Chapter Text
Tim Drake’s been… watching. Whenever he gets the chance, he slips out onto the streets to follow the Bat. It’s pure luck he has his camera the first night the kid appears out on scene.
The kid’s only a couple years older than Tim himself. He doesn’t wear a mask, but he definitely looks like he’s in some kind of a uniform. Robes maybe? It’s not stealthy in the slightest. He also dives into a battle with what looks like a sword.
It’s not like the sword Tim’s family has up over their fireplace. That one’s dull, more for show than a fight. This sword is wickedly sharp and even in the hands of a kid, it draws blood swiftly.
The fight changes as Tim watches, enough so that there seem like there are three sides. The bad guys, Batman and the kid.
Tim raises his camera.
The kid is winning.
Batman has always been brutal. The newspapers report on him almost gleefully with each alleged assault. It’s always criminals, but they’re found strung up on lampposts, found with broken fingers and confessions on their lips. There’s always been something he’s missing about the Batman puzzle, because as far as the press is concerned, Batman is a thug. Tim’s baffled that the GCPD manages to get any of the arrests to stick.
But the criminals go to jail. Or to Arkham. As far as Tim can tell either the court system is wildly corrupt or the police have more evidence than the obviously coerced confession.
The first day after the kid shows the papers publish rumors about a murderous kid. Victims torn to shreds. Two of them bled out from their wounds. Gotham devours the story, commenting on Batman’s apparent protégé, how they are a breed of their own, descending upon Gotham like a pair of bats out of hell. They will, the press predicts, graduate from incidental deaths of criminals, to outright murder of criminals. Followed, of course, by murders of average citizens.
The kid would only make Batman more dangerous.
That’s not what happens.
The beatings don’t stop, but the torture does. There are no more fatal stab wounds. The GCPD’s conviction rate ticks higher. It takes months for the kid to get back out on the streets and Tim almost laughs when the press prints his name as Robin.
Despite how well it rolls off the tongue, Tim doubts the kid got to name himself. Tim hopes it was Batman who coined the persona. Who’d looked at this vicious, deadly kid and gave him the name of a songbird.
Tim’s dying for another look at the two of them in action, but it takes him a few weeks before he gets it. Robin’s robes are gone in favor of an armored tunic. The armor is black, with deep red accents. He wears a hooded cape as well, with the same dark red in its liner.
As Tim watches, Robin takes down a pair of muggers. Batman watches from a gargoyle, his hands clenched around a raised batarang, but his nerves appear wasted. Robin moves with careful, precise movements, hitting pressure points until his much larger opponents drop. When he finishes he looks up to Batman and Tim snaps a picture.
It’s one of his favorites for years to come: Robin, his foot on the mugger chest, his arms folded his hood pushed back. His face is a mix of defiance and an almost desperate need for approval.
A piece of the puzzle slots neatly into Tim’s mind.
And Tim knows that the newspapers got it wrong. They’re going to make each other better.
Tim figures out their identities when he’s nine years old.
His parents have decided that he was old enough to come with them to a charity gala that happens to be hosted by Bruce Wayne. Since the only other kid even close to his age in attendance is the twelve-year-old Damian Wayne, his father puts a hand on either one of his shoulders and marches him over to the Waynes’ table for introductions. He has to interrupt an argument over if Damian is allowed a champagne flute, but he gets their attention.
Tim is silent when his father makes the introduction, but he dutifully extends a hand to the other boy.
Damian, does not take it, instead he crosses his arms over his chest and makes a soft clicking sound. “-Tt-”
Tim’s eyes widen and he feels his hand drop.
Because he’s heard that verbal tick, but only once. From Robin, scoffing audibly at a thug who’d tried to take him down.
And it fits. The timing, the size, the money the operation would need.
Damian Wayne is Robin.
Which means that Bruce Wayne…
Tim’s thirteen and Damian’s gone.
The press release says that he’s gone to stay with his mother, but Tim’s spent the last four years obsessively connecting pieces of the Wayne’s public lives to Batman. Whenever Talia al Ghul is around, so are a lot of ninjas. The whole thing has his skin crawling.
His instincts seem to be confirmed by Batman’s slowly escalating violence. The people dropped off at the police station are starting to look like they used to. Back before Batman had to make himself into a role model for a murderous ten year old.
Another week of this and Gordon will have to dismantle the Bat signal. The week after that there will be a renewed warrant for his arrest.
Tim hesitates at the door for Wayne Manor and the rings the doorbell.
There’s a minute’s pause where Tim dances uncomfortably on the doorstep before it opens.
“Mr. Pennyworth!” Tim greets. “I need to talk to Mr. Wayne. Is he home?”
The butler looks him up and down. “I don’t believe we’ve been acquainted.”
“I’m Tim Drake. I live next door. Is Mr. Wayne here? It’s about Damian.”
“Are you a friend of Master Damian?”
“Yes,” Tim decides after a second. “He left suddenly. I’ve been worried about him.”
“Master Damian is with his mother,” the butler says evenly.
“When is he coming back?”
Tim may be imagining it but he thinks the butler hides a wince. “I’m afraid his living situation has changed indefinitely.”
He takes a deep breath and takes a chance. “I’m worried about Batman.”
Batman hadn’t been pleased that he knew his identity. He’d been even less pleased when Tim told him that Batman needed a Robin.
(And Damian had gone to his mother. Who was with an organization called the League of Assassins. Who wanted him to eventually take over leadership. Which would be in pretty direct competition with what Robin is supposed to stand for).
He’d wanted Damian to come back. But Damian is out of reach and—if the research Alfred begrudgingly shares with him is accurate—no longer working for the right cause.
The root problem remains.
Batman without someone watching his back is a dangerous unknown element in the city.
Batman is not effective when he’s beating perpetrators to a pulp and torturing confessions out of them.
Batman needs a Robin.
So Tim solves the problem.
He’s not as good as Damian.
Of course, it would be hard to reach the same level of skill as someone who had trained from birth with the League of Assassins, so Tim tries not to let it discourage him. Despite the setbacks, he’s a quick study at fighting styles, he’s great at research and even Batman says he has a knack for spotting patterns.
Batman needs a Robin, Tim decides, but that doesn’t mean Robin’s role can’t change.
He’s not Damian, and he won’t try to be.
And slowly Batman gets better. He still keeps looking for his son, trying to track the League’s movements for some sign, but Batman gets less brutal. The focus changes from beating criminals into submission to gathering enough evidence to put them away.
Jim Gordon makes it a point to track Tim down one day. The older man looking him up and down and taking a long drag from a cigarette before he says, “What happened to the last one?”
“He’s not dead,” Tim says rather than answer the questions. “He’s not even hurt.”
“He’s just not here,” Gordon says around a heavy sigh. “You know I could almost see taking the other Robin into the field. From what Batman says, the kid was trained a long time before the bat found him. But you’re not like the other one.”
Tim flinches. He thinks of the hundreds of times Bruce has called him Damian, of way Robin’s katanas are now a bo staff because Tim still hasn’t been cleared for bladed weapons and the times Batman got hurt because he was expecting Damian’s response time rather than Tim’s.
“Christ, I didn’t mean it like that,” Gordon says. He tosses his cigarette to the ground and stubs it out with the heel of his shoe. “You’re good for him, but he’s not the important part of this conversation. We just… we worry, you know? I’ve got a kid too, and I’d never dream of taking her into this shit.”
“Batman’s not my father,” Tim says carefully.
Gordon’s eyes narrow. “Kid, that makes it worse not better. Why the hell are you out here?”
“Batman needs Robin,” Tim says.
“That may be true,” Gordon allows. “But what does Robin need?”
Damian is gone for almost two years, and Tim has officially been Robin for one of them.
Their first meeting is nothing short of a disaster.
Because while Damian was gone, he had intentionally avoided all news of Gotham.
Which means that he does not know about Tim.
As much as Damian is not the same violent ten year old he was when he first came to Gotham, he’s still proud and prone to attacking threats.
And Tim’s a threat. Maybe not to Gotham at large, but definitely to Damian’s sense of family and his pride.
He left Gotham to find himself, Mr. Pennyworth told Tim the first time he’d asked. He’s always been caught between two worlds and to fully find who he is, he had to leave. I have faith in the boy. He will find his way back to us.
“It’s an honor,” Tim says. He extends his hand just like he had the first time, all those years ago when his father introduced him to the Waynes and unknowingly sealed his fate.
“What gives you the right to wear that costume?” Damian asks.
“I’m sorry?” Tim says. “I was worried about your dad. Gotham needs Batman at the top of his game and he was crushed when you left. He needed Robin to keep him sane and you were gone. So I did it.”
Damian takes a step forward. He’s grown in his absence, filled out through the shoulders, increased his muscle mass. He was deadly when he was prepubescent. Tim can only imagine what he’d be like in a fight now. “You replaced me.”
“No!” Tim shouts. “I could never!”
“And yet here you are, in a stolen costume. Did you plan for this? Did you wait until I was out of the way to insinuate yourself into my family? Didn’t you realize I was coming back?”
“Batman needs a Robin!” Tim says desperately.
“He does,” Damian says. “Let’s see if you’re up for it.”
Tim does not last long. Damian’s older than he is, taller, with more muscle mass and a longer reach. His time with the League of Assassins have given his style different edges than what Batman has drilled into Tim. Tim doesn’t even manage to extend his bow staff. Damian has him pinned, his fist raised. Tim pushes feebly against him, trying to get one of his arms free to at least defend his face.
“Robin!”
It’s Batman, sounding out of breath, like he’d had to rush to intervene.
Damian stands up at the name.
Tim doesn’t.
Damian leaves again.
Batman gets worse.
And Tim does what he always does.
He solves the problem.
Bruce keeps a file on Damian in the Batcomputer. It’s encrypted but Tim started hacking that as soon as he was given access. A quick check tells him Damian hasn’t gone back to the League of Assassins, but is holed up in an apartment the next city over where there have been increasing rumors about a vigilante presence.
Tim buys a train ticket, hops onto a bus, climbs six flights of stairs and knocks on a door.
The person who answers isn’t Damian Wayne. He’s tall and broad with shaggy black hair that curls around his ears. He wears an oversized pair of black framed glasses that hide bright blue eyes. He looks surprised to find anyone at their door. “Can I help you?” he asks with a wide smile.
Tim adjusts the strap of his camera, his hands clenching the edges of the photos he has stashed in his bag. “I’m sorry, I must have the wrong room. I was looking for Damian.”
The guy’s eyes go wide. “Damian? Really?”
Tim shifts his feet, his eyes downcast. “Look if he’s moved, I’m sorry to have bothered you.”
“No,” the guys says. “I’m sorry I’m just surprised. Dami doesn’t get out much. He’s my roommate. If you give me a second, I’ll grab him for you.”
Tim takes a second look at the guy as he disappears back into the apartment, running through Batman’s file in his head. There’s only one answer for his identity and Tim kicks himself for not having seen it immediately. Damian never had a lot of friends, but he did have at least one.
“What do you want, Drake?” Damian says. “I thought that our last encounter made our status abundantly clear.”
“Is your roommate Superboy?” Tim asks before he can stop himself.
Damian’s face shuts down and he looks out the door to the apartment, trying to make sure no one could have heard before putting a hand on the back of his head and pushing him inside.
Superboy is sitting on the couch, bag of chips in hand. “Easy, Dames. He looks harmless.”
“Jon,” Damian says as he locks the door behind Tim. “Meet Drake, my replacement.”
Jon wipes his hand over his mouth. “No way! Robin? I thought he’d be a taller.”
“I’m not Robin,” Tim says. “Not anymore. I quit.”
Damian’s eyes narrow, but he doesn’t say anything.
“I know you think I stole something from you,” Tim says, “but that’s not true. I’ve been watching you and Batman for years. You were my hero. I was never supposed to take your place.”
“But you did,” Damian says. “Do you know what my father told me after he found the two of us. He told me I could not be Robin because there was no way Robin would have attacked a boy like that. Congratulations. You’ve won.”
“I quit,” Tim says again. “Batman might have been mad when he saw us fight, but you’re his son. He’d never pick me over you. Not in the long run. How could he? I always knew Robin was temporary. I was just a placeholder until you got back.”
Tim pulls the photographs out of his bag offering them to Damian. The one on top is the photo he’d taken the first night Robin appeared. Damian, ten-years-old, standing over a defeated foe, looking up at Batman for approval.
“He loves you, Damian,” Tim says. “And if you don’t believe me, just look.”
When Damian doesn’t grab the photographs, Jon steps between them and does it for him. He flips through a few of them, his face lighting up. “Oh kid, you made my day. Look at this! God this is back before he learned how to smile.”
“I know how to smile,” Damian snaps reflexively.
“I taught him how,” Jon stage whispers to Tim. “Batman brought him over for a playdate. He was practically a robot before then.”
Damian shoves him in the shoulder. Jon elbows him back.
And there it was, the faint smile on Damian’s face. One that Tim had never managed to catch in the years of watching him. His stomach turns over.
“Father made it clear that he no longer requires me as a partner,” Damian says slowly. “And I have changed too much to inherit the League of Assassins. I never liked the name Robin, anyway.”
Tim looks up.
Damian’s face is back to its normal scowl, but there’s something different behind his eyes. “This does not mean that I approve of you. It does not make us friends or even colleagues.”
“But…” Jon prompts him.
“But I have put far too much planning into Nightwing to leave this city now.”
“Nightwing,” Tim says, looking over to Jon, wheels turning in his head. “…and Superboy?”
“Flamebird,” Jon corrects with a laugh. “Change doesn’t have to be bad.”
Tim goes back to being Robin.
In costume, Nightwing ignores him. At their few in person events Damian deigns to be seen next to him, but their stilted conversations are littered with barbs at Tim’s expense. Batman follows news out of Bludhaven obsessively. He never mentions Damian in Tim’s presence, but he always looks surprised when the person at his side isn’t taller, isn’t more skilled.
Tim ignores it. He keeps going, learns the pulse of Gotham’s underground, picks up a dozen new fighting forms, meets the new Superboy, Conner Kent, reconnects with Stephanie Brown, the daughter of a criminal who’d dubbed herself Spoiler.
His father finds out about Robin and Tim quits again for good. When Damian doesn’t come back to town, he orchestrates Stephanie’s position at Batman’s side. It doesn’t work out. Tim stays retired until his father dies and then Bruce takes him in.
Tim’s always been best when he can see the whole picture, but he doesn’t know how to fix any of it. His dad’s dead, but he feels numb to the loss. The Joker put a bullet in Stephanie’s spine when she was supposed to have been out of the game. Nightwing and Batman are edging back into speaking terms, and Tim finds himself being pushed farther and farther to the side. The Joker escapes captivity and he has to watch Stephanie hide her fear from a hospital bed.
Batman doesn’t want him involved in the search and Tim hides his relief. Two fruitless days later, he finds a potential lead and logs onto the comms to notify Batman and Nightwing. He’ll never be sure if Damian makes the comment because he knows Tim’s listening or if he makes it because he’s sure Tim isn’t.
“It’s a good thing you called me for backup,” Damian says, “Robin wouldn’t be able to handle this.”
Tim logs off the coms without a word, pulls on his uniform and takes off after the Joker alone.
And for a while, everything stops.