Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

It was after midnight, and Tim found himself still in his Red Robin gear waiting for Batman and Robin to arrive back at the cave. His posture was forcefully erect, despite the exhaustion that weighed heavily on his body. It had been three months since Tim had last stepped foot in the cave—the manor even longer—and he had been more than happy to keep the trend going. That was until Oracle informed him that he needed to report to Batman. Not Bruce. Batman. Tim suppressed the urge to shudder, but a chill went down his spine regardless.

Tim had a sneaking suspicion that Batman would want to discuss his last case. The failure of his last case, that is. He had made a mistake; or rather, he had made a series of mistakes that led to the escape of a lower-level weapons dealer. But even a low-level dealer could cause considerable damage to Gotham if left unchecked.

He had been fighting some hired bodyguards outside of the dealers base, but he had been exhausted from work at WE and his other case loads. One of them got a lucky hit, and knocked him over the head with enough force to render him unconscious. While Tim had been out, the bodyguards and their boss had fled which spoke of intelligence and cunning. No minor crime organization would dare kill a bat, no matter how unimportant, unless they wanted the full fury of Gotham’s vigilantes on their trail. It wasn’t because they cared about Red Robin, Tim reasoned to himself, but the principle of the thing.

There was a rumble from the cave’s entrance, but it wasn’t the batmobile. Worse, it was the throaty rumble of Red Hood’s bike. He added that to the growing list of things that had changed since Bruce had been lost in the time stream. Jason was on good terms with the bats again. It was an unsteady peace, but the others could count on Red Hood as a last resort if needed. Red Robin though? Not a chance. Jason still thought of Tim as his replacement, and still treated him with the upmost hostility on a good day.

Hood parked his bike, and Tim looked for something to make him look busy. He was mentally, emotionally, and physically exhausted—if he was being truly honest with himself—and he knew he wouldn’t be able to stand the other’s presence without snapping.

The choice was taken out of his hands a moment later.

“Heard ya fucked up big Replacement,” Jason drawled.

He grit his teeth, but refused to respond. Jason rarely had the chance to be alone with Tim, and when it happened the other boy made it his mission to dredge up every insecurity he had. Hood wasn’t able to beat him physically anymore, less he risked his tenuous relationship with the Bats, but verbal taunts didn’t leave any physical marks. Tim just wanted to get his lecture from Bruce and go the fuck home. Was that too much to ask?

“ ‘Course maybe that concussion knocked some sense into ya. Realizing that you can’t make it with the rest of us real vigilantes?” Jason continued, “You were a pretender when you took my mantel as Robin, and you were even more unoriginal when you took my other mantel as Red Robin. Trained by Batman and you’re still worthless.”

Something ugly and spiteful bubbled up inside Tim. Normally, he wasn’t the type to lose control. Tim’s anger never burned hot like Jason, Bruce, or Demon Brat, and he didn’t have the lukewarm disappointment that Dick displayed when he was hurt. No, Tim’s fury was cold, vicious, and unforgiving— something he went to great pains to suppress.

He took a deep breath and turned to face his predecessor. The older boy had taken off his helmet and domino, leveling a malicious smirk at him, clearly looking for a fight.

Jason couldn’t start a brawl with Tim, but he was allowed to defend himself if Tim threw the first punch. A luxury Tim never had when it came to his own replacement.

Tim was done being nice. He was willing to work with Jason after the attack on Titan Tower—and when he hurled a batarang at his chest—because Red Hood hadn’t been fully in control of his Pit Rage. But Tim was at the end of his compassion. A wolfish smile found its way to Tim’s lips, more toothy snarl than anything else. Distantly, he heard the batmobile rumble through the entrance of the cave, but it was all but background noise. Tim’s next words burned through the cave’s atmosphere like an acid.

“You were as much of a replacement as I was, and you weren’t half as good as you think you were.” Tim bit out. “But you certainly have lived up to the Red Hood legacy. What with beating a Robin half to death, and going on murder sprees? The only difference is Joker finished the job and you didn’t.”

An animalistic growl passed Jason’s lips as he pounced on Tim, eyes glowing the caustic green of the Lazarus Pit. But Tim had added more weapons to Red Robin’s arsenal than just his bo staff, and released an armour piercing taser round from his wrist—an invention he was particularly proud of.

It didn’t stop Red Hood, but it gave Tim the opportunity to crack his staff across Jason’s ribs, bringing the older boy to his knees. Before either could strike again, the ominous figure of Batman stood between the two with a look of righteous anger directed squarely at Tim. The Bat’s gaze flicked to Jason on the floor.

“Injury report Red Hood,”

“Little fucker fractured a couple ribs,” Jason wheezed and gingerly got to his feet.

Tim didn’t have it in him to feel bad. Payback was a bitch after all.

“Father, clearly Drake is unfit to patrol. Not only has he completely failed what was to be an easy mission, but he attacked Todd and caused bodily injury.” The Demon Brat made his presence known. “Clearly he is unfit to continue as Red Robin.”

“I’m inclined to agree with Damian.” Batman leveled a glare at Tim. “I’m taking you off the roster for at least three months. I will reevaluate after that time has passed.

Tim almost flinched at Batman’s words, but his viciousness had only grown. Somewhere in the back of his mind Tim was screaming at himself to stop talking and take the punishment as a small mercy. But he had been expected to forgive both of his attempted-murderers without complaint; expected to forgive people who had never been sorry for hurting him in the first place. An even larger part of his mind was out for blood.

Batman had turned away to help Jason to the Medbay, expecting the conversation to be over. Expecting Tim to roll over and let him take his mantle like the good soldier he had always been before he had lost everything. Tim was Robin back then, but he wasn’t anymore. He was Red Robin, not by choice, but because Robin had been ripped away from him when he had needed it the most. He would be damned if he let that happen a second time.

“No,” Red Robin stated.

Batman turned slowly. Tim registered the faint look of surprise in Jason’s eyes.

“No?” Batman growled in question.

“When I misbehave in your eyes you toss me aside like I’m nothing because you only ever keep me around when I’m useful to you,” Tim spat, “I run your company, and complete cases you don’t have time for, but you never treat me like family. I take abuse from all of you, and I’m never allowed to fight back.”

“Drake this display is inapprop—”

“Shut the fuck up Damian,” He snapped, “It’s my turn to talk now.

The younger boy shut his mouth with an audible click, astonishment crossing his features. Tim turned back to Batman.

“You don’t get to make decisions for me when you threw me away like garbage,” Tim hissed.

Bruce was about to interject, a look of concern flashing across his now uncowled face. Tim didn’t know when that happened, but he didn’t let that soften him.

“I bled to get you back from the time stream and I’m still not enough.” His voice cracked slightly at the end. “No one believed me when I said you were alive, no one. I lost everything to save you and you didn’t even care!...No one ever cares.”

An eerie silence fell over the cave, and no one spoke for a few moments. Bruce was clearly struggling with what to say. Tim’s chest heaved with his anger and anxiety, his eyes stung with unshed tears, but he had said his peace. Pushing past Damian, Tim walked stiffly to his motorcycle.

“Red Ro—son, please just wait—”

With the squeal of tires, and a smell of burning rubber, Tim raced through the batcave and into the night.

Chapter Text

Tim’s alarm went off at 6 A.M. as it did every morning since he had returned to Gotham with Bruce. WE had needed an acting CEO, and it was clear that neither Bruce or any of the other bats were willing to fulfill the role. Tim had offered so that Bruce could have recovery time—he never thought it would be permanent. But with a heavy sigh, he urged his aching muscles to force himself from bed immediately after he shut off his alarm. If he sat and thought about it, he knew he might never leave bed again. He certainly didn’t want to anyway, but delay always proved fatal to his motivation.

It had been weeks since he had peeled out of the Batcave, and he had yet to hear from any of the others. Tim still patrolled in spite of Batman’s declaration, but he was careful to avoid any of the other vigilantes. He knew that they could track him down if they wanted to, but no one had seemed to bother with it. As grateful as he was to avoid them, Tim couldn’t delude himself into thinking that it didn’t hurt.

He went about his morning routine as he normally did, and tried to avoid looking in the mirror. Most days he was successful, only ever checking to make sure his tie was straight and that the lines of his suit were crisp and professional. Tim tried to avoid looking at his face unless it was absolutely necessary. Something about his fake smile paired with the dead eyes always disturbed him. Today was unfortunate in that it could not be avoided. A thug had gotten in a lucky shot on patrol the previous night and had left Tim with a bruise across his left cheekbone. A counterfeit smile was much less convincing when people already knew something was wrong.

Beside the first aid kit under his sink’s vanity was a well used make-up bag that promised a solution. Tim leaned over the sink with a white knuckled grip on the smooth marble, readying himself for the inevitable mental turmoil. A few steadying breaths helped calm his mounting anxiety as he braced himself to look, but the pit in his stomach remained.

Tim looked like he walked out of a Victorian death portrait.

His skin was a ghostly hue that accentuated the deep bags under his eyes. The bruise had turned an ugly purple overnight, and highlighted his sharp cheekbones in a macabre mockery of shading. Not for the first time, he wondered how Jason was the one that had died, but how he was more alive then Tim could recall feeling in the past year and a half. Catching his spiraling thoughts, Tim forced his mind completely blank and went about covering up his mistakes—his movements completely mechanical. When he looked down he was almost surprised by the trembling in his hands.

I’m going to have to look at myself everyday for the next two weeks to cover up this bruise, Tim ruminated.

He wasn’t sure what happened between that thought and the mirror shattering under his fist. Or rather, he logically knew what had happened, but didn’t remember making the decision to do so. Pieces of shattered glass clattered into the sink, and it was with a sense of detachment that Tim realized his knuckles were bleeding. Distantly, Tim felt the weight on his chest shift. It became bearable, less crushing, even. Moments passed as he stared at the blood trailing from his knuckles.

Shaking his head, Tim began to treat his wounds, already having an explanation for his hand in mind. Tam would just think that his injury was from his nighttime activities, and everyone else would believe what he told them to. It was only one time, after all. In Tim’s experience, most oddities could be overlooked by the average person if it only happened once. He would go to work, proceed through his day, and pretend he wasn’t as miserable as he felt.

His old therapist—the one his parents had been forced to send him to—would have called this a relapse. But it wasn’t right? He didn’t even mean for it to happen, and he received worse injuries from patrol. Hell, he’d gotten worse injuries than bleeding knuckles from his adoptive family. Once was only a slip-up, and Tim had been clean for years.

Intuitively, Tim knew his logic was flawed. He recognized that punching a mirror was self-harm. He even recognized that he should probably reach out to Dick like he had promised when the older boy had originally found out. But Tim had been Robin then, not Red Robin. Dick had proven he wasn’t safe to trust with difficult information, even if Tim actually wanted to tell him. He didn’t want to go to Arkham, and he couldn’t trust Dick not to send him there after the elder had threatened to before. A small part of him wanted to reach out and be comforted by his old hero, to have a movie night after the hard conversation and be told that everything would be alright. Tim forced it back with a desperate fervor, refusing to be a burden to those who hadn’t wanted him to begin with.

After the shards were cleared from the sink, and the marble meticulously cleaned, Tim plastered on a thousand-watt smile and went about his normal business as a seventeen year old CEO.

It wasn’t the only time Tim self-harmed after that. He had forgotten how good it felt to hurt, how the stress seemed to melt away for a few minutes of peace. It was different from patrol injuries somehow. More controlled maybe? Tim didn’t really like to think about what that would mean, but it didn’t dissuade his actions. Generally, he never wore anything but suits—both business and vigilante—and sweatshirts which he took full advantage of. The cuts he made on his arms were utilitarian. When his mind was wandering during a WE meeting, he could firmly press down on the previous night’s wounds and bring himself back. Tim accrued more wounds and scars on his thighs, stomach, and hips—some far worse than he had ever done before. However, he was no stranger to stitching himself up.

Tim had only seen the other vigilante’s at a distance in the few weeks following his melt down, so it was a surprise when Red Robin found Nightwing lounging on his couch after patrol one evening as he slipped in through the window.

“What are you doing here Nightwing?” Tim asked levelly.

“Hey Timmy! I just wanted to see how you were doing.” Dick hesitated on his next words. “...You haven’t been answering my calls or texts, and I started to get worried.”

While Tim suspected that was partially true, it wasn’t uncommon for him to ignore Dick’s attempts at conversation. He had loved Dick as his brother, and still did, but after everything that had happened between them, being in the same room with the older boy was exhausting. Talking to him made Tim mourn the simpler times that had passed them by.

After he had left Gotham on his mission to find Batman in the time stream, Tim had been angry with Dick, with his remaining friends, and with the world for taking so much from him. Some days that anger was the only thing that kept him from falling apart and losing himself in the darkness. He understood why Dick had taken Robin from him and had given it to Damian, truly. Dick had been dealing with the loss of Bruce, taking over as Batman, and had to deal with reintegrating Damian into society. Tim had planned on giving the Demon Brat the Robin title at some point anyway, as a show of acceptance into the family. But Dick had turned that acceptance into Tim’s rejection. The elder had been struggling; but Tim had lost his father, Kon, Bart, Stephanie, and Bruce. Tim had been struggling too. Everyone had come back—some had never even been dead to begin with—but it still weighed heavily on his soul. Eventually, after he had gotten Bruce back, that anger had fizzled out into a numb, bone-deep fatigue that never seemed to abate.

Regardless, Tim suspected the reason Nightwing had shown up at all was because he had heard about what happened in the cave. He had never showed up for something as mundane as a few missed messages in the past, and Tim highly doubted that Dick was going to start now.

“You know how it is,” Tim gestured vaguely with his hand, “WE, the Titans, and Red Robin keep me pretty busy. Sorry for not getting back to you.”

“It’s alright, we were all just worried about you.” Dick let concern bleed into his voice as he continued to speak.

Tim couldn’t stop his next thought: We’Ve BeEn WoRrieD aBoUt yOu.

He cursed Bart internally for getting him into memes.

Apparently as Tim had been lost in thought, Dick had continued to speak, but had stopped in favor of giving him a troubled stare.

“Seriously, are you doing alright? I don’t mean to be, well, a dick or anything, but you look like shit. When was the last time you ate or slept?” He asked.

Tim forced down the worst of his frigid wrath, and replied coolly, “If you are only here to insult me, leave. Now.”

Dick’s eyes widened as he held his hands up in surrender. “You haven’t been acting like yourself lately Tim, I just want to make sure you’re taking care of yourself.”

“I’m fine,” Tim responded flatly, “And I would currently be sleeping right now, if you hadn’t broken into my safe house. Rest assured, I am still able to do my case work, WE is running smoothly, and the Titans are up to par.”

At some point, Dick had gotten up from the couch and had made his way towards him. Tim had failed to notice until there was about a foot between them. He had been sustaining a pretty high sleep debt, even by his own standards, but that didn’t mean he wanted to be accosted by his pseudo-big brother at three in the morning. Tim wanted him to leave immediately, in no small part due to his recent relapse, because his presence brought back a hope that maybe Dick would save him from drowning in his own mind. But that didn’t change the fact that Tim couldn’t force himself to trust the elder again. There was too much at stake that Tim wasn’t willing to lose, and too much shame surrounding his own disturbing spiral.

“That’s not why I’m worried, not why we’re worried,” Dick stressed.

“Dick, I have to be up in three hours to oversee a multi-million dollar, international deal at WE. I appreciate your concern, but it is not needed, nor do I have time for it.” Tim brushed his way past the other, towards his room.

He barely suppressed a pained yelp when Dick grabbed his forearm to stop him from leaving. Tim did flinch however, and that did not go as unnoticed as he would have liked. His brother’s face frowned in both consideration and solicitude.

“Tim… you haven’t been… you know,” He floundered inelegantly, “Have you? Please be honest with me.”

For whatever else Tim was—for whatever additional skills he had picked up as a vigilante—he was a liar first and foremost. Dick’s hold was still pulling on some of the slipshod stitches he had given himself a few days prior, but he focused his most convincing look of confusion on the other.

“Dick what are yo—” Tim widened his eyes in “realization” and snatched his arm away, “God no! I haven’t done that in years.”

“Then what was that flinch, huh?” Dick asked sharply.

“A fucking injury from patrol,” Tim spat with false outrage, “You know, that dangerous thing we do every night? A thug landed a lucky blow with a crowbar a few nights ago.”

There was a beat of silence as Dick contemplated the veracity of his story.

“Fine!” Tim hissed, making a show of fumbling with his gauntlets and armour, “You still don’t trust me? I’ll show you then.”

It was a low, but effective, blow, and Dick wilted under his words. The familiar twinge of self-loathing, struck Tim as he saw the other’s pained expression. Tears sprung to his eyes at the sight, and he was grateful for the anonymity the cowl of his Red Robin suit provided.

“No, it’s not that… I’m sorry, I assumed the worst. That wasn’t fair of me. Just—you know you can talk to me right?” Dick’s question sounded like a plea, and Tim’s heart bled.

“Yeah.” Tim’s voice cracked slightly. “It’s just been a stressful few weeks with all my responsibilities.”

Dick nodded like he understood. “Maybe we could have a movie night this weekend? I know you’re busy, but we haven’t spent enough time together recently. We could invite Dami—”

“I have a mandatory Titans meeting,” Tim cut him off sharply before he could finish.

“Maybe some other time then,” He smiled sadly.

Nightwing made his way towards the window with a bit of hesitation, but he said goodbye over his shoulder before he left. Tim’s reply felt hollow even to his own ears, but by the time the words left his mouth, Dick had already left.

That night Tim couldn’t force himself to sleep amidst his ruminating thoughts and the painful memories of happier times.

Chapter Text

It was the night before the meeting with his Titans that Tim really started to realize the consequences of his spiral. It had only been a few nights since his impromptu interrogation with Dick, and it had triggered all the old hurt that he had been trying to ignore. His cutting had gotten worse, and he had begun a new workout regimen that was putting him on the fast track to collapse, but strangely Tim found that he could look at himself in the mirror again. Smiling had become easier, even if every muscle and tendon in his body ached with a ferocious intensity, and his skin itched from healing wounds. Things had never been worse, but he had never felt better. He was managing. Damn the whispers that told him he was going to drop. It was the one thing that helped him feel less alone, less like a complete and utter failure, and less like he brought death to everyone he cared about.

His patrol route had been quiet for a few days, and Tim was hoping that it would stay that way until he could leave for L.A., but things hadn’t been going well for him in quite a while. His Red Robin gear was becoming a bit too loose for him over the weeks—his new training schedule probably hadn’t been helping with that—so when his leg armour caught on a fire escape with a clang as he snuck up on a drug deal it nearly ended in disaster.

Tim found himself faced by three thugs with their guns trained on him, having lost the advantage of surprise. His heart was racing in his chest, and his vision had tunneled. Instinct took over as he knocked the first gunman’s arm, left and down, toward the second. The gun went off and lodged itself in the second’s thigh. What happened next was a blur as Tim just barely ducked under a bullet from the third. He felt it graze his cowl and tear, but swiftly threw a canister of knock-out gas. The fight hadn’t been a long one, but it had almost ended in his death. It was a stark reminder of the occupational hazard of the job, and his thoughts were grim with the possible consequences.

He heard the tell-tale crackle of his com coming to life in his ear.

“You’ve been more careless lately Red Robin. I saw the footage from the cave, maybe B has a valid poi—”

With a deadly calm, Tim pulled the com from his ear as he searched for the street camera Oracle was undoubtedly watching him from. It was across the street, pointing directly into the alley in which the fight had occurred. Choreographing his movements for the camera, he lifted the com between his thumb and index finger, crushing it mercilessly. He waved mockingly to the lense before shooting his grappling gun, not even bothering to tie up the thugs. His new formula was higher grade than any of the bats used. After all, he had learned a few things during his time abroad. The criminals wouldn’t wake up until long after the police arrived to take them away.

It was only when Tim arrived home that he realized he had pulled some stitches in his stomach. It stung, but Tim ignored it in favor of a hot shower to wash the night's events off. It occurred to him that he probably should have been more concerned about almost getting a bullet to the face, but under the hot spray, and the sting of open wounds, he found that it didn’t really matter. When he was done, he snipped the sutures and pulled them out, not bothering to reapply them, and slapped a bandage over the damaged area. Afterwards, he fell face-first onto his bed and slept soundly—he had a flight to catch tomorrow after all.

The meeting with the Teen Titans itself was actually very brief. Really it was only a “keep up the good work, now let’s do a group sparring session” type of thing. In actuality, it was an excuse for all of them to get together and hang out. Their lives were stressful, and with everyone being so busy with their own obligations it was hard to find a time for everyone to meet up. The weekend was supposed to be a group bonding session, and Tim had been looking forward to it for a long while.

Fighting alongside his team was always so much more fun than sparring with the Bats, or at least it had been. For all that the Bats were smart, they were also incredibly stupid—Tim would reluctantly include himself in that—but his team members were all relatively functioning beings with a propensity to understand when something was wrong. Tim had taken the precaution of putting lead lined thermals on underneath his Red Robin suit which had earned him a confused look from Kon, but the other boy said nothing. He hadn’t wanted Kon to be able to spot the new, and incredibly precise, wounds that he was sporting underneath his armor—a trick he had started to use after he came back from his time with the League.

As the sparring session went on, Tim felt his strength beginning to flag much more than he thought possible, and his head began to pound incessantly with the rhythm of his heart. He struck one of the practice bots they were fighting with a crack of his bow staff, letting his instincts take over. His brain felt fuzzy, and so he let muscle memory do the work for him, hoping he wouldn’t get too hurt if it went south. The last thing he remembered from the fight was Bart smashing another bot at lightning speed as Cassie plucked one from the air and threw it viciously into another with a grin on her face. When he fazed back in, he was breathing heavily with the remains of six or seven shattered practice bots at his feet, the other Titans looking on with astonishment on their faces. The room was quiet.

Bart was the first to speak.

“Dude, where did you learn how to fight like that!? That was amazing!”

Cassie and Kon were sporting looks of awe and bewilderment, but quickly changed to concern as they noticed his legs trembling minutely.

“Here and there, you know?” Tim did his best to keep his voice casual.

“You okay Rob? You look a little shaky,” Kon asked gently.

“Just sleep debt, Gotham is a hellmouth, and WE’s been a bit crazy with some insanely important deals, so I haven’t had much rest lately,” Tim explained.

Nothing he had said was an outright lie, it just wasn’t the full truth of the matter. They couldn’t call him on it, and Tim knew that. Gotham was always a hellmouth and WE always had important transactions during the first quarter. But his head hurt, the room felt stifling, and he could feel himself begin to bleed through his thermals and inside his armour. Mainly, he just really wanted coffee, or sleep, maybe both.

“Why don’t you go and lay down, yeah?” Cassie gave him an unreadable look. “We can wake you up when dinner is ready or something.”

Absent-mindedly scratching at his arm, Tim agreed. Kon insisted on walking him back to his room, apparently not convinced that he would be able to make it all the way there. If it had been anyone else, Tim might have made a corrosive comment about his capability, but Kon had been increasingly protective of him after he had come back—both Kon coming back from the dead, but also Tim coming back from saving Bruce. Kon’s concern was never false or feigned in any capacity, and Tim appreciated that more than anything. There was never an ulterior motive with him like there was with Dick or Bruce. Kon was safe.

As they made their way, Tim found himself even more unsteady than he had been previously. Try as he might, Kon still had to reach out and steady him a few times before they finally made it to his door. The other boy looked conflicted, clearly not wanting to leave Tim before he knew the other was truly safe.

“Tim, this isn’t like you man,” Kon began, “I’ve seen you when you’re riding a sleep debt, and you’re never this spaced out…”

He had begun to zone out as Kon continued to speak. Tim knew he should probably be panicking as the world began to tilt sideways, and black dots began to cloud his vision, but he remained silent as thoughts drifted passively through his mind. It almost felt like he was on the good drugs for a gunshot wound, or maybe broken ribs. He remembered the close call the night prior, but he didn’t actually get shot, did he?

“TIM!” Suddenly Kon was yelling.

“Wha’?” Tim slurred.

Kon’s face went from concern to being outright alarmed, but Tim couldn’t figure out why. He tried to ask, but that didn’t seem to help. His vision began to tunnel and his limbs were seemingly out of his control, but he wasn’t able to find the reason for it. Tim slumped forward into the other boy before he could steady himself—didn’t even know if he tried. The last thing he felt before he lost consciousness completely was the feeling of two arms around his chest, slowly lowering him to the linoleum floor.

Chapter Text

Tim woke up to the bright lights of a medical bay. It took him a minute to parse out why he was there, and how he had ended up in a hospital bed this time. For a moment, he was taken back to losing his spleen and the surgery that had come after, and oh God he’s going to throw me into the Lazarus Pit if this goes wrong and then I won’t be able to find Bruce—

“Hey, hey, Tim.” Someone was in his space. “Look at me man. You have to breathe. That’s it, come back to me.”

He hadn’t even realized he was hyperventilating until black dots had formed in his vision, which was weird considering he didn’t remember opening his eyes. The person—Kon—looked as panicked as he felt. Tim managed to get his breathing back under control, and Kon leaned away, taking stock of Tim like he didn’t recognize the person in front of him. Panic lanced through him a second time when he realized he was stripped of his armour—a fact he probably should have been aware of before now—and his torso and arms were on full display, the neat rows of cuts along with them. Tim couldn’t force himself to look Kon in the eyes. Instead he took stock of the IV line in his arm, and the fresh stitches he was sporting on his abdomen. The silence was tense and awkward.

“Do you have any idea how lucky you are that you collapsed where someone could find you?” Kon asked, his voice hoarse with emotion.

“Listen, Ko—” Tim tried.

“No. Just let me say this.” Kon brought two fingers to the bridge of his nose.

Tim tried his best to keep a blank look on his face.

“You lost your spleen, and you didn’t tell anyone about it. You have an infection Tim. One that could have cost you your life if no one had found you, and if I hadn't thought to use my X-Ray vision.” Kon summed up the situation. “That’s not to mention all of the cuts that you have. I would say you were a torture victim if they weren’t in various stages of healing. Why are you doing this Tim?”

Kon looked at him with imploring eyes that looked equally as heartbroken. Tim wanted to be sick. He had put that look on his best friend’s face. Kon had so much to deal with, the dude had basically come back from the dead not even a year ago and his relationship with Clark was still uncertain at best. He didn’t need Tim’s problems on top of that, no one needed to shoulder his problems, and no one should have had to. His skin crawled with shame and embarrassment the likes of which he had never felt before.

“Do the others know?” Tim dodged his original question.

“They know that you have an infection, but that’s it.” Kon’s jaw feathered in irritation. “Once I saw all of this, I told them I would explain once you woke up. Practically had to barricade the door to keep Cassie and Bart out. Don’t dodge my question.”

Without his cowl or his armour, Tim felt stripped bare. He wasn’t Red Robin, or Robin, or Timothy Drake-Wayne CEO of Wayne Enterprises. He was just Tim Drake, the kid whose own parents didn’t want him, the kid who was left alone and unloved like a relic in a mansion that looked and felt like a mausoleum.

“I’m sorry,” His voice was a whisper.

“Rob, talk to me man,” Kon pleaded, “You used to talk to me before. Used to come to me when you needed someone to listen. Since I came back it feels like no one knows anything about you anymore. You’re cold and distant, you never laugh, and now this? You’re killing yourself by inches, and I never even saw it. Does anyone know about this?”

Tim swallowed thickly. “Dick knows about my history with—uhm, my history with self-harm. He suspected I relapsed, but I talked my way out of it.”

“It’s never been this bad before,” Tim added quietly.

Kon cursed violently under his breath. Tim knew he owed the other boy an explanation, and an honest one at that. He had inadvertently pulled him into all of his problems, and seeing the shine of unshed tears in the other’s eyes as he tried to hide them was breaking Tim’s heart.

“You don’t need to add my problems to your list of worries,” Tim started, holding up a finger to stave off the other boy’s protests. “It’s not that I don’t trust you anymore, Kon. I think this all boils down to me not trusting myself. A lot happened while you were gone. I didn’t tell you most of it because—”

He cut himself off violently. Tim didn’t realize he was clawing at the healing wounds on his arms until Kon’s hands gently wrapped around his and pulled them away.

“Because I’m ashamed of everything I had to do to get Batman back, ashamed of the things that were done to me, and ashamed of who I became—who I am now.” Tim looked Kon directly in the eyes for the first time since waking up. “I’m so tired, Kon. Everything always hurts and it never stops.”

Without warning Tim found himself being dragged into a solid chest. He stiffened in the other boy’s grip for a moment, but found himself melting into the embrace as a sobbed ripped through him. He almost felt safe, which was a novel concept for Tim, but his traitorous mind whispered that Kon wouldn’t care if he knew what had happened to him.

Tim could feel the rumble through Kon’s chest when he spoke next. “The tower is updating the security systems right now. We aren’t being recorded here, and we have another hour before that changes. Tim, whatever you say to me will stay between us. Please.”

He couldn’t force himself to pull away, so he burrowed himself deeper into Kon. Tim spoke about having Robin ripped away from him, how Dick had threatened to send him to Arkham for believing Batman was alive, and how he had to strike out on his own after his reputation as a hero was in ruins. He explained his deal with Ra’s, working with Owens, Pru, and Z, and what had almost happened with Ra's’ sister later on. Watching his friends die at the hands of Widower, and how he thought he was going to bleed out alone in the desert surrounded by their corpses. He explained how scared he was that Ra’s was going to toss him into the Pit, but had woken up missing an organ instead. How he put Tam in danger. He even explained how lonely it was when he returned with Batman and began to realize that no one wanted him; how no one had apologized for not believing in him; how they made it clear he was only a Bat because he was useful and not because he was wanted.

Through it all, Kon had remained silent, but he had grown more tense as his explanation went on. Tim had faced down Killer Croc, thought he was going to die from the Clench, and had gotten beaten into the ground by his childhood hero who came back to life. He had withstood all of it with masks ranging from stony indifference to cold contempt. Meeting Kon’s eyes after chipping away parts of his soul was more terrifying than anything Tim could recall. He didn’t know what he would do if the other decided that Tim was as disgusting and awful as he knew himself to be.

Kon’s eyes were red with fury when he met them with his own, and when Tim went to rip himself away from his hold, he found that the other was unwilling to let go. He couldn’t quite hide his flinch of fear. Kon took in a few deep breaths, trying to stem the flow of his temper, and Tim waited for Kon to tell him how vile he was.

“Tim,” Kon began, “I am so sorry that you had to go through all that alone.”

His brain all but stopped—completely blank. As his mind came back online, he found himself waiting for the ‘but’ at the end of the statement. Surely there had to be one, right? Kon remained silent, content to hug him. Tim was dumbstruck.

“Kon…” Tim’s voice cracked and the other boy gave him a squeeze of reassurance. “I’m a monster.”

“No.” He replied firmly, “They left you no other options. What happened to you wasn’t your fault. What was done to you wasn’t fair.”

Tim let out a disbelieving scoff.

“I won’t let you destroy yourself for the Bats. Cassie and Bart will agree I’m sure. We can help you, Tim,” Kon spoke softly.

Tim tensed immediately, “You can’t tell them. No one else can know about this! I’ve finally just gotten a sliver of my reputation back, Kon. People have just started to see me for something other than a broken, obsolete sidekick who lost it after he couldn’t handle his grief!”

“Do you really think that either of them would judge you?” Kon inquired gently, “You don’t have to tell them everything, but you can’t keep going like this. I’m terrified for you, Tim.”

Tim didn’t know what to do with that. Kon seemed more worried about Tim than Tim was about himself. His care burned in a way that nothing had in a long while, and Tim found himself drooping against the other’s chest in exhaustion. Emotions were taxing to any Bat, but could Tim even call himself that anymore?

“I’m so tired,” He mumbled into Kon’s shirt.

“Go back to sleep then.” Kon shifted him back onto the bed. “We’ll figure this out together. You won’t be alone again, I promise.”

He sunk into unconsciousness much more gently than before, this time with a hand running through his hair.

Chapter Text

The next time Tim woke, he was nauseous and his head was pounding. Groaning, he carefully sat up, ignoring the quick stab of pain that lanced through him. There was a sudden shift next to him on the bed. Kon had a hand wrapped around his wrist, and his thumb on the pulse-point. The other boy looked exhausted, and had a deep frown even in his sleep. How had he not realized there was someone else on his bed?

I must be more out of it than I realized, he thought.

Events from the previous time he awoke came crashing back into his mind unbidden. He stiffened immediately as his mind began to race with the possible outcomes of the information he had shared. Why had he done that? If he had more control, he never would have had to worry Kon. He ruined everything he loved, and poisoned everything else. He was a cancer.

Tim fought to control his breathing, and was only half successful. Kon was alerted to his stress from the shaking in his hands, and began to wake up. Tim managed to control his breathing at the last second, as the other boy’s eyes snapped open.

“Hey, you’re awake,” Kon spoke gently, “How ya feeling?”

And Tim? Tim really didn’t really want to answer that. The kindness upon waking up from an injury was something he hadn’t experienced since Before. Bruce had always scolded him as Robin for getting injured. At the time, Tim was just glad he had someone around to care that he was—his parents never having been home to realize. But Dick? Dick always had a soft concern to his voice that made him think someone could truly love him. Kon’s gentleness felt like acid rain in Gotham on an open wound. The last person who knew him as well as Kon had found out how difficult it was to have him around; had realized he wasn’t worth the effort. Disposable.

“Rob, please don’t do that.” Kon let out a quiet plea.

“Do what?”

“Shut down like that. Go blank.” Sincerity shown in his eyes with his next words. “I won’t say nothing has changed—No let me finish.”

Tim’s back had gone ramrod straight, but he remained on the bed.

“I won’t say nothing has changed because I’m worried about you—because I care about you. But it’s because I choose to care about you.” Kon continued, “Please, let me help. Let us help you for once.”

But that was the issue, wasn’t it? What happened when Kon chose to stop caring? He would. Everyone always did. His parents, Dick, Bruce, Stephanie: everyone. There was something inherently wrong with him in some deep unspeakable part of his soul. Tim was just a master of disguise. He possessed a personality tailored for everyone, and he knew how to keep the charade going; but try as he might, Tim had yet to find a permanent method of trickery. It may take weeks, months, or years, but eventually everyone managed to poke a hole in his facade.

Kon had just seen behind the curtains. Tim’s nausea grew at the implication.

“I’ll be alright, Kon. I always am,” Tim sighed, tiredly running his free hand down his face.

“Yeah, until you’re not,” frustration leaked into his voice.

“I have survived everything that has happened to me,” Tim muttered.

“Fucking barely!”

Tim didn’t refute that statement. He couldn’t. The silence hung over them like a thick smog in the aftermath of Kon’s outburst.

Kon took three deep breaths. Tim counted them.

“Tim, please man,” Kon’s voice sounded hoarse, “I can’t lose you—not like this. Not ever.”

“You won’t—“ Tim paused to ponder his next statement. “You won’t lose me to this. Admittedly, it got out of control. It was a relapse because I was stressed and I fell back into old habits because it was comfortable. I took it too far, and I know that. I’ll get help.”

Kon had a pained look on his face. He looked like he didn’t believe it. Tim needed to sell it harder to get Kon off of his back. He knew that. Stopping didn’t feel like an option, especially when lying about recovery was so much easier. People always believed what they wanted to, in his experience. Guilt and shame raged through him, with his lie. Tim deserved this, didn’t he? If he couldn’t bear to quit, then why should he worry Kon about it too?

Because he can help you, and you don’t want to be saved, a treacherous voice whispered. Someone cares, but now it doesn’t feel as secure as controlling your own torment.

After all, if you give someone else the knife, there is no telling how deep they’ll cut you with it.

Before Kon could form a reply, a speedster raced into the room with a radiant smile.

“Hey Tim! You’re awake! That’s awesome!” Bart grinned, “You got some actual fresh air, and you couldn’t take it, huh?”

“We all know Gotham is an actual hellmouth,” Cassie added, walking through the Medbay doors.

“Yeah, yeah, but we have the coolest villains,” Tim reminded.

“Still not sure how that doesn’t prove her point, Rob,” Bart sing-songed teasingly.

Banter was exchanged back and forth on both sides, but Tim could catch Kon watching him every-so-often from the corner of his eye. Despite the heavy topic from earlier, Tim felt some of his worries melt at the comradery of his teammates. His smiles felt a bit more genuine than they had in Gotham. He wished he could stay in this moment forever; but for now, he was willing to stick with a movie night and some popcorn.

Chapter Text

Tim had decided to stay at Titans Tower until his stitches needed to be taken out, and his infection was under control. Or rather, Kon had forced him to stay until then. Tim had decided not to fight the other boy too harshly about that decision because of the worry he had placed on the other. He could admit that he felt safer with Kon around, both from invaders and himself.

Cassie and Bart had left for their respective homes a few days earlier with a cheerful goodbye and the promise to meet up when he was feeling better. Tim had refused to tell either of them anything, much to Kon’s chagrin, but the other boy didn’t push him for which he was grateful.

Kon made sure to sleep in the same room as Tim to make sure he was alright, and try as he might, Tim couldn’t find it in himself to feel anything other than comforted by his actions. However, he had known the reprieve couldn’t last for very long. There was only so much WE business that could be attended to in San Francisco, and Tim was loath to leave his patrol route unattended for an extended period of time.

The respite ended when Superman flew to the tower to whisk Kon away on an important mission. It had taken a long while for Tim to convince him that he would be alright while he was gone.

Two weeks had passed before he found himself in Gotham again.

It was supposed to be a normal day, he mourned to himself as he found Bruce, dressed in his sharpest business suit, in Tim’s office.

The man looked sharply at Tim from where he stood by his desk. He knew that look well. Bruce wanted to discuss the night life with him, that look said. There was an undertone of worry? Anger? Both? Tim didn’t know and he didn’t care. There was no way he was allowing this conversation on what was essentially his turf. Bruce had been strategic, Tim would give him that. He would be presumably more comfortable to answer questions in an area where he felt like he had control. But Tim had learned to wield his control better than the sharpest sword.

Tim faltered for a beat before walking through the door and leaving it wide open; giving Bruce a good look at Tam sitting behind her desk in the other room. Annoyance flickered across the other man’s face before it settled into a mask of faux happiness. The smile never reached Bruce’s eyes, but Tim stared back with stony indifference.

“Can we close that door chum?” Bruce asked lightly, “I have a few sensitive business topics to discuss with you, in private.”

“Anything you have to discuss about WE, can be discussed with my door open.” Tim responded neutrally, “Ms. Fox is one of my most trusted employees at WE, and her father, as you are well aware.”

A pang of discomfort shot through Tim at the anger Bruce held in his gaze for the split second after his last statement. Images of Jack Drake, the smell of stale alcohol, and the burn of a cigar on his skin went through his head and he wrestled down a flinch. Those marks had been hard to hide from Bruce back then, but he had done it. That or Bruce hadn’t cared to mention it. He was older, stronger, and had much less to lose than he had back then. Tim had done worse to himself than almost anyone else could do to him.

He took a deep breath to regain his composure, his expression never straying from polished marble.

Tim motioned for Bruce to sit, and he did the same. The older man sat across from him with a piercing look, coldly calculating. It was clear he hadn’t expected Tim to fight him about the discussion. Tim gave him a dead-eyed stare back, posture relaxed as he forced his hands to remain off of his forearms. They talked about business for a while, Tim sharing the quarterly profits and his new projects. Bruce played his part well, asking questions in the right places and spouting counterfeit compliments.

“Dick mentioned a week ago that he was a bit worried about you.” Bruce started gently when the lull in conversation began to get awkward.

“Oh?” Tim feigned innocence, “I suppose the deal with the Italian government was a bit stressful. Sleep fell to the wayside because I had to brush up on my Italian. You see, I like to do any important meetings in the buyer's native language as a show of respect. I have big shoes to fill after all.”

“All the same, it would be nice to have you back at the manor. We’ve all missed you dearly,” Bruce countered as he looked at the expensive decor of the office.

And Tim? Tim didn’t believe him for a second. Nothing about their conversation had been real, let alone their recent relationship. Though, is a year and half considered recent? No one had cared when Tim had moved out originally. No one had asked him to come back then, so why would they now?

Oh, Tim realized, He knows he’s losing control of me.

The realization sent a lance of pain through his heart, but he kept his posture and his expression wrapped around him like armour. Frigid resentment stalked its way to the surface; however, and he didn’t feel inclined to stomp it down this time. If Bruce wanted to do battle on his territory then who was Tim to deny him a fight?

“If you are going to lie to me Mr. Wayne, at least have the decency to look me in the eye while you do it.” Tim’s gaze never left the man’s face.

Bruce’s eyes widened in shock and bafflement as he turned back to him. “Son I—”

“If you take issue with how I run your company, we can talk about strategies moving forward. Though, as we have already discussed, the company is doing very well.” Tim stood slowly and gathered his things while he spoke. “Now if you will excuse me, I have a meeting with R&D that I cannot miss.”

Tim walked briskly to the door, but turned around before he left. “It was wonderful to see you Bruce, send my regards to your family.”

As he strode down the hallway, Tim felt as blank and numb as the pristine white walls of the building. A twinge of pain went through his forearm and he realized he was gripping it tightly with white knuckles. The sight of red blood on his hands was soothing.

He didn’t know what to think about that.

Chapter Text

It was supposed to be a normal day, Tim mourned for the second time that day.

The R&D meeting had gone well enough, and Tim had barely even thought about his interaction with Bruce earlier in the day. Though it was probably due to the low-grade haze that had seemed to settle over his mind. Whatever. It didn’t matter how the job got done, he supposed, as long as it didn’t interfere with his ability to function. He planned to patrol, and maybe even sleep a little bit more that night.

And then of course there was an Arkham breakout. Because of course there was. Tim wasn’t even annoyed, he was just tired. Oracle was running coms when the chaos let loose. As calm as ever, she read the list of those who had made their break that night: Ivy, Scarecrow, and Killer Croc.

Ivy and Scarecrow were a match made in hell. Tim prayed they weren’t working together which seemed rather unlikely if Croc was out too. Fingers crossed and all that. Almost every vigilante was out that night. Cass was away in Hong Kong again but they were relatively well equipped to handle the situation. Tim just hoped he didn’t get paired up with any of the worse options in the Bat Family.

Who are those? Tim thought,…Are there any bats you're actually on good terms with? Just dear god not Nightwing.

He would rather take a few of Hood’s bullets to his armor, or a couple hits with his crowbar than deal with Dick Grayson. It was a sad thought, but Tim was used to those.

There were two types of people in the world, Tim had begun to realize over the years. Those that are like snow, and those that are like broken glass. Both can look similar in the dark— both still glitter when they hit the light—but only one is caused by the aftermath of something terrible. Tim was nothing but broken glass anymore, but Dick had always been snow. It burned for Tim to even look at the man, let alone have to work with him.

Admittedly, Tim hadn’t been paying attention to the coms until he heard his name.

“—ed Robin and Robin are in the closest vicinity to Scarecrow’s turf. Meet each other on the outskirts of Old Gotham. Hood and Batm—”

He gave a groan, but otherwise said nothing, as he went to the location. Would letting himself be sprayed with fear toxin keep him from having to interact with the Bat Brat? He shook his head. It would probably just make him see the kid all the more. Hood too probably. Maybe even Bruce’s disappointed face. Sometimes he felt as though his whole life After had been nothing but a fear toxin induced hallucination. It was certainly an easier thought to handle than the truth in any case.

“I would like this mission to be completed as soon as possible,” Robin landed on the roof beside him. “If only to be rid of your incompetence sooner.”

“You’re the one doing all the talking brat,” He spat back, “Let’s go.”

All things considered, it didn’t take them long to find Scarecrow. Or rather, the goons Scarecrow had hired to keep them busy. Rebreather tucked over his face, Tim fought through the goons with the precision born of necessity. His Bo staff shattered knee caps and fractured ribs. Robin was somewhere behind him fighting other goons that had begun to pour out from around the back of the warehouse. Keeping an ear out for the kid, nearly cost him a nasty concussion when he nearly missed a two-by-four to the face. In retaliation, he cracked the man upside the head with his staff, and kept fighting.

He didn’t know how much time had passed, but it was long enough that the others had detained their villains. Tim’s pool of jackasses had just been handled when he heard Robin let out a small cry of pain. Whipping around Tim went to join the fight. Judging from his movements, Damian had blocked a tire iron swing with his forearm. His movements centered around his left hand rather than his right like they normally would have been.

Together they took out the rest of them.

Catching his breath, Tim realized that the Red Hood stood lazily leaning against a nearby wall, arms crossed over his chest and one boot pressed to the metal behind him. Irritation radiated through him, but Tim didn’t bother to do anything about it.

Instead, he asked, “Weren’t you supposed to be with Batman?”

“Batman’s takin’ down Scarecrow. Sent me ta help with the goons.” Hood shrugged. “Was more interesting to watch the fight.”

Tim ignored Hood’s comment, and went to see if Robin needed help splinting his arm.

“Tt, unhand me Pretender,” Robin hissed, “If you had not been so inadequate, we would be handling Scarecrow ourselves. And you wonder why you aren’t Robin any longer.”

Tim could feel Jason’s grin underneath the Hood, and it was searing into his skin like the pollution of Gotham Harbor. His jaw feathered, but he kept his body relaxed.

“If I’m so incompetent, than why are you the one with the broken arm?” His tone was neutral.

He had fought with Damian enough to know how he would react to that particular statement. Half a second after his last word, there was a knife blade centimeters from his carotid. Maybe he would have flinched when Damian had first arrived. But that seemed like a lifetime ago; or maybe, just a different life in general. Tim kept his posture relaxed and open, but his eyes were sharper than the knife poised to kill him.

“Take that back, or I will slit your throat where you stand!” The outrage was clear in his face, if not also for the knife.

Tim’s eyes flashed with a challenge. “Will you, Robin? Will you really?”

Damian pulled the knife back a few more centimeters in shock. He had clearly not expected that type of answer. Hood stood rigidly in Tim’s peripheral, looking ready to intervene at a moment's notice. But Tim wasn’t done making his point.

He let his body lean forward, digging the boy’s blade into his own throat. Tim tucked his head over the knife, meeting Damian’s white-out lenses when he spoke.

“You keep trying to kill me, but always fail. I’m starting to doubt your commitment.” His voice was frigid. “Either finish this, or Quit. Wasting. My. Time.”

“What is going on here?” Batman growled from behind him.

Damian dropped the knife like it burned him, eyes widened. The boy clutched his injured arm against his chest protectively. He would almost feel bad for the boy, if Tim had anything left in him.

“I—” Robin started .

“Just a friendly squabble Batman,” Tim answered flatly, “I see you have it handled here. My report will be finished in the morning.”

“Replacement, wa—” Hood tried.

If he hadn’t known any better, Tim would have thought he heard some concern in the modulated voice. He grappled away and into the night before anyone bothered to follow.

Chapter Text

As he had grappled away from the others, Tim was loath to go back to his regular apartment. It was always so quiet and lifeless, and he couldn’t deal with it tonight. He didn’t want to be Red Robin or Tim Drake-Wayne or anyone else. At least at a safe house he could pretend to be anyone else.

Gotham Heights was known to have both Upper and Middle class housing. Tim had always had a soft spot for the area, and a decent landlord had owed him a favor. Well, not really, but he had insisted on Red Robin utilizing any of his apartment complexes if he ever needed them. It had actually come in handy a time or two.

As he unlocked his security system and slid in through the window, Tim felt he could breathe for the first time in weeks. It was rather refreshing. The look on Damian’s face had been worth it, though he did have to bandage a small wound on his neck where the knife had broken skin. In fact, it was probably time that he changed the bandages on his arms too. The sweat from patrol would have made them gross, and they probably needed some air anyway to make sure the skin didn’t rot under the bandages.

The life of a mentally unstable vigilante is truly glamorous, Tim thought wryly.

The neck wound just needed a small bandage, as it wasn’t anything major. The only truly alarming thing about the wound had been the location, but Tim was beyond caring at that point. He used the first aid kit in the bathroom, but there were several in this particular safe house. His usual patrol route was in the area and so it was more likely he would be injured in the field near this area anyway. It’s not as though he would drag himself to the cave if he needed anything anyway. He had just finished unwrapping his left arm when a gruff voice spoke.

“What the hell happened to your arms?” The imposing figure of Jason Todd stood in the doorway.

Tim must have been riding a hell of a sleep debt if he didn’t realize that the Red Hood had snuck into his apartment. He would have to be more aware of this if he survived to see the morning.

“Oh you know,” Tim drawled, “This and that.”

The rage was clear on the older boy’s face.

What a shock.

“It looks like you had a fight with a meat grinder and lost!”

Tim gave a noncommittal hum, and poured the bottle of rubbing alcohol into the cuts without a glance in the other’s direction. The bottle was pulled from his grasp and flung to the side as Jason yanked Tim’s arm into the dim light of the bathroom. There was silence between the two of them; Jason in shock and Tim in indifference. The older boy’s thumb reached out and stroked gently near one of the deepest ones. Tim could almost pretend the other wasn’t angry if it weren’t for the shaking of his hand, and the glowing green of his eyes.

Suddenly he was being yanked forward, and out of the bathroom. Tim winced as fingers dug painfully into his raw arms. He hadn’t realized he zoned out until he fazed back in to hear Jason bitching.

“—f all the stupid, irresponsible, dumb shit to do, and you do this? Fuckin’ B, replacing me with some suicidal ki—”

And that? That is where Tim drew the line.

He snatched his arm away from Jason, and put a few feet between the two of them. Tim dropped into the fighting stance he should have the minute he knew Jason, of all people, had broken into his safe house.

“If you haven’t noticed, I’m not actually Robin anymore Hood. And nothing I do, to myself or otherwise, is any of your concern.”

“The hell it ain’t! You nearly nicked an artery with one of the ones on your left arm. You could have died!” Jason ran an aggressive hand through his hair. “Fuck, that’s just the arm I can see! What the fuck are you thinking?”

“Why the fuck do you even care?” Tim snapped. “I thought you would be glad. Maybe do the job for you, huh? Or is it that you still want to kill me yourself?”

Jason had the gall to look startled. His jaw feathered, but his eyes became a bit less luminous in the darkness of the living room. Tim suddenly felt exhaustion drag at the edge of his subconscious. The couch was stained with blood, and other fluids he would rather not know the origins of, but it was a decent place to sit.

Head bowed, Tim asked, “Why did you come here Hood? What do you want from me?”

“What I want to know is how long this has been going on?” Hood tensed again. “Fuck that actually, I want to know why.”

“You want to know why? After all this time you’ve hated me? Fine.” He looked up from where his head was cradled in his hands. “It took me losing everything I cared about to realize that I couldn’t condone how you all were treating me anymore. I bargained and fought and bled. Alone.”

Jason opened his mouth, but Tim kept going anyway.

“And the worst part? At no point in time should I have had to. I didn’t need Dick, or Cassie, or anyone else to come with me to find him. Hell, I just needed someone to believe me. For someone to believe in me.”

Jason stepped around the coffee table, and sat on the other end of the couch, listening.

“And then.” Tim’s voice cracked painfully. “And then I got most of it back: Kon, Bart, Stephanie, Bruce. They all came back. But no one even asked what it took to get him back; what parts of my soul I had to barter to make it happen.”

Tim looked back down at the floor and was surprised when a stray tear splattered on the worn hardwood. He didn’t stop talking. It felt like burning in acid, but it had been so long since anyone in Gotham had just listened to him. Who knew? It might be the last time anyone would with the way things were looking recently.

He huffed a bitter laugh. “I had thought things would change—that maybe Bruce being back would somehow magically make me a part of the family again. But I never was. You and Damian have always been right about that. I think that’s why it still hurts so damn much all the time. Neither of you said anything I didn’t already know.”

Jason carefully scooted over to Tim, and took the arm with the dirty bandages. Tim let him. Jason remained silent as he slowly unwrapped them, and opened the first aid kit under the table. The older boy was gentler than Tim thought he would be, and was as stupefied as he was grateful.

Tim shifted his gaze to stare unseeingly at the tobacco stained walls. Everything went hazy, like his life was being played by someone else. He kept talking anyway.

“Bruce and Dick? They were the first people that ever seemed to care about me. But I forced myself on them when they were still grieving you, and they resented me for that.” Tim vaguely noted Jason’s stiffening posture. “I understood then, and I understand now too. I held them together, but I was never you, Jason. I never tried to be.”

There was silence for a little while. There was only the sound of fresh bandages crinkling, and the smell of rubbing alcohol in the stale air. Tim’s eyes began to droop, and he sagged into Jason’s shoulder.

“Go to sleep, Tim.” Jason rasped gently.

Tim couldn’t recall if the other had ever called him by his first name. He was almost shocked. Maybe he was but it was somewhere in the mist around his consciousness. Hell, maybe this was all just one big fever dream, and he’d wake up cold and alone on the bathroom floor. It’s not like it would be the first time, or even the last. Sleep sounded like a heavenly idea though.

There was just one last thing he wanted to say.

“I jus’ wish they hadn't made me think that they cared,” He murmured.

Chapter Text

Jason liked to think he wasn’t a complete asshole, or that at the very least he was getting better. Looking down at the sleeping ma—boy on his shoulder, he couldn’t quite convince himself that was true anymore. Truthfully, it had been a thought that had been just below the surface since Tim’s meltdown in the cave.

He had never seen Tim respond so violently to such a mild—in the grand scheme of their relationship—insult. When the electricity bolt hit him, he was surprised. Pissed off, and more than a little envious of the tech, but genuinely shocked. What was worse, in Jason’s opinion, was the fact that Tim hadn’t said anything that wasn’t true. Jason had almost become the very thing he hated the most: the Joker. And he wouldn’t have even realized if he had killed the poor kid. The very idea that he was someone’s Joker made bile burn at his throat and tears sting in his eyes. The Red Hood was supposed to protect children, not beat them half to death for trying to do good in a world that was so desperately in need of it.

After swallowing thickly, Jason began to thread his hands through the younger’s hair. It was oily like he hadn’t showered in a few days. Tim nuzzled his head into his shoulder, and Jason’s shriveled heart cracked a bit at the display. He looked heart-breakingly young to have been through all that he had, and it struck a chord that Jason had been a large contributor to the boy’s suffering. Tim had been a kid, and still was.

And what Jason had seen earlier in the night? It terrified him.

He had stopped breathing when Tim had leaned into the Demon Brat’s knife. The look in Tim’s eyes, or rather the surrounding facial expression, was recklessly blasé and held the wild edge of a challenge. At that moment, Jason was sure Tim was willing to die because of his provocation; happily, even. It sent a chill down his spine at the very thought. When Jason had died to the Joker, he had fought to his very last breath to escape; to get home to Gotham and to Bruce. He had something to live for. He had known that someone would miss him if he were gone, no matter how angry he had been with Bruce. Did Tim know that he would be missed if something were to happen to him?

It was clear to Jason that Tim was fighting; but also, that he was sinking. He needed help. But could Jason be that person? He doubted anyone else knew about Tim’s self-harm; otherwise there was no way he would have been allowed to patrol. But would Tim even want his help? Would he think he was being genuine? Jason had given Tim no cause to think that he would ever want to help him without a hidden agenda of some sort. Jason was surprised to find that he even cared, let alone that he found himself wanting to help.

They had all broken Tim. Jason wasn’t naive enough to believe he was the only cause of his mental state; practically everyone in the bat family had screwed him over in one way or another. If you had asked Jason a month ago if Tim was a spoiled brat with no problems, he would have agreed wholeheartedly. But looking at the kid, Jason couldn’t really remember why he thought that.

Admittedly, Jason knew that he had been blinded by pit rage and the title of Robin when he had come back from his little vacation. There was one thing that most people didn’t know about the Lazarus Pit; it didn’t actually increase your anger. Anger, Jason has learned, was a secondary emotion. Rather than increasing feelings of anger, the Lazarus Pit increased the underlying emotions that made someone angry. And Jason? Jason had been hurt that Bruce had replaced him with someone who was so thoroughly competent. He felt, and still feels, that he wasn’t ever enough to deserve Bruce and the life he had given him. But that hadn’t been Tim’s fault. It still wasn’t.

The boy whimpered in his sleep as he curled further into Jason. That was the final straw for him. Jason shifted the boy in his arms so that both were lying on the couch, Tim’s head pillowed on his chest and Jason’s hand gently rubbing his back. Tim all but melted into the contact, even in the gentle grasp of unconsciousness.

“Shhh, I’ve got you,” Jason whispered, “And I’m not going to let anyone hurt you again.”

Jason figured he owed the other boy at least that much.

The question was simple, but held an underlying complexity that had the potential to be disastrous: how could he help the boy? Jason could barely handle his own emotions, let alone those of a potentially suicidal Red Robin. But he had faced difficult situations—and death itself—before, and he would at least try to be the support system his replacement so desperately needed.

Jason had one final thought before he followed Tim into sleep:

No more dead Robins.

Chapter Text

Tim awoke to a distinct throbbing in his temples like most mornings, but there was a particular sense of dread in his stomach he couldn’t quite place. Before he opened his eyes, he went through each of his senses to figure out what was out of place. He was lying on a couch, specifically the couch in his favorite safe house. It was the comfiest piece of furniture he owned, even if it was stained and worn. Awareness slowly crept back in as he heard light footsteps in his kitchen, and the smell of bacon permeated the air.

He tensed. Someone was in his apartment; even worse, they were cooking bacon. The smell made nausea pool in his stomach. In truth, Tim couldn’t remember the last time he had eaten anything so substantial, and the idea of doing so was extraordinarily unpleasant.

Tim bolted upright. Jason. He knew about his self destructive tendencies. He had also wrapped his wounds? Confusion and shame burned at his nerves. Surely Jason wouldn’t have stuck around; Jason hated him. No one in the batfamily, Alfred aside, could cook without burning down the apartment complex. That ruled out Dick and Bruce, and the Demon brat would have murdered him in his sleep. Jason was the only option that slightly made sense. Even if it made no sense at all.

As he looked down, Tim realized he was in his civvies which could work to his advantage. Silently, he moved off his couch and over to the window. The sound of movement didn’t abate from the kitchen, and so he slowly reached for the window.

“If you leave, I’m draggin’ you back here to eat something.” It was definitely Jason in his kitchen.

Tim hovered by the window, considering his options. He had put many contingencies in place for every bat family member and how to get away from them. Of course, he could run and if Jason actually caught him he still had a few tazer charges.

I mean that could be kind of fun… Tim pondered.

“Oh my God, would you get your skinny ass back in here?” Jason asked in exasperation, “Fuck’s sake.”

Out of sheer pettiness, Tim waited thirty seconds before he began trudging to the kitchen. If he left now, Tim knew he would lose control of the situation. There was no guarantee that he hadn’t told the other bats about what he had seen, but if he ran, Jason would absolutely rope them into finding him. Which still begged the question: why does he care? At the very least, Tim expected some sneered comment or some slightly unhinged laughter at his expense. Or maybe that was Damian. It was hard for Tim to tell them apart in his head. The Big Angry and The Small Angry were pretty much on equal footing as far as Tim was concerned.

He found himself being leveled with a glare from the older man. What a shock. Tim gave his best deadpan stare in return, only breaking contact as he went over to brew some coffee. If Jason would rather glare at him then talk like an actual adult, that suited Tim just fine. The older boy’s gaze still sent a shiver down his spine as he shoveled coffee grounds into a filter, but that was only natural given the amount of times Jason had tried to kill him.

“You have no food in any of your known residences. Care to explain to me why you’re starving and cutting yourself into an early grave?” Jason accused.

And he’s decided to talk. Joy.

“Even if I did, us vigilante’s have a nasty habit of crawling right back out of the dirt.”

The growl that Jason emitted was almost subvocal. A large hand grabbed the meat of his forearm—missing most of the major wounds, Tim noted—and dragged him around to face his unwanted houseguest. The slight burn of his arms was a welcome distraction from the uncomfortable feeling of panic. The pain in his arm stopped him from feeling the phantom sensation of choking on his own blood in Titan’s Tower.

“This isn’t a joke!”

“Do I look like I’m laughing, Jason?”

In the resounding silence, Tim gave a considering look at the way Jason’s chest rose and fell with familiar fury. There was something underneath it all. Tim couldn’t quite place it at first, and Tim was a detective first and foremost, but he was also tired down to his soul.

“What’s your game here? Do you need leverage against me? Don’t want to lose your favorite punching bag? What?”

A flicker of hurt flashed across Jason’s face, but quickly reverted back to his usual self-righteous anger. He dragged Tim to a chair by the countertop, and put a plate of bacon, eggs, and waffles in front of him. His eyes flickered to the food in dread.

“We will talk about this after you finish this,” Jason ran a stressed hand through his hair, “I weighed more than you when I was twelve and starving on the streets, Christ.”

If Jason had wanted to kill him, Tim figured that he had plenty of prior opportunity to do so. That didn’t mean he wanted to eat the food anyway though. He also knew that Jason would probably try to force the food down his throat if he didn’t eat at least a little bit though. Tim was; however, annoyed that Jason watched him as he ate his food. He didn’t talk, he didn’t move, he just stared. Tim tried to stop himself from shifting in discomfort, but realized he didn’t quite manage it when he saw Jason’s eyes track the movement.

The first few bites tasted like ash on his tongue, even if some distant part of himself recognized that the waffles were very well made. He tried to eat as slowly and as thoroughly as possible, but he became full less than halfway through the plate. One warning look from Jason told Tim that he wasn’t allowed to stop eating. Nausea rolled in his stomach after he finished three quarters of the plate, and Tim put his fork and knife down to take a sip of orange juice that Jason had apparently bought along with the other provisions.

Clearing his throat lightly, Jason began, “Kid, you can’t keep going like this.”

“Twenty-four hours ago you would have shot me for looking at you wrong.”

“I’m going to level with you. I was wrong to attack you in the Tower. I was wrong to hate you. You are a kid, and you’re hurting. I don’t like that. I want to try and help you.”

“What? So now I’m not even an opponent worthy enough to attack? You made it clear you wanted to destroy me. Do you not like what you see then?”

Jason’s mouth gaped, but he didn’t say a word. It looked like he was searching for the right words to say. Tim didn’t let him.

“You wanted me gone. I tried to stay, and you did nothing but make me miserable. I try to leave, and you try to act like you care.” Tim’s eyes strung. “They don’t care, and you only care because you don't want Bruce blaming you if something happens to me.”

Tim gave a small, hopeless smile. “You don’t get a say in how I choose to live my life.”

With that Tim threw an emergency smoke bomb and left the apartment, consequences be damned.

Chapter Text

Dick Grayson had been worried about his little brother for some time. Tim to be specific. The incident that Bruce had told him about in the cave didn’t seem anything like him, but everyone had off days. Even when he had gone to confront Tim in his apartment, sure, the kid had been off, but Tim hadn’t wanted to talk to Dick for a while. He thought he had been close to getting Tim to agree to a movie night, but he had shut down almost immediately.

His worry had fallen to the wayside after that, Tim had clearly needed time to wrap his head around whatever was bothering him. Or, at least, that is what he had thought until Bruce and Damian had come back from the Arkham breakout. The boy had been near monosyllabic when Dick had tried to talk to him. While Damian was generally not one for small talk, he was never quiet or subdued. Even Bruce looked rather puzzled. Dick had seen rough nights in Gotham, more than his fair share even. He knew what it felt like to see terrible things on the night of a breakout, but this wasn’t haunted like that. Damian was confused, and so was Bruce. His gut told him it was something to do with one of his brothers, most likely with Tim.

But there was one other thing that weighed on Dick: a transmission he had received from Superman a week prior. It hadn’t been sent to Batman, but to Nightwing. Apparently, Superboy was in a hurry to get back Earthside and was getting a bit twitchy. Superman seemed positive that it was because he was worried about Red Robin. Everything seemed to point to Tim having a problem.

I should have checked his arms, Dick thought mournfully.

Tim seemed to be exhibiting some…worrying behaviors which was why it came as such a shock when Dick received a call from Jason. Jason wouldn’t call him for anything less than the world ending. He picked up on the second ring.

“Jason? What’s happening?”

“It’s Tim, there’s a problem.”

Dick tensed at the sound of Jason’s voice. He sounded legitimately worried about their younger brother. A giant red flag, practically the size of the Batmobile.

“I’m sending you an address, meet me there.” Jason ordered, “And for the love of god, don’t tell the old man. He does not have the emotional bandwidth to deal with this properly.”

“Is Tim okay, Jason?”

“He—” A hesitation. “He’s not actively dying.”

His phone buzzed with a text.

“I’ll be there in 15.”

Dick made it there in ten minutes. It was a good thing Gotham cops were practically worthless, and none of them bothered to try to pull his bike over. Jason was waiting for him at the door without Tim.

“What’s going on, Jason? Where’s Tim?”

The younger boy’s hair was messy like he had been running his fingers through it. Jason began pacing in the living room.

“I’m going to tell you the story from the beginning. Don’t interrupt me.”

A flash of irritation ripped through Dick, but he kept his temper under control. It was clear that Jason was alarmed which was refreshing when it came to his and Tim’s relationship. He just wished it was under more normal circumstances.

“Last night there was an Arkham Breakout,” Jason began, “Batman ‘nd I had finished takin’ down our rogue, but Red Robin and Robin were dealing with a bunch of goons. Scarecrow was holed up in a warehouse, and Batman ordered me to go and help them take down the rest o’ the thugs.”

Jason started to pace again, and Dick went to sit on the couch. It was comfy, he noted. Dick wondered if this was Tim’s or Jason’s safe house, as Tim wasn’t one for comfort. And wasn’t that a sad thought about a seventeen year old boy?

“Here’s the thing. When I got there Tim was using moves I’ve never seen, and pullin’ them off well. Damian was holdin’ his own too, so I hung back. Wanted to see just what type o’ training little red’s been learning. It sure wasn’t Batman who taught him those moves.”

Dick found that interesting too. Just what had Tim been up to after he left Gotham in search of Bruce? Dick had tried to ask once, but Tim had dodged that conversation with ease. He had thought the boy just needed more time to open up; but if he was being honest with himself, Dick had also known that he had no right to ask.

“I stood there until after the fight was over. The brat had broken his arm—”

“You watched Damian get his arm broken and just stood there?” Dick’s voice was laced with incredulity.

“Don’t. Interrupt. Me.”

Dick leaned back into the couch, and motioned for him to continue, albeit with displeasure. Jason huffed, but kept talking.

“The two got into a fight, and—I’ll be honest—I thought it was funny at first. But it stopped being funny real quick.” He stopped passing and looked Dick in the eyes. “Damian held a knife against his carotid. I was gonna stop them if it got to far, honest, but I wasn’t gonna be able to do anythin’ before Damian could slice, so I waited. I don’t think Damian would kill him.”

He hadn’t seen Jason look at him like that since Bruce first took him in. He looked cagey and unsure, like he was scared that Bruce would hit him for doing something wrong. It wrenched his heart to see that look on one of his brother’s faces.

“Damian’s gotten a lot better, Jason,” Dick soothed, “You did the right thing by waiting.”

“Tim leaned into the knife, Dick. He leaned in and gave him an ultimatum: either kill him or quit wasting his time.”

Dick froze in his seat. Just because Damian had gotten better, doesn’t mean that Tim believed that, or that Damian couldn't be pushed into maiming the other boy. But it looked like Jason had more to say, and that worried him greatly.

“Batman came in, and Damian dropped the knife. Asked what was going on. Tim said it was nothing and left, but I saw the look in his eyes, Dick. He did not care at all that he could have died. So I followed him back to his apartment.”

Jason sat down on the other side of the couch, and put his head in his hands.

“I was gonna ask him what the fuck that was. What he was trying to pull. But when I got in, he was cleaning his wounds, and they were bad.”

“Did he get them from the fight? How bad were they? Where is he now?”

“He did them to himself, and he didn’t seem to be bothered by them at all.”

Dick was up and off the couch, one hand pulling at his hair. “Fuck, I knew I shouldn’t have believed him.”

“You knew he did this to himself?!” Jason was up from the couch too.

“He had a history before he became Robin, but as far as I knew he hadn’t done anything like that in years. But…”

“But, what Dick?” Jason’s eyes were glowing.

“A few weeks ago, I tried to talk to him. I grabbed his arm and he flinched, but he said it was because he got a few bruises on patrol. I let it go because I thought he was just stressed with WE work.”

“He’s seventeen fucking years old, he shouldn’t be worried about running a billion dollar company, Dick!” Jason yelled, “I’m stressed out just by hearin’ about it! Face it, we have all fucked this kid over so bad, it really isn’t a fucking wonder why he does this. He ran out on me this morning when I was trying to confront him about it.”

Dick couldn’t say anything because Jason was right. They needed to find him. He had failed his little brother in so many ways—had hurt him in so many ways. Dick needed to make this right, they all needed to make this right.

Tears sprung to Dick’s eyes when he looked at his brother. “The one time I believed him, was the one time I really shouldn’t have. We have to find him Jason, we need to make this right.”

Chapter Text

Tim knew that it was only a matter of time before one of the bats came looking for him. If it wasn’t Jason coming to kick his ass for the smoke bomb, then it would be Dick trying to haul him off somewhere, or worst of all, Bruce trying to have an emotional conversation. Tim could always escape from a mental institution, but an emotional conversation with Batman himself? Tim had been mentally scarred enough in life without actively searching for more.

He couldn’t go to the tower because it was literally one zeta tube ride away, and he wouldn’t put it past any of them. He was also pretty sure that Jason had codes to get into the tower, and he didn’t need a reminder of that particular fight. Some people would think that it would be hopeless to hide from them long-term. They would be right because Tim had no intention of leaving Gotham. That didn’t mean he was going to make it easy for them.

His apartment was untouched when he walked in, but then again, he had left Jason choking on smoke only fifteen minutes prior. The mirror was shattered in the bathroom like he had left it days prior. He took a fast shower and layered as many pieces of clothing on his body as he could. From a loose floorboard under his bed, Tim grabbed credit cards and documentation from aliases that not even the Bats could trace back to him. There were a variety of genders and ages which he could stretch for some time, if needed. From his closet he grabbed the go bag that he always had in place, just in case. Various types of suits, for both types of businesses and some comfortable clothing. Tim Drake-Wayne and Red Robin didn’t lead comfortable lives with comfortable clothing, but his aliases sure as hell could.

Down and out, it took Tim about forty-five minutes to make it to the parking garage. Tim had figured Jason wouldn’t come after him at his apartment. Probably wanted to bitch about him to his family. Tim figured he probably would have done the same if he were in Jason’s shoes.

Amid the BMW M6s and Range Rovers of the apartment building, there was a shiny Honda Civic coupe. To any business man in the building, it looked like some top level manager was trying to teach his kid the upper class version of humility. To Tim it was a way to avoid some of Oracles' eyes on him. He planned to change cars somewhere in downtown Gotham anyway.

Dropping the car off in the middle of the city was easy. Tim left the keys in the ignition. Hopefully whoever stole it would keep Oracle guessing long enough for Tim to get where he was going to. Now came fooling the streets cameras. If Tim was being honest, this was the most fun part for him. He hid the duffle bag on a rooftop that he had scoped out for something like this situation. Then he took to the streets.

He wanted to pull off his transformation in about 300 steps and two right hand turns. Contrary to popular belief, glasses weren’t enough to fool the Bats—or really any facial recognition software. As he walked, Tim grabbed a ratty old baseball cap from his pocket and slipped it over his head, and then he put on a large pair of aviator sunglasses.

Tim nodded at some of the working girls as he made his way past. They stared stonily back like he expected them to, and he kept walking. His jacket found its way into the hands of a homeless man which left an admittedly douchey-looking tank-top underneath. It was an old spare that Dick had left at his apartment, that Tim had since stolen and tie-dyed a dark green. On step 299, a lit cigarette was hanging from his lips.

I doubt any of them will see this coming, Tim laughed humorlessly. Guess my rebellious teenage years have come right on time.

He ducked into a run down apartment building where he rented out a whole floor under the table. When enough cash is thrown at someone, people don’t generally ask questions. Gotham was good for that.

This was the only time he had ever used this safe house; even the people he had paid to use it had only received an envelope of hundreds and a vague note. It didn’t matter, Tim would only be using it once anyway. All that was left to do was wait for the sun to go down so he could patrol.

He wouldn’t be grounded by them again. Tim was tired of having them hang that particular threat over his head. It was unoriginal and boring at this point, and he was every inch the vigilante that they were. He wasn’t their family, and he wasn’t any of their friends either. Pain lanced its way through his heart at the thought.

Was it really all just some elaborate lie? Why can they love murderers and assassins, but they can’t love me? Why can’t anyone love me and stay?

Tim sat on the floor, in the corner of a place bought with the money of his dead parents. He let out a wet chuckle. There was a time when Tim thought he would never be alone again, a time when he understood how people could look so happy walking down the street with their family. Images of Dick ruffling his hair as he offered to take him for ice cream with a thousand watt grin, Bruce’s soft smile as he solved a tough case, or Alfred teaching him how his mother made crepes. The world had seemed so simple back then, like he would always have them to fall back on.

What hurt the most, though?

The worst hurt was wanting it all back, and knowing that he could probably have it too. But for how long? Sure, Dick would probably be thrilled to have a movie night with him, and Bruce might value his input on a case or two, but when would the other shoe drop? How long would it take for Dick to turn a blind eye to Damian trying to kill him again? When would Bruce decide he was more trouble than he was worth and kick him out? He wanted it all back so badly it hurt, but if they sent him away it would kill him. And Tim couldn’t risk that.

So he sat on the cold floor with the mice as his only company.

Chapter Text

The Gotham air was polluted and gave Tim a familiar burn in his lungs, but he wouldn’t want to be anywhere else. After cleaning himself up, and circling back for his duffle bag, he had given himself a haircut with a pair of rusty kitchen scissors he had found underneath the mattress. He had been looking for bedbugs, but had found a makeover. Tim was legitimately starting to worry about himself.

If there was one annoying thing about Kevlar, it was that he couldn’t scratch at any of the newly formed scars that had formed because of his—admittedly bad—coping mechanism. He had wanted to look up why that was, but he decided he’d rather not know. Ignorance wasn’t exactly bliss in this case, but he didn’t want to worry any more about the consequences of his actions.

It still itched like a bitch though.

Tim put an untraceable com line in his ear. He tapped into the right frequency to see who was out that night. He was surprised to see that Dick was still in town, but if he was honest, maybe he should have been expecting that. Jason had probably told him about Tim’s mental health issues. There was something off about everyone though. It seemed like they were all trying to feign normalcy in a way. Nightwing was laughing at something that Red Hood had quipped, but neither seemed to have their heart in it. Robin was more quiet than average, even if he was still his prickly self. There didn’t seem to be a reason behind it though. At least, there didn’t until Tim saw a flash of blue in the night. He started running before it registered what he was doing.

So not an untraceable com, Tim thought wryly.

“Red Robin, wait! We just want to talk!”

He wasn’t going to fall for that again. There was no way that he was going to fall for that again. Tim didn’t respond, he just turned tail and ran. There was a muffled curse from behind him as he launched himself off the roof.

Tim had the advantage in this situation, and he was well aware of it. Nightwing didn’t know anything about him anymore; not his fighting style, not his escape tactics, and not him. But he knew Nightwing. He knew that he favored circus-like flips that made him lose time in the air, and he knew that Nightwing could count on the others to have his back. Tim was by no means just running from Nightwing, and that meant he had to be careful. So where was the one place in Gotham that most bats really didn’t know that well?

Crime Alley.

Only the Red Hood knew Crime Alley well. All of the Robins had patrolled most of Gotham, but Batman had always been twitchy about the alley. When Jason had been let back into the family, Tim had made sure that he had maps of all the sewers, alleys, and buildings, in case he had to run from Hood again. In his experience, it paid to know your enemies. Even more useful was that Red Hood was still twitchy about having any of the bats on his turf, even with his permission. Tim was hoping that would buy him some time, or at least put Hood off balance enough to make a mistake.

A flash of green was making its way parallel to him even as Nightwing was hot on his heels.

He would be in Crime Alley in a couple of buildings, and the Red Hood had been in the heart of Gotham when the night began. Tim forced himself to think.

How was he supposed to outrun the Bats?

A bullet whizzed past his head and pierced an AC unit that had been on the top of one of the buildings. But that wasn’t right? Red Hood didn’t use live ammunition in Gotham anymore. At least, that was what all of his reliable intel had told him, so why were real bullets being shot at him? Tim would like to think that Batman wouldn’t be okay with Jason killing him, but Tim had also thought Dick wouldn’t have been okay with Damian killing him too. Tim had been badly wounded enough that he was never going to take that as a certainty again.

Another bullet sent a chunk of concrete flying as it just barely missed his leg.

Tim had made a lot of enemies in his relatively short time as a vigilante, especially in the last year and a half. But the thing is? He was beginning to recognize the rounds that were being shot at him—only him—and he didn’t like where it was headed. Tim didn’t use guns, but he did make a point to know as much as he could about them. It was the courtesy of growing up having guns pointed at your face and threats on villains' lips.

And those guns? They were .338 Lapua Magnums, even Red Hood didn’t use them. Rounds were expensive, and they were dangerous to fire if there were innocents in the general vicinity. If they managed to hit their target, it would rip right through and keep going.

Whoever was on the other end of the scope clearly didn’t want him dead though. This was to scare him, to draw him out while making the other Bats steer clear. He racked his brain for anything else he knew about the gun.

Invented in the 1980s, used in the war in Afghanistan, expensive. It could only be one group of people then, couldn’t it? The League of Assassins. As he ducked behind a brick ledge, he couldn’t help but feel completely and utterly annoyed.

“Red Robin! You have to come with us!” It was the Red Hood. If he kept sounding so worried, Tim might start to believe he cared. “It’s gotta be the League!”

Red Hood had come to the same conclusion. At least Tim was right. No matter how much Jason had tried to kill him, it never stopped stinging every time he thought he was going to die by his favorite Robin’s hand. But the thing was, the family was out trying to bring him in and they might get caught in the crossfire.

He couldn’t let that happen. He WOULDN’T let that happen. But his mind was going at a million miles an hour, and Hood’s helmet glinted off the dim lights in Crime Alley. Nightwing, Robin, and probably Batman were somewhere behind him, and bullets were flying recklessly. The league would hurt one of them to get to him. They had proven that time and again.

Tim could go down to street level, but civilians would undoubtedly get hurt. Those rounds could go through five of his suits if positioned right—or very very wrong. If he kept running, they would take out one of the Bats to get him to stop and help them.

So there wasn’t really a choice at all was there?

“Hey everyone? I’m really sorry about this.”

“Red Robin don—”

“Red stop—”

So that’s exactly what he did, and Tim skidded to a stop. And when the next bullet landed, it plowed into his shoulder and sent him over the edge of the nearest building. For the second time in his young life, Tim fell from a building with tears in his eyes and pain radiating through his body.

But he had kept them all safe. And he couldn’t really have asked for anything better than that, could he have?

Chapter Text

Watching Tim plummet over the side of the building was one of the worst things Jason had ever witnessed. And it was made worse by the fact that less than twenty-four hours ago, Jason would have been indifferent at best to this occurrence. But twenty-four hours could change a lot of things, he supposed. It could be the difference between alive and dead, happy and destroyed. There were very few certainties in life, but there was always one that seemed to hold true. Batman was always too goddamn late when it really mattered.

So he dove after the poached bird himself. Mercifully, it appeared that while Batman had been too late to stop Tim from getting shot, he had stopped the shooter directly afterward, leaving Jason to focus solely on the boy. His brain made rapid-fire calculations to decrease the impact of a mid-air catch.

Panic meant death. Jason couldn’t panic.

Three quarters of the way down, he grabbed the waist of the smaller vigilante with one arm, and shot a grappling gun. His arms seared in pain as the line was strung tight, but he knew that it would. Jason lowered them both to the ground, hoping someone had common sense enough to order the Batmobile to their location.

Step One: stop the bleeding.

The sheer volume of blood was horrific and while Jason had seen this many times—had even been the cause of it—before, it was far worse on the already pale boy. Red Robin was still bleeding, but that at least meant he was alive to bleed. Jason’s hands were trembling as he put Wayne Tech pressure patches over the entry and exit wound. It was only then that he noticed the other vigilantes that were wordlessly watching him. Their bodies spoke of shock and horror. They could get in line as far as he was concerned.

Step Two: try to prevent shock—hypovolemic or otherwise.

“Will one of you bastards help me?!” Jason roared. “Do any of you match his blood type?”

Batman stepped forward with a battlefield transfusion kit, and Nightwing kneeled at Tim’s other side, fingers pressed to Tim’s jugular.

You don’t elevate their legs when they have a torso wound, Jaylad.

It was a memory that Jason had buried for years, but Bruce’s voice rang true in his mind, helpful even so many years later.

Jason was distantly aware of the low rumble of the Batmobile arrival, but he was much more focused on Batman jabbing a needle into his own arm to give the transfusion himself. Even after years away from his upbringing, the sight sent a chill down his spine and he felt ten years old again, watching Catherine Todd lose a battle with addiction.

Step Three: keep them alive long enough to survive transport.

“Hood, we need to get him to the cave!” Batman growled with urgency.

Jason reached down and scooped up his charge, being mindful of the tubes attached to both Batman and Red Robin. It was a process that required care to avoid the needle snapping off into either party. Jason couldn’t really feel the shock at Batman’s trust in him, but he would be processing that later, he was sure.

Nightwing was frozen in place, Robin at his side. The blood painting his suit had turned his emblem splotchy with purple, and Jason fought back a shiver at how much it reminded him of the clown. One crisis at a time he supposed. Jason got in first with Tim cradled in his lap, and Batman followed closely behind. The boy’s legs were in the Bat’s lap with his head cradled against the Red Hood emblem.

The Batmobile drove itself away. Lord knew no one in the car had the capacity to drive without causing a hellacious wreck. Bruce kept a hand at the boy’s wrist as Jason put pressure on the gaping wound.

Tim turned his head into Jason’s chest and made heartbreaking whimpers. Tears spilled out from underneath the boy’s domino, but he didn’t respond to any of Batman’s prodding. Jason thought about what Tim should have been doing instead of being here. He should have been sneaking out to have fun with his friends, or going on a date, or worrying over college applications—not bleeding out in the Batmobile at seventeen.

Leslie and Alfred were prepped for surgery when they tore through the cave entrance. Jason honestly couldn’t remember how Tim had gotten from the car, but from one minute to the next Tim was in the operating room and Jason was collapsed on the floor and leaning against the Batmobile. His hands were clenched painfully in his hair to stop the shaking.

Two motorcycles made their way into the cave. Nightwing and Robin. Jason didn’t have to look up to know that. The former looked like he was barely able to ride his bike, and later looked completely bewildered. Jason figured it was the closest to a normal human reaction as the boy was capable of in that moment. It would have been almost refreshing to see under any other circumstance.

Jason stood on shaky legs, and trudged over to his distraught older brother. If Nightwing had that much blood on him from the original splatter, then Jason could only guess at what he looked like having staunched the flow. Judging by the older boy’s flinch, it must have been a sight.

“There’s nothin’ we can do for him now, Dick.” Jason tried for gentle but landed on gruff. “Let’s get you cleaned up.”

Dick didn’t acknowledge his words, but as Jason took him by the shoulder, the older boy followed him without a fight. For a man so verbose, it was disconcerting for him to go nonverbal, but Jason understood. He looked back to see Damian take a seat on the other end of the cave, back stiff as he waited for news of the wayward bird in the med bay. Jason knew he would be fine until they both got cleaned off in the showers.

The spray of hot water felt heavenly on his stiff muscles, but he could feel his mind becoming fuzzy as it nearly gave into the stress of the situation. Jason went through each of his senses to bring him back around. Someone needed to be present and it was not going to be Dick.

An echo sounded through the bathroom as Dick collapsed to the floor. Jason was at his side in seconds, wrapping them both in thick towels. Tears trailed down the elder’s face, and Jason could admit to himself that his own eyes were beginning to sting as well. It had been a hell of a day.

Unfocused blue eyes found his green. “What if I never get a chance to make things right? What if another of my little brothers dies thinking I don’t care about them?”

And Jason? He really didn’t have an answer for that.

Chapter Text

The last time Bruce had seen so much blood was overlooking the bodies of his parents. It was a thought that he couldn’t let sink into his awareness yet. There were more important matters at hand, like saving his wayward son from dying of that very blood loss. A real, sterile, transfusion had replaced the makeshift one he had prepared for Tim on Gotham’s grimy pavement.

As Leslie and Alfred worked over the boy, Bruce handed them the necessary surgical equipment and did his best to compartmentalize this situation before he lost his composure. Survive now, break down later. It was what he taught all of his children, but it was easier said than done, and always had been for him.

Tim looked so small. He had been bigger than that at some point, right? He certainly hadn’t been so heart-breakingly skeletal, surely. Damian likely weighed more than Tim, and he had the benefit of being six years younger than his older brother. The resemblance to a skeleton was sickening, but Bruce couldn’t recall noticing the boy becoming that way. Even at WE two days prior—had it really only been that long?—he had only noticed that the boy looked drawn and tired. But then again, had he really looked? Bruce wondered how long it had been since he looked and truly saw his second youngest.

The answer was mapped across the boy’s whole body.

The scars painting the tiny body would haunt Bruce’s nightmares for a long while. Some were clearly battle scars from fights that he had never heard about, but others… they were clearly done by Tim’s own hand. And there were so many of them, Bruce had to wonder how long it had been going on. Some were smaller and more hesitant, like the boy had been fighting himself. Those were the ones that were nearly white with age. Others, the newer ones, showed no hesitation at all, like a boy who had one foot over the railing.

The plink of a bullet shard hitting the stainless steel tray brought him back from his haze. Bruce wrestled back his tears, and handed Alfred the suture kit when it was needed. The man looked like he had aged ten years in the last couple of hours, and Leslie had a hard look in her eyes that spoke of her disapproval of Tim’s state. That, at least, they could both agree on. If Bruce had anything to say about it, the boy wouldn’t be leaving his sight until he was completely healthy, both physically and mentally.

Tim’s words from WE echoed through his head.

“It was wonderful to see you Bruce, send my regards to your family.”

Said as though he wasn’t a part of that very same family, like he hadn’t been adopted, like Bruce didn’t care about him. The words had confused him at the time, but were made horrifyingly clear by recent events. These were not the scars of someone who felt as though they had someone to turn to. As Batman, he had seen these types of scars on street kids and working girls; however, he had never thought he would see them on one of his sons. Especially not Tim.

Bruce could still remember the small boy that had reached out to him after Jason’s death. He had brought the light back into his life that Bruce had been sure would never shine again. Tim had treated every night as Robin like the most precious gift, and he could still remember the toothy grin the boy had given him every time he solved a hard case. Bruce tried to remember the last time he had seen anything close to resembling that innocent smile, and came up empty. Instead, he could only recall the haunted look in his empty eyes. It was like someone had scooped out everything that had made Tim who he was, and Bruce had been too blind to see any of it.

He was roused from his thoughts by a sound he had hoped to never hear again. The heart-monitor screeched as the boy on the table flatlined. For a half of a second, Bruce felt his entire body go numb and his mind went entirely blank, but Batman took over where Bruce wasn’t enough.

“Master Bruce, start chest compressions!” Alfred shouted in urgency.

He was already there, starting them as he spoke, the screeching in his ears driving him forward. Tim’s pallor had gone from pale to lifeless, and Bruce fought down the bile that rose to the back of his throat. There were flashes of another body that he had carried lifeless out of a collapsed wearhouse in Ethiopia.

The heart monitor beaped with something like a pulse, but it was wrong. The beating was too irratic. He was still going to loose his son. Bruce threw himself out of the way as Alfred readied the paddles. Tim’s chest rose violently as the shock raced through his body, but it fell limp as the heart monitor whined with an erratic rhythm.

“Come on Tim, fight!” Bruce ordered.

Alfred brought the paddles down on the boy’s chest a second time. Again, nothing.

Bruce loomed over Tim’s face as far as he was able while not being in the way. Tears fell from his eyes in a way they hadn’t for a long time. All he wanted was to see his son’s bright smile, like the world wasn’t ending right before his eyes.

Again, nothing.

“Please, son,” His voice cracked, “Don’t leave me.”

“Master Bruce…” Alfred’s voice was gentle as he placed a hand on his shoulder.

“No!”

Bruce tore the paddles from Alfred. He was NOT going to lose his son—not with so much left unsaid between them.

Tim’s chest rose against the voltage, and Bruce heard the greatest sound he could have hoped for. The monitor picked up a heartbeat.

Bruce sobbed in relief as his knees gave out from under him at Tim’s bedside. Leslie continued to stabilize him as Alfred dragged Bruce to his feet, an arm wrapped around his waist. He signaled for Alfred to help Leslie, and he strode to the bathroom housed in the medbay.

He emptied the contents of his stomach into the toilet for what felt like hours, but was probably only a matter of minutes. As he rested his head against the porcelain, there was only one thought on his mind:

What had happened to Tim while Bruce had been gone?

Chapter Text

The bare walls of Damian Wayne’s room were purposely neutral. It was a leftover habit from the League, and something that Grayson had yet to break him of. Personal objects said much about the person who owned them; what they valued, who they cared about, and where their weak spots were.

When Damian had first come to Wayne Manor, one of the first things he had done was snoop around the rooms. Todd’s room remained untouched since before his ill-fated excursion to Ethiopia, and it was relatively fruitless due to the changes Todd had undergone since.

Grayson’s had been what he had expected, more or less. There had been pictures of his friends and Bruce, a stuffed elephant named Zitka, and—buried in the back of his closet— there was a framed poster of Richard and the Flying Graysons. There was a value in his history outside of the Wayne family. He was still scarred by what he had lost, but his place wasn’t solely rooted in the Wayne family. Not an outsider, but loyalty had shifted due to tragedy.

Damian wasn’t brave enough to sneak into Batman’s room.

It was Drake’s room that had provided the most insight into his connection to the family. The room had been perfectly neat and tidy which had spoken of obedience and respect, but there had been personal touches as well. There had been pictures hanging from the walls and set on his dresser. Some of them were with Grayson, others with his teen titans in civilian clothing, and many with Bruce. They had been displayed proudly, and were clear of dust. Damian would have passed it off as Pennyworth’s work, but Damian received the impression that they would have been dusted regardless.

There had been completed homework on the desk, neatly placed and perfectly centered, and one of Father’s jackets had been draped over the back of the chair. Damian had wondered how Drake had wormed his way into a life that should have been his.

It was the lack of biological family photos that had bothered him the most, however. Todd had been on the streets, and so therefore those photos had been lost. Grayson possessed items that honored his parentage and former life. The whole manor was practically a mausoleum to Thomas and Martha Wayne. No matter how hard Damian searched, there was nothing from his former family. It was as though Drake had done his best to mold himself into the family he had forced to take him on.

Damian had despised Drake on principle. He had painted himself as the perfect son, and had won Batman’s trust, but wiped out any trace of himself before. It was as though he had always belonged to Bruce Wayne. Damian decided that Drake wasn’t a Robin; but rather, a cuckoo who had interloped. The true family had been starved of the patriarch’s care and protection trying to care for the cunning manipulator.

No matter how hard he had tried, Damian had never convinced his Father and Grayson of Drake’s deception, so powerful was his influence. It was as though Drake had been a parasite to the family; one that had been drawing too many resources away from those who belonged.

Of course, shortly thereafter, his father had been lost in the time stream, but presumed dead, and Grayson had taken Robin from Drake and given it to Damian. It was clear to him then that Grayson understood the depths of Drake’s trickery, but had been foolish enough to let him stay. At the time, Damian had believed it to be the last vestiges of some base sentimentality. Then of course, Drake had left, brought Father back from the time stream, and had haunted the family like a wraith in the aftermath—always on the outside, but forever in their orbit.

Damian had liked it better that way. Todd certainly had agreed with Damian’s sentiment, and clearly saw the Usurper for what he was. There had been—what Damian had believed to be—an unspoken pact between the family. Drake had proven himself useful on occasion, but that he had no place in their inner circle. Grayson and Father had never said as much, and had even scolded him for his treatment of Drake, but it had clearly been their best effort to curb the violent nature the League had plagued him with. Words had been just as effective, if not more so, anyway. Drake would always come when called, but knew better what his place in the family had been: that he had none.

It had been two years since he had last been in Drake’s room, but as they operated on his injuries, Damian found himself gravitating to it. He realized that the older boy hadn’t lived in the manner since he had left to find Father, but he felt some unknown emotion bubble up when he had seen Drake unconscious on the pavement. If Todd had looked horrified then Grayson had been practically comatose as he watched him bleed. Father’s expression had appeared worried even underneath the cowl.

Damian entered the room, and was relatively surprised at what he saw. Gone was the jacket that had been draped over the chair, and gone was the homework that would have proved someone occupied the space. Most tellingly; however, was the loss of the photos. No longer were they displayed on the walls and dresser. On closer inspection, they had been placed inside the empty dresser and placed face-down on the dark oak wood. A thin layer of dust had settled over the whole room. That information formed an unpleasant knot in his stomach.

Carefully, Damian picked up the top two photographs and flipped them over to see which he had decided to take down last. One was a picture of Drake, Kent, and Allen. All were smiling with a happiness that radiated through the glass of the expensive frame. Both had died and had since been resurrected, if Damian recalled. The next was a picture of Father, Grayson, and Drake all eating ice cream and were carefree in a way that was rare among them now.

It struck Damian as odd that Drake had taken none of the photos to his new apartment when he moved out. It seemed as though Drake had done his best to distance himself from anything that could remind him of his days as Robin, and all the allies he had made throughout.

When Damian had first appeared at the manor, Drake had possessed a light behind his eyes, and an easiness in his demeanor that was no longer there. Damian had not seen the other boy smile in what was probably years. He was also more serious and much darker than any of the photos would have indicated for his future.

As Damian left the room, after carefully replacing the photos, he realized he had only become more confused than when he began. If Drake wasn’t a part of the family then why was everyone—Todd included—sad? Dick he could understand, his heart was made of sterling silver, untarnished by life and forever caring. Father would undoubtedly be reliving his failure to his second Robin—a trauma that no doubt still affected him regardless of what Todd had to say on the matter.

But what of Todd? He had certainly appeared distressed, and despite minor evidence to the contrary, was not a remarkable actor. He had cradled Drake’s broken body as though he were something precious, as though he hadn’t tried to kill the boy as they both had.

There was one unknown that Damian found to be decidedly more disconcerting: If Drake was not a part of the family then why did he find himself worried about the older boy too?

Chapter Text

“I hate you,” Jason’s voice was rough with exhaustion.

It had been twenty-four hours since Tim had almost bled to death in his arms. Jason would be lying if he said it wouldn’t haunt him like some strange parody of his own death, with him as Batman carrying a dead Robin.

Tim was ghostly pale. If it weren’t for the heart monitor, Jason would have believed he was dead. It wasn’t the first time Jason had sat at the bedside of an injured bird, but emotion had never hit quite this hard.

“Or maybe, it’s not you, but what you represented—what you still do.” Jason didn’t know why he was talking. Maybe the rhythmic beeping had driven him insane, well, more insane. “When I woke up from the pit, everything hurt: physically, emotionally, everything. And then Talia showed me a picture of you as Robin.”

His breath hitched at the awful memory. He had been devestat—angry that Bruce had replaced him with someone who was clearly so much better than him; rich, polite, and smart. Jason was a penniless street-rat that Bruce had taken pity on, but Jason had thought he had made up for it as Robin. There was one thing he despised Tim Drake for the most, however:

The Replacement Robin had looked genuinely happy.

There was a spark in his eye, even if it was hidden under a domino mask. Everyday that Jason trained with the League, and every grueling, gruesome murder, those happy eyes had haunted him. Robin had been his magic once upon a time, and that same innocence had shone in his eyes. Jason remembered it well. He had once had hope that the future would be brighter as he fought crime, like maybe everyone deserved saving. That had since been overtaken by Lazarus green.

When he was shown how replaceable he was? It had burned. And that burn hadn’t faded with time, it still stung just like it had back then, but it was more numbed these days.

“What I did to you wasn’t right,” Jason murmured to the unconscious form, “And when I came back, I wanted to break all of the perfect things that Bruce held dear; for replacing me, for letting the Joker live. You were—you are—one of those things. It felt like justice at the time, like you deserved to suffer for taking my place.”

Jason laid his head in his hands.

“You didn’t deserve that. You don’t deserve this life. It never seems to end well, does it?”

There was no response, only the steady sounds of the heart monitor echoed through the cave. Jason fought the wave of nausea that threatened to take hold of him.

“I had convinced myself that you were untouchable. That there was nothing that I could say or do that would break you—at least not in spirit. I just wanted you to suffer.”

A single tear hit the floor, and Jason let out a grim, watery chuckle.

“Mission accomplished, I guess.” Jason fisted his hair, the sting grounding. “God, what the fuck have we done to you?”

Because, really, Tim had just been trying to survive, Jason realized. If Batman had needed a Robin, then Tim had needed Bruce. Jason could see that now. But in his experience, Bruce didn’t express his love, he expressed ownership. He would take responsibility for you, but not support you in the ways you needed. It was just how the man was, but it was never enough. It would drive you off the edge trying to gain his approval because it was the closest thing Bruce got to displays of affection.

Or, at least, that was how it was before Damian had turned up. In some ways, Bruce being gone had given the boy a chance to learn affection from Dick. His teachings, and gentle patience, had definitely softened the kid so that he wasn’t so rigid and incapable of human contact. Mind you, he’s still an insufferable little shit, but he’s getting there. Teaming up against Tim had been a quasi-bonding experience with Damian, and one that would have to stop.

He realized now, how that must have affected Tim. Bruce fighting to get Jason back into the family; Bruce fighting to give Damian a better life through affection Tim never received; Bruce leaving Tim to fend for himself with WE and as a vigilante. The two people who Tim had trusted the most choosing the two people who had tried to kill him—leaving Tim as the collateral damage. It stung Jason to the core to think about, and it wasn’t even his experience.

The image of Tim’s face as he fell bleeding into the Gotham smog raced through his mind. He shut his eyes against it and took a deep breath. As he let it out, he took the kid’s hand. It was cold and limp. Scars glinted in the light, some angry and red, others silver lines, and Jason let out a breath.

It wasn’t that Jason had never thought about how nice it would have been if he had never woken up from his little dirt nap. He had. A lot. Jason had even thrown himself into fights that he knew would hurt him, and it had felt good to feel the bruised ribs and broken arms. It was a type of self-harm, if he was being honest with himself. However, it was outward and aggressive—he punished others as much, if not more, than himself. It was destructive and cathartic in equal measure. That had been when he had come back from the dead. As things had begun to stabilize in his life—he found Roy and Kori and had made amends with most of the family—he had stopped doing those self-destructive things.

Tim wasn’t like that. He suffered alone and in silence, and he fell apart as he did it. No one even knew until it was almost too late. It could still be too late if Tim took a turn for the worse. After he had brought back Bruce, Jason had held some grudging respect for the little bird. He buried it under false perceptions and his prejudice against the person who had replaced him, but it was still there.

This kid was the CEO of Wayne Enterprises for fucks sake! He was every parent’s dream! He deserved better than to be with a family who didn’t appreciate him, Jason understood that now.

He would try to be there for the kid, try to make amends for the things he’s done wrong, but if Tim told him to leave, he would. But he would damn sure apologize first.

“You know, Tim,” Jason sighed heavily, “Maybe it isn’t really you that I hate.”

Jason leaned his head on the bed as his blinks became slower, Tim’s hand still firmly encased in his own. Bruce had forced Dick to sleep in an actual bed away from the medbay, leaving Jason as the guard.

He was just tipping over the edge of unconsciousness when the cave’s security alarms went off. The noise was loud and painful in his ears, but Jason shook it off and pulled a gun in one hand and a knife in the other, positioning himself between Tim and the door.

Jason never even got the chance to fire. Before he could blink, Jason found himself pinned by the throat to the medbay wall by a rabid Kryptonian. Superboy’s eyes were a blazing red, and he looked seconds away from frying him into the dust.

“Get the Fuck. Away. From. Him.”

Chapter Text

Kon liked to think he was a reasonable guy. Sure, everyone lost their temper now and then, but it was rarely explosive. He only had one rule to avoid his wrath; however, and it was relatively simple: Don’t fuck with his friends. While he had very few close family members—Superman was at least trying now—he found his friendships much more meaningful.

Now, for the most part, he found that his friends could hold their own. Hell, some were demigods and others had a variety of crazy-ass powers to keep them safe. Tim could kick Kon’s ass with kryptonite, and he would never see it coming—the calculating and capable person Tim was—but at the end of it all, even if he knew his friend would hate it, Kon worried because Tim was human. He didn’t have magic, or healing abilities, and bullets didn’t exactly bounce off with ease. One bad landing or one lucky shot, and Kon would be burying his best friend. So he always kept a closer eye on the bird during fights, and in general if he were honest.

Then Kon had died.

After he came back, Tim wasn’t the same. He was cold and serious, the mischief had all but faded from his eyes. From what Kon knew, he had every reason to be more reserved, having seen so many deaths in such a short period, but Kon had felt like his friend was shutting him out. And Kon? He hadn’t known what to do. When he asked if Tim was alright, Kon had received an “I’m fine,” or “I’m just tired.” If he could go back, he would kick his old self.

He hadn’t realized the extent that Tim had suffered alone, until he passed out in Titans’ Tower. There had been so many scars, and even more wounds that were still open and not treated. It sounded cliché, but Kon never thought Tim—of all people—would start cutting himself.

At first, he had been furious with his unconscious friend, but the more he thought about it, the more he was angry with himself. Kon knew it wasn’t his fault that Tim had started self-harming, but clearly the other boy didn’t think he could confide in him.

But then Tim had opened up! Had even said he’d talk to someone and get help! Kon had made sure Tim stayed at Titans’ Tower with him, so that he didn’t go back to Gotham. Because no one had hurt Tim as much as his so-called family; no one else was capable of hurting him like the Bats had. They knew all of Tim’s emotional scars, and they had opened them up and left his friend to bleed out alone.

Superman showing up at Titans’ Tower for a mission had been unexpected to say the least. Kon had thought Clark would rather be microdosed with kryptonite, and then have his teeth pulled, than spend any time with him. He’d be lying if he said that he wasn’t pleased underneath the skepticism. Tim had known that. Because for however much Kon had become unable to read his friend, Tim had only seemed to get better at reading him.

Tim had convinced him he would talk with someone, that he would start taking care of himself. And Kon had made the mistake of believing him. Like it could ever possibly be that easy. This problem hadn’t started overnight, and it wasn’t going to go away quickly. But Kon had been thrilled to go on a mission with the man he wanted so desperately to be a father figure for him.

He had left five days ago with Clark. The rest of the Teen Titans were on an off-world mission too. Except Tim. He had come back to the news that not only had Tim gone back to Gotham, but that he had been shot and was in critical condition.

Kon wanted to scream.

Things had been awkward with Clark at first, but they had gotten better over the course of the mission. Kon had been looking forward to telling his friend about the progress he had made with Superman, and how cool it had been. Clark had even told him “good job” and ruffled his hair! He was on cloud nine, and when walked into Titans’ Tower he had a spring in his step. Then he had gotten a text from Dick Grayson.

Dick only texted him when something had gone wrong. Very wrong. This time was no exception. Kon had read “Tim” and “shot” and had flown to Gotham immediately, Batman’s rules be damned.

Batman had some sins of his own to answer for anyway. Kon was looking forward to having a chat with Gotham’s vigilantes.

That’s how he found himself in the Batcave with his hands wrapped around the Red Hood’s throat. It’s also how he found himself breathing in vaporized kryptonite. Which, understandable, but also rude.

“Superboy,” Bruce Wayne growled, “That’s enough.”

Red Hood collapsed next to Kon on the floor. Through his coughing and tears, Kon heard the other wheezing and holding his throat. Good.

“What are you doing here?” The man looked completely worn down.

If Kon didn’t know any better, he would feel bad for the man. He reminded himself that Batman had let his son suffer alone after Tim had practically sold his soul to save the man. Sure, the man was a grieving father, but did Batman truly care, or was this another emotion to fuel his crusade? Did he even know what he did wrong?

Fuck.

“You let,” Kon was interrupted by a coughing fit. “Tim’s would be murderer sit alone at his bedside? What the fuck is wrong with you?”

Red Hood looked like he wanted to argue, but seemed to realize he didn’t have a leg to stand on. It was a bitter victory, but at least one of them recognized some past wrong-doing. He even looked a bit guilty. Huh.

“Jason only has Tim’s best interests in mind,” He answered stiffly, “Our family is on a rotating schedule so someone is always with him.”

“Half of this household has tried to kill him at one time or another, and the other half sat back and watched.” Kon stood up, his posture rigid. “So I apologize if I’m a bit skeptical.”

“We’re trying to be better—trying to make amends,” Jason answered, slumped against the wall.

“Can you?” Kon whirled around to face him. “Can you make amends for slitting his throat and writing with his blood?”

“And can you?” Kon gestured to Batman. “Can you make up for abandoning him when he needed you? He searched for you when everyone else gave up. It wasn’t the Justice League that risked themselves to find you, and it sure as hell wasn’t Nightwing. You knew how much Tim cared about your opinion of him, and you manipulated that for your own gain.”

Batman and Bruce Wayne, in turns, had always made Kon nervous, but there was nothing timid about his anger in that moment. The man in front of him seemed to wilt under his gaze. It would be disconcerting if Kon had the presence of mind to care about it.

Kon’s next words rang softly through the medbay as he looked at his friend for the first time since he arrived, grief lacing his words. “And I don’t know if there is any redemption for that.”

Red Hood was about to respond when Tim’s heart monitor spiked rapidly. The boy on the bed moving uneasily in his sleep, clearly in the throes of a nightmare. Kon moved quickly and sat at his friend’s side, whispering softly to the boy as he laced his fingers through the dark locks. His other hand grasped a cold, weak hand, calloused by a Bo staff.

Kon wasn’t leaving Tim alone with these people, that much was certain.

Chapter Text

There was a low level pain that registered in Tim’s mind before anything else. Where the hell was he? Why was everything so fuzzy and nondescript? He couldn’t remember the last thing he had done, or how he ended up in this fuzzy wonderland, but he couldn’t grasp the concept of worry at that moment. It was strange, not necessarily apathy, but certainly not fully functioning emotion. He drifted, awareness slipping through his fingers.

It was a while before cognizance was obtainable again; however, the pain remained. Tim couldn’t pinpoint exactly where the hurt was radiating from, just that he seemed almost disconnected from it. The landscape was still blurry, but this time he recognized the main den of the manor. Everything seemed just a bit to the left of reality; something certainly wrong, but nothing specific that Tim could call attention to. How had he even arrived there? Tim hadn’t been in the main den since before Bruce had gotten lost in the time stream.

A much simpler time, Tim reminisced silently.

The thought was so viscerally unpleasant that he could feel it traverse the edge of hazy disconnection and into his grasp. The first tangible thing he had felt since…? Since he woke up in this distorted reality, at least.

“Tim, what are you doing here?” Dick’s voice sounded from the giant leather couch, Damian on his right side and Jason to his left.

His mouth hung open, trying to form a response. Irritation flickered across Dick’s face, but he smoothed it away with what appeared to be concern. It was a familiar manipulation that Tim’s biological family had used on him. Tim didn’t know if Janet Drake had written the book on fake familial worry, but she had truly made it an art form. Seeing the same tactics on someone as generally good-natured as Dick Grayson sent a violent shiver through him. It seemed only someone as loathsome as Tim could garner such a look from the older man. Not for the first time, Tim wished someone would tell him what he does that seems to drive everyone away.

“Maybe it is because everything around you dies,” Damian sneered from his place on the couch.

And when had Damian gained the ability to read minds? Had Tim said those thoughts out loud? Either way, neither Dick nor Jason had spoken up to correct the youngest bat. At least the former had dropped his elaborate façade of “brotherhood,” in regards to Tim. It always seemed to hurt worse when Dick tried to fake a happy relationship between Tim and the family. It felt too close to being accepted, but without the actual support that a family was supposed to provide. The cruelty of it was not lost on him. It was as though Tim were a fish caught on a hook, desperately trying to escape the certain death of capture, but tasting blood as he tried to pull the hook out of his shredded cheek.

Tim had known since he started Robin that the Wayne’s would be the death of him, eventually. If he didn’t die as a vigilante fighting at their side, then Tim knew it was a matter of time before they decided to get rid of the useless mechanism Tim had always been. Along the way, he had just fooled himself into thinking that he had found a family that wanted him. It was his own fault for getting attached, really.

Jason’s eyes glowed their ethereal green as they bored a hole into Tim. They seemed to be both concentrated on Tim, but also looking through him and into the space beyond; the object of focus, but never the underlying motivation—only a canvas on which to display a more fundamental discord.

“How does it feel to be the one who is always left behind? Jack and Janet Drake. Stephanie. Kon. Bart. Bruce. Owens. Z.”

The words sent a lance of agony through his heart. Dick still had that look of false pity grotesquely smeared across his face, and Jason merely looked curious as to Tim’s answer. It was Damian’s stoic face that disturbed Tim the most, however. Gone was the usual scowl as he looked at Tim, but in its place was indifference.

Damian had always tried to drive Tim from the Waynes, but his anger had always proved that Tim still had a place at the manor; otherwise, the youngest Wayne wouldn’t have bothered with the insults and murder attempts. The boy’s apathy proved that Tim had well and truly been excommunicated from his adopted family.

Tim found he was unable to stay in the den any longer, and ran through the open doors. The rest of the manor passed by in a blur of nonsensical landmarks and ornaments, as he ran out the back door. Tim didn’t know where he was running, only that he had to get away from the stifling inadequacy that had always plagued him within the manor’s walls.

As he went, flashes of long-smothered memories materialized. The crack of Jack Drake’s belt hitting the sensitive flesh of his back. The disappointed face of Bruce every time he called for Jason, but realized he only had Tim. Brutal training sessions with Batman as Tim weathered hit after hit, until he had laid defeated and bloody on the sparring mats. The feel of Jason’s kris as it sliced through his neck, missing his jugular by a hair length.

Tim didn’t quite manage to choke back his whimpers.

The feeling of pain had increased at the edge of the haze like a stone wall trying desperately to keep rising waters at bay. Tim kept running with his head pointed downward.

When he next cared to look at his surroundings, Tim found himself in a graveyard. Tim always seemed to find himself in a graveyard these days. He skidded to a stop when he saw the line of everyone he had ever failed, everyone who had ever died. They seemed to be gathered around a single plot which remained hollow, but Tim couldn’t determine any of their expressions, all of their faces murky. Even the name on the grave was hidden from his view.

“Hello, Detective,” A deep voice purred from behind him.

All of Tim’s joints locked, keeping him in place, as Ra’s al Ghul stepped into his line of sight. His heart was pounding in his chest like a jolt from Nightwing’s escrima sticks, each beat more painful than the last. For the first time since entering this altered reality, Tim found himself running out of breath.

“Surely you knew that you would never be free of me,” The ancient man continued, “But as you see, there is no one left to save you from my league—not even yourself.”

And really, what could Tim say to that? Anyone who cared was dead, and even some among the dead didn’t seem troubled. The ghosts of Jack and Janet Drake glared at him from their silent contemplation at the grave’s edge. Owens and Z didn’t bother to spare him a glance. The bats wouldn’t even notice he was gone until long after he started to decompose. It was a familiar thought, but one Tim hadn’t quite come to terms with.

“It is time you took your rightful place.” Ra’s cupped Tim’s cheek and directed his gaze to the tombstone. “There has only ever been one place for someone like you.”

Timothy Jackson Drake

2005-2022

“A Son and a Soldier”

Then Tim saw a familiar sword pierce his abdomen, and with a sudden jerk, all of the pain that had been held at bay crested over the fog and threatened to drown him. He let out a soundless scream as he careened backwards into his grave. Just before everything went dark, Tim heard the pleading of a familiar voice pierce through the veil of his mind.

“Come back to us, Tim. Please.”

Kon.

With the last of his strength, Tim took a deep breath and opened his eyes.

Chapter Text

Bruce had been avoiding the cave before he had received the alert that someone had broken into the cave—a superpowered someone to be exact. He probably should have realized that one of Tim’s friends would come looking for him, especially Super Boy who was clearly protective of his third son. But he hadn’t foreseen that reality, as he so often seemed to after he came back from the time stream.

Of course—Batman as he was—Bruce hadn’t been idle trying to find out what had happened when he was gone. Before he asked his family, he went through cave footage, but most of the feed from the early stages of his vacation in the time stream had been wiped. It was protocol, but it seemed like a protocol he would have to change. Cave recordings were only meant to be for documenting a break-in, or for checking in on his children’s well-being at that moment.

He had gone looking into the mission reports next. Tim was always the most meticulous in detailing his research and deductions, but there was something strange about the dates on many reports, and even more so with the wording. As Robin, Tim had always tried to be professional in his writing, but also added a bit of wit. Reading his reports from both the Teen Titans and from cold cases were a secret joy of Bruce’s because they always seemed to make him smirk at least once. He was clever and articulate as Robin, but after Batman had disappeared these reports changed. They were monotone, and half of the length they usually were. There were typos and grammatical errors that spoke of exhaustion and stress. As he pulled up a report from three years before and placed it next to one from a year and a half ago, it seemed like they were written by entirely different people. One was full of life and purpose and the other was uncaring and reckless.

If he had seen this difference a week ago, Bruce probably would have lectured his son about proper methods of data entry. That thought made him sick to his stomach now. Nausea was one feeling that had followed him since Tim had been shot.

As Batman, emotions were easy to control because the vigilante had none, but Bruce Wayne was different. Seeing Tim flatline—the wounds, the bodily trauma, the malnutrition—almost broke him that night. The nightmares were horrifying and so terribly real that he started to keep a trash can by his bed for the worse nights. Nausea that turned into full blown sickness was almost always the aftermath of his dreams about Tim. Oftentimes, he would pull up Tim’s vitals on his phone, just to make sure he was still alive.

He was too much of a coward to go and check on his son in person. Bruce was afraid that if he looked, then Tim would be gone—and he had too much left to make up to the boy. Instead he had his sons update him on Tim—normally Jason stayed by Tim’s bedside and so most updates were from him. Bruce had barely been able to look Alfred in the face since that night, being in the man’s presence for as little time as possible.

Aside from Tim himself, Bruce was worried the most about Dick. His oldest had a seemingly permanent gray pallor, and his eyes were haunted in a way that Bruce had only seen a handful of times before. There was guilt there, certainly—they all felt guilty—but Dick’s seemed to be much more intense than Bruce would expect from the events. Almost as though there was something specific that he refused to admit. The boy—man, he was a man now—could barely stay at Tim’s bedside unless he was on the edge of collapse and went into a slight doze. It was certainly light enough to catch a change in vitals, but not enough to be fully conscious and coherent.

When his oldest wasn’t in the cave, he was lying in bed with Damian held close. The boy scowled about this arrangement, but never said anything contrary to Dick’s actions, much to Bruce’s relief. It appeared that his youngest was worried about his brother’s well-being which was a far-cry from his prickly exterior when he had first arrived at the manor. Dick had certainly done well with Damian in his absence. It was one of the many loads that Bruce had left Dick to deal with when he had been gone. He doubted that it had been easy for anyone, but it was clear he should have looked at the extent of that damage more closely.

As he sat on his bed, Bruce ran his hand through his hair with exhaustion. The shadows grew long, but he had given everyone the night off from patrol. Dick was in no shape to go out, and Damian clearly wanted to stay with him. Jason, strangely, would probably refuse to patrol in lieu of leaving Tim. This was certainly a positive change in his second son’s dynamic with the injured boy, but it was bittersweet in light of how it came to be.

Tim had always had a case of hero worship for Jason. One hard night, when Bruce had pushed him a bit too hard during training, Tim had admitted that he would never be as good as Jason had been as Robin. At the time, Bruce had wanted nothing more than for Tim to leave, to stop being Robin and to live a normal, safe life. That night Bruce had agreed with Tim in hopes to drive the boy away. The truth was, Jason was a completely different Robin than Tim had been. He was brash and angry and fought with strength and brutality. Tim had been all intelligence, deduction, and swiftness. In many ways they were different, but Bruce had never believed that Tim was inferior to Jason as Robin. As he thought about it, he couldn’t remember a time that he had told Tim that though.

Bruce had told Tim he was proud of him, and had praised the boy for learning a new move or solving a hard case. But as he looked back, he tried to stand in Tim’s shoes. What had the boy thought about when he heard these things from him? Was the praise he received enough to combat that one night he had agreed to his inferiority? Well, the answer seemed to lie in the scars that were criss crossed all over his skin, didn’t it?

His musings ground to a halt when his bedroom door slammed open and cracked against the opposite wall. Jason’s eyes glowed a caustic viridian in the shadow of the doorway.

“Jason, wha—”

“The clone just told me that Tim doesn’t have a spleen anymore,” He hissed, shoulders tense and fists clenched, “We had to switch his antibiotics because he caught an infection.”

Bruce’s mind went blank for a few moments. Because What?

“Did you hear me, old man? Alfred called Leslie and she’s comin’ over to make sure he’ll be alright. We caught it early.”

Bruce couldn’t respond. Words didn’t come to his mind, but actions had always been easier anyway. He hoped Jason wouldn’t deny him this.

Before he realized the ramifications of what he was doing, Bruce had already crossed the room and folded his son into his arms. The boy tensed for a few seconds—he almost let go and apologized, but then the boy sagged into him, head pressed to his shoulder. Minutes passed, and slowly Bruce regained some semblance of composure as Jason shuddered in his hold.

“We really fucked up, Dad,”

They certainly had. But they also needed to fix it. The time for Bruce to mourn and feel guilty had passed; at least for now. To help Tim, he needed answers and it was clear someone knew something they weren’t telling him.

It was time for a family meeting.

Chapter Text

There were two types of exhaustion, Dick knew that all too well. There was the superficial type, where all Dick had to do was rest his body and recharge. The other type wasn’t as simple. Sleep was required for the second, but this kind wanted to pull him under. It reminded Dick of being trapped in the Gotham Harbor during October storms. The waves of fatigue felt like being caught by the waves; the way they would push him under and hold him down, and just when he was about to give up the waters would let Dick catch his breath. They might plunge him back under again, but it never held him down permanently.

He had seen it with his friends and—more intimately—family. It was the way Bruce would lock himself in his study, only coming out for patrol, nearing the anniversary of Jason’s death. It was the way Damian rejected all forms of physical contact and declarations of love when the family risked their lives to stop his grandfather. He had seen it sometimes with Jason before he had died, but only twice since his revival.

Before Jason told him about Tim’s current self-harm, Dick had actually thought Tim had never truly gotten mentally exhausted like that. Sure, he had a history of cutting, but Dick had always believed that it was a call for attention—to get his parents to care about his well-being. It had still concerned Dick though, when he had eyed the old remnants of precise scars one night when Tim was still Robin and Dick mostly avoided Gotham. Tim had assured him that it was in the past, but that if he ever felt that way again he would reach out to him. The look of certainty and confidence on the boy’s face had utterly convinced Dick that it never would have been a problem again; but that, if it was, they would handle it together.

Dick had been a fool for many, many things in his life, hell even the past two years, but this arrogance and naivety had been one of the biggest reasons. With the shadows under his eyes, and his fevered complexion, Tim looked like he had passed beyond mental exhaustion and into the dangerous waters of a permanent sleep. It was as if the Gotham Harbor was still holding him under, but instead of letting him breath, it only crashed more and heavier waves over top of him. But for all that he looked worn beyond his years, his little brother looked incredibly young. Dick was pretty sure that Damian had surpassed him in both height and weight, thriving at the Manor.

When he had confronted Tim weeks ago, Dick had noticed that the boy had appeared tired and snappish, but he had believed Tim when he said that it was WE. After Dick had failed to believe him the last time, he had been adamant to not make the same mistake again. He knew that his tenuous relationship with his little brother would be ruined if he did that again. So he believed Tim. And he had been so terribly wrong about doing that.

A bitter part of him was angry that Tim had gone back on his promise from all those years ago, but a more realistic part of him recognized that his brother no longer felt safe confiding in him and that it was Dick’s fault. He had never apologized for what he had done to Tim when Bruce had been gone, not really. Once Tim had settled into Gotham again—in his own apartment, but still home—he had tried to patrol with him as Nightwing, but Tim had made it clear he wanted independence. It had hurt him, his little brother’s rejections, but Dick allowed himself to be swept up in his own cases and life. He had thought Tim needed time to process his grief and trauma, but Tim always came home. Dick had failed to realize that coming back in a body bag was still technically coming back.

It had been six days since Tim had been shot, four since Super Boy had broken into the Cave like a tornado. The other teen had barely left Tim’s side the entire time, but Alfred had convinced both him and Jason to sleep in a proper bed that night. Bruce and Damian had to patrol the city which left Dick alone with his comatose brother for the first time since the incident. Damian, bless him, had looked reluctant to leave him alone, but Dick had finally convinced the boy to go with his father. He had come so far since he first arrived, and he was so proud of the family’s youngest for shaking off his rough beginnings. There was still work to be done, but Dick would take the win.

Comfortable chairs had been moved into the MedBay to make sitting for long periods of time more tolerable. They were wrapped in plastic, of course, so they could be sterilized, but Dick was grateful as his cradled Tim’s hand in his own. He was only twenty-six, but being a vigilante had wrecked his joints prematurely. Stiffness and aches were the norm for all of them, so he took comfort where he could find it. There was also a blanket around his shoulders to stave off the chill of the cave as he leaned his head on Tim’s bed.

Dick’s eyes landed on Tim’s uncovered arms, and with a shudder he closed his eyes and ground his face into the mattress. The wounds on his arms were slowly healing, now that the infection had been brought under control, but they burned an unnatural red across the nearly translucent skin. His eyes stung painfully, but Dick resisted the urge to rub them.

God, everything had gone so wrong. Dick had wanted to be a better brother after Jason’s death. He had vowed that it would be different with Tim. But everything had gone sideways when Bruce was presumed to be dead. Suddenly he had to take on so many of Bruce’s jobs that he couldn’t find time to breathe, let alone deal with his own grief. It didn’t make what he had done right. But he had been running out of time, ability, and options when he was left with everything. His whole life had been turned upside down, and he was left to take care of everything. Making Damian Robin had been the best course of action, but it had gone so horribly in the end. He had given Tim space when he left Gotham, but when he had come back—with Bruce in tow—Dick had been so relieved to see them both.

But the Tim that had left that day was not the same Tim that returned. Dick had hurt Tim before he went to search for Bruce, badly. But he had shown that hurt and had worn that betrayal on his sleeve. Tim had begged Dick to believe him, or to at least let him go looking. After he had gone, Dick couldn’t ever seem to pin the other boy down to contact him. Tim had been well and truly in the wind. After he came back it had still seemed like the boy was running from him: refusing his calls, cancelling their plans last minute, avoiding the manor. On some level, Dick supposed all of that was fair; that Tim was still hurt by what had happened between the two of them. But whenever Dick saw him, the boy was always so frigid with everyone; so cold that it never seemed like he cared about anything other than the mission. Tim didn’t catch up with any of them and never asked about their personal lives when they were in the cave becauseTim rarely volunteered to come to the Manor.

Dick smoothed his little brother’s hair back over his forehead and watched as Tim leaned unconsciously into the contact. He had messed up so badly, Dick didn’t know if things could ever be the same between the two again. He had no idea if the other would ever trust him again, and he understood that. But he wanted to make their relationship better: to earn, if not trust, than at least forgiveness.

Before he settled down to sleep for the night, Dick pressed his cracked lips tenderly to the boy’s forehead.

“I only want you to be happy and healthy, kiddo,” Dick whispered, “Even if that means you don’t want me in your life anymore.”

Chapter Text

Pru would like to think that she was capable enough to sneak into the Batcave without notice, but she could admit that, if not Batman, Cassandra Cain would certainly sense her presence. And the Butler. Tim always insisted that the Butler was the true danger of the Batclan. If his stories held true, like the Butler taking down Superman, then she had no doubt that his claims were an accurate assessment of the situation. There was little chance that she would get past all three—and the current Super who had taken residence at Wayne Manor.

After Tim had settled back into Gotham after finding Batman in the time stream, he had sent Pru to do some digging on the Council of Spiders and their origins, along with other missions that he was too busy to deal with. In some ways, he was lighter than he had been when she had first met him—less like he was holding onto the ledge of sanity by his pinkies. But in other ways he was much darker and heavier than he had been. Before the Council of Spiders cost Tim his spleen and Pru her best friends and her larynx, he had been able to laugh and joke; there had been a spark in his eyes and determination in the set of his jaw. The Tim that came back to Gotham had dead eyes, and that stubborn resolve had begun to rust away with every snide comment and every board meeting. Pru tried to reach out, but emotional stability had never been her bag anyway. It was hard watching such a strong person being carved away so painfully, but he had made it clear that he wasn’t ready for help.Tim promised that he would be fine.

Pru didn’t call this “fine.”

Tim had put in a failsafe in the Batcave’s cameras that Pru was able to access for emergencies only. She had gotten the feeling that, at some point or another, Tim would have asked her to help him escape the Bats if it became necessary. The Blue One had threatened to throw Tim into Arkham, once. Having heard rumors about the place, she whole-heartedly understood why he had a personal tap on their files and conversations. It had taken him months to develop the software needed to remain undetected by Oracle. Tim had said that the project had been one of the hardest projects of his life, and she didn’t doubt that. It was certainly coming in handy for Pru at the moment.

Red Robin had stopped replying to her texts and emails a little over a week ago. It had taken her three days to get back State-side, and about a half an hour after that to figure out that something had happened to her friend. It was all over gossip magazines that Timothy Drake-Wayne was taking an extended holiday in the aftermath of a multimillion dollar deal with Italy on behalf of WE. Pru knew Tim didn’t take breaks—and she understood. If you aren’t always overwhelmed with work, projects, and missions, then it means you had time to sit with your thoughts. For people like them, that was a dangerous thing. Running on adrenaline and caffeine was easier than dealing with everything that threatened to swallow you whole. Unfortunately, running from your thoughts can only go on for so long before they ultimately cut you down at the knees. It appeared that Tim’s past had caught up with him in a more literal way this time.

Pru had been watching the feed for days, checking in on her wounded friend and his dysfunctional little family of vigilantes. It was clear that none of them had realized the damage they had caused; but it was also clear that they seemed to be getting a vague idea. It shocked Pru that Jason Todd, of all the Bats, was the one who stayed at his bedside the most. She had never met him personally, but she had heard stories of his brutality from other League members who had witnessed it first hand—tales of beheadings and bullet wounds, sliced arteries and entrails. One night, before they had lost Owens and Z, Tim recounted his own run-in with Talia’s newest rabid dog. Pru had almost cashed in all her chips and laid siege to the Batcave when she saw them in the same room on the video feed for the first time. The only thing that had stopped her was the presence of Super Boy, who would undoubtedly stop any attempts on Tim’s life. What a strange and volatile situation he had been living in. No wonder Tim was exhausted.

There had been whispers of a family meeting that would take place in the cave. One regarding Tim, but it had been postponed until the arrival of Cain from Hong Kong. It was decided that Spoiler and Oracle would keep watch over Gotham that night, with the help of The Birds of Prey.

The meeting had finally arrived, and Pru would be watching VERY carefully. She wanted to know who knew anything about Tim’s time abroad, and what they planned to do with her friend once he woke up from his medically induced coma. Realistically, if they decided to commit Tim to Arkham, it would be much easier to stage a breakout there instead of the Batcave, even though she was loath to let him step foot in the facility as a patient. She doubted that the Super would allow it, but if any of the bats were even half as cunning as Tim then they might be able to convince him it was for his own good.

Only time would tell, she supposed.

All of the present vigilantes were out of costume as they convened by the Batcomputer. Some were sitting on the floor, others in chairs, but they all faced Bruce Wayne. Pru pulled up multiple angles from the different cameras so she could get a good read on everyone’s faces. She thanked whatever deity had created this shit existence for making a concession and having her targets sans mask for this conversation.

Wayne cleared his throat before he began which did nothing to ease the growing tension in the room. Everyone seemed on edge, even Cain.

“I’ve gathered you all here to discuss the situation with Tim,” Wayne began, “There is something wrong with him—well, several somethings.”

Frankly, Pru found it hard to believe that so many people valued this man for his intelligence.

Wayne sighed and ran a hand through his hair, “I need to know what happened to Tim when I was gone. I realize that things weren’t easy, and that mistakes were made. This isn’t a trial, but I do demand honesty.”

There was a beat of silence after the man spoke. It appeared that everyone was indirectly looking at Grayson to explain. Zooming in on his face, Pru got the sense that he was swallowing back bile before he tried to respond. She tracked the way he seemed to curl in on himself—looking as though he had aged by fifty years in the past week.

“Like you said, Bruce.” Grayson refused to look anyone in the eye. “You were gone, and everything went to shit. I tried my best, but I everything fucked up.”

“Wasn’t just on you, Goldie,” Jason muttered, “I damn near killed him with a Batarang. It's not like the kid wasn’t messed up before B took a forced vacation—also my fault.”

Interestingly, Bruce himself looked guilty as well. Tim hadn’t said much about his training with Batman, but when the subject was broached he completely changed the subject. That never bode well with Tim, in Pru’s experience. She had always assumed it had been tough, but judging by the look on Bruce’s face, maybe it had been harsher than even she had suspected.

“No, it’s—it wasn’t.” Dick inhaled slowly to gather his composure. “Tim wasn’t in a good place after everyone died—or was assumed to be dead. He tried re-cloning Connor—which I talked him out of—and then he started telling me that he thought you were alive? I thought he was out of his mind in grief.”

“He tried to re-clone me?” Kon whispered, horrified.

Dick nodded an affirmative to the Super. “It made sense, in a twisted way. He couldn’t bring back Bart or his parents or Stephanie or Bruce. But he could have at least a part of you. Though he realized that, even if he was successful, it wouldn’t actually be you.”

Kon looked devastated. Clearly, Tim hadn’t told him any specifics about that particular project. Next to the Super, Jason looked perturbed by this new piece of information, but he kept quiet. As someone who had done a lot of fucked up shit himself, Pru was glad he kept his mouth shut.

“That is rather…concerning,” Wayne conceded.

“I didn’t help the situation either,” Grayson continued, “I will stand by my choice to give Robin to Damian, but it certainly didn’t come about the way I had hoped. It was the right decision with the wrong execution; I should have talked with him about it first.”

“It wasn’t solely Grayson’s fault, Father,” Damian was quick to defend, “I wasn’t…particularly nice to Drake when I arrived.”

There was a faint grumbling that came through from Kon which sounded suspiciously like, “you aren’t any better to him now.”

“Ya didn’t even tell him first?” Jason growled, “So he just what? Walks in on the Demon Brat wearing the colors?”

There were several moments of pointed silence.

“Christ, that’s actually how it happened, didn’t it? I slit the kid’s throat and painted on the walls in his blood, and Robin meant so much to him that he kept patrolling anyway. So let’s get this straight, three of his parents: dead; girlfriend: dead two best friends: dead; Robin: gone. I get I wasn’t a saint to him, but Jesus Fucking Christ.”

“Do you think I don’t understand how bad I fucked up?” Dick yelled, “Because I do. And that’s not even the worst of it!”

“What is it, Dick?” Wayne coaxed his eldest.

“He overheard me say that I wanted to commit him to Arkham.”

Chapter Text

Jason’s mind went completely blank. Those words made sense individually, but put together he couldn’t make sense of them. Tim so unstable he deserved to be locked up in Arkham? Never. Another institution, where he might actually have a shot of getting better? Sure. Arkham was for the violently mentally ill, and Jason had pretty much cornered the family on that. Not to brag or anything. He had actively tried to kill the Baby Bird twice, and the Demon Brat who knew how many times. But Tim was the one that needed Arkham? Fuck’s sake, he realized it was an impossible situation Dick was put in—and Jason had actively made it worse—but that seemed particularly cruel. No wonder the kid didn’t trust any of them. Dick was Bruce’s most trusted ally, and the rest of the siblings practically kissed the ground he walked on. If he had suggested that Tim be locked up, they may have plowed it. Fuck.

The others seemed to be processing the information with just as much shock. Dick looked like he hadn’t slept in years, the lines under his eyes were those of someone twice his age. Though he tried to squash it down, Jason did feel a small twang of sympathy for the older man. Looking at the Clone next to him, he was surprised to see the boy didn’t exclaim his outrage.

“You knew?” Jason elbowed the boy to get his attention.

Everyone snapped their grazes to Kon, looks ranging from curiosity to demanding.

“He told me a few weeks ago.” Kon’s eyes glowed red.

“We need to know what happened while I was gone in order to help Tim.” Bruce’s voice was gruff and demanding, but not quite the Batman growl. “If he told you more, we need to know about it.”

“No, I don’t think I will,” Kon said sharply, “I want to see what everyone owns up to, and then I’ll see who I trust to be around him while he recovers.”

Jason was impressed. Very impressed. Not only did the kid clearly care for Tim, but he was also willing to throw down against the entire Batfamily. He could count on one hand the amount of people who were willing to do that of their own volition.

But this was all beside the point. “Hey, are we really gonna skip over the fact that Dickface was going to toss the kid in Arkham and throw away the fuckin’ key? It’s one thing if you do it to me, but fuck, that kid has been nothing but loyal to you all.”

“I was never going to put him into Arkham, it was just a thought I vocalized to Alfred one night when nothing seemed like it would ever get any better.” Dick held his head in his hands.

“You’re right, that’s so much fucking better!” Jason threw his hands in the air, frustrated. “If we heard an adult pulling that shit in uniform we’d call CPS for abuse charges.”

“I wasn’t his parent! Don’t you get that?” Dick roared from his seat. “I couldn’t be that for him! He was my equal, and I needed Tim to start acting like it because I couldn’t take care of two kids.”

“You’re right, Dick,” Kon hissed viciously, “I always contemplate committing my equals to a glorified institution for torture. Really shows the camaraderie, ya’ know?”

“Grayson was doing the best he could, you ingrate!” Damian seethed from beside his oldest brother, “Do you think you could have done better?”

“It would pretty fucking hard to do worse, kid.”

“Stop this immediately, both of you.” Bruce ran a tired hand down his face. “We are losing track of the goal for this meeting. Dick, what happened after Tim heard this? Where did he go when he was searching for me?”

There were a few more moments of silence while Dick took in ragged breaths. Damian leaned his shoulder against his distraught sibling in a rare display of care and comfort. Wiping a tear from the corner of his eye, Dick wrapped an arm around his shoulder and drew Damian into his side.

“I tried to talk him out of searching for you. He was so distraught, I thought the heartbreak of realizing you were dead would destroy him. We tried to call in Wonder Girl, and when she couldn’t get through to him, we fought. Tim was so angry, Bruce.”

“I understand why you all thought I was gone. The circumstances were less than ideal…Where did he go after the fight? Surely that wasn’t the last you had heard from him.”

“Tim fell off the map after that,” Dick looked haunted, “I thought he was on a wild goose chase, and that he was safe, but he left us no way to contact him. Even if I had wanted to, there was no way for me to look for him. Gotham was even worse while you were gone. It was like the city could smell that it was a pretender under the cowl.”

Jason had heard tell of Tim’s “mental decline” while he was abroad—everyone had. Hell, even Talia herself had told Jason that Tim was not someone to be trifled with lightly. He was intelligent, capable, and strategic in just such a way that he would have been a nightmare to deal with if he had gone rogue. However, it was clear that the hero community had been on the lookout for any threats that Tim might have imposed during Bruce’s excursion. It was never said outright, of course, always under the guise of sympathy and sorrow, but still the bedrock on which Tim’s reputation had been weighed. The hero community was all a big happy family on the surface, but everyone was always looking for the most efficient way to bury the knife of betrayal if it was necessary.

“So no one has any idea what the League wants with him, or how he lost his spleen?” Bruce asked.

Surprisingly, it was Cassandra that spoke next. Her face was strained and she hesitated a few times before she began.

“I saw…him. Bruce back in Gotham only a little bit,” She stuttered, “Not good…Don’t want to invite? Invade. His privacy.”

“Cassandra, sweetheart, we need to know what is wrong if we are going to help him.” Bruce walked over and put an arm around the girl. “I know you want to respect his privacy, and normally I would never ask this of you, but he nearly let his secrets kill him before he told us anything.”

Jason looked over at the Medbay, Tim’s unconscious body was still visible from his spot on the floor. Ever since the night he had nearly bled out in his arms, he could hardly stand being away from the kid. Every time he tried to sleep upstairs, Jason would wake up from nightmares of Titan’s Tower mixed with swirls of green; when he startled awake he would wash his hands for thirty minutes before he stopped seeing Tim’s blood. He knew it was hypocritical, but he just wanted to see that his little brother was safe.

Wait, little brother? Jason thought in disbelief, When the fuck had he started thinking about the Baby Bird that way?

“He was—” Cassandra took a deep breath, “He was almost…raped.”

Jason went cold even as he went numb, too many memories of living on the street striking him at once. Forcing away a full body shiver. Jason swallowed thickly, waiting for Cass to recount the horror.

“Ra’s want? Wanted? An heir.” She struggled through the words, “Was tied up, almost raped, but got there in time.”

The room remained silent for another few moments. Dick looked like he was three seconds away from losing either his dinner or his mind, and Damian had a grimace etched on his young face. Bruce remained stoic, but a trained eye could see the shards of violence that were embedded into his gaze—malevolence corroding his calm facade. It was the kind of look that made Jason feel safe to this day, despite it being directed at him in the past.

“Why did Ra’s target Tim.” Not a question, but a demand. This was Batman, not Bruce.

“Unsure. Promised wouldn’t look,” Cassandra averted her eyes, “Or tell.”

“What have I done,” Dick stumbled to his feet, taking heaving breaths, “I-I need to get out of here. Now.”

Damian stood and tried to go after him, but Dick staggered away from the boy like he had been burned. “N-No, stay away from me, Damian. I need to be alone right now.”

With that the man raced to his civilian bike and raced out of the cave, leaving a cloud of smoke and exhaust behind him. As Jason choked on the fumes, he couldn’t help but thinking that things seemed more hopeless than they ever had.

Chapter Text

It was drizzling—because of course it was. Dick hadn’t even grabbed a jacket on his way out of the cave and somewhere, underneath his emotional turmoil, he could recognize that he was trembling with the cold. Ignoring it, he pushed his bike faster through the empty streets of Bristol. Dick was glad that no one else was around because he was pushing a buck twenty on his bike, and he didn’t feel like getting pulled over. The wind whipped his wet hair across his forehead and was dripping water down his face, but he could still see where he was going by some miracle. His destination wasn’t too far anyway, as long as he didn’t launch the bike on the gravel driveway; Dick wouldn’t have cared either way.

The wrought iron gates of Gotham Cemetery were eerie in the Gotham night. It was not a place that Dick came often, but when he did, sometimes he came back with more clarity. At least, if he didn’t receive any world-changing epiphanies, he wouldn’t be breaking down in front of Bruce.

His parents were buried on the most beautiful hill in the cemetery with a large oak tree closest to his mother’s grave. Bruce had paid a small fortune for the two plots, and Dick had always appreciated the gesture. Over the years, in the worst times of his life, he would visit his parents and think about how they would comfort him as a child. It was as soothing as it was agonizing.

The oak tree provided a level of protection from the elements, but Dick still found himself curled up at the bottom of the trunk, knees pulled to his chest. He could see both of the gravestones, and he felt as though he was looking his parents in the face. A few deep breaths later, and he started to talk.

“Hey mom, hey dad,” His voice cracked, “S-sorry I didn’t bring anything for you this time, it wasn’t really a planned visit.”

“I fucked up.” He couldn’t tell if he was crying or if the rain was dripping down his face. “I fucked up so bad, and I don’t think I can fix it this time. Tim…I know I’ve talked with you about him a few times. He’s so smart, and capable, and strong; but he’s so hurt, and I’m a lot of the reason why.”

Dick buried his head in his knees as his breathing came out in hiccuping sobs. His fingers were clenched in his hair so hard that it felt like he was pulling it out. Shame was heavy in his gut as he forced himself to look up again at the matching stones.

“When everything went to hell, I thought I was doing the right thing—letting Tim find who he is without B. But he had already lost so much, and I took away the one thing he had left and gave it to Damian. I should have talked with him first, or offered him the space that I gave up, but I didn’t.”

It was too dangerous to talk about identities, even in an abandoned cemetery. They all had enough going on without the added stress of someone potentially figuring out their secret as well. As much as he wanted to own up to all that he had done wrong, it wasn’t the place for it.

“So many things happened, and I wish I could say that I hadn’t seen him spiraling because I did. But the kid is so good at putting up a façade—he’s every bit the performer that we were, but it hurt him—still hurts him. And with everything that happened, I thought it was just me he didn’t want to talk to, but I was so wrong.”

Dick hadn’t been expecting a response, and he didn’t get one, but the silence still seemed damning in that moment. A crack of thunder sounded in the distance and the rain began to pick up a bit. He remained by his parents’ side anyway, not knowing if he would have the strength to say what he needed to at any other time. Squaring his shoulders and tightening his jaw, Dick forced himself to keep talking.

“Jason and I were looking for him when he got shot. He…he had started self-harming again, and Jason was worried which says quite a bit about the state he must have seen him in…”

“I wasn’t there when Jason died. I came back afterward, and I never realized how morbidly lucky that was. Because when I saw Tim nearly bleed out on the pavement? I almost lost my mind, and… his fall reminded me so much of yours, too much of yours.”

It felt like the filthiest of secrets to Dick, comparing the death of his parents with the near-death of his little brother. Both circumstances were terrible, but Dick had never felt the burning shame and agony that haunted his every moment—both awake and asleep—with his parents. There had been someone else to blame for their deaths, and it had kept him going. Tim wouldn’t have felt like he couldn’t trust the family if Dick hadn’t practically chased him away by being exactly like Bruce had been in the aftermath of Jason’s death. Maybe Tim wouldn’t have gotten shot if Dick had just been better to him—if he had just listened to the brilliant kid.

The league was interested in Tim for some reason, and that meant that—at some point—his little brother was so desperate for help that he must have gone to the League of Assassins for help. It was the only thing that made sense. Ra’s had fought with Tim as Robin, but those situations hadn’t garnered such a strong obsession from the Demon’s Head. And somewhere along the line, he had lost his spleen, and god knew what else, because Dick hadn’t gone after him when he had left. Sure, he had thought about it. He could have even asked a favor from one of his old Titan friends, but he hadn’t, and Tim had suffered for it.

Dick chuckled bitterly, “You must be so proud of me.”

“I cannot say that I knew your parents, Richard; however, you have certainly given them many reasons to be proud.” Damian's voice carried over the storm.

Dick forced himself to take a few deep breaths. The boy had managed to catch him off-guard which probably wasn’t hard in his state, but still rattled him a bit.

“Thank you, Dami.” He hesitated. “How long have you been listening to me?”

The boy sat down beside him and draped a jacket over his soaked clothes. “I only heard the last sentence you spoke. Though it is not difficult to deduce why you are here.”

When Dick didn’t respond, Damian filled the silence. “I did not think you should be alone right now. Perhaps I was mistaken. If you would like me to—”

“—No. You don’t have to leave. I…I could use the company if I’m being honest.”

The boy wrapped an awkward arm around Dick’s waist. The movement was inexperienced and clumsy, but he was so proud at how far his little brother had come from the boy he had been. Damian was coming into his own, and Dick appreciated the gesture of affection, knowing how hard it was for his brother.

“May I say something?” Damian inquired, not looking at Dick.

“You just did, buddy.” Dick teased gently,

Damian rolled his eyes rather dramatically in response, but continued more seriously. “Timothy is still alive and yet you grieve for him as though he were already deceased. When he wakes—and he will—it would not behoove him to feel as though he is only a walking manifestation of your guilt.”

The kid had a point; it stung, but it was true. Dick allowed him to continue, despite wanting to defend himself.

“I have wronged him in many ways as well, Richard. We all have, in our own ways; and we all must atone for those transgressions, but he does not need to see your grief for him hindering you in such a way.”

Damian stood and reached a hand out to help him up. “Now, it is positively frigid, and Pennyworth has made hot chocolate at the Manor. You are allowed to mourn your mistakes, but I will not allow you to drown in them.”

For the first time since Tim was shot, Dick felt his lips tick up in a semblance of a smile. It wasn’t much, but it was genuine, and he was grateful to his brother for pulling him away from his darkest thoughts. Dick wasn’t any closer to knowing how to help mend Tim and their relationship, but he walked back to his bike feeling a tad bit lighter.

Chapter Text

Waking up from a serious injury was always odd. In recent memory, it was the idea of waking up at all which shocked Tim the most. Generally, when Tim was at his worst, or best depending on who you asked, there was no one around to pick him up and make sure he survived whatever horrible injury he had sustained. There were two things that all of the situations had in common, however: it was always the excruciating pain that brought you back, and everything came back online in stages.

It was the searing pain in his shoulder that greeted him when consciousness finally held, but the gauze wrappings and the unfamiliar bed made the bottom fall out of his stomach. Tim hadn’t opened his eyes yet, but it never boded well when he woke in someone else’s care. Best case scenario, the Teen Titans would worry over him relentlessly, which he would have to brush aside, worst case scenario the Bats were involved somehow. Tim figured it was 50/50 that one of the Bats had landed him the injury; and even if they hadn’t, some very uncomfortable conversations would have to be had. If he decided to stick around, that was. As he waited for his body to come fully back online, Tim mused that Ra’s was somewhere in the middle. Either the ancient man would kill him—and then none of this bullshit would be his problem—or he would try and make him his heir again.

He took stock of what he was able to grasp from his senses. A soft blanket was draped over him with care, and his arms were uncovered. Maybe he was lucky and Kon or Pru had found him and decided not to tell anyone about his mental health spiral? That seemed wrong for a reason he could quite grasp. He was definitely in a medbay of some sort though, because that sterile smell always made him cringe. It took him a few moments to gather any more information as a wave of exhaustion washed over him, but he continued his classification. There was the noise of someone sleeping softly by his left side, and the damp chill in the air was only found in one place. The Cave.

Fuck.

Tim focused his breathing, and remained as calm as he was able. His heart rate had increased a few beats, but he didn’t want to rouse whoever was holding a vigil at his bedside. Personally, Tim’s money was on Dick, and that raised the stakes considerably. He had actively spent the last two years avoiding his ‘older brother,’ and had managed to avoid most emotional interactions with the man. Far be it from Tim to break the streak now.

Letting his eyes open a bit, Tim internally cursed as he realized that he was, in fact, in the Cave’s medbay. Joy of joys. However, he jolted a bit when he realized that it wasn’t Dick at his bedside, and it wasn’t one person either. Jason and Kon sat side-by-side sleeping fitfully on the plush chairs. Bruce had insisted on purchasing the lounge chairs because of their frequent overnight visits when under overnight observation.

Why was Kon in the Batcave; better yet, why was Kon in the Batcave next to Jason of all people? Kon had wanted to go after the Red Hood after Tim had been attacked in the Tower. Kon had been angry at Tim for agreeing to work alongside him. Tim trusted him, he really did, but what if the Bats had convinced him that he was a danger to everyone? Cassie had gone after him just because Dick had asked her to, who could say Kon would be any different? He had no way of knowing what his friend might have told them, and the thought made him want to throw up.

He needed to get out of the Batcave undetected so he could regroup and assess what type of danger he was in from them. Kon may have had super hearing, but he had always been a heavy sleeper no matter what the occasion; it had posed a few issues on several intergalactic missions they had been on when he was Robin. No, Kon wasn’t the concern, it was Jason that would pose the challenge. Bat and League trained, not to mention those he probably didn’t know about, Jason was bound to wake up at the slightest sound. However, the more Tim looked, the more he realized how tired Jason must have been. If he were honest, it appeared as though Jason belonged in the hospital bed with the bags under his eyes and the pale complexion. Tim didn’t want to think about how he himself must have looked.

Jason may have been trained by the Bats and the League, but so had Tim. He had outsmarted Lady Shiva and Ra’s al Ghul himself; he even led the League for a time. Tim had learned a few things about escaping unseen. Gathering a corner of the blankets in his left hand, he stuffed a portion into his mouth; breaking his teeth wasn’t on today’s agenda, and the sound would definitely wake up Kon anyway. Soundlessly, Tim unplugged all of the monitors, biting down when he shifted his shoulder too much. Neither man awoke from their fitful sleep, and Tim counted that as a win. He gently pulled the IV line from his arm, and hung it up on the stand. Completely free from the machinery, Tim was nearly in the clear, and just had to make it out through the cave entrance for the Batmobile. Easy. Kind of.

His legs were shaking minutely, but he pushed himself forward and out of the MedBay, into the main area of the cave. Before making it to the tunnel, Tim detoured and found one of his Bo staffs to use as a crutch which helped him hobble across the cave floor with relative ease. The drugs were already starting to wear off, and if Tim thought waking up hurt? Yeah, that was nothing compared to the pain that he was about to feel. It was still better than the alternative though. Tim didn’t think he would be able to survive losing another friend right then, whether to betrayal or death. If Kon looked at Tim like he was broken, Tim might actually break for good this time.

Tim needed out of the Cave. His breathing was starting to increase rapidly, but he focused on each individual step to keep him grounded. It took him ten minutes to reach the exit of the cave, spit and adrenaline keeping him upright. Drake Manor was the next mansion over, and Tim had discreetly bought it back a few months prior. It may not have been the last place the Bats would look for him, but it certainly wouldn’t be the first. Tim only needed time for an extraction anyway.

The journey to the Manor’s front steps was harrowing to say the least, but Tim had walked further while actively bleeding out from an evisceration attempt in the desert. Plus he had Pru to think about back then. So all in all, Tim told himself it wasn’t the most self-destructive thing he had ever done. Sure, it was probably still a lie, but Tim was willing to argue plausible deniability for later.

Luckily, Tim had decided to keep a key under the potted plant next to the front door. There wasn’t anything inside of his childhood home to steal, so Tim had never worried about a break-in. Bending over to reach for the key had proven to be a problem though. A strangled scream tore from his throat when the movement pulled at his stitches. It did, however, bring him to his knees which was the perfect vantage point to reach for the rusted piece of metal. A win, all things considered.

Black spots danced in his eyes when he tried to haul himself to his feet again. His shoulder seared in pain, and it throbbed with the beat of his heart. Unfortunately for Tim, rock bottom apparently had a basement, and he dry heaved into the pot; each convulsion of his stomach brought with it a new form of misery. After a minute, Tim reached his good arm up to the keyhole and opened the door. Tim would have to crawl the rest of the way to his beacon, it seemed. Tossing his Bo staff through the entrance— a metal thunk as it tolled sideways rang through the air—Tim carefully followed it over the threshold.

A few feet into the house, Tim felt the tell-tale sign of ripped stitches, trailing a small amount of blood behind him. He couldn’t even remember if he bothered to close the door. A hysterical laugh pierced the air, his hysterical laugh he noted blearily, as he considered the lecture his parents would have given him about the cost of heating and air-conditioning. As if they didn’t have millions of dollars in the bank back then.

In the foyer, Tim found what he was looking for; a small, nearly inconspicuous com taped to the underside of a small table. Placing the small plastic piece into his ear, Tim turned on the tech.

“Pru,” Tim’s voice cracked, and his eyesight began to blur, “Pru, I need an extraction. Drake Manor. Immediate.”

He repeated the message until his body gave out and he sunk back into unconsciousness.

Chapter Text

Kon couldn’t quite figure out what was wrong in the bleariness that came after just waking up. Jason was still asleep in the chair beside him—the other boy had barely slept since Tim had been shot—and didn’t show any signs of being roused from his borderline coma.

Wait.

Why wasn’t the heart monitor beeping? Kon’s eyes flinched open, and his jaw hit the floor. Where the fuck was Tim? He must have made a sound because Jason startled awake and launched himself out of his seat.

“What?” Jason growled.

“Tim’s gone.” Kon ran frantically into the main area of the cave.

“What the fuck? Why didn’t we hear that?” Jason ran to the bat computer to pull up surveillance footage. “Fuck that, why didn’t YOU hear that?”

“Would you shut up for a second? I need to concentrate.” Kon yanked his hair with one hand as he paced. “Let me search for his heartbeat.”

Jason’s eyebrows shot to his hairline in disbelief, but he remained silent. Kon closed his eyes; his own heartbeat was racing so much he could barely hear anything else. Focusing first on his breathing, he managed to calm his own runaway pulse, and then scoured the area for signs of his injured friend. It took a few seconds, but Tim’s heart was slow and thready about a mile away.

“Hook up the machines,” Kon ordered, “I’ll bring him back.”

With that, Kon rocketed out of the cave entrance and found himself at what appeared to be Drake Manor. Tim had told him a little bit about the place, and it was as cold and forbidding as his friend described. Wayne Manor was menacing like it had something to protect, but Drake Manor looked like the pristine temple of a forgotten God.

The front door was wide open.

Kon could move faster than a speeding bullet, but he felt as if his feet were stuck in quicksand. He let out a strangled scream when he saw Tim sprawled on the floor. There was a blood trail from the door leading to Tim that was uneven with the struggle it must have taken him to crawl inside. Tim was so pale and still, and Kon felt bile creep up his throat as he bent over his knees to keep from gagging.

He couldn’t do this. Kon couldn’t fucking do this.

His chest heaved with the effort to bring air into his lungs, but it felt like he wasn’t getting enough. God, what if Tim is dying? Kon couldn’t move, and Tim was going to die and it would be Kon’s fault.

Distantly, Kon was aware his legs were shaking and his fist was clenched so hard in his hair that he might pull out whole chunks if he wasn’t careful. He was losing his shit, and his best friend needed him to function. In his years as a hero he had never choked this hard when it mattered so much.

Kon wasn’t sure why he had opened his mouth before he started screaming. “Clark! Help me, please! I c-can’t—I need you. Please.” The last plea came out a choked sob.

He couldn’t say how long it took the man to get there, but it was clear that Clark had dropped everything to meet him; he was still in his business suit and had only taken off his glasses. Despite most of his past encounters with Superman, Kon was relieved to see him.

“Kon! What—Oh my God.”

“H-he needs to go back to the c-cave,” Kon forced out.

“What—” Clark gathered Tim gently into his arms, “Okay, I’ll get him there and settled, then I’ll be back.”

Clark seemed to understand that he needed time to break down in peace for which he was extremely grateful. Tim looked so small in the man’s arms, and he felt his heart break under the weight of everything that his friend had suffered. It was only a few weeks prior that he had learned just how much his friend had been through. Everyone had failed Tim, everyone. Even Kon himself in some respects. How could he not have noticed the emotional duress that Tim was practically radiating? Tim had been quiet after Kon had come back, but he just thought it was Gotham and all of the shit it put him through. He had never suspected that his friend was so bad off—that he didn’t trust Kon to understand him anymore.

Why had Tim run from the cave?

Kon could understand Tim fleeing the cave if he had found Jason alone at his bedside, but Kon had been there too. He had to have known Kon would never let anyone hurt him; he especially wouldn’t have let the Red Hood anywhere near Tim if he thought for a moment the other boy was trying to kill him. What had Tim woken up and thought? Did he think that Kon would help the Bats lock him away?

The more Kon thought about it, the more sense it made. Tim’s faith in the people around him had eroded so much that it probably felt like no one was safe to trust. Dick Grayson, favorite of the entire Justice League and practically a part of Clark’s family as well, had convinced everyone that Tim had lost his mind in grief. Sure, he hadn’t explicitly said that, but it had been implied—which amounted to the same thing.

Kon wanted to be angry at him—wanted to shout and rage and cry until all of the guilt and shame disappeared like fog in the sun—because if Tim wasn’t actively suicidal, he was certainly toeing the line. He would rather crawl back to this abandoned mansion and bleed out on the floor than face any of them.

On Ma Kent’s farm, Kon had seen a few poor rabbits get caught in traps. It was always gruesome and sad; Rabbits would bite off their legs to get away from their imprisonment which was just swapping one death for another, more slow and painful, death. Tim thought that whatever the Bats did to him upon waking up was so terrifying that he would resort to this; he thought Kon would just roll over and let them do it to him. Tears soaked his face as he shuddered with whimpering sobs.

Kon loved Tim. He had been the only consistently good thing in Kon’s life since his Robin entered it. When they had first met, Kon had tried to hate him because Tim represented everything he hadn’t been: confident, cunning, and capable. But the longer he knew the boy, the more Kon had realized just how important Tim was to him. Somewhere along the line, their snarky exchanges had turned into friendly banter. Kon didn’t know what he would do without that in his life.

Oh, this was how Tim must have felt. This is how Tim had felt, but worse. He had lost everyone, not just Kon and their companionship.

So lost in his own thoughts, Kon didn’t notice the shadow in the doorway until he registered the muzzle of a handgun digging into his back.

“I have a Kryptonite bullet leveled at your T8 vertebrae,” A gravelly female voice whispered, “Tell me where he is.”

Chapter Text

Tim was really starting to get annoyed at waking up; in general, but also specifically in the Batcave. It didn’t help that he felt like complete dog shit too, but he guessed that’s what happened when you got shot off a building with a high caliber gun. Oops.

He let out a small groan. The Bats had found him and brought him back to the cave after he tried to escape. The lecture was going to be insufferable now, and Tim was not looking to it. But he had at least some leverage, they couldn’t really take Red Robin away. He would just step down from his position at WE in spite, and then what would Bruce do? Run his own company for once? Tim didn’t want to say stranger things had never happened, but it was a close call.

“Look who’s finally awake.”

Pru. In the Batcave. Tim was grateful she was there, but at the same time, this had to be the worst possible timeline. What had he done in his life to deserve this? Wait, he didn’t want an actual answer to that.

He tried to respond with something witty and sarcastic, but instead he croaked nonsensically.

“Your voice sounds worse than mine which is a hell of a flex there, Nerd Bird. Let me get you some ice chips.”

Tim hadn’t opened his eyes yet, but he heard her walk away. He had forgotten how grateful he was to have Pru as a friend. She never parsed words with him, and never treated him like he was made of glass. He felt bad, but whenever someone—mainly Dick—asked him if he was alright, it always felt like an attack against his independence. Tim hadn’t been a child since he first donned the Robin mantel, and he certainly didn’t revert back to being one since it had been ripped away from him. He understood that people had the best of intentions when they acted that way, but there was something so much more helpful about being treated like an adult.

A cup was placed to his lips, and he managed to get a few ice chips into his mouth. The cold water soothed his dry throat, and Tim coughed a few times to clear away the dusty sensation.

“Thanks.” Tim’s voice really did sound like shit. “How much trouble am I in?”

Pru hummed before she responded. “Hard to say. Ra’s is clearly still very angry at you. Your family appear as though if they looked away, you might disappear on them. Which is fair considering you look like someone took a box-cutter to a scarecrow. Not like the villain, but like the real thing.”

Tim forced his eyes open so he could glare at the woman sitting on the side of his bed. She rolled her eyes before she continued and ruffled his hair a bit which earned her a growl.

“I’m joking. Sort of. You’re more like a sentient inflatable tube man that went a few rounds with Widower.” Tim snorted, and then gasped in pain because of it.

“What about Kon?” He rasped.

“About that…so he’s pretty upset. Not angry, or at least not really. But you made quite the scene at Drake Manor. Apparently he found you unconscious and looking like the second dead prostitute they find on a Criminal Minds episode. He went back to wherever it is he’s from for the night to clear his head.“

That was fair, all things considered. Clearly, Kon had at least a bit of faith in the Bats to keep him from harm, otherwise he wouldn’t have left. Tim didn’t necessarily agree with the sentiment, but he knew that Kon would never intentionally hurt him—directly or otherwise.

Pru shifted a bit in discomfort, and scratched the back of her neck. “I also may have threatened to shoot him with a Kryptonite bullet if he didn’t bring me to you. So that probably didn’t help.”

Tim’s eyes widened and his whole body tensed in horror. The heart monitor picked up a bit with the knowledge that Pru could have killed Kon because Tim had asked her to come and find him. He had almost inadvertently killed one of his best friends. Again.

“In my defense, when I came to find you, the kid looked like you had died. But there was no body and a trail of blood that ended in a small puddle. I…lost my temper.” She didn’t look him in the eyes when she said the last bit.

“I’m sorry I caused so much trouble.” Tim lowered his eyes to his lap.

A small slap underneath his chin made him meet Pru’s gaze again. “Shut the fuck up. You’re not a burden. Besides, you’ve pulled my ass out of hot water enough. I owed you.”

If Tim didn’t know any better, Pru’s eyes looked like they were shining with tears.

“…And who would pay for my safe houses, huh? I’d really be losing the golden goose then.” A watery chuckle escaped her, and Tim raised his hand and put it on her shoulder. It was a small form of comfort, but there wasn’t anything Tim could say to make the situation better.

“Why—” Pru began, “You know you can talk to me, right? No judgement, no shame.”

“I know Pru,” Tim’s hand fell from her shoulder. “There are just some things that are too hard to say out loud. To anyone.”

She looked down at his arms and scowled. “Yeah, well you’re the only family I got left, and I’m fucking worried about you.”

Silence fell after Pru’s last statement. In a lot of ways, Pru knew almost every dark thing about Tim, but she didn’t seem to care about any of it. She, Owens, and Z had come into his life at a time when he didn’t think he’d live to see eighteen. He still might not, but his chances were way worse back then. Sure, at the time they had been lackeys for Ra’s al Ghul, but for whatever reason, they proved to be the only people in his life who had actually listened to him. He was their mission, but overtime he had also become their friend.

In the end he had gotten Owens and Z killed, and Pru had been irreversibly injured. God, he really did ruin everything he touched. If he had never become Robin, maybe Batman would have eventually learned to deal with his grief; maybe Damian would have adjusted more quickly to the manor; maybe Jason would have come home sooner; his parents would definitely still be alive. The only common denominator to all of the tragedies that he had faced was him. Tim had wanted to do good things. He had wanted to be something more than a sad little rich kid whose future had been mapped out long before he was born. That was his mistake; some people weren’t meant to be heroes.

“Stop thinking so loud,” Pru chastised, “I can hear your self-deprecation from here. You are a good person, and you’ve been through hard times, but you also have people who are willing to help you get better. The Bats are a bunch of fucking idiots, but they do care in their own way.”

That being said, I’m down to break you out of here at any time. Just say the word.”

“I appreciate it, Pru.” Tim sat up a bit more on the bed. “You’re a good friend to me. But I don’t think I can leave now. They’ll never stop hunting me if I do, and it would just put off the inevitable confrontation anyway.”

Pru sprawled her back over his legs with a dramatic sigh. “You couldn’t have thought of that BEFORE? Christ on a bike, do you know how much a Kryptonite bullet costs? Bats confiscated it when Super Boy brought me back to the cave.”

“I would buy you another one, but that seems more like a personal problem,” Tim spoke wryly, “And my apologies for being drugged out of my mind. Turns out morphine is really bad for decision making.”

Pru flipped him off, and he cracked a small grin.

“You ready to face them?”

“You going anywhere?”

A snort of laughter. “The day I fear a grown man dressed as a flying rat is the day I die.”

Chapter Text

Nothing, nothing, had prepared Tim for the level of sheer and utter shame and awkwardness that would spawn from the entire Batfamily being clumped in the medbay. Pru had gotten a shirt and sweatpants from his locker in the cave; thankfully, the shirt had long sleeves. As if he would own anything else. It used to fit him normally a few months back, but it was practically drowning him at present. The billowing material provided a barrier that was almost comforting, but it also made him feel an inch tall with the way the family was currently looking at him.

They all looked like shit to be honest, and not just the regular everyday exhaustion that vigilante life gave everyone. Jason looked on the edge of collapse; Bruce was stoic, but his clothing was rumpled and his hair was askew; Cass had a pinch in her brow and was tense. However, Dick looked fucking shattered in comparison to everyone, and he couldn’t meet Tim’s gaze, either looking over his shoulder, or down into his own lap. He wondered if there had been a particularly rough mission, or another Arkham breakout, when he was unconscious, but no one appeared injured.

Everyone was silent and no one was moving; thank god Pru was perched on his hospital bed like a particularly vicious guard dog. She looked completely unimpressed by the people before her, like she couldn’t give any less of a fuck what they thought of her. That made one of them. Despite how hard Tim had tried to break himself of the habit, the Bats’ approval still meant something to him. They still meant something to him. Which was obvious considering the gigantic hole in his shoulder. If he really didn’t care about them, he would have let the League continue to take shots with the others as potential collateral damage.

Bruce cleared his throat awkwardly. “So Tim, we need to talk.”

What a great start. This was going to be a GREAT conversation, Tim could tell already. If it were any other Bat in this bed, Bruce would have asked how they were feeling instead of giving them the third degree immediately. But Tim hadn’t truly been welcomed here for a while, so he guessed it tracked.

“We want to apologi—”

“No.” Tim denied.

Everyone looked taken aback by his words. Damian looked ready to snarl some barbed retort, and Jason stiffened slightly. Tim kept the angry pair in his peripheral vision as he looked at Bruce with a stone cold demeanor; clearly the man had not been expecting Tim’s rejection.

“What?” Bruce asked with a small hint of incredulity.

“I am in no mood to hear whatever apology you want to spout before you turn it into a lecture.” Tim held Bruce’s gaze with a steel that would have made Janet proud. “Unless this is a discussion about the presence of the League in Gotham, and how to handle the situation, then it is currently unimportant and irrelevant to the events at hand.”

“How can you say that?” Dick’s voice wavered on the edge of horror and sadness. “Tim, you’re killing yourself slowly. You need help.”

Suddenly, Tim was thrust back to a year and a half ago. Dick had seemed so sincere when he had offered to find Tim a therapist, but Tim had pushed back against the idea because Bruce had been alive; he had just needed Dick to trust him like he said he would. That was always the problem with Dick. He would start off with that façade of caring charm, but he wasn’t afraid to play dirty if it meant getting his way; he wasn’t afraid to lock Tim in Arkham and throw away the key.

So that’s what this was about.

Tim’s gaze turned from iron indifference to something much more dangerous, and his voice matched. “You can say what you actually mean, Dick.”

The older boy’s eyes widened and started to make a pacifying gesture with his hands. Tim didn’t let him get another word in edgewise.

“Be honest; you never stopped thinking I belonged in Arkham, did you? How long did it take for you to convince everyone else?”

Dick looked like he was about to cry, but Tim didn’t fucking care. They didn’t get to play Russian roulette with Tim’s life without consequences. All of the Bats seem to collectively hold their breath, looking varying degrees of alarmed. No one seemed to know what to say, and the silence of the cave made Tim feel hollow instead of anxious.

“No, little brother,” Cassandra broke the silence, “Worried about you, not sending you away.”

Tim wanted to believe her, he really did. He gazed at her, searching for something that he didn’t understand himself— that was, until he did.

“You told them.” There was no inflection in his voice.

Cassandra Cain was trained and tortured by her parents to be the ultimate assassin, but over her time with the Waynes, she had progressed well with emoting and language. To anyone who didn’t know her, the guilt that flickered across her face would have been unnoticeable, but Tim had learned a few things during his time abroad.

Tim rubbed a hand down his face to try and calm his racing heart. A heavy sigh shook his entire body, and the zap of pain in his shoulder from the movement gave him the strength to look Bruce in the eye again. The scared seventeen year old was clawing at the inside of Tim’s stomach, desperately trying to flee the situation, to hide where no one would ever look at him again. He shoved that part of himself down, and chained it away. When he got out of here, he could take a boiling shower and scrub himself clean; but first, he had to tread water.

He forced himself not to fidget in discomfort when he said his next words. “When I forced you to take me on as Robin, you made it clear that you didn't want me here, Robin or otherwise. But you needed someone to pull you back from the edge. You were a mess, and you were going to drown in your grief and take Gotham with you.”

God, Tim had so much life in him back then. When he was determined and passionate about his purpose; when he could smile and laugh like a real boy. So much had happened since then. Bruce had gone from trying to train him into the ground, to tentatively tolerating his presence, to making Tim feel like he mattered to him in some small way. Tim had swallowed any spare scrap of affection—a hug from Dick, a hair ruffling from Bruce, cookies from Alfred—with the fervor of a starving man.

Then, slowly, Bruce had gained a support system again and, at first, Tim had thought he had a place in that. He thought that Bruce had started to see him as important, but with every new addition to the family, Tim had fallen more to the wayside. Initially, he told himself that it was because the others had more trauma to deal with, and so they needed more attention, but he had just denied the truth of the situation. Bruce felt indebted to Tim, and was too nice to kick him out.

So instead, Bruce and Dick had dropped hints; expecting him to work with Jason and Damian, lecturing him at the smallest error, and not allowing Tim to defend himself against his ‘brothers.’ He had even been told by Jason and Damian how worthless and unneeded he was, but he hadn’t wanted to see it. Instead, Tim had held onto a scrap of hope that he might have been loved. Some people just weren’t meant to have good things, he supposed.

“I’m a stop gap you no longer need, Bruce—the puzzle piece that never truly fit. At least, not around here: in your home, in your family. I can run WE, I can do casework, and I can have a nightlife, but you don’t have to feel responsible for me anymore.”

Bruce looked like he had stopped breathing all together. Tim didn’t bother to look at anyone else in the room; they had already made their opinions of him very clear.

“I’m giving you a clean break and a blank check. If you need my help? I’ll be there. You never wanted me here, but there was a time when you needed me. That time passed a long time ago, and I’m sorry I made you feel responsible for me for so long.”

Tim took a deep breath and forced the painful sting from his eyes.

“So I’m setting you free. You don’t have to pretend for my sake anymore.”

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So I’ve been trying to decide where this story goes lately tbh. I have every intention of finishing this story because I think that this is an important story to write. That being said, there have been differences of opinion based on where everyone thinks this story should go. Half of you are out for blood and want Tim to kick the bats to the curb. The other half of you want the bats to gain Tim’s trust back slowly, and change their ways to support him like he deserves.

Both of these are great ways to go. I understand that different people need different things from this fic. My whole goal was to write a fic that I needed to read, but just because something is what I would want doesn’t mean it’s something you all want. I think both of these directions are important for different reasons!

So here is my idea:

What if I ended “Done” right where it is. This would be the last chapter of this work. However, I would then make a series out of this work. A chose your own direction type deal. One work of the series would be where Tim learns to live without the bats and relies on his other connections—it wouldn’t be batless and he might forgive a few who have truly and thoroughly earned it over time—but it wouldn’t be as happy of a story. The second split off would be one where the bats are much more involved in Tim’s recovery, even if they still have to earn Tim’s forgiveness.

The upside would be that there would be overall more content at the finish line of this fic. You all would get to choose what is cannon for you based on what you need/want to read at the moment. The downside would be that, whichever side you chose, it would update less frequently. I would probably go back and forth on which one’s I would update depending on time ,and what sparks my creative side on any given week.

If there was every a time to comment on this story, now would be it tbh. Thank you all for your continued support of this work! It’s been a long journey so far but, no matter what you choose, it isn’t close to being done yet!

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Hello all! It’s been a while!

Thank you all for the support and comments on this fic! I really appreciate that so many of you were willing to take the time and comment your thoughts and advice :) It means the world to me that you all consider this work something worth reading. (Some of you even mentioned that this story got you into the fandom???? That’s absolutely amazing to hear!) I wasn’t able to respond to many of your comments due to the craziness that is my life, but I read all of them and wanted to say thank you :)

So here is what’s happening: many of you liked the choose your own adventure where Tim either forgives the bats (eventually), or where Tim doesn’t forgive them at all. Both are valid, so both I shall write! This next bit is important ***Chapter 29 will be deleted from this fic and posted as the first chapter of the reconciliation fic because it doesn’t work for the other storyline***

Within the hour (of posting this of course), the two branches of “Done” will be posted to ao3. A new chapter will be posted for Tim leaving the Batfam, but for the reconciliation fic, chapter 29 of “Done” will be posted as the first chapter. Did this make any sense??? I really hope so, but I am willing to clarify if you want to comment any of your questions!

Again, thank you all so much for your continued support of this fic! This was only ever supposed to be a small fic and now we’re here! This is genuinely exciting for me :D See ya soon!

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https://at. /laxeros/timbo-and-damiagain-from-huntressundone/xdzipdojb7jq

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