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Red Robin took a moment to balance when the light faded. This was the fifty-sixth universe he’d visited in the past twenty-four hours. Transporting yourself across the multiverse twice an hour tended to take a lot out of you, especially if you hadn’t eaten in…
Red checked his watches. He had three going. One told him how long it had been since he’d slept, one since he’d eaten. The last told him how long he’d been searching.
Right. Food. He hadn’t eaten in about forty-seven hours; it was time for a pit stop.
He ducked into an alleyway, sighing, and shucked the small backpack hiding under his cape. Time to change, hit up a burger joint and find a place to crash for the night. At least he had landed in Gotham this time instead of China; it shouldn’t take that long to figure out if his doppelganger was alive.
Well… He was the doppelganger here, really. So weird to think that he was gate-crashing other people’s universes.
A shadow passed his peripheral, and Red slunk back against the wall, eyes darting warily to the rooftops. He couldn’t see anything, but that was little consolation. If it was a Bat---
That was good, right? He wanted to find them. How else was he supposed to figure out if Tim Drake was alive?
Another shadow flickered across the sky, and Red suddenly felt cornered in the narrow alley. Time for the rooftops. It’d be great if his hands wouldn’t shake on the way up, actually, that was annoying… Maybe he needed more food than he’d thought.
No sooner had his feet hit the dirty concrete at the top than someone gasped nearby. He whirled around, but he still couldn’t see them.
“Which one are you?” he asked, sliding his feet to get a steadier balance. “I could really do without an assassination attempt this time.”
“Tim?” someone breathed to his left. Red’s gaze flicked to the AC unit, noting Nightwing melting out of its shadows, before returning his stare to the next roof over. That was Red Hood, he saw now; a glint of red chrome. Alright, maybe it’d be an easy stop tonight.
He shifted his gaze back to Nightwing, muscles taught. “I don’t really have time to explain; I’m just stopping for a minute. Is---”
“Tim?” Nightwing breathed again, shock in his every jerky movement. He only took a single step forward before halting.
“Is this a fucking joke?” Hood demanded angrily.
Red clenched his jaw. “I’m not your Tim. I need to know if---”
“What do you mean not our Tim, what’s that supposed to fucking---”
“Are you a doppelganger?” Dick asked breathlessly, taking another step. “Is your universe in trouble?”
Red couldn’t suppress the dark chuckle. “You could say that. I’m not here to save it.” I’m here to save myself. “I need to know if your Tim is alive.” What happened to him that you’re so happy to see ME?
“That’s none of your fucking business,” Hood bit out, and suddenly he was landing on the same rooftop with all of his weight; two-hundred thirty-six pounds, Red absently noted. This Jason Todd was doing well in the physical health department.
Oh. Hood was swinging at him. Red barely registered dodging, disrupting Hood’s balance with a well-placed kick before flipping gracefully away. Well. Not as graceful as it would be if he’d eaten anything recently.
“Wait,” Nightwing demanded over Hood’s stream of curses. “Just wait a second, Hood. We thought you were an imposter, too, when you came back.”
“He hasn’t come back,” Hood snapped angrily, unholstering one of his guns. “He never will.”
Red held up his hands, pacifying. Guns were already out. It was time to hurry this up. “Look, believe whatever you want; I’m not here for a fight. Just tell me what happened to Tim.”
“He’s gone,” Nightwing murmured quietly, and something broke in his voice. “But you already knew that, didn’t you?”
Red licked his chapped lips. “So how did he die?”
“Like it’s any of your fucking business,” Hood snarled at him, raising his gun. “Give me one reason not to shoot you.”
“It’ll hurt,” Red couldn’t keep from muttering.
Hood hesitated for a second.
“God, you sound just like him,” Nightwing muttered softly. He flicked one hand at Hood to wait. “Tim… had been through a lot. He wouldn’t be gone if we'd been there for him when he was weakest.”
“Wing,” Hood growled out; a warning.
“He was… He’d taken this mission; one that wasn’t his.” Nightwing’s voice thickened, but to his credit, he wasn’t crying yet. “He ran into trouble, as one does. Got captured by some old “friends” of Hood’s. They wanted to get back at him for one too many double-crosses.”
“Wing,” Hood said again. It sounded pleading this time. It sounded desperate.
Nightwing clenched his fists, staring straight at Red through their masks. “He was beaten to death with bats. Ironic, the note said. They sent us his body. We hadn’t even known where he was. We weren’t looking.”
Hood made a strangled sound, his gun twitching. Nightwing reached out without looking to gently push his hand down.
Red’s heartbeat thundered in his ears. “He’s dead.”
Nightwing jerked a nod, jaw tightening. The questions were coming. Red had to be fast.
“Cassie Sandsmark?” he hurried, his throat tightening. “Bart Allen? Conner Kent?”
Nightwing’s weight shifted in surprise. “They’re alive now. Why---”
“Damian?” Red went on breathlessly. “Bruce? Steph? Cass?”
“Alive, all of them. It’s Tim who---”
Red’s knees were getting weak. “Roy? You and Jason and the… the Titans? Kori?”
“Last we checked,” Hood bit out. “we’re fine. What’s your point, Replacement?”
Red couldn’t help a shaky laugh. Replacement. He never thought he’d be so happy to hear that name. Fitting, considering what he was trying to do. “I’m… In my universe… I’m the last one.”
Both men stiffened, and Nightwing murmured, “What?”
Red struggled to breathe. “In my universe, you… Dick, you were killed; you and Damian and Bruce and Kon and Bart and Cassie… Steph betrayed me, Cass never came back, Roy… Jason…”
“What?” Hood muttered angrily. “You expect us to fall for this shit?”
“Tim,” Dick said firmly, desperation leaking into his tone. “All of us?”
“All of you.” Red felt his voice getting weak. “All… all gone. I tried… I tried so hard. I wasn’t enough.” He paused to catch his breath. “I had to check. For everything that happens, there’s another universe where…”
“Where the opposite happened,” Nightwing finished hesitantly.
“There had to be a universe,” Red said dazedly, “where only Tim died; no one else. There had to be. I’ve… I’ve had to find it.”
“So you could what?” Hood snapped again, gesturing violently. “Replace our Tim?”
Red’s throat was unbearably thick. “There was nothing left. I had to look; it’s the only thing that kept me alive.”
The truth felt final coming from his lips. He’d avoided saying it aloud until now, but it was true, wasn't it? He wouldn’t have had the strength to continue if he hadn’t looked for another way out; a way home.
“Please,” he found himself murmuring. Both men were unreadable now, both staring at him in silence, and the unknown was squeezing his chest because what if they didn’t want him? He hadn’t really considered a Plan B. If this didn’t work… what was left? Nothing? Everything? Grief that would swallow him whole; numb grey that had to end somewhere.
It had to end. Somewhere.
“Please,” he begged again, clutching his suit over his heart, because something hurt there that felt like failure. “I can’t do anything else. I can’t go on. I’ve been looking for fifteen months.” So many lifetimes… So many Tims. So many sympathetic gazes and offers of help and open hostility. So much understanding from his doppelgangers’ eyes.
Over twenty-two-thousand seven-hundred universes checked before this one.
“Tim,” Nightwing was whispering. Moving. Stepping.
Red Robin met him halfway, and his knees collapsed, and arms he’d thought he might never feel again were catching him and pulling him close and holding---
Red scrabbled for a grip on Nightwing’s suit, a broken sob wracking his body. He didn’t know what was wrong with him. They hadn’t said he could stay. He… He’d held it together so well until now; why…
“Tim,” Nightwing said brokenly, and then Red was being hugged by Hood, and they held him so tightly that the young vigilante felt himself finally breaking apart; fracturing like glass in slow motion.
“Please…” he sobbed, his entire body heaving with each cry. “PLEASE don’t let go.”
Nightwing shifted in response, and Red found himself pressed to Hood’s shoulder instead as Nightwing hugged him from behind; he was pinned now, they were holding him up and squeezing him tightly enough to bruise and a hand was on his back and in his hair and one removed his mask so his tears could flow and they were breathing and holding him---
And Tim.
Tim was positive that he’d never felt emotion this strong, and he knew it was going to kill him if this didn’t work.
“I’m sorry,” he murmured mindlessly, choking as his sobs strengthened. “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry. I’m sorry I couldn’t save you. I’m sorry I wasn’t there. I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay,” Nightwing murmured thickly, pressing his face into Tim’s hair; his words ghosted over Tim’s ear. “It’s okay.”
“It’s not,” Tim almost screamed, but his voice dissolved into a grieving keen; a noise he had never allowed himself to make. It stole the breath from his chest, it made his ribs burn, but the arms around him tightened, forcing his broken pieces back together.
“I looked for so long,” he gasped, knocking his forehead against a leather-clad shoulder. “So long Dick, I can’t… I can’t…”
“It’s okay,” Hood said gruffly, but that wasn’t Hood’s voice, that was Jason… “You found us, baby bird. You’re here now. We’re all here.”
Tim couldn’t breathe. He just cried.
Someone eventually joined them on his left; Robin’s small form squeezed close. Orphan pinned him in on his right, and he caught the swoop of a bat-shaped shadow in the darkness nearby.
Tim cried for a very long time. When he began to hyperventilate, the bodies around him began breathing as one, deep inhales, even deeper exhales, guiding him back to the realm of sanity.
“I’m sorry,” Tim whispered again. He tucked his face against the collar of Hood’s jacket, inexplicably soothed by how tightly he was crushed on all sides.
“You’re here now,” Jason whispered into his hair. Dick’s hand tightened around his shoulder, and Cass bumped her forehead against his ear. “You found us.”
Tim experienced a full-body shudder. I found them. “I can… I can stay?”
“Yes,” Batman breathed out, stepping from the shadows like a black ghost. “We needed you, too.”
Tim closed his eyes, overwhelmed. He was home.