Chapter Text
CHAPTER 1
~1~
There is occasionally a certain point one reaches during the attempt to attain a goal where one decides that the goal is just not worth it.
Unfortunately, this also often coincides with being at a point in the attainment of that goal where it’s too damn late and you’re just gonna have to suck it up, buttercup, and get your shit together and do it anyway.
Tim is pretty sure this shit is absolutely not worth it, but it’s too late now and even if it wasn’t, Mama ain’t raise no fuckin’ quitter.
Well. Mama ain’t raised nobody, she was neglectfully absent, and Daddy certainly didn’t do jack (ha) shit— but Janet at least taught him a thing or two. Tim should probably give up, probably should have already given up months ago, but he’s come this far and if he ever gives up in regards to anything, it sure as fucking bloody hell isn’t gonna be to Ra’s Al Ghul. That would be a complete and utter indignity. He would actually rather die, thank you very much.
Janet’s first rule of life is if it is going to shame you in any way, you are not to concede no matter what the cost. Your dignity is worth more than your life and visible embarrassment is an unforgivable sin.
So Tim is firmly refusing to be embarrassed by his current predicament, even if that means fiercely lying to himself.
The last thing this situation needs is Janet rising from the sands to scold Tim for his disgraceful conduct.
Everything was going– not well because nothing has or ever will go well for Tim when it comes to anything even remotely involving Bruce, but it was going about how he expected. So everything’s working, but just kind of sucks on principle. The important part was that it was working!
Tim had proof of Bruce’s existence in the time stream. He had proof the man could still be alive, is still alive. He had solutions, information he needed to get to the Justice League as soon as possible, and most importantly, Tim had one big Told You So to deliver to everybody he knows.
Well. Everybody left.
Which is depressingly less than it had been… But Tim doesn’t think about that for too long, because avoidance and a kill-yourself work ethic is the healthiest, most painless way to cope! Trust him, he’s a genius.
And what a genius situation he’s gotten himself into now.
Everything he needed in the palms of his trembling hands, and bam! Z dead. Owens dead. Pru’s throat has been slit and Tim has a strange inkling that that sword is not supposed to be coming out of his torso. Maybe it’s the blood, or the wrenching pain, or perhaps the knowledge that there’s definitely some kind of organ there that he might need, but he isn’t sure which one.
A couple devastating (nonlethal) head-shots later, and Tim has a strip of Z’s shirt wrapped chokingly tight around Pru’s throat, the rest of it tied around his torso, and he’s dragging the two of them to vehicular semi-safety.
He knows there’s more, but he really doesn’t remember too much after that.
He remembers waking up, however. And unfortunately, everything hence-forth.
Like suddenly finding himself to be Ra’s prisoner.
Tim woke up on the floor of an elegant hall, 10 feet ahead of him and up a few feet sat Ra’s on a stupid throne, like the dramatic, murderous narcissist he is. Tim squinted in confusion, going to move– but hissing in pain and grabbing just shy of below his heart, where a horrible, sharp pain was radiating. The subtle bump of stitches under whatever the hell he was wearing at the moment reassures him that there isn’t a big gaping hole in his torso anymore, but he’s more likely to tell Ra’s to go fuck himself for sewing up Tim’s brand new secret pocket than to thank the man for saving his miserable life.
And Ra’s was saying something, blah blah blah impressive, detective blah blah I have plans for you blah blah blah I’m super creepy and your spleen is mine now, but Tim was having a hard time hearing over the construction worker on coke in his brain that was given a jackhammer covered in maracas. The man also has a passion for playing the harmonica, but to tell you the truth, he should really find a different passion. The screeching catterwaul does not compliment the maraca-jackhammer noises.
Tim’s head hurts.
To summarize for Super-Migraine Post-Surgery Tim, Ra’s commends him on his skills, and has decided that Tim should have a nice vacation. At Hotel Murder Palace, guest of honor to one Ra’s Al Ghul. There’s room service, an indoor pool, and a hot tiki bar! Oh, and Tim 100% does not get a choice, the vacation is mandatory and enforced. And everybody is ready and willing to continuously drug Tim to keep him there.
So a bit more like getting put in a looney bin, yeah?
The refusal to let Tim have shoes definitely echoes that sentiment. Give him some grippy socks and he’s set.
Ra’s kept being a fucking weirdo whack-job (which is actually his official profession, he has a doctorate in Uncomfortable from the university of Evil), starting with the outfit Tim woke up in. Which by the way, fuck everything and everyone for him being changed in his sleep without his consent. Somebody saw his dick. Probably several somebodies. His ass was out and he isn’t even gonna get paid for it!
Anyway, Ra’s Creepy Clothing Boutique dressed him like a tasteful ritual sacrifice. A red half-sleeved brocade robe that goes over a black sleeveless shirt with many strange symbol-like adornments on it. Flowy pants that are wrapped tight at the ankles up to mid-calf. No shoes, for obvious reasons.
Tim would like a sweater and some pajama pants, but instead he is ‘presentable,’ as Ra’s said. Apparently there’s some sort of plan for Tim to stay here and train and play mind games until Ra’s gets bored of him, but what Tim is actually going to do is find Pru and get them the hell out of Dodge City. He's sick and tired of the constant stream of rohypnol being used on him and getting injected with what he's pretty sure is ketamine when he gets violent.
Tim manages to beat his guards despite his injuries by managing to avoid being drugged again and taking them by surprise, then sneaks around well enough to find out where Pru is, kept in containment (but alive, blessedly alive) due to Ra’s suspecting her loyalties lie more with Tim than they do Ra’s. But he doesn’t sneak well enough to avoid being caught and dragged back to time-out.
Attempt two, involving a poster broken from his bed, also failed… but he gets so close.
Attempt three involves disrupting dinner and accidentally ruining someone's ability to flip people the bird ever again. Oops. Well, they didn’t need that finger anyway!
Tim suffers the greatest punishment for this, namely, Ra’s bells him like a fucking cat. So he can’t ‘go sneaking around’ anymore. Because, ‘if you can’t act civilized, Detective, then I shall treat you like the animal you are insistent on being.’
Tim should have succeeded by now, and now he’s super fucked because after another fucking drugging (is he gonna get addicted? Does he need to watch out for that? What are the negative effects of being drugged this often? Shit.) he wakes up with restraints on. Manacles around his wrists and ankles that have fucking bells on them (one on each) so he can’t even shift without jingling like a goddamn Christmas elf. Now his hands and feet only go about a foot apart.
Ra's told him he's lucky the man didn't just dislocate Tim's legs, and only hadn't because of the risk of permanent damage. And he wants Tim in pristine condition.
Tim figures ‘fourth times the charm’ and spoiler alert; fourth times not the charm. He manages to split the wrist manacles open during the guard change with a floor tile he pried up, but he kicks himself for not doing his ankles first so he could run and fight easier. He figured ‘wrists first will make getting the anklets off easier’ but he didn’t have enough time and they heard him and now he is just so fucking fucked it isn’t even fucking funny.
Tim knows he’s being sloppy. He’s being so sloppy. Humiliatingly so, and he knows why… He wants out of here as soon as possible. He can bring Bruce back, he has to bring Bruce back, he has to be useful and fulfill his purpose and even if he isn’t family to the bats, they are all he fucking has, okay?!
So Tim is trying to get out of here as soon as he can, and that isn’t working.
He needs to sit for a minute and wait. He needs to let everything cool down. He needs to think, and plan, and have patience. Tim spent his entire childhood just watching, taking photos and keeping his distance– he can sit and watch for a little bit, planning whilst Ra’s and his assassins grow complacent.
But now his job is even harder. Tim’s restraints got an upgrade.
New manacles, different appearance– less bulky, and flat, almost like a bracelet— but undoubtedly strong. Ra’s said some complete bullshit about not wanting Tim to look entirely like a prisoner, as it is unbecoming. Which is just total gutter garbage, because Tim couldn’t feel more like Princess Leia with Jabba the Hutt. The manacles are still on the wrists and ankles, with bells so any movement will be heard, and loops for further restraints. Without the connecting chains, so yeah, more alike to bracelets. These allow him to be moved around easier and locked down to whatever is available in the room he’s currently in.
The Big Winner? They’re one solid fucking piece. Welded together. Tim has no clue how Ra’s did that without burning him. They’ll have to be cut off, because this is the worst forced-vacation-kidnapping ever. Mortifyingly, there's one around the neck as well– more round, like a thick, solid wire… that is, most unfortunately, also belled. Probably for the sheer humiliation of it, and as a sort of ‘final reassurance,’ because maybe you’re willing to risk injuring your wrists and/or ankles to get off restraints, but how willing are you to risk injuring your neck?
Tim isn’t going to be trying to smash a rock against his prison necklace. Too close to the important pieces, like the esophagus and his most winning trait, his vocal cords. He makes all his smart-ass remarks with that!
They rub his skin horribly raw due to him shifting and fidgeting with them. Half because he’s as restless as a caged tiger, and half because if he jingles them constantly enough he can see Ra’s getting annoyed by it, and maybe if he’s annoying enough they’ll take the bells off. At the very least, he gets the pleasure of watching everyone around him squint with irritation.
Night after night of having to sleep with those fucking things making noise has basically resulted in Tim’s brain going crazy and learning to completely tolerate the sounds. He’s just dead inside to the noise. Now it’s just a tool to annoy those around him. The second he gets these things off, if he ever hears another damn bell in his lifetime it’ll be too soon.
Tim would really love some bolt cutters right about now, but he isn’t gonna find those just lying around, and he isn’t going to be given any. These things are putting red, irritated rings around his limbs and neck from all his restless movement. But he’s frustrated, and worried about Pru and Bruce, and he’s been here for way too long and he doesn’t even know how long that is, and he wants coffee, and it might be the constant drugging but he’s been feeling really sick all the time.
But Tim waits. He watches, and he waits.
He’s a walking Marco-Polo loser and he spends his day being on a limited-length chain in whatever room he is currently occupying, recovering from a lethal wound and overly drugged and tired. Tim has his work cut out for him.
At least only his legs are chained when he’s in ‘his’ room.
He’s been here for Way Too Fucking Long days (and nobody has come for him, nobody has tried to rescue him, do they even realize he’s gone—-) when he finally launches mission Fifth Times The Charm.
At (what he’s assuming is) night time (he’s not entirely sure, he just knows this is when everything is less active. Do assassins sleep during the day though?), when his watch is used to the sound of Tim fidgeting and squirming to try and get comfortable even though the only time he really sleeps is when they drug him, Tim works quick. He manages to rip open one of those stupidly durable pillows he was given, and smirks at his success.
Tim crams pieces of pillow stuffing into the bells so that the metal balls in them can’t move around and thus, they can’t jingle. The bells on his wrists go blessedly quiet. He eagerly shoves one into his collar bell, but forces himself to refrain from doing anything to his ankles yet. Sudden silence would be extremely suspicious.
Tim walks with a strange gait so that the bells do not jingle in the sound it makes when he takes steps, moving over to the area passed the door. Then, he stuffs the cotton in the ankle bells.
The room goes eerily quiet.
It’s the best noise he’s heard in his life.
It only takes a few seconds for the two assassins posted as guards to rush into the room. Tim grabs the long chain restraining him, tugging it tight from where it’s hooked on the wall, using it like a trip-wire to send the assassins off-balance.
Tim moves closer to said-wall to get plenty of slack, kicking the one that hadn’t yet gotten up in the head hard enough that he can mark that one down as out of commission. The second assassin rushes him, but Tim has been wearing these fucking restraints for way too long now and they’ve practically become a weapon. He kicks his right leg so that the chains slide across the floor smoothly, then he pulls a leg back, and the assassin stumbles once more. Tim grabs him by the neck, tugging him to the ground and grabbing some of the chain’s slack, doubled up and held with both hands to look like a large, folded-over belt. Tim uses the heavy slack to slam it down on the assassin's head like a floppy baseball bat.
Tim frisks both assassin guards, and neither have the key to the chains, because at least those aren’t welded to him. So no key, however, one of the guards has various bits and bobs that he is able to use to pick the lock on the chain. It just took a bit longer than he would have liked.
He shoves both guards under the bed and leaves swiftly.
Tim is quiet for the first time in a while, and nobody is expecting it. He moves through the halls like a shadow. He has a few goals, and the first is most urgent, because Tim might not get out of here soon enough and he needs this done now.
Tim finds a computer. Efficiently takes out the league member monitoring the information on it, and then makes his move.
Tim goes as quickly as he can, working out a way to contact the Justice League and send them his information on Bruce being in the time stream. Bruce needs to be rescued as soon as possible, so this comes first. He does not cheer when he manages to successfully send it out, but it does give him some hope. Tim uses the computers to then locate Pru, which he’s glad he did, because they moved her to a lower area. She’s still alive, which he almost didn’t expect, but he’s thankful for nonetheless. Then, Tim decides he’s extremely pissed about all of this, and the bells were just too fucking far, so he sets up a nice little surprise for Ra’s and his people.
Burn, baby, burn— disco inferno. Tim’s turning this place and all it’s friends into smoldering ash.
Tim was going to set off the alarm right away so everyone had ample time to get out of the base, but he cannot even word how pissed he is about the bells. So, Tim sets the alarm to go off merely 3 minutes before the whole place will blow. Enough time for everybody to get out, but not nearly enough for them to go and grab anything important. Once the alarm goes off, the clock starts, and this place will be turned to rubble soon after.
And so will every single other base Tim was able to get his grubby digital paws on.
Tim gets to Pru. Finally. She’s a bit frail and hungry, dirty, but her neck wound is in the very beginning stages of healing.
Pru blinks at him blearily. Her voice is terribly rough when she asks, “The fuck? Who turned you into the bloody liberty bell?”
Tim almost leaves her here for that one. (Not really, but his unimpressed face managed to get an amused snort out of Pru, and that's the biggest success he's had since he got to this hellhole.)
He and Pru don’t find anybody else in the cells, so they get a move on. Finally, finally, Tim and Pru launch a viable escape attempt.
It starts to go horribly, awfully wrong.
Because the universe fucking hates Tim.
He and Pru get near an exit right as Tim feels the whizz of a knife past his ear. They both turn, and fuck his entire life, because they are so busted.
Tim and Pru split up. Pru is more injured, so she heads for the exit they’re already near, and Tim heads back into the base to run these motherfuckers around like it’s one big game of tag and everybody but Tim is It.
Pru gave him one parting command:
“If you get fucking killed, I’m going to throw your ass in the pit and then I’m going to use you like an infinitely regenerating practice dummy. Since you want to be so fucking dumb.”
Tim might actually shed a tear; he didn’t know she cared so much!
Tim is at a severe disadvantage with his bare feet and injury, but he’s skilled and he’s willing to do damn near anything to get out of here at this point. There’s only so many dinners one can tolerate with Ra’s. Yabbering on about all his ‘plans’ for Tim. Various weapons and hits graze Tim, slowing him down, but not stopping him.
He’s Tim right now, not Red Robin, and certainly not Robin; he’s had that made clear for him. And Tim still has work to do.
Tim runs deeper into the base, searching for another exit. Doors, and doors, and halls, and door, and halls, and– ooooohhhhh shit.
It appears Tim has made it to the Weird Magical Treasure room.
It’s a large cave-like area full of clearly mystical artifacts. Tim avoids touching whatever he can, starting to panic. Shit. Ra’s might actually kill him after this.
Then, the alarms start going off.
Three minutes till this whole place blows to smithereens.
Tim finds himself breathing faster, getting shakier, sweatier. He’s cornered. He’s being chased through this room of potentially hazardous items and he’s pretty sure that he’s finally come to a dead end.
Tim is now at a stand-off with a group of assassins.
One of the assassins steps forward, holding a box.
Tim discovers it is a speaker when, a moment later, Ra’s voice comes from it.
The alarm blares, the lights blink red, and it all overlays the words of the madman he’s spent the last few months ( possibly more depending on how long surgery was and how long he was out of it) trying to get around.
“Is this really worth it, Detective?”
Tim shakes with adrenaline, wide-eyed with panic.
There is occasionally a certain point one reaches during the attempt to attain a goal where one decides that the goal is just not worth it. Unfortunately, this also often coincides with being at a point in the attainment of that goal where it’s too damn late.
Fucking— get your shit together!
It’s too late. He’s going to die here. It’s too late. He isn’t getting out, and neither are these other people. It's too late. Assassins they may be, but they are going down with him because it’s their job to keep trying to catch him. Seven people he will have killed once the base blows.
“You still have time. Allow my people to capture you once more, verbally agree to indulge my plans for you, and you might escape with your life. Really, you are wasted with those vigilantes. We could be so powerful, Detective. At this point, your rebellious nature is no longer amusing; I am very willing to let my assassins kill you to take you out of here, and then I will simply bring you back. You can come willingly, or you can be taken and revived."
Janet’s first rule of life is if it is going to shame you in any way, you are not to concede no matter what the cost. Your dignity is worth more than your life and visible embarrassment is an unforgivable sin.
Tim’s fists clench. His eyes drift from object to object.
“So what will it be, detective?”
It isn’t worth it. It’s too late. And Tim still has one final requirement…
To pull himself together, and go out with dignity.
And conceding is utterly undignified.
Tim’s done what he needed to do. Bruce will be rescued. There’s a new Robin. He is obsolete now. Tim has served his purpose, and it’s time.
It’s okay. It’s okay, it is, because he’s done everything necessary, which means it’s okay.
He whips a manacled arm out, picking up a random artifact. Tim grins, a feral, terrified thing. His entire body is shaking.
I don’t want to die.
He has served his purpose.
I want a new one.
Sorry. There’s only one purpose left available.
I’ll take it!
Then take it. Grab it by the throat. Grip it tight.
Serve your purpose.
Tim is gonna die here, and he’s taking all of Ra’s shit with him.
Tim holds up the item he picked up, a twisted branch with a glimmering bark. “Sorry, Ra’s!” Tim laughs manically, because this is it. This is it. “But I have a much better idea!”
A few assassins make for him, but Tim backs up, purposefully into shelves and displays and pedestals with items on them. Knocking them over, sending them to the ground. Kicking stuff over. Things spill and break and smoke and shine and ring.
The voice comes over the speaker once more, frustrated and disappointed. “Do you truly believe you will escape this building with your life without my assistance?”
Tim cackles, “Fuck no! But you can't revive me if I'm a pile of smoldering ashes under various tons of rubble, and I’m in your room of magical, mystical bullshit, and I have no clue what any of this shit does!”
Tim holds the branch out at the assassins, he picks up a dripping glass shard that burns his hand, and he holds that out as well, like a shitty knife. The assassins hesitate.
"Do not be foolish, Detective! Are you truly so idiotic?!" Ra's growls through the speaker, clearly pissed.
"Maybe so," he bites out. Tim’s grin has something dark in it, something sad and gut-wrenchingly apologetic. He runs his eyes over the assassins before him. “I don’t know your names,” he speaks, just barely heard over the alarms. “But you have about a minute. You have shoes, and uninjured bodies. Run, and you might be able to get out. The blast might still get you, but you could live if you’re at least outside.
The assassins look between each other.
Then, they leave in a blink.
Tim collapses to his knees, dropping the items and putting his hands against the shaking ground. The entire place begins to rumble, and sweat drips off his face. That’s a lot of sweat dripping–
He’s crying. Oh. Okay.
Tim can't even support himself on his hands and knees anymore, so he collapses to the cave floor and rolls onto his back. The broken and mixed artifacts crunch under his back, and some burn, or sting, but he hardly cares. He stares up at the ceiling, breathless in a state of liminality. It doesn’t feel real. The shine of blinking red from the lights in the hall. The blaring alarms. His body, lethargic and in pain. It feels like the world is spinning around him.
He just lays there.
No bells jingle, and it feels quiet despite the cacophony of terrifying sounds happening all around him.
Tim doesn’t know what he wants to feel. Fear? Peace? Anger?
All he feels… is dignified.
Tim asks the shaking air one question,
“Did I serve my purpose?” he whispers. "Did I do good?"
The earth shakes.
The alarms blare.
The air doesn’t answer.
But Tim’s used to not getting an answer to that particular question.
Everything explodes into a blinding, blistering light.
The world is so hot and yet so cold.
There’s no up or down.
Everything’s spinning.
It all seems so strange.
Smells, sounds, crushing and suffocating.
And racing through your head is everything you loved.
And everything you wanted.
And everything that terrified you.
He didn’t think it would hurt this much. He hoped it wouldn’t hurt this much.
It all hurts.
It hurts.
Please.
It hurts.
“I’m scared…”
Tim awakens with a throat-clawing gasp for air.
Tim sits up with a shout of pain– in the same desert he thought he should have died in, back at the cave where he got stabbed. Tim gasps for air, skin burning in the blistering sun and his entire being throbbing.
He’s alive.
He’s alive.
He definitely blew up.
He’s alive.
Fuck. Tim hates mystical artifacts.