Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

When Tim met Bruce for the first time, the chandeliers that hung from the ceiling shone into his eyes, blaring loudly in a way that screamed 'notice me' as his gripped further and further into his mother's long red skirt that flew alongside her with every confident step she took. Tim looked up into the big blue eyes of Bruce Wayne, standing taller and wider than anyone else in the room, blocking the pretentious chandeliers and fat, sweaty faces as he stood.

Tim watched as 'Brucie' proudly produced his practiced facade, charming ever gala guest that flew into his hands. Tim couldn't help but stare at this man while he controlled and contorted the room with such ease, Tim couldn't help but be jealous, stuck in the throes of the end of his mother's dress as she too whisked around and moved the guests around to her ever whim and will with so much as a whisper into an ear, clicking her heels against the ballroom floor at every encounter.

When his mother went over to Bruce with Tim following close behind, his hands still wrapped around the end of her long red dress, Tim didn't expect to be entraced by the charm he exuded the way he saw everyone else was, he had seen the tricks first hand after all. But when he put his hand up to his cheek as if he had forgotten the lines he had repeated twenty times or so already that night, the way he had seen do already twenty times that night, and when he slightly hesitated and almost threw back his hand in a slightly embarassed manner, the way he had already twenty times that night Tim was..

Tim was enraptured.

"Janet, It's lovely to see you here tonight!" Bruce said with such confidence in his deep smooth voice, Tim was almost washed away.

"Bruce! I almost missed you entirely tonight, the venue really is large" His mother replied, her tone velvet, so practiced you wouldn't know the gravel tone she speaks with at home. "I haven't been able to see you in forever, we should set something up between WE and DI."

"Blunt as ever, I see!" Bruce let out a laugh - but it wasn't really a laugh it was a low chuckle that seemed to move the ground - with this sentence, before he finished off. "You never do change, no matter how much time passes."

Tim wasn't sure what he meant by that, but his mum seemed to tense at the words, barely keeping a scowl off of her face as his words dug into her. But all throughout Bruce's eyes stayed locked onto her with every word he managed to slither out, shinning that brilliant blue they always did.

"You act like you know me, Brucie." Janet said, letting out her own laugh, it was different in a lot of ways. Firstly, his mother's eyebrows were bought down into her face whereas Bruces eyebrows seemed to lift upwards into his forehead. "But we have really grown apart."

Tim's hand gripped harder and harder onto his mother's skirt, pulling the end of it down more and more as the conversation went on and on with no end in sight. The click of Janets heels hitting the ground getting louder and louder. More and more frequent the longer they talked, like the ticking of a bomb waiting to go on until Janet snapped out quickly.

"Well, Tim must be off to bed soon so we must be leaving soon" Janet smirked when she spoke her next few words. "We must talk more about that collaboration later."

Janet whisked Tim up into her arms with more ease then in expected and clicked her heels out and away into the street. Tim was looking over her shoulder into the eyes of bruce as his facade dropped.

Now Tim was truly enraptured.

Bruce's eyes dropped down onto the floor in a tired swooping motion, practiced, but not in the way that his 'Brucie' persona was, this motion was practiced in the way a bad habit is. His arms dropping to his sides from the tireless hand motions and his cheeky grin turning into a glower frown, his once shining face now almost producing a shadow for a mere second before his mask was put back on.

Before this, Bruce could've been just any other business man, but here and now? He had secrets. Secrets that Tim wanted, no- not wanted.

Secrets Tim needed to know.

That was when he first picked up his camera.

Chapter Text

Tim gripped his hands into his head, his nails almost piercing his skin. But then he started searching, looking for something,anything to explain the strange dreams that had been plaguing his mind night after night after night. His mind was corrupted with memories of simpler, easier times when those brilliant blue eyes stilled looked at him.

Tim picked himself and dragged the rest of his body to the small bathroom across from his bed. He reached up and pulled on the cord to turn on the light, putting a hand up to his face to shield his eyes from the light once it came on. Tim reached a slow pale hand to turn on the tap in front of him, twisting and twisting and twisting in a sort of meaningless motion, waiting for a sign of water coming out of the tap.

Tim raised his head, lifting his attention away from the pointless tap into the mirror that shone in front of him. Tim didn't know why he didn't get rid of the mirrors that were littered around his house, he hated them.

He hated seeing what he had become.

He stared into his reflection. He couldn't seem to resist, his endless dark eyes seemed to even pull in their owner. And he hated that. That endless void of eyes that stared back of made him want to throw up. But he couldn't anymore, his body wasn't his own anymore.

All Tim wanted was to go back to simpler days when he didn't have to worry about clawing his skin off after a dream, simpler days when looking into his eyes he would see that brilliant blue that they used to be instead of staring into the great pooling black of swirling worries and regrets, simpler days when someone would look at him and feel worry rather than fear.

When you stop looking human, there's no need for the people around you to act with humanity.

The looks of horror that people stared at him with. The brilliant blue eyes showing regret and disgust as Tim stumbled as stuttered, tripping over himself over and over and over. How could he prove he was human when he couldn't even string together a sentence?

He couldn't even get those fucking tap to turn. Tim just kept twisting and twisting and twisting and twisting. And then the tap started to drip. But what was oozing out wasn't water.

A black goo, the grime that the entirety of Gotham was covered in seeped out into the sink, pooling out of the tap into a black void in the bottom of the grimey sink that reflected his face. His pale face seemed sort of illuminated in the dark black pool that looked back at him. He couldn't take it.

Tim's hands gripped harder and harder and harder into the sides of the sink, cracks reaching away from his hands around the sink. Tim's brows grew heavy and drew into his face, the black being the polar opposite of that pale, pale white skin. His black hair drooped down, almost touching his brow. His top pink-ish white lip arching up, while his bottom lip stayed still contorting his face into a nasty scowl that never seemed to be able to seperate from his face nowadays.

His fingers dug into the sink harder and harder and harder, his eyes piercing into his own through the mirror. Tim couldn't stand the person looking back at him, he hated himself more than he hated Bruce for abandoning him. And he hated Bruce for abandoning.

"Damn it.." Tim seethed out before allowing his head to drop down again, clenching his eyes shut and releasing the bent sink from his hold, clenshing his fists by his sides. "Damn it!"

That was said with a lot more force that time.

"Damn it!" Tim bought his fist down onto the sink as he said it a third time. There was a loud crash as his fist hit the sink, smashing the sink that was already hanging on by a thread into smitherines, flying across the bathroom that was barely big enough for Tim to stand in. The black water was now pooling up all over the floor, leaking out of the pipe that came uup through where the sink used to be.

Tim let his knees collapse onto the shard-covered ground, the crunch of the shards covering the floor echoing in the small, lonely bathroom.

"Why.." Tim let out in a small sob as he pulled his knees into his stomach. "Why.. can't I control my own body..."

Tim smacked his head down onto his knees, not with force but in a defeated action. letting out whispers of past regrets curled up on his own, tears falling out of his eyes in black globs, clawing down his face leaving mascara-like stains trailing down his face, his hands becoming more and more and more blackened as he tried to wipe the grime off of his face as he choked and sobbed at the state of his own body. The black goo seeping back into his hands and fingers, his blackened fingers become deeper and darkened as he pushed more and more black grime from his tearful eyes as seeped into his fingers more and more and more.

His hands tried to push back his hair as it almost swallowed his face, that too reminding of the black goo that surrounded his head, teeth, ears and hands.

He couldn't take it anymore.

He let out a ghastly scream into the open air of the Gotham streets as he pressed his hands back into his eyes. He just wanted it all gone, out of his head, his teeth, his ears and his hands.

Tim wanted it all gone.

He wanted everything to be as it was.

Chapter Text

Tim was tired.

Correction, Tim was always tired.

The work that was pushed on him by Bruce and Wayne Enterprises was almost as vast as his own work at Drake Industries. He spent his nights either working more overtime than should be legal or flying through the night sky as Red Robin.

Bruce was back, Kon was back, Bart was back.

Everything was supposedly fine, even if he couldn't just shake off the piercing stares that the new Robin, Damian or 'The Blood Son' as he called himself.

Despite the deathly tiredness that he couldn't shake off, he was fine.

He should be great, but he was really fine.

At least no-one was trying to kill him or send to Arkham.

Or so he thought.

It was a cold night, it was a night where he had to work both overtime and patrol the streets as Red Robin, at least he wasn't doing both at the same time. His Suit felt tight against his skin as his boots clashed onto roof after roof. Running through the city skyline like this really bought him back to his old days, but he didn't have time for reminiscing if he wanted to get some sleep before his next morning meeting, which was already unlikely. Tim didn't have time for breaks.

He was supposed to be patrolling with Robin that night, but the little brat had run off almost cackling to himself and Red Robin didn't have time to go find him. Damian might be a brat but he was a capable assassin when he wasn't whining about one thing or another, so Tim trusted he couldn't get himself too badly hurt while unsupervised.

That was until Damian cut the comms and Tim was sent to his last known location to find out if he was alright. Tim might've known what was happening if he had more than an hours rest in the past week.

Tim continued to jump from roof to roof, as he got closer and closer to the location that Damian had cut off his comms.

"Red Robin." Damian hissed out from behind Tim. His eyes staring daggers into Tim as they always did.

"Oracle-" There was a hiss and a burn into Tim's ear as he spoke, his comms had been burnt out by something in the area. Something nasty. Tim looked straight at Damian, not hiding the distaste in his voice as he spoke. "What did you do?"

"I thought you needed some help." Damian said, crossing his arms as he looked at Tim.

"Help with what? You're a brat, what would you know?" Tim spat out, he hated the new robin for more than one or two reasons, and he wasn't one to hide his feelings unless it was for his own sake.

"What do you think?" Robin spat back, also not one to hide his loathing tone. Ever. "I hate you Drake, ever since I stepped into this role you have been the only one who has treated me as such."

"Keep on chewing that silver spoon of yours then." Red Robin shouted back. "We need to get back into a zone where the comms are on before I kill you."

"Drake, even though my grandfather insists on calling you detective, I cannot seem to think why." Damian stepped closer to red robin who was now standing at the edge of the building, facing towards Damian. "In my eyes, all I see is a defective robin who should've been sent to Arkham. Why did my grandfather consider you tob smarter than me?"

"Damian, now is not the time-" Tim walked towards damian, grabbing his wrist, trying to pull him away from his dead zone so that neither of them killed eachother. But Damian hit back, of course, Tim expected him to do that.

Tim didn't expect to be pushed of the ledge of the 10 story building by someone he vaguely considered to be his family. Damian wasn't expecting to push someone he considered his brother of the ledge of building.

When he was falling he didn't scream or shout or try to grab onto the sides of the buillding. Instead, he relaxed. Tim relaxed for the first time for what felt like years and all he thought was 'I guess it's my turn now.'

He didn't expect anyone to revive him, Ra's wouldn't use the pit for him and even if he tried, Talia wouldn't stand for it and it's not like he could claw out of his own grave with his own two hands. Tim was fine to take his place in the over-arching plot points for the rest of those he considered family.

And as Tim hit the floor with a loud bang, he couldn't help but close his eyes in peace. Tim hadn't been able to rest in a long time, and now he finally got to close his eyes and relax into the warm hug off the grime that existed on every surface in Gotham as it engulfed Tim into it's utmost depths.