Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

You never wanted to come back to Gotham.

Gotham had been the city you ran from, the place you swore you’d leave choking behind you like smoke in your lungs. Like most people do, you tried finding solace in Metropolis. It wasn’t perfect, but at least there was light there. At least there was hope there. Streets that felt alive instead of hungry. People there minded their own business, instead of the constant burglaries and crimes. 

And, of course, there was Superman. Gotham doesn’t have anything like him — a man who doesn’t wear a mask to hide something ugly, but to remind people they can still trust in something good. In Gotham, the best you get are men dressed like bats and birds, dragging criminals off rooftops with blood still drying on their fists. Heroes, maybe. But not the kind that makes you believe in tomorrow.

Metropolis wasn’t perfect. This planet was too stained with filth for anywhere to truly be untouched by it. But it’s one of the cleanest cities out there. Especially compared to a city like Gotham — though does Gotham deserve to be called a city at this point? It had the occasional crimes and heists, most orchestrated by a certain bald man, but there was always Superman to save the day. With much less…violent ways.

Then the job dried up. Rent doubled. The savings you thought would last, slipped through your fingers like water.

And so, you came crawling back. Rent was much cheaper in a shithole like Gotham.

꒷꒦︶꒷꒦︶ ๋ ࣭ ⭑꒷꒦

The first week back, you keep your head down. Work, home, sleep. Rinse and repeat. Don’t look too long at the alleys. Don’t listen too hard at night. That’s the trick to surviving Gotham — pretend you don’t see it breathing under your feet.

But Gotham has never been polite about letting people ignore it.

It happens on a Thursday. The kind of night that smells like rain but doesn’t deliver. You’re cutting down a side street — shortcut home, even though you know shortcuts here are a gamble — when you hear it. A sound that doesn’t belong. Not the distant siren, not the hum of traffic. This is… wet. Sharp. A noise you feel more in your stomach than in your ears.

You tell yourself to keep walking. You don’t.

The alley yawns open to your right, and curiosity betrays you. One glance — that’s all you give yourself. One glance, and it’s already too late.

There’s a man on the ground. Or what’s left of one. His body twisted in a way bones shouldn’t bend, hands clawed at his own throat like he’d been trying to tear something out. His lips are stained a violent, ugly shade — something darker than blood, like ink bled straight into his veins. And his eyes… wide, glassy, frozen in a terror you can feel just looking at them.

The air stings, acrid and chemical, clinging to the back of your throat like gasoline. You cough before you realize it’s not just in your throat . It’s everywhere. The alley is thick with it, some invisible fog that makes your pulse claw higher.

You’ve heard enough whispers in this city to know what it is. Fear gas. Scarecrow’s calling card.

Your first instinct is denial. You tell yourself it’s just another Gotham corpse. A mugging gone too far, a junkie overdosed, any excuse that makes sense. But then the smell hits you.

It stings sharp at the back of your throat, chemical and bitter, like the air’s been poisoned. You cough, hard, but it doesn’t leave. The taste clings, sticks to your tongue like acid, crawling its way down into your lungs.

You stumble back a step, drag a sleeve over your nose and mouth, but it’s useless. The air isn’t air anymore — it’s smoke, gas, something. It burns your sinuses, makes your heartbeat thunder against your ribs.

The world starts to… shift.

Shadows lengthen. The alley walls breathe, pulsing like they’ve got veins of their own. Every crack in the brick stretches into a grin, every pile of trash morphs into something watching. The corpse at your feet twitches…or maybe it doesn’t. Maybe it’s in your head, that must be it. The man’s corpse is too contorted beyond comprehension to have the slimmest chance to live. Even if he did, you doubt he’d want to at that point. But you swear the dead man’s eyes are moving, locking on yours, dragging you under the terror he died with.

You try to swallow it down, try to steady your breath, but every inhale just pumps more of it into your chest. Your hands shake. Your knees threaten to give out.

Fear. Not the ordinary kind. The manufactured kind. The injected kind.

Your body wants to move (run) but your feet lock instead. Terror swells in your chest like it’s been injected straight into your veins. It takes everything you have just to stumble back, choking down bile, trying to put space between you and the corpse. That’s when you hear another sound. A rustle above you. Boots against brick. You’re not alone.

The corpse is still staring. Still smiling.

You turn — force — your attention away from the grinning body. A figure drops from the fire escape, silent as a nightmare. The cape is what you see first. Black. Black enough to rival even Gotham’s nightsky. The cowl follows. Not Batman, not Nightwing. The black and yellow logo that seemed to glow under the cheap lights instantly gave away his identity. Red Robin.

For a second, you almost feel relief. Until you see the way he’s looking at you.

Not like a victim.

Like a suspect.

You’re screwed. Perhaps you should’ve occupied the streets of Metropolis instead, begging for scraps. If you did, you might’ve been able to escape this heavy feeling of dread pooling in your gut.

His boots hit the ground soft, but the sound still cracks through you. The cape shifts behind him like a second shadow, swallowing the alley whole. He doesn’t speak right away. Just stands there, tall enough to make the space feel smaller, head tilting ever so slightly like he’s dissecting you with a glance.

Your throat tightens. You try to say something, anything, but all that comes out is a cough that tastes like chemicals. Fuck this city, you thought. It’s filled with nothing but bedazzled rot and grime.

“Step away from the body.” His voice is even. Controlled. The kind of control that makes it worse, because you know how much power it’s hiding.

“Step away,” he repeats, sharper this time. You know better than to disobey that tone.

You force your legs to move, shoes scraping against wet pavement as you shuffle back, spine pressing into the opposite wall of the alley. The bricks feel damp. Alive. Maybe they’re not, but the gas still hasn’t let you go. Your pulse hammers in your ears.

Red Robin crouches beside the corpse, quick and precise, gloved fingers ghosting over the man’s neck, his chest, checking things you don’t want to think about. He doesn’t linger. Just long enough to confirm what you already knew — the man is dead.

You breathed out a sigh of relief from his attention being driven away from you. The fear gas didn’t seem to distort Red Robin in any way. Perhaps just the sight of him is menacing enough as it is without the additional help of fear gas? You couldn’t help but chuckle aloud at the thought.

Then his attention snaps back to you. Perhaps chuckling out loud was the wrong move?...

“What are you doing here?”

You open your mouth. Nothing comes out. Swallow hard. Try again. “I-I live here. I mean— not here, not the alley, I was just cutting through, I-”

The cowl hides his eyes, but you can feel them on you. Heavy. Calculating. “You walked right into a scene of a murder. And you expect me to believe that's a coincidence?”

Well, if he said it like that, you certainly sound guilty. You take a quick glance around the alley. No cameras. It was a foolish decision to check. Whoever murdered this man — Scarecrow, if the fear gas was pointing names — had certainly checked first before striking their hit. Which meant no evidence to claim your innocence.

“Yes!” The word bursts out too quickly, too desperately. “I swear, I didn’t— I don’t even— I’ve been back in Gotham for a week. I don’t know anything!”

His head tilts again, slight, clinical. Like he’s cataloguing your stutter, your shaking hands, the way you can’t keep your breath steady. “You’re nervous.”

“No shit I’m nervous,” you snap before you can stop yourself. Your voice echoes sharp in the alley, too loud. Too guilty. “There’s a corpse- and-and the air—” Another cough rips up your throat. You double over, clutching at your stomach. “I can’t- I can’t breathe right.”

He doesn’t flinch. Doesn’t even blink, as far as you can tell. “Your pupils are dilated. Erratic breathing. The chemical residue on the body suggests fear toxin exposure.” His eyes narrow behind the white lenses. “And yet, you’re still standing.”

Red Robin rises smoothly from his crouch, every movement precise. He’s taller like this, towering without even trying. “Explain to me why you’re here. This alley. Tonight. Out of everywhere in Gotham, why here?”

Your brain scrambles, trying to build a story out of the truth. “It’s-it’s a shortcut. I was just getting home from work. That’s all.”

His silence stretches too long, like he’s testing the weight of your words. The air feels colder for it. “Shortcut,” he repeats finally, slow, tasting the word like it’s poison. “Convenient.” No shit, Sherlock. Shortcuts are meant to be convenient, with the exception of this one. When you get out this situation, you’re never touching any ‘shortcuts’ ever again.

Most likely a lie.

Another cough rips through you, hacking, violent. Your knees nearly buckle. He doesn’t move to help. Doesn’t move at all. Just watches, a statue in red and black. When your breath finally clears enough, his voice cuts clean through the silence.

“If you’re telling the truth, then you’re the unluckiest man in Gotham tonight.”

He doesn’t offer you a chance to speak. Right when you were about to agree and nod along, he cut you off first. Like a fish gaping for air, your lips were left parted before any noises were allowed out.

“But,” he continues, sharper now, “if you’re lying—if you were here for a reason—you should know that I’ll find it. And I’ll find you.”

Your stomach drops, dread pooling cold and heavy. How could it not? You’re being suspected for murder by Red Robin.

“I’m not—” Your voice falters under his stare. “I’m not lying.”

He steps closer, only a fraction, but it’s enough. Enough to make the wall behind you feel like a cage.

“We’ll see.”

Chapter Text

Tim didn’t remember the walk home. His feet worked on autopilot, his body followed muscle memory, but where was his head? It was still stuck in that light-deprived alleyway, in the way your voice cracked and held steady at the same time. The moment the mask came off, something slipped. A part of him he kept sealed behind a dozen walls suddenly reached forward, trying to grab you. The fear gas never entered his lungs, but the paranoia did.

Tim’s still in uniform when he drops into the chair by his desk. His gloves are off, but the faint smell of chemicals still clings to his skin — that same acidic tang from the alley. Fear gas. He’s scrubbed twice already, but he swears it’s still there, sharp and ghostly. Senses could easily be shut out, though. That’s what he reasoned in his mind as he made his way to the Batcomputer. 

Next thing he knew, the screen shone bright. It was a miracle how Tim didn’t get his eyes permanently damaged at this point. Multiple tabs opened, each one screaming a dead end. 

At first, it’s just procedure. Time, location, chemical traces, body count. But as the words fill the screen, he hesitates at the next line: ‘Witness / Civilian Encountered:’ He types your name. Pauses. Reads it back once. Twice. Then deletes it.

He leans back, staring at the ceiling, jaw tight. You’d said you’d only stumbled across the incident. That you’d taken a shortcut. It sounded like a lie at the time. It doesn’t anymore. Or maybe it’s the opposite — maybe it was too honest, too ordinary, and that’s what bothered him.

In Gotham, nobody is just ordinary. Not for long.

He exhales through his nose, sharp and low, before turning back to the terminal. He types your name again. Searches this time. Just a reflex, he tells himself. A background check. The kind he runs on anyone connected to a scene.

The screen answers with nothing. No records beyond the bare minimum — an address, an expired license, a job history that fizzles out halfway through Metropolis. You don’t even have a criminal file, which in Gotham is almost suspicious by itself. 

Tim frowns. Runs the search again under a different system. Still nothing.

He could stop there. He should stop there. Instead, he drags up satellite feeds, public cams, city archives — every angle that might’ve caught you on your way home. He doesn’t know why. Maybe he’s checking for pursuit. Maybe he just wants to make sure you made it home alive.

You were a ghost. 

No records. No trace. No online footprint. Just a name that felt wrong in his mouth, like a lie that still managed to sound true.

He typed your name over and over, convinced the search engine(s) just didn’t understand. He dug into police archives, hospital records, social feeds — nothing. Just scraps. Bare minimum info a person could leave behind in the world.

At this point, most people would’ve given up on their search. Timothy Drake was anyone but most people.

Another sigh escapes him. This is getting stupid. He’s dealt with hundreds of civilians, dozens of witnesses. But something about this one sticks. Maybe it’s because you stood in the middle of fear gas and didn’t instantly break. Maybe it’s how you seemed so out of place in a hellhole like Gotham — too…ordinary. Maybe it’s none of that, and he’s just projecting again.

He rubs at his temple, groaning quietly. “You’re overthinking,” he mutters to himself.

He scrolls down to the final section of the report: ‘Potential Follow-up:’

His fingers hover over the keyboard. For a long time, he doesn’t type anything. Then, finally, he writes:

Possible re-evaluation — monitor for residual toxin exposure. Probability of immunity to fear gas.

Tim closes the file. Locks the system — unless he dares face the scolding of a paranoid bat. The room feels too quiet without the soft clicking of keys. He catches himself glancing toward the window, the city beyond it smothered in fog. If Dick or Jason walked through the entrance right this second, spotted Tim in the middle of all this mess, he’s sure they’d tease him endlessly.

He’s not obsessed. He’s just being thorough. That’s all.

And yet, when he finally stands to leave, his eyes drift back to the Batcomputer’s monitor one last time — the frozen frame of you walking home still minimized in the corner, half-forgotten. He doesn’t delete it. He tells himself it’s for safety. For documentation. For closure.

The city hums below, endless and restless. Tim turns off the light. The screen stays on.

꒷꒦︶꒷꒦︶ ๋ ࣭ ⭑꒷꒦

Before he even knew it, he was heading out the Batcave via one of the many hidden exits supplied. All he registered was the sound of footsteps against the wet, rain-covered pavement. When did it start to rain? How long had he been cooped up in the Cave, digging through half-corrupted databases and cross-referencing chemical traces? His shoulders were stiff, hands still tingling from hours at the keyboard.

Your address was open on his phone.

He hadn’t planned to go anywhere; he told himself he only wanted a clearer picture of the crime scene area, a sense of proximity — context. But the map had led him here (or perhaps his subconscious itself?), and the only context he had now was the quiet drip of water from a fire escape and the low hum of streetlights half-dead from neglect.

The phone vibrated softly in his hand, snapping him out of the trance. He blinked, glancing up. Which part of Gotham was this again?

A quick survey answered that question well enough. He was in the Narrows’ outer ring, where the buildings sagged under the weight of their own history. The air here smelled like rust and fried food. Neon signs sputtered and buzzed, fighting for life. A stray cat hissed from the mouth of an alley; something larger — a dog, maybe — knocked over a trash can farther down the street.

Tim had never come this way before. Being Bruce Wayne’s adopted son meant his experience of Gotham had always been… sanitized. Car rides down the Gotham streets.. Board meetings. Patrol routes that cut clean through downtown. He knew this neighborhood—on paper, in files, in the maps burned into his memory. Yet, he’d never walked it. Not like this. Not like how you must’ve experienced it.

The street was lined with cracked sidewalks, corners sagging with water. Apartment windows blinked with the dim light of televisions behind drawn curtains. Every so often, a passerby hurried by with their head down, wrapped in a jacket too thin for the rain. They didn’t look twice at him—at least, not more than anyone would at a stranger standing still too long.

He took a slow breath, letting the city’s noise settle around him. It wasn’t the kind of place you’d expect to find anything extraordinary. Maybe that’s what unsettled him most about it.

He told himself this was reconnaissance. That he was verifying data, not chasing ghosts. Still, his fingers itched toward his phone again. The address glowed faintly on the screen, steady and unchanging. A single dot on the map pulsed like a heartbeat.

He wasn’t sure what he expected to find. Evidence? Confirmation? Or maybe he just wanted to see for himself that you were real — that the nervous man in the alley hadn’t been another chance encounter. Why does he desperately need you not to be, anyways?

The rain picked up. Drops collected on his hood, sliding down in steady streams. He stayed where he was, at the edge of the block, the city breathing quietly around him.

He told himself he’d leave in a minute.

He didn’t.

Tim’s steps echoed softly as he turned the corner, the faint orange glow of a flickering streetlight catching on the dark edges of his coat — as he had enough decency to change out his Red Robin suit before heading out. The rain had settled into a steady drizzle, the kind that blurred everything into a muted haze — lights, sounds, thoughts. It smelled like damp concrete and old iron, the air thick enough to feel it linger on your skin.

When he finally reached the address on his phone, he stopped. The building was small, old — the kind of place that probably looked the same ten years ago. A neon sign from the diner across the street blinked on and off, tinting the rain puddles in alternating yellows and blues. A mailbox by the door had your last name, faintly smudged. He stared at it for a second longer than necessary.

“Pathetic,” he muttered under his breath. Not at you — he barely knew you enough to call you pathetic, but at himself.

He wasn’t supposed to be here. This wasn’t mission territory. There was no lead, no trail, no logic. Just that nagging itch in the back of his mind, that something about you didn’t fit.

A sound — laughter, like it at least — came from somewhere nearby. His eyes flicked toward the noise. Across the street, through the rain-streaked glass of a dimly lit coffee shop, he saw you. Still in your apron, wiping down the counter with absent motions, talking to a coworker. You looked... normal. The normalcy of it unsettled him.

Scarecrow doesn’t usually go for people ‘normal’. There were a few exceptions, but what were the chances you were one?

Tim adjusted his hood, stepping into the shadow of a lamppost. He watched the way you smiled — the kind that crinkled your eyes, the kind that belonged to a person who’d get chewed up by the wrath called ‘Gotham’. He noticed the way you tucked a loose strand of hair behind your ear every few seconds.

He told himself he was just verifying details. Just confirming patterns. Just-

You laughed again, and he looked away.

Maybe he’d been staring too long. Maybe someone could see him from the corner booth. His jaw tightened. The rain grew heavier, dripping off the edge of his hood. He exhaled, forcing himself to turn back toward the main road.

Tim shoved his hands into his pockets, muttering, “Just verifying details.”

And yet, when he got home later that night, the glow of his computer screen would once again illuminate your name.