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Tim woke with a start.
He couldn’t see anything. His lights must be off. He started to sit up, to reach for his lamp on his bedside table, but before he could move more than an inch, his arm hit something and a millisecond later his head did as well.
Fuck. His head was pounding. Why was that? Where was he?
He felt around for a moment. It seemed he was in some sort of box lined with satin. It followed the shape of his body-
Tim froze. He was in a coffin .
With a yelp, he pushed on the lid. It moved slightly, and dirt poured in, slamming over his face, suffocating him.
He had been buried alive.
Think, Tim. Think. Red Robin must have been caught. But how? When? What had he been doing?!
He felt around himself and his stomach dropped. He hadn’t been out as Red Robin, he had been at a gala. He was still in his perfectly ironed, three-piece suit. Red Robin had not been buried. Tim Drake had.
Tim had never planned his funeral. He had many preparations in the event of his death; what would happen to his open cases, his patrol routes, his position at WE. His funeral, however, had never been much of a thought. He had planned both of his parents’ burials, and planning his own was something he did not want. Someone else would need to do it for him.
And apparently, someone did.
He tapped on the comm kept in every bat-member’s ear when in public and opened his speaking line.
“Hello? Can- can anyone hear me? It’s R- it’s Tim. I need… assistance.”
Nothing.
“Guys, I really- I really need help. I don’t- don’t know where I am, and,” he gulped, “I think someone got me, somehow. I don’t know.”
Still, no response.
Tim had no idea what time it was. Whether anyone was still awake, let alone listening to the comms.
“Please,” he begged, voice cracking. “I really- I don’t know what to do!” In his panic, he started banging on the lid of the box - coffin . “Please!”
“Fuck, Replacement, what do you want? I really don’t feel like talking to you right now.”
Tim nearly sobbed in relief. “Jason.”
“Are you done? Can I go back to sleep now?” Jason asked gruffly, and Tim knew- he just knew that Jason was going to take out his comm, or worse: mute it.
“Jason, please!” Tim cried. “Don’t hang up. I’m stuck. I need help.”
Jason sighed. “Yeah, alright. Want me to come to your room?”
Tim slammed his fist on the lid of the box - coffin - in frustration, causing another storm of dirt to fall onto him and sending him into a coughing fit.
“God, kid, are you sick or something? Call Alfred, I’m not your fucking babysitter.”
“I’m buried!” Tim forced out.
The line was silent for a long time. Tim shivered in the cold seeping into the box - coffin.
“This is not a funny joke, Replacement. You know better than to push my fucking buttons,” Jason ground out through the comms.
Tim was fully weeping now. “Please Jay- at least tell someone. You don’t need to help me just- just don’t leave me alone.” He hiccuped as his death flashed before his eyes, alone, cold, in the dark, and scared. Six feet underground.
For two gut-wrenching, agonising seconds, Tim couldn’t hear anything from the other side of the comm. And then- bang , like the sound of a door being slammed open and hitting the wall. “Alfred! Cass!” Jason’s voice sounded, panicked. “Dick! B-Bruce!”
Tim listened as, one by one, doors swung open. He could vaguely hear Bruce’s voice in the background, calling Jason ‘Jaylad’ and asking if he was alright. Tim swallowed.
“It’s- the kid. Put your comms on.”
Tim could hear some vague shuffling, so he remained quiet and listened in the darkness. “Damian’s right there, Jason. What’s going on?” Dick asked.
Someone’s breathing had sped up. Tim couldn’t tell whether it was his, or Jason’s, or both.
“Not the baby!”
“I am not a baby-“
“The kid! Tim!” The breathing had become hyperventilating. Tim still wasn’t sure whether it was him or Jason, but he hoped it wasn’t him. This would use up his air, and he wasn’t positive he had much more left.
Footsteps, all fading. And then, moments later-
“Timmy?!”
“Tim, do you copy?”
“Drake? What is the meaning of this?”
And, softly, “Tim?”
Despite himself, Tim smiled. “Yeah, I, uh. Am somewhere. Underground. In a box” coffin “and I can’t get out by myself. Well,” he coughed slightly, trying to lighten the mood, “I probably could. Jason did it, how hard can it be?”
“Drake, are you saying you are… buried alive?” Damian was the only one to respond, but even he seemed at a loss for words.
Tim knocked on the side of his box - coffin - for emphasis. “Yep, Baby Bat. Think you guys can get me out?” There were loud footsteps and bangs coming from every comm, echoing across them all. They must have been racing to the Batcave. Tim hoped. “Also, uh… what time is it? And what time did you last see me?”
“We’re coming, Baby Bird. It’s… 3:12 a.m. I’m getting Oracle up now to go through all the security cameras, but the last I remember seeing you was just before midnight. I never saw you leave. Did anyone?” Dick said, directing the end to everyone listening.
“Was busy schmoozing. Barely saw any of you after I sent Damian to bed with Cass at, what, eleven?” Bruce supplied.
There was a loud thump and static ran through the communication system. It sounded like someone had fallen onto their mic. “Sorry, I- yeah, I saw him,” Jason chimed in, breathless. “He looked exhausted, tripping over his own feet and stuff. I told him to go put himself to bed and didn’t see him again. Must’ve been… what, 12:15?”
Tim furrowed his brows in the darkness. He didn’t remember talking to Jason, or being tired. He definitely didn’t remember going to bed. “Are you sure that was me?”
There was the rev of an engine, and the unmistakable sound of a katana being unsheathed. Damian and Jason must be ready to look for him. Tim hoped that Bruce, Dick, and Cass had already left.
“Positive, kid. You don’t remember?” Tim stayed silent, trying to think back to what he last remembered. He talked with some people but he didn’t even know who. He ate some hors d'oeuvres, drank some sparkling champagne, then… nothing. He hadn’t been tired at any point, though, he knew for certain. With Tim’s prolonged quiet, Jason sighed. “Okay, well. Saw him at about 12:15. It’s now 3:14 a.m. It’s been three hours since one of us definitively saw him. Nightwing, is Oracle up?”
Tim swallowed. Three hours . He could have been buried here for almost three hours. He shifted his arms and legs up and down, side to side. Tingles burst through his body as he moved it for the first time in hours. His box - coffin - seemed to fit him properly. Based on the size, he predicted… four and a half hours, five tops, before asphyxiation. He’d be asleep in four.
“Oracle here, searching now. Will chime in with whatever I find.”
“Guys,” Tim gulped, “if I’ve been down here for three hours already…”
“Shut up, Drake. We are on our way to find you now. Oracle is scouring the security footage for you. I have no doubt she will find you,” Damian scolded. Tim would have laughed at being chided by a child, but he couldn’t find it in himself.
“I see him,” Oracle interrupted. “12:23 a.m. He was led out of the ballroom by a man, very pale, curly black hair, and then… nothing. They don’t show up anywhere .” Her voice had raised in pitch, bordering on hysterical. “I’ve called in Spoiler, she should come in any second.”
“I’m here, I’m up,” Steph cut in, panting. “Out and about now.”
“Tim, what do you hear?” Bruce demanded.
He closed his eyes to the black in front of him, trying to hear something. “I don’t… I don’t hear anything.”
“Take the comm out of your ear, Replacement. You have to really listen,” Jason ordered. Tim couldn’t breathe. Take it out? Remove the one connection he had to his family, possibly the last connection he would ever have? He couldn’t. “I know you don’t want to, kid. I know it’s scary. But it’s the best shot we got. Please, Tim. I promise we’ll be right here waiting for you.”
Tim took deep breaths for a moment. Eventually, he managed to force his hand up to his ear, and slowly, carefully, pulled the comm out.
Silence. Darkness. Satin.
“No, Jason there’s- there isn’t any sound. I may not even be six feet, I could be more, I could be under hundreds of feet of dirt and I would have no way of knowing, you guys would have no way of knowing-”
Tim stopped talking as Dick shushed him, but he couldn’t stop the sobs passing his lips, nor his hyperventilation. “It’s okay, Tim, you have to breathe with me, okay? In, out, in, out. Hearing nothing is still a clue. We’re going to find you.”
“What about your boyfriend? He’ll come at a moment’s notice for you,” Jason offered.
Tim’s face flushed, despite the fact he was alone. So very, very, alone. “Kon’s not my boyfriend. And he’s off-world. Nothing he can do.”
“I am confused,” Damian cut in. “If the clone is not your boyfriend, how were you sure that Todd was referring to him?”
“Let’s not use my last moments arguing about my love life- or lack thereof, okay?”
Bruce grunted. “Copy. Superman is off-world with Superboy. Oracle, any updates?”
“None, Batman. Working as fast as I can.” Bruce grunted again in response. Tim could hear Barbara’s fingers flying over her keyboard, trying to find where Tim had gone hours prior.
“Time check?” Tim asked. “I’m still wearing my watch from the gala, but… y’know. No light down here.”
“3:26 a.m. We’re coming Tim,” Cassandra’s soft voice sounded out. He smiled. One hour left, but at least he would get to hear all of his family’s voices one last time.
“Stop talking, Red Robin,” Batman ordered. “Conserve oxygen.” Tim didn’t think that required a response.
Some time later, there was a gasp from Oracle. “I got the footage. It was covered, hidden, but… Jason, you might wanna sit down.”
That didn’t seem like a particularly good sign. Tim fiddled with the satin next to his hand, rubbing it between his thumb and pointer finger.
“You’re fucking kidding,” Jason growled. Tim flinched. It wasn’t aimed at him, he wasn't in the Tower (far from it, in fact), and Jason was actively trying to help Tim. But… old habits. “Don’t say it was the fucking Joker.”
Barbara didn’t correct him. “They walked into the darkness behind Wayne Manor. I’m-”
“Keep looking for them in any footage you can get your hands on,” Batman interrupted. “Does anyone have any ideas on where the Joker would have taken Red Robin?”
The comms were silent as every member of Tim’s family thought. He was trying to remember, but his head was still pounding and he was starting to get light headed. “Time?” He asked quietly.
“4:09.” Damian answered solemnly.
Tim swallowed. “I love you guys,” he said softly. “If I don’t li- make it, I want you to know. I love you all so, so much. And… I forgive you, Jason. For trying to kill me. I know it was the Pit Rage. And I forgive you for trying to kill me too, Damian. You were just a kid,” Tim smiled through a sniffle. “Hell, you’re still just a kid. Promise me you’re going to remember that.”
“Stop this absurd behaviour, Timothy!” Damian ordered. “We are not yet out of time!”
“Just dig yourself out, Timmy,” Stephanie chimed in. “Jason did it, how hard could it even be?”
He laughed despite himself. “That’s what I said, too.” Dick was sobbing into the line, and he was sure he heard some sniffles from Bruce- his dad , as well.
“You said you couldn’t hear anything?” Jason asked.
“Nothing.”
“I didn’t hear anything when I woke up, either.”
Silence.
“ETA ten minutes out,” Bruce said.
“Twelve.”
“Eight.”
“Five.”
“Seven.”
“Two,” Jason said, panting. “Less- less than, maybe. It’s 4:11. We have time, Tim. We’re coming.”
“You don’t have to come, Jason. I can wait five minutes for Damian to get here. You don’t have to see… it,” Tim reassured sleepily.
“Shut it, kid.”
Tim yawned. “Yeah, maybe I should.”
Jason’s breathing hitched. “Don’t- stop it, Tim. Don’t fall asleep on us. I’m almost there.” Tim didn’t have the energy to respond. He rubbed the satin between his fingers silently. “I… you still have your belt on, right?” He didn’t answer. “You must. You have to tell me if you’re going to fall asleep, okay? If you’re going to fall asleep, I’m going to make you break yourself out with your belt like I did.”
“Jaybird…” Dick said, wrecked.
“Red Robin, report,” Bruce growled.
“Copy. Belt is off.”
“Thirty seconds out,” Jason updated. “I see it in the distance. Soil looks upturned and the gravestone looks… not how I left it. There’s green spray paint on it.” Tim heard himself exhale in relief, but it felt like someone else had done it. “There’s a shovel nearby. Grabbing it.”
Dick sobbed. “What does the spray paint say, Jason?” He didn’t respond. “Jason!”
Jason was panting from physical exertion. “The-” dig - “my name is written over.” dig. “It doesn’t say Tim Drake.”
Damian clearly had enough. “Enough, Todd! What does it say!”
“The replacement.”
Tim couldn’t breathe. He could hear his family shouting on the comms, and faintly, very faintly, the sound of dirt moving. He hoped he was hearing that by himself, and not just through Jason.
Thud .
“I’ve got him! I’ve gotten to the-” Jason gulped- “coffin.” Box , Tim thought. It’s just a box. I’m not dead in here. Or maybe I am… he giggled.
“Tim? You hear me? I’m coming, Baby Bird!”
“Schrödinger's cat,” he mumbled.
The lid to his box opened and a red face stared down at him. Not a helmet. Just Jason, face red from exertion. Dirt showered Tim and he sat up, spluttering and coughing. “Not Schrödinger's cat, kid. I opened the box. You’re alive.”