Chapter 1: Robin
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.
Chapter 2: Red Hood
Notes:
Quick content warning for gun violence, normal violence and discussions of suicide.
Chapter Text
The Lazarus Pit burns.
Months later, Tim can feel it.
He likes the sensation, the clarity it brings him. The world is so much neater when he can analyze things without the crippling self-doubt that plagued him as a child. People are easier to manipulate if he doesn’t have to worry about their mental health in the aftermath.
He throws himself into the training that Talia al Ghul assigns him, more than aware that he is a replacement once more. She paces him through the same trials that she did her son all those years ago. Tim learns how to inflict pain, he learns the art of blackmail, he learns how to poison, how to make explosives, how kill.
Talia is pleased by him.
Tim is a favored pet. It is a matter of time before Talia leverages him against Bruce and her son. Apparently both Damian and Bruce blame themselves for Tim’s demise, believe that they could have saved him.
They’re right.
Tim burns with hatred with both of them.
But he hates Robin more.
The boy he used to be. The symbol of Batman’s restraint.
But Tim had pushed Batman the wrong way. When he was a kid, he’d realized that Batman would never be able to make an arrest stick if he didn’t show some restraint. But the man who’d killed Tim had been arrested dozens of time. The man who’d killed Tim’s father had been a parolee.
Gotham never needed Batman to be a protector.
Gotham needed a monster.
And Tim is very good at solving problems.
“We are correcting the faults in your training,” Talia assures him. “When we are finished, you will get your justice.”
He’s been watching her, too.
Tim hadn’t realized it as a kid, but when Damian returned from his sabbatical with the League of Assassins, Tim became the symbol of the Cold War between Damian’s upbringing and Batman’s ideology. He’d been the name screamed every time Damian alleged Bruce didn’t care. The example of restraint Bruce used whenever Damian had acted impulsively.
Tim doesn’t like being used.
So he uses the teachers Talia provides and he waits.
The teachers all have agendas of their own. Some of them hate Talia because of Ra’s. Some of them are being blackmailed. Some of them are looking for ways to advance. Some of them are driven by greed. Others, a lust for power.
Tim collects this information, a bigger picture starting to form in his head. The League of Assassins is less stable than it appears. The loss of Damian Wayne, the intended heir to the kingdom had sent splinters through new factions vying for power. And with Ra’s’s decreased stability due to Lazarus overexposure, everyone is quietly choosing their sides.
So at the end of his explosives training sitting across from a Russian mobster with a predilection for children, Tim drops some privileged information.
The mobster returns to his base and assassinates his boss, which angers the Ukrainians who, in retaliation, disrupt some of the weapons deliveries to the States which in turn…
Two sentences and Tim starts a civil war.
Talia tries to hide the bulk of the fights from Tim and he can’t decide if it’s some misplaced motherly instinct or if she doesn’t want him to realize that the organization is crumbling.
Her subterfuge does not last forever.
One of the rival factions of the League descends on their safe house. Tim wakes to the faint sounds of swords clanking in the distance. He slips a dagger into his sleeve and pretends to sleep until Talia opens the door.
“We must go,” she says. “This place is no longer secure and you must not be discovered.”
She cracks open the door and looks down the hall and Tim understands that she must still have plans for him.
But she’s made a mistake. Underestimated him and his distaste for being a pawn.
Tim slips the dagger out of his sleeve and buries it in Talia’s throat.
Her death will further splinter the league. It’s possible that Ra’s will see fit to save her, but that doesn’t change the outcome. The organization will not recover. Tim finds the nearest computer system and transfers as many funds as he can to an account for his personal use, uncaring as the blood slicks the keyboard.
Then he leaves for Gotham.
Gotham needs a monster, so Tim becomes one.
He borrows the name of one of her more notorious. Joker’s previous identity, the Red Hood is not well publicized, but it will get under Batman’s skin. It might even lure Nightwing back into town. He fashions the helmet himself, fiddling with the wiring until it has all the capabilities that he needs, night vision, infrared, a filtration system for various toxins. A voice modifier that is good enough to mimic Batman’s growls.
He infiltrates the GCPD’s computer system, the city’s CCTV network, Arkham Asylum’s mainframe, even the Batcave and he watches for almost a week before making his diagnosis.
Gotham is corrupt to her core. Everyone from the officers taking bribes to the staff at the Asylum asleep at their posts. He’s seen other cities. Where people execute child killers like the Joker rather than giving them a slap on the wrist.
The system is broken. So Tim goes after the system.
It takes him days to go through the information he collects. To build solid cases against the corrupt city officials and the dirty cops. He gathers the evidence with the same cool precision he used when he was Robin. Evidence so damning the cops would have been able to prosecute even on a vigilante arrest.
Planting the explosives is easy. They all pay collection money to the various Gotham’s gang which is supposed to buy protection. And while Batman goes after criminals, he’s always preferred to take out corrupt officials quietly. Tim remembers the lectures. Bruce wants the system to work and every exposed flaw only serves to lessen public faith in the institution.
So Batman focuses on criminals and when they inevitably escape to cause more harm, he throws them back in jail.
The systematic issues don’t get fixed.
Because no one can see them.
Tim checks the head-up display in his helmet. There are enough people that it will be almost impossible to catch everyone in a blast, but even the ones he misses are still a warning.
He waits until the first reported sighting of Batman for the night.
Then he blows up twenty-seven bedrooms.
He leaks all the evidence he gathered to the Gotham Gazette the next morning, left on Vickie Vale’s desk in a neatly bundled package along with a sticky note that says, Batman’s had this information for years.
He doesn’t bother to disguise his handwriting.
The explosions get Nightwing back to town. Batman greets him stiffly. “You didn’t have to come back so soon.”
“You needed me. Mother does not.” Damian lets out a long breath. “And I have no intentions of joining the ensuing fight. Let it burn.”
“Nightwing,” Batman says with a note of warning.
“Drop it, father. My place is here. It always has been. And it is quite clear that you have fallen apart without me. Twenty-two bodies.”
Twenty-three actually. Another one died at the hospital less than an hour ago.
“All of them corrupt officials or cops. There was a delivery sent to the paper yesterday alleging I had information implicating all of them, but did not act fast enough. Several of the dossiers were consistent with our internal files.”
“Am I to understand that the Cave has been compromised?”
“Unclear,” Batman says. “But the language was similar. And the note the perpetrator left with Vickie Vale only confuses things more.”
He hands a copy of the note over and Tim watches, delighting in the way the color drains from Damian’s face. “Did you run an analysis?”
“Yes,” Bruce says. “The handwriting matches our reference.”
Damian gives a curt nod. “Who knows enough about him to use him as a warning?”
“I don’t know,” Batman says.
Tim slips away.
Step one was taking out the corrupt cops and city officials. Step two is the gangs.
With their men in power gone, they are forced to go on a recruitment run and Tim is waiting with a sniper rifle.
He waits until the meets happen and then carefully picks off the recruiters. He wonders how long it will be before Gordon pieces together the pattern. He’s a little surprised they don’t have extra men on the targets, but Tim guesses with the half dozen cops they lost they might not have the manpower to spare.
He’s a little surprised Nightwing hasn’t called in Flamebird. This seems like the kind of situation where it would be useful to have a meta running around, but he guesses Batman’s control freak tendencies reign supreme. Tim enjoys the break. He’s managed to take out six recruiters in four different locations before the first sign of a Bat. It’s more than he expected, but less than he would have preferred.
Damian’s the one on scene, not Nightwing, a hazard of being a high profile figure near Wayne Tower. He reacts like vigilante rather than a civilian when the shot goes off, immediately calculating the trajectory from the way the body falls, his head swiveling to the rooftops. Tim stays put for a few extra seconds just long enough for Damian to get a glimpse of him. Red helmet, black body armor, sniper rifle held at his side. He sees Damian reach for his cell phone, but is gone before he manages to dial.
Tim’s been expecting a confrontation since he first made it back to Gotham, but it’s not Batman and Nightwing who finally track him down.
It’s the new Robin.
Talia had tried to dangle information about the new kid in front of him, like she’d thought the fact that Bruce replaced him would be a way to manipulate him. She’d been shocked when Tim hadn’t reacted to the news.
See, Tim always knew that his time at Robin was temporary. He’d been a placeholder, nothing more, a way to keep Batman sane until Damian made his way back to town. He’s been replaced before, he’d even orchestrated it, pushing for Stephanie’s brief stint as Batman’s sidekick. He’s not surprised that Bruce found a new kid. Batman’s always needed Robin, a way to keep himself in check.
Jim Gordon’s words haunt him, though, What does Robin need?
Jason Todd looks like Tim in the same way Tim always looked vaguely like Damian. He’s got the same dark hair, the same blue eyes.
But that’s where the similarities end. Jason is lean, but there’s an almost desperate hunger to his leanness that neither Tim nor Damian has ever worn. The costume has changed, too. A downgrade by Tim’s measure. The tunic’s been replaces by a dark red hoodie, the knee pads and shin guards under a sturdy pair of utility pants rather than over leggings. At a glance, he looks like he could be one of the dozens of kids littering Lower Gotham. Even knowing the obvious side of body armor, Robin looks scrawny.
Malnutrition, Tim diagnoses absently. It must have been fairly pronounced if the effects are still visible after the strict Robin training regime.
“You’re new,” Tim says. “Where did Bats find you?”
“Crime Alley.” Robin’s accent drips lower Gotham. He either hasn’t sat through the same drills Alfred used to train Damian’s accent away or Bruce decided he doesn’t care to hide the fact that the new Robin is a Gotham native. “I tried to jack the tires from his stupid car.”
Tim doesn’t laugh. He’s not sure he remembers how, but he’s interested despite himself. “And Batman gave Robin to a car thief? Just like that?”
“Nobody gave me Robin.” The kid wears an impish smirk under his red domino mask. The smirk on his face is less deadly that Damian’s, but sharper than Tim’s used to be. “I stole it.”
“Robin’s a dangerous job,” Tim says carefully.
“You should know,” Robin replies.
Tim doesn’t flinch. “What are you fishing for, Robin?”
“The helmet’s not fair, you know.” Robin bounces on his toes. “Hard to read people when you can’t see their faces.”
That’s enough of this. Tim draws a gun and aims it square between Robin’s eyes. “Ask your question.”
“Are you who we think you are?”
The gun does not shake.
Robin stares past the gun, fearless in a way that Tim barely remembers.
“B and Nightwing, they’re driving themselves crazy trying to figure it out,” Robin says. “But they always make things more complicated than they need to be.”
“So you came to the source.”
“Never hurts to ask,” Robin says cheekily. “So… are you the second Robin?”
“No,” Tim answers and before Robin can react, he redirects the gun from the kid’s forehead to his left leg and pulls the trigger.
Robin collapses, clutching at his inner thigh. Still a weak spot in the armor then. That’s… useful information. It’s entirely possible Nightwing and Batman have the same weakness.
Jason hisses through his teeth. There’s probably biometrics in the suit now. If Batman hadn’t erased the armor’s weak spots after Tim’s death, he would have at least increased the monitoring capabilities. He wouldn’t leave another bird unprotected. Jason glares up and him, but he can’t risk taking his hand off the wound. It’s likely that Tim clipped an artery.
Tim assesses for a moment and then lashes out, the butt of his gun smashing into Jason’s forehead. Jason’s head lolls to the side as he slumps unconscious, his hand falling off his bullet wound.
Tim estimates that he bleeds out within ten minutes.
Let’s see if Batman’s gotten faster.
Batman doesn’t make it in time.
No, it’s Nightwing who swoops in at the last second. Nightwing who manages to staunch the bleeding as he keeps up a steady stream of chatter trying to wake the kid up.
“This is why we didn’t want you out here, Jay,” he says. “If you bleed out, I will never forgive you. And there’s already a long list of offenses to your name.”
Tim’s felt numb since the Lazarus Pit, and if he wants to be honest with himself, it probably started well before then. He’s planned every step since he left the League of Assassins, the actions carefully calculated without regard for who might get hurt. He’d even planned for how to deal with Robin.
He hadn’t been prepared for this.
Damian Wayne had always treated him with barely disguised disdain. He was the cheap knockoff, a usurper who had weaseled his way into Damian’s legacy. Unskilled by comparison and by Damian’s estimation unworthy.
Tim thought it was about Robin. About the stolen mantel. That it would have been the same for any other kid who wore the mask.
But Damian’s worry for the new kid is obvious as he hauls him over his shoulder and makes for Leslie Thompkin’s clinic, his motions all speed rather than stealth.
Turns out Tim still remembers how to hate.
The Joker had known he was coming.
Looking back, Tim is sure that the magic piece of intelligence he’d found was actually part of a trap.
He certainly figured it out pretty quickly at the time. Subdued with a concussion grenade and then moved to a secondary location. He doesn’t remember all or even most of the twelve-hour torture session, but he remembers the end.
He remembers the Joker cupping his cheek as he gleefully said something about another bird sighting.
“Let’s hope the other bird puts up more of a fight.” He’d dropped Tim’s face with a cackle. “In the meantime, I thought I’d give you a breather. Harley’s going to check up on you in an hour, m’kay. She has some questions for you. About whose face is behind those masks. We’ve got us a little bet going.”
“Screw you,” Tim huffed.
He’d been rewarded with a swift kick to his face. His head swam and he woke up to an empty room, blood still gushing out of his nose.
If the Joker had gone after Damian, Batman would prioritize. Tim was supposed to be in the cave today. There was no way Batman would know he’d left. No chance he would figure it out until well after Harley made her appearance.
And if Harley came, Tim would talk. He knew his limits and how close he already was to his breaking point. Not to mention the dull roaring in his ears that could only signify severe blood loss.
Tim casted his eyes around the warehouse, fixating after a moment on a broken shard of glass.
If Harley came, he would break. And after that, he would die.
So Tim did what he always did.
He solved the problem.
Tim hasn’t exactly been hiding. Before he came back to Gotham, he’d made the decision that the Bats had absolutely no bearing on his plan. He hadn’t been part of that family when he was alive. There was no reason to think anything had changed with his death.
But he’s been expecting a visit since his day of precisely orchestrated executions.
He’d just assumed it would have been Batman.
Instead, he finds Damian in his favorite safe house.
He’s decked out in full Nightwing gear, an escrima stick in either hand. His uniform had changed subtly since Tim’s time as Robin, the blues brighter, the domino mask a different color. He has a new scar that slices through his cheek.
“Nightwing,” Tim acknowledges.
“Drake,” Damian says.
“It’s Red Hood now,” Tim replies.
There’s a pause followed by a frown. “You named yourself for your murderer.”
Tim ignores the question. “Why are you here Damian?”
“My mother survived,” Damian says. “I thought you would be interested.”
Tim crosses his arm “And what about Robin?”
“Jason’s fine,” Damian says. “Robin’s status is to be determined.”
Tim understands the implications, but he’s more or less lost the ability to put anything other than a bland face forward. “Jason is Robin. He stole it fair and square. He’s got a lot of the same problems I did though, running off on a hunch.” He fixes Damian with a stare. “You for a mentor.”
“Batman—” Damian starts.
“Didn’t have time for anything but Gotham. And Gotham needs Batman,” Tim says. “Almost as much as Bruce does. But it won’t forever.”
“Is that a threat?”
“No,” Tim says. “Gotham is broken and we’re all trying to fix it. Stay out of my way and I’ll stay out of yours.”
“You’re killing people.”
“People who deserve it. People who perpetuate the systematic corruption of the city. If people like the Waynes make sure the next set in the job are of higher quality, this won’t happen again.”
“Then come back,” Damian says. “Help us.”
“You don’t want me there.” Tim feels unsteady. This is not the confrontation he expected. Especially not after how he left the newest bird. He’s had a hand on his weapon since Damian entered his apartment. He’d just assumed that the confrontation would have significantly more steel involved. “You never wanted me here.”
“Of course we do,” Damian says. “You’re family.”
Tim sees… green.
They aren’t family. He’d forced his way into Damian’s birthright, been constantly belittled by the older boy for the slightest infraction. Bruce had taken him in only after Tim’s father had died, and it seemed clear that the situation was meant to be temporary, a stopgap until Tim could finish the paperwork for becoming an emancipated minor. He isn’t like the new kid, who’d been almost immediately adopted, and he isn’t Damian, the blood heir to the Wayne fortune. He’d fooled himself into thinking he might belong while he was alive, carved himself a place in the Teen Titans and at Bruce’s side. But the months leading to his death had seen his support slowly ripped from under him.
And when he’d died…
He takes a deep breath. Even tinged by the madness of the pit, he realizes that Damian is more skilled than him in combat. He will lose a hand before he manages to draw his gun. If he’d managed this conversation before meeting Jason, he might have had the element of surprise, but he doesn’t now.
Then again, Tim’s always been at his best when he fights with something other than fists. “I was never your family.”
“I know I didn’t always treat you well, but you were still family, Drake.”
“Wayne,” Tim mocks.
“I cannot change my past actions,” Damian says, his usually precise tones fraught with frustration. Tim can pick out the sharp edges of his childhood accent. “All I can do is act now. What would you have me do, Timothy?”
“You say we’re family? Fine.” Tim folds his arms and glares. “Then look me in the eyes and tell me Tim Drake’s official cause of death.”
As Damian’s silences stretches, Tim slips out of the room.
The official cause of Tim Drake’s death is suicide.
If Tim Drake mattered…
If Tim Drake mattered to Batman, there would have been change.
The Joker wouldn’t be back out on the streets.
The people who facilitated the escapes would be the ones behind bars.
And the story of Tim Drake…
He understands the need for cover. A way to explain Tim Drake’s demise that did not compromise Robin’s identity. Suicide took the messy edges of a young life tinged with tragedy—his father recently dead, his on-again-off-again girlfriend in the hospital recovering from a blown out spine—and married them to the stock character of a gifted loner.
He’s sure Brucie Wayne put on quite the performance at his funeral. Damian too. They must have been convincing because the press had decided they’d done all they could to help a deeply depressed young man.
And Tim, the real Tim. The idealist who’d decided to cut his losses in an otherwise failing battle disappeared like he never existed.
Not part of the family. Barely even part of the fight.
If Talia’s information was to be trusted, he’d spent longer dead than he did as a permanent residence at Wayne Manor.
He considers clearing out of Gotham all together.
Dismisses the idea just as fast.
Jason tracking him down had changed the time table, but he can still make his plan work.
He doesn’t know what to make of Damian’s appearance. Tim had expected a fight, especially after how he’d left Talia and his overture sits uneasily on his psyche. He doesn’t know how to reconcile this Damian with the one in his memory and pushing it away means it could bite him in the ass later.
Tim clears out his safe houses and reestablishes new ones. He’d initially set up in Crime Alley, but the simmering street-level rumors say that the new Robin has taken an interested in the area that Batman traditionally avoided and Tim doesn’t want to invite unwanted attention. Instead he hides near the police station, an apartment high enough to watch Gordon light the Batsignal in the moonlight.
He’s pretty sure he can take out Two Face and Penguin together if he times things right. He’s already started to spread back into the city’s security network. There’s patchy coverage in Lower Gotham, but the areas around Arkham are on camera twenty four hours a day. He’s not the only one in the feed. Batman’s signature lurks around every corner.
But computers were one of the few subjects where Tim had always been the best in the cave. Even Damian, who was loathe to admit Tim had any skill at all, would shift any hacking duties Tim’s way. After almost a year of persistence, he’d been allowed to digitize Batman’s case files and when he’d been in the system, he’d done what any hacker would.
He’d left himself a back door.
Red Hood is a different file than Tim Drake. The later file still listing him as deceased. It’s been cross-referenced it to Red Hood, Damian, by the digital signature. Jason’s tried to access it on a half dozen instances in the past week but didn’t appear to have passed the encryption.
Tim closes the documents and pulls up Batman’s intelligence on city hall’s corruption.
He uses Batman’s data to make his hit list.
Tim’s on a rooftop holding a sniper rifle when he hears.
Joker’s caught.
He sets the rifle down and scans through the channels in his helmet until he finds more information.
Not just caught.
Dead.
Joker’s dead.
His vision whites out. He finds himself gasping for breath, clawing his helmet off like he thinks that will help.
He’s not sure how long it takes, but eventually he tunes back into the radio chatter. The police is trying to check the scene for booby traps. Batman’s talking with someone—Stephanie? Since when did Stephanie know anything about medicine?—about causes of death and ways to confirm the Joker’s identity.
Tim looks down to the street below.
He’s missed his target.
*
It takes two days of waiting before the news confirms the identity.
It’s the Joker.
They’ve never had a name for the maniac, but the fingerprints and DNA match various other crime scenes, including, as noted in the Batcomputer, the murder of the second Robin.
He’s dead.
When the news reports hit, the entire city seems to be uneasy. Tim’s hits are still unsolved, gang violence is on the uptick and the Riddler seems to be making a desperate cry for attention, but it’s more than that. Almost like the city can’t believe the Joker’s gone.
His death certificate noted the manner as natural causes. A heart attack.
Tim cannot believe that.
He pours through the medical examiner’s files and then Batman’s files on the caves.
Then, finally, Stephanie Brown’s assessment of the corpse.
It’s the last documents where he finds it. Not a red flag if you haven’t encountered this particular poison, but almost a signature if you have.
He leans back, folding his hands behind his head.
To his knowledge, the League of Assassins has no problem with the Joker.
A second after, the answer slots neatly into place.
Flamebird makes him the minute he hits the city limits.
Tim hadn’t made much of an effort to hide himself from Kryptonians. He hadn’t intended on ever venturing into Bludhaven and Gotham was pretty much a meta-free zone. If he’s honest with himself, he’d forgotten that as much time as Damian spends in Gotham, he’s still Bludhaven’s superhero.
And Nightwing’s always had a partner.
Tim’s never been sure what to make of Jon Kent. The handful of times he met him when he was Robin, Jon had always been pleasant. But he’s Damian’s best friend and that means he’s either a saint or hiding a hell of devious streak.
Suddenly pinned to the wall two hundred feet in the air, Tim’s thinking it might be the latter.
“What are you doing in my city?” Flamebird growls.
There’s a sudden pressure around his head and then Tim’s helmet peels in half and falls. Tim plasters on a sneer to hide his surprise. “Thought I’d drop in, say hi to my big brother.”
“He’s not your anything, you asshole. I heard what you did to Robin.”
“If I’d wanted Robin dead, I would have shot him in the face. And I’d have done the same to Damian. But they’re both still alive. I swear I just came to talk.”
Jon’s face is still a mask of anger, but after a second tilts his head sideways, listening.
Tim watches, amused. “Nightwing?” he asks.
“He says he wants to talk to you,” Jon replies. He reluctantly flies them to a rooftop, and pulls back. His glare hasn’t improved since he Tim met him years ago, but he supposes the fact that it is backed by heat vision is threat enough. “If you hurt him, I’ll kill you.”
“You won’t,” Tim replies. “You should, but you won’t.”
Jon glares another second, seizes Tim by the shoulders and flies.
Tim hates this. Even when he was training with Impulse and his Superboy, he’d hated high speed travel. His ears pop, his vision blurs and he’d had more than one instance of nose bleeds following deceleration. Jon doesn’t let him down gently either, leaving Tim to roll roughly on the rooftop where Damian stands at the ready, his hand on his katana.
“Hood,” Jon calls after a second. “All the other stuff asides, I’m glad you’re not dead.”
Tim blinks after him as he disappears in a blur. “He literally gave me a death threat a minute ago.”
The domino mask hides Damian’s obvious eye roll. “Flamebird would never kill anyone.”
“I told him as much,” Tim says. “You, I’m less sure about.”
“If you’re here to make accusations, you’re welcome to leave. I have other obligations than you. Not the least of which being the boy you nearly killed.”
Tim can’t bring himself to feel sorry about Jason. Lessons always worked better when they came with blood. Maybe the next time he struck out against an unknown element, Jason wouldn’t be so caviler. “You like him,” Tim observes. “I didn’t think you liked anyone.”
“I like Jon,” Damian says. “I like Spoiler. I just didn’t like you.”
“Past tense,” Tim notes.
Damian shrugs. “I have no idea who you are now.”
“You had no idea who I was when I was alive.”
“You’re still alive, Drake,” Damian says. “I never expected to have the chance to right this particular wrong. Unlike my father, I am able to admit when I made mistakes."
There’s a roaring in Tim’s ears. He wishes for the safety of his helmet, but it’s lying in pieces on the street from where Jon peeled it off of his skull. His hands are shaking, but he hasn’t reached for a gun. Isn’t sure that he’ll even move.
All he ever wanted to know…
Was that Tim Drake’s death mattered.
“Joker…” Tim starts.
“Was a monster and now he’s a corpse. He’s not worth your thought.”
“Dead by poison,” Tim says. He has to know. “By my eyes at least. A League of Assassins blend.”
“I have an alibi,” Damian says. “An unimpeachable one.”
“Jon?” Tim guesses.
“Jon,” Damian confirms.
Tim feels something in his stomach unravel. “That won’t satisfy Batman.”
“Batman has always been rather rigid in his thinking. I understand the need for absolutes, but… I don’t always agree with the practice. Call it a failure in my upbringing.”
Tim swallows. “This doesn’t change anything.”
“Of course,” Damian says. “You’re still a borderline serial killer.”
“And you’re still a condescending prick.” He shuffles his feet. “Going to arrest me?”
“Not today,” Damian says.
Tim nods slowly. “Thank you.”
“You can come back if you want,” Damian says. “Jason’s less prickly than I am. You’d like him.”
“I was never a Bat, not really.” Tim pulls out his grappling gun. “No point in starting now.”
He leaves Bludhaven feeling shaken.
It’s almost three months before the next time he runs into one of the Bats. He’s carried out a few hits, but in the months since he got to town, the criteria for his hits has been climbing steadily. Damian’s been mostly in Bludhaven, and he’s known Batman’s habits well enough to slip his notice since he was six years old.
Robin’s the one who tracks him down. There’s no lingering sign of the bullet wound that had almost killed him months ago. His slapdash uniform hasn’t changed. He looks more like a kid in a dark red hoodie than a vigilante if you managed to overlook the mask. He tries to hide, but when Tim makes him, he gives him a cheeky smile and waves.
“You survived,” Tim observes, though he’d known that long ago.
Jason scoffs. “I had worse injuries than that before Robin.”
“Just wait.”
“You changed everything, you know,” Jason says. “Spoiler and Agent A told me what they were like before.”
“They were dicks,” Tim says. “Nightwing especially.”
“Sure, but I don’t think B would have adopted me if not for you,” Jason admits. “And I realize how much that sucks from the other side. The best thing that happened my whole life only happened because you died.”
“Yeah,” Tim agrees. “But I’m not dead anymore.”
Jason gives him a faint smile.
Then Tim makes a connection. All Damian’s talk about family. Talk that Jason probably believed.
If Damian’s Jason’s brother and Bruce Jason’s adopted dad, then Tim’s the edgy family outcast. The black sheep. The rebel.
“Hey kid,” Tim says. “I’ve got a lead on a drug trafficker. Want to tag along?”
“Yeah.” Jason’s trying to sound cool, but he’s obviously excited. “Yeah, let’s do it.”