Robin's Egg

Forg-Egg-fulness

Damian typed away at a report while Danny hummed to himself. A new case had made itself known and the youngest of the batclan had been put in charge of it. A string of kidnappings had started to sweep across Gotham. There was nothing connecting them other than they all vanished at night after a brief scuffle. The others all had their own cases and, since Damian had a lot of free time recently, it had fallen to him, which he was grateful for. The boy had begun to become a bit stir-crazy due to the lack of action. Danny had been helping with those urges but it didn't work all of the time.

"Age, gender, appearance... all of them are meaningless. Not a single one has a connection so why were they all taken?" Damian muttered more to himself than anything. It also didn't help that the kidnappings were all across Gotham and not just in one section. There was no rhyme or reason and it was starting to annoy the young detective to no end. There was a motive. He just didn't know what it was.

Danny hummed again in thought, unable to see what was on the screen but listening to his guardian's words anyway. Damian had offered to look up a podcast or some music for the ghost so that he wasn't bored but Danny had declined. He may not be able to read what was on the computer but he could still bounce ideas back and forth. This limited vision sucked at times.

They didn't meet up at a party anywhere? Was there some sort of concert or were they hostages for a certain rogue?

The young boy hummed in response. "Almost everyone in Gotham has been held hostage directly or indirectly by a rogue. That would be too hard to trace unless that person appeared several times. If that was the case, then Drake would have noticed a lot sooner than this. His ability to detect patterns is unparalleled." That made sense. Damian leaned back in his chair with a frustrated sigh. "There were a couple that were connected through social media or an event but overall they do not overlap."

What about places that are less likely thought of? They might not know each other on social media and didn't attend something as obvious as a concert but what about something from public services? Like a library, or a hospital?

More typing filled the amiable silence, as Damian started the tedious task of looking into each missing person's medical records. There was only so many hospitals in Gotham so in a way, almost all of the people kidnapped were connected because of this. Which could be a lead, so he took note of which hospital each missing person went to last. Damian idly read aloud a few tidbits from each report for a while before a surprising feeling of realization came from the ghost boy. "What? What have you noticed?"

I have a hunch. Go back to that thirty-year-old who was last hospitalized for somehow swallowing a hot wheels car.

Damian arched a brow but did as he was asked. He had only mentioned that one because why would someone do that to themselves? "Okay, now what?"

Read through his full history. Not just the hilarious parts.

"All right, let's see. There was the Hot Wheels thing... he was hospitalized for Joker gas a couple of times... Clean bill of health overall. A few years ago, he was hospitalized after an attack by Two-face. Got shot for failing the coin flip. He actually died on the surgery table for thirty minutes before being revived." Damian scanned the sparse record and shrugged. "Nothing of note after that other than normal checkups."

And there were no witnesses to these kidnappings?

"Surprisingly none. Which is impressive because there are at least twenty missing people that we know about." It was unsettling. There were probably a lot more missing in Crime Alley due to the homeless nature of the community. But if someone went missing, they were unlikely to report it to the police. Damian might need to call Todd to see if there had been an escalation in missing persons reported in his area.