, he was already making detailed plans to track down and eviscerate the intergalactic murderers.
At long last, they touched down in Egypt, not far from the Great Pyramid of Giza. Jason had to hold himself back from gawking at the piece of history he’d always wanted to visit. However, he’d never felt the desire to break into it and track down alien medicine. Gotta love how life surprises you…
After breaking into one of the seven wonders of the world, Jason followed closely behind his little brother as he navigated them to one of the many secret entrances that have been hiding beneath everyone’s noses. The ancient structure was hauntingly silent, and he wouldn’t even be surprised if a mummy, ghoul, or other horrific creature jumped out at them.
Eventually, Tim paused in front of a random wall and started switching between his tablet and the engraved surface in front of him. Jason could only watch in wonder as the hero started tapping seemingly random hieroglyphs until after hitting one shaped like a bird and all the characters Tim had touched glowed a vibrant blue. The light is momentarily blinding before it recedes and a slab of the wall pulls back and moves to the side. A dusty hallway lined with the blue light stretches deeper into the pyramid, beckoning the explorers to enter.
Looking at one another warily as they don their gas masks, they carefully creep into the tunnel. The door slides shut behind them, sending Jason’s nerves on high alert. They carefully traverse the alien hallways, but Jason still had to duck out of the way of traps and pull Tim away from a pitfall trap or two. They were so close to where Tim’s signal was pinging from when something triggered another trap, and a silver tinted gas flooded the hallways around them.
Despite thoroughly testing their masks to make sure they were alien trap-proof, Jason couldn’t help but anxiously wait for the two of them to fall unconscious and doom themselves and their family to a slow, agonizing death. But after a tense, fear-filled minute, he figured that was enough proof that they were fine for now. So, he grabbed Tim by the shoulder and marched him through the hall and into a spacious and nearly empty room. In the center is a podium holding what appears to be a crystal covered in pictographs far different than the ancient Egyptian’s language.
“That’s it,” Tim breathes reverently as he quickly walks forward to retrieve the treasure.
But Jason’s seen this before. Sure, it was in Indiana Jones, but that’s besides the point. “Wait, Tim-” he started, but he was too late. Tim scooped the crystal up and immediately, the podium sunk into the floor and a door started to sink from the ceiling to lock them in the chamber. Jason snatches Tim’s hand and starts dragging him as he races out of the room and through the desolate hallways.
“Are you kidding me right now, Red?!” Jason yells as he yanks them out of the way of a swinging statue covered in spikes (how weird is that?).
Frantically, Tim hollers back, “How was I supposed to know it was trapped?!”
“How could you not know! It was so obvious!”
“Well I’m sorry, next time I’ll just assume the glowing rock is booby-trapped.”
“As you should!”
They almost died what felt like twenty-seven times before they finally burst into the main pyramid. The door barely shuts in time to keep what must be a magical crocodile from biting their ankles. It was horrifying, truly.
Tim starts laughing at the absurdity and in relief that they made it out alive. Jason joins in until his comm crackles and Alfred’s strained voice rings through their ears. “Hello? Please, boys, answer me!” Jason had never heard his grandfather sound so worried before, so he quickly answered.
“A? We’re here, what’s going on?”
There was a sigh of relief before Alfred said, “I lost connection for a bit, and the kids are getting worse. I don’t know how long they’re going to last. Do you have what you were looking for?”
“Yes,” Jason said as he and Tim raced for the jet. “We think this crystal holds the answer. Unless something goes wrong, we’ll be home within a few hours.”
Jason could almost see Alfred nodding tersely as he said, “Okay, please hurry. And I’m glad you’re safe.”
The line clicked off, and the two threw themselves into the jet. After quickly decontaminating, Jason slides into the pilot’s seat while Tim disappears in the back to hopefully formulate the cure and not lead them to another random alien temple.
Left with his thoughts, Jason could only hope that they made it in time. He didn’t know if he could live with himself if even only his baby brother died. After he got the jet in the air and set it to autopilot, he quietly walks to the small lab area he’d set up before takeoff. Tim kept switching between messing with the crystal that was hooked up to some kind of device and rapidly jotting down notes.
“How’s it coming,” Jason asked softly, trying desperately to not think about what would happen if Tim couldn’t crack the thing.
It took Tim a couple seconds to finish what he was doing, but eventually he said, “Slow but steady. At this rate, I’ll be able to decipher this and send the cure to Alfred at least twenty minutes before we arrive.”
Breathing a sigh of relief, Jason plops down on the chair beside Tim and starts helping run calculations and simulations until they at long last had a formula they could send off to the Cave. After that, all they could do was wait in torturous silence until they got home.
Tim was fidgeting, and after several oppressing minutes, Tim quietly asked, “What if we’re too late? What if we got it wrong?”
Swallowing thickly, in part to buy himself time and partially to shove aside the choking feeling, Jason answers, “It will be awful, and we’ll probably never recover. But, we’ll know that we tried our best. If that happens, a lot of things are going to change, but at least we will still have each other. I’ll also probably move back to the manor. Alfred can’t be left alone after this.”
The silence was physically painful until Tim quietly said, “I will too. I can’t- I won’t- Jason I don’t think I’ll be able to handle it either.” Tears streaked down the kid’s face as he looked up at Jason with wide, terrified eyes.
“Oh Tim,” Jason said softly as he pulled his little brother into a tight hug, trying to protect him from his fears in the only way he could.
They stayed like that until Jason had to land the jet. When they hurried off of it, the Cave was quiet. Almost as silent as the pyramid, and it sent Jason’s heart plummeting. Then, Alfred’s haggard form exited the medical area. If the cure worked, the Bats wouldn’t be unconscious anymore. They’d hear them complaining and Bruce typing up a report. Not this. Not the silence.
Tim must have reached the same conclusion because he suddenly collapsed to his knees so hard the sound reverberated throughout the cave. Jason was too shocked to be able to stop it, so he simply croaked out a pleading, “Are they?”
Alfred takes a deep breath before calmly saying, “They’re fine. Everyone’s simply sleeping it off. You did it.”
Jason slumped to the floor next to Tim and pulled him into a hug as they both sobbed in relief. Their family was alive. Everything would be okay. After ensuring they were okay, Alfred returned to the medical wing.
It took a few minutes for him to compose himself, but eventually Jason said, “Hey Timbo, I think I’m going to move home anyway. Just until I can be sure they aren’t going to keel over and die on me.”
Chuckling, Tim said, “Yeah, I think I will too.”
“Great! Want to make a powerpoint on ancient alien artifact safety with me?”
Perking up, Tim said, “Oh, one hundred percent! They are never putting us through this again!”
Safe to say, the Bats regretted waking up.