Chapter 1: Introduction
Notes:
Edit: please don't request/ask about songs I want it to be a surprise what's used
Hi! I’ve made a playlist with all the songs that have already been used (and will date it as the chapters comes out) on both YouTube and Spotify for those that want it:
https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLHSTESD1PfprR6RuIOFgT2g-uRUAGz01R&si=jgxl9WCD-aPYkmuW
https://open.spotify.com/playlist/0WRYcCfdSYJe70jo6qtvoj?si=9DesZkkiRqmI0sI7KLRE0w
Podfic: https://youtu.be/gudYFQxjndM?si=aBNblMmt4tlZkGat
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Tim Drake was someone that knew a lot of people, both in his civilian identity and when wearing his mask. He was someone that knew a lot of people, but not someone that people truly knew. Sure, there were people in his life that knew bits and pieces of himself, but no one knew everything and very few knew the same things if he could help it.
He was a puzzle that only himself held the answer key to.
It was something that everyone within the family knew well from the first time that they saw the boy show back up in Gotham wearing a new costume altogether, an assassin at his side, with Ra’s al Ghul of all people on his tail, hunting him for some wrongdoing that they never did get to know.
That didn’t mean that it wasn’t frustrating watching the boy change with time, from the small child that they had all first met to the teen with such a cold gaze that sometimes it made Bruce stop in his step upon seeing it the very few times that the boy had stepped foot in the Cave since he had returned from being lost within the timestream.
It didn’t mean that sometimes they weren’t shocked with the lengths that the teen was willing to go to.
It was one of the rare times that the bats found themselves outside of Gotham and fighting alongside other heroes, when they were reminded of this fact. They were in Metropolis of all places, having been called in to help as an unknown alien species had sent down fleets of robot soldiers to fight and conquer for them instead of their own soldiers. They weren’t the only family there of course. The supers, as expected, were flying through the sky, the archers of Star City placed atop the rooftops of the tallest buildings in the city to snipe any threats that they could long before they met the ground forces. The speedsters were zipping about, covering blind spots where needed, and the Amazonians were fighting alongside the bats. The only true deviations in this sort of formation were the core four that had formed the former group known as Young Justice.
Superboy was on the ground, Red Robin close to him as the teen ran at the taller boy, bo staff in hand. There were five robots coming straight for the pair, enough that Red Hood, when spotting this, had his gun raised to cover for the second youngest in their family should he need it. And truly, he had thought that Tim was going to, but instead he watched as the teen launched himself off of the super’s already prepared hands, up into the air. Within a moment there was already a bot crumbling down to the ground, its head having been severed from its artificial shoulders with a speed that the man hadn’t known the younger truly capable of.
Tim launched himself off of the bot that he had just destroyed, taking out the one next to it, as streams of red took out a third, and two blurs took out the last two, Wonder Girl grabbing the falling boy as he came back down to the ground. The team was already in a huddle, their backs all pressed to each other’s long before the highest of what had been the five bots fell to the ground.
The way that they all worked together reminded Jason of the ways in which he worked with the Outlaws, each covering one another’s backs because no one else was going to do it. They were family to one another after all, he’d had no one else to stand by his side and take him as he was and then there had been Roy and Kori, neither caring of the blood on his hands or their own. They had become his family because he knew that the bats wouldn’t want him truly for who he was now, he thought that the same could be said for the four before him, though he had no idea why Bat’s perfect little soldier needed such a second family at all.
That wasn’t all though.
Jason had never seen the younger teen use such lethal tactics before, Bruce had always frowned upon them with his whole damned no kill rule, but he couldn’t help but think that they suited him much better than the way that the other teen usually fought. It was as if they came to him much easier than any style of fighting that most of the vigilantes within Gotham typically used.
(It reminded him a bit of the way that Cass moved, the few times that she was in town, lethal acts coming to the girl much easier than the non-lethal no matter how much she hated that simple fact)
Hood didn’t give the scene too much more thought, couldn’t as another bot came for him and stole his attention once more.
He hadn’t been the only one to see the display though, the other bats and birds had as well. The reactions to it were mixed among the group, but something that they all knew was that the boy had never worked so easily (or comfortably) with any of them before.
It was because of this display that they were watching when Red Robin dove away from the other three at his side, Impulse and Superboy moving instinctively to turn their formation into a triangle, as Red Robin sprung to his feet with the gun of a fallen bot in his hands and already aimed at the sky and shooting down another swarm as it came for the four. There was a hard set to his mouth as he fired it up at the sky with an aim that none of the rest of the family knew that he had, shooting each of the incoming bots in their false heads as they flew down. They were the last of the bots that had been sent, and the four took them down with ease as the other three covered what Red Robin’s quick and lethal shots could not.
When he finally lowered the gun, Superboy was quick to be at his side taking the weapon from the other teen’s too limp hands in the manner in which one might steal the trigger for live bomb away from someone that had just agreed not to set it off. The way that the clone passed it off to the speedster, and Impulse ran away with it in a blur only seemed to heighten this particular visual.
Anyone with eyes could see that the three were trying to comfort the former Robin, though from what no one in the batfamily truly knew.
“It’s fine, Rob,” Superboy said, speaking a bit louder than he seemed to think that he was. “It was necessary.”
“That’s what he said, Kon,” Tim replied (cause he was Tim then, shoulders hunched as if to make himself small), his voice filled with some sort of anger and disgust that none of them understood… none but the other three around the boy.
“You’re not him, Red,” Impulse said, his hand settling in the teen’s left hand as Wonder Girl’s was tangled with the boy’s right, and the clone held the former Robin’s face. It was a display of affection that none of the bats thought that the teen would still tolerate these days. Yet here he was.
“I’m more like him than you think,” Tim admitted in the way that one might confess their sins just before being executed.
The wounded noise that the demigod made almost seemed to agree.
“Come on, Rob, let’s go back to the Tower, yeah?” Kon asked, his voice impossibly soft.
It was only then that the four seemed to notice that the bats had been unintentionally moving closer since the start of their little display of affection. Everyone of the bats saw the way that the group’s walls went straight up, Superboy spinning to meet the bats that had settled behind them. It was only Tim though that spun away from the direction that all of his friends were now facing, as if sensing something else altogether.
“Everybody get down!” the teen screamed, but it was much too late as a flash of light encased them all.
—
When the world became clear again, the core four members of Young Justice and the batfamily found themselves in a room that only five of them recognized, only four of them having ever stepped foot inside of it.
“The Nest?” Tim asked as he and everyone else glanced around the room, “but we were just in Metropolis. This should be out of the realm of teleportation for any one meta. Though even if its not, why would they…” the teen trailed off, his thoughts becoming silent as Kon, Bart, and Cassie spread out around the room, turning things up and peeking in cabinets. As far as they could tell everything was the same as it ever was.
“Where are we? What is the Nest, Drake?” Damian asked, his voice a bit unsteady since he didn’t have adequate information for his taste, and yet the weakest Robin knew more than he did. No one mentioned the fact that the child had his sword drawn, as if in comfort.
“My home in Gotham,” Tim answered almost distractedly before turning sharply on his heel and heading towards what the bats could only assume was the front door. They watched as he opened it, only to reveal darkness beyond it instead of the hallway that should have been there. “Just as I thought.”
“Answers already, Boy Wonder?” Kon asked fondly, appearing at the boy’s side, pressing in close to the thoroughly touch - starved teen.
“Of course,” the former Robin said, something in his frame loosening at the other boy’s touch.
Tim turned back to the rest of the bats, and found them all looking at him, their gazes heavy as if there were so many things that they - a family of detectives - wanted to ask, but knew that now wasn’t the time. There were a rare few times that any of them had tact, it seemed that this was one of them.
“Tim?” Batman asked, cause he was Batman then even with the cowl pulled down, his voice cold even with only one word spoken.
“We’re not actually in my apartment,” the boy answers, almost dismissively. It was a tone that the boy had been taking with the Bat a lot more recently, their relationship a lot more frosty than it had been in the past. “But in a magically created realm that merely looks like it, likely my mind or something of the like if I were to guess since it resembles my home and not somewhere like the Cave, Tower, or Manor which would appeal to more people.”
Bruce felt his expression shift minutely as his son referred to his apartment as his home for the second time in as many minutes instead of the manor, but there were priorities to be met.
“Why your mind, Drake?” Damian asked, his voice a bit colder now.
“I don’t want you here either, Demon Brat,” the teen said back, the chill in his voice neatly matching the younger’s.
“He does bring up a good point though, Tim,” Dick started, ignoring the hurt that came when he said those placating words and the teen only became even more closed off than he was before, “why your mind out of all of ours?”
The silence that Tim gave was telling, showing to everyone in the room that he already knew the answer, but just didn’t want to tell it.
“You think it's Moriarty, don’t you?” Cassie asked, her voice more worried than annoyed, though that was there too.
“Him again?” Bart asked with all of the annoyance that the demigod lacked, flopping down on the couch with a whine. “I hate it when you have to deal with that man.”
“Don’t we all,” Kon muttered darkly as he led their leader over to the couch, holding the boy’s wrist comfortingly as he could as they walked together.
Cassie joined the three boys, making it a tight fit but not one that any of them minded, each presence comforting.
“Moriarty? Like the Sherlock Holmes villain?” Jason asked as he followed the younger teen’s lead and sat down on the couch across from them all, Dick joining him as the demon took the eldest brother’s other side and Duke took Jason’s open side.
Bruce, Cass, and Steph followed the eight’s lead as well, and took the three chairs that sat at the end of the two couches, like a bridge between them. It was definitely more furniture than Tim truly had in real life, but if this were a construct being created to mirror his home then it made sense that there would be extra furniture to accommodate the extra people within his home that would never have actually stepped foot in it otherwise.
“Codename,” was the short answer that Tim gave before turning back to his friends. “It makes sense, don’t you think? You know that he was unhappy with the events of his Reichenbach Fall a little while ago.”
“A proper Reichenbach Fall would have had him falling too,” Kon said unhappily that this hadn’t occurred, the teen sitting back on the couch with his arms crossed, even though his side remained firmly pressed into the non-meta’s.
Bruce couldn’t help but be concerned at the implications that the teen’s were speaking about before him. He may not have Jason’s love of the classics, but he did know about that particular Sherlock story where the detective and the villain of the story fell from a great height and were both thought dead after. Only Moriarty truly dies during that altercation, but it was worrisome that Tim had been in a situation mirroring it all, more worrisome still that Superboy had wanted another to join his son.
“You think that would have killed him?” Bart asked, having not been there himself then, but sounding too hopeful for a good deal of the bats’ taste.
“One can only dream,” Cassie muttered darkly, though not quietly.
The bats, for the most part, looked at the four teens with surprise in their eyes at the conversation that had just occurred, before Jason let out a low whistle.
“Damn, Pretender,” the man says with what could almost be appreciation at the scene before him, “I didn’t know that the next generation was so bloodthirsty.”
“Some people deserve it,” Tim defends, his voice strong. He had thought that of Ra’s long before Paris, and the sentiment had only grown since then.
“Tim,” Batman says, a warning in his voice.
“Don’t worry, B, I remember the lecture,” Tim harshly, not even looking at the man.
Jason couldn’t help but raise a brow at it all. He glanced at Dick for answers, but the older brother didn’t seem to hold them either.
“Ra’s al Ghul,” Cass said, her soft voice filtering through the room and bringing attention to the quiet girl.
“Grandfather?” Damian asked, fear slipping into his voice at his mention. Dick shifted to comfort the former assassin.
“That old man is Moriarty in this analogy?” Steph asked, having followed the prompt from the other girl.
“You got involved with Ra’s al Ghul enough to have a codename for the Demon’s Head?” Bruce asked, a bit of horror slipping into his tone.
“It's not like I’m the first one here to do so,” Tim says, defending himself quickly and reminding the man of his own involvement with the head of the League of Assassins.
“When?” Bruce asked quickly, concern leaking into his tone more than most of his children had ever heard before.
“We can get to that later.”
All of the vigilantes in the room stilled as the disembodied voice filled the room, with no source behind it as far as they knew. Tim was the quickest of them to recover, slumping down on the couch a bit with the low groan of annoyance.
“Fucking telepaths,” the boy complained.
“Correct as usual, Red Robin ,” the voice continued, “ Master had said that you would be the first to piece it together.”
I’m bombing more of his bases when I get out of here, the teen thought, already picking out the locations and just how much supplies he would need, and how best to split the work between himself and Pru. Might just go ahead and hit them all depending on how this goes.
“So it truly is the old bag of bones then?” Kon asked, not having doubted his Robin, but having hoped that for once the teen had been wrong.
“Know anyone else that goes by master, Superboy?” Steph asked, having already resigned herself to a very unpleasant evening from the set of Tim’s shoulders alone.
“ The task that Master is giving you is simple enough ,” the voice continues over them all. “ You’ll watch fifteen videos, all of which showing events from Timothy Jackson Drake’s life in the form of songs, and then you will be free to go .”
“Song?” Jason asked, with a false mirth in the man’s voice that was clearly attempting to lighten the mood within the room, “you a secret theater kid, Red?”
“If anyone here is a theater kid then its you, Mr. Tear-away Suit,” the teen snipes back, a bit harsher than needed.
Bart snorts at Kon’s side.
“ We’ll begin now. ”
Notes:
Edit: please don't request/ask about songs I want it to be a surprise what's used
Chapter 2: Legendary
Summary:
How Tim decided that he would be the next Robin
Notes:
Legendary, from EPIC The Musical: Wisdom Saga by Jorge Rivera-Herrans
----
So, from the title alone you've probably noticed that I'm not exactly going in order of the songs, and from the chapter numbers you van see that I'm not going to use all of them either. I hope everyone is okay with that and can understand the vision that I'm going with here after reading this chapter, because Tim does kind of start off as a more Telemachus characters and then turns into Ody later on, so that's what we're going for here)Edit: please don't request/ask about songs I want it to be a surprise what's used
Podfic: https://youtu.be/EZrZojdwxU0?si=TMHnT3Svc3NKD-RX
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
The group watches with trepidation as in the space between where they have all been sitting in a loose U shape, a misty sort of creation forms, music pouring from it. The sounds were almost kind in nature, upbeat and strong in a manner that didn’t seem to suit the boy who the video was supposed to be about. At least not anymore.
Bruce didn’t know what to think as he heard it. If he were to give each of his children a sound he thought that this one might have been more fitting for Duke, not the child that he has always known Tim to be. But he supposed that they were here because they knew so of the boy that Ra’s al Ghul of all people was attempting to change that for the worse.
As the music began, the mist gave way to show the small shape of a boy who could be little older than thirteen at the time. Dick wanted to coo at the sight of his little brother, having forgotten then just how small and cute the boy had been. He had forgotten a lot of things from that time.
“You were so small then,” Kon said, his voice a whisper. Tim couldn’t help but agree.
And even though he was quiet as he spoke, only truly intending for Tim alone to hear, the music cut off abruptly at the sound of his voice.
“Huh,” Jason said, the noise filtering through the room and keeping the music essentially paused. With a room full of detectives it was easy to see that this was what it was doing.
“I guess this makes it easier to ask any questions if needed,” Duke said, a wobbly sort of smile sitting on his lips. He and Tim weren’t exactly close, none of the bats were truly close with the boy other than Cass when she was actually home, so he felt hesitant to say anything in this case. But all Tim did was nod at that and Duke let out a small breath as the music picked back up once more.
“It's just me, myself and I
In the mist they could see the younger version of Tim, as he walked through the halls of some place that none of them truly recognized the inside of, but could guess that it was his childhood home. Though the building looked so impersonalized compared to the manor, no pictures or paintings adorning the walls the way that Damian’s art and family photos did in the manor. All that was there were expensive looking knick knacks that the boy looked as if he knew better than to touch, even as his hand trailed along the wall as the boy walked into the living room. There were glances shared among the bats at this, but they knew better than to say anything just then and their assumptions be wrong.
The Titans had no problem though in holding the former Robin a bit tighter after noticing his frame going even more tense. They were his family after all, one way or another, and they knew what this was showing even if they didn’t know the exact story that was going to be told through the song.
“Stuck in my manor , living in this world you left behind”
They all watched as Tim walked into the kitchen, a paper sitting on the counter of it with a familiar face on the front cover that had the second Robin drawing in a breath.
“Me?” the man asked, the music stopping with him, but all he got for an answer was a shrug from the third Robin.
“Dreaming of all these monsters that I'll never get to fight”
In the air around the young Tim, they could see scenes of the Gotham rogues gallery, each of them up to their usual schemes and wrong doings.
“But boy, I wish I could, so, I could bring the world some light”
A figure swooped in at the villains, dressed in the familiar colors. Those that were paying attention could tell that most of them were of Jason when he was Robin, though a few were of Dick as well. In every image the rogue was defeated with ease. It brought a smile to Dick’s face to see himself in his little brother’s memory, and made something pensive stir within Jason’s chest at the implications of it all. At the fond light that Tim had seemed to hold him in then.
Bruce suppressed the wounded noise that threatened to rise up within him at seeing Jason as Robin once more. At seeing him back before there was blood on his son’s hands.
“'Cause I'm stuck with your stories but no clue who you are”
The scene goes back to the paper, though they can read it this time. They can see that it’s talking about the time when Jason had not been seen by the public eye for some time and reporters were spitting out theory after theory of where the newest Wayne ward had gone.
It was during Jason’s time in Ethiopia.
“And no idea if you're dead or just too far”
It shifts again, and this time the paper is talking about the announced death of Jason Todd.
Dick looks over at his father and immediately sees the broken expression in the other’s eyes. Sees the way that Cass is holding his hand with a tight grip as if to keep the man grounded.
“Somebody tell me, come and give me a sign
If I fight those monsters, is it you I'll find?”
Young Tim runs his hand over the image of young Jason for a moment, tracing out the letter R in a purposeful manner even though the teen was not shown in suit. It reminded everyone then that the boy had known for years just who all the bats at the time had been. A feat that seemed all the more impressive now that they saw just how young he looked.
“If so then
“Give me Sirens and a Cyclops
“Give me Giants and a Hydra
“I know life and fate are scary but I wanna be legendary”
They watch as young Tim walks through the kitchen a bit more, taking a broom into his hands in the manner in which the older version of him would hold his bo staff, twirling it around with unsteady and simple twists, even as he spun with all the grace of someone forced to attend fancy galas since he could walk and know all the rules.
“I'll fight the harpies and chimeras, the Minotaur, even Cerberus
“I know life and fate are scary, but I wanna be l-l-l-legendary”
“Well you got to be,” Jason said, a bit of venom leaking into the man’s voice as he spoke as the music came to a stop, “Pretender. Name seems a bit more fitting now.”
“Jay,” Dick says hesitantly, as if to attempt to stop a fight from breaking out, but its unneeded.
“Just continue to watch, Hood,” Tim said, that chill in his voice making itself even more pronounced than ever before. It was close to the same tone that the boy had taken with him in the Tower. It was the same tone that he had taken with Damian when the boy said or did something to purposely upset the older boy, and he had taken with Dick when the pair had fought while Dick was playing the role of Batman. It spoke of a lack of any sort of feeling other than extremely controlled anger. “Maybe you’ll even learn something.”
None of the bats said a word as Kon held the boy’s hand a bit tighter on one side, Cassie doing the same on the other.
“There are strangers in our halls
“Trying to win the heart of my city , but she is standing tall”
The rogues appear once more, their goons at their sides as young Tim seems to be walking below them, looking up at them as if they were constellations in the sky.
“108 old faces of men who call me small
“They keep taking space and it's not much longer we can stall”
It shows the rogues spreading out in their territories in ways that they hadn’t in some time.
“'Cause they're getting impatient”
Two-Face is running at a slightly younger seeming version of Batman, charging at the man with a speed that most usually used to run away from the Dark Knight.
“Dangerous too”
This time it isn’t a rogue that the image focuses on, but Batman himself as he beats some minor criminal half to death
“B, what the hell?” Step asks. She remembered this time vaguely, but not enough to have formed the picture that the mist was showing them. Back then she had only been focused on her own goals, on her father as he was slipping more and more into the man that she hated to see today. The man that she had become a vigilante to fight.
Bruce didn’t say anything, he didn’t have anything to say that could have justified the actions of back then other than the fact that he had been grieving.
“Jason was dead,” Tim supplies bluntly, his voice devoid of the emotion that the younger version of him seemed to have in spades. Everyone ignored the manner in which the man in question flinched minutely at the reminder.. “You were dead,” he repeats the point once more, though looking right at Jason this time, “and B was trying to put everyone and himself in the ground with you.”
The young man’s eyes went wide at this information as he turned to his father. “Old man?”
“I’m not proud of the things that I did back then,” is all that Bruce has to say.
Jason hates to admit it, but looking down at the small-time thug, he was almost glad that Tim had come along when he had, because it was clear to him even without the teen’s explanation that the Bat had gotten out of control back then.
“Where was Dick during all of this?” Duke asked hesitantly as he looked between his brothers and adoptive father, seeing sides of most of them that he had never thought that he would.
“I’m sure you’ll see in a moment,” is all Tim has to say, though a few in the room already know the answer.
“And I would fight them if I was half as strong as you”
Jason appears in the mist version, stopping at Batman’s side. The image itself becomes so much lighter just with that alone that no one had noticed before just how dark it had become.
“Somebody help me,”
Dick appears on the screen with Tim, the pair at some sort of circus. It looked as if the younger of the two of them was pleading for the elder to come back.
“Richard?” Damian asks, looking at the image.
The man in question gives a sort of self deprecating laugh. “Tim had tried to make me come back to being Robin first when B started to get really bad,” the man admits, surprising Jason once again with the information that he had not known before. “I obviously didn’t do it. I was too angry with him at the time to care about the repercussions of that choice.”
“But…” the boy started, trailing off as he looked up at the man that had been his Batman first before looking at the teen that he had always dismissed. Damian had known this story, to some extent, having learned it from his mother before coming to Gotham. It was strange though to hear it with all the facts laid out before him. It began to erode at the image that he had created for himself back then.
“come and give me the strength”
Tim was looking at the memorial that Alfred had created for Jason, looking at it as if it could do just that, give him strength.
“Can I do whatever it takes to keep my city safe?”
He’s holding the suit now in his hands, a familiar glint in his eyes that spoke of Tim about to do something dangerous. His friends knew it well and were already tense with what was about to likely occur.
“If so then
“Give me Sirens and a Cyclops
“Give me Giants and a Hydra
“I know life and fate are scary but I wanna be legendary”
Young Tim swings through the city, onto the scene where both Batman and Nightwing are being beaten within an inch of their lives by Two-Face. He landed before them with a smile on his face that was more genuine than they had seen in years.
“I'll fight the harpies and chimeras, the Minotaur, even Cerberus
“I know life and fate are scary, but I wanna be legendary!”
The scene shifts and now young Tim is looking down at a beaten Two-Face, Nightwing at his side with what was likely supposed to be a comforting hand on the teen’s shoulders, as Batman peered at the pair with something in his eyes that no one watching truly liked.
“Where is he? Where is the boy who you’ll fight beside ?
“Oh-whoa-oh
“Where is he? Where is the boy with whom fights at your side ?
“'Cause it's been many months (so many months)
“And we still have no peace”
The city seems to sing then in that moment, his sorrows filling the air at the loss of the Robin that it had loved, at the monster that its protector had become since that loss.
“Give me a chance, a single opportunity
“And I'll overcome these obstacles and scrutiny and-”
The scene changes from then, a small bit of time has passed and yet it seems that the pair still are not Batman and Robin, Tim still not officially having been given the mantle.
“Boy”
The voice is harsh in the room and takes most of the people within it a moment to realize that the word had come from the mist version of Bruce’s mouth. None of them failed to notice though the way in which both the young version of Tim and the one sitting before them straighten at the word, as if knowing better than not to.
“When are you going to learn your lesson?
“(Oh-oh)
“Robins are too weak to fight alongside me
“Don't you dare call me (him) weak!”
“(Oh-whoa-oh)
“I just did
“What'chu gonna do about it, champ?”
Those in the room watched as the pair argued. Watched as Bruce was harsher with the boy than he had been with the rest of them. Looking at Tim as if he were some sort of curse that Bruce just couldn’t seem to shake.
“What the actual fuck B?” Jason asks this time, looking at the bowed head of his father to the shame filled look in his older brother’s eyes. Jason had killed people in Crime Alley for looking at a child with less malice than his father in the image was right then.
Neither answered, but the music remained silent as a laugh filled the air, bitter and haunting.
“I told you, Hood,” Tim says, something wild in the teen’s eyes at having the events of back then laid out for all to see. “I’ve told you that I wasn’t taking your place.”
And Jason, Jason was beginning to see that now, because back when he was Robin Batman would never have treated him like that. The only time he had come close was when B had thought that he had killed that pimp, and even then it wasn’t like this .
“Somebody tell me, come and give a sign”
The scene shifts once more and this time it shows a graveyard, with a small figure standing before a small gravestone.
“If I fight this monster, is it you I'll find?”
Mist Tim reaches out to the stone, tracing his fingers over the name there: Jason Todd
“Oh,” Jason says, his voice hoarse as he looked between the two versions of his little brother, each carrying too much weight on his shoulders. The Tim that he knew now had never looked at him with adoration that the young Tim had looked at his gravestone with. If he ever had while Jason was alive, then it was long gone now.
The teen in question only shrugs.
“Tim-” he starts, saying the boy’s name.
“Save it,” Tim interjects, his tone harsh, always harsh these days since bringing Bruce back, as if he had left parts of himself in the places that he had gone when looking to find the man. “I don’t need your guilt, Hood.”
Damian looked at the boy that he had always thought had stolen his spot, and for a moment he wondered if Drake hadn’t stepped in back then if there would have been a spot at all for him to hold now. A father at all. He kept his mouth closed though, having seen how that went for Todd.
Cass looked at her little brother, seeing all of the pain that he carried inside him, housed there for too long. Out of all of their siblings, they were the pair mistaken for one another the most. She had always liked that, having a brother that was almost like a twin, someone that she could look at and feel connected to. Out of all of their siblings, Tim was the one that she was closest to and she knew that the same was true for the other. She just wished that this pain wasn’t something that they had to share too.
Dick and Bruce kept their mouths shut as well, knowing that their words would be the least wanted out of anyone there.
Duke and Steph only looked at one another, feeling a sense of wrongness at the sights that they had been shown. Robin was supposed to be magic, not whatever that was. Though Step was a bit less caught off guard by it than she liked. Tim hadn’t been the only one to be Robin while Bruce was still grieving after all, and she held the record for the current shortest tenure.
Kon, Bart, and Cassie didn’t say anything either, only holding their bird a bit tighter. The three of them had known for some time that everything wasn’t right between Tim and the bats. All four of them were the unwanted sidekicks of their members after all, so this was par for the course for them. That didn’t mean that they liked having to watch their Robin go through it though.
“A new video will begin in a moment”
Notes:
Comments make me really happy even if I don't always respond to them
Edit: please don't request/ask about songs I want it to be a surprise what's used
Chapter 3: We'll Be Fine
Summary:
Tim starts his training... too bad not many people knew that this was with Lady Shiva of all people and not Rahul Lama like he was supposed to have been.
Notes:
We'll Be Fine by Jorge Rivera-Herrans from EPIC the Musical: The Wisdom Saga
---
There is going to be some time jumping here, going from when Tim starts his training with Shiva, to some other encounters that he has with her later on, but we'll probably jump back a little bit in the next chapter.
Also, I've seen some fics and tumblr post saying that Tim and Cass get mistaken for each other a lot and really liked the concept, so its in this chapter, along with Duke's powers being slightly wrong (?) [Expanded?, idk] where I was toying with the fact that he can see light and all that and the bats having an affinity for seemingly becoming one with shadows, so maybe shadows seem to cling to them a bit more the more they own that skillEdit: please don't request/ask about songs I want it to be a surprise what's used
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
The music starts off heavy this time, imposing and almost foreboding in nature as an image starts to form once more in the mist, a room with weapons lining the walls. It was a room that Tim had not seen in a good number of years, one that had defined his fighting style to this day. Glancing up at Bruce, Tim wonders if the older vigilante too had been in that room before, after all they had both trained under the same master. Something that the boy thought was about to become a very well known fact.
“Tell me, Lady Shiva , why you came to my aid?”
The room went silent for a moment, the music stopping altogether in the wake of the words that the mist version of Tim had just sung as he walked into view within the room. It was as if the music itself knew that this was a moment needed for silence before all hell broke out.
“Whe- when were you trained by Lady Shiva, Timmy?” Dick asks, sounding a lot older than he did a moment before, a lot more strained too.
Tim lets his brows pinch in perceived confusion, his head tilting to the side like the birds that most of them have held the name of. “When I was in Paris the first time around,” he says, his voice soft like a small child that doesn’t know why they’re being scolded for doing something that they had thought was allowed, or in this case like a vigilante being called out for something that they had thought common knowledge a long time ago.
It wasn’t of course, Tim knew that well enough, but manipulating them into thinking that they had all simply forgotten about this fact would be so much easier than having to explain it all.
“I thought that everyone knew this,” Tim continues, ignoring the way that his team was likely fighting for control at seeing him lie to the bats right in front of them.
Tim watched as Jason and Damian looked to one another, as if asking the other if this was something that they had been made informed upon when being taught about the third Robin, each of them coming up short.
Dick’s own expression was something painful, as it almost always was when the topic of being trained by assassins came up with his own history with the Court of Owls being what it was. He likely didn’t like having the knowledge that another one of his siblings was trained by one, or maybe he didn’t like not having known sooner.
Bruce’s reaction was one of two that he was waiting for, the reasons similar but different enough that he could distinguish the anxiety there.
“Shiva,” the man says the name like a full sentence, for the bats it was.
“She saw me fight and offered to teach me,” Tim explains, saying the words as if this were a conversation that they’d already had before.
“To kill?” Bruce asks, thinking about the events that had almost unfolded not too long ago.
“How to use a bo staff,” Tim says, irritably. This was the sort of conversation that he had been hoping to avoid by acting as if this were a fact that everyone was already supposed to know. “I told you that she was the one who had taught me.”
“Liar.”
“Damnit Cass,” Tim curses as he looks at his sister, finding something complicated in her gaze that drains out any of the anger that was there. “I’m not sorry for having trained with her.”
I’m not sorry for a lot of the things that are going to be shown here.
“I know,” she says, because she would have known had Tim never said the words aloud. “Not mad.”
Tim wouldn’t have even denied it if asked, the way that he relaxed upon those words. That small assurance.
“So you lied to me?” Bruce asks as he looks at his son, at the boy that had been so bright in all the images that they had seen and yet lacked all of that now. Had lacked it for some time now.
Tim sighs, low and heavy. “Only about you already having known,” the teen vigilante admits. “She really did only teach me how to use a bo staff back then. Was even disappointed with my choice because of just how non-lethal it was.”
Bruce only hums.
“Look, B,” the boy starts, his voice taking on that edge again that it had taken with Hood when the man had attempted to apologize, “I’m the Robin that hides things and lies to you successfully, if you’re going to get pissed every time that you are shown something that you don’t like during this then we’re likely going to be here for a long time.”
“That many things, Timmy?” Jason asks, catching a good deal of the room off guard, though none of them showed it other than the non-bats. Something that the other three were envious of just as much as they hated it when it was Tim using that particular trait on them.
“Look, Jason,” Tim says slowly, with no lack of suspicion at the small turn in treatment from the other bat, “I’ve done, and might do, some things that will make you look like a little kid playing in a sandbox compared to me.” If those words themselves hadn’t sent a shiver down most spines in the room, then the dark look in the teen’s eyes did. “So, let’s just watch, alright?”
Many wanted to press, but they knew that answers were coming anyway and stayed quiet, looking back at the mist as Lady Shiva walked into frame wearing casual clothing that so few ever thought that they would see the woman in.
“I knew someone before, and
“She was a lot like you”
The woman sang as she walked further into frame, walking closer to the mist version of a young Tim, the boy that was still wearing the original Robin colors back then because he hadn’t faced the same pain that the one within the conjured room with them now had.
Those in the room watched as she laid her hand on the mist Tim’s shoulder, light and almost parental in nature as she guided him further into the room along with her, approaching the weapons that were lined on the wall.
Cass watched it all carefully, her breath hitching at her mother’s words. A glance at the Tim that she knew now was all that the bat needed to know that her mother was talking about her of all people, the daughter that she had abandoned. The teen looked at her in a manner that was much softer than what he spared most bats these days, though the pair of them had always been a bit closer than either of them truly were with the others these days, long before that day in the Paris catacombs.
Bruce caught the glance between siblings and looked at them each for a moment, seeing the small and lethal stature that they each held, the short dark colored hair, and remembering the way that they each seemed to blend with the shadows. There had been plenty of times before his time within the Timestream, back when Tim still lived in the manor and Cass would find her way there as well, that he would walk into a room and have to hesitate for a moment before calling out a name of the child before him. If Dick and Jason could often be mistaken for one another with their statures at just a glance, then Tim and Cass were much the same in that regard. He could understand where his teacher had seen such a similarity.
(he didn’t like the fact that this was apparently a similarity that stretched far beyond looks, but into skills as well. Ones that he had never known his son to have even though his daughter displayed them with the pride of someone reclaiming something for their own)
“I sent her to fight through war, but
“She had her demons too
“And then we grew apart
“Then her light went silent ”
The pair walk up the weapons lined on the wall, hands trailing across each of them. Everyone within the room already knew what the boy in the mist would choose, the weapon was the same as the one that he had used back in the fight and almost everyone before then. And yet watching, they could see that there had been so many other options that he could have gone with, each their own form of lethal. Fingers trailed over throwing blades with the careful precision of someone that would one day come to learn how to use them during his own journey, gliding over guns as if some spirit were whispering in his ear to take one. Yet it was a staff that he had chosen, the least lethal out of them all.
“Why a bo staff?” Steph asked, looking into the mist, at the way that the boy within it held the weapon as if it belonged in his hands, even as the assassin seemed to be attempting to take it from him, as if to encourage him to pick anything else.
Tim shrugged, the reasoning that he had given then still clear in his mind now. “I didn’t want anything lethal,” he explains. He doesn’t say that even by that point Bruce had already seemed to have decided that the pair of them were much too alike for his own good, and thus his no kill rule weighed heavier on them each before, especially after the man himself had almost broken it before. That dancing with the one line that Batman refused to cross was the reason that Tim was here at all.
He wondered how many within the room could read between the lines and see such reasoning anyways.
“And so, I thought
Maybe, if I made a different call”
The mist version of Lady Shiva seemed to have given into younger Tim’s stubbornness, almost seeming to find it endearing, if not at least impressive for the boy to have with someone of the likes of her.
“Maybe, if I hadn't missed it all
“Maybe, She’d be fine”
Lady Shiva seemed to look a bit off to the side then, a young child just a bit taller and older than Tim appearing at the boy’s side for all but the Tim in the mist to see. A hand was wrapped around the young girl’s throat as she tried to speak but no words were coming out, a large hand tight on her shoulder that was pulling her away into darkness.
Those that had not pieced together the implications of her words before did now.
“Cain?” Damian asked, his voice harsh and disbelieving. “Lady Shiva looked at Drake and saw Cain in him?” The young boy looked between the two siblings, both in the mist and before him, as if hoping for some sort of answer to be given to him.
“I can see it,” Duke says, glancing between them as well. “Physically, both then and now, its kinda easy to mistake one for another-”
“Gee, thanks,” Tim snarks, though there wasn’t any malice in the teen’s voice. He held no grievance with the other boy after all.
“-but they also both give off a similar feeling, more so now than back then in Tim’s case,” the teen continues over the interruption.
“Feeling?” Dick asked, leaning forwards to look at the daytime vigilante, the latest addition to their ever growing family of bats and birds.
The teen shrugs, clearly uncomfortable as he looks away from his siblings and their perceptive gazes. “Like light cannot touch them, even though it tries.”
They weren’t the only ones that felt like that to the boy, Jason and Damian did as well, though each of theirs continued to recede with time as they gave less into violence and began to act more like how was expected of the bats and less like the assassins that they were. Bruce did as well, much in the same manner as Cass if Duke were to compare it to anyone. Each of them seemed to draw the darkness around them like clothing that they could shed when they wanted to be known and not sneak up on another with too silent steps.
Tim however, drowned it, and only continued to do so more and more as time went on.
(he doesn’t say that though. Nor does he mention that Lady Shiva felt much the same to him as both Tim and Cass, as if she could melt into the shadows and never be found again if she did not wish it)
Bruce looked between his children with concern and suspicion at what this could mean, but kept silent for now, knowing that Tim would only shut down should he press for answers after being told not to. If Tim did not want to talk then no one could make the boy do so.
The rest of those in the room followed the Bat’s example and kept quiet as well, though Cass didn’t miss the manner in which Kon seemed to hold her little brother a bit tighter at those words, likely knowing more than the rest of them just how the boy attained those shadows of his.
“Maybe, we'd unwind
“Maybe, if I help another soul”
Lady Shiva rested her hand on the young Tim’s shoulder once more, the touch much like Bruce’s with any of them during training.
“Maybe, if I helped you reach your goal”
She took the staff from Tim’s grasp, stepping away from the teen and twisting it in the fluid motion that everyone in the room had seen countless times before replicated flawlessly by the boy before them.
The boy in the mist had a hungry sort of look in his stance as he watched his teacher do so, an eagerness to learn that always appeared in cases and with new technology, but hardly ever else these days.
“Life could be that bright
“I could sleep at night”
She handed the staff back to the boy and adjusted the teen’s grip on it till his hands were set right, every motion patient during the groundwork of it all, though anyone that had trained with her knew that such kindness would not last long.
“Lady Shiva, I don't know who your friend is
“I don't know what she’s like, but
“My time with you has been splendid”
“ Splendid , Boyfriend Wonder?” Step asked as she looked at the older version at her friend. “Really?”
She had heard things about the legendary fighter from Cass, and though she seemed much kinder at this moment than in those stories, Step still doubted that anything to do with that woman could be good, let alone splendid.
“Gotta agree with blondie here, Red,” Jason says as he looks between the two, “anytime with Lady Shiva isn’t exactly a good one at the end of it all.”
Tim only shrugs, as he looks at the younger version of himself instead of anyone else in the room. “I had been working to bring down King Snake at the time and she had seen me fighting and offered her help,” he explains, this time holding a bit more detail than before. “...She offered me her help because she wanted to. Not because I had shown up and refused to leave, and not out of the obligation of blood either.” He looked up then and met teal colored eyes. “No one else had ever chosen me before,” he says with a bitterness tinted by wonder that picked at a wound that had scabbed over on Jason’s heart when Bruce had chosen him as a son when he had been a child. “So, yeah. Splendid.”
And god, no one other than those already sitting with Tim truly knew what to do with that information. With the idea that a killer had been the first to look at the boy and want him for him alone, that this was something that Tim had long accepted. Even Damian, who still did not much like the teen, felt some small spark of pity in his chest at that particular thought. It wasn’t like the information that he had been given at all.
Dick looked at Tim, his little brother with whom he wasn’t sure he had actually had tried to be one to by this point back then, the anger he’d had with Bruce keeping him from Gotham for such a long time. He wondered if the teen would have spoken so lightly with him as he did Lady Shiva if he had made the effort back then.
The teen in question saw the pain in the gazes and chuckled darkly. This trait of his, this weakness to anyone that wanted him , valued him … it wasn’t new. It certainly had not been when Ra’s had attempted to exploit it back then.
“The best day of my life
“'Cause I got in a fight, and I didn't die
“I've never felt strong before
“You're my friend, I couldn't ask for more”
The Tim in the mist smiled so brightly as he held the bo staff in his hands, moving with it with the grace of someone raised in high society since they were young, copying the assassin’s movements as best as he could after only having seen them the one time. It was far from perfect, but god everyone could see just how well it was done for a novice. Lady Shiva seemed to agree as well as her smile became feral with glee.
“And so, I think
“Maybe, if life wasn't spent as planned”
In the mist they watch as two figures spin around one another, the scene having changed from where it was before. It was training and it was brutal as the pair shared blows between one another as if aiming to hurt the other, something feral in each of their gazes at the idea that they could. The way that they fought was a dance with death, each of them searching to gift it to the other and confident that the other would not receive it all the same. It was dangerous, ruthless, and nothing like the way that the boy fought in Gotham with any of them.
Jason wanted to ask where this was when he had attacked the teen at Titan’s Tower, the search for blood, the willingness to draw it (because if it had been there, if he had fought like this back then, then maybe that fight would have drawn on a bit longer) but before he even got the chance to truly think of doing so, the Tim within the mist pulled out the staff that he had been learning to use.
None of them other than Tim himself knew what was strange about it this time in comparison to all of the other times that the teen within the mist must have used it before, but Lady Shiva became distracted from the first twist of it. A distraction that the Tim of the past had seemed to be banking on back then.
“...Did you just beat Lady Shiva by yourself, Tim?” Bruce asked as he looked at the present version of his son and away from the boy that fought so differently than he was used to seeing out of the teen. The surprise in his tone was blunt as could be, a shocking sort of thing for the bats that were used to having to read into it. None of them focused on that point though, not when they had just witnessed Tim beat the woman that Bruce himself never could by himself.
Tim shrugs at the question, though there was pride in his chest at his accomplishment. He knew that he had only won from a cheap trick, a theme that had developed in every fight that he had ever won with the assassin, but it was still a feat that he was pleased with. Tim wasn’t a fool though, he knew that he wasn’t the only one within the room to have done so.
“Jason and Cass have beaten her as well,” Tim says, as if to dismiss his own action. He may have a lot of pride in them, but that doesn’t mean that it wasn’t startling to have Bruce be so pleasantly astonished with him, especially these days.
(It didn’t mean that he didn’t recognize the familiar glint in the older man’s eyes as he seemed to be reevaluating Tim’s capabilities and dangerousness. The teen knew that the contingency plans that the man had for him were going to be updated within the week)
“I was dipped in the neon pits, Timmy,” Jason reminds the teen, not helping as much as he might have thought that he was, “and Cass here is… Cass.”
The only one in the room to not be truly surprised by the sight other than Tim and his friends (they had long known that the boy was capable of defeating people like the legendary assassin when given proper timing, and couldn’t help but feel a bit smug at knowing the third Robin better than anyone else within the room) was the eldest of the siblings, something that did not go unnoticed.
“Richard,” Damian starts, uncertain as he looks at his older brother (uncertain about a lot of things since these damned videos had started) “did you know about this?”
Dick chuckled in a manner that matched Tim’s a lot. “This particular time?” He asks, keying the others in the room that didn’t already know that there would be more fights between the pair, “Nah. But I can't say I’m all that surprised.”
“ This time?” Steph asks, looking at the blue clad hero before glancing at the boy that she had thought that she had known before all this (though maybe that was a lie too, she hadn’t truly thought that she had known him for a long time. Not since she came back and found him so much colder than before, and not just because she had faked her death). “There’s more?”
“Just watch,” the man says with a tiredness that showed his age, something that Dick hardly ever let slip when he was around his siblings if he could help it. The last time that he had been so drawn he had been wearing the cowl.
Steph scowled but turned back to the mist.
“Maybe, it's time that you lend a hand
“I don't think she’ll mind
“If not her friend, then mine”
The scene shifts again, this time showing Tim practicing by himself, Batarangs in his hands rather than a staff. There was a target dummy before the boy in the mist, one that soon became littered with bats as Tim aimed for spots much too lethal for what both Tim in the mist, and Lady Shiva who was watching from the doorway, knew that Batman would tolerate from the boy. It was a sight that they both knew that he would frown upon, as Tim flung another odd shaped blade, embedding itself into where the dummy’s eye would have, another following to its throat.
Bruce did indeed frown at the sight, something that Tim didn’t miss no matter how minute the change.
(he didn’t miss the manner in which Jason reached up to his own throat at the sight. The teen now thought that he knew where the scar on the man’s throat that mirrored his own had come from)
“Maybe, to fall is to learn one way”
The scene shifts to night this time, out in a courtyard of sorts. They watch as Tim and the assassin fight once more, though they all notice that her moves are slower than before, as if she were moving through water. That didn’t stop her from breaking three of Tim’s ribs before he beat her.
Just at the edge of the mist, everyone could see the telling suit of Nightwing.
“This is the one that I knew about,” Dick supplies easily. “Little Timmy had poisoned her and then fought her.” his voice was filled with forced lightness that no one else bought.
Tim was just thankful that Dick didn’t mention that he’d threatened to poison her again, and made sure that it killed her that time.
“Maybe, it's all gonna turn out great
“I know we'll be fine”
The scene shifts once more, showing the bats and Titans a slightly older version of the two fighters, though this time they were pitted against one another in a true battle meant to end in death. They could see Lady Shiva standing a few feet away from the third Robin as the boy fought back to back with a girl that was not defined clearly in the mist, but that all of the other assassins in the large room seemed to be seeking to kill more than the bird himself.
“I know it's light you'll find”
It's the same place, only a few moments later. Lady Shiva and Tim are fighting once more, trading blows with a speed that had Bart raising a brow, knowing that his friend shouldn’t be capable of it.
Tim leans forwards in the hold of his friends, and Bart mirrors the movement. “I was drugged with something,” he explains softly, answering the question that he knew that the speedster had. “Still not sure what, but it enhanced my speed.”
Bart nodded and they both turned back to the mist, though Tim immediately wished that they hadn’t as Shiva crashed to the ground in a heap, her chest clearly still.
The room was just as still, for a moment at least.
“Did you just kill her?” Duke asks, looking at the other teen and feeling something akin to horror creeping up his spine, a bone deep fear.
(It wasn’t a fear of Tim exactly, though that was there too, but of what Batman’s response to this would be)
“For a moment or two,” Tim says, his voice deceptively calm, as if he felt nothing of it, though that couldn't be farther from the truth.
Back then he had been so filled with fear at what he had done, so filled with disgust for himself at taking a life. Everyone had always known that he could do so, and yet there he had done it. That fear was there once more, though much like Duke’s it wasn’t of himself or the actions that he had done.
Tim turned to Bruce - almost every head in the room did, as if he were the sun and they were all flowers caught in its harsh heat - and when he did so, he found that he didn’t want to hear the damnation that he was sure that the other wanted to speak. The speech was a familiar one after all.
“You don’t have any room to talk on this, B,” the teen said before the elder vigilante could speak, something that made the air in the room feel thin. Tim wasn’t known for speaking to Bruce like that, especially not on things like this. The man looked angered, but Tim pressed. “Not when I was drugged out of my mind and killed her by accident, immediately reviving her after, and you have bloodied your own hands before purposefully and Superman had to undo it.”
“Tim-” the man started, his expression warring with itself in much the same manner as most of the people in the room’s was. This was not something that others knew, just like many didn’t know that Dick had killed the same man as Bruce had and Bruce had to be the one to revive the scumbag then. Nothing about this situation was normal.
“Save it, old man,” Tim cut in once more. “I already know the speech, and you’re much better saving it for later.”
The music started back up, as if it knew that a fight would break out if not.
“You're a good kid”
The words are not spoken or sung, but there is something like pride in the elder assassin’s gaze as she looks up at the boy standing above her. There always was when she was beaten by him, hiding there beneath the anger that clinged to her at having been beaten at all, by a child no less.
“Thanks”
The Tim that looks down at his former master is already a much colder one than the one at the beginning of the song, but there is a shared pride in his eyes that shined in his teachers.
“Gotta say,” Kon said into the tense air, uncaring of the heaviness of it, Tim was much more theirs than he was the bats’ right now, ever, “I’ve always loved watching you fight like that, Rob.”
“Yeah,” Cassie agrees, her morals aligning much more with her mentors than those like Batman or Superman, she is an Amazonian after all, “I always love seeing you go all out.”
“All ruthless,” Bart continues.
The three of them, they all knew that this reassurance was something that their Robin needed. A reminder that he wasn’t a monster for dancing with the line that he wasn’t supposed to cross, even if it was a dangerous thing to do. A reminder that they wouldn’t let him dance too far from that line either that he shifts from a bird to a pistol clad bat.
Tim knows exactly what they’re doing and goes along with it easily enough, turning to the Kryptonian. “Maybe we should spar more often then, Kon,” he suggested, something dangerous and bright in his eyes.
And gods, Kon knew that this look meant that he’d end up flat on his back with either a red sun light or a piece of Kryptonite too close for comfort as Tim used the easier of his contingencies to beat him embarrassingly fast, but that look in his eyes was just enough that he found himself agreeing.
(what can he say, both his fathers were insane and he was nothing if not their son)
“Gross,” Bart mumbled, too low for anyone not with enhanced hearing to understand.
“So you hold back in Gotham?” Jason asked once he was sure that whatever that was, was over.
Tim didn’t look overly bothered by the question. “You fight like a Bat when you’re in the territory of them,” he says in explanation, as everyone trained by assassins instantly understands. There were certain skills that one could not use in their city, Jason had bloody magic swords after all that attested to that, and fighting like a bat was a given if you didn’t want to broadcast that you were trained by assassins to anyone with eyes.
“Fair enough,” the crime lord agrees.
“B?” Dick says softly as the pair were talking to one another. “You okay?”
He knows that his father is not, knows that this video (only the second one at that) was likely confirming some dark fears that he had sought to ignore about their Red Robin, the information, habits, and coldness that they had all sought to ignore when the teen interacted with them because at least he was doing that. Getting Tim to be one of them these days felt a lot like it had when they were trying to pull Jason back in during the time that he had just come back and begun to settle a bit, though with a lot less (visible) bloodshed.
He knew that Bruce felt it too.
They had both thought that it was something to do with the teen’s time away - and Dick still thought that this was a big part of it - but it seemed that there was more to it than that, years more to it.
“I thought he was the easy one,” Bruce admits, and says nothing else.
Dick understood what he meant though, they had all thought him the least problematic Robin. He didn’t carry the trauma of dead parents (at least not when he started) and a need for revenge, he wasn’t from the streets, nor was he the child of a villain, or a former assassin. By all accounts he should have been the most normal of them all. Dick supposed it was easy to hide the insanity within you when no one was looking for it.
Damian sat in his spot between his two brothers and looked at the boy that he had thought wasn’t truly one of them. He had been right in some regards to this it seemed, though the reasons were not what he had expected. He had thought the boy weak, but if he could consistently beat such a fighter as Lady Shiva… Damian didn’t know what to think anymore. He truly didn’t, not with the story of how the boy had joined the family, or with the lies that he told. It felt as if Timothy Drake was so many people wrapped into one that Damian may never get to the core of it, not like how the friends that the boy held seemed to have done so. Damian had never thought Drake similar to Todd and Cain out of everyone in their twisted family, and yet it seemed that he was in more aspects than father liked, and his friends didn’t even bat an eye at it.
(the child assassin willfully ignored the fact that he had thought of the boy as family in his own musings of the current events)
“The next video will start in a moment.”
Notes:
and that was his training with Lady Shiva. I always like fics where its implied that he has to act in a more nonlethal way than he was trained to do so, because he's a bat and bats don't kill, but even if the staff isnt a deadly weapon on its own you could defiantly kill with it if you hit in the right places enough, especially with the hidden blades that he has in his staff in the red robin run
I got asked about if I have all the songs already picked, the answer is yes on that one
as always, comments make me happy so please leave them if you want to
Edit: please don't request/ask about songs I want it to be a surprise what's used
Chapter 4: Open Arms
Summary:
Tim with Young Justice, already knowing who everyone else is and wanting to tell the other's his own identity as well, but knowing he's not allowed
Notes:
Open Arms by Jorge Rivera-herrans EPIC The Musical: The Troy Saga
---
so, this chapter is not based off of any specific comic like I'm trying to stick to for the most part in this, but it is set during the time when Tim was the only one that had not revealed his identity yet in Young Justice. The place he and Kon are is a completely made up mission, I really liked the concept so I'm doing it anyways. This does dip (sink) toes (whole bodies) into the waters of the TimKon tag, but if that's not your thing then most of it can be read as friendship if you squint really badly. or you can just enjoy the fluff (with the smallest bit of angst in there) its the last fluff to come for some time
Also, Tim is supposed to be around 15 ish in this and Kon is supposed to still be stuck at 16
(I found that it was estimated that Tim had joined yj at 14 about to turn 15)Edit: please don't request/ask about songs I want it to be a surprise what's used
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
It wasn’t long before noise began to emit from the mist once more, though this time it was much different from the soft and upbeatness of the first song, or the heaviness that the second began with. This time it began with what Bruce was almost tempted to classify as the distant caw of some bird that he did not know the name of, the sounds of wilderness accompanying it before an almost step-like pattern began to make itself known.
In the mist, the gathered group could see what appeared to be a forest, the foliage thick around Tim as he stepped into view. He looked a bit older than before, though not by much. His shoulders seemed a bit tenser though, as if there was more weight upon them then there had been when he was just starting out with Lady Shiva, and in his hand was the familiar staff that none of them had ever truly seen him fight without since he began to use it.
(A lie, he had used an alien gun just before they had all been taken, and Cassie, Bart and Kon all knew of the other weapon another version of him favored. Many of the bats also knew of the throwing disc that he kept on hand instead of batarangs these days. It was a comforting lie though, one you told yourself when you didn’t want to admit someone had changed almost into a stranger.)
“You can relax, my friend”
Kon smiled softly as he appeared in the mist, floating slightly at his friend’s side as he and Tim walked through the jungle. This day was one that he remembered fondly when the other boy was still not telling them just who he was beneath the mask that he wore like a second skin back then (the mask that Batman had forced him to keep on)
“Huh?”
The bats, speeder, and demigod watched as the third Robin glanced up at the floating Kyrptonian as if he were some sort of crazed man, though Kon and Tim themselves knew that look for what it was. It was a surprise yes, but more surprise that the other could read Tim at all then anything else. So few had ever truly tried to read his body language outside of battle or personal gain, even fewer had ever gotten it right on the first try.
“I can tell you're getting nervous
“So do yourself a service
“And try to relax, my friend”
Those in the room watched as the mist figure of Kon laid his arm over the younger Tim’s shoulders, their sides pressed together as the super sang those words that so few had ever tried to speak to the third Robin (the words that so few had ever thought that they had needed to, because he was Tim and Tim was so independent from such a young age that taking care of him seemed like something that the boy would not have liked. However, as they watched the younger Tim all but melt into the touch of the super - both within the mist and on the couch as the elder pair mirrored their younger a bit with Kon’s now wrapped around Tim’s small frame - Bruce wondered if maybe they had all calculated wrong)
“I'm fine, Kon”
It was a weak sort of protest, one that seemed so much more forced than when the boy truly did want to be left alone. It was a desperate sort of protest in the manner that it wasn't a protest at all but a plea for the other to continue to show such care even though the younger Tim did not know how to accept it. Knew even less how to do so after being trained by Bruce.
“Think of all that we have been through”
Scenes formed in the mist, too quick for most to see, but the former Young Justice understood them from the quick glances that they got nonetheless. They had been there after all.
“We'll survive what we get into
“I know that you're tired of the war and bloodshed
“Tell me, is this how we're supposed to live?
“Look at how you grip your bo , enough said”
The Tim within the mist could be seen forcing himself to loosen the white knuckle grip that he did indeed have on the weapon, something that the Tim of the present knew had not been an overly intentional action at the start, but an intentional correction made to make the super on his team happy.
He’d do a lot of things just to make the other teen happy, even back then.
The former members of Young Justice were not surprised at the guardedness of their Robin, the boy had been that way since the moment that he had come to them after all, but it seemed that Dick and Jason just might have been. Each of them had their own teams after all, and each of them were usually so much more at ease when among their members, using that time to slip away from the strictness of the bat persona that Batman had instilled in them all in some manner. Neither of them had thought, especially not with how Tim was with his friends now, that the teen would have been any different. Yet he was.
(They couldn’t help but wonder just what Bruce had done to the kid to make his so hesitant to trust the people that would one day become a second family to him)
“Why should we take when we could give?
“You could show a person that you trust them”
Here, within the mist, Kon spun away from his Robin and floated to the ground before the other teen, one hand keeping contact by holding the boy’s hand within his own.
“When you stop and lower your guard”
The bats watch with shallow and confused breaths as the Kon made of mist raises his hand to the third Robin, fingertips trailing over the mask that the teen was wearing in a manner that seemed to make the boy give off the faintest of shivers at the delicate - yet intimate - touch.
“Here we have a chance for some adjustment
“Give it a try, it's not that hard”
The wandering hand settles on the younger Tim’s cheek, cupping it lightly with the world’s most careful touch as the clone looks so open with his own gaze.
It was the sort of touch that one gave to their lover.
All of the bats, save for Cass who had known this information long ago, glanced at the present pair before them, taking in the close press of their pair’s bodies on the small couch that the four friends sat on. The way that the clone had been the one to touch the third Robin the most from the moment that they came here.
Tim met their gazes and offered nothing to them, after all there had been nothing back then for him to have given them in answer.
(the story was a bit different now)
Cassie looked at the scene before her, something a little bittersweet clawing at the inside of her chest as she looked at the younger version of the boys sitting right next to her. Though she and Kon had gotten together before his death, she thought that some small part of her might have always known that the super’s heart was not her’s at all, not since the moment that Kon had met Tim. She had known for sure that Tim’s heart was not hers either when she had found the boy - drunk on grief - attempting to clone the boy that she had dated. There had been no other explanation for such an action. An action that some other version of Tim had gotten right somewhere along the line of failed attempts.
A world where they were separated was not one that either sought to remain in for long.
Yes, it was bittersweet to see them now knowing all of the love that had been wasted on them each, but she didn’t mind it as much as she probably should have. Not when she still loved them each, just differently than before.
“I'm telling you”
The Kon in the mist drew back from the younger Tim, causing something panicked to appear in the eyes of the Robin of the past. A look that was soothed by the smile on the super’s lips.
“This life is amazing when you greet it with open arms”
The Kon in the sung as he pulled a bit further away, the teen’s hands still connected as he did so. This time though, the young version of Tim didn’t look nearly as panicked as before, but lightly amused if anything, as if he knew just where this was going and knew that fighting it would be pointless. Not that he wanted to do so.
“Whatever we face, we'll be fine if we're leading from the heart”
Kon spun the smaller teen around, the version of Tim that was still Robin going easily with the movement with a familiar grace and unfamiliar smile on his lips as the super’s free hand came to rest on the other teen’s chest - right where the heart would be - as they came to a stop.
Though they couldn’t hear it, the bats thought that their teammate might have even laughed.
It was such a startling difference from the serious manner in which the boy usually acted, that they didn’t really know what to do with seeing the younger Tim act in such a way within the mist. Steph certainly didn’t. The longer that she looked at the pair the less that she thought that she might know. The Tim that she had loved had been lighter than the one sitting on the couch, sure, but he had never been so free with her. They were always within the confines of Gotham, the mission pressing in on them whenever they were together long before they had each revealed their identities to the other. It didn’t help that she had been pregnant when they had gotten together, the real world already creeping in and holding them tightly before nearly anything else had gotten the chance to do so. Her “death” had sealed the distance that had begun to form between them after the deaths of the two titans that Tim had loved so dearly.
Looking at the dancing figures in the mist, she was beginning to understand just how much Tim might have loved one of them. She was beginning to understand why the boy had been so utterly destroyed that he had changed the colors that he’d worn as Robin for the super alone. Changed it to Kon-el’s colors.
“No matter the place, we can light up the world, here's how to start
“Greet the world with open arms
“Greet the world with open arms”
The teen titans watched as the pair of the past danced with one another, their postures so relaxed, voice light. Cassie, Bart, and Kon always loved it when they got to see Tim like this, even before they knew his face or his name. Even when he had tried to lie and say that his name was Alvin Draper, not that Kon had bought that for a moment back then. They liked it better when they were the ones to make the boy look so free.
“Dancing during a mission?” Cassie asked, her voice holding a teasing note to it that filled the room even as the music stopped. “Not very professional there, Rob.”
“Tsk, tsk.” Bart said the words themselves rather than making the sound like Damian would have, the speedster’s head shaking from side to side as he leaned forwards to look at the bird in their group.
Kon only laughed, the sweet sound settling something in Tim’s chest that he hadn’t known had needed it. “You know its always good for birds to fly,” the super said. There wasn’t truly anyone that had it in them to disagree, at least not out loud.
Bruce and Damian looked at the frozen image in the mist, the third Robin looking more alive than either of them had ever seen the boy (though the reasons for that were very different, even if similar still). There was something in each of them that wanted to reprimand the teen for being so careless, something bitter that sought to do this. Because this carelessness, while beautiful to see, was so damning. They were in the middle of unknown territory and were being so open for attack. Yet, they both knew that this was something that the teen would never let himself do now so it was a moot point. Whatever part of him that had possessed Tim to have gone along with this was lost somewhere along the way, and for that Bruce thought that he might be entirely at fault.
(He knew that he was)
Dick gazed at the younger version of his little brother, and thought back to a time when Tim had once looked so free - though in such a different manner - with him, back when the boy was younger and they ran around train suffering with their eyes blind. Tim had not looked at him like that since, especially not after what had happened between them with Robin and Damian and the Justice League.
Jason and Duke were much the same as they looked down at the scene, finding the boy in the mist to be a stranger in a familiar skin. Jason had all but signed the order himself that did not allow for the teen to be so free with him, and Duke had come to the family long after this boy had died a death much more permanent than Jason’s own. Duke may have seen glimpses of him, when he would gaze up in the night sky and see his Robin flying there (because, like how Jason’s had been Tim’s, Tim’s was Duke’s), the teen knew now that the magic that Robin had held for Tim had been tainted from the start. A child trying to keep an adult from tearing their city apart in his grief.
Cass was just happy to see her little brother happy.
For the few moments that it lasted anyways, as it came to a sudden stop as figures crept into the clearing that the teens had been in.
“Stay back (stay back)”
The words were so harsh coming from Tim’s mouth compared to how Kon had been singing just before. It was a more familiar sound for everyone within the room than any of them liked.
The Robin the mist had his bo staff at the ready in a moment, his back pressed against Superboy’s own with that same practiced ease that Jason had seen of them before they had all been drawn in here together. The pair moved together with seemingly more trust and ease than Batman and Superman themselves, even at this age.
The clearing that the pair were in was soon filled with small, bear-like creatures that didn’t even reach either of the teen’s knees. But numbers could often make up for when height was lacking, anyone knew this.
“My friend, greet the world with open arms”
Kon sang, his voice still light, but something else was there too, as if the boy was asking for the mist like Robin to let the creatures make a mistake first before attacking them. Everyone in the room knew that Tim was the one that always had a plan, but a few also knew just how rash the boy could be when someone managed to get the drop on him and he didn’t have time for one. The clone seemed to be one of these people.
“Were you intimidated by teddy bear looking creatures, Drake?” Damian asked as he looked at the mist and saw the panic in his predecessor’s young eyes.
Steph couldn’t help the snort that she let out at that question. It only worsened at the ludicrous manner that the Tim of now looked at their youngest as if he wanted to strangle the boy and feed his corpse to the teddy bears in question. The glare that she got from the third Robin was worth it, even as it rattled her a bit.
(The Titans were at least smart enough to hide their own amusement)
“I’m sorry if it seemed a good idea to hold a note of caution for the creatures that snuck up on a trained bat and a super ,” Tim said, his annoyance evident for all to hear.
When the words settled in the room, apprehension followed them. In their humor many of the teens and young adults had overlooked that piece of information. Because even if Tim and Kon had been a bit distracted with one another, sneaking up on either of them was a near impossible feat, even back then.
“We're only here for food”
The Tim in the mist insisted this as more and more of the creatures filled in around the pair, drawing ever closer. If it weren’t for their appearance and the assurance that both Tim and Kon were safe right before them, then the others within the room might have been more concerned than they already were.
“(food)”
The voices of the creatures all came at once, sung together in a unison that the bats thought was likely not just from it being a song, but something that had occurred in real time as well. It put them all ill at ease.
“Two friends are waiting for us to show our faces”
“Awe, Rob thought about us,” Bart said, his voice purposefully light as the tenseness of the room had begun to suffocate him. The speedster was just as concerned as the others within the room, but the bats were a whole other level of intimidating when one of their own was in danger. The teen would almost wonder how Tim could stomach being around all of the tenseness all the time if he didn’t know that the other boy fit in all too well with the bats’ brood, more like the Batman himself than any of the man’s other children.
“Of course he did,” Cassie said, looking at her boys’ with a clear fondness that she let herself show more and more since having lost them all in one manner or another.
Kon, Bart, Tim… they were her family, and she had lost two of them to death, one to her own mistake, and even herself along the way. She knew that losing them all again was inevitable in their line of work (in their DNA as well, after all with Kon only being half Kryptonian she might live longer than even him), though the order might be different and maybe she would be one of the ones to fall first, but she didn’t want any of them to die questioning her care for them or being angry with her in the way that she knew Tim likely almost had during those missing months. The boy had told her and Bart some of it, Kon more than either of them, but even they didn’t know everything. Just enough to know that Ra’s had some sort of obsession with their Robin.
“We’re his family after all,” the demigod finished off, earning herself a bright smile from the speedster and less than kind stares from the bats. Not that she cared about the latter.
“Besides,” Kon cut in before his friends could say something that would make the ever aggressive bats act on those negative emotions, he knew just how stabby some of them could be, “I’m pretty sure we were out looking for food for you , Bart.”
The laugh that Tim gave at the look on the speedster’s face after that mention was small, so much smaller than the ones that he had given before their time spent apart, little more than a huff of air, but it was more than what any of the bats had heard from the boy in too long to remember.
“I don’t remember who packed for that mission,” Tim said, his voice lighter than the last time that he had spoken, “but they obviously had not been used to feeding a speedster.”
“That bad?” Duke asked, inserting himself into the conversation with caution.
If it had been almost any other bat, then it might have been a greater offense, but Tim didn’t mind Duke, the teen had done nothing to harm him after all.
“We’ll go to Batburger after this, the five of us-” a small cough stopped the teen from speaking and Tim glanced up to see his older sister looking at him with soft eyes. “The six of us,” Tim amended easily, “and you’ll see.”
“I-” the teen started, his surprise clear, “I’d like that,” Duke said with a bright smile that was just as marred by grief as everyone else’s but still remained impossibly kind.
Damian only observed the scene as it unfolded, something far too close to regret pooling in the depths of his stomach. He remembered when he had been new to the family and Tim had made an effort for him as well. Damian had not reacted kindly at all and everything about their relationship (one that he had then sought to kill along with the teen himself) had soured from there. All his own doing.
“(food)
“Stay back, I'm warning you
“(food)
“If we don't get back safely
“My team will turn this place into blazes
“(here you go)”
They all watched as the small creatures came ever closer, small fruits in their hands that they held out to the two mist versions of the teens, Kon taking it readily into his hands as Tim touched it with much more caution. Bruce was proud of his son for showing such caution, even if the clone was not.
“See?
“This life is amazing when you greet it with open arms
“Whatever we face, we'll be fine if we're leading from the heart
“No matter the place, we can light up the world, here's how to start
“Greet the world with open arms
“Greet the world with open arms”
“Really Superboy?” Dick asked as he looked at the younger version of the teen, the boy in the mist so much more green than he had ever thought that Tim would tolerate.
“I was used to island people being kind, okay?” the teen said defensively, justifying his past actions.
“You spent most of your time in Hawaii fighting with King Shark,” Tim reminded him, unimpressed.
The teens bracketing the pair snickered.
“My friend, I wish that I could say that I agree
“But look at the way this fruit is glowing and filled with glowing seeds”
True enough, the Tim in the mist had broken the fruit open with his hands and it was giving off a faint golden glow reminiscent of the slowly setting sun at the pair’s backs.
“It took me a while to notice just what kind of fruit they eat
“It's a lotus, it controls your mind and never lets you free
“That's what we'd get with open arms”
The statement seemed to hold more to it than just the food, as the Tim within the mist threw the open fruit to the young Kon, stalking away from him a bit with a closed off expression on his domino covered face. There was such a bitterness to his tone and movements, one that everyone in the room recognized much more than they would like to. After all, Bruce instilled it in them all at one time or another, though Tim seemed to carry it the most.
The bats had known for a while that Tim’s relationship with Bruce was not quite the same as any of their own, the foundations of it built on a bridge that was already burning. They were beginning to wonder though just how bad the vigilante had affected the third Robin. They thought that they might know by the end of this all, and some (Dick, Steph, Duke) weren’t entirely sure that they wanted to.
(Cass thought that she might already, the language of bodies still much easier to her than speech. She thought that she might have known for a long time now)
“Lotus eaters
“I'd like to show my friend that kindness is brave
“Could you tell me where there's other food to eat?”
Kon continued on in the mist, the bat and the super a lot like night and day.
“(The cave)
“A cave!
“You're saying there's a cave where we could feast?
“And where do we sail to find this food-filled cave?
“(East, that way)
“Thank you!
“(Welcome)”
The Kon in the mist was smiling brightly as the Tim of then scowled for a moment before schooling his features back into something sickeningly blank.
“This life is amazing when you greet it with open arms”
Kon sang once more, grabbing the other mist made teen by the hand and guiding him east, their fingers braided together even back then.
“I see in your face,”
Time had passed in a small blur of the mist, as the pair had traveled much further than they should have been able to between those few words, but when it cleared again, the teens were on a cliff with the sun setting around them and Kon’s hand cradling Robin’s face once more.
“ there is so much guilt inside your heart”
The clone’s other hand came to rest on the third Robin’s shoulder, the touch gentle. It was almost as if he were trying to take the guilt for himself, even if he didn’t understand then why the other held it.
He wouldn’t know for a long time of the grief that Tim felt responsible for causing just because he was wearing the suit of a son that was no longer breathing (as far as they had known) and the manner in which the Bat sometimes looked at the third Robin and saw his ghost.
“So why not replace it and light up the world, here's how to start
“Greet the world with open arms
“Greet the world with open arms
“Greet the world with open arms
“You can relax, my friend”
The Kon in the mist, his fingers traced softly over the mask that the other teen was wearing, the implication clear. For a long time the super had wanted to see beneath that mask, not truly trusting someone to lead them that hid from them, but at some point it had changed from that. He would have trusted Tim with his life forever even if he never got to gaze into the blue of the boy’s eyes, but back then he had begun to guess at just how stressful it must be for the teen as well to have to hide all of the time. How much hurt it must have been causing the teen himself.
“That was when I had first decided to ask B if I could tell everyone who I was,” the Tim of now admitted as images in the mist faded.
“Then why wait so long to do so?” Cassie asked, her curiosity winning out.
“It hadn’t gone so well,” the teen admitted, his voice a forced sort of calm.
The three friends looked at the bats, the most secretive of any of the capes, and thought that it probably hadn’t.
Many things didn’t go over well with Batman, especially not back then.
Never back then.
Bruce looked at his son, and not for the first time, realized just how much he had truly messed up with the boy back then. He knew that they had not even come close to some of his more damning moments, and he was thinking such things already.
Time really did provide clarity it seemed.
“Being bitter with the Bat is supposed to be my thing, Timbit,” Jason said, his voice holding a forced ease to. If anyone understood being fucked up my Bruce’s choices, it was him after all, even if the situation itself seemed a bit different. (even if it was giving him a sinking sort of feeling in his chest).
Tim knew what the other was trying to do, saw the attempt to lighten the heaviness that had once again descended upon them all. He wanted to tell the man not to bother because anything that they saw next was going to be so much worse than this ever was. But he also thought of the motivation behind the action of the older bat. Jason had tried to apologize and Tim hadn't’ - still didn’t - want to hear it. For some people, words meant nothing when they spilled from their mouths. Tim was one of those people, speaking lies and mistruths easier than anything even remotely candor. He thought that Jason might be one of those people too, at least when it came to the bats. When Tim thought of Jason, he thought that his actions meant much more than the words that the man spoke. Right now he was using those words of his in an attempt to put Tim a bit more at ease. This was an action that took care to do.
“Call me that again and I’ll skin you alive,” Tim says, the threat falling from his lips sharply but without much idea of following through with it.
Dick looked worried nonetheless, but Jason only laughed. The sound ringing through the room as true.
“Violent little shit,” the Outlaw said, the words not landing as the insult that it would have been had they come from nearly anyone else.
“Between you and Damian I fit right in,” Tim says back, a smirk on his lips as he looks at the pair sitting opposite to himself.
Tim had done things during his time away, things that he wasn’t proud of, and things that he wouldn’t take back even if he was able to do so. He knew where he would likely land in Bruce’s books by the end of this all, he was already on the man’s bad side before anything of this even started after all. He supposed that it wouldn’t be such a bad thing to at least tap the Olive Branch that was being offered. He knew that he was going to need it.
Damian looked between his older brothers and thought for a moment about joining the conversation. He’d been mentioned after all, so maybe it would be fine to do so. But remained quiet and shifted his attention to Richard and Father instead, seeing the guilt in both their eyes that had been there before Todd had even opened his mouth. He decided that he would not add onto their grief.
Cass smiled, something small and soft as she watched her little brother make an effort to get along with Jason. She still saw the weariness, the suspicion and hurt in the teen’s frame, but she also knew why the boy was choosing to push past it to try and build (because you can’t mend a relationship that never existed before) the relationship between the two. She also knew that the reasons weren’t quite as cynical as Tim was likely rationalizing for himself just then.
Duke watched with more than just slight apprehension as Superboy, Wonder Girl, and Impulse all glared threateningly at Jason, as if begging the man to screw up so that they could make good on the threat that Duke thought (hoped) his brother had not meant. He wondered if violence was a language that he might learn in this family. The way that Steph laughed as she watched it all go down did nothing to lessen that worry.
(Duke liked the chaos though, he thought that he was going to miss it once his parents were healed and he was no longer under the Wayne)
As if reading those thoughts, Tim glanced at the yellow clad hero, his gaze softening from the feral gleam that it had held before as he looked at the younger hero. Tim thought that his own place in the family might be still unsteady, but knew that Duke’s still assured even when his parents healed from the Joker’s attack. Barbra was still one of them after all, even if her father was still alive. Cass was still one of them and she lived in Hong Kong most of the year with Tim visiting her the most out of any of them. Duke wore the bat symbol on his chest with pride, he’ll still be one of the bats even if he’s not in Bruce’s care.
(Tim tried not to think about the fact that he had chosen his own current symbol strictly for the fact that it had no affiliation with the bats at all)
“The next video will start in a moment” the now all too familiar voice said into the air. Tim bit back a curse, already having an idea of what was to come next.
Notes:
little relationship hints, chunk of fluff, little showing off tim and kon being oblivious, and a little brotherly bonding and realizing of wrongdoings from all around.
this was the fluff chapter, anything else that gets close to fluff is more hurt/comfort from here on out, fair warningEdit: please don't request/ask about songs I want it to be a surprise what's used
Chapter 5: Warrior of the Mind
Summary:
Tim asked Batman if he could reveal his identity to those in Young Justice, not wanting to do so without asking first in case it might somehow put Bruce at risk too. This is the aftermath (it goes about as well as expected)
Notes:
Warrior of the Mind by Jorge Rivera-Herrans from EPIC the Musical: The Troy Saga
---
I really wanted to use this song and this was the context for it that I thought of at the time of planning this fic out. I don't know if Tim ever actually asked Bruce about his identify in the comics, though I do know that Bruce did reveal Tim's identity as Robin to Steph at one point (without Tim's consent) but she is a Gotham vigilante so that's a bit different than Justice League affiliated. This is set after the Tower of Babel (when the JL, who still don't know Batman's identity at the time, find his contingency plans and don't really trust B all that much anymore) and the idea is for it to fit in like canon where Tim decides to hide his identify for a bit longer.
There are a lot of points in this where young tim (just around the time he met Batman) is kinda tense around Bruce. personally, i think that this is a fair thing to include since the only reason that Tim is there is because Bruce has become violent and out of control. being tense around loose canons is only natural
NOTE, PLEASE READ: please stop asking about what songs are going to be used/ recommending songs to be used. i want it to be a surprise for everyone what the songs are going to be and that includes the people asking, but it also feels rude to leave people with false hope to not say anything, or like im stealing if you guys say to use one song and I had already planned to use it for the very scene that has been recommend. Please respect this and stop. I love comments, but just not on future songs
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
“ Some of these events take place as a direct consequence of the previous videos ” the voice informed, and Tim knew at once that he was right.
“What does that mean, Drake?” Damian asks, and Tim notices that the boy says his name with a lot less malice than he ever had before.
“I asked B if I could reveal my identity to my team,” Tim explains slowly, not looking at the man in question, “this, I’m guessing, is going to show his response.”
“The response that you already said went poorly?” the boy pressed, though Tim didn’t detect any harm for it, then again he hadn’t detected any harm before the boy had cut his line either.
He answers still.
“Yeah,” the teen says simply.
Damian gives him a short nod, and the conversation is done.
Its the most civil that they’ve ever had with each other.
The music is a heavy weight from the moment that it begins, pressing down on the room before the mist even forms a clear picture for them. It sounded a lot like the second song that they had heard from the mist, only much angrier this time. It was as if some great sin had been committed, though the Tim in the mist had not done anything to warrant such a reaction, nothing other than their Tim’s idea that this was when he had asked Bruce about revealing his identity. Damian had guessed that it had not gone well, but this seemed extreme, even to Bruce’s own ears. The only person to look even mildly at ease in the noise was Tim himself, as if he were used to it.
“Have you forgotten the lessons I taught you?”
The voice is angry as it sings, the sound harsh in the room. Dick and Jason knew it from all of the times that they had fought with the voice’s owner, and knew the violence that often accompanied it at times. They had not thought that Tim would be privy to this version of their father, especially when he was not even sixteen yet it seemed from how small the boy in the mist still was as he stood opposite to Batman, both getting ready as if about to go out on patrol. Neither of them had heard such anger from their father until they were much older, Jason with kills under his belt, and Dick with poor actions of his own.
Yet here was, hearing it at fifteen.
(If they thought long enough they could remember that this wasn’t truly the first time that they had heard the man speak to Tim like this, that this was a tone that trekked back to the very first song itself. They didn’t want to think that hard)
Damian, Cass, and Duke looked at their father, twin gazes of confusion on their faces at the harshness that he was displaying. They had never heard the man speak in such a way, especially not over something as trivial as a civilian identity that was not even his own to control.
The three friends pressed in closer to Tim as they felt the minute way that the teen shook, his expression outwardly calm both in the mist and now, but his body telling another story. It hurts less to hear such a voice now, after his sixteenth, after Captain Boomerang. He didn’t trust Bruce anymore and he knew that Bruce didn’t really trust him either. It was hard to be hurt by people that you cannot bring your heart to trust.
(hard but not impossible, the shakes reminded him of that)
The metas wondered for a moment what it would take to hurt Batman and not get caught themselves. They thought that the bats gathered in the room might help them do it too by the end of this all if the songs were going to keep so thoroughly reveal everything the way that they have been doing so.
Step bit back a flinch at the tone of the man’s voice. It was familiar to her in a dulled way, from her own tenure as Robin. Her tenure had been short for a reason after all, though she didn’t think that even she had gotten such a profound reaction from the man as this.
Bruce didn’t know what to think as he watched himself in the mist, his words making everyone else in the room but the very one that they were being spoken to flinch away from him. He knew that he had not been the best man back then, nor had he really put in the effort to be so, not until Jason had come back and he had known that it was his son. He had never thought that he would scare so many children just by speaking, not like this at least.
He stood by the idea that revealing identities to those outside of Gotham and the bats was dangerous though, he had only ever revealed his to the Justice League because they had forced his hand back then.
(the justification felt sour on his tongue and he had not even spoke it aloud)
“Batman !”
The Tim in the mist called out the man’s vigilante name even though the masks were not yet on. The teen’s body was stiff as he looked at the older man, who was a good few arm lengths away, but coming closer as he spoke. The younger Tim’s eyes were a bit wide, betraying emotions that the teen sitting in the room usually hid well (hid well then too). Both Tim’s knew that their own reaction was so severe because he had spent too much time with Young Justice before then, and had grown too used to the manner in which teen’s acted with one another. The family dynamics that they had built with one another. They didn’t need it spelled out for them, even if some of the others in the room might have.
“Have you forgotten to turn off your heart? This is not you”
The Batman in the mist stalked ever closer still, going to the table that held the gear that the younger version of Tim had yet to don upon himself. His words were harsh, enough to make Steph and Duke flinch, one from having been on the receiving end of such a tone before and the other because they had never thought that they would hear it from the man that had taken them in.
Tim didn’t though, neither versions of himself. The emotion that the boy in the mist had shown for a moment was gone now, a carefully blank look in its wake. It was more familiar than the bats would like to admit. It made the metas feel sick to see.
It was as if he had truly turned off his heart, as had been asked of him. Bruce hated seeing it for himself once more, paying enough attention to see the shift. He had not liked the shock (the fear) before, but he hated the apathy even more. Hated it because he was the cause. Robin had always been bright like the stars, and yet Tim looked more akin to a black hole, giving off no light at all.
The Batman in the mist had grabbed Tim’s domino as the man had sung, holding it in his hands as he looked at the teen. Even without the actual words from then being spoken, it was easy for those with context to see that the Batman in the mist was angered by the teen’s idea of revealing his identity.
(possibly more than just angered if they were to all be honest)
The bats watched their father, studied him with one of the youngest in their family. They had already known that they would not like the image that was bound to unfold from the first words sung, they were starting to wonder just how much they might hate them though.
Though it had been a lot more embarrassing, Tim missed the previous song right then, the comfort of it. He missed dearly when he and the rest of Young Justice had truly been young . When the day could be saved with baseball and not aligning with hundreds of years old assassins that would kill him as much as they would want him.
(before he knew the feeling of being restrained as an ill meaning hand forced the zipper on his suit down)
He missed it, but he would not trade now for then.
“I see you changing from how I've designed you”
The Batman in the mist put the Robin mask back down onto the table beside the teen there, the one being forced to listen to the things that the elder man was saying even more than they were. Being forced to bare it, to live it.
“What the fuck, old man?” Jason asked, unable to keep his mouth shut any longer as the mist version of his father walked away from the young version of Tim, the words that he had said hanging in the air around them all.
“It’s fine, Jason,” Tim said quickly before a fight could begin, his voice flat as he protested against the older vigilante, his chest oddly warm at the small sign of anger on his behalf (of care for him).
“It’s really not, Tim,” Kon insisted, cutting into the conversation with a softness that Tim both loved and hated. It was a softness that hid the anger brewing beneath him.
The metas had known that most of the bats were bastards when it came to one another, Tim being no exception from either side of that, but this felt like a step too far even for them. Especially for Kon, a boy that had been scientifically designed.
Deep down Tim knew that it wasn’t, that this form of imagined control was not healthy for him or Bruce. Knew that the other bats knew it too, could see it in their gazes without any of them needed to verbalize it. Bruce had rules, codes that they were all supposed to follow, teachings that made them all the more like the man that had created them. Tim had already been too much like the man already before wearing the Robin costume for the first time, his mind already that of a detective since he was young. It was not a stretch to say that he had taken to these rules with seemingly more grace than most of the others despite his own start. It was also less of a stretch to say that he had bent those rules until some of them broke when no one else could see.
Batman may have shaped him in a lot of ways, but it wasn’t nearly as much as the man seemed to have thought back then. The Batmobile that he had embezzled in the Batarang budget was enough of an indicator of that.
It was why the line did not hurt him as much as the others seemed to think that it should, why the teen didn’t think it too wrong of an idea. Tim had let Bruce think that he had any say in who he had become, knowing that he wouldn’t if Tim didn’t wish it. He was the Pretender after all, lies and false identities flowed through him with an ease no one else in the room could hope to possess.
“Tim…” Bruce started, a familiar growing twinge to his voice, something that sounded suspiciously like guilt as it fell on ears that did not want to hear it.
“Don’t,” Tim said, his voice tired instead of the harshness that it had been holding for a while now. “You said you weren’t going to apologize,” the teen reminded the older vigilante, both of them knowing that he wasn’t talking about this instance at all even if only Cass could guess that as well, “don’t go back on that now when it’s nearly two years too late.”
Cass wasn’t sure that she wanted to know what her father had done to make Tim say such a thing to him, what horrible thing he could have done to make Tim of all people want an apology when he hardly ever demands a verbale one. She really thought that she might not want to know.
(she knew that she would find out soon anyways)
“Have you forgotten your purpose? Let me remind you
“Vigilante of vengeance , master of war
“My life has one mission, create the greatest Gotham”
“It’s always about the mission with you, isn't it?” Steph asked as she looked up at the man that was noy quite her father, but had still done a better job than the man that truly was. Not that this put the bar very highly up there. Her father may not have always been Cluemaster, but he was always skeevy and ran with people just as disgusting even when she was small.
“He knew what he signed up for,” Bruce protested, the words familiar and well worn with use. Too worn.
“I’m sure he did,” the blonde continues, no longer looking at the man, “Tim has always been the smartest out of any of us after all.”
Even you , rings clear through the room. Before, a few of them might have tried to deny such a thing, Batman was right there after all, but no one did this time. Whether they believed it or not, no one had the heart to say anything that might have reassured the old man, not when they all knew that it was still bound to get worse.
“I had a challenge, a test of skill
“A case that only the best could solve”
A case file appeared within the mist, floating there and being seemingly flipped through by invisible hands.
“One day a boy came for the thrill”
The misted shifted, showing now a slightly younger version of Tim than the one that had been within it previously. The kid was dressed in civilian clothing, nothing fancy but something with enough layers to keep the child warm for long hours down in the cave, even back then. When the Bruce of that boy’s time walked into the frame of the mist, they could not see the expression that the man wore, but they could see the one that Tim wore very clearly.
They could see the weariness in the young boy's eyes, more pronounced back then, less hidden than it had ever been since. He held the same skittish sort of body language to him that the Tim that they knew often had during his first encounters with Red Hood after the day at the Tower.
It was strange to see it directed at Bruce.
Or maybe it wasn’t strange at all, but smart considering the timeframe that this must have taken place in, back when Batman was much more violent than he ever was now.
Duke still didn’t like seeing it, neither did Dick or Damian. None of them liked seeing the vigilante that they all followed being so rightfully feared by a child that would one day be under his care. They didn’t like thinking of Bruce in that light.
Bruce himself didn’t like seeing the fear, the apprehension, weariness, in Tim’s eyes back then, all the emotions that he had refused to see the first time around.
“A boy whose mind rivals my own will”
The new young version of Tim within the mist stood quickly from his chair in front of the Batcomputer, his expression changing from the weariness that had been there only a moment before to something almost blank as he approached the Batman of the past, a now familiar case file held in the teen’s hands as he stopped before the man. Tim held it out to him, his eyes hard as the older man took it and looked through the work there with a critical eye that every bat in the room knew too well.
Eventually the Batman of the past closed the file, and looked at the small child and nodded at him before stalking away. The Tim of the past smiled in manner that took over his entire face with a childlike glee, it was-
“Blinding,” Kon says as he looks at the younger version of Tim, the smile on the boy’s young face so bright that it almost hurts to see, knowing just how rare it had been then and how it was nearly extinct now.
Such a bright smile over something as trivial as passing a test, and being given what could just barely count as praise.
The room was quiet for a moment after the super spoke, the word ringing through the room. It was in that short frame of time that everyone other than the three metas realized that they had never seen the teen smile so brightly before.
They hardly ever saw him smile at all, not in a way that was true and certainly not since he was no longer Robin.
“Let's go!
“Maybe one day he'll follow me
And we'll make a greater tomorrow, then they'll see
“I know he'll change the world 'cause he is a warrior of the mind”
The scene shifted once more and the Tim within the mist looked a little bit older, but still not reaching the age that he had been at the start. There were bags under the boy's eyes, and he looked about ready to fall asleep at the Batcomputer, but kept flipping through the numerous tabs that were open on it anyways. Sometimes he would open new ones, typing things into chat rooms and engineering chance encounters. He was creating traps for their rouges to fall into, barely needing to lift a finger for anything other than typing until the end.
It was terrifying.
It was an occurrence that Bruce and Tim both knew the outcome of when it was used for less than savory means. It was why neither met the other’s eyes while the scenes were playing out now.
“Always such convoluted plans,” Bart gripped in a manner that wasn’t truly a complaint at all. He was always beyond impressed with the things the Tim’s mind were able to create, almost everyone that ever followed a plan of the third Robin’s was. Bart and Kon were the ones with overly enhanced speed, and yet Tim’s mind seemed to move faster than the both of theirs all the time.
“They work though,” Cassie jumps in, though her gaze was a bit less than soft as her words would indicate as she looked at the younger version of Tim within the mist. He looked like the version of the boy that the three of them had first met, the one that already had more than enough work with Young Justice cases and yet seemed to only have twice as much back in Gotham.
One of these days she was going to kidnap their Robin and force the teen to take a vacation, she knew that both Kon and Bart would help her if she suggested it. Cass too if she could get a moment alone with the silent bat.
“He wouldn’t be our Boy Wonder if they didn’t,” Kon said, his voice carrying through the room for the other Robins and former Robins to hear as he held the third one closer to himself and smirked as a light bout of red flushed the teen’s cheeks.
“Someone has to save all your asses,” Tim remarks, his voice confident even as the flush deepend at the praise of his friends, his family.
It was in moments like these, as they looked into the mist, that the bats were always reminded about just how much Tim like Bruce with the powers of their minds. He was afterall the only Robin that could really match the man’s intelligence. He wasn’t as physically strong as a lot of the rest of them, but he was smart, disastrously so. Sometimes they failed to remember that when the rest of the bats each had such physical skills to themselves that acted as their shows of power. Some of them wondered though if the teen didn’t hold back from using more lethal tactics in his fights, just how much more of a threat that he would be.
(they wondered if they might just get to see this for themselves)
“Maybe one day I'll reach him
“And we can build his skills as I teach him”
The scene shifts once more, this time to a point where Tim and Bruce were working on a case with one another, not just either of them by themselves and pulling the other in when it was solved and action needed. The Bruce of then lays his hand on the young teen’s shoulder as they both look up at the Batcomputer, the screen washing them both full of blue. It was only in the present that everyone noticed just how still the teen seemed from the contact, as if expecting it to become pain at some point. Bruce hadn’t realized it back then that Tim had been sitting like that, but in those days he had still been growing used to the boy himself. Still grieving, even if much less violently than before with Tim’s presence there.
“If there's a problem, he'll have the answer
“He is a warrior of the mind”
The Bruce in the mist walks away, leaving the boy to work. No one in the room misses the way that the teen’s shoulders seem to sag with something frighteningly akin to relife.
“Show yourself”
The scene within the mist shifts once more, revealing a Tim that seemed to be the same age as the one that they all had first seen in the very first song, back when he had first been down to the Cave and wore the Robin costume to save Dick and Bruce from the consequences of their own grief. This time Tim was still in civilian clothing, but was once more down in the cave. There were bruises blooming on the boy’s skin as if the boy had recently been in a fight. Many supposed that he likely had been, if he had just changed out of the Robin costume after the fight with Two-face.
“I know you're watching me, show yourself
“I can see you”
The young Tim in the mist was spinning around the room slowly, looking at the dark shadows as if they held monsters within them that would strike at the moment that he let his guard down.
It wasn’t such a wrong assumption to make given who was hiding within them. They all knew that.
“How can you see through my skill ?”
Those within the room watched as Batman, still in full costume and cowl, walked out of the shadows, the darkness clinging to the man as if it wanted to draw him back into it, to the place where he was home. Tim had been looking right where Bruce had stepped out of when he spoke, a fact that set Batman’s shoulders stiff in alarm.
It wasn’t just the Batman of then that seemed to be filled with alarm at the ease in which the Tim of then found their father, but the rest of the bats in the room too were shaken. It had taken them all months to be able to do what the Tim in the mist seemed to do with ease. It was startling. It was frightening.
The only one not to fall for it was Cass, though that was just because she could read the boy’s body as he looked at the younger version of Bruce. Could see the minimal widening of his eyes that no one else had caught.
“I didn’t know that you were good at sensing before all the training, Tim,” Dick says, looking at the little brother that sat across the room from him with an open, warm gaze that shifted to a less pleasant form of surprise when the teen shook his head with a bitter laugh.
“I was good at a lot of things back then,” Tim admits in a self assured manner that would have had Damian’s hackles rising had it been any other day before this that the teen said that, but he only knew that it was true now and not cockyness speaking, “but that wasn’t one of them.”
“But-” Damian starts, but is cut off by Tim gesturing to the mist.
“Haha! I was lying and you fell for my bluff
“Haha, haha”
The Tim in the mist said the words with a sort of fearlessness that his friends and a lot of the bats knew not to believe, even so the boy in the mist smirked as he looked up at the approaching figure of Batman, something wild in his expression. Something very Robin .
Something very Tim .
(Ruthless, feral, and bit crazed altogether)
“You lied to Batman,” Duke said, something like awe and horror mixing in the daytime vigilante’s voice at the mere thought.
“Successfully,” Dick added, his voice very much the same.
“At fourteen,” Steph continued, looking at the boy that she had loved and feeling a strange mix of pride and fear for the teen’s life.
“You guys are acting like you didn't know already that I did this,” Tim said, looking between everyone in the room, taking in each gaze of the bats carefully. Many were the same, that mix of awe and horror, even Bruce’s though his was much more perplexed.
“I don’t know whether to lecture you for apparently lying to me regularly, or applaud you for getting away with it,” the man admits, his brow furrowed in a rare sign of confusion. It was hard to stump a naturally suspicious man.
“Or option C, where you take that dilemma up with yourself and learn not to be fooled by the lies of fourteen year olds,” Tim offered, more than serious in his words even as his friends laughed at the blunt snark of how he had phrased it.
Bruce opens his mouth to speak, but no words come out as he chooses to hn instead, a common occurrence for the bats.
“Damn it, I’m starting to actually respect this kid,” Jason admits lowly, only those on the couch around the man hearing the words that he had spoken.
Damian can’t help but nod as he absentmindedly gawks at the third Robin, opinions of him shifting more and more as the videos carry on.
Dick only pats both of his little brother’s shoulders in sympathy. He knows that they must be truly out of it as neither automatically attempts to shake him off.
“Well done, you’ve lied to me, what's your name?”
If the Batman in the mist was surprised, he hid it well.
They both know that Bruce already knows the boy’s name though, how could he not when Tim was a Drake and had been dragged to too many events for his young age since he was even younger still.
“You first, and maybe I'll do the same”
The Tim within the mist smiles up at the shadow of a man, smiling sharp and almost threatening as he gazes up at the vigilante. It was the sort of smile that Janet Drake often wore and it sent a shiver down the spines of almost everyone that ever saw it. No child should have been able to wear it so well, and yet there Tim was, doing just that as he crossed his arms across his chest, looking more alive then than he would only a few months later.
“Damn kid smiles like a shark out for blood,” Jason remarks lowly, Damian heard it though and silently agrees. He had seen such a smile on his mother’s face many times before, as had Jason though the Red Hood couldn’t quite remember those days as well as he would like. Maybe that was a good thing.
“Nice try, but two can play this game”
The Bruce within the mist sounds almost impressed as he sings. It was not a noise that any of them heard from the man very often.
“Nah, don't be modest
“I know you're Batman
“So let's be honest
“You are Bruce Wayne”
The words were spoken with a confidence that Tim only held when he was absolutely sure of something. As if this was an unshakable truth as the sun being a star and the earth that they lived on being a planet. It was a surety about things that most fourteen year olds held, but were not correct in doing so. Tim was.
“Didn’t even beat around the bush,” Duke said, looking at the teen with a very familiar mix of fear and respect.
Tim shrugs. “I’ve known since I was nine,” the teen admits, much to almost everyone’s surprise. “I didn’t really see the point.”
“You’ve known Father’s identity since you were none, Drake?” Damian asks, actually impressed with the teen and this feat, no negative emotion underlying it to make it an insult as he usually would. It was hard to justify such a thing when the songs seemed so intent on showing off the teen’s better qualities relentlessly.
“It wasn’t hard,” the teen admits, not bragging but just a simple fact that he knew to be true, “not with all the information laid out.”
“And what information was that?” Jason asked, intrigued how a nine year old pieced it all together without living with the man himself and enjoying the way that the old man shifted uncomfortably in his seat at such a thing being revealed to all of his children (and some of his children’s friends) at once.
Tim could see the enjoyment in the man’s eyes and knew that it was only going to increase as he explained the story.
“Robin did a quadruple flip on T.V. during a chase,” Tim says, his voice holding more positive emotion to it as he spoke to the bats than it had in years, Dick blushing at the reminder and refusing to meet anyone’s eyes as everyone but Bruce turns to look at the man, “and only a Flying Grayson can do that. Dick said so himself. From there it was easy.”
“You are the reason that Drake found out Father’s identity?” Damian accuses in a scandalized voice as Jason cackles on the other side of the man in question.
“I was young!” Dick protested, looking between his siblings in a betrayed manner as the rest of the bats - barring Bruce - laughed as well, the supers long having been laughing at the unfolding scene even after having known all of this for a while.
“Not a great defense when you’re the oldest sibling, Dick,” Steph chimes in, mirth in the blonde’s voice.
The vigilante only groans down into his hands in shame, though he couldn’t really feel bad about it. He hadn’t seen Tim like that since before Damian showed up, maybe even since before Jason came back to them. It was a good sight to see him so happy.
The man felt eyes on him and when he glanced up his own met Cass’s. As if she had read his thoughts, her smile seemed to agree with the things that he had been thinking. Dick smiled back at the younger vigilante.
Bruce watched everything go down in silence, a warmth in his chest as he heard the sweet sounds of his family laughing. They had never all been together like this before, never without fighting (though he knew that the peace wasn’t bound to last for one reason or another). He decided to enjoy it for as long as it lasted, not caring that it was because his son had known something that he never should have had to.
Tim glanced at Bruce with a considering gaze, seeing the warmth in the man’s eyes. He had hardly seen his father since bringing the man back and only one of those instances had been kind, the other still had the man freezing him out for anything not related to the mission. He wondered if some of that warmth was for himself as well. He thought it might be. He really hoped that it was.
Kon gave his hand a small squeeze as he held it, and Tim pushed further into the other teen’s side as his ears filled with the sounds of everyone else’s laughter. It was a sound that he would lock away in the back of his mind for when everything went south once more.
(because it always did)
“Badass in Gotham
“Unmatched, witty, and ruler of the best strategies we've seen”
“Trying to win Father’s care through flattery, Drake?” Damian asked, though there was no malice in his voice, hadn’t been for most of the times that he had spoken. It was strange for Tim to not hear it anymore, a good sort of strange.
He wondered if it would last once everything was revealed.
(He was scared that the answer would be no)
Tim smirks. “Most marks can be won over through flattery,” the teen admits, speaking like a true conman.
“I suppose they can,” the child agrees. It was the first time that he had ever done that with Tim.
“If you're looking for a mentor, I'll make sure your time's well spent”
Though the words are following the conversation that had just been taking place, they are spoken by the Bruce of a little while later, the one that had looked at the case file that Tim had handed him and approved of its findings.
“Sounds like a plan
“cryptid and man
“Bestest of friends”
The Tim in the mist holds out a hand to the Batman of then, a smile on the teen’s face that was far too filled with joy for it to really be true, something that Bruce had not known back then but could see clear as day in the present as he watched it.
“We'll see where it ends”
Bruce doesn’t take the hand as he sings, keeping his own frimley at his sides as he turns so as to not look at the teen.
The gesture is cold, much colder than Batman usually was with his Robins that weren’t Tim or Steph.
“Okay”
Tim doesn’t look surprised though, not as he draws his hand back down to his side with the ease of someone used to being rejected by the man that had his back turned to him at the moment. There was something hard in the teen’s eyes as he looked at his mentor, something cold that had been there from day one. A small sign of the distrust that the boy seemed to hold for the older vigilante, even back then before more things had occurred between the pair to make that distrust grow.
Back then, Bruce had seen that look in the boy’s eyes too many times to count, but he had not known how to identify it. He hadn’t known the teen well enough to do so. Not until much later would he, and by that point Tim was already well within his abilities to conceal such a thing.
But he could see it now.
He wondered if that distrust ever went away.
He wondered if it haunted them both still.
(he knew that if it did then it was his own fault)
“Maybe one day they'll follow me and we'll”
Bruce starts singing once more as the mist shifts around the pair, giving way to the versions of Tim and Batman that they had seen at the very beginning of all of this.
“Make a greater tomorrow, then they'll see”
Tim’s voice is added to the mix, the boy standing once more at the table and Bruce close to him. When he sings there is that too familiar chill to his gaze, a distrust that none of them could unsee now that they knew that it was there. Bruce certainly could not unsee it.
“I know we'll change the world 'cause we are the warriors of the mind
“Maybe one day we'll reach them
“And we can build their skills as we teach them
“If there's a problem, we'll have the answer
“We are the warriors of the mind”
In the air around the two vigilantes within the mist, scenes of the pair solving cases together as Batman and Robin are clear to see. It's only in the ones that show Tim is flying over Gotham that the boy is smiling.
“I still intend to make sure you don't fall behind”
Bruce says, his voice stern as he picks up the discarded mask once more, looking down at it as if it had done something to have offended him. Tim knew that it wasn’t the mask that the man had wanted to point that gaze at.
“Don't forget that you're a warrior of a very special kind
“You are a warrior of the mind
“Don't disappoint me”
The Bruce within the mist pushes the mask into Tim’s young hands with a pointed gaze, a harsh one that made the teen curl in on himself a bit as he saw it before Batman turned to walk away.
The Tim in mist put the mask on, his mind made up.
“Tim,” Bruce starts, and there's something a little agonized in the man’s tone. Something that the teen would not have noticed had he not been a bat and been around the man since he was fourteen.
“B?” the teen asks, a little impatient when the man does nothing to speak after a moment, the mist dissolving into its pictureless state in the way that it did when there was nothing to be shown till the next “video”.
“Do you trust me?” Bruce asks, simply and decisively.
It was a questioning that Tim had known would come, just not at the moment that it did. The answer was the same nonetheless:
“No.”
Someone in the air drew in a sharp breath of air, but neither Tim nor Bruce paid them any mind, not right then.
Something quick flashed over the older man’s face, too fast for anyone other than maybe one of the metas to catch it. Tim didn’t need enhanced speed though to guess at what it was: pain. Regret. Hurt.
There was no guilt in Tim’s own eyes though. He was not the one that ought to feel it, not out of everyone in this room, not about this.
“When I met you, you were violent and needed a child to keep you from killing someone or yourself,” Tim says, his voice so much colder than it had been when he was speaking to his siblings only a little bit ago about finding out the identity of Robin. Bruce’s body moves slightly backwards at the words, the teen thinks that this is likely the closest that they would ever get to a flinch. “No one in their right mind would have trusted you then with something as harmless as a piece of paper. And after that you made damn sure that I could never trust you. An event that if you try with Damian I will not hesitate to show both you and Alfred why Ra’s al Ghul is so interested in me.”
The threat lands heavy in the room, startling with the pressure that it carries.
Duke, Steph, and Dick are looking at the teen with wide eyes, their surprise clear over the violence that the boy seemed to be promising to not only their father but to Alfred as well.
Damian looks at Timothy and knows the threat that the older boy is giving to be true. He knows that the teen would uphold it should whatever this awful thing was that his father had done to the teen be repeated with himself. He knew that the violence that the boy was promising would be great if it were to please his grandfather in the way that Timothy seemed to insinuate that it would, it took a great deal to garner that man’s approval, a great amount of cruelty. The sort of cruelty sometimes that doesn’t even have death as a requirement to it, because there are some agonies that would make death a blessing to those having the bare it. Though the violence in the teen’s eyes made the boy wonder if death wasn’t a line that the teen would cross in this case. And Timothy was willing to enact this vengeance for Damian, the boy that had tried to kill him more times than he had thought to count.
Damian was horrified by what his father must have done to garner such a reaction from the teen that had every right to hate him, and yet he also felt a warmth wrap itself around his heart at the idea that Timothy would go so far for him.
“I would never do that, Tim,” Bruce swears, a rare amount of emotion in the man’s voice. He sounded like he was pleading for the teen to believe. It sounded wrong coming from the man, but Tim welcomed it with a vindictiveness that he thought that his friends were probably proud of.
“As if I’d believe that,” Tim says, his voice as cold as space itself.
Kon released him as Tim leaned forward to look more firmly at Bruce. The boy thought that if Tim were to have been a super that his eyes might have been glowing by then, ashes sitting where Batman had been. Kon wasn’t far behind on that idea.
“I promise. I wouldn’t do that to him,” Bruce says, not knowing how to reassure the teen that what had occurred back then would not be repeated now. Every defense sounded worthless to his own ears
“Because he’s your son?” Tim asks, saying the words as if they were a curse.
“Yes,” Bruce says, the word escaping his mouth like a hiss of air.
“So was I.”
The verbal hit lands hard, shattering any idea of rebuttal that the man might have had brewing in his mind. This was a bridge that he had set ablaze and had forgotten to put out the flames of enough that it had burned down.
Cass had remained silent through everything, no one noticing her until she was before Tim, a comforting hand on the teen’s shaking shoulder. Tim raised his gaze and met his sister’s eyes, the pain clear for her to see. Pain and rage that she saw in her own eyes sometimes when she looked into the mirror and thought of her father. She didn’t know what Bruce had done to her little brother (she didn't want to know, but knew that she would have to. Especially since the mental wounds that the boy before her was holding felt far too familiar to be comfortable) but she did know that Tim becoming angered with him right now would not be a good thing, not when they were inside of the teen’s mind. They didn’t know of the ramifications of such an act as a physical brawl should it come to blows.
Tim seemed to understand what her gaze was trying to say, as his form immediately began to relax beneath her touch, Kon moving to hold Tim more steadily at his side as Bart and Cassie reached out and held the former Robin’s hands in their own.
Cass knew that Tim still loved their father, Tim knew it too, but Tim also loved Jason and Damian and Dick and Steph and there were things that he would never be able to forgive them for. Things that he would never trust them with. There was a reason that Red Robin acted alone so much these days, a reason that Cass had been the one that he had called for help with the assassination tournament and none of the others. She may not know all of the reasons, but she understood.
There were reasons why Tim was closest with Cass out of everyone in the Batfamily. Reasons why he was Cass’s favorite that extended beyond him being one of the few to travel all the way to Hong Kong to visit her just for the purpose of seeing her and nothing else.
When Cass peeled away from the four and turned back to her seat near her father, she glared at the man for a long moment before taking her seat. Words weren’t needed to explain whose side the girl would take should Tim’s threat be made a reality.
“What exactly did he do, Tim?” Jason asks, nothing in his mind that the old man had done to the younger vigilante registering as something needing this much violence. Not that he wasn’t sure that it was well deserved. He had his own scars to back such an idea up. He too had skills that he would showcase should any of the idiots within the room show up before him with matching scars on their bodies from the man.
“I will show you, after the next song.”
Notes:
NOTE, PLEASE READ: please stop asking about what songs are going to be used/ recommending songs to be used. i want it to be a surprise for everyone what the songs are going to be and that includes the people asking, but it also feels rude to leave people with false hope to not say anything, or like im stealing ideas if you guys say to use one song and I had already planned to use it for the very scene that has been recommend. Please respect this and stop. I love comments, but just not on future songs
Edit: comments where people don't respect that I've asked people not to guess/suggest songs will be deleted
clarification on the ending: Tim trust Bruce to try and protect Gotham as best as he can, but he doesn't really trust him with anything else in this. I mean the kid went as far as make up a fake uncle to avoid being adopted by the man. He still loves him, its just that he doesn't really trust him with things not related to the mission, and even then its a bit iffy because he's only in the family because Bruce had gone too far. Gotham needs its Batman and he trust Bruce to be that, so long as there is a robin at his side.
Chapter 6: Monster
Summary:
Some secrets are better left untouched, like futures that the Teen Titans had been hoping would never come true.
Notes:
Monster by Jorge Rivera-Herrans from EPIC the Musical: The Underworld Saga
----
This goes through both times that Tim "fights" Gun Batman, so there is going to be some suicidal references during that second time that we see him. This is also going to be one of the few times that were going to jump forwards chronologically and then have to fall back to before then because the second part of Gb happens after Kon and Bart die, but then we're going to jump back at little in the next chapter.CW: past attempted suicide and talks of suicide and suicidal tendencies
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
When the music starts this time, it’s the heaviest that it has ever been, drowning out all other noises in the room and stealing breaths straight from lungs with only a chord or two before immediately loosening the tension.
It felt like a false hope to believe that the tension would not return in some manner, they all knew that to be true, but it was Tim that was all too sure of this fact as he was looking at the room that had taken shape in the mist this time. A room filled with technologies that did not yet exist in such a manner as they did in the mist. A room that he sometimes saw in his nightmares when he was younger, a dark figure lurking in the corner of it all.
A future demanding to be known.
“No, no, no,” the teen chanted under his breath, but those around him heard it still.
“Tim?” Kon questioned, risking a quick glance around the room to see that all of the bats were already watching them, having noticed Tim begin to curl in on himself.
“I’m so fucked,” the third Robin cursed before looking up at the teen that had called his name, watching as realization set in those beautiful skylit eyes.
“Don’t tell me…” The super said with no small amount of horror in his voice as he looked into the other teen’s eyes as if asking for the former Robin to call him an idiot for assuming wrong.
Tim didn’t.
“Do you think that it’ll show us?” Cassie asked, leaning forwards to look at the two boys as the Wonder Girl put the pieces together as well, her arms curling around her sides at the mere thought of the bats - of Batman especially - seeing that particular day.
The bats in question watched the scene unfold with no small amount of confusion unfurling in their chests as they looked at the four teens. Each of them had taken on a pale, almost ashen look to their skin as all the blood gave way to shock at whatever the video was going to unveil, Tim being the most affected of them all.
“Tim, it’s fine,” Bart said, training to sound reassuring even as his leg bounced nervously at an inhuman speed that would have made some of the bats nauseous to look at had they not had the training that they all did, “it’s never going to happen. Contingency plans, remember.”
“Right,” the boy said slowly, nodding as if these plans of his were a great comfort to have. The bats knew that they were, almost all of them had their fair share of them, even if they weren’t as obsessive as both Bruce and Tim were about their stockpiling of them. “We need to update those when we get out of here,” Tim continued, a small bit of genuine calm returning to the teen (not that there had been much to begin with since they had been taken and his life forcefully shown to those that he cares for most. A life that was bound to only get worse as more things are shown, like what is about to be) “Kon no longer fits the emotional profile that we all had for him before, the emotional connections that most of us had with one another before have changed due to recent developments, and apparently Cassie and I are much more mentally unstable than we thought before.”
“Hey!” The girl in question protested as Kon all but preened, knowing that his own changes were an improvement as he had true caution now.
“You joined a cult,” Bart pointed out, leaning forwards in the couch to look at the blonde girl and missing the way that the bats gathered around the room all looked at the four of them with varying levels of shock and horror at the idea of a superhero joining a cult organization, at the danger of that. At the fact that none of them had known.
None of them other than Tim that was.
“So did Tim!” Cassie returned, pointing an accusatory finger at the subject of her words.
A laugh rang through the room, Jason struggling to breathe from the sheer absurdity of it all as the third Robin all but squawked in offense as he turned to the girl wonder.
“At least I lead the cult that I joined-” Tim pointed out, the words said with much more light than he felt about that particular fact in question, but the point still stood nonetheless. Everything was already going to be shown as far as he could tell, so he might as well find the humor in it now before everything went to hell once the bats - once Batman - knew everything. “-that’s more than you can say.”
“Tim, what?” Dick questions, being the first other than Jason to react in some manner other than a shocked stillness. He was ignored though as the teens continued to speak to one another.
“I’m not sure if that’s any better, Rob,” Kon says, not unkindly as he looked at the former Robin with too much light in his eyes for the current conversation at hand as far as the bats could tell.
The core members of a Young Justice though were used to the son of Lex Luthor looking at Tim Drake with too much adoration in his eyes when the teen did something a little more than slightly unhinged. At least he had the excuse of being the son of an evil scientist, the other two often found themselves mirroring the look after not too long and had no such excuse for it. Not that Tim ever really noticed, the detective being far too oblivious to any emotion aimed at him that wasn’t negative most days.
“Tim, I…” Bruce tried to speak, his voice carrying enough that the four teens actually did look at the man as did everyone else in the room, though emotions had never been the bat’s strong suit so they found him looking upon them with furrowed brows and words that weren’t entirely sure how to form.
Tim sighed, the chaotic calm that he had found slipping away as he looked away from Bruce, refusing to see the look on the man’s face - the disappointment- as he spoke. “The cult thing was recent and will show up later,” the teen says, his voice taking on a tired ring to it as Batman hnned. “As for the contingency plans…”
Tim glanced at the other three around him, unsure of if their parts in everything would be revealed or if it would just be his own misdoings from a future that he would rather die than let pass.
Kon smiled, something bright and dangerous and achingly familiar as he said:
“They’re for if we ever turn into the evil dictators that our future selves had become when we met them that one time that we went to the future.”
The words were damning as the heavy silence that followed after they were spoken, Kon never looked away from Tim though, the implication clear that if the former Robin were to go down that they would fall with him.
“Bart stayed good though,” Cassie says, her words directed at the bats alone, leaving the pair in their own world until their bird was willing to face his family, to look at the ashen sort of tones that Dick, Steph, Duke, and Cass had taken on. The horror and anger in Batman’s gaze (something that she could only read after so long spent reading Tim’s own gaze) and the strange balance between a healthy amount of fear and impressed that had settled with both Jason and Damian. Yeah, she would take the brunt of their reactions for now until he was ready to do so. “That's why we give him all our contingencies to look at. Just in case, you know.”
“Why would you…?” Dick trailed off as he spoke, but the question was a clear one nonetheless.
Tim steeled his heart as he met his elder brother’s eyes. He’d already had his world burn down around him enough times that he couldn’t find it in himself to feel ashamed of anything that had been revealed in this conversation, at least not things that he had done and would do to avoid such a future.
“There was a Crisis, one way or another all of the old heroes died,” Tim explained, pretending that he didn’t hear the pained inhales of breath at the implication that his words had brought to their minds. It was true anyways. “We were what was left to fill their shoes, the former Teen Titans. The world had become dark back then, so our future selves had become darker to survive and not lose anymore than they already had.”
The words themselves were not harsh, but the reality behind them were. They weighed heavy on those in the room, heavier still on those that had been there to see the future themselves.
“You filled father’s mantle?” Damian asked, having latched onto that little fact. His tone was not as angry or accusatory as Tim had thought that it would be, but rather something akin to when the boy was talking with Dick about customs that the boy did not yet understand given their less than violent nature that he was unused to. As if he was being shown something wrong but knew that there was nothing that he could do about it, so there must be something wrong with his own perception of the situation. It was a process that the pair had been working on for some time, but today was the first time that Damian had ever let it stretch to the topic of the third Robin.
Tim nodded. “Dick had run off with Kori to space,” the man in question looked a bit ashamed at his future selve’s actions, “Alfred and Cass were dead too,” Cass’s eyes went wide for a moment, though she wasn’t overly surprised. She would never had let Tim fall so far had she been by his side. She hoped at least. “None of us had known about Duke at the time, but Steph had died as well, and Jason had fucked off to New Jersey to join a rebel group there after I had already taken up the mantle.”
The weight in the room became even heavier as they realized just how many of them were dead in the future that the Titans had seen back then.
“And me?” Damian asks with all the bravado of a small child fearful of their own future demise. “Why did I not take it for you?”
For you, Tim notes, not from you. As if it was a weight that he was willing to bear and not the legacy that Damian had been intent on having since he was small. There was something sweet in that implication, it made the words that he was about to speak even more sour.
“You did,” he admits, seeing the confusion on his family’s face as he did so and hating it, hating how much they were going to hate him when he continued, “you were violent and dangerous, and my future self killed you for it.”
Something pained made itself known in the expressions of both Dick and Damian, the source of it the same but the exact reasons entirely different. For Dick, he hated the idea of one of his little brothers killing the other, especially when he knew that he was partly to blame for it, his future self at the least was. For Damian however, it felt like a betrayal, one that sunk down into his core. He wondered if this was how Timothy had felt each time that he had tried to kill him, the fall from the dinosaur, the cut line. An effort to save Damian’s own life and flying at the younger boy’s side where he should have been safe. He thought that he was probably right in thinking that this was how the older boy had felt.
He hated it.
Jason had been listening to everything that the younger teen said with a silence that was unusual for him, especially when it came to Tim. He thought back to the words that Tim had spoken near the beginning of it all, the promise that the things that Jason had done as a crime lord would pale in comparison to what Tim had done and might one day still do. He thought that Tim might be right.
(He knew that Tim was and hated it for Tim’s own sake)
Bruce’s hands were curled tightly in his lap in a grip that likely would have broken skin had he not been wearing the gloves of his costume. He hated everything about what Tim had just explained to them all, and hated himself for the fact that there was a larger part of his mind already viewing his son as a threat and thinking of ways to stop him should a future like this begin to unfold. Hated that he wasn’t even overly surprised at it all, not when Tim was too smart for his own good, and Ra’s has been interested in Tim since the boy was Robin. That wasn’t even including the things that he had learned about here. Tim had always been dangerous in his books, unhinged in the place of Dick’s violence and Jason’s kindness from when they each had been Robin, he had always just hidden it until he no longer wished to do so. This was the effect of that particular trait.
“It’s a future that’s never going to happen though,” Kon says, his voice firm as the actions of his own future self shackled him, actions that he didn’t know to the same extent as Tim does his own, but he knew were no less horrible. The only good that this version of him had done was stick by Tim’s side. “That’s what the contingencies are for.”
“And if they fail?” Bruce asks, his voice changed just slightly but to those that knew him it sounded absolutely wrecked.
“Then there are more lethal options,” Cassie says, though her tone is all Wonder Girl.
Almost every eye in the room snapped to the girl when she said that.
“Murder?” Duke asked, his voice a bit shaky at the information that had been laid out before them for the past few minutes, more so than anything else that they had been shown before.
“Murder suicide to be exact,” Tim corrects, a sunny smile on the teen’s face thst no one believes as he spoke of a plan that had been made that neither Kon or Bart had known about but thought that maybe they should have guessed. “We saw how the loss of just two out of the four of us was affecting each other and planned accordingly.”
Cassie nodded, knowing that either one of them likely would have burned the world down around them had they lost just one more person.
Tim knew it too, knew it better as he had done so in a way after carrying Pru and himself from the desert. It had just taken a minute to do so.
“What can we say,” Cassie starts with a shrug, the tone in the room lightening just a bit, “we’re codependent little fucks.”
After all, what else could you call two people that only dated because they were each grieving the same two people?
(Each of them in the same way, even if neither knew that at the time)
“When are we not?” Tim asks, his voice lightening purposefully as well as he held up a fist, one that the girl gladly met, pounding them together like the teens that they were.
The looks that the pair received from the bats were unimpressed to say the least, but it did what was needed to make it easier to breathe once more within the room.
“There are so many things to unpack,” Dick muttered, the words carrying in the all but silent room.
“None of which we currently have time for,” Kon said, smiling that smile of his that made Tim roll his eyes even as he bit down a smirk of his own.
Cass nodded at the couch and then pointed at the mist, the message clear. Everyone in the room knew better than to question the orders given by the Black Bat.
“How has everything been turned against us?
“How did suffering become so endless?
“How am I to reunite with my estranged?”
The Tim in the mist walks a bit further in the mist, the room around the boy becoming more clear for them to see. The building was a bit changed by time, but those that had been there more times than they knew how to count knew that Tim was within a room in Arkham Asylum. It was a realization that had more than one bat drawing in a rushed breath. It was almost enough for them not to notice the last line that the teen had sung in the mist.
Almost.
“Reunite?” Duke questions, his voice a bit less confident than he would have liked. Tim had not been a person that he had known well before all of this, not truly, and this experience was only proving to show the things that the teen had clearly wanted to keep hidden, the secrets that he wished weren’t truths. It wasn’t a pretty picture that was being painted for them. Not of Tim, and not of Bruce at the time either.
“We got separated,” Bart says almost breezily. The teen had shifted on the couch, sitting straight once more but leaning forwards and swinging his legs out of order with the other. The other three teens on the couch didn’t look annoyed by the action, so the bats assumed that it was normal.
“I was kidnapped,” Tim explains bluntly when his family looks to him for an explanation. He says it likes its normal, which in their line of work it was.
“By who?” Bruce asks, unable to stop himself from doing so, despite knowing that the information was bound to be given to him in a few moments.
“Myself.”
“Do I need to change?
“I'm surrounded by the souls of those I've lost
“I'm the only one whose line I haven't crossed
“What if the greatest threat we'll find across the sea
“Is me?”
A figure seems to appear from the shadows themselves, as if they were a shadow forced into human skin. They wore a familiar dark clad suit on their muscular frame that looked so much the same as the one that Bruce was currently wearing and yet so wrong at the same time. As if looking at oneself in a funhouse mirror. Honestly, had the core members of Young Justice not already known, and the bats had not been told, they might not have known that the man in the suit was not Bruce. It was eerie to see and somehow worse than when Dick had worn the suit.
Damian looked at the face of the man that had killed his own future self and found him to look cruel, twisted by the future that he lived to see and to be shaped by and then shape himself. It was hard to believe that this was once the third Robin, once the brother that he had sought to kill and take the place of. Yet… it was not as hard to believe as he had thought that it would be.
Timothy had grown colder since Damian had joined the family and had turned into an entire beast altogether since the supposed death of their father. Damian didn’t know everything that the older boy had done - that being nearly the exact reason that they were here - but he thought that the younger version of Timothy that he was seeing now would be nearly just as horrified by the elder man in the mist and the elder teen sitting across the room from him.
(It was only looking at the monster that his brother might still one day become should the cards fall so wrongly, that the child realized that Timothy had likely let him live all those times that Damian had tried to kill him. That he was still sitting here because Timothy had allowed it, something that his older self had decidedly not. There was something like fear coursing through him at the thought, but also something that was decidedly true and untainted respect. Respect for the boy that Timothy had been before he had met him, and respect for the best that he had turned into since.)
Bruce felt like he was watching a ghost as a man that looked so much like himself and yet was everything that he sought not to be, appeared before him. Batman had always proclaimed himself to be the personification of vengeance, and yet Brice thought that perhaps this was a title that fell to the version of the bat in the mist, the one who’s grief clung to him like blades that dug into everyone else’s skin, tearing at the flesh and leaving foes bloody.
He thought that Tim looked a bit like a wraith right then.
(Bruce decided that he would do whatever it took to make sure that the boy never had to take the burden that he had created, not if it was in a world that turned him into this)
Tim, Kon, Cassie, and Bart were all still as they looked at the future version of the third Robin, breaths caught in their throats at seeing him. Tim was gripping both Kon’s and Cassie’s hands tightly on either side of him, silently thankful that they each had super strength as he knew that he was squeezing hard enough to hurt anyone that didn’t. None of them liked remembering this, remembering who most of them had become, and one day might still. Tim liked it the least out of any of them, not just because it was his own image being shown now, but because he had lived through a world where he had lost everyone much like his future self had, and knew for certain now that he was not entirely strong enough to fight off the darkness that had been created from such an experience.
(He hated that even before losing everyone, when only a few were gone, he had fallen to the same corruption that the older him had. There was too much stolen cloning material to deny such a thing.)
“What if I'm the monster?
“What if I'm in the wrong?
“What if I'm the problem that's been hiding all along?
“What if I'm the one who led us astray?
“Every time I caved to guilt?”
The older version of Tim walked closer to the younger version of the boy, the one still clad in the colors of Robin, wearing them like the armor made of light that they were supposed to be. Had the situation not been what it was, it almost would have looked like Batman and Robin were just reconvening after being split up in a fight. But those watching knew better and wanted to pull the pair apart, but were helpless to do anything at all as the Batman in the mist drew closer to the Robin that would one day fall to the shadows that the elder Tim wore like armor made of night.
It was when he stepped further into the light that Steph saw it.
“Is that a gun?” The girl asked, pointing at the weapon that sat on the elder Tim’s hip as if it were made to be there.
The Tim sitting on the couch felt his eyes slip shut as he thought about what to say, trying to find some semblance of calm before he spoke with too much panic creeping into his voice at the events of just over two years ago now.
“It is,” he confirmed, his words simple and short, tone clipped.
“I thought that your specialty was the Bo staff?” Duke asked, his question genuine and lacking the sort of digging that most bats did.
“Only because it’s non lethal,” is the response that Tim gives, one that makes Bruce frown at the implications there.
Cass could see just how uncomfortable her little brother was and wished that there was something that she could do to stop it, to let him hide this for as long as he wished to do so. But she knew that there were many things that the teen was going to want to hide throughout this, and that there would still be nothing that she could do for him other than understand what it meant to be a monster herself. To know that she has the ability and the will to kill and to hate herself for it. Tim met her eyes and she smiled, something small and secretive, just for them.
He returned it.
“Stealing my weapon now are we?” Jason asks, though there’s no bite to it, no humor either. There really isn’t much emotion at all in the words that the man speaks, all of them too spent after having his version of the younger boy being written and rewritten time and time again for him as they sat in this room. It was exhausting and needed in equal parts.
(Tim had been the one to take his spot, but Jason had never wanted them to resemble one another so closely in such ways. Too many ways. But they were both Red and had been long before the other donned the title as well, these videos were proving that. He may not like the corruption of the boy that was supposed to be the best Robin out of them all, but he would stand by the teen even if the rest of the bats decided not to after all this)
“Choice of weapon, sure, but not yours exactly,” Tim answers almost numbly. Had it been any other time, the distinction might have seemed snarky but right then it seemed important in ways that Jason didn’t understand and Damian didn’t like.
Kon returned a bit of the pressure from the other boy’s grasp on his hand, wanting to provide some form of comfort if he could.
“What if I've been far too kind to foes
“But a monster to ourselves?
“What if I'm the monster?”
The elder version of Tim stalks even closer, stopping at the younger's side and laying a thick arm across the young teen’s shoulders, pulling them close to one another’s side in a manner that would have made many of the vigilantes present a little sick had it been any other rogue. In some ways it still did, no one wanted that version of Tim so close to the younger. No one wanted the elder to exist at all.
“Is the vigilante struck with guilt when he kills?”
In the mist above the two versions of the boy sitting with them, a vision of the elder version of Tim, still clad in the cowl, appeared as if the elder was telling the younger some great story. In the image they could see the dark figure of the bat on a rooftop with someone else. The man shoots the stranger that they could not quite see, the shot going clean through the head as the figure fell over the side of the building and to the ground down below.
There was nothing like guilt in the way that the elder Tim stood, not the one on the roof and not the one standing with the younger Tim either.
(There wasn’t even horror in the younger Tim’s own stance, not from that at least, merely something more like disgust)
“Is he up in the middle of the night?
“Or does he end those men to avenge his country
“And then sleep knowing he has done him right?”
The dark version of Tim - the one that the boy would rather not exist at all - moved like a predator as he raised his younger self’s right hand up until it was level, pressing the gun into the boy’s hood until he gripped it himself. The child in the mist moved with tense movements, everything forced and uncertain but going along with it for the time being cause there was no other choice that he had.
His stance was perfect as he held it, loose and just the right amount of confidence. All of the bats were trained in how to handle a gun, even if Bruce did not like their use for personal reasons he still wanted his children to be properly trained should the need to use one arise. The young Tim held the gun in his grasp in a way that he never did hold a bow. He held it as if it was a natural extension of himself, just like when he held his Bo.
Tim is a bit of a chameleon, Jason thought as he watched his little brother, adapting and changing as was asked of him with ease.
It was terrifying.
(More so because the more that the boy in the mist sung, the more that he seemed to be understanding his elder counterpart)
“When the bat tears men to pieces to protect his friends
“Is he goin' insane?”
The mist shows them a second image once more, it forming above the two figures’ heads as they stood there frozen in time. This time they see the elder Tim in a dark lit alley, rain pouring down around both him and the man that was standing before him and shaking in a manner that hardly seemed to be from the cold. The Tim of a future that most of them had not been there to see shifted a cruel smile slipped itself onto the man’s face, the gun raised in his own hand as it was in the young Tim’s just below him. The elder Tim’s arm shook, once, twice, three, four times as bullets made a home for themselves in the stranger’s knee elbows. The stranger fell to the ground in agony but couldn’t move in any way without causing themselves more of it.
He certainly looked as insane as the lyrics suggested, looking a bit like the version of Jason that had put severed heads into duffel bags and laughed as he shot a child as they fought in a place that was supposed to be safe for the kid.
No one said it though, even if they were all thinking it.
(Even if that crazedness was something that their Tim of the present had touched on more than he should of in recent times and some of them knew it)
“Or did he learn to be colder when he got older
“And now he saves them the pain?”
The Tim in the mist looks up at the man that was as familiar to him as he was a stranger, something pinched in the teen’s gaze as he looked at the older version of himself with equal parts disgust and something horribly close to understanding.
Kon and Cassie shifted as they recognized the look, having felt something similar at the time when they had met their own future selves. It was awful to have seen what they had become and yet they knew why it had happened. They weren’t Icarus, falling and dying when they crashed into the waves below. No, they had been Daedalus, forced to watch their loved ones fall as they survived alone.
The Tim of the present shifted uncomfortably at the words, understanding them even more now than he had then. He was colder now than he had been when he had first met his future self, and he was older as well. He was closer to being his future self now than he was to being the boy that was in the mist, still clad in the green, red, and yellow that would soon become just red and black. Tim knew that it was right around then that the change had occurred, making him a red Robin long before the color was ever capitalized.
(He couldn’t bring himself to feel sorry about any of the actions that he had taken after that point)
“When a bat comes down and makes a hero fall
“Is he scared that he's doing something wrong?”
The image in the mist shifts for a moment once more, to a graveyard that the pair seemed to be standing in, as if they had been in there before the conversation of present took place. Almost every stone had names that they all knew, though one was different:
Ibn al Xi’ffasch
The name carved there brought some pinched brows to those that did not know what it meant, did not understand the dialect. Tim was not one of these people.
“Ibn al Xi’ffasch, Son of the Bat,” the teen says, the foreign words on his tongue pronounced perfectly, middle eastern accent and all. Had the words that he had spoken been nearly everything else then that might have been a detail that the bats in the room found themselves stuck on, but as they weren’t it was forgotten for the moment as Dick brought Damian closer to himself and the boy was shaken enough by the sight of his own grave to allow it.
“Or does he keep us in check so we must respect him
“And now no one dares to piss him off?”
Tim fires the first shot at the center of the paper on the wall with the accuracy of someone born to hold a gun in their hands, Jason thinks of how he had seen the teen shot before being dragged there and knows that the kid has an impeccable shot even now, maybe even more so than he had been then.
The kid in the mist shot with a coldness that was different from his adult self, more calculating. Anyone with eyes could tell that the boy did not want to become his future self, and yet Tim had always been the sort to learn what he could no matter the source that was willing to teach it, Shiva was evidence enough of that.
He looked like someone acknowledging the darkness within themselves and wondering what they could do with it now that they knew that it was there, wondering if they should do anything at all but lock it tightly away.
Bruce flinched when the gun was shot even though none of them could hear the sound of it firing beyond a distant beat. This was something that brought every eye in the room to the seemingly stone man that showed less emotions than the man of steel.
Bruce only met the gaze of one though.
“Is that…?” He asks, his voice tracking off, his voice haunted.
Tim still understood.
“It is,” the teen speaks with simple words, cold and toneless, as if he were giving a report and waiting for judgment. He had sounded like that a lot throughout everything.
“How?”
“I don’t know,” he admits, the words sour on his tongue. It was not very often that a bat did not know something, even less so when Tim was the one that did not.
“What is it?” Bart asks, not knowing either, but knowing that one of the bats were likely to ask and that their Robin would definitely feel better answering him than one of them.
And indeed when Tim turns to meet the speedster’s gaze there is nothing but thinly veiled pain and gratitude there. “It’s the gun that killed B’s parents,” the child says, his voice filled with so much emotion that it almost sounded like none at all.
It was the gun that had started it all.
More than one person drew in a sharp breath as this was told to them, something that Tim alone had been carrying since he was fifteen like so many other things that they had found out today.
“How did he get it?” Damian asks, being the first to regain his voice. Being a child assassin would do that to you.
He, not you, Tim noted, feeling pleased at the purposely placed distinction.
“No idea,” the teen answers honestly, noticing and ignoring the hazy mix of relief and apprehension that Bruce seemed to be living in from his answer, “but I never intend to find out.”
The child nodded as if his answer was satisfactory enough to warrant it. Tim ignored the hopeful feeling blooming in his chest at the sight of such a small thing.
“Does a Robin use complicated plans to trap rouges
“'Cause he is vile?”
The young Tim in the mist takes another shot with the gun, hitting nearly the exact same spot as before, accuracy and precision complementing one another nicely. The boy’s brows were furrowed in the mist, as if the boy were truly thinking the words that were being sung. As if he were comparing himself to the man that he might one day become. As if he truly wondered just how good he was after the things that he had done up until the young age of fifteen.
The bats didn’t have the heart to try and change that thought, none of them were inherently good enough to feel like they could.
The former founding members of Young Justice had no such reservations. They hardly ever did when it came to one another.
Kon turned to the boy at his side, grasping his chin and making the other teen meet his gaze when he refused to do so.
“You are the farthest thing from vile that I have ever known Timothy Jackson Drake,” the teen says firmly, his voice unwavering and sure in the way that it so often was when he felt so absolute about something that those listening couldn’t help but believe him. It was the sort of voice that could tell you anything and you would nod along as if it were true.
None of them had ever pieced together if it was from Clark’s influence or Luthor’s, it had never mattered anyways. Tim thought that it was likely a mix of both, but right then he liked the idea of it being Luthor’s influence more, liked the idea of Kon knowing having a piece of him that he would think was vile and using it for good, the spiteful being that he was.
(Liked the idea that they might both be a bit dark)
“Whatever you say, Conner Kent.”
“Or does he throw away his remorse
“And save more lives with guile?”
The young version of Tim in the mist still had the gun raised in the air, a small trendle of smoke rising from it as he did. The older version of the teen was smiling at the boy’s side, something cruel twisting his lips as if he thought that he had won.
“If I became the monster and threw that guilt away
“Would that make us stronger?
“Would it keep our foes at bay?”
The gun disappeared from the younger Tim’s grasp like smoke as Bart, Kon, and Cassie appeared before him, each of their expressions grim as they looked at the teen that they had been separated from for far too long. The future was a grim one, draining on each of them and leaving them all looking haunted.
(It was the sort of look that they never had rid themselves of since, the grief of who they had become giving way to grief for who their friends would never get a chance to be as they watched them die. Even with everyone back once more it still lingered, grieving the children that they had once been)
“If I became the monster to everyone but us”
The three metas all moved quickly to the version of Tim in the mist, huddling around the teen in a manner that mirrored just how they had stood with him when he had shot down the bots after the fight earlier, reassurance and devotion in each of their gazes as they tried to hold their teammate together.
Watching them, Dick wondered if the Teen Titans that he had led would have done the same for him had they been in the children’s shoes. His group had not formed like Young Justice had, they had been angry with their mentors and took it out on one another more than they ever should have done so. Young Justice had been formed with a bunch of unwanted children finding a home in one another.
(He didn't think that they would have, and didn’t that sting)
“You thought about it?” Bruce asks as he looked at the third child that he had taken in. There was something tired in his voice, as if he had already spent all of the emotion that he had and that this was all that was left.
Tim takes a moment to think, to breathe, as everyone’s eyes turned to his figure and seemingly held him there. He didn’t know what to say that wouldn’t have everyone watching him for years to come. “Not in the way that you’re thinking,” is what he settles on. The words are vague, but they are just enough to make Cassie turn to him with panic in her eyes.
“Even back then?” She asks, and she must see something in Tim’s gaze that she doesn’t like because she speaks again before he can. “Even now?”
Tim doesn’t answer. It’s answer enough.
When the first tear falls from Cassie’s eyes, he doesn’t hesitate to pull the girl towards himself, accepting the weak, angered hits that she gives him in protest. The pair of them ignored everyone and everything else around them, ignored the way that the bats silently turned their emotionally inept gazes away as Kon and Bart looked on with the pain of people that didn’t know how to help. It didn’t matter in the end, as the music started once more and stole everyone’s attention away once more, searching for answers to their unasked question in the mist.
“And made sure we got home again
“Who would care if we're unjust?”
The Cassie and Bart in the mist begin to run away towards the doorway that the three had supposedly first come through. Kon and Tim don’t move yet though, staying there for a moment as Tim’s hands seem to shake, his trigger finger twitching around nothing at all.
“If I became the
“Monster”
The Kon in the mist grabs Tim’s hand in his own, holding the smaller teen as if he were something precious and not a monster in the making. He pulls the Robin towards the exit, their fingers lacing together as they ran one after the other, never letting go of the other. It was impractical to move in such a manner, they knew that then just as they knew it now, but neither versions of themselves cared even as Bruce seemed to be biting back some retort in his throat.
“Oh, ruthlessness is mercy upon ourselves”
Time seems to stop as the older version of Tim appears once more in the shadows of the mist and sings. The younger Tim still behind Kon as the super pulls him forwards even as he was frozen in time. The words were cruel and sharp and blunt all at once, and the younger version of Tim, just fifteen, seemed to be rolling them around in his mind for consideration.
“And deep down I know this well”
The young Tim sings this, closing his eyes as if in admission as he does so, as if it made him a monster in his own right to do so. But he had been ruthless all his life, it was what had drawn Shiva in and kept her attention, it was what had kept Ra’s coming back to him throughout all the years. It was what had gotten Bruce home. It was what let him stand among the bats under the title that he now held for himself, knowing the history that it had and owning it as his own.
It was what let do what needed to be done, even if it made him a monster in the process of it all.
“I lost my best friends,”
Kon’s hand turns into ash in the young Tim’s grasp, the rest of him following and disappearing into the wind of a void as Tim changed himself, a bit older than he had been only a moment before in the mist, uniform turning into shades of red and black alone.
“You changed it to my colors?” Kon asks, no explanation needed for what he was talking about.
Tim turns a bit on the couch - not letting go of Cassie, not yet when they both knew what was coming - and looks up at the man that back then he had never thought that he would get back. He had been dead and Tim had wanted a piece of him to hold onto, needed it even more so when every cloning attempt had failed again and again.
Tim nods.
“For me?” The super presees, voice a bit strangled, a bit too bare.
“Yes,” Tim says, his voice firm and heartbreakingly soft all at once. And Kon breaths as if that word was his whole world.
Bruce, Dick, and Damian breathe in sharply as well, though for reasons a bit different than the super’s. Back then, none of them had known that this was the reason behind the change, though they knew that they should have guessed it, they were supposed to be detectives after all.
Back then Bruce had been going through his own things, and he had just accepted the change as Tim having needed one after everything. Dick had done much the same and Damian had not cared in the least when he had showed up.
Dick looked at his little brother now, the one before him and then one in the mist. He thought back to the day that he had officially taken on Damian at his side as Robin, the title that Tim had worn in the manner that one would a lost one’s favorite clothes. He had already known that he had messed up in how he had done things back then, he was starting to question just how much though. He wished now that he had added a bit more green to Damian’s suit back then, a bit more yellow. A bit more of any color except for the drowning red and black.
Kon looked down at the clothes that Tim wore now, the suit that he had changed into when the testimony of his grief had been taken from him… the colors were the same. The dark red, the black, both kissing his skin even now that Kon was back.
“Even now?” Kon asks, the words the same as the ones that Cassie had spoken but filled with some much love where hers had been filled with nothing but fear.
“Forever.” It was such a simple word, and yet the declaration there held so much weight to it that it seemed almost impossible, untouchable.
Jason watched the pair and regretted any time that he had brought up the younger boy taking the title of Red Robin, because him doing so was no different than when he had called Roy’s number just to hear the other man’s voice once more in his ear over and over again.
“my mom
“So many people gone, this can't go on”
Scene shifts and now the Tim in the mist is standing in the streets of Gotham, fire raging around him and another man standing before him in the wreckage of it all as fight waged around them. It was easy to guess that this was another future version of Tim, one changed by the actions of the Titans after they came back to their own time. The elder Tim didn’t look to be Batman this time, but that didn’t stop the rest of the twisted versions of the Titans from following him all the same.
“I must get to see Kon and Bart”
Both boys appear on either side of the Tim in the mist as their names are called, their figures somewhat translucent and blurry around the edges and hands fading as they almost touched Tim. They were dead and everyone in the room knew it without having to be reminded of it.
Bart said it still.
“But we were dead back then,” the speedster says, his words impossibly slow for the first time ever, as his mind started to catch up to what Tim’s and Cassie’s had already known.
“I know,” Tim says, smiling sadly in the manner that someone might as the only thing between them and falling was the person holding desperately to them, and yet the person lets themselves fall so that they both don’t.
It was all that Bart and Kon needed to know.
It was all that any of them needed to know.
“So if we must fight through dangerous cities and streets
“I'll go where the future won't reach us”
In the mist, the version of Tim that was closer to their own that they had now, launches himself at the older version of himself, more than a bit reckless as they begin to fight, relentlessly, ruthlessly. Fatally. Each hit seeking to break and bruise for days and weeks to come. It was almost enough for them to not notice the words being sung, but they all did still. They all understood no matter how much that they wished that they didn’t, that they were wrong.
There was only one place that one could go where the future could not touch you, and that was if you did not have one at all.
“And if I gotta drop another bird from the sky”
Both Jason and Bruce flinch at the words as the Tim in the mist doges another blow from his future self while trying to land a deadly one of his own. The words seem to burn into each of the men, as they knew exactly what the boy had been alluding to back then.
The fact that this was not a fight that he had thought that he would come out of it, had been willing, almost desperate, not to do so.
“In an instant, so we all don't die
“Then I'll become the monster
“I will deal the blow”
The older version of Tim lands a blow, hitting the younger across the face with his gun and forcing the teen to fall to the ground, anger in his eyes as he looks up at his older self with rage like flames. Jason thought that if the boy had been infected by the Lazarous Pits that his eyes would have been blazing a brilliant green.
The thought alone was terrifying.
“And I'll become the monster
“Like none they've ever known
“So what if I'm the monster
“Lurking deep below?”
The Tim in the mist rises up from the ground and back into the fight, violent and feral and using moves that Shiva had taught him and Bruce would have never approved of. Moves that were useless because his older self knew them already like the back of his hand, using them with an ease that Tim himself would not possess for months after this.
A seemingly lucky hit sends the teen’s older self’s gun flying from the man’s hand, the price being that Tim too went flying to the ground once more in the same direction that it had gone, brutally scraping across the ground in a manner that made more than one person wince.
“I must become the monster
“And then we'll make it home”
The Tim in the mist rolls across the ground, landing right next to the gun, a fact that does not escape any of the heroes of the vigilantes in the room.
The tight grip that Cassie takes to their Tim’s hand does.
“(Monster) Kon
“(Monster) Bart”
The ghost figures are back once more, standing before the Tim in the mist, and seemingly filling his vision as Tim stands, the gun in hand, fire blazing at the boy’s back and something a bit peaceful in the teen’s eyes. Something a bit like acceptance, like hope.
“(Monster) Oh, ruthlessness is mercy upon ourselves
“(Monster) I'll become the monster.”
Tim raises the gun up and points it at his head, the smirk on his lips and the horror on his older version’s face is the last thing that any of them see before the mist turns black as the song ends with a heavy note.
“No,” Jason all but snarled, his voice gruff as he stands and stalks over to the teen that had taken on the mantle from him, the teen that he should have taken care of as Dick had begun to try to do for him latter in Jason’s own tenure under the mask. “No, you are never doing that again, Tim,” he says firmly as he stops before his younger brother, fear in Jason’s eyes that mirrored the terror in Dick’s own as the eldest brother also moved close.
“I-” Tim starts but is cut off by the acrobat.
“Did you know that I would catch you?” Dick asks, the question hurried with more fear than he cared to admit for a trained vigilante. “Did you?”
“Stop.”
The voice is quiet when it speaks, soft yet firm as it’s owner. All three brother turned to look at Cass, the girl standing behind both Dick and Jason and pulling them away from Tim, giving him room to breathe once more. The four look at each other for a long moment and force each other to calm down.
“I don’t regret my choices,” the third Robin says, his voice all but mirroring his sister’s, “…but I can understand why you wouldn’t like them.”
And there looked to be so many things that the people around him wanted to say, not even counting those that weren’t in the immediate circle that had been formed on the couch, with Cassie and Kon holding onto Tim as if he was going to disappear if they let go and Bart grasping his arm just as desperately. But in the end no one in the circle got the chance to.
“Would you do it again?” Damian asked as he slipped through the gap between Cass and Dick to stand right before Tim, their gazes level for the first time in either of their lives. Those that had not noticed the child moving startled, but Tim was not one of them. “Timothy?”
“Yes,” Tim answered with a simple certainty that one would use to say that the sky was blue, “but so would everyone else in this room.”
Tim and Damian looked at one another, all of the understanding that they had built for each other since coming here (and long before today if they were being honest) passing between each other at once. Damian nodded, knowing that nothing would change the older boy’s mind, knowing that even if something were to that he would still be right all the same.
When he moved again, it wasn’t to go back to his couch, but to plant himself at the older boy’s feet, leaning against his legs and taking in the living warmth of someone that he had once wanted dead and now never wanted to lose. Tim moved his free hand to slip into the boy’s hair affectionately, knowing that the boy must have been truly shaken since he wasn’t immediately stabbed for it.
The others in the room watched the strangely domestically morbid scene, knowing that this was a weight that they all carried willingly even if Tim showed it through more personal ways. There was always a chance that they would go into a fight and not make it back out, the fight that had started this conversation just happened to be one that Tim was having with himself.
Bruce hated how much the vigilante in him agreed with the actions that his son had taken, knowing that what the teen had done back then truly would have been the best way to have stopped that fight. That he would have done the same had he been in Tim’s shoes.
The father in him wanted to lock Tim in his unused room in the manor and never let the boy back out.
Cass smiled sadly at her little brother, the teen that was so broken from the beginning that he had all but been dust after Paris. She would protect him, always. And at the moment that looked like her touching his face for a moment, letting him lean into it, before pulling away and taking her eldest two brothers back with her to the other couch where Duke was waiting alone and needing someone as well as he stared at the brother that he never would have known had the trigger been pulled back then. She moved back to her Father and Steph next, the blonde girl having taken Cass’s own seat and Cass sitting between them both and holding both their hands in her own.
Steph didn’t really seem to acknowledge the touch, too lost in looking at Tim as he sat on the couch, fear still gripping her heart. Fear and guilt, because this was how she felt at the idea of Tim dying and she had faked her own death.
(There was an apology to be made, but not right now)
“If we die again,” Bart starts, his voice more serious than any of them had heard before, “neither Kon nor I want you joining us until you are eighty and die of old age from drinking all those stupid energy drinks of yours. Okay, Rob?”
All three of them knew that Tim couldn’t promise them that, but as he looked at them, at that desperate light in each of their eyes, Tim knew what to say. He had always been a gifted liar after all.
“Okay,” he whispers, voice cracking just a bit.
“Okay,” Kon confirms, though he doesn’t let Tim go. None of them do.
“The next song will start now.”
Notes:
comments where people don't respect that I've asked people not to guess/suggest songs will be deleted
Also, please don't mention typos. You think you're helping but i really don't like it, it makes me feel bad and since this is just a fan fic it shouldn't matter anyways
Hope you liked it
Chapter 7: Keep Your Friends Close
Summary:
Tim's sixteenth birthday
Notes:
Keep Your Friends Close by Jorge Rivera-Herrans from EPIC the Musical: The Ocean Saga
—-
Hi! I’ve made a playlist with all the songs that have already been used (and will date it as the chapters comes out) on both YouTube and Spotify for those that want it:
https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLHSTESD1PfprR6RuIOFgT2g-uRUAGz01R&si=jgxl9WCD-aPYkmuW
https://open.spotify.com/playlist/0WRYcCfdSYJe70jo6qtvoj?si=9DesZkkiRqmI0sI7KLRE0w
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
“The following events take place nearly right after the previous ones,” the voice informed them, the words almost akin to a warning in how they were delivered.
They made Bruce pale as he remembered the words given before the beginning of the last song. The situation that they had been speaking of, that’d had Tim threatening revenge worse than death for if Bruce did something similar to the child now sitting at the teen’s feet.
The gaze of the Dark Knight turns to meet that of his Red Robin, finding the younger’s eyes cold when they met, harsh in a way that he had not seen them like many times before. The last time that he had met this gaze, Tim had just barely allowed a man to live, letting him loose from the trap that the teen had created seamlessly.
“Don’t tell me this is…” Bruce starts, his voice trailing off as he looked at his son and saw a bit too much of his future self in his child’s gaze.
“What that fuck else would it be, Bruce?” Tim all but snarled, causing everyone else in the room to look at the teen in poorly hidden (if at all) surprise. Tim was not the type to curse, nor was he the type to let his anger show, yet he was doing both right then.
“Tim?” Jason starts, drawing the gazes in the room away from the pair and to himself, or at least attempting to do so as the teen in question glared at Bruce for a moment or two more before turning as well. “What exactly did the old man do?”
Tim's gaze was softer when he looked at his older brother, though his tone was no less sharp and biting. “Why don’t we all watch and see?”
“Damned little box of metal”
The Tim that appears in the mist this time looks much like the one that they had seen at the beginning of the last song, almost as if next to no time had passed between then and now. There was still green in the teen’s suit, still a bit of lightness to his shoulder that he has been nearly completely devoid of since donning the red. The teen in the mist was holding a metal box in the palm of his hand, small and unassuming but strange all the same. It was something that none of the bats or metas in the room recognized as they looked at it, for the most part that was.
Bruce recognized it, as did Steph.
(It was something that Tim could never forget)
“That’s twice now that you’ve cursed in the past minute, Timmy,” Jason chided, his voice falsely light as he looked at the teen that was already so damaged before he had even come along. The teen that he was going to be keeping an eye on for years to come because it seemed that Bruce could not be trusted to do so if the methods in the last song and the conversation before this one were anything to go by. “Careful or Alfred will break out the swear jar when we get back.”
Tim laughed, that cold, grating laugh of his that held no humor at all and made more than one person shift. “He can fucking try,” the teen said harshly, making Damian still at his feet. Tim ran a hand through the child’s hair to comfort him, but did nothing to dull his words. “Maybe he’ll want a real robotic hand for his troubles.”
The threat was clear for all to hear, filled with venom and promise as Tim spoke it. Bruce was the only one other than Tim to understand the full scope of it though.
The man looked at his son, looked at the cold figure that he cut in his dark suit. He knew that the boy loved Alfred, all of the children did, but he also thought that there was a chance that the boy would follow through on his threat if the events of back then were used in whatever argument that would occur to lead to such an action.
Tim had never looked at them the same after that day.
“You wouldn’t,” Dick said, though his voice shook a bit as he did so.
“You sure?” Tim asked, cold and cruel, and every bit a creature that an al Ghul would take interest in.
Dick said nothing, nor did anyone else.
(A lot of them wanted to, wanted answers now for what the kind butler could have possibly done to break the teen before them so badly that he was still angered by it, changed by it, even now. But they were all smart enough to know that Tim would not answer.
This was something that not even the three friends sitting with Tim knew, the consequences of Bruce and Alfred’s actions much too short for him to have told them back then, and the actions themself much too insignificant in the face of everything that soon followed after. But the three still remembered a time when Tim was especially sharp when speaking of the bats, they thought that this might be why)
“I don't know if you know this
“But I’ve been trying to open you for a day now”
The Tim in the mist walks out of the room that he had been in, still wearing his Robin uniform, and into another one where he stood by himself. A place for the teen to gather his thoughts it seemed, and study the contraption on his own. The box that it seemed he had been struggling to open since receiving it.
“That’s the mysterious box that you found at your birthday party,” Steph realized aloud, remembering that time fully now, remembering how on edge the other vigilante had been for the weeks following that day. How angry he was at the end of the two week mark.
He had never told her what had happened, but she had guessed then - knew now - that it was Bruce’s fault.
“Yeah,” Tim answers bitterly.
“I ask for your assistance
“So I at last can know your message
“Can you open up and tell me what you know?”
The door to the room that the Tim within the mist had walked into closes behind the teen, closing him into it entirely and truly alone. It’s only then that the metal box within the boy’s hands seems to come to life for all to see, light spilling from it in the form of a projection.
The teen in the mist is quick to place the object down on the ground, letting the light spill freely and fill the room around him. Though the action seemed to be one that the boy seemed to regret as the room filled with the scene of a city falling to ruins, flames swallowing everything around him.
It looked much too like the scene that the red and grief drowned Robin would one day be standing when he met his future self for the second time with a gun pressed to his head, for any of those watching to be comfortable doing so.
It wasn’t something that kept their attention though for very long, not when in the wreckage there was a familiar standing man at the forefront of the protection. It takes everyone but Tim and Bruce a moment to place exactly who the man before them was, though the reasons for each were different.
“Haha, ha
“I am the penny, twisting and turning
“I give the fire enough to stay burning”
It was then, when the figure opened his mouth and spoke that everyone in the room recognized exactly who he was. The butler was dressed in street clothes, far more casual and out of place on the man than they had ever seen before. He looked a bit older than he should for the time, though whether that was from the passage of time or the situation surrounding the hologram message was yet to be determined. What stuck out the most was the scarring on the man’s face that they all knew that he did not have, and the metal hand that the butler had instead of his own.
Though the situation was only more confusing now, it at least gave context to the very specific threat that their Tim had issued.
(They still didn’t like the fact that Alfred had somehow messed up enough that Tim felt justified and bitter enough to make such a threat. It made something twist in the bats’ stomachs, and something protective rise in the metas’)
“Let's play a game”
Alfred says in the hologram, his voice a bit different from the one that they all knew, but still Alfred’s nonetheless
“A game?”
The Tim in the mist asks, the teen speaking more to himself than anyone else. They could all see the guarded set to the boy’s shoulders, hear it in his voice as he spoke. He was skeptical from the start, something calculating in his eyes that was always there when he was solving a puzzle.
It wasn’t the sort of look that someone gave to Alfred.
It seemed natural then.
“That's what I'm serving
“And if you win, you will get what you're yearning”
Alfred promised, much like a demon at a crossroads.
“Deal”
The Tim within the mist answered the hologram, quick and sure, and entirely still skeptical in every manner of the word.
As Bruce watched just how suspicious the boy had already been back then, he wondered just how much this… lesson had exaggerated that trait of Tim’s. How much damage he had done to a boy that had never been trusting even before then.
(The guilt ate at him even more than before, but it was much too late of an emotion to be feeling now.)
“Take a look right here at this box
“It has my message of the future all trapped
“All you gotta do is stop a bat”
It’s Alfred singing once more, his voice carrying through the room and his lyrics being hung onto by every word as the metas and bats listened to a story that only a few knew the whole of.
“What does that mean?” Duke asks, one of the people most removed from the situation unfolding before him. He liked Alfred, was thankful to Bruce, and Tim was his Robin, but he wasn’t close to the three of them (or even one of them) like everyone else in the room. For him, this was more of a cautionary tale than anything else. Maybe an excuse to mess with the two adults if the time arrived as well, because he was not liking the picture that was unfolding before him no matter how removed from it he was. “Stop a bat?”
“The Alfred in the hologram was a message from the future,” Tim explains, leaving out the detail that he wasn’t from the future at all. He thought that if he had to live to find this out on his own, then they should get the joy of it too, no matter what Bruce seemed to think of the idea (not that Tim was meeting his gaze). “He said that a member of the family would betray everyone else and it would lead to the destruction that can been seen behind him.”
His words were simple and concise and leaving little to question, all the points laid out except for the glaring obvious ones of who was supposed to have done this, and the fact that it had not occurred at all.
Tim watched the shifting gazes of his siblings as they looked at one another. Steph, Duke, and Damian glancing at where Jason sat on the other couch as if wondering if the warning had been referring to the boy that they had not yet known had returned from the dead.
It was Dick, Kon, Bart, and Cassie that glanced between Bruce and Tim as if looking for more. They knew that Tim would not be carrying such bitterness and anger in his heart over all of this if it was Jason having come back to them. That it had to be something else entirely.
“When was this?” Dick asked, looking not at his father but at his little brother. At the boy that he swore to believe from now on no matter how improbable or how much he’d rather not do so. “Which birthday?”
Tim met the man’s gaze, a careful nothingness in his eyes, in the way that he held himself and the way that he neither leaned into nor away from the touches of his friends and little brother. Everything about him carefully neutral, a book with writing on it in a language that Dick no longer knew.
The teen studied his eldest brother for a long moment, enough that Dick shifted under the nothingness there. He must have seen something that he felt comfortable with because Tim answered after another long moment:
“I got the box on my sixteenth birthday,” the teen answers like the words meant nothing, not meeting the gaze of any of his siblings, “it was just there among the presents.”
Dick turned sharply to look at his father at the same moment that Cass drew completely away from the man and fully towards Steph. There was so much anger in her brother's eyes, in the way that he leaned forwards like a beast waiting to attack, that Cass almost thought that she might be able to touch it if she tried. If Dick were to attack Bruce, she didn’t think that she would stop him. Not when Bruce, their father, had hurt Tim, his son, her little brother.
(She wondered if she might even help. It wasn’t something that she wanted to think about)
“Tell me you didn’t,” Dick demanded, his voice little more than a growl. It was almost the manner in which he had spoken as Batman when he had held the mantle, and yet back then he had never held such rage. “Tell me.”
Bruce didn’t say anything at all.
(That was damning all on its own)
Jason looked between Bruce, Tim and Dick, and it only took him a moment to understand.
“Oh,” he says softly, but it was near silent in the room when he did so. Everyone heard. “You punished him for living to see sixteen when I hadn’t?” He asks, anger rising in his own voice. “That was his gift?”
“I’m not proud of it,” Bruce assures, looking every bit a broken man as he sat under the fury of his three eldest children in defense of another of his.
“Good.”
Nearly every head in the room turns to look at the youngest among them, at the blood son.
Damian was looking up at his father with the sort of thinly veiled disgust that he had always turned on Timothy till today. He had always thought that everything bad and curle about himself had come from his mother and her side of the family, their teachings and practices. The way that he had been raised. He knew now that this was not entirely the case, that there was a reason that Grandfather had been so interested in Father.
(Just as he was starting to learn the reasons that Grandfather was now seemingly interested in Timothy)
“Damian-” Bruce starts but is cut off.
“I do not know the full extent of what you have done, Father,” the boy continued as if his father had not spoken at all, “but I would like to now.”
No one else speaks, and the music plays once more.
“Sounds too easy, what's the catch?”
The Tim in the mist sings, looking as if he did truly think that finding a bat that was going rouge would be an easy task for him to complete.
“Okay, I’ll bite,” Cassie says, speaking for the first time this song, her and the other metas having taken a step back to let the family affair play out without their input. It would have easily been their place to speak up, they were as much Tim’s family as any of the bats, but this was something that Tim seemed to want to handle on his own. “How could stopping a bat possibly be easy?”
Tim almost wants to laugh at the question from the girl sitting at his side. Almost.
“I’m only Robin because Bruce was going off the rails back then,” he reminds them all, somehow making the man in question look impossibly more guilty and ashamed than he already did, “batsitting isn’t exactly hard after so many years.”
“Right, right,” Bart says, looking at one of his best friends as if he was insane.
It wasn’t an unfair assumption.
“Haha, ha
“Keep your friends close and your enemies closer”
The Alfred of the future sings, his words a piece of advice, a lesson in paranoia that Tim’s had engraved into his mind. It was a lesson that all bats knew by heart.
That was not what caught the attention of those watching the mist. No, that honor went the fact that as Alfred sung, he seemed to step out of the confines of the hologram - while still managing to appear as one himself - and walk closer to where the Tim with in the mist stood, towering over the boy as he sung.
It left something cold in the chest of those watching, even as they knew logically that this particular note was likely just for show (much like when images of the past would appear above the head Tim in previous songs) and that the kindly butler had never left the hologram.
It was still unsettling to see nonetheless, and left more than one person itching for a weapon.
“Never really know who you can trust”
A new voice, one that they all had hoped never to hear again, joins the mix as a figure appears behind the Tim within the mist.
His clothes were familiar and as dark as night itself, as the figure’s hand reached up and wrapped itself around the back of Tim’s neck, making himself known even if the boy could not turn to see him. Those watching now could see him though, knew who it was as clearly as the Tim in the mist seemed to even without the gun glinting at the bat’s side that told them clearly:
The figment of a future that will never come to pass, haunting Tim even as he was supposed to have disappeared.
“He was still haunting you then?” Kon asks, looking at his Tim rather than the one in the mist like everyone else had been.
Tim tore his eyes away from the dark version of his future self and looked at the teen sitting at his side.
“I think all of our future selves haunted us for a long while after we met them,” Tim answers honestly, not needing to look at Cassie and Bart to know that he was likely more right than any of them wanted him to be.
“If they wanna get the box open, you gotta say "no, sir"”
The Alfred of the future sings as he walks around the room in the clothes that their Alfred would have never worn (though he had, they could guess that now even if they didn’t want to believe the conclusions that they had come to and had already been all but confirmed). The hologram’s gate was a bit different from that of the butler that they knew, less prim and more of a soldier that had been thrown back into combat.
He walked like a bat.
(They hated it)
“Sometimes killing is a must”
The future version of Tim whispers into the younger Tim’s ear, his form translucent like that of a ghost’s as he does so.
“What?”
The younger Tim in the mist asks. The teen tries to shake off the older version of himself as he does so. Tries to move him away from himself, but his arm only seems to go through the man, not truly doing anything to the mirage wearing an older version of himself.
“'Cause the end always justifies the means”
Alfred sings, the hologram of the man standing before the young Tim within the mist once more, looking down at the boy as if he were lecturing the teen. It was not the sort of lesson that anyone within the room ever thought that they would see the man teaching, yet the boy in the mist seemed to absorb it with a bit of steel in his eyes.
(As if it was a lesson that he had already known)
“Friends turn into foes and rivalries”
Alfred and the Tim of the future sing this together, their voices going and washing through the room as the image of Batman beating criminals excessively appeared on one side of the hologram, and the image of Bart from the future talking with the good titans appeared on the other side of the hologram.
“Are you worried that I’ll turn on you? Tim?” Bart asks, speaking quickly and turning to look at the former Robin with something in his eyes that none of the former Young Justice members liked in the least.
Tim could feel the gazes of the bats on him, could feel the paranoia that they all held within them. Bruce had countless contingency plans for each of his colleagues, for each of his children as well. Those plans had only ever gotten worse after what happened with Hal Gorden and Parallax. That was the sort of paranoia that the man had tried to instill within Tim, the fear of what might come before anyone had ever been proved a threat.
Tim was a parioned bastard by default, but he also was different from Bruce, from Batman. Tim had friends.
“No, Imp,” he quickly assured, watching as the other teen physically seemed to deflate, “you’re our moral compass remember? You keep us from becoming a bunch of evil fascist ruling under martial law and mass mind control.”
The words were spoken with a lightness that none of the four truly felt about the situation that was being described once more, about the actions and choices that they still might make. (About the look in Batman’s eyes as he studied them, even now). But it was worth it to make Bart smile that relieved smile of his as he sped over to Tim faster than light, hugged the other boy, and then was back in his seat in less than a blink. The others knew that the speedster had done something from the sudden rush of air in the room, Tim knew exactly what he had done from the buzzing across his skin at the sudden touch.
“So keep your friends close and your enemies closer”
Everyone in the room watches as Alfred stalks away from the other pair within the mist, stepping back into the hologram of a ruined city, only to be shot dead as the world went black.
“What the actual fuck?” Cassie asked as she looked between the mist, Tim, and Batman with the sort of rage in her eyes that made anyone with half a kind take a step back. Tim of course just laid a hand on her arm in some form of comfort. “You made him watch his grandfather being murdered before him, Mr. I Saw My Parents Die Infront Of Me In An Alley When I Was Eight And Am Still Fucked Up By It Today?”
More than one set of eyes went wide at the demigod’s words, the air taking on a more pronounced tension to it as everyone looked between the fuming teen and the Bat. That was not an event that any of them ever brought up if they could help it, all of them knowing just how (rightfully) touchy the man could be about it.
Dick looked as if he was preparing to play mediator if things got physical, Jason sitting beside him tense, but prepared to stop Dick from interfering at all. Jason had rules about children not being hurt, and this… everything being shown in the mist this time was a clear violation of that and they were hardly in it. As far as Jason was concerned, the metas could be the shit out of the old man for this and he would only step in to help if Batman actually fought back. And it would not be Bruce that he would be helping.
Duke and Damian looked at Bruce and Cassie with a held breath, unsure of what to think. They had seen Bruce being harsh in some of the other memories, but this was cruel in a manner that Damian thought again was more reminiscent of the League than a father. It would have been one thing to only play mind games with Tim, horrible still, but one thing nonetheless. But it was entirely another thing altogether to make the child watch a loved one die before them - even if falsely - when Batman was a testimony to the scars that such a deed left.
Steph was holding Cass’s hand in her own, their fingers laced together as the older girl continued to shrink away from her father, her dark brows pinched in confusion. Cass couldn’t understand why Bruce, a man that was supposed to be better than the man that had raised her, would do this. But she could read the guilt in his body language, and that was the only thing that kept her from crossing the room altogether.
(Steph knew that the other girl was confused, even if she was not herself. The versions of Batman that they each had revived were very different from one another, but Steph had been the one to get as close to this version of Bruce out of anyone else other than Tim himself)
(It was then that everyone in the room truly understood that this was not just a punishment for Tim having survived to see sixteen when Jason, Bruce’s son, had not done so. But a bitter ploy to make the teen just a paranoid and bitter and alone as Bruce had been when Jason had died as well. To make Tim feel even a sliver of the grief that Bruce had felt back then)
“Cassie,” Tim tried to intercept, but was spoken over.
“I’m not proud of it,” Bruce admits once more, looking more at Tim as he says it than at Wonder Girl, and Tim can tell that the words are true, can read it in a manner that some of the other bats seemed to struggle with from time to time.
(It was easy to read a mirror)
“Because you did it, or because you got caught?” Kon asks, his voice filled with a controlled calm to it, cold in the way in which a Luthor’s was and not a Kent’s. “Would you still feel bad about it if the only one that knew were you, Alfred and Tim?”
And Bruce had to stop to think about that because he hated to admit that he had not given his actions back then much thought till now, not when there was always something new occurring and stealing his attention away from the mistakes that he had made. He had not felt bad about his actions at the time, had felt more than justified in them even when Tim had quit, even when the boy had come back and Bruce had known that what he had done was wrong but refused to apologize to the boy.
He didn’t know, and his silence seemed to show that.
(Bart glared at the man with all of the anger that he could hold within him, Bruce at least had the emotional intelligence to look ashamed)
“Never really know who you can trust (never really know who you can trust)”
The future version of Tim sings, leaning down and speaking right into the younger’s ear once more like a demon of the teen’s shoulder, before fading away and leaving the Tim in the mist alone in the dark room. The teen of the past almost looked as if he’d rather deal with his evil self than be alone right then with the memory now haunting his mind.
No one blamed the child.
“Robin, what's happening?
“What's trapped in that box?”
The question comes from Bruce as the Tim in the mist walks back into the cave, his complexion pale and sickly, and his form shaky. He didn’t look well at all, but if the Bruce of then had noticed this (he must have, he was Batman after all) he chose to ignore it.
The Bruce of now saw it clearly though in a way that he had not let himself do so before. He saw it and hated that he was the cause of it, hated that he had seen himself look just like this that night in the alley.
“Something dangerous, Bruce
“We mustn't lag
“It's from the future”
The Tim in the mist looks small then, smaller than he ever had before as he stood in the shadow of the Batman and looked up at the man as if he were begging for the man to believe him, to not think he crazy, not knowing that he was the one behind it all.
“What?”
“I know that you’re going through your asshole era right now,” Duke says as he looks to Bruce, causing more than one person in the room to choke at the teen’s choice of words, because they had not been something that any of the had thought that the boy would use, though he seemed to have earned the respect of nearly everyone aside from Bruce for doing so, “but why did you not pretend to believe him? You know because nearly everyone here has a Flash on speed dial and they break time like it’s a hobby.” He turns to Bart as if remembering that the boy was one of those Flashes, “No offense.”
“Mild offense taken,” the speedster in question responds, but waves the other teen onto continue, wanting to hear the rest of what the boy had to say and see how painful of look they could force Batman to make.
Duke nods. “And on the topic of Bart,” the teen continues, “he’s from the future at that, as is Booster Gold, a member of the Justice League.”
And Bruce, he looks as if he were a crook that they had caught in the middle of breaking into a jewelry store and they had questioned his technique of doing so. Like this was something that he had never planned on being questioned on out of the entire situation at hand. “It did not seem probable at the time,” the man says, but the excuse sounds weak even to him in the face of the evidence given by the daytime vigilante.
“More probable than not in this line of work,” Jason says, his voice coming out with a bit of a snarl as he does.
He had already pieced together that, whether consciously or not, this had not been a test that Tim had been meant to pass quickly. It’s because it was something that could have actually occurred from start to finish that it had messed the kid up enough that Tim is willing to threaten Bruce and Alfred both to this day over it.
Because it was physiological torture and not training at all.
The fact that neither Tim nor Damian nor Dick say anything to defend Bruce’s actions is telling in of itself.
“Open the box
“Let's see what you got”
The Steph within the mist says, dressed in her Spoiler costume as she steps forward, looking at the familiar box with the curiosity of a detective.
“No, do not”
The Tim in the mist sings quickly and almost harshly as he holds the box close to his chest and steps away from Bruce, Steph, and Alfred as if worried that they might take the object from his hands. It was not an insane worry to have.
“Everybody listen closely
“See how this box is closed?
“That's how it's supposed to be
“This box has a tragedy inside
“We cannot let it come to pass”
There is true panic and grief in Tim’s gaze as he sings, looking between the three before him as if they would attack him if given the chance. It was something that Bruce had seen back then and had taken it to mean that the boy was taking the assignment seriously.
Seeing the sight now makes Bruce feel nothing but sick.
“We'll try”
The Bruce, Steph, and Alfred within the mist chorus, each playing their parts.
“Keep your friends close and your enemies closer
“Never really know who you can trust
“Never really know who you can trust”
This time when the lyrics are sung it is in Tim’s voice, the boy in the mist sounding pained as he does so, something breaking in both the boy’s mind and the listeners’ hearts as it is sung. They watch as the scene changes and now and the Tim in the mist is running across the rooftops of Gotham with a grim set to his mouth that had only become more and more familiar to them all as the songs had continued on. In the distance in front of Tim, they could see the dark figure of Cass on another rooftop, out in the open while Tim kept to the shadows.
“I’m sorry,” Tim says, turning to his sister. He had felt bad about suspecting her after finding out that it had all been a trick from the start. The guilt of that was only stronger now with how much closer they had become since then.
Cass only shakes her head though. “Not you who should be sorry,” the girl says bluntly, not even looking at their father but everyone knowing that the words were meant for him.
Shame seemed to be the main emotion that he could feel that day.
“Now they wanna get the box open so they can have closure
“Sometimes sneaking is a must
“Sometimes sneaking is a must”
The scene shifts again, though only a bit this time. Instead of the blimp of black in the distance, it was a shock of purple this time.
“Don’t even bother apologizing, Boy Blunder,” the girl says before Tim can even open his mouth to think about doing so. “You’re not the one responsible for this, not this time at least.”
Tim can only feel relieved and a bit of vindictive glee.
“'Cause the end always justifies the means”
The Tim in the mist is in the cave this time, just him and Bruce there working on some patrol or something of the like. When the teen glances at Bruce out of the corner of his eyes his gaze is cold, studying, as if he were trying to pick the man apart from it alone.
(Not many doubted that he could)
It was different from the how Tim usually seemed to look at Bruce, but the bats and metas guessed that this was likely by design, as the coldness in the teen’s gaze had been there from the start but they were only catching it now.
“Everything's changed since Jason, so”
The Tim in the mist tears his eyes away from Bruce to look at the glass case holding the second Robin’s suit, the memorial that proclaimed the boy to be a soldier (the plaque put there by Alfred, another slight that only Bruce, Tim, and Alfred knew). Those watching could see the wisp of a figure forming at the side of the glass, a child taking form that was free and innocent and stunningly bright as he smiled up at the third Robin, skinny and small and younger than the Tim in the mist because the wisp had never gotten the chance to make it to sixteen.
Jason sucked in a harsh breath as he heard his name, as he saw his own ghost haunting Tim long before they met even though he knew logically that he was already alive once more by then.
(He wasn’t the only one taking in such pained breaths)
“Keep your friends close and your enemies closer
“Never really know who you can trust
“Never really know who you can trust”
The scene shifts and now Tim stands with Steph and Cass behind Bruce at the computer. He looks as if he belongs there among them as he stands weaponless, surrounded by them all. He looks completely as trusting and as at ease as he ever does, but everyone watching knew the boy well enough now to know that any one wrong movement would have ended with bruises at best, blood being spilt at worse right then.
“For ten days, I've stayed wide awake”
The scene shifts again and now Tim is in his room at Drake manor, the teen in the mist laying down on his bed dressed in civilian clothes as he stared up at the ceiling above him. The bags under his eyes then looked more like bruises as the boy shifter, every minute movement looking as if it took more than it rightly should out of the boy.
“Ten days?” Steph asks, looking down the chairs at Bruce, something in her voice that was usually only there when her dad was involved. “You let him go on like that for ten days?”
“I thought that he would have seen that it was a trick sooner,” the man says, knowing that it was not really much of a defense at all.
“He just came back from a visit to the future himself,” the girl reminds him, something that she didn’t truly need to do but it still stung for everyone to hear. “Do you even read the Teen Titan’s reports at all?”
Bruce looks like he’s considering not saying anything at all, but answers nonetheless. “We didn’t exactly keep the same eye on your generation as we did everyone else's,” the man admits, even though the entirety of Young Justice had already been a testament to the truth of his words.
“Of course you’d take the hands off approach the one time that the opposite was needed,” Jason growls, no one has anything to say to go against that.
“Trying to find the answer and losing hope
“I remain unopposed, but the bat is still unknown
“And I'm getting closer to you
“Kon”
In the mist, a ghostly sort of version of the super in question appears at Tim’s right side, laying down beside the other boy and looking at his Robin with a bright smile. He was dressed in civilian clothes as well and looked relaxed laying next to Tim, piercings in his ears that caught the dying light just right.
He looked beautiful in Tim’s mind, a fact that brought heat to the cheeks of both boys in question.
“I can't wait to make some new memories”
The Tim in the mist seems to try to smile back but fails and ends up showing more of a tired grimace than anything.
Kon holds him a bit more fully at his side, if that was possible at all.
“Bart and Cassie”
The other two teens appear in the mist as well, and lay down on Tim’s other side, each smiling just as brightly, but coming nowhere near to the beauty that Tim had given to Kon. A fact that escaped a good deal of the bats that weren’t looking for it, but not the demigod and speedster.
“Time for me to be the leader I never was”
The Tim in the mist doesn’t even bother trying to smile this time as he looks at his friends, and those watching know that it’s because if the teen could not have mustered a genuine smile for the best friend that he was closest to then it would be near impossible for him to do it for the other two.
“Just keep your eyes open”
The Kon in the mist sings, sitting up a bit so that he could look down at the Tim at his side. It was something that the real Kon had done before in early morning light on the rare occasions that the other hero slept.
“Why are my eyes and my heart and my soul so heavy?”
The Tim in the mist asks, though the words are spoken to no one in particular. The teen sits up as well with a hand clutching at his heart as if it hurt, as if it weighed more than it ever should.
“Just keep your eyes open”
The Bart in the mist sings, sitting up as well, his shoulder almost brushing Tim’s but never quite touching.
“I keep on trying to embrace you three
“Why won't you let me?”
The Tim in the mist tries to reach out to them both, but his hand falls through each of them when he does, as if only the three metas were made of mist instead of all four of them.
It was a sad, desperate sort of scene that felt far too personal for the bats to comfortably watch. This was a version of Tim that they had only ever glimpsed at when the boy’s world had been burning down around him and he was the only one to believe that Bruce was alive.
It wasn’t a side that Tim had ever wanted them to see.
“Just keep your eyes open”
The Cassie in the mist sings, sitting up too to join the three.
“So much has changed but I'm the same
“Yes I'm the same”
The Tim of the future appears in the mist before the younger Tim as the teen sings, something desperate in his voice as if he was trying to convince himself of his words more than anyone else in the room. They watch as the Tim in the mist stands up, swaying a bit on his feet as he tries to knock away his future self but all his hand does is pass through the man as the Bat smiles.
“Just keep your eyes open”
The Tim of the future sings, his voice more mocking than anything else.
“Keep your eyes open”
All four of the visitors sing together, even though none of them are truly there at all.
“Wake up”
The Kon in the mist says, a bit of panic in his voice that Tim never liked to hear.
(He liked it even less now)
“Wake up, Tim, open your eyes”
The scene within the mist shifts as Kon’s voice seems to haunt it, and it changes to a rooftop in Gotham and the Alfred of future that never actually existed at all is standing before Tim, alive and with his robotic hand on the wrong side of his body.
There’s something defensive in the teen’s body language that none of the batkids had ever seen one of them hold with the butler, but they all thought that it was deserved just then.
“Wake up”
The Tim in the mist takes a step back from the Alfred of the future, his expression pinched in the way that it does when all of the facts on a case are coming together to reveal a picture that Tim wanted desperately to burn.
“No”
The Tim in the mist says (all but screams), holding in his hand the cosmetic mask that Alfred had been using to look older than he should and more scared on his face then they knew him to be.
It felt like the reveal of the culprit in a horror movie to those watching, because this was something that never should have happened. It was something that those in the room would have expected out of one of their rogues gallery, not the man that was supposed to stop them and the man that made them cookies for when they got home from patrol.
“Keep your friends close and your enemies closer”
The Bruce in the mist sings, stepping out of the shadows and appearing before Tim on the rooftop, ignoring the anguished manner in which the teen looked up at him as whatever faith he’d held for the man died right there for everyone to see.
“Never really know who you can trust
“Never really know who you can trust”
The Tim in the mist sings as he looks between Brice and Alfred, backing away from each as if he had been slapped.
“Storm
“Full speed ahead”
Those in the room watch silently as the teen moves quickly within the mist, with sharp angered movements as he all but rips off his Robin costume, throwing every piece of it at the Dark Knight, watching as it all hit the man in the face and the Bruce in the mist didn’t even bother to try to doge.
“Where are you going, Tim?”
The Bruce in the mist asks, looking genuinely confused by his Tim’s reaction, as if this had not been an outcome that he had expected out of everything.
(Or even worse, it had been but he had just not cared)
“I said to not go rogue, but you weren't compliant”
The Tim in the mist snarls, storming up to Bruce and pointing a finger in the man’s face with more anger than any of them had ever seen in Tim’s own.
“If I had to guess? You're heading to the
“Land of the Robinless”
The Tim in the mist storms past the discarded clothes that had piled up around the older man, and goes down the fire escape so that he doesn't have to walk near either of the men that were on the rooftop with them, his actions and words clear to all those watching, then and now.
“Storm, storm”
Bruce and Alfred are left standing alone together on the rooftop, looking at the gear that Tim left behind as the boy disappeared into the Gotham night and neither of them try to stop him even as the sky grows dark.
The room was silent for a long moment, enough so for the image in the mist to dissipate as everyone took in what they had just seen.
“You quit,” Dick says as he looks at Tim as if seeing the boy in a new light. It wasn’t the first time that he had looked at Tim like that since they had gotten there.
It wasn’t a question, but Tim answered like it was. “I did,” he confirmed, all emotion lacking from his voice as he does so.
“And you went crawling back?” Jason asks, looking at Tim as if he was insane for doing so.
Maybe he was.
(He knew that he was)
Everyone else in the room tensed at the tone in Jason’s voice, no longer as used to the man using it on Tim as they had been just a few songs before.
“Like you have any room to talk,” Tim snarks back, a hand grazing across his throat where a scar that matched Jason’s own sat.
A few people thought that the teen was talking about his own scar when he did this, Jason was not one of those people, not when his hand immediately went to rough flesh on his own throat.
“You know about that?” He asks, eyes flying quickly between Tim and Bruce as both Bruce and Jason paled.
(They weren’t the only ones. In a room full of detectives and heroes that worked closely with them it wasn’t hard to piece together that Tim was insinuating that Bruce had hurt Jason in a lasting way)
Tim only smirks though. “No, but thanks for confirming it,” the teen says, that damned look still on his face. “You came back after he almost killed you with that,” Tim starts.
“Batman doesn’t kill,” Jason interrupts, the excuse sounding weak even to himself.
“Which,” Tim continued as if he had never been interrupted at all, “is arguably worse since all that he did to me was drive me a bit insane for two weeks.”
“I’ve killed people for less than what he did to you,” Jason continues, attempting to leave himself out of the conversation that Tim had forced him into.
“Then why is he still sitting here after what he did to you?” Tim asks, his voice devoid of any emotion as he points at the man that they were talking about as if he wasn’t there at all, the man that was looking between the two brothers as if they were ghosts that he had created.
“That’s different,” Jason protested, “I’m a criminal, you were barely sixteen.”
“Even so, you are still his son,” Tim says, choosing not to comment on age and what he thought about Jason’s own (being dead for six months and then brain damaged for years after to the point that the Pit had to fix it was not exactly a circumstance that Tim thought would have placed Jason in the appropriate age range for how old he should have been) “so why didn’t you kill him? Why come back?”
The pair stare at one another with too much understanding in each of their gazes. Each of them too alike with the other for either of them to be comfortable. Jason knew that he had lost though.
“Because he’s my father.”
“Exactly,” Tim answers in turn, even though he knew that Bruce had not fully earned that title by this point in his memories but the sentiment had still been there.
“Boys…” Bruce starts like he wants to say something but doesn’t know if he has any right to do so.
He didn’t, not about this.
He knew it and so did everyone else.
Kon grabs Tim’s shaking hand, holding it in his own as Tim’s other hand rested comfortably on his little brother’s shoulder as of trying to comfort the former assassin from the reality of the family that he had walked into. Kon didn’t know if it was working, but there wasn’t much else that Tim could do. Kon turned to Batman and looked at him with more confidence than he felt.
“No member of Young Justice has ever liked you, Batman,” the super says with a bluntness more fitting of his Robin. Somehow it was almost more unsettling to hear it coming from the clone than the third Robin. “Nor will we ever like you. But Tim does, because he’s just as stupid as the rest of us and loves mentors and families that could not have given less of a shit about us when Young Justice was formed. But just know that if you try anything like this again, with any of your kids, that metas in Gotham will be the least of your worries.”
It was a threat, clear as day, and it made Bruce tense where he sat as he knew that if that day ever did come that he would be entirely on his own, his children likely siding with the hero team rather than with him if he screws up enough to warrant such a response. He wants to feel fear at the threat, the promise, but he can’t help the approval that he finds instead. He would much rather be hunted by a super than allowed to hurt one of his children if he goes off of the deep end again.
(There were reasons that he had contingencies even for himself)
Tim wanted to feel bad about the threat that Kon had just issued, and he might have even been angered by it a few years before, but something warm settled in his chest as heat settled on his cheeks instead.
“Alright,” Bruce answers.
Kon nods.
“I’m still sorry,” the man says, looking between all of his children as he admitted to his fault, “for what it’s worth.”
Jason doesn’t meet his gaze, Dick looks as if he had been shot through the heart (it was a look that he had held the entire time), Damian looked more closed then he ever had before, Cass still wouldn’t lean towards him, sitting as far away from him as she could, Duke had his fists clenched in his lap light enough that his hands were beginning to pale, and Tim…Tim was blank as he met his father’s gaze.
“It’s not worth anything,” Tim says, meeting his father’s eyes with the gaze of Red Robin, the vigilante that even Ra’s al Ghul respected and fear in equal measure. He ignores the way that the words make Bruce flinch,“not to me at least. Not when you told me that you would not apologize for this. You knew then that it was wrong and didn’t care, so you don’t get to care now that other people have seen your wrongs. And even if by some miracle you are truly repentant, I don’t forgive you and I won’t forget it. But I was stupid enough to acknowledge it and move on and come back, and that hasn’t changed.”
“Right.”
Tim turned to look at the mist, giving it his full attention. He didn’t want to see what their faces would betray as they looked at him. He didn’t want to have to admit that this, while awful, wasn’t the worst thing that had been done to him. That he felt so little about the events of his sixteenth birthday other than a rightful anger as he’s watched it and been reminded of all of the details it, and an even stronger fear of Bruce doing the same thing to the boy laying nearly all his weight against Tim’s legs as if seeking a reassurance that Tim didn’t know how to give, in comparison to the emotional turmoil that he had felt in the year following.
Tim was more scared of something like what had been done to him and to Jason happening to Damian at Bruce’s hands, than he was angry at it having been done to him at all.
But he has always been like that, putting himself second, so it wasn’t really a surprise.
Steph held Cass’s hand in her own as she looked at the others in the room, anger and helplessness sitting heavily in her stomach in the same way that it did Bart, Cassie, and Kon. There had been nothing that the four of them could have done back then, but she knew who she would side with if Bruce were to try something like this again and she were to find out about it. They weren’t ignoring his actions this time, just placing him on a ground that only Bruce could break.
Dick felt stupid as he looked between Jason and Tim, two brothers that he had failed more times than he even knew. He hated himself a bit more as more and more information became known, but he knew enough to know that this wasn’t about him and that he shouldn’t make it such. Still, a part of him wanted to stand and demand to know why neither of them had ever told them any of this.
He didn’t though.
Damian, Duke, and Cass were all feeling roughly the same thing right then as the information settled into their minds and made their hearts wary. Bruce Wayne had been someone that they had thought to be safe, someone that they could trust, and now they knew this to not be true, and reality felt like it was choking them all.
No one could have hated Bruce more than though then he hated himself (and wasn’t that really the problem?).
“The next song will begin in a moment.”
Notes:
Look, I don’t hate Bruce, but like the writers really like making him look like a shitty, abusive, dad. And him throwing a batarang at Jason’s throat and torturing Tim mentally for almost two weeks, not even counting things he’s done to Dick, it gives too much ammunition to be ignored.
Chapter 8: Done For
Summary:
Jason's attack on Titan's Tower
Notes:
Done For by Jorge Miguel Rivera-herrans from EPIC the Musical: The Circe Saga
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Sorry no update last week. I just got done with finals/final projects and moving back home from the dorms for the summer (I don’t have to pack again for three months and that is still too soon, I am so tired) and this got put on the back burner, but here we are with chapter eight.
—-
If you’ve noticed, two series links have been added to this, one is so I can connect all of my Tim Drake stories in one place, and the other is for this work specially. I’ve decided that I’m going to do another work following the completion of this one detailing the events following thier release from the reaction.
—-
I have also added the link to a Tumblr post (in the end notes) that will be posted after this chapter is posted. It has concepts for future Tim-centered fics, you guys can vote on which you’d want to see next if you’d like. Voting will be open for a week after this is posted. Beneath it, on my page, will also be a spot of fic request if you want to do that as well.
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
When the music starts once more and the images within the mist begin to take form, more than one person within the room already has a good idea as to what they are about to see. The thought of it all makes Jason’s gut curl up with dread, his chest heavy with something startlingly like guilt.
The sounds are heavy as the song begins, though in a different sort of manner than some of the other songs that have played. With a lot of the previous ones that had begun in such a way, it was something of an internal conflict that waged war on the third Robin. This time though, it sounded closer to the music that one would hear played in a video game right before a disastrous fight breaks out around the player. One foretelling of a heavy sort of loss.
(maybe a loss that had already come to pass)
In the mist, they could all see an image forming that looked at lot like Titans Tower, or at least the way in which it had looked before the two separate instances that had wrecked the place and caused them to have to rebuild more parts of it than anyone thought that they were going to have to for some time. It wasn't exactly an old building, and even with a bunch of metas living and training within it, it still should not have needed such extensive repairs for some time.
Jason and Tim met one another’s gazes, and the elder was surprised when he found nothing but calm there, and the deep rooted exhaustion that had been taking a hold of the teen the more that they watched these videos of the boy’s life.
“I’m sorry…for this,” the antihero said, gesturing at the mist that stood between them as it stilled with the sounds of Jason’s voice. “You shouldn’t have been…I should not have attacked you in a place that you were meant to feel safe.”
It wasn’t very often that the Red Hood admitted a mistake, that knowledge alone caused the room to still for a moment.
“Shouldn’t have attacked him at all,” Kon grumbles indignantly, but is stopped from continuing by a hand squeezing lightly at his wrist.
Tim.
When Jason looked at the boy’s gaze once more, he was expecting to find the anger that he had held the first time that he had tried to apologize, the righteous fury that had been there when Bruce had attempted his own. He expected to find something cruel. Instead, Tim only looked blank in a manner that he did on the rare times that he’s been called out on a lie and has no need to pretend anymore. Only, this time there had been no lie for the teen to hide behind, how could there be when Tim had not spoken at all.
It was the look of someone measuring their own words before speaking them, nearly everyone in the room other than Duke and Jason himself seemed to know.
Then the expression sifts, changing faster than that of a speedster into something a bit kinder, something a bit more forced.
“It’s fine,” the teen says in a manner that most of the thought that they might not have known was a lie had they not seen the transformation take place right before them, “the most traumatizing part of it all was the boy shorts if I'm being blunt.”
To the teen’s credit, he did shudder a bit at that, looking rightfully disturbed by the image likely forever burned into his mind. That part of the outfit had not been Dick’s best styling choices, nor Jason’s best decision to keep it. There was a reason that it was one of the first things that Tim had changed about it.
Jason didn’t really believe it though, that the third Robin could be so calm and dismissive of the older man’s actions. Maybe another day he might have thought the kid incapable of caring enough about himself for the rightful hurt to register as it should - and maybe there was still a bit of that - but he knew that wasn’t fully the case from Tim’s own words from earlier songs.
Tim seemed to see Jason’s own disbelief in the older man’s expression, even as he tried to hide it away and let the kid hold onto what he was sure was a lie.
It wasn’t, not really.
He would never forget what the man had done, never really forgive it either. For a man so bent on protecting children, it seemed to be a bit of an unforgivable hypocrisy that he would attack one for doing something that he himself had done when he had first donned the Robin costume and took up the mantle without Dick’s permission. But…
“You’re not the only one to have attacked me within the Tower, Jason, to make me feel unsafe there,” Tim says, his voice as carefully blank and measured as his expression, though his eyes betray a sort of pain that they didn’t need the expertise of Cass to read. “Honestly, I prefer your methods over some of the others used.”
Hands trailing on his suit, reaching for all of the little traps that kept it closed, lips on his own as he slowly woke up to weight that should not be there. Weight that he wanted off, off. Off. A greedy sort of smirk pressed into his skin, self satisfied and almost mocking, desperate too. Bright hair and handcuffs snapped onto wrist as his mind jackhammered to full consciousness, immediately restraining the predator in his bed as he left her there handcuffed to the post of it.
He had been asleep in his bed in the Tower. Had felt safe there, with so many of his teammates nearby, so tired that he had passed out while still in his Robin uniform. It was one of those very teammates that had made him feel unsafe in the Tower once more. Unsafe in a place that should have been a home. Unsafe in his bed, around his own team.
(he locked the door to his room now at night, even within his own apartment)
At least when Jason had attacked, he had come in as an enemy bent on hurting him. He had not pretended to be anything other than what he was. He had attacked in a manner that Tim could fight, not what Rose had done.
(Tim didn’t want to think about what might have happened had he not been wearing his costume while he slept. He’d already gotten too close to that answer already while he was in Paris)
“That doesn't reassure anyone as much as you seem to think that it does,” Steph says, a blonde brow raised as she looked at the Robin that came both before and after her and found something in his body language that was familiar. Something that she truly didn't like.
She wasn’t the only one.
(those that didn’t were the smaller number among them)
Dick looked as if he was going to ask something, say something that no one wanted to hear right then. Tim spoke first.
“Can we just watch?” The teen asked, redirecting those around him to the mist. It wasn’t the first time by any means that he had done this, but it was by far the most desperate of them all.
“Robin of the tower, sorry to intrude so late”
In the mist, they can see a younger version of Jason than the one sitting in the room with them, though not so by much. It seemed as if they were quickly approaching more current events, more hidden events too. He was dressed in his Red Hood gear, though the outfit was a bit off, different from the one that they had come to know. Different still from the one that he had truly worn back then. It contradicted the words that Tim had spoken about what the teen had been wearing for this encounter. Though neither Jason nor Tim seemed to be retracting their statements as to what this encounter was.
(Tim seemed to be smirking even, fighting down a laugh, as an embarrassed sort of blush had begun to spread across Jason’s cheeks. It was a confusing sort of sight to say the least)
Something that they all noticed though was that the second Robin did not sound apologetic at all as he sang.
They could see a sixteen year old Tim in the mist as well, one that was looking at the intruder with an abundant absence of fear, portraying deep annoyance at the best. It had been an infuriating thing to see back then when he had been trying to break the new Robin, but now Jaso was more than a little bit impressed. He had seen the teen make the same look at a calculus problem, it took guts to be so apathetic to danger.
(it was a bit concerning though)
Damian watched as his brother stared at one another within the mist, Timothy looking about as bothered by Todd’s presence in the Tower as he looked bothered by Damian’s own past murder attempts. It was not the look of someone cocky and overconfident in their own skills, but assured in his own ability to survive the things at hand with minimal damage. Seeing some of the things that Timothy had already done before now, he knew that this was a sound assessment.
He had known from the start that Todd was not truly planning to kill him, and had enough back up plans that even if he had been then Timothy could have handled it (his fights with the likes of Lady Shiva proved that well enough, and Todd was not her)
Both Jason and Damian thought, not for the first time, that it was as if the boy in the mist had been born to be in their world.
“But I come here with a point to make
“I have been looking for Gotham’s light
“And have wound up at the Titan’s doors”
The Jason in the mist sung the words as he stalked closer to his version of Tim, the one still dressed in a Robin costume that held green within it. The one that had only just begun to lose people. That version of Tim didn’t look overly impressed with the man before him, gripping his staff within his hands as his expression morphed into something slowly growing with a bit more anger. A bit more snark as well.
It was a calculative gaze, they all knew it.
He was taking in the words that the older teen was singing and trying to guess the next move that the man would make.
“Through the years, birds seldom fly too far from home
“So I must ask just to be sure
“You are Tim Drake aren’t you?”
In the mist they can see a version of Jason that was angrier than the one sitting among them, more prone to violence. They watch as he stalks ever closer to the third Robin, something cruel in his stance as he does so, in his voice even with the helmet still on. They watch as the Tim in the mist goes impossibly still after hearing his name spill from his predecessor’s lips like an acid. There was panic there, understandable worry.
He recovers impossibly quickly though.
(too quickly to be any sort of real)
“Who, me?
“You could say that is the mask beneath this form”
The bats and metas startle when they hear Tim so easily give up his identity - confirm it at least - to the man intent on harming him.
“Why would you say that?” Duke asks, more fearless and free then most of those in the room could be when it came to the events being shown in the mist. It was hard to be impartial when you had been involved, one way or another.
“He already knew,” Tim answers as if he dosen’t understand his younger brother’s confusion. He did, to a degree, but it all still seemed logical enough to him.
“You couldn't have known that he already knew your identity for sure,” Steph says, looking at Tim as everyone else was.
She remembered these days, the way that the city had been. He identity would not have been something that she would have handed over so easily to the Red Hood back then. Especially not if she was as paranoid as Tim specifically was.
“He already knew,” Tim says once more, earning more than one exasperated look, “there was no point in wasting energy pretending to be a fool when he had likely been stalking me for a while before attacking, just as he did Bruce and Dick before his confrontations with them.”
The words made the teen seem so damn sensible in his reasoning, a skill that the boy had perfected over the years when giving plans that sounded more like convoluted death traps than anything else. They knew better though, for this time at least.
“Tim,” Jason says, joining the conversation that was already so thoroughly haunted by him, “don’t give your name out to rouges in the future,” the man says tiredly. “That’s what kept Odessyeus from getting home for thirteen years when it should have only been ten days.”
Tim thought it was a bit late be saying such things when most of the dangerous people out to get him had a habit of knowing who he was long before he knew that they existed at all, but he nodded anyways just to put the conversation at rest. He reasonings did not go as unnoticed as he might have liked, not in a room full of people that were rapidly learning all of the things that the teen had hid in one manner or another
“So you are the Pretender”
In the mist, they watch as the younger version of Jason reaches a hand down to his chest legs after taking off his helmet, ripping the clothes on him away from himself and revealing a Robin costume - clearly handmade - beneath.
Tim did what he had wanted to do back then: Laughed.
Those in the room looked wildly between the image in the mist - the horrific image that would be forever ingrained within their minds just as it had been within Tim’s for the past nearly two years, a cosmic punishment he was sure - the Jason sitting among them, and Tim. Tim, who had dubbed over in his laughter, holding his side as Damian looked at him with concern.
“God, this is so much stupider the second time around,” the teen says with such genuine mirth to him that the bats almost forgot what had brought it on.
“It wasn’t that bad,” Jason weakly protested, though he could not meet the image of his past self with his own gaze.
“Well, when discowing is the competition, anything might seem perfectly acceptable,” Cassie snarks, a laugh in her own voice as she looked between the two versions of Hood.
The former members of Young Justice understood now why Tim had not been so thoroughly affected by everything that they are about to see, going as far as to apparently kick Jason in the dick the next time that he saw the man. They too would have walked away from this laughing even if they had been hospitalized from it.
(Tim had not been, by some miracle that they were likely about to see, because even dressed as he was then, they knew that the man had managed to knock Tim unconscious at the end of their fight and could have killed him then if he had wished to do so before any of the other Titans even got there in time)
“My outfit was great!” Dick says, taking his turn to protest.
No one answers the man verbally, the looks are enough.
“You were a snarky shit the whole fight, weren’t you?” Kon asks, looking between the boy presently at his side and the horror filled stance that he held in the mist (the sort of horror that he has when Bart throws together an outfit that would make even the Joker scream)
“No.” “Yes.”
Tim and Jason answer at the same time, respectively, each turning to look at the other with raised brows.
“So, most definitely then,” Damian decides as he presses a bit more against his elder brother. Some fights Timothy was just not meant to win and they had been given a cheat sheet.
Cass nods in agreement.
Bruce watched his children with a soft sort of expression that he would never had thought that he would have been able to direct at all of them at once, not with how their family had been built brick by bloody brick.
Yet here he was.
“Huh
“I don't know who you are, nor why you're here”
It was a lie, the Tim within the mist already had an idea as to who the man beneath the hood was, the ghost forever haunting them all, drowning the narrative even after his own passing. He knew also why the Red Hood would be hunting them, hunting him. If there was a problem that the man (teen, he was only eighteen at the time, Tim thought, though that number was flexible given the months that he was dead, unageing, and the time spent catatonic. He was eighteen and still much younger) had with Batman, with Bruce, then it would be smart to take it out on the bat’s child sidekick. The weaker version of the bat himself. It sent a sort of message.
(Bruce never did quite receive the exact message that Jason had been trying to send, and Tim was a stubborn bastard that already knew his worth to the man (how could he not after what the man had done on his sixteenth birthday, done with his training, done when they had met) and still showed up anyways.)
Hood showing up before him in a hand made Robin uniform had just been the last bit of confirmation that the teen had needed to be completely assured of who the other was.
Not that he had enjoyed the way that he had gotten it. He had wanted to burn his eyes out back then, and the urge to do so was still there now.
“You know,” Bart starts as he looks as his teammate, “you lie a lot”
The words are blunt and truthful and unsurprising to Kon, Bart, and Cass, all of them having known one way or the other that the version of himself in the mist had been lying through his teeth about not knowing the other boy’s identity.
The others in the room, Jason himself, were surprised that he had figured it out so early though.
“You knew before the fight even started?” Bruce asks, sounding a bit accusatory instead of surprised.
Tim meets that tone with a similar one of his own:
“You had known too, Bruce,” the teen says bluntly, knowing it to be the truth.
Bruce had known and whether because of blatant denial or something more cruel, he had not told Tim.
“I wasn’t sure,” Bruce answers, sounding a bit guilty admittedly. It wasn’t good enough though.
“You knew enough.”
“But let me make this one thing clear
“I've got people to protect
“Friends I can't neglect
“So I'm not taking chances, Hood”
The brothers in the mist, though they weren’t that back then, circle one another in the Tower as Tim sings, threats falling from his lips like a winter snow. He may have suspected just who the man was before him back then, but there has always been little that he wouldn’t do for those that he calls his own and back then Jason had not been one of them, he had been the enemy attacking his home.
“If you make one wrong move, then you're done for
“Anything I don't approve, then you're done for
“I could put a blade in you, and you're done for
“Hood, you better run, or soon you will be done for”
The words that Tim sung were cold, dipped in a sort of ruthlessness that he had seemed to hold within so many of these songs that the boy was singing, and yet could hide easily enough when needed.
The more that they learned about the teen, the more that the bats seemed to learn (to be forced to acknowledge) that Tim was not like them when it came to morals. Bruce, Dick, Cass, Jason, Steph, and Duke all had their own sets of moral codes, of rules and lines that they would not cross. Damian was slowly morphing into. A hodgepodge of them all, taking the ones that he liked and was expected to follow while Robin. Tim’s, on the other hand, seemed to be held together with painter’s tape and sticky notes on the fridge stolen from whoever that he was around at that moment.
It was dangerous, and they were all learning that.
“I don't mean to tip your scale but
“You will fail at placing any death blows on me
“I have the same training, skills that claim your power
“So you better cower now and flee”
Jason sounds smug as he sings, puffing out his chest in the mist like a child that had just tricked their parents into letting them stay up late.
“All you're doing is helping Tim to confirm your identity further,” Cassie points out, settling the man across from him with an unimpressed sort of glare.
“That had been the point, Wonder Wig,” the man answers, more than a little bit defensively.
”It was a dumb point,” the girl remarks, her tone saying more than words ever could.
Bart laughs, as clear and as free as Tim had earlier. “I mean, Red has like twenty aliases,” the speedster remarks, telling the bats of a few more than they had known before, “you don’t see him spending time crafting an identity just to reveal himself on the first encounter.”
Tim wants to revel in his friends’ belief in his skills, but stops for a moment as he remembers something. “That reminds me,” the teen says, drawing the eyes in the room back to him once more, though he only met the gazes of his own team, “Alvin Draper is dead,” the third Robin says bluntly, knowing - and not caring - about how it would sound to those around him that did not know the context.
“What? Why?” Kon asked, his voice much less serious than most of the bats would expect for a dead friend.
“You burned Al?” Steph asked, sounding more than a little offended.
Alvin Draper had been the one to take her to her classes after all, because Tim couldn’t have come as himself or as Robin. She was a bit fond of the asshat of an identity.
“International art theft,” Tim answers, knowing that it was likely to come up in a few songs anyways if he were to guess right.
“But we’ve known Alvin Draper longer than we’ve known Tim Drake,” Bart all but wines as he looks at his friend, the secretive bastard that gets into enough trouble to need aliases that he can burn at moments notice if needed. Sometimes he thought of wrapping all of friends up in bubble wrap and hiding them away in the Tower with a mountain of food for the rest of their lives, or going back in the virtual reality and dragging them in with him. No one can hurt you in a mountain of blankets or in a digital space. He might just do it too if he thought that they’d actually be happy there.
“Are you sure we can’t trade Tim Wayne and get Al back?” Cassie asks, knowing what the answer will be.
“No can do, sorry,” the teen of many names answered, he did not sound sorry at all.
“Alvin Draper is an alias then?” Bruce asks, focusing on that for the moment rather than the apparent international theft that his child had done.
(He wondered absently if his children were spending too much time with Selina)
“Was one,” the teen answers, giving nothing else. The bats had learned by now that these short answers meant that they would likely learn more later through the songs, this didn’t mean that the detectives liked it very much.
Jason took in the information and thought that he might just like the kid a bit more for it. It wasn’t every day that a bat did something like this.
(a small part in the back of his mind wondered if the younger Robin was even truly a bat at all. It wasn’t the first time that he had pondered this question, but it was the first time that he had done so in this context, the context of Tim being a bit too dark on the side of morally grey for Bruce to tolerate by the end of it all. Jason knew that standing well, he had the bat symbol on his chest, but had to change and limit his methods to “earn it” in the old man’s eyes)
“You must be a liar
“Villains can't acquire
“Bat training without being known”
The Tim in the mist sings, his voice sounding so genuinely confused that they might have believed it too had they not known the teen as well as they did, especially after all of this.
“You're digging, fishing for information,” Bruce realizes as he looks between his sons in the image and the ones sitting before him.
The Jason of the present seems to only be placing this together now that he knew the things that he did about the Robin that took up the mantle after himself, but Tim only shrugged.
“I was nearly certain at this point that it was Jason,” Tim admits, waving at the mist. “No one else would have gone to such lengths to attack me so personally,” he stops for a moment, considering, “not back then and not in this way at least,” the teen amends, settling absolutely none of the uneasiness that had risen within everyone else other than himself at the admission. “The only logical thing to do next was to make sure that it was Jason before me, back from the dead somehow, and not some sort of trick being pulled by the villain of the week.” He stops for a moment and shrugs once more, this time almost entirely to himself. “Or a hallucination, but not even I hate myself enough to think this look up.”
Bruce’s mind comes to a small halt at the last true bit of information that Tim offers. “We’ll be talking about the apparent hallucinations at a later date,” the man decides.
Tim seems not to care at all, only smirking at Dick.
“Sure,” the teen agrees with far too much ease, “only so long as you talk to Dick too, his are worse than mine after all. Maybe he should see a therapist in Metropolis.”
The words make the oldest brother draw in a heavy sort of breath. He knew that it was deserved though.
“Then I must be a bird like you
“'Cause I got this training from the bat within the cave”
The answer is more than a bit cocky, spoken with something much too close to arrogance for the other heroes and vigilantes in the room not to scoff at the man that had just spoken of the wrongs of Odysseus.
“Hypocrite,” Steph sing - songs from her chair.
“Shut it,” the crime lord says, feeling embarrassed enough by everything that the song had shown without Spoiler pointing it out as if he was bloody Cluemaster.
He wondered why Tim got all of the badass sort of moments shown when he got this.
(not that he would willingly trade places with the third Robin in this circumstance for nearly anything.)
Steph laughs in her seat, Cass joining along. Jason knew that the older girl was laughing more at something in his present body language than the situation itself.
Annoying sisters.
“You’re Jason aren’t you?”
The Tim in the mist asks, his arms crossed over his chest in the manner of someone that had already won no matter the outcome that this confrontation brings him. It was something that the teen did far too often, playing to win the war and not the battle. It was the sort of risky move that would one day cost him his life.
(it already almost had)
“Okay, fine, yes, but regardless
“You and I are now evenly matched
“Our fates are intertwined, they're attached”
The Jason in the mist draws his own weapon then, holding it up so that the Tim in the mist could more clearly see the glint of the gun that the older teen was holding. The pair take to circling one another as the each hold their weapons out to the other, too antsy to stay still but still too many things to say to attack just yet. This doesn’t stop them from stilling into fighting stances as Jason sung the last line, aiming to harm even as in the mist above the pair two other forms had begun to take place.
They were sitting on what looked to be a rooftop of Gotham, leaning together against one of the many gargoyles that the city holds. They looked nearly identical as they stood together, the same colors flush against their skin, the same costume that many within the room had worn. They each looked so young, small for their ages too. One was thirteen or fourteen, the other around twelve. You wouldn’t have known that by looking at either of them though. They were Robin, each of them, even as it was a different person beneath each of the masks. Both boys looked so confused as they looked down at their older counterparts, seemingly not understanding why the elder pair were about to fight. Their hands were clasped together even as their older selves hands held weapons that they pointed at one another.
Jason and Tim.
Tim and Jason.
Their fates truly did look intertwined right then.
Almost painfully so.
There is more than one harsh breath taken as those in the room look at the four in the mist, look at the young two. It was painful to see them when they first started as Robin, so bright and full of life when they each lacked it in the older version of themselves in the mist, in one manner or another. The Jason before them had regained some of that light, the form a bit different, but there nonetheless. Tim, on the other hand, had only lost it even more since then, they could all see that.
(Robins were like stars, the brighter that they burned, the quicker that they destructed. And Tim had shined all too brightly from the start, he wouldn’t have allowed anything else)
“I've got people to protect
“Friends I can't neglect
“So now, there is no turning back”
The older pair in the mist move together at once, seemingly without any sort of warning or indication to warrant it as they collided, the younger versions of themselves dissolving above their heads with the first strike of a Bo staff that was blocked by a gun. The pair fought viscously, ruthlessly, but not lethally, neither side aiming to kill the other. Not then at least. Every kick was hard and quick, and every strike of the Bo against skin or shot of the gun was well placed, but all meant to injure not to end a life that they hardly knew.
It was almost like sparring, though not any that Bruce would have ever condoned.
(Maybe that very knowledge was why they both seemed to be enjoying it in a way, a manner that was hidden neatly beneath the anger, right alongside the growing respect that they each held for the other. Never did either of them get to let loose so much within the city limits of Gotham without their lives on the line)
“You've made your one wrong move, now you're done for
“I will be the one to prove that you're done for”
The fight is brutal, a sort of disaster that was meant to be spread, not kept to a single room. And spread it did, as the pair fought through several floors of the Tower, destroying nearly everything in their wake. Statues toppled over, breaking as dust rose up around the pair, the faces and forms of teammates lost to battle breaking across the ground, shattering. Jason’s wasn’t among them, not because the pair paid it any special care to avoid, but because there was no stature of the teen included in the memorial hall for the Titans, the second Robin never having been considered as one of them.
“Not even a bat saves you, 'cause you're done for
“Oh, you better run, or soon you will be done for”
The fight that continues to tear through the Tower is still more even than anyone that had heard of it had thought that it would have been.
How could they not have doubted it though? Jason’s Robin was someone that Tim had been reaching to catch up to long before the teen ever came back to Gotham with breath once more in his lungs. And when he did come back he had been trained by the best, by those that could stand alongside The Batman.
And Tim?
Tim may have taken to being a vigilante as if he was always meant to fly alongside them, but he was younger, he hadn't been operating nearly as long. As far as most knew, Tim had gone through the same training as Jason before the kid’s death. His skills, no matter how impressive, should not have held up. Tim shouldn’t have been able to catch up to the imposing figure before him. But he did. Even holding back as they both were, Tim was good. He had Dick’s acrobatics, and Jason’s determination, and Bruce’s brain, and Alfred’s subtlety, and his mother’s cunning, and his father’s anger. And it was honestly nearly breathtaking to see, the fluid news of it all, the skill. Everything. They fought on par with one another. He fought evenly with Jason.
Till he didn’t.
The hit that the Jason in the mist lands is a lucky sort of one, a miscalculation where Tim had seemed to think that the man would go in one direction and he went the other. It wasn’t an uncommon mistake to make when fighting an opponent that you didn’t know too well, one that understood rhythms in a fight and the effectiveness of throwing them off once they had been established.
The Tim in the mist is knocked down to the ground, rolling away a bit, but not immediately coming to his feet. The manner in which the boy fell away from the taller, more muscular figure reminded them all a bit too much of what it had been like to see the future version of Tim knock his younger counterpart to the ground as Jason had just done for anyone to be comfortable seeing it, seeing the parallel that it near created there. The way that each time the young version of Tim seemed almost destined to become like the one that had sought to hurt him but not to kill him.
There is a difference to the motion this time though. The first time that they had seen such a move, the older version of Tim’s gun had fallen to the ground as well and the younger had grabbed it, taking the advantage in the fight. This time though, its Tim’s weapon that is lost, the Bo staff rolling away from Tim’s grasps and towards the Jason in the mist, as Tim pulls himself to his knees.
Jason picks it up and walks towards the younger boy, raising the weapon higher and higher in his hands with each step as he stops behind the younger teen.
It wasn’t a pretty scene to see, and it made nearly everyone feel sick. Everyone but the boy that knew what was coming next as it had happened to him.
(he still thought that this was better than some of the other things that had been done to him in that tower. Would still prefer this over Rose Wilson. Over Kon being forced to lose control of his own body, his mind, and hurt those that he loved, Tim included. He would always prefer a battle that he could fight without care (even if he lost in the end) over one that left him angry and hollow even when he won.
“You've lost”
The Jason in the mist says as he swings the Bo staff down on the younger teen below him, Tim crumpling on the ground as it makes contact with his head.
There was more than one sympathetic wince that spread through the room, almost everyone there knowing just how such a hit felt.
“My friends are like my family
“I protect them at all costs”
In the mist they can see Tim on the ground, the teen trying desperately to sit up, to make his limbs obey his commands even as Jason walks away, the older boy turning his back to the third Robin’s crumpling form as if he knew that the boy would not be a threat till long past the time that he was gone.
He was right.
“The last time we let strangers live
“We faced a heavy loss”
The image in the mist begins to blur as Tim begins to loose his fight to stay conscious, and just for a moment, right before everything goes black, they see the cave as Tim has always known it to be. They see Jason’s memorial staring right back at them as the words settle around them, sung in Tim’s defeated sort of voice.
As if despite everything that he thought that he knew of the fight, his uniform would soon join his brother’s.
“You've given me a reason to question my own past”
The Jason in the mist says more than signs as he looks down at Tim, dropping a bit and leaning over the boy just for a few seconds to check for a pulse before standing back up as if he moved fast enough that he could pretend that the moment didn’t happen at all. Those in the room could question him about the action - likely would have - but Tim asks something else first.
“What do you mean by that?” The boy genius asks, not used to not understanding the things and motivations around him and finding it iterating. “To question your own past?”
Jason doesn’t meet Tim eyes immediately, looking down at his hands instead, gathering himself. Just for a moment. It shouldn’t mean anything, shouldn’t give too much away.
It does.
Jason meets Tim’s gaze anyways.
“You had people outside of Bruce and Alfred and Dick, when Wing was around,” the second Robin says, his voice so carefully blank that he might as well have been screaming with emotion, with hurt and envy. “You had more people within your first year as Robin than I ever did in my entire tenure and it showed. I’ve wondered since that day what might have become of me had I had more people back then, more people to fight to come home to whole.”
It was the sort of admission that took too much from the one speaking it, left them hollow and a bit hurt.
Tim understood though, better than anyone else in the room.
Tim knew who he was when he had his friends around him, people at his side even if they weren’t there physically.
He also knew what he was like when all those he loved were taken from him, either by death or by betrayals.
(he made eight heads in a duffle bag seem quaint)
Some of that must have shown in his eyes - the people around him learning to read him better than he ever thought that they would be able to before all of this had occurred - because Jason tilts his head to the side like a bird before nodding as if a message had been passed.
(Tim though that maybe one had been, another piece of how they were all too alike coming to life)
“Tell Bruce I’ll see him soon”
The Jason in the mist walks away from the boy that had taken up the mantle that he had died for, the child only two or three younger than himself. In his wake he left a message written in red, high above the statues that Tim laid before:
‘Jason Todd Was Here’
“We thought that the words had been written in blood,” Cassie admits, looking at the Red Hood with enough steel in her usually kind eyes that Tim couldn’t help but wonder if they should test for Kryptonian origins when they left here. “We thought that they had been written in Tim’s blood.”
The words are harsh and none of the four do anything to soften them, not even as Dick looks to be close to stepping in.
Jason beats him to it.
“I didn’t hurt Tim that badly,” the second former Robin says, the excuse sounding weak even to his own ears, “nor had I been aiming to do so.”
“We didn’t exactly know that at the time, now did we,” Kon says, his voice just as hard as Cassie’s, just as harsh. Tim hated hearing them like this.
(There was a small, shameful, part that loved it though. Loved the proof that they cared enough to say something even when he himself wasn’t.)
“We know about the graveyard,” Bart says, his voice so flat and devoide of anything at all that Tim wouldn’t have believed that it was one of his best friends speaking had he not seen the speedsters lips moving.
“I’ve seen the scar,” Kon adds, his voice just as cold as before.
Jason’s brows knit togeher tightly at that, but its not his reactions that Tim is watching for, not Bart or Cassie’s either. No, its everyone else.
Duke looks confused and a bit lost as he’s watched the whole story unfold, as if he wanted to go back to the brief moments of humor and just stay there where it was safe.
Steph had this look to her, the one that she always had when things that she hated that had happened to someone that she cared about wer being brought up once more and she could do nothing to fight it, to help. This wasn’t her fight at the moment after all. No, this song had been focused on two brothers and the current Titans that could no longer feel safe in their home with just one person there. Someone else always had to be staying in the Tower as well, or have someone with super speed chosen and on speed dial just in case because they refused to be too late again. (It was about the friend that they had to find hurt by someone that should have already been his family by then in another life)
Dick and Bruce were much the same right then, each looking as if they wanted to force the conversation to a stop no matter if it was their place or not. One because it was too public a place to have it, the other because he liked to ignore their families faults until the damage was thrown back at them ten fold.
Damian looked guilty, his shoulders hunched in a way that Tim was sure no one else would have noticed, himself included, had the child not been pressed against him. He looked apprehensive, as if he was waiting for his own turn. Tim thought that this was a fair assessment for the boy to make. He’d spare the child the worse of it because he was showing remorse now before it had even come up though.
And Cass…Cass just looked sad. Sad that she could have done nothing to stop this, to help, despondent that they were having to live through it again. That, Tim understood the best.
Tim shakes his head, drawing eyes to him as he speaks, “The cut had been as precise as Bruce’s,” he says, forcing the parallel between Jason’s actions and the action of their father against Jason into the open, knowing that there would be no better punishment than to show the second Robin a time that he had acted exactly like the man that he sought to not be. One last dig before fully letting it go. Not forgiving, not forgetting. Just letting it be laid to rest. “It wasn’t meant to kill, just maim. Trust me, assassins know the difference in the two.”
“That doesn’t make it any better,” Jason says, seemingly uncaring of how this hurt his own case.
“It doesn’t,” Tim agrees, and they leave it at that.
There is silence for a long moment, the bittersweet ending hanging in the air as if it meant everything, as if it meant nothing at all. This was the closest that Tim would ever come to accepting an apology that may have never come had the wrongs not been thrown right into Jaosn’s face once more, the acknowledgment of them from the man that had made them. They weren’t okay, but they would be. Of that, Tim was sure.
“The next song will start in a few moments.”
Notes:
Just a reminder to everyone that the number of chapters for this is already set, and that's because I already have all of the songs and story plots that are going to be shown decided and planned out from start to finish
—-
Also, I've made a poll on Tumblr for future fics unrelated to this one (but still Tim - centric) if you wanna vote on those. I'll use the percentages as a list for what order to write them. It'll be open for a week from the publication date of this chapter. There's also another post that will be below it for fan fic request if you want to do that:https://www.tumblr.com/seaskate/783762840262672384/fic-explanations?source=share
Chapter 9: My Goodbye
Summary:
Tim has lost everything, everyone, and now he is losing Robin too
Notes:
My Goodbye by Jorge Rivera-Herrans from EPIC The Musical: The Cyclops Saga
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
When the music starts once more, it's to a sound that they knew from songs before, a string of displeased chords as images begin to form within the mist. A scene that only one person within the room knew of, though they could all feel the sort of sorrow that came with it long before they saw the figure in the mist and the state that he and everything else around him was in.
“You were reckless”
In the mist, they could see someone sitting on the ground, their head in their hands as they sat there with the room thrashed around them, paintings crooked on the walls as objects littered the ground. It looked as if someone had been attacked within the room, and in a manner Tim supposed that someone had been, in one way or another.
The one singing the words in the mist is Bruce, Batman to be precise. The man crouched down next to the sitting figure that was donned in a familiar shade of red.
(three people within the room wore it after all)
He sounded, like the music, a bit sad as he sang the harsh words, as if mourning something that was not yet lost.
“I…” Bruce starts slowly, looking between the Tim before him, and the broken one in the mist (there was no other way to describe the look of the boy other than that) as if doing so for long enough would tell him all that he wanted to know, “don’t remember this happening,” he says honestly.
His words, no matter how confused they may have seemed, loosened something in the hearts of the rest of those in the room. If the mist was going to show them yet another horrific thing that the man had done wrong, then they were helpless to stop it, but that didn’t mean that they would want to see it either. But, if Bruce was just as confused as most of them were, then this was something else altogether.
Tim, unlike the rest of the room, found himself wishing that it had been Bruce speaking then, chastising him for some mistake. At least if it was really him and not what he thinks that it is, then he could avoid the events to come just a bit longer.
Tim never had been Lady Luck’s favorite.
(or maybe he was and she just had a real damned twisted way of showing it)
“You were… gone during this,” Tim said slowly, though his voice was still a bit unsteady, a feat for someone as trained as he is in socialite behavior.
Everyone looked at then, the confusion that had morphed their features prominent before giving way to a reluctant understanding. To an understanding that they wished that they did not have to possess.
“Hallucinations?” Kon asked, looking down at Tim with so much concern that it almost made the former Robin sick to think of how Kon would look if he were to learn that Tim had hallucinated him the most.
Maybe he knew already.
Tim only nodded and looked back to the mist, he didn’t want to see any of the pity in the eyes of those around them, any understanding either when there had been no one at the time to curse him with either before, so many in the room gone - removed from him - in one manner or another back then.
Even as the looks still weigh heavy on his skin, those that hold them know better than to say anything, after all, they did not all have the excuse of being truly dead or lost in the time stream to account for why they had let the third Robin get so bad at the time.
(a few wondered if he was still like this now, the times being as close together as they were. They didn’t dare to ask)
“Sentimental at best”
The hallucination continues to sing, but suddenly the image changes, flashing to that of a lab that only three in the room recognized for what it was as they could just barely see the Tim in the mist wearing the changed Robin uniform as he stood in a wash of green.
Though only three knew what that room was, that didn’t stop human curiosity from taking a hold.
“What was that place, Tim?” Duke asked as he looked at his older brother and the other boy’s friends, finding three out of the five of them looking at the mist with pained sort of expressions.
(Dick might have asked the question, in another life, but in this one he knew that he didn’t have the right to answers for this time in Tim’s life)
Tim doesn’t answer for a long moment, not looking away from the mist even as Kon holds his hand more firmly within his own. Just because the other was here now, doesn’t mean that the pain of then was erased. “A cloning lab,” he answers simply, bluntly. In a manner that makes those that do not know the truth fear the worse.
(Tim wasn’t sure which one was truly worse, the assumptions that he could all but hear in the sharp intakes of breath, or the truth that he had made)
“Who’s?” Jason asks, seeing the strange tension that existed on the other side of the room, as Timmy, Wonder Wig, and Clone Boy all looked varying amounts of despondent, but ADHD in human form only looked worried for the other three. It seemed that the three held a secret that Impulse did not know. Jason knew that it would have to be a dangerous or damning one for them not to tell their fourth.
Tim looks up before he speaks, blue eyes meeting ones that had been stained by green, and he answers:
“Mine.”
Tim wasn’t surprised when everyone around him went silent, the room taking on a thicker air to it as those within it that had not known the truth processed the words.
“Who were you trying to clone?” Bart asks, his voice lacking the judgment and the shock that Tim could feel coming from nearly everyone else in the room other than those on this couch. Judgement and pity and understanding, all drowning him in waves.
Tim only smiled, something sad and pointed, and Bart’s eyes went wide as he pointed an unsteady hand at himself before glancing at Kon as well.
“Us?” The speedster asks, as if there ever could have been someone else.
Maybe it was a testament to just how fucked up the four of them truly were, because instead of looking angry like he should have been, tears began to gather in Bart’s eyes for the moment before he launched himself at Tim and held the former Robin tight as Cassie imeadetly began to run a hand down the crying teen’s back, Kon holding both of the other boys as best as he could.
The bats watch the four friends, watch them hold each other and speak quietly to one another about the topic, smoothing it out among themselves, and god did they feel lost. What Tim had done had been insane by no small amount, it was the sort of thing that they arrested people for, locking them away tight before their experiments could work. It was a decision born of desperation, and a mental state so broken that someone - anyone - should have stepped in long before it go this bad, but no one hand and now it was too late to do anything but watch as the broken children held one another, none of them angry over something that they very well should have been.
(No, Bart was holding Tim with such fierceness that they knew that it had to hurt, the speedster never having felt so completely loved and wanted as he did right then. And Kon? Kon, was looking at the third Robin with such… love for an act that very well should have made the super hate him with his history on the subject, not endear Tim to him more.)
The bats had always thought that their clan were the most messed up among the capped community, with the things that they have gone through and the things that they have put one another through. Now though, as the children distangled themselves and Bart returned to his seat with a goofy and awed sort of smile on his lips, they weren’t so sure.
They only knew about some of the things that Tim has done, a raindrop in a storm, and that wasn’t even counting the other three, one of which has already confessed to having joined a cult at some point. Cloning made beating one’s killer to death look a bit sane and understandable after all.
(guilt sunk deep in the souls of the bats nonetheless though. Steph, for having added falsely to the grief that had already been breaking Tim. Bruce, though it had not been his fault, adding true grief to the loss that the teen had already been drowning in. Cass for leaving. Jason for leaving and staying away even once he had come back, for only getting closer to make things worse. Damian, whose attempts and words - no matter how unseriously taken - he knew would not have helped.
And Dick. Dick who was supposed to have been there, but at the time had had too much placed on him at the time to take care of Damian and Tim both. He had chosen Damian, even when Tim had said that his world was burning down around him. His only attempt at help was to tell Tim that he needed mental help. What a load of good that recommendation had done them both.
The only one absolved of it was Duke, and that was because he had not been one of them yet)
“That's not a teaching of mine”
The hallucination of Batman in the mist sings the words harshly as he reaches out and tries to make Tim look at him. The boy doesn’t, only looking farther away, but it worried those watching all the same that for a moment it looked as if Tim had believed that the older vigilante in the mist might make contact.
Hallucinations that brought on sensations of a physical touch were never a good sign.
“You've grown soft
“Your dead friends can attest”
The image in the mist changes once more, flashing to show two graves with bodies that they never should have had to bury so young. Above them were the words:
‘Attempt Ninety - Nine Unsuccessful’
It was a bit of a heartbreaking number to see, now that they all knew and understood what it meant. To know of just how long and how many times Tim had truly tried to create copies of the friends that he had lost, knowing that even if he did succeed, that it wouldn’t truly be them. Knowing that he had tried anyways because he had been so alone.
“That’s a pretty high number, Tim,” Dick comments, speaking like he wasn’t sure that he was allowed to.
Tim wasn't sure that he wanted him to either.
“Just be happy that I stopped when I did,” is what the teen answers, his voice a bit flat and his eyes a bit distant as he looks at his brother, “there’s a version of the future where it works.”
They didn’t have to ask how Tim knew that, they were all smart enough to figure it out when they had already been given enough of the pieces. Didn’t make them any less surprised though that he had accomplished such a thing, even if it was in a future that no longer existed. They knew a bare amount of the difficulty that human cloning alone brought someone, and neither of the people that Tim had been attempting to recreate had been completely so.
“Hey”
The Tim in the mist finally looks at Batman fully, an angry light in his eyes that almost seemed to make them shine as the teen all but growled out the word. His voice was dangerous right then without him ever having to raise it.
He looked two seconds from tearing Batman apart.
“Put your emotions aside
“You're a warrior”
The Tim in the mist stands then, and just for a moment he is wearing his Robin costume, the one that he had changed to lack any green at all despite it being his favorite color. The one that was created for mourning a love that hadn’t yet been his.
He stands there, in the Robin costume, with his Bo staff in his hands and looks every bit the warrior that he was meant to be.
Every bit the hero.
Tim can’t help but think that honestly a bit sticking to see, given all the things that are bound to come next. All the things that he had done before then and soon after that would bar him from ever holding such a title genuinely in the way that Kon, Bart, and Cassie always should.
“Meant to lead the rest
“I don't know where I went wrong
“But I warned you
“And you failed the test”
The hallucination of Bruce in the mist circles the Tim of only a year or so before, something almost predatory, angry, and frustrated in his stance and in his words as he settles before the teen as he sings the last line, one that seemed to hit Tim harder than the rest as he knew just what Batman’s tests were like.
The tone alone is almost enough to make nearly everyone in the room flinch, knowing that Bruce would sound exactly like that if he were truly the one speaking right then. The fact that it was a hallucination was the only thing that saved the man from his childrens’ ire, and even then it was more for Tim’s sake than anything.
Bruce had his issues that have led to those in the conjured room to knowing all the different facets of his anger, his dissatisfaction and disappointment, his frustration. A lack of communication was at the forefront of it all. They were the sort of issues that assures the batkids that if Bruce had been alive at the time and knew the things that Tim was doing then, the conversation at hand would not have been so different from the one happening now. But, that was a very long fight that they had all had some variation of with the man in the past, and should not have now while watching Tim’s life from within a space in the teen’s mind.
Bruce had never been more grateful for regrettable magic.
“So now I'm gone”
In the mist, the version of Batman that the Tim in the mist had conjured before him disappeared like smoke in the wind, washing away just as the words that he sung foretold, as if to prove a point.
It wasn’t until the smoke cleared that they saw it, the painting that had been hidden at Bruce’s back.
“Is that…?” Cassie asks, just as unsure as Dick if her words, her questions or anything, would be welcome. He had not been the only one to hurt Tim at the time, and though they were better now, she knew that this seemed to be bringing up old wounds and agitating them. This wound in particular had hardly scabbed over before all of this.
“Yeah,” Tim answered, not looking at anyone or anything but the painting in the mist, the one that had started everything from those long months. “It is.”
Looking at it, seeing the face of Bruce Wayne looking back at them, everyone in the room understood then how the teen could have been so sure that it was at least a possibility that Bruce was alive. People often share traits with their ancestors, but this truly was too much.
More than one person thought for a moment about what might have happened had Tim not found the painting back then and knew that getting Bruce back would have been the least of it with the plan that the man had been placed into.
“This way, you'll know what your place is”
In the mist, Bruce is still singing, even though no one can see the man only hear his voice floating over the events that were playing out as the Tim in the walked to the painting on the wall, running his fingers over the grooves of it. There was something sharp, calculating, and yet hopeful in the teen’s dark eyes as he did so. A scientist with an answer that he was trying to guess just how right it could be. It was the same look that he gave cases and code.
It was the look of someone that knew that they were right.
(now, watching him, everyone else did too, the evidence in the room right there with them)
“This way, you can't cross the line
“This way, when all is over
“You'll keep yours and I'll keep mine”
In the mist, Tim is walking through the manor on hurried feet, all but running as he does, his destination clear to all that knew him. He had a hand on his chest as he moved, placed on the spot where the R on his costume would lay had he been wearing it then.
It was a sad thing to see with the knowledge that he would never wear it again.
He wondered now if he still counted as one of Bruce’s. If he still would at the end of all of this.
“This way, you won't disappoint me”
In the mist, they can see Tim still running through the manor with determination in his eyes and quick feet beneath him, as the voice singing changes from that of Bruce to that of Dick.
Dick felt himself curl in on himself just a little bit as he knew of what was to come, and knew that the show that they were about to see was not going to paint anyone within it in such a pretty light. He knew that whatever was to come, he deserved it though. He had honestly gotten off easy in the first song, when Tim had come to him asking for help and they only showed it for a moment, not truly getting into the details of his refusal and the burden that refusal placed with Tim when he brought the teen to the manor knowing that there was a possibility of him becoming Robin.
He wondered if they would show some of that soon. He hoped not.
(He knew better than to wish for stupid things)
“This way, you won't waste my time
“This way, I'll close the door
“Consider this as my goodbye”
In the mist, they watch as Tim arrives in the Batcave and comes to a sudden, heartbreaking stop as the first thing that he sees is Damian in a costume of too familiar red, yellow, and green. There’s horror in the boy’s face as he takes in the younger, horror and grief as he looks at the suit and sees the splashes of yellow that had been added back into it. Sees the bits of green that had been brought back. The colors don’t help as much as they should because it still looks too much like the design that Tim had changed it to. It still looks like the memorial that he had made to decorate his skin. The title that he would have been willing to give up soon if he hadn’t lost everything else already. If it hadn’t been stolen from him before he was even able to properly mourn the person whose colors now adorned another.
Someone that hated him and wanted him dead.
(Tim hated to think that if this scene had occurred just a bit later after he had lost just a bit more, without him knowing that he would one day get most of those that he had lost back, that he might have just let Damian do as he wished, because at least then he would have been with them)
It was only with Tim standing so close to Damian as he wore the Robin costume in the mist that they all seemed to realize just how much red Tim had worn since Kon’s death, almost always in the color of having it one him in some form or another even though his favorite color is green. He wore still, a red tie with his black suits at work, a deep red shirt when not, mourning the loss even when not in costume. Even when he had gotten the subject of it back.
Dick felt even more guilty for having done things in the manor that he had back then - letting Damian have the suit that Alfred had given to the boy, not changing it more before letting Tim see it as it was - and they hadn’t even started yet. He knew that even if the title of Robin had originally been his, that Tim seemed to be the one that had taken to it the most and then lost it at his lowest.
(Dick didn’t know that it could get lower than this. He was going to realize soon)
“That's just like you”
The Tim in the mist turns slowly to look at Dick, singing in an angry tone that sounded so much like the Bruce that the teen had imagined that it sent a shiver down more than one spine as the boy in the mist sung to Dick but pointed at Damian.
The simple gesture held so much disdain in it that it made the boy of the present flinch. Tim layed a comforting hand on the boy’s shoulder, the pressure calming the child down. He didn’t apologize for his anger from then though, not when in the time that this had actually happened the boy had said some awful things.
There were some things that he refused to feel bad about, and this whole experience was showcasing nearly everyone of them.
“Why should I be surprised?
“Selfish and prideful and vain”
“I know that Dick was being, well a dick,” Steph says as they listen to the words of the Tim in the mist, as they hear the anger and hurt there that seemed so damn common across nearly every song that the boy sung. “But I haven’t known him to be selfish, or prideful, or vain. Not truly.”
It wasn’t accusatory, just inquisitive, but the words made Tim’s hackles rise as the girl spoke them. Someone beats him to responding though.
Dick shakes his head as he drops it into his hands, raking them through his hair in a self soothing sort of motion that everyone in the room knew all too well. When he speaks though its all self deprecation and truth:
“I was more than one of those things back then,” the man admits, not looking any of his family in the eyes, “have been since the day that I first met Tim.”
No one in the room knew what to say to that, knew whether to attempt to comfort the man and tell him that he was wrong, or to accept the coldness in Tim’s gaze as he heard the other say these things as a sign that it was true. After all, Tim only seemed to look like that when someone was trying to take responsibility within here, when their adults were being thrown in their faces and it was too little too late for any of that.
“I shouldn’t have ever been any of those things,” Dick continues before anyone else can speak, can think of what to say. Dick knew what to say though. He’d had plenty of time to think about his own mistakes since the beginning of this all. “But I was, and I have to live with that.”
It wasn’t an apology, but they all knew that Tim wouldn’t take one. It was just an admission of guilt, nothing more. Nothing less.
“Unlike you
“Every time someone dies
“I'm left to deal with the strain”
The words on their own were harsh, cutting like a knife as the Tim in the mist sung them, making both of the Dicks, and the Bruce in the room with them flinch at the words and the raw anguish behind them. They would have been enough to prove the teen’s point, but in the mist they watched as Tim put a hand to his chest where the had always been since the first time that he had come as he gestured to the memorial of his predecessor, the boy that had worn the suit before him. The boy that had broken the bat himself.
It was that movement that made nearly everyone else flinch that had not before.
Tim didn’t have it in himself to feel bad, not for the words, not for the memories that they had brought up. It was a responsibility that he was never supposed to have been forced to hold, but he had and he had earned his place because of it. He had kept his city and its protector whole when Dick had refused to be what Bruce had truly needed back then, a son.
Then again, Tim hadn’t been that either.
“Harsh there Tim,” Jason says, though he doesn’t sound as judgemental as he might have any other day before this. If anything he sounded impressed with Tim’s bite, something that the other was famously known to have.
“It was the truth, isn’t it?” Tim asks, his voice a bit lighter, a bit less dead than it would have been had he been having this conversation with any of the other bats except for Jason. He even had the barest showing of a smirk on his lips that the other vigilante mirrored.
“What's a title
“That a Batman could lend
“If I'll never sleep at night?”
In the mist the bats and founding members of Young Justice see a too familiar sight before them, even if the location was one that many of them had never seen in person before. In the mist, Tim was dressed in the last version of his Robin suit, bags heavy under the teen’s eyes as he slept passed out at a desk, energy drinks surrounding him like ghosts as everything was colored in a toxic green light that made most in the room tense to see.
Laying on the table in front of the boy was a picture of himself with Bart, Cassie and Kon, one taking back in their Young Justice days when they had all been all that any of them had. Tim had his fingers against the images of the two dead boys, even as he slept, one that had always been too fast for trouble to catch him (till he wasn’t) and one that should have should have outlived him (he didn’t). He looked like he hadn’t slept in years even as he laid there with his eyes shut, but his chest heaving strangely as if he were locked in a nightmare.
He didn’t stay asleep long, bolting up in his seat as the last line was sung.
Cass knew that underneath the mask, Tim had been crying back then. She didn’t think that it took someone of her skill set to see this though.
Sometimes, Bruce found himself wondering if the price of the work that they do in this family was too high. Other times, when he saw one of his children like this, he knew that it was, but knew also that it was too late to back out now.
“I'll remind you
“I saw you as a brother”
In the mist the scene changes back to that of Tim, Dick and Damian in the cave. Tim was still singing, his words still pointed at the Dick in the mist as he stalked closer. Where he should have sounded angry and hurt, he sounded empty and tired instead as he looked at the man that was supposed to be his brother but had hurt him at a time when he had no one else.
Though the Dick of the present had been doing a good job at keeping his calm with the situation at hand during this song, he all but lost it then as his breathing started to take on a strangled edge to it as the man seemed to know what was to come despite this not having been in their conversation at the time in any manner other than subtext.
Tim didn’t feel guilty though, not when he knew that he gave as good as he got in this conversation back then and would now as well.
“Tim…” Bruce starts, trailing off as he looked between the pair, taking in the emotions of both, or lack there of in one case.
“You of all people do not get to call me cruel for this, Bruce,” Tim says as he looks into the eyes of his father and finds too much similarity there for it to settle easily.
Kon and Cassie only held his hands in their own, Bart twisting on the couch and placing his feet in Tim’s lap, adding a grounding sort of pressure to his legs. All three of them knew what it was to want love from people that had not been willing to give it then, and reproached them when they acted similarly.
Damian didn’t know how to feel about the things that he was seeing, an increasingly familiar thing that he childishly wished would stop. Having been there that day, wearing that suit, even back then he had known that he’d had a part to play in the hurt between Timothy and Richard, but back then he had sided with Richard. Now? Now he did not know if he could, and found himself hating his own actions just a bit more than he thought was healthy.
(he found that he loathed the boy in the mist that was wearing his face)
“But now we're done”
The Tim in the mist knocks a finger into Dick’s chest before he steps away from the older man, putting physical distance to the emotional distance that had already been made between the pair of them long before that day. This had just turned a river into lake that was bound to be an ocean when Tim ran.
An ocean that Dick would do nothing to try and cross.
“This way, you're out of my head now
“This way, you won't plague my life
“This way, when all is done
“You're out of sight and out of mind”
The Tim in the mist sings as he backs away a bit more with each line, just one step at a time, but it might as well have been football fields between then as Tim sang to the Dick in the mist.
“This way, you get what you wanted”
The Tim in the mist turns to Damian then, keeping a careful, watchful, distance between himself and the boy as he sings the words to the child in the uniform that had been his only a few days before. The suit and title that the child had wanted from the day that he had first arrived on their doorstep and tried to kill for it.
The Damian in the room with them ducks his head as he knows that the words were true. Tim immediately leans down and raises it back up with too gentle hands. He didn’t know if the older boy was trying to be kind or cruel, so he sat and did what had been silently instructed of him.
(had this happened even just two years before, the movement would have been made in kindness, three or four years ago it certainly would have been to absolve the young boy’s guilt. Had the action occurred only a few months ago it would have been in punishment, to force the boy to watch what he had wanted come true and deal with the consequences of it.
Now though, Tim wasn’t sure which it was. He thought though that it might still be a bit of both. He was a bit twisted like that after all, after everything.)
“This way, you can save your time
“This way, you close the door
“And have your damn goodbye”
The words are sung by the Tim in the mist to Dick once more, but where the older man had been shocked and taken it the first time around, he seemed to be gearing up for more of a fight now.
“You're not looking for a mentor
“I'm not looking for a friend”
The Dick in the mist sings as he closes the distance that Tim had created between them, but his voice is not kind as he does so. The way that he closes the distance only works for the physical amount between the pair, nothing for the emotional crater that they had made together.
Looking at the man in the mist, everyone could see that the fight was taking a toll on the man as well, but instead of either of them taking a moment to calm down, Dick only seems to let the tour men of emotions fuel him more, and Tim pays the price.
“I mistook you for a general”
The Dick in the mist sings, his words nodding at the hopes that he had originally held for Tim to be a true partner to him as Batman under his own vigilante name. A hope that he did not tell the younger of in any manner as he went about this in every wrong way that he possibly could , and now had to wash that hope down the drain.
It’s after a moment that anyone pays any mind to the pain in Tim’s eyes when Dick sings those words, sees the way that Tim draws in on himself as he is referred to as little better than a soldier, a touchy word in their family. Jason noticed though, noticed immediately as he looked straight to Tim when Dick said the word, having his own wounds with things like that. Tim meets the gaze and nods to the unspoken question. Jason doesn’t believe that the other is alright for even a moment.
Neither does Cass or Damian or Steph, or Kon.
Neither does Bruce.
(Duke knows that he’s not alright, not from personal experience in that regard, but from the cold nature of it all. Cassie and Bart though know that he’s not alright because they know Tim)
Tim knew without being told that all of his tricks were falling apart around him, especially the ones that he had never had had to try at before, the ones that no one had ever cared enough to look deeply into.
“What a waste of effort spent”
The first words that Damian sings in all of this are those, the tone snarky as the child in the mist looked at the teen with unbidden loathing.
Not for the first time that day, Damian wondered how Timothy could forgive him and allow him to touch him so easy as he was. Part of him wanted to wait for the other shoe to drop when it came to the older vigilante, but he had studied Timothy enough to know that - in this instance at the least - it wouldn’t.
“At least I know what I'm fighting for
“While you're fighting to be known”
The Tim in the mist sings - screams, because it could be anything else as the volume rises with each punched out word - stepping closer to Dick as well until there was barley any physical space between them even as it felt like there was a canyon between them still in every other sense. It felt as if they needed to scream to be heard by the other, and still that would not occur.
The words were true though. Tim had always known why he was fighting, had always had one reason behind so many of his actions and right then had been no different. And right then, Dick had been floundering around in a title that was not his as Nightwing fell to the wayside.
“Since you claim you're so much wiser
“Why's your life spent all alone?
“You're alone”
Louder and louder the Tim in the mist sings, and as the last line falls from his lips in a scream, the teen shoves Dick away from himself, making the older man stumble on his usually sure feet. As Tim stands there with his chest heaving, he looks like a feral animal that has finally been cut free. A bit of silence follows and he calms with it, like throwing on a mask.
The change was sickening to see. Far too much like Bruce for any of those in the room, the man himself included, to feel settled in their own skin as they saw it. As if they feared that their emotions would be taken too if they were not careful.
The words were harsh and hit like a slap to the face as Dick heard them and knew that they were right. Tim had been alone at the time, not because he had wanted to be but because everyone that he loved had died and those that hadn’t had thought that he had lost his mind. Dick had donned the cowl and left himself behind.
“One day, you'll hear what I'm saying”
The Tim in the mist vows slowly, his posture straightening up as he does, like a beast about to strike. Though Tim’s height was drastically different from that of Dick’s own, as they stood there together they almost seemed to be doing so on even ground, equal resolve and determination in everything that they did.
They looked a bit like Batman and a rouge right then.
“One day, you might understand
“One day, but not today
“For after all you're
“(Just a man)”
Behind Tim, as the boy in the mist sings another figure appears, their form a bit see through like that of a ghost. They all knew he was though without having to be told, they had seen him multiple times over the songs, each time no more pleasant than that of the last. Tim seems to know that his future self is lingering there at his back, but dosen’t seem to fear or resent him this time as he had every time before. Instead, he almost seems to lean into the ghost of the man’s touch, as if his strength was something that Tim had thought that he would need.
As if the help of a demon was comforting in that moment more than anything else.
(it was stickening to say that it likely was)
Cass looked at her little brother and knew then that the man that he would never become was still haunting him now, still in every action that the teen made and likely would always be, whether it was because he was using the man’s ruthlessness or because he was trying to be anything but the man. He haunts Tim the way that The One Who Is All haunts Cass still. It is a very unique thing to know exactly what you were supposed to become and to war with yourself each day on which path you will choose. Cass knew the one that she wanted to stay on, but she understood that the lines blurred for Tim, that they always had. That they always would. She never felt more useless than she did when she knew that all she - the perfect killer - could do was be there for Tim as her little brother fought a war with himself.
“This day, you sever your own head”
The Tim in the mist throws his hand out between the pair of them in a cutting motion, violent and firm and angry as he all but snarls the lines. It makes the Dick in the mist flinch with wide eyes, but not back down.
He never does know when to back down.
(he was learning now)
“This day, you cut the line”
In the mist, there was another flash, another reaction of harsh breaths as something damning was shown, though this time it was not Tim alone that went stiff.
They watched as in the mist Red Robin and Robin flew through the night together, graceful and beautiful and their capes flowing behind them as close to wings as any human could get. They watched Robin twist in the air, his arm moving at his side as something flew from it, a small shining object that hit a grapple line right as it had gone slack. They watched Red Robin fall.
They watched Tim fall down to the street below.
They watched Damian fly away.
“Damian, tell me you didn’t,” Dick said, not looking away from the falling figure in the mist as it bled into that of his parents, his voice haunted and strained.
(He wasn’t the only one seeing the similarities, though among those that did only three knew exactly what it had looked like in that moment to watch them fall)
Damian didn’t answer, it was answer enough.
“When?” The acrobat asked next.
“When Timothy remained in Gotham after having defeated Grandfather,” the child answered simply, lifelessly. No comfort was provided to the boy, though any that was already being given was not removed either. It was the sort of fugue state that was just as comforting as it was not.
Jason looked quickly at Duke, and together the pair maneuvered themselves to sit on either side of the older vigilante as Dick spiraled with the knowledge that Tim could have died in the exact way that his parents had and he would have never known unless Damian had boasted about it. Something that the child would have been just as likely to do at the time as he would have been to hide the information away tightly within his mind where they never would have found it even when they would have found the body.
A body. That was what Tim could have been, a body in an alley. Instead Tim had saved himself that night (and too many times before for someone that was supposed to be on a team) and when Tim and Damian had fought, Dick had never even asked why.
What a great detective he was.
He thought that if they had not been in the conjured room that he might have been sick.
He wondered if he would be anyways.
“This day, you lost it all”
A flash like that of a camera goes through the mist, and when it clears they see a photo of all of the bats together, their whole family gathered together in one place. It was sweet to see, but the photo was torn a bit and gathering dust, damaged and seemingly forgotten by its owner as two of those in the picture were thought dead and the rest were scattered in the wind.
“Consider this as my goodbye”
The Tim is the mist sings as he looks from Dick to the place that Alfred had been standing, watching the proceedings but never interfering. He hardly ever did interfere, and that cemented his place in Tim’s mind right then only slightly less than the times that he actively helped in causing pain.
“Consider this as my goodbye (oh-oh-oh-oh-oh-oh-oh)”
This time Tim turns to Damian, to Robin, saying goodbye to both the child and the title that the boy now wore. Saying goodbye to everything that the title had ever meant to him, and everything that he had thought then that Damian would never be to him.
“This is my goodbye (oh-oh-oh-oh-oh-oh-oh)”
In the mist, they watch as the Tim sings the line once more as he backs away from the three bats and into the ghost of his future self, as if he were welcoming him. It was a detail that didn’t go unnoticed by those in the room.
“Tim?” Dick asks, seeming to forget the caution that had been keeping from doing that very thing as he watched his little brother seemingly accept the horrors of a future that he should have run from. Even if the acceptance was temporary, just for his time away and never again, it was a bit terrifying to see, knowing what he did now about who Tim might one day become.
“I left Gotham completely on my own, wearing the Red Robin costume, and about to go on a susicide quest, even by my own standards,” Tim says angrily, bluntly, as he lays out all of the points from back then, watching the faces around him fall and pail a bit with each word. “Did you truly think that I left with no intentions of getting my hands bloody?”
The question is cruel, they all know it. It was cruel but fair in a way that it should not have been. Left on your own, there are things that one would do to survive that they never would had they been in a team. That was the virtue of team, sharing the burdens and the weight of everything. Tim had not had that back then but was determined to go anyways, to prove himself right no matter the costs that it would place upon his shoulders. Costs that most would’ve had him pay in his own blood, but he was determined to pay it in that of others if it came down to a price being demanded at all.
“Did you?” Bruce asks, his voice so carefully blank that Tim couldn’t help but feel the urge to want to strangle the man and take it from him.
“Yes.”
There are uneven breaths and sighs in the room as the single word lands heavy within it. Kon had already known - Tim having told him - and as had Cass, though she had not wanted to be right, but no one else had.
Dick looked at his little brother with a broken sort of gaze that Cassie seems to share, the pair of them knowing that they had been some of the last strings to break that had led the boy to accepting such actions when normally he would trying to avoid taking lives at all costs, no matter his own grey sort of morals.
Steph was surprised, but at the same time she wasn’t. She knew the sort of things that Bruce could drive one to do, even if his hand in it all was minimal. Him hiding clues and suggestions was worse than outright orders, leading to more blood being spilled than could possibly keep one alive. She had seen that first hand in her own tenure as Robin.
Jason had the least reaction out of them all. He already had guessed that Tim must have done some horrible things if he thought that Jason’s own exploits were small in comparison. It didn’t mean that he liked it though. If one was going to give into the rules that he played by, he would rather it be by their own choice than because they would have been dead otherwise.
(Bart only looked on in sympathy, knowing the toll that such choices would still be taking on their Rob)
But Tim only watches Bruce.
Tim looks at Bruce as he answers, looking, watching, waiting to be condemned for the choices that he made in order to come home. To bring him home. Choices that he was still paying the price for now as they were locked in this conjured room with his memories being displayed to everyone that he cared about all because Ra’s thought that Tim belonged to him. He looks at Bruce and all but dared the man to try to punish him more than he had been already. To hate him more than he hated himself.
Bruce stood then, walking over to the couch that the founding members of Young Justice sat on, Damian moving slowly out of the way and towards Kon as both Cassie and Bart looked ready to fight if it came to that, Kon reaching out as if he was ready to grab both of the Robins around him if needed. But Tim just sat there frozen and stiff as Bruce laid a comforting hand on the teen’s shoulder.
“That was never a price that I wanted you to have to pay for me,” the man says softly and Tim bites down the urge to check if the Batman before him was secretly a pod person.
Tim shifts his gaze to Jason, to the other Robin to come home from the desert with his hands bloodied, but the older vigilante only shrugs, looking about as lost as he was.
It was not a look that Bruce missed.
“I refuse to lose another child,” Bruce says and everyone in the room, all of the bats, know what it is costing the man to say this. To give them something startlingly close to permission to break his one rule if it meant that they come home at the end of the day. “Alright?”
“Right.”
Definitely checking for a pod person when we get home, Tim thought as the man gave his shoulder one last squeeze before going back to his own chair.
Cass looked proud when she looked between the pair of them. Proud of them both, but for different reasons.
It settled something in Tim's chest that he had not known was agitated when he saw it.
Damian shifted back to his spot on the ground at Timothy’s side as he looked at his father with a hidden bout of shock that he was sure was mirrored in most of the others in the room. There was only one rule in their line of work and yet now they were being told that they could break it if they wished (not wished, needed. If their lives were on the line and they would come home to the soil of Gotham rather than their bed that night if they did not). It almost felt like too much, a sentiment that Todd seemed to agree with.
Jason wanted to be angry at the words, at the exceptions that Bruce had just laid out for them, but he didn’t have it in himself right then. Watching everything that had occurred in the mist (in real life, because nothing other than the musical aspect of it was truly contained to the mist) had taken a lot out of them all. He was sure that he could muster up some anger for this later, for the exception that they could kill their would be killers before they were put in the ground but not after, but right now he was reserving the rest of his anger for a later time in this whole endeavor. He was more sure than he liked to be with the fact that he knew that he was likely going to need it.
“Consider this as my goodbye (oh-oh-oh-oh-oh-oh-oh)”
The scene shifts and suddenly they see the Tim in the mist standing on the roof of a building looking over Gotham in the Red Robin suit. There was a slight wind that rippled it behind the teen, kissing at his clothed skin as he seemed to be saying goodbye to the city beneath him, as if he never thought that he'd be coming back.
The assumption was one that nearly everyone in the room seemed to make.
“This is my goodbye”
The scene in the mist shifts once more, the architecture of the space that the Tim in the mist was in changing from that of the Gotham skyline to something much more European in nature as the teen stood in fully Red Robin regalia in what looked to be a hotel room of some sort. The teen was looking down at the street below him from his window, at three figures that Tim recognized like a hole in his heart, one that Dick and Damian and Steph recognized as well, and two that they never got the chance to bury (and god if it didn’t hurt to see them right now and know that there was nothing that he could do about that). As the song comes to a close, the bald assassin raises their arms, a rocket launcher in her hands and a wild feral sort of grin on her face that the Tim of the present found himself mirroring.
“Ohthatisnotagoodlook,” Bart says quickly as he looked at the downright terrifying grin that was playing across Tim’s lips, prolonged exposure to speedsters being the only reason that anyone understood the boy.
Nonetheless, they all quietly agreed, the look on Tim’s face was one that always spelled trouble for those that had caused it, though they all guessed that the trouble had already passed.
“Tim, Timmy, Timmers,” Jason starts, recognizing the uniforms that the three in the mist were wearing just as well as the rest of the bats in the room, recognizing the look of three killers set on a mission, “please tell me that those aren’t three League assassins, one of which is pointing a rocket launcher at you.”
“Don’t be like that, Jay,” Tim says, testing the nickname on his tongue and finding that he didn’t hate it, “Pru was really happy that she got the excuse to use it that day.” And then Tim had broken her nose for it in several places, but it wasn’t like he was going to tell them that. “Besides, it obviously didn’t work.”
“You’re on a first name business with the assassins that tried to kill you?” Cassie asked, her arms crossed over her chest in a clear sign of displeasure. She never did seem to like Tim’s apparent affinity for befriending those intent on causing him harm.
Tim only raised a brow though. “Steph,” he starts, jacking a finger towards the girl in question and not having to look at her to know that she preened a bit knowing the example that he was about to use, “hit me with a brick the first time that we met, and we just watched how well my first meeting with Jason went. I came out of this one with the least injuries out of them all.”
“Not a great standard there, Rob,” Kon says in a manner that was just a bit more gentle than it needed to be, but Tim let it slide for now. None of them had been there to understand what those days had been like for the four of them.
For the two of them, as they were now.
“The girl is the assassin that you brought to Gotham, is she not?” Damian asked, remembering that day and the way that he had not been allowed to attack the girl despite her clearing being a threat given the allegiance that he knew that she held. An allegiance that she did seem to hold in the mist right then, but not when they had actually met.
“Oh, yeah!” Dick exclaims, remembering that part of the day (remembering it much more fluently than some of the things that had followed) the confusion that he had felt when Tim had shown up with her in toe, “you had her help protect everyone when Ra’s al Ghul targeted them.”
You trusted her with the lives of those that Bruce cares for most, the words seem to whisper.
“You brought a League assassin to a fight against Ra’s?” Bruce asked as he looked at his son as if they boy truly had gone more than a bit mad during his time trying to prove that Bruce had been hidden away in the timestream.
Tim couldn’t blame him for that.
“No,” Tim answers, his voice firm and defensive, and lacking the lightness that it had held the last time that he had talked of the girl. “I brought an alley that just so happened to have been League trained to assist in civilian protection during a personal fight between myself and her former employer.”
Everyone in the room noticed the distance that Tim was carving between the assassin and the League. They noticed the protectiveness that he seemed to hold for the girl, the same sort that he would hold for anyone else within the room. It made them all want to know what events had occurred after the fight that was sure to take place after the last scene in the mist.
“You trust them?” Cass asks, looking between the three figures in the mist and her little brother, reading him and knowing the answer even before it came.
Tim answers quickly nonetheless:
“With my life,” he says truthfully, knowing the irony behind it since two had paid with their own.
Cass nods, and as far as anyone is concerned the case is settled until more information on how such trust had come to be is shown. They knew that it wouldn’t be long anyways.
“The next song will begin in a moment.”
Notes:
The Tumblr Poll that I mentioned at the end of the last chapter has officially closed now, and the next Tim-centric fic that I will be writing will be a fic where the bats are asked to mediate between the high ranking loa members (Ra’s, Talia, Shiva, and a fourth that they don’t know) only when Tim shows up it’s not in the way that they expected him to.
It will be called: Have You Heard (About the Flightless Bird)
will be posted under my Tim Drake AUs series on here once they’re done (hopefully right after the posting of the next chapter of this, but no promises)
Chapter 10: Dangerous
Summary:
Bruce is alive, Tim knows it. So does Ra's al Ghul.
Notes:
Dangerous by Jorge Rivera-Herrans from EPIC the Musical: The Vengeance Saga
---
Ra's al Ghul narrorating a travel montage? More likely than you think. [CW for creepy Ra's behavior]
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
The music had not even begun yet, no images had yet taken form in the mist, but everyone in the room could see that Tim looked as tense as someone at a hearing waiting to hear the verdict and already thinking that it's going to come back guilty. Someone that knows that it should come back guilty, and knows that there’s nothing that they can do about it.
“Tim?” Kon asks, his voice so much more hesitant than it had ever had to be before with the teen at his side, except for the weeks following whatever case Tim had worked with Cass that had him jumping at the slightest touch, and swinging on instinct when his wrist was grabbed.
(Except on the bad days where such things still happened even after so many months since then. Except for when Tim woke up violent and aiming to harm if someone was leaning over him when they tried to wake him. Bart had taken to throwing things at the third Robin if he needed to wake the other teeth up, Cassie had decided to bang pots or something of the like, and Kon himself had taken to using his TTK from across the room. None of them knew the reasons behind the bad days or the responses that were there even on good days, but they didn’t ask.
They all knew how well Tim took to being pressed for answers for things that were solely his own. Ever since he revealed his identity to them (both times) they let him keep his secrets unless doing so was physically harming him. Like his missing spleen, idiot bastard. And in doing so, they were rewarded by Tim coming to them voluntarily when he was ready more often than not)
“Just nervous,” Tim says, answering the unasked question as vaguely as he could. He knew that they could all see the nervousness on him like some sort of cancer, that he was stating the obvious, but it was an answer at least.
“Why?” Steph asked with all the gentle knowingness of a lover turned friend. Someone that knew the other in ways that many never would.
Tim smiles bitterly at that tone, and answers the simple question without much tone at all. “Because no one was ever supposed to know what happened that year,” he answers honestly. “I can live with a lot of the other things that have been shown this far, but the year that we’re about to see was never supposed to be spoken of again.”
It was supposed to be his choice which parts were known. Pru was a part that he didn’t mind, a part that he would have been okay sharing because she was working for him now and followed the rules of no killing unless its self defense and that put her in safe territory, but everything else should have never seen the light of day again.
It was then that those in the room wondered at the strain that having everything shown like this must have been taking on the third Robin, assuming that he was allowing himself to feel it at all till now. They all had times that they never wanted anyone to know about, and here they were about to watch the beginning to end of Tim’s own. It was a violation, they knew, one that they couldn’t control. Somehow the utter hopelessness on each side almost made it worse.
“Because none of y’all are going to look at me the same once you know,” Tim ends, knowing that he’s right.
One could argue that them knowing about the things like his training or his possible future would have changed the way that they saw him already (it did, made them realize that he was a bit colder, a bit more ruthless than they had thought him to be before) but an ill advised teacher and a future that he was never going to have is not the same as the actions that he took at his lowest.
(It’s not the same as seeing the way that he acted then, the alliances made, the alliances burned. Seeing the monster that he became and never quite did shed)
Bruce knew that he was more than a little responsible for that train of thought, that his actions after Jason had come back to Gotham were likely coloring the way that Tim thought that this was going to go. That his actions after Captain Boomerang were doing nothing but shading the colors that he had already put there. He knew that anything that he tried to say then would be nothing but empty platitudes to the teen, no matter how sincere his words may be.
No one had anything to say to that. Most of the bats knew that he was probably right, but Young Justice knew that they would stand with him no matter what.
Kon knew that he would stand with him. That he would love him still.
When the music starts, it's not loud and booming and holding a presence like some songs have been, nor is it upbeat and hopeful as the first, or angry as the last. No, when the music starts this time, it sounds lonely in nature. Like instruments and lyrics meant to have a more than what was there, but had been isolated to just the one. Tim thought that it was fitting, given his situation at the time before he got to that desert. The rest couldn’t help but think that it was sad.
The image that takes form in the mist only makes the song sound more lonely than before.
“Three thousand miles
“Three thousand miles away from home
“'Cause I have one goal in mind”
In the mist, the canon see the Tim of only a year and some change ago standing in the same hotel room that he had been in before at the end of the last song. It hardly looked like any time had passed at all, a few minutes at the most if it was the same day, and yet the place looked entirely different than before. Trashed seemed a bit of an understatement for the giant hole in the wall where a window had once stood, for the blood speckled on the ground in the rubble, and the weapons digging into the walls.
Over three thousand miles away from home and Tim seemed to be in just as much danger as he had been in the shit hole that was Gotham, though the longer that they looked the more those in the room realized that Tim looked as if he had only take a handful of hits, meaning that most of the damage had been done to the assassin trio.
“They had a rocket launcher and you look like you were hardly even scratched,” Dick says, not exactly complaining but still surprised at least.
Tim shrugs. “They underestimated me,” he says simply, everyone in the room knowing what an advantage that could be in a fight.
“So what did you do to them then?” Bart asks, knowing that even if the three had left on their own two feet that Tim would have done something to make them remember and learn their lesson for having made such a mistake.
“Broke Pru’s nose,” Tim answers in the tone of someone ordering lunch. Though it changes when he smirks at the other teen and says, “Twice.”
The other three founding members of Young Justice smirk back. Retaliation has always been something that their Robin has flourished in, though this was a bit tame compared to some things that the teen had done.
(they knew that this was likely by design, the assassins had to have been sent by someone after all and information comes a lot more willingly when you don’t royally piss off those that hold it)
“No Batman, no Robin
“Only this costume stolen by my hand”
The Tim in the mist touches the fabric of the suit that he had taken, running his gloved fingers along it with one hand and touching the emblem with the other.
“What were you thinking, Tim?” Bruce asks, knowing the contemplative gaze of his son even when it was covered with a cowl.
“That I was alone,” the teen answers, not meeting anyone’s eyes as he does so. “That I was alone and because of it I was willing to do anything to get you back. That I was wearing a suit with no connection to Batman or Robin or Gotham at all, and if I crossed the same sort of lines that those who’d worn the suit before me had, then no one would ever know.”
That if he killed no one would ever know, they all pieced together. Because those were the lines that those who had worn the suit before Tim had crossed while wearing it.
They didn’t ask or say anything further, because what was there to say?
“How will I reach my truth?”
The Tim in the mist sings as he looks down at the small object held loosely in his hand. At the comm, those in the room soon realize.
It wasn’t the sort of comms used by the bats or the Titans, they could see that easily enough from the build of it. The builds of the comms that they used were near identical to one another, only some small changes having been made from the bat comms to the Titans ones to accommodate for the use of meats, supers, and those of the powered like. This one didn’t look like either of those, though it wasn’t unfamiliar to some of those in the room.
“That’s a League comm,” Damian says, and the fact that it's him saying it at all tell those in the room which League the boy was referring to.
“It is,” Tim agrees flatly, not bothering to look away from the mist, he didn’t need to do so to know of the unease written all over everyone else.
There was nothing in his tone or expression as Tim answered, as if he had shut down.They wondered how long he would be like this as they watched the version of the teen in the mist slide the comm into his ear with a look of resignation. It was the same look that Tim had been wearing before the start of the song.
“All you have to do is accept my help”
A new voice sings, an accented one much older than Tim’s own. Older than Bruce’s own voice at that, something closer to Alfred’s though the accents were different. It was a voice that made many in the room tense with recognition, and made Tim draw infinitely more into himself.
No one voices their thoughts though, not as a ghostly form appears before the Tim in the mist, a form a little too blurred to quite make out just yet. The idea that the new voice was coming from the comm though was clear, clearer still that it was the ghostly figure standing before Tim that was the one singing through it. No one voices their thoughts of who the figure might be, the one who was offering his held like some sort of demon at a crossroads.
No one wants to be right.
“Ra’s?”
There’s a question in the voice of the Tim in the mist as he sings the name, as if he was just as surprised as everyone else in the room that he was speaking directly with the Demon Head and not just some high ranking assassin made to impart his will.
“That’s Grandfather,” Damian says, forcing the realization into the air, and giving it to those that did not know what the man looked or sounded like till now.
“But you just left Gotham,” Dicks starts looking between his middle brother and the two figures in the mist, the ghostly one becoming more solid appearing now that Tim had said his name, “there’s no way that this is when you come back yet.”
“You’re right,” Tim admits, ignoring the looks of those in the room, and shying away from comforting touches and other kind gestures. They all felt sick on his skin right then. “I still have months before the first time that I step foot in Gotham again for the whole zombie thing.”
Had this been any other conversation with any other villain taking an interest in Tim, they might have laughed at the name for such an event. It wasn’t though.
“Then…?” Bruce asks without actually doing so.
“Can we just watch?” Tim asks tiredly, gesturing to the mist, “you all can get a front row seat to all of my fuck ups if we just watch.”
There were many things that they wanted to ask then, none of which a shutdown Tim seemed willing to answer as he still avoided looking at anyone else in the room. They wanted to know why the assassins had purposely left a comm behind (because it had to have been on purpose for Ra’s to have been waiting) why Ra’s al Ghul was the one talking to Tim then. If the assassins had been sent on a true hit for Tim, or something else. Why it seemed like the anger that the older man had held when he had attacked Gotham had been something that he did not possess in the least right now as he offered his help of all things.
Because he was offering to help the isolated teen, and he seemed to be the only one that was.
Tim knows the questions that they want to ask, but also knows not to give anything away. He knew that it was only going to get worse from here.
“Ahahahahaha! Hello, old friend!”
They watch as Ra’s walks behind the Tim in the mist, trailing a ghostly hand across the boy’s shoulders with a far too familiar touch as he does so. It’s the sort of possessive and claiming gesture that has the Tim of now raising a hand to his own shoulders and scratching - clawing - at them even as his counterpart remained as expressive as a stone wall as the older man stops before him, not breaking contact as that damned ghostly hand now lays on his shoulder.
Everything about the scene made him feel dirty and unclean.
Everyone else in the room saw the scene, but only Cass and Tim saw it for exactly what it was, everyone else seemed to trick themselves into believing that it was an intimidating touch. One showing that the Demon Head could kill Tim and the boy wouldn’t be able to do a thing.
Ra’s wasn’t the one that Tim was worried about doing such a thing like that.
(It was only in the back of their minds that they noticed the term of which the man used to call Tim. A friend, an old one at that.)
“So you're the one who sent the assassins
“What do you want?”
The Tim in the mist looks and sounds more annoyed than anything as he speaks with Ra’s al Ghul through the comm. It was a strange sight to see for those that were used to seeing the man paid every bit of respect that he could be because those that did not do so often found themselves missing a head. Yet, Tim was still standing and Ra’s seemed more entertained by the way that Tim spoke to him than anything.
“You two are speaking oddly familiarly there, Tim,” Jason notes, realizing then that the pair must have met before this. The more that he learned, the more that Jason started to see just how tied Tim was to League without even being a member as Jason himself had been.
Tim shrugs, his body moving on its own in a self - soothing type manner. “We’ve known one another since my early days as Robin,” the teen explains, looking up for the first time since the music had started once more to meet another’s gaze. “Ra’s has been interested in me to varying degrees since then. Wanting me to join him.”
(He doesn't mention that he had thought about it, had almost done so when the man had first offered during his Robin days. That he all but had done so during his time away. That he would have been good at everything that the job entailed if he had joined)
The answer was simple and blunt and staged in a manner that no reading into it should be needed.
(Jason reads into the answer anyways hopes that he’s wrong)
There is a tense silence in the room at Tim’s answer, as the words sink in. It’s in that silence that more than a few of those in the room realize that there is a very good possibility that Tim had known Ra’s al Ghul longer than he has known some of them. Duke, Damian, and Jason were obvious, each of them coming in after Tim had worn the mask for some time, but Cass, Bart, Kon, and, Cassie left questions of which side of the line they fell on.
The knowledge of this fact doesn’t sit well with any of those in the room other than Tim himself. He had accepted the truth that he had known a monster longer than his own family for some time now.
“You're being given a final option”
Ra’s al Ghul sings as he slides his ghostly hand from where it was resting on the shoulder of the Tim in the mist to the side of the teen’s neck, the hold far more possessive than the one before. The touch, the look on the man's face, it makes many hackles in the room rise as everyone watches the scene unfold, only two of them knowing of the history that would soon unfold before their eyes.
No one says anything as they listen to the hundred of hundreds years old man sing as he looks at the teen before him, and holds onto him. They were used to the Demon Head being possessive and controlling by nature and hoped that it was just that.
“Consider this your one last chance”
In the mist they watch as Ra’s uses his free hand to hold up a single finger between the pair of them. As much as they hated the meaning in the man's words, those in the room - especially those that had been alive at the time - knew that the assassin was likely right.
At this point in time Tim was completely and utterly alone, and if he had any chance of finding Bruce and proving himself right, then this help was his last chance to do so because no one else was offering any just then.
It was a twisted position to be put into, but somehow not the worst thing that some of them had done. There would always be worse alliances that could be made.
(None of them could tell just how much they might have lying to themselves by thinking in such a way)
“To make it back home and abandon caution
“Wash it away like the blood your hands have known”
They watch as in the mist Ra's al Ghul sings as he trails his free hand down Tim's arm in a featherlight ghostly touch, as he reaches to grab the teen's hand in his own as if he was truly there. The hold looked as if it should have been bruising, but the Tim in the mist shows more of a reaction to the words than anything.
Shows more of a reaction to the talk of the blood on the teen’s hands. Blood that had already stained them. Blood that would soon stain them still.
The Tim of the present is the one that reacts to the touch more than the words. The words were something that he had already accepted of himself. That blood would always be there, and he didn't have it in him to feel guilty about it as his past self seemed to.
No, the Tim of the present seems to draw in on himself just a little more than before, his hands hidden protectively between himself and his legs as they were drawn up to his chest as he looks at the man in the mist the was grabbing them, holding them so close to where the Demon's sister had shackled him.
He doesn't notice that he's shaking, no one would if they weren't sitting close. Kon and Cassie notice though as they sat on either side of him. Ot was the sort of shake that the third Robin got before losing himself to memories that he didn't want to have. It was the sort that they usually had to snap him out of before it got too bad that no one could.
The demigod and the super look at one another before they both reach out to their human teammate, Cassie grabbing the teen’s shoulder and Kon laying a warm hand on Tim's knee, both trying to offer some sort of support.
Tim jerks away from one touch as he presses fully into the body of the other.
Cassie retracts her hand quickly, as if touching Tim had burned her in some way. Tim hated to see the guilt that he placed in the girl's eyes, the hurt that sprung up within her gaze from him pulling away from her. But he couldn't handle her touch right now for a reason that only Tim and Cass knew. He could barely stand Kon’s as it was, but it was better than getting lost in thoughts of back then.
The others in the room just watched the silent exchange and felt something twisting and curling within their guts as they did so. Another puzzle piece added to a picture that they did not want to see.
Dick feels a sick sense of unease in his chest as he looks between the two versions of Tim.
“I know, if you dance with fate”
They watch as Ra's sings as he uses the hand of his that was connected with Tim's own and spins the boy in a small dance, controlling his movements as if he were fate itself.
Those in the room knew that sometimes, with the power that Ra’s al Ghul held, he may as well have been as good as.
“Then I know, I know, you'll enhance your state”
The man bows with the hand of the Tim in the mist in his own like one would to partner after the end of a dance. As one would to someone that they may one day see as an equal.
“I do not like the manner in which Grandfather is looking at, and behaving around Timothy,” Damian remarks as he looks at the clear interest in his grandfather's eyes. Things never did end well for those that caught the man's attention, no matter the intention behind it.
“Neither do I,” Jason all but growls as he looks at the ghostly figure of the man of whom's organization he had once belonged to.
“He wasn't interested like that,” Tim says as he understands the meaning behind his older brother's tone, his voice holding something within it. They weren't exactly sure what, but it was better than the lifelessness that he had possessed before.
Bruce can't help but think that Tim might be lying to himself when he says that. For as sick as it makes him to think it, there was definitely some twisted version of desire in the Demon Head's gaze right then as he bowed down to press his lips to Tim’s skin. An action that someone like Ra's would never stoop to do if there wasn't more of a reason behind it.
Tim knows though that he is telling the truth, that anything akin to the idea of the brand of interest that they were all thinking of had not become anything close to that nature until months later when he had passed some tests that he had never known he was taking, and had proven himself worthy of either becoming the heir to the Demon's Head, or making on with the blood of the al Ghuls for the man, willingly or not. Both options of which he will not be doing as long as he could help it.
No one says anything. There was nothing to say as bile rose in one too many throats, and the skins of one too many people in the room began to crawl, ghostly hands raking across skin as if their own experiences were happening now.
Bruce, Dick, Jason, and Steph had never wanted to understand Tim in this way.
Tim had never wanted to be understood in such a way by anyone.
(He thought he'd have more time before they found out, but in a room full of detectives he guessed that was a futile thought)
“If your plan's so great, then why'd you wait to say it?”
The Tim in the mist asks as he takes his hand back from Ra's as if the ancient man's touch had burned him like too many had thought that he would. The action has a deliberate slowness to it though, as if the teen in the mist thought that if he moved too fast away from the Demon Head's grasp then the offer of help would be stripped from him.
Many in the room wondered if it would have been, or if Ra's al Ghul would have been intrigued enough by someone being insolent with him that he would have let the offer stand.
“Well, it's a little bit dangerous, my friend”
The Ra's of the mist sings as the scene changes to show that of a museum that none of them other than Tim had ever seen before. Tim bit back a sigh at the sight, knowing that this was going to be the first in a long stream of questionable choices that those in the room would now know about.
“You need a mindset change for this
“You cannot get away with playing safe for this”
They watch as the Tim in the mist walks through the museum with the ghostly apparition of Ra's at his side, as the teen holds his Bo staff in the other, a blade extended at the end of it. A blade that could kill. One that he didn’t use in Gotham, but was right then as he threw safety away.
“Since when is your bo staff a spear?” Steph asked, pointing at the little detail there, at the one that made him more deadly than before.
“Since always,” Tim answers, falling into the familiar push and pull of bickering as Steph stuck her tongue out at him for being intentionally obtuse. It felt nice, a lot better than the last conversation. “I am a student of Lady Shiva, chosen by her. Of course I was going to have something lethal in my weapon of choice.”
No one mentions the way that such a decision bent the rules of the bat just a bit. No one mentions how the more that the teen speaks, the more morally grey he seems to become.
“Why didn't you use it till now though?” Duke asks, looking at the glint of the blade. He knew that the older teen had the control needed to use such a thing in the field without overly harming any of their rouges. Knows that it could add some more reach. Knows that if he doesn't use it often, then it would have been a great form of surprise when he did.
“There was never a need to,” Tim answers, thinking of the threats that they faced each night. Common thugs didn't need his blades, just as they didn't need Jason’s live ammo, or Dick’s lightning, or the full extent of Batman’s fists.
They all read between the lines and know that it was Batman’s influence keeping Tim at bay from using such means, something that had been proved each time that the man has left to third Robin on his own for just a bit too long.
It seemed to be a common Robin trait.
“You wanna get home? Put it all on the line
“And put your whole brain in it
“Remember every trick in your domain for this”
In the mist, Ra’s sings while he walks to the side of the room as unfamiliar faces join the unlikely pair. Most looked to be your typical guards, but the one leading the group was different. He looked like something more akin to a Viking of old, with the leashes to three pit bulls held within one hand and an axe in the other.
They watch as the Tim in the mist raises his staff and takes to fighting the group, quick and efficient, but without his heart being in it as it usually would be. They could tell that he didn't want to hurt the guards of the museum for the choices that he had made. It made something settle within their chests to know that he had not fallen that much.
“Okay, who the hell is that guy?” Kon asks, leaning forwards a bit as if to get a better look at the viking. Tim knew that it was just a cover to press more firmly against him. Pressure was always good to stave off panic attacks.
“He called himself The Wild Huntsman,” Tim answers, remembering having barely caught the name during the man's small monolog as Tim had been caught picking the lock.
“Interesting,” Damian remarks, seemingly only half listening as he was staring with interest at the sword on the man's back.
Young Justice bit back a laugh at the sight of the boy looking with a child like awe at both the blade and dogs. It wasn't often that Damian acted his age like this. Tim felt something in his own heart settle at the sight, and let his legs go back to the ground, resting against the kid as Tim’s free hand sought out Cassie’s. All of them lent into the touch.
“You gotta treat it like it is the main event
“You wanna get home? Put it all on the line”
They watch as the assassin trio from the end of the last song appear in the midst of the fight, seemingly taking Tim's side as they do so despite having tried to kill the teen the last time that they saw him.
The guards were taken down quickly after that, with four skilled fighters going against them.
“That was a quick change of heart,” Cassie notes as she watches Tim move to stop the three from killing the guards that the four of them had taken down together.
“Ra's never really thought that they would be able to kill me,” Tim says, leaving those in the room with a new sort of question (did Ra's send skilled fighters that he thought would be at least a bit of a challenge but knew would be beaten, or did he not have anyone available then that he thought could have beaten Tim?). “He just told them that they were welcome to try if they wanted to.”
And wasn't that something?
“Damn,” Dick remarks lowly, thinking of the confidence that Ra’s al Ghul must have had in Tim’s abilities, even then.
“Be dangerous”
Ra's sings as he watches as the Tim in the mist turns around to find the assassins gone.
They watch as the Tim in the mist draws in a breath, shoulders rising and falling slowly as if making a decision that he was bound to regret:
“Alright, I'm in, what do I do?”
The Tim in the mist asks as he turns to meet Ra's gaze, as the man smirks like the cat that got the cream.
No one was surprised that Tim gave in and accepted the Demon's help, he had no other real choice but to do so if he wanted to find Bruce and bring him home, but none of them liked seeing it in real time either.
Tim liked even less to relive it.
“First stop, uncharted deserts”
The scene changes once more, and when it does Ra’s disappears, only his voice remaining as he still sings. Tim guessed that he didn’t need to stick around now that Tim was where the man wanted him to be, the version of himself in the mist walking out of the plane and coming face to face with Pru, Z, and Ownes, and joining the three. Leading them as Z smirked up at him and help out a fake government badge. The Tim in the mist, dressed as a civilian, shook his head and joined the three at the car.
“That quickly?” Bart asked, looking at Tim as if he was a bit more insane than usual. “You just started working with them that fast after them trying to kill you only a few days before?”
“Well there was a small problem with Alvin Draper being wanted for art theft you see,” Tim says, and it's such a Tim situation to find himself in that Steph, Cassie, Kon, and Bart can't even be mad that Alvin got burned on a museum heist gone wrong, and everyone else is just a bit distracted from the choice that Tim had made.
“When lost, look towards the sky”
The scene changes and the four of them - because they were a group now, tied together till death - were riding in the car, going deeper into the desert.
“Follow the north star, no matter how far
“You think you're goin', you keep on moving”
They watch as Tim and Z are sitting in the back of the car and looking over maps and books as they drive along through the desert. Pru is up front, messing with the radio station, and Owens is slapping her hand away. The scene is so bluntly domestic that one would think that they were going on a road trip instead of a messed up treasure hunt with a vigilante and three assassins.
It almost hurt to see the teen so at ease right then, when he had been anything but the last time that any of them had seen him before this scene.
“When strangers lurk around the isle (Ah-ah)”
The scene in the mist changes again and now its night, and four of them have stopped to camp for the dark hours. They watch as the group piles out of the car, dropping bed rolls and things of the like to the ground before Tim and Pru step off to the side, each dropping into a fighting stance before tearing at one another. Sparring, a friendly one at that, one not meant to cause any sort of real harm.
It was a strange sight to see, an assassin and a bat, and it remained them all a bit too much of when they had seen Tim sparring ruthlessly with Lady Shiva and enjoying it. There was that same spark right then too.
“Why stop now if you are just going to spar?” Bruce asks as he watched his son fight with skills that he hardly got the chance to use in Gotham.
“There were landmines hidden all throughout the desert,” the teen explains, “it was too dangerous for us to travel through it at night where we couldn't tell where they were.”
Bruce nods, understanding, but not liking having to watch as his son becomes all friendly with the assassins.
“When danger greets you with a smile (Ah-ah)”
They watch as the Tim in the mist moves his hand back, preparing for a strike in the spar that he never gets to make as Ownes dives forwards and grabs the bat's hand in his own, spinning Tim away as if in a dance, a sharp sort of smile on the assassin's lips.
Surprisingly to everyone, Tim lets him.
(No one brings up how it looked at lot like what Tim and Ra's had done earlier in the song, though much more willingly so. Kon doesn't bring up how much it mirrored what he had done in one of the early songs either)
“Fight your way through, do what you must do”
Time passes, just a little bit, and now the four are sitting down together at a makeshift sort of fire, eating what looked to be the equivalent of League M.R.E.s if the bats were to take a guess. They looked to be talking, Z pointing at Pru as if telling a story that involved her. Tim smirks as he replies to something that they can't hear over Ra's voice. It seems to be teasing though, whatever it was that he said, because the girl shoots Tim a dirty sort of look that the former Robin only smirks at.
They wanted to ask what the conversation had been about, those in the room. They wanted to know how he could look so at home among the three of them, but one glance at the teen himself stops them all short, because they had seen that look in Tim’s eyes before. They knew that quiet desperation to have something back of which he had lost. They had all seen it far too many times to count, that longing for something just forever out of reach.
It was only then that they wondered why it was just the girl that Tim had brought with him to Gotham.
“But no matter what, keep moving”
The scene in the mist shifts, as morning comes and the four are back to traveling through the desert.
“It's gonna be dangerous, my friend
“You need a mindset change for this”
Owens is in the back with Tim this time. He smiles at Tim, and Tim looks away from the gaze but doesn’t seem to hate it as they go back to the books strewn between them.
(Tim understood that he would need a mindset change to get home, it just wouldn't be the sort that Ra’s had appreciated much if his attack on Wayne Industries had been anything to go by)
“You cannot get away with playing safe for this
“You wanna get home? Put it all on the line
“And put your whole brain in it”
They watch as the car comes to a stop once more in the mist, the four of them getting out of it, as Tim walks ahead of the three and towards the bottom of a steep sort of cliff in full Red Robin uniform. There's a quickness to the way that he walks then, an urgency that makes those watching think that something is bound to happen.
(They're right, just not in the way that they think)
“Remember every trick in your domain for this”
They watch as the Tim in the mist throws a grapple up the cliff, it hooking at what looks to be the mouth of a cave. It's then that Bruce seems realize just where they are.
“You gotta treat it like it is the main event”
In the mist, Tim turns around to his companions, and gives a mocking sort of salute the three before turning back to the cliff as Pru flips him off for the gesture.
“You wanna get home? Put it all on the line”
They watch as Tim climbs up the grapple line, his features holding a brightness to them that they hadn't for a while now. He looked like a sailor that had been lost at sea and finally seeing land in the distance.
The three assassins on the ground are gazing up at the teen with something close to excitement and pride in their eyes.
(Tim wished that he had turned around back then to see it. It would have been a nice memory to have before things went south for the four of them)
“Be dangerous”
The Tim in the mist reaches the top of his line, pulling himself up into the cave with determination as he walked deeper within it.
“And lastly, the cave painting
“We went through so much to find this"
They watch as Tim walks up to the wall of the cave, his fingers tracing across the more than ancient paint that made up a the picture of a bat on the wall as Ra's soft voice sung in his ears. There was a look of awe and vindication in Tim's eyes as the teen found the proof that so many had thought didn’t exist.
There was a deep look of guilt in Dick’s and Cassie’s own gazes as they saw the proof for themselves.
“Keep this knowledge close if you wanna go home, dear
“You won't get another time to try.”
The scene changes once more, jumping ahead just a bit to when the Tim in the mist was back on the ground with his team, smiling at the three of them as they welcomed him back with smiles of their own.
It was a sweet scene to see, something a bit like the end of a movie right before the full family is reunited, but Tim knew that this wasn't the ending, nor would it have been a peaceful one if it was. The others in the room seem to know this too from the way that they shift at the tone of the music as the words that Ra's was still singing.
“The spider on the other side won't let you get closer”
For the first time since this all started, it's not the song or the lyrics or the images in the mist that those in the room notice first, but their Tim closing his eyes and ducking his head into Kon's shoulder as if hiding. Tim had never been one to act so childishly, but when they look back they see why he was:
He didn’t want to watch two friends die twice.
In the mist they watch as Z and Owens fall to ground, blood pouring out around them like spilled wine in the sand as the pair were stabbed faster than any one of the four could notice. Faster than any one of those watching as well.
There was nothing that anyone could have done, they want to say.
It was good that they didn’t, because Tim would have called it a lie.
“I'm sorry for your loss,” Bruce settles on, knowing that there were a lot worse things that he could have said.
“I'll avenge them,” is all that Tim says back, promises, the time frame of it vague in an unsettling sort of way. He knows that they draw the uneasy conclusion that they'll see it, and they will see some of it, but there was a reason that he still had Pru in Africa looking for leads and rumors.
None of them know what to say to that declaration, and the music starts once more before they can say anything at all.
“It was meant to stop you by design."
There's a man in the mist, standing behind where Z and Ownes had once been. He was wearing a cowl much like Tim's own, though his suit was entirely black and grey, except for the red of his eyes and the hourglass shape on his chest. In his hand he held a sword, one that he had run both Z and Owens, one that now pierced Pru's throat.
None of those in the room were the type to flinch away from violence, but there was more than one grimace as they watched the three assassins fall, their blood staining the sand. They had watched them sit around a campfire with Tim and eat dinner only a few lines before, and now they were seeing this.
(They knew that Tim was feeling much worse)
“'Cause no mortal can survive Widower’s fate”
No one in the room breaths as they watch as Tim crumbles to the ground after a sword had pierced his own side, watching as the teen clutched futility at it as he looked up at the assassin that had dealt the blow.
Tim could feel the eyes of the room on him, insistent and staring. Honestly, as far as the things that he had been hiding, this one wasn't the worst, he supposed.
“There's no way that didn't hit something, man,” Bart says, looking a bit like he wanted to poke Tim's side until it gave him the answers that he wanted.
“It did,” Tim says, his voice even, “hit something, that is.”
“And what would that something be?” Bruce asks, his voice a mix between that of the father and the bat.
“...my spleen.”
“Your what now?” Dick asked, sitting up and forwards with a look of alarm, as all the gazes in the room turn sharper than before.
“It's not that bad,” Tim protested, because truly it wasn't, he just had to be a bit more careful was all, “honestly the time that I got the clench was worse than this.”
“Only you,” Kon sighed as he slid his hand down his face.
“We will be talking about this later,” Batman promises, and it was Batman that did so.
“Sure.”
“Why did he attack you anyways?” Duke asks, looking at the form of the man as he stood over the fallen four with glee in his eyes.
Tim takes a moment to decide how he wants to say what he's about to. It was a moment that made everyone else all the more tense.
“The Widower is a member of the Council of Spiders,” the teen explains as he looks at the image of the man in the mist, and not at the blank looks of those around him as he mentioned the group that had caused him so much strife. A group that they had never heard of. He would have liked to keep it that way if he'd had a choice. “At the time they were a group of assassins that hunted other assassins for sport.”
“And they included you in that list?” Jason asked, looking at his brother for a moment and wondering if that choice had just been by association, or if he had been acting more like an assassin than a bat at the time.
Tim shrugs. “I was working with the League,” he reminds them, though it wasn't to the extent that he soon would be, “it wasn't that big of a leap to make.”
“Are they still focused on hunting other assassins?” Bruce asked, thinking of Tim's wording, and how it left some options open.
Tim froze for a moment when asked, a there and gone gesture. Everyone still caught it. The teen sighed as he knew it too.
“As far as I can tell they have been dormant since my last encounter with them,” the third Robin says, not mentioning that such an encounter was not this one. Everyone else understood that anyways. “If I were to take a guess, I would say that they are switching targets.”
“To who?” Damian asked as he studied the figure in the mist.
“Heroes.”
And wasn't that an answer?
“Succumb now and you'll never make it home”
They watch as the man, the Widower, leaves as the pool of blood surrounding the Tim in the mist seems to grow as the teen becomes paler and paler before their eyes.
As he died.
(The fact that he was sitting before them, hiding things and all, was the only comfort that kept the heroes calm at the sight)
“You'll never make it home”
They watches as the Tim in the mist seemed to reach his hand out, slowly across the sand as his eyes began to droop with Ra's voice. It was only right before they closed that they saw who Tim was reaching to.
Kon.
Conner Kent.
The boy was dressed in his original colors, the black, red, yellow, and blue kissing his skin as the leather jacket always had. He looked so bright and peaceful right then as he laid on his own side and reached out to Tim as well, their hands just out of reach of one another.
The Tim of the past looked as if he wanted to join him in that peace. Looked as if he wanted them both freed of the pain of dying.
“You thought of me as you thought you were dying?” Kon asked as he looked at his Tim with something that could only be called wonder.
“Who else?” The third Robin asked, not mentioning that he had done so before with another brush with death earlier in the line. Some things didn't need to be known.
Kon still looked at his as if he was all the stars in the night sky.
Well that answers that question, Jason thought as he looked at the pair as the music started once more.
“Don't you know that danger is my friend?”
When Tim sings, his voice is as strong and determined as the words behind them, as he push himself up just a bit on shaking, blood soaked limbs and begins to crawl. It wasn't dignified or anything of the like, and every shift looked as if it caused the teen in the mist pain, but the Tim in the mist was covering ground that no dead man could.
“My whole life I've trained for this”
The Tim in the mist declares as he rips off a piece of his cape and ties it around his teammate's throat to help slow down the bleeding, as he grabs onto her and lifts them both to unsteady feet.
Just for a moment he looked like Robin again, pulling a civilian away as their world collapsed around them.
“I cannot tell you how much I have paid for this”
The pair in the mist take a moment to look at the fallen two - teammates, brothers, whatever words were chosen that day - knowing that they would have to leave them behind because there was no time, nor strength to get all four of them to the car.
It was one price among the many that Tim and those around him had to pay for his quest to bring his father home.
“Names?” Cass asked, bringing to attention that no one had done so before. That they had watched them die, but didn’t even know the names of those that Tim and the girl mourned still.
“Z and Owens,” Tim answers, giving the bodies before them the names that they had given him. He would never know if those were their real names, and a part of him didn’t care either way. They died at his side, under those names, and he would honor that.
He had to honor that.
“Z and Owens,” Cass repeats, as if tasting the names on her tongue. She nods in approval and Tim nods back.
Bruce wondered then if there was a chance that the surviving pair would want a gravestone to mourn them at.
“I have to get home, put it all on the line”
They watch as the Tim in the mist drives off in the car, Pru sitting in the passenger seat as she always did, only this time she looked to be on death's door. Tim used his left hand to drive, foot pressing harder and harder on gas, as Pru used her right hand to hold pressure to her neck. They tangled their fingers together between them, a constant reminder that the other had survived.
“I'm gonna use ruthlessness
“Every trick, every skill put to use for this”
The scene changes, as it so often does, and suddenly they're in a room that a few of them know too well, as Tim wakes up on a table casted in a bright green glow with bandages wrapped around his middle, and assassins all around him.
“That's the Lazarus Pit,” Jason says, his voice horace as they watch as the Tim in the mist springs to his feet and falls into a fighting stance. He looks quickly at their Tim. “Did you die? Did they bring you back?”
There was true fear in the man's voice, enough so that Dick laid a hand on the other man's shoulder and wasn't brushed away.
“No,” Tim says, his voice as reassuring as he could make it.
He doesn't tell them that he had thought that he had been. That they had brought him there because Ra's had feared that he would need to placed in it if things went even further south than they had already.
He doesn't tell them the things that he would have been willing to do had they actually placed him into the pit.
The things that he would have been willing to do to avoid being placed in it.
Ruthlessness, that was the trait that he had taken up from the moment that he opened his eyes within the Cradle. Assassins never fought fair after all, he had learned that lesson time and time again.
“I plan to put an end to all the foolishness”
The scene changes once more, and now the Tim in the mist is sitting in a meeting hall with all eyes on him, surrounded by League assassins at every angle, but the person right next to him. He looked to be talking then, but they couldn't tell about what.
“Is that Tam Fox?” Bruce asked, looking at a figure that looked a lot like the visage of his friend's daughter, though why she would be in the Cradle he had no idea.
“Yeah,” Tim answered, a bit uneasily given how things went with her during this year. “Luscious sent her to find me so that I would come back and take over as majority shareholder, because Hush was pretending to be you at the time,” he explains, giving a bit of context to the man that had been missing at the time. “She found me, and got herself kidnapped for her troubles and held for leverage.”
“So you were having to cover for a civilian the whole time as well?” Bruce asks, and Tim nods.
“Yeah,” the third Robin says. “Ra's, uh, he put me in charge of hunting down the Council of Spiders,” the teen says, seeing the surprise in the eyes of everyone else in the room at being given such a position within the League as an outsider. “Me and Pru were the only ones to have ever met one and survived, so he thought that I was best suited for it. He gave me access to everything too.” Fatal mistake that had been. “He used her to keep me in line, made sure that when I left for Gotham to help deal with the Blackest Night that I would come back.”
“Oh that is so not crash,” Bart says, and Tim can't help but agree.
He doesn't tell anyone that had she not been there, and had Ra’s offered the job flat out after he had woken up - no games, or gimmicks, or manipulation - that he probably would have taken it. He lost two friends to the spiders, and revenge had always been in his nature, even if it took him a while to get it.
There were some things that the bats didn’t need to know.
“No,” Tim agrees, “not crash at all.”
The fact that there was a civilian with Tim at the time, one that was special to their family because her father was so, made Bruce understand a bit more the lengths that Tim had alluded to going to while with Ra's al Ghul. There was only so much that one could do when put in a situation like that, and both make it home.
“I have to get home, put it all on the line
“I'll be dangerous”
They watch as the Tim in the mist stands up and looks to the man that had been leading the meeting before. They knew then, between the gesture and the words that the teen sung, that he had just accepted his role in the upcoming fight.
They saw that he looked almost happy to do so, his body language cold and sharp as a blade. More so than ever he looked a bit like a stranger wearing a friend's face.
They knew that loosing Robin had sent Tim a bit over the edge, but they all wondered then if having lost two more friends (in a team that mirrored his own so well) had caused him to plummet over it.
Ruthless and dangerous. Yeah, that seemed about right.
(None of them liked that it had been Ra's al Ghul, the Demon Head, coaching him to this place)
“The next song will start in a few moments”
Notes:
Do I like how this chapter came out? No, not at all, but that may just be because I've been wanting to write it since I started this whole thing cause Dangerous is one of my fav epic songs.
HI!! New Tim fic is out now, so check the Tim Drake aus series that I have for that. (It's linked to this). The fic idea was the most voted on my Tumblr poll, so I hope you read it and like it
Chapter 11: Suffering
Summary:
Preparing to lead the League against the Council of Spiders, Tim gets access to all of their systems. It would be a lot easier to do things is there wasn't someone constantly watching over his shoulder and pretending to be one of them.
Notes:
Suffering by Jorge Rivera-Herrans from EPIC the Musical: The Thunder Saga
—-
I won’t lie, this is very filler feeling, and I’m sorry for that.
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
When the music started once more, a chorus of voices filling the ears of those within the room, Tim wondered just what it would show. There were so many things that had occurred between him running the League of Assassins and him destroying it, some of them not even connected to the League at all. He wondered which the physic behind all of this (Ra’s? His own mind? Whoever was dictating the flow of information just then) would pick. What piece of himself would be laid out for all to see.
He has to wait a bit longer still to know though.
“You earlier said that you lead a cult during your time away,” Damian says, his voice suddenly filling the room as the child remembered such a thing from a previous song. It hadn't been something that Tim had thought would be brought back up, but when one works with detectives he should have expected such a thing.
Green eyes met blue as Tim nodded.
“That was my Grandfather’s League, wasn’t it?” the former assassin asks. There wasn't judgment there, just a need for an answer.
Tim’s silence said it all.
Those in the room before him wished that it hadn't.
The reality that the silence brought was not one that they had wanted to know, not with the implications around it.
(It wasn’t every day that the Demon's Head handed over such power to another.
It wasn't every day either that a bat or a bird became so estranged from the nest that they could be counted as one of the League's own. Because that's what had occurred then, in one form or another)
“He gave me access to everything,” the teen eventually answers, not quite looking at anyone or anything except for his hands. “His files, system, men, the base itself. Even let me put out hits.”
There was a shaky inhale of breath as the third Robin spoke the last words. Tim didn’t need to look up to know that it had come from Bruce.
From Batman.
“Did you?” Duke asked, all curiosity and lacking the judgment that he should’ve had. That anyone else would have.
“Yes.”
He doesn’t tell them that they were fake hits. What does it matter when soon they’ll know that he’s capable of much worse than a bullet to the head from one stranger to another?
(More than he thinks already know that he’s not being completely truthful. They’re detectives after all, amd those that weren’t were some of those that know him best in the whole world
They don’t tell him that though, and he doesn’t look up to see it on their faces)
“Don't you trust me?”
A man in the mist asks Tim.
In the mist, those in the room could see Tim, dressed in his full Red Robin gear, cowl and all, as he sat before a large screen with data upon data collected upon it. Beside him sat a man closer to that of Bruce’s age than Tim’s own.
The man was pale, as if he had not seen the sun in some days, his hair dark and contrasting with the white of his shirt. They couldn’t really tell the color of his eyes, glasses obscuring them, but they all knew two thing for sure:
This was not a man that they recognized.
This was not a man that had been afforded Red Robin’s trust.
“Who is that?” Cassie asked, looking at the older man in the mist, a man that his Robin didn’t seem too inclined to be near. A fact that the man himself seemed to know, but was trying to change.
“They called him the Expediter,” Tim answers with a blank sort of voice, not because he was hiding emotions, but because he had none to give. “He was the League’s version of Oracle.”
A shiver ran through the room at the idea of the League of Assassins having their own version of the previous Batgirl. The Calculator was bad enough.
“Was?” Dick asked, picking up on the phrasing that his little brother had used.
“He died,” Tim answers, plain and simple, and feeling no remorse. It wasn’t a loss that he carried with him, it wasn’t blood that he carried on his hands.
“More than you know”
The Tim in the mist answers, though he doesn’t bother looking away from the screen before him.
“Rob,” Kon starts, turning to look at the boy sitting at his side with a mix of mirth and disbelief in his voice and gaze, “that was about as believable as when you said that your name was Alvin Draper.”
Tim scoffed, though there was a small smile on his lips as he did so. “You were the only one that called me on that back then,” the third Robin reminds the other teen.
“Guess I was,” the super boy answers, his voice much too fond.
And wasn’t it something that only Kon had been able to tell that Tim - the one who could lie to Batman - had been telling a half truth at all?
Kon always had been the one to know Tim best.
“Then let me sit down and help you”
It sounded like an offer. It sounded like a command.
“Expediter, I've told you this before
“You know I work alone”
“Careful there, Tim, you’re starting to sound like a certain walking fury,” Steph warned, earning a bristle from the bat himself.
Tim only rolls his eyes.
“Weren’t we all picking and choosing his worst qualities back then?” The younger teen asks, something that none of those that had been there at the time could deny. It was a fact that hurt Bruce’s heart to realize. “Besides,” he continues, his voice a bit more dim, “the only person that I trusted tight then was myself.”
“Not even Tam Fox?” Bruce asked, thinking that he might already know the answer.
Tim shakes his head no. “She was too soft back then,” he answers, and then smiles, something small and fragile, “still thought that ransom money could get her home.”
It was sad how such a perfectly logical thought seemed so illogical to those within the room, all because they had been through enough to know better.
“I'll make sure that you are safe and sound
“Come let me help you so I can go see my daughters
“And let's watch this plan leave the ground”
The computer man in the mist says, his voice instant as he uses his own children as a sort of bargaining chip of guilt against the teen. It was something that might have worked on some of the others in the room, but never with Tim. Loath as those in the room were to admit it, Tim had never truly had the sort of parental connection with anyone to the point where such a thing would have been a valid course of action with him. He loved his parents and he loves Bruce - they all knew that, they had all seen the lengths that he would go for any of the three of them - but that doesn’t mean that the connection was quite the same as it should have been.
“Oh, I would
“But I'd be suffering trying to cope the whole time”
The Tim in the mist sings, fingers flying across the keyboard as he shifted through the files on the computer, adding notes off to the side.
“I would take the suffering from you”
The father sings as he walks closer to the teen.
“Ooh, as good as that sounds, right here I'm just fine”
The Tim in the mist insists, more than a bit dismissively.
“I can take the suffering from you”
“God he’s pushy,” Bart says, annoyance slipping into the speedster’s voice. It took a lot for such a thing to occur with the normally relaxed - in an overly hyperactive sort of manner - teen, usually the least likely to be ruffled among all of his friends. But watching Tim being pestered over and over by a man that won’t listen to the word no… it set something in his mind ill at ease.
Everyone else in the room seemed to agree with the statement that the teen had made.
“You know that I prefer my own work”
The Tim in the mist says, sounding more annoyed by the moment.
“I will take the suffering from you”
The Expediter sings, sounding somewhat annoyed himself, in a sort of desperate sort.
They watched as Tim seemed to stop at the latest plea, a considering sort of in the teen’s eyes, as if he was giving in.
They all knew that he wasn’t,
“Fine, but only if you answer a question or two”
The Tim in the mist sings, and everyone in the room recognizes that sound in the teen’s voice. It was the same way that he spoke through half of his Young Justice days, back when the biggest thing that they had to worry about was lying about cheating at baseball to save a planet.
“Scheming face,” Bart all but accuses, sounding much more like himself now that the other teen was indeed plotting.
“Scheming face,” Cass, Steph, Kon, and Cassie agreed.
Tim doesn’t know whether to feel annoyed or pleased that there were those that knew him so well without knowing everything. After all, even as the mist revealed so much, it was only the highlights at the end of the day.
“Of course!”
The older man in the mist all too readily agrees.
“Okay! So, let's say I was on the run. Or hiding!
“From, I don't know, The Council?
“And let's say they blocked the way home
“With assassins and spiders!”
The Tim in the mist becomes much more animated as he sings then, acting much more like someone would expect from someone his age that didn’t hold the same experiences that he did. It was disarming in a way, disconcerting in another to those that actually knew the teen hidden under the cowl.
They knew that it was intended to be so, after all, who would take him seriously if he acted so young?
“Oh no…”
The older man in the mist sings, sounding less invested now that the younger seemed to be giving in. Now that it seemed that it was only a matter of time before he got what it was that he wanted.
“How am I to evade them?
“How am I to get home?
“Which route should I take?
“Where am I supposed to go?”
The Tim within the mist asked, his questions coming out in a sort of rapid fire succession, not leaving the other man anytime to truly answer him.
“Why are you asking when we all know that you already have a plan drawn up in that stupid cowled head of yours?” Jason asked as he looked at the younger vigilante, and his even younger version in the mist. There was a line between pretending to listen and actually asking for advice that could be used against you if you took it.
“Because I knew that if anyone in the Cradle was a mole for the Council then it would be him,” Tim answered honestly, looking at the League version of Babs. He had been right at the end of the day, he knew that, but the circumstances around it had been off from what he had predicted back then. Not as willful as he had thought. Had he been a different person from who he was back then, even just a year before that day, he might have tried to help. Now he was too cold to even truly feel bad about the man’s fate. “And what better trap to set than one that was already a trap itself?” He asks rhetorically. “Also, the cowl was not stupid, bomb head.”
Nearly every gaze in the room seemed to disagree.
“Little brother…” Cass said softly, almost delicately. Tim knew that it was an act, she was enjoying the light sort of mood that good natured teasing always brought. It was better than the normal climate of the bats and birds.
Tim almost didn’t want to crush it with the truth.
Almost.
“Are you lot forgetting that I had severe burns on the back of my head around the time that I chose the cowl?” Tim asked, more than a little aggravated at his fashion sense being called into question when he had been protecting healing wounds at the time and didn’t care about such a thing. Besides, he knew that he could pull off either gender should he so wish to, thank you Caroline Hill.
“Oh,” Dick says, his voice low and a bit remorseful even as he had not been one of the ones to say anything.
“Yeah…” Tim replies all the same.
“They will chase you high and low
“So find a place they’d never expect
“The one way you'll get home
“Is fighting where they’re scared to roam, oh
“It's all across the world”
The plan that the man spoke of was a solid one, an attack on all fronts. It was the sort of plan that Tim would have come up with on his own, perfectly suited to his type of fighting, with planned ambushes all across the world, where the League assassins would far outnumber their targets. It was much too close to Tim’s own thinking….
“You lead him to that plan suggestion,” Bruce says aloud, knowing it to be true before the words ever leave his mouth.
“I did,” Tim says simply, unapologetically.
“Why?” The Batman asks, already thinking that he knows the answer once more. It was a plan that he might have thought of after all, though would not have used because of the lives that it would undoubtedly cost.
“It’s like I said earlier,” the teen starts with a factual sort of voice, as if he were talking about financials for the Neon Knights and not assassination attempts and plots, “if there was a mole in the League then it would be him. If he wasn’t one, then the plan would go off without a hitch, the Council defeated, and Z and Owens avenged.”
“And if he was a mole?” Bruce asked, not linking at all where his detective mind thought that this was going.
“Then things would go sideways in a manner that I could still largely control,” the third Robin answers as if it was that simple. In a way it had been, would have been more so had Tam not had been attacked, but all things considered the events that played out weren’t too far out of what he had expected to happen.
“You were careless with lives, Tim, and not just your own,” Bruce says, angered despite having already known for a while into this experience that Tim had done something like this, but it was different seeing it. It was also different when he wasn’t doing it out of an escape attempt, but just a lack of care for the lives that his plan cost.
“I could have been a lot worse,” is all that the former Robin has to say.
It wasn’t enough.
“No…”
The Tim in the mist says, sounding horrified and devastated all at once.
They knew that he wasn’t, not really.
“This is your only way home
“The whole world”
The older man in the mist insists, moving his seat close to Tim’s as he sits in it, bringing up a map on the screen before them, one filled with all of the current and future hits that were to go out. It was a map that had already been open in one of the many loose tabs that the slightly younger Tim had compiled.
“But that has a cost!”
The Tim in the mist exclaims, sounding so truly affronted by the thought of placing so many lives in harm’s way. Those in the room, bats and the superpowered alike, didn’t know how to feel about the scene before them, not when they knew that it would more than likely end in bloodshed that Tim had planned from the start.
“Well, you asked and now you know
“Now let me help plan!”
The older man in the mist demanded, the chipperness and instance in his voice returning once more, even as he turned from Tim’s screen to look at another.
“Expediter, why?
“You know I work alone”
The Tim in the mist sung even as he quickly pulled up a different screen altogether, shifting through entirely different data, as if memorizing it.
“What are you doing?” Cassie asked, her curiosity getting the better of her.
Tim smirks. “Ra’s gave me access to everything,” the teen answers, sounding more than a bit smug about the fact, “and I do mean everything. So, while the Expediter was distracted, I committed all of the important and previously unknown data to memory.”
Sometimes it was hard to stay angered with the teen when he goes and does something amazing the next second over.
“I would take the suffering from you”
The older man sings, shifting through his own work, but seemingly not truly seeing it.
“Ooh, for you I would fight
“But can't you let me stay by myself?”
The Tim in the mist pretends to all but plead, even as he pulls up another set of files that he should have no right to see.
Damian can’t help but wonder as he watches his older brother in the mist do such things under Grandfather’s nose without being caught what might have happened had he still been at the Cradle then, and had met Timothy fresh from the teen defeating the Demon’s Head.
A part of him knew that Richard would not have been his favorite had this been the case.
“I can take the suffering from you”
The older man in the mist offers once more.
“You should go home
“Spend some time with your daughters”
The Tim in the mist suggests, even as he dives deeper into the files before him. Into deals and holdings, schematics and building plans, all the while covering his tracks as if he had never been there at all.
A lot of times it was easy to look down upon Tim Drake, the placeholder Robin whose mind was the only thing that he truly seemed to hold above the other four Robins. After all, physical skills were much more flashy and admirable in nature.
But as he manipulated and schemed everyone around him it was hard not to admire the skills that the teen held, to not have their value shoved in their faces.
“I will take the suffering from you”
The Expediter sings, this time sounding more like a promise than anything else.
“The things I do for you…”
In the mist they watched as a ghostly image of Bruce appeared in the mist, just behind Tim's right shoulder, his hand reaching out to touch but never quite making it. Tim seems to know that he's there all the same, singing to a man lost in time.
Doing everything that he had done just to get that man back.
“Quick,” Cass said, the word summing up the whole of the experience that this song had been.
Tim shrugs. “Much wasn't really happening then,” the younger teen says, looking at the lonely version of himself before him as the mist faded before them, “it was more of a waiting game than anything.”
“Why?” Dick asked, something that a part of him had wanted to do so for a while now. “I know you were responsible for Tam, but when you came back to Gotham for the Blackest Night you never said anything about any of this. You had evidence that Bruce was alive, but you didn't give it to me then.”
Those in the room watched as the third Robin visibly took a breath, slowing down, stilling. “Would you have believed me if I had?” the teen asked. Dick looked as if he was hurt by the question, though he couldn't refute it, he still opened his mouth as if to fight it.
Tim beats him to it.
“You wouldn't have,” Tim insists, “you didn’t even consider the possibility that I could have been right till Hal implied that there was something off with the false corpse.”
The reminder is a cold one, but it's one that the man needed to hear.
Tim doesn't tell the older vigilante that when he had thought that he was dying the second time during that… adventure, he had asked himself just the same question. Had been filled with regret.
It wasn't something that needed to be known.
“Tim…” Dick started, though the acrobatic vigilante trailed off not knowing what to say, because he knew that the younger man was right.
He wouldn’t have believed Tim back then.
He wished now that his answer could have been different.
Had wished that for a while now.
“The next song will begin in a moment”
Notes:
Very much a filler chapter, sorry. All the next ones are very action oriented though, and of their normal 5k-10k length
Chapter 12: Different Beast
Summary:
With the attack on the Council not having gone as planned, Tim rushes back to the Cradle. It won't survive his return though.
Notes:
Different Beasts by Jorge Rivera-Herrans, from EPIC The Musical: The Thunder Saga
—-
This is a bit off from how it goes down in the comics, but I thought it worked better with the song.
Chapter Text
When the music starts once more it does so with a scream that makes everyone in the room tense and shift in their seats, reading for weapons that weren’t there, as Tim smiles something wide and cruel. Such a look doesn’t go unnoticed by anyone.
“That was a scream of pain,” Bruce notes emotion hidden behind the flash tone of the Batman, even as a part of himself is all but begging Tim to tell him that he had heard wrong.
Tim doesn’t.
“It was,” the teen confirms.
“But not yours,” Dick says, as if the words were made fact just by him speaking them.
In this case they were.
“But not mine,” Tim says, as if him having denied it would have made any difference when he was still smiling in a manner that bordered on something manic.
He would rather the bats have never known of the things that he had done to get out, to survive that place, but if they were going to find out then he was not going to pretend to be sorry. To pretend to be filled with a regret that he did not have it in him to possess. He certainly wasn’t going to do so when it came to them having found out that he had been proven right all along about the mole within the League.
He loved every time that he was proven right from that time period.
“Then who?” Bruce asked, looking between the mist and his son, but the scream had come so soon that a picture hadn’t even formed yet with it.
“No one that didn’t deserve it,” is all that the third Robin says in way of an answer.
“Let's cut the charade, you are no friend of mine”
The Tim in the mist sings, his voice holding a bit of snarl to it as he does so. It was the sort of sound that Red Robin used on the criminals that he loathed, the sort reserved for those that had wrong him.
The sort reserved for those that had taken things (people) from him.
They couldn’t see who he was directing the words towards, not with the mist being focused solely on Tim himself, but they knew that he was speaking to someone. They didn’t bother asking either, not when they knew that they woukd find out all on their own soon.
“You've been tryin' to take my life this whole time”
In the mist they watch as the Tim within it slowly circles a man in a chair, one that none of them could see the face of, but could guess at who he was based on the clothes that they could see and the location that Tim was still within, with the computers being the only light within the room. He circled the chair then like a shark circling its prey in the water, trailing one hand against the object itself as he moved, an ever present reminder that he was there.
Like how the hallucination of Bruce had done back in the manor.
(Like how Ra’s al Ghul had)
No one says it out loud, but the comparison was there
“I know in the Cradle, there are packs of you hiding
“Yeah, I know exactly what you are, a spider”
They watch as the Tim within the mist stops before the hidden figure during the last line, reaching out and grabbing the man’s chin in a harsh, bruising sort of grip that brought the figure into clear focus.
“Thats the Expediter guy,” Steph said, pointing at the now clear figure of the man, the one that looked much the same as he had the last time that they had seen him, except he had taken on a bit of a sickly sort of look now. More so than before anyways.
“So he really was a mole then?” Kon asked, turning to look at the boy at his side.
Everyone else did as well.
All Tim does is nod.
“My real friends know I'm not scared of spiders”
In the mist they watch as the figures of Kon and Bart appear in the shadows behind the older man, like ghosts forever haunting the narrative, even as Tim knew by this point that they had been returned to him.
They all ignored the heat that came to the cheeks of the three at such a blatant show of verbal affection.
“And my real friends know not to trust me with tech”
Next to the previous pair in the mist, Cassie and Cissie appear as well, making the Wonder Girl counterpart smile at having been included even after how they had left things the last time that they had truly seen one another.
Tim knocks his elbow against hers, the movement simple and childish, and somehow - impossibly - everything seems okay between the (truly so) for the first time in a year as she does it back.
“But while you were so focused on turning my men into targets”
In the mist, they watch as the scene changes just for a few moments to that of a map, one with circles drawn upon it in different parts of the world. After a moment is zooms in on one, showing a small group of assassins, all with their weapons ready and a target seemingly in sight. Red Xs appear over all of their faces, each in the shade of blood.
“They’re dead aren’t they?” Duke asked, knowing all too well the hurt of losing those that you had sent out. Those that you couldn’t save. Those that you had never thought that you would have to save because you were supposed to be the ones helping others.
Tim nods, solemn and slow. “They are,” he confirms, his voice holding the world’s smallest bit of grief. It wasn’t a trick that he would ever regret pulling, but he had never thought that there would be no survivors from the other groups. It’s why he had sent so many assassins that day, safety in numbers. “Pru and I were on one of the teams,” he admits, earning a startled sort of look from the others as they remembered the damage that each of them had sustained the last time that they had been put into the Council of Spiders’ line of fire. “Our team was the only one to survive.”
There was a moment of silence as that fact settled in the bones of those in the room, a physical sort of weight, a fraction of the way that it had settled in Tim’s.
“These were the hits that you took out,” Bruce said, realization coloring his voice as he does so, looking upon his third son with a guilty sort of horror that only belongs to those that had assumed the worst, “weren’t they?”
The third Robin watches as the eldest Robin all but flinches as he realizes the same, knowing that he was guilty as well.
“Yeah,” he confirms, his voice even and blank, the sort of thing that gave nothing away when it should have been filled with anything, “they were.”
“So no one was supposed to die?” Dick asks, a hesitant hope in his voice that his face seems to mirror.
Tim almost hates the way that he knows his answer will change that.
Almost.
“Not from this at least.”
The expression falls, crumbling to nothing at all.
“You didn't notice that your friends got snatched”
The scene shifts once more to show the Tim in the mist and Pru with their captured spider before them. Pru was smiling something viscous and bright as she watched the captured Council member struggle, his mouth moving in pleas and demands. It was the sort of look that would have sent shivers down more than one spine in the room had it not been mostly filled with bats, and those foolish enough to befriend them.
The manner in which Tim mirrored the look in the room with them was another story though.
“What?”
The scene shifts once more, back to the computer room, as the Expediter sings, looking up at the Tim in the mist from his chair with confusion and nothing short of pure panic.
Bart didn’t think that he was crazy when he saw the way in which the man’s stomach seemed to move then, as if something was crawling around within it.
“We are a different beast now, we are the ones who feast now”
Tam sings as she stands in the cradle with a sword in her hand as she looks at the seven assassins - all members of the Council - that were surrounding her, ready to go down fighting if she had to go out at all.
“They did a surprise attack while they thought that the League’s attention would be divided,” Jason realized, stating something that would usually earn the perpetrator a whistle of sorts had they been on their side, but got thinly veiled horror as it was the enemy with a civilian involved. A civilian connected to their family at that.
“Yeah,” Tim says softly, watching the terrified figure of Tam in the mist. She should of never have had to have been there. Luscious should have never sent her, especially with her not knowing the things that the rest of them did. She had thought that he was an assassin himself for a great deal of the time. He supposed that she wasn’t entirely wrong to assume such a thing. “It was smart,” he continues, the words halting, as if it cost him something to say such a thing about the enemy. It did. “It was the Cradle, we never thought that we would have been attacked there. Not for this.”
No one misses the way that he says we. The way that he includes himself as one of them.
Tim would deny for years to come the way in which he drew in on himself.
“Tamara seems to be doing quite well,” Damian notes, partly because it needs to be said, and partly to draw the attention away from the phrasing in which his elder brother had used. The looks upon their faces were one that he was intimately familiar with after all, he’s had it thrown his own way much more than he liked to admit.
“Yeah,” Tim agrees, a soft sort of smile on his lips, one much kinder than the others that they have seen from him during this song, “she really became a badass during this time, hardened up.”
“No more of us deceased, 'cause we won't take more suffering from you”
Another voice joins the hers.
They watch as the Tim in the mist jumps in with his Bo staff drawn, the blade out, before the Council members can kill her as they seemed so set to do.
“You got there in time,” Steph notes with relief, even though she knew for a fact that Tam was alive now. It didn’t change the fact that up until ten - fifteen minutes ago she had thought that Tim still had all of his organs too. There were a lot of things that could be done within the bounds of life.
“She would have never let me live it down if I hadn’t,” Tim all but jokes, notes of fondness slipping through. He didn’t love her, not in the way that she had wanted him to at least, but he didn’t want her to die. Especially not for his crusade.
Sometimes he hated how alike he was to Bruce.
“We are the man-made monsters, we are the ones who conquer”
In the mist, they watch as Tim fights all seven of the Council members at once, his Bo staff spinning through the air, the blade glinting in the artificial light. A lot of times they could forget that he was trained by one of the most deadly fighters in the world, but as he moved then, he moved just like her. It was beautiful and devastating as they watched as he all glided through the assassin as if one of them, fly with his feet still firmly on the ground.
Kon knew that he was watching with a little too much heat in his gaze, the Luthor genes slipping through a little too much as he found himself loving the deadly way in which his Robin fought. His only consolation was that everyone else in the room was looking on with equal amounts of awe as the assassins that hunted other assassins fell to the ground by Tim’s hand.
“You are a threat no longer, we won't take more suffering from you”
Another voice joins the mix, one that they had not heard before as Pru joins the pair, the three fighting together as she and Tam keep the assassins that Tim had defeated down, watching his back in the manner that true teammates would.
“We've been away from home for a few months or so”
In the mist they watched as the three caught their breath for just a moment, each of them looking aged in ways that time alone could not do as they stood there. They looked so much older than they ever should, not for the age that they held.
“First, we slayed in our own war, and now, we're here with more foes
“While on the hunt for spiders, I saw and noticed you
“I realized nearby, there were moles, singing shadows to their dooms”
The scene shifts, going back to where the song had begun as the Tim in the mist sings once more from within the computer room, the Expediter still sitting beneath the teen in the chair, while the third Robin towered over him like an judgmental god about to deal out a ruling.
At Tim’s back, they finally saw that Pru and Tam were in the room too, watching with hard eyes as the scene unfolded, the assassin all but standing guard as the other girl still held the sword within her hands with white knuckled grip.
As the Tim in the mist sung, in the darkness behind the older man an image began to take place in a mist of its own. It was that of Tim sitting in the meeting of assassins that they had been shown before, Tam to his right, as the Expediter sat to his left. They saw the suspicion in his body language even all the way back then before he had even properly met or worked alongside the man.
“You were suspicious of him from the very start,” Cassie notes, knowing that look on Tim better than most, he only seemed to have it nearly every mission that they had ever been on, when they were being lied to by one person or another. Or when, at the beginning of their days together, he would look away for a moment and Bart used to steal his food. Tim knew it was the other boy every time without fail, and always turned such a glare onto him until he confessed.
Bart stopped doing that as they got older and Tim got thinner than he had any right to be, especially after coming back to them from his year away.
They didn’t talk about how thin he had been then.
“Something felt off,” the other teen explains, voicing the gut feeling that he’d had then. “All of the other League members, I knew that I shouldn’t have been safe around them under normal circumstances, but I was given the situation that I was in. They registered to me as threats, but no more than what Pru, Z, and Owens had been at the start. But for some reason, he made every muscle in my back tense, as if I was waiting for a blade to be shoved through it.”
He doesn’t mention that he had taken advantage of the security that the protection that Ra’s had provided afforded him, going as far as to spar and train with the League assassins when policed away from the monitors by the White Ghost like a child. The man had not liked him having such access to the system, and had made that clear.
He had been right not to trust Tim with it all.
Bruce nodded in approval though, unknowing of the thought swirling through his third son’s mind, as he appreciated the teen’s instincts. Tim pretended that he didn’t light up just a bit at that.
“I filled your ears with false plans, that's how we knew where it went wrong
“You pretended to be my alley, so I just played along”
They watch as in the mist, the Expediter’s eyes go wide at having been tricked by the teen before him. The assassin and bat trained vigilante that he had underestimated from the beginning. There were reasons that Ra’s was interested in him, and they were currently watching one of them unfold before their eyes. Even if they didn’t quite know it just yet.
“I read your files and statements, scanning for information
“Spies know about every route and horizon”
They watch as the Tim in the mist sings, the teen digging a finger into the older man’s chest as a smile that almost seemed to belong to one of Gotham’s rouges was painted over his lips, as the work of his mind was shown for all to see.
It truly was an impressive sight, watching the unfolding of a plan with two favorable outcomes to it, both where the main target was taken care of. It wasn’t lost on any of them though that the majority of this was an act of revenge against the organization that had taken two friends, two brothers, from him.
“Now I have the escape to get back to my city”
They watch as the Tim in the mist moves, one hand grabbing the older man’s chin once more, holding him in a bruising grip with a too sharp smile, as the other gesture to the monitors that he had been given full access to from the start.
The Expediter seemed to be peering up at the teen in pure terror. The bats thought that they might just agree.
There were no shortage of lengths a wild animal would go if they felt as if they were being boxed and cornered. Tim had been locked away for a while now, and feral for even longer.
“We are a different beast now, we are the ones who feast now”
In the mist they watch as the Expediter’s stomach starts to bubble and move as if it were about to burst. As if there were something crawling around within it, within his skin, as the veins of his arms began to move like there were bugs within them
“I knew it!” Bart said, thrusting a fist into the air as if he had just won some sort of prize. It was a very different sort of mood from the manner in which nearly everyone else in the room seemed to be holding back bile. Tim had already seen the aftermath of this in person and knew that it was honestly worse than just some skin crawling on its own. “I knew I was right about his stomach moving weirdly!”
Bart turns then to look at the other founding members of Young Justice, his expression proud and childlike, all but euphoric at having been proved right. It was all the joy at having been proved right when no one else had expected him to be.
The other three founding members found it cute, biting back smiles at the way that the other teen looked. They savored any time that the other teen acted like he used, acted alive. The four of them may pretend to have recovered from the events that they had endured as four became three, and then two, and then none at all, but they all knew that they still carried the wounds of that year with them, even if they were the sort of ills that no one could see.
Kon and Bart had died heroes.
Cassie and Tim lived to become something less.
Anytime that they acted like the kids that they had once been was still many times too few.
Cassie smirks, something bright and young in her own right. “No one said that you weren’t right, Imp,” the second Wonder Girl reminds the future boy, “because you never spoke the theory out loud.”
Tim and Kon laugh as the other boy deflates, even as Tim knows that Bart had only done that, spoken in such a manner, to lighten the mood just a bit. Though the joy at being right was sure and genuine and beautiful to see nonetheless. The effort put forth was a futile sort of thing though, given what Tim knew was about to occur.
Given how Bruce’s words and newfound ideals were about to be put to the test.
“No more of us deceased, 'cause we won't take more suffering from you”
In the mist they watch as Tam and Pru glance at one another, the two of their voices filling the air, before moving together and dragging the eldest assassin out of the room as the older man begins to kneel over then, not wanting him around if - or more likely to say when - he explodes or whatever it was that was going to occur within him at any moment.
Some sights didn’t need to be seen.
“What was wrong with him anyway?” Jason asked, jerking his chin towards the retreating form of the Expediter as the two girls in the mist handled the squirming, sickly looking man.
Tim thought about how to answer. How to phrase his words for it, as everyone else in the damned room turned to look at him with curiosity in their eyes, lacking the disappointment - even just for a moment - that had clung to some of their gazes since they started learning one thing after another. He didn’t want to lie - Cass would know in an instant, and call him on it too - so in the end the blunt truth was all that he had.
“One of the spiders planted eggs beneath his skin,” the third Robin explained emotionlessly, watching the manner in which some of those within the room scratched at their own as if they could feel the small arachnids crawling around within them as well. “When he was done serving a purpose, they hatched and ate him alive from the inside out.”
“Oh that’s sick,” Duke says, looking vaguely ill as he does so, a hand rising to his mouth as if trying to hold his lunch down.
Tim shrugged, only vaguely sympathetic to the elder of his two little brothers. Had it been nearly anyone else that had been subjected to such a thing he might have felt more sorry than he did, but the Expediter had been a mole for some time by then if he were to guess, long enough certainly to have sold out the location of himself, Pru. Z and Owens that day.
He blamed him for the blood that had been spilt in the sand that day.
No one says anything after that, something that surprises Tim more than he cared to admit. More than a small part of him had expected for someone to ask him if he had tried to save the man, if he had let him die, because they all knew that he was bound to have died after such a thing. To ask him if he had wanted him to die.
But no one did.
Tim didn’t know if this was a mercy or not.
“We are the man-made monsters, we are the ones who conquer
“You are a threat no longer, we won't take more suffering from you”
In the mist they watch as the Tim within it rushes over to the computer that he had been using earlier, as the girls are dragging the older man out into the hallway, and Tim’s voice fills the room. When he gets there, his fingers are flying across the keys as if he were the speedster and not Bart. Above him, on the monitor, the teen pulls up screen after screen, each more complex than the last one, as the former Robin goes deeper and deeper still into the system.
None of the others within the room truly understand what is it that they are seeing the teen doing, none of them really knowing code and things of the like to such an extent that it could be helpful to them during this - they weren’t any Tim, and they certainly weren’t any Babs either when it came to the level of coding that any of the, did know - but still, they could easily read the desperate way in which the teen moved. The hurried fingers that lead to more than one clumsy sort of mistake that caused the third Robin to have to back track for a moment and fix it. The worried glances towards the door, as if hoping for Tam or Pru to step back through it. As if fearing the prospect of anyone else doing so.
They knew that whatever it was that the teen was doing then, that it was somehow more dangerous and damning than anything else thus far.
Bruce knew without even having to look at the version of his son that sat in the room, in the present, with him, that whatever it was that had been worrying the boy about his reaction since the beginning of all of this, was playing out before their eyes right now.
“Spare us
“Oh, spare us, please”
This time, when a voice sings it’s not just that of one or two, or even three. This time it sounds like hundreds. Like thousands. Sopranos and altos and baritones, voices from all different ranges. Voices from all different ages, and filled with different sorts of accents from all over the world.
They all coursed together in a symphony of pleading and desperation.
It was the voices of the entire League, each pleading for their lives. Pleading to be spared, to be given mercy.
And Tim? He doesn’t look willing to oblige.
Every eye in the room turns to the boy in question as the facts before them settle into something tangible, something weighted. Something that could almost be held and judged. Tim had already confessed to having a high kill count, one larger than that of anyone in the room, but they had never thought that it would ever be so many. That it would ever be a number that someone would have to go completely off the deep end if they ever wanted to even try to pass it. Even then, they might still fall short.
Tim could feel the eyes on him as some of the weight of what he had done began to settle in, as the others started to realize the full scope of what had occurred that day, even as they didn’t know yet how he had done it. He wanted to feel shame or remorse for it, but he couldn’t bring himself to do so. All he could feel was nervous about their reactions once it was all said and done, and laid out before them to poke at and judge.
Kon laced their fingers together tighter than they had been before, holding onto Tim as if he knew that he was the other teen’s life line (he did). The super had known of the barebones of the events before them now for some time, known more so than anyone that wasn’t there watching it unfold themselves. Tim had told him of them himself when things had finally settled down around the other teen, the last marks on his hit list all checked off.
(An actual hit list!)
He knew of the fucked up shit that the other had done, and he could not care less becuase it had brought him home.
Tim took in the warmth that the boy at his side (forever, if he had any say to it) was offering, and let cold take over everything else.
Cold stares couldn’t hurt someone already made of ice.
“Why?
“So you can kill the next group of bats in this part of the desert?”
In the mist, they can see Tim’s back as the teen continues to do whatever it is that he is doing at the computer, progressing through whatever - most likely borderline suicidal - plan that he had created for this occasion, even as he sings his amswer to choir that didn’t even yet know that they needed to be pleading for lives that they had not yet lost.
He was setting a surprise attack after all, most usually didn’t give their enemies a warning in advance (the fact that was going to was an anomaly in of itself)
But as the Tim within the sung, speaking of worry for a family that wasn’t even there, silhouettes that they could just barely make out surrounded the teen (no one could decide if the gesture was a comforting one or not as they did so)
They could see the distinct shape of the ears of Batman’s cowl, one that was mirrored with Black Bat’s own in her silhouette. The shape of Red Hood’s helmet, and Nightwing’s tall form. They could see the hood raised on top of Robin’s head, and the wheels of Oracle’s chair. The armor of Signal’s suit, and the cape of Spoiler’s own.
All of the bats gathered at the back of the Tim within the mist as he worked to protect and save them even as, at the time, he hadn’t spoken to most of them for months.
It was sweet in a way. As sweet as something like this could ever be.
The sort of gesture that depended upon how twisted one’s own mind for how well one took it.
The bats and birds would never admit it aloud, but most of them were more broken than they ever thought, as warmth filled their chests.
“Nah, you wouldn't have spared me”
The Tim in the mist decides, knowing - as they all do - that it was the truth. It was not in the nature of an assassin to spare the life of those that they consider enemies. It was even less in their nature to spare the lives of their target, something that Tim had thought that he would long become after pulling such a damning sort of stunt.
Had it been anyone other than Ra’s al Ghul, the Demon’s Head himself, Tim would have been right with such an assumption. As it stood at the moment, Ra’s wanted him for something, so he was to be kept alive unless it was Ra’s himself that broke his own unspoken rule and sought to end his life.
“I made a mistake like this, it almost cost my life
“I can't take more risks of not saving my father”
They watch as a map shows up on the screen, different bases all belonging to the League of Assassins from all around the world shown on it. Even to those that knew nothing of code, they were able to figure out that these bases were somehow connected by it in some manner that should have been harmless had anyone else been within the room right then. But it wasn’t anyone else, it was Tim, Red Robin, and as Cass looked at her little brother, she knew that he was about to do something that he could never come back from even if he tried.
She frowned as she looked at him now, the teen sitting only a few feet away, and found a young man that lacked any sort of remorse for the damage that he had caused, the damage that they were seeing unfold. She had only ever killed one person, and it had torn her apart, yet this was going to be more than anyone could ever get a true number on - not when that number would be forever growing as complications from such an act arose - and he only seemed nervous about what everyone else around them would think, not remorseful at all.
He was cold.
(She knew though why he was nervous. Tim had already warned them all before, in his own manner, that he had more blood on his hands than any of them. She knew that he had told Conner of this long before they had been brought within the other bat’s mind to see it all. She knew that Jason and Damian seemed almost impressed at the idea that the third Robin could have done such a thing, outnumbering them both. That Steph and Duke didn’t like it, but understood as the songs became closer to the present that it was a shit sort of situation, the pair just being glad that the other teen was sitting on the couch with them able to see him alive and mostly whole (she found herself in that description as well).
She knew that Bruce was much like herself and the other two teens, though the weight that he seemed to hold on his shoulders for it was much heavier, increasingly so as the songs went on… blaming himself for the deaths because they would not have occurred had he not been lost in time, but understanding that there was a civilian in the mix. Civilians and their safety always did tend to make them blur lines that they normally wouldn’t. So did the want for a child to come home at the end of it all. She knew that he would - verbally at least - be sticking to that ideal for a while.
She knew that Dick seemed to be sharing in some of the feelings of responsibility and self loathing that Bruce held right then, but instead of hating himself for being taken away from Tim, he hated himself for knowing that there was nothing that he would have changed about it all. Nothing that might have changed the outcome of this anyways.
She hoped that they all loved him enough to stay once they saw the things that he had done. She knows that she did. She had suspected something like this - though the details were unclear to her, but the toll it took on her little brother (a toll he had been ignoring back then) was not - for a while now. Ever since Hong Kong and Paris)
She thought that maybe the cold that he held now was his own way of coping. Heavens knows that they all had their own mechanisms for such a thing, some of them a lot more destructive than this.
“Set the timer! We're ending this now”
A timer for three minutes appears on the monitor above the teen’s head as the Tim in the mist sings, though it had not started just yet.
It was such a short amount of time, Tim had known that then and was having it reinforced for him as he stared at his past actions. He’d known back then that it had been something far too akin to suicidal, even as it had been far more nesecarry than it had been dangerous.
(That was the rationalization that he always made for half of his actions for this time)
Lazerous green eyes met blue, second Robin to the third.
Of course Jason would be the first to know.
It was almost how he himself had died after, in a foreign country no less, and Tim was choosing the possibility of such an end when the elder never had.
“I had to get out,” was all that the younger of the two said, and Jason understands so much better than he ever thought that he would.
(He doesn’t mention that he almost hadn’t cared in what form he had left, so long as he did)
The others in the room looked between the pair with heavy gazes as the pieces started coming together within their minds a well.
“Throw their bodies back in the Cradle
“Let them fall (no)”
The scene in the mist changes once more, leaving Tim and going instead to this where the girls were carrying away the Expediter’s squirming body, following them as they dragged what was soon (if not already) a corpse down the hall. The shadows seemed tall around them, particularly long at the feet of the man being dragged between the pair, as if it were a shadow belonging to more than just one. As if all of the dark in the old stolen hallways was filled with the lives that at that point had yet to be lost.
But they are lost forever now.
Lost because Tim wanted to find Bruce and save him.
Lost because Tim wanted revenge for the lives of Z and Owens.
Lost Because Tim had to get Tam home.
Lost.
Lost.
Lost.
Murdered at Tim’s hand.
“He is a different beast now, he is the one who feasts now”
They watched as Tam and Pru hurried through the halls with cold looks on their faces then, their backs to the man that they had just left behind. Unseeing of when the first spider ate its way through the man’s flesh, breaking the surface, just a small dot of black on his face that was quickly overrun by swarms of it engulfing his body as the man was eaten from the inside out.
They didn’t stay to watch, making their way through the twists and turns of the Cradle as fast as they could just then. There was a part of Pru that had wanted to stay right then, to watch as the person responsible for the death of her brothers in all but blood die surrounded by those that they had been sold out to. But she knew that if she did stay that she would never be able to leave.
Her Boss was a slippery one after all, destructive as well.
The pair ran just a bit harder.
“No more of us deceased, 'cause he won't take more suffering from you”
The scene changes, a different hallway now, though they all looked much the same, and this time it was Tim at Pru’s side as Tam ran behind them both. It’s the two of them singing the line this time, doing so as if it was a promise that neither of them would die since Tim - at that moment - was all that Pru had, and because of a piece of them both would always forever be stuck in that desert.
They didn’t say it outloud, but this was the moment that Pru fully became one of Tim’s operatives, as they ran together with numbers that none of them could see above their heads, counting down by the minute, by the second.
(the moment that she fully became a sister that he could trust with his life, as she followed the rules that he had set unless about the taking of lives it would cost her or him their own)
Tim didn’t know if anyone else understood the significance of the moment - maybe Cass since she almost always did - but he almost hoped that they didn’t, that this could remain something just between the pair of them.
“He is the man-made monster, he is the one who conquers
“You are a threat no longer, he won't take more suffering from you”
The scene shifts to only a few moments later to where the Tim in the mist and Tam are running still, sun pouring down on each of their skin as they ran through the sand. It was the first time that Tim had seen the sun in a while. For Tam it was even longer. They looked like warriors though as they ran, the sort that one would see on paintings of ancient battles, with a spear in the hand of Red Robin, and a sword in Tam’s.
They looked so much more like monsters there then when they had started.
“Kill them all
“Oh, whoa-oh-oh, oh, whoa-oh-oh, oh, whoa-oh-oh”
The cradle goes up in flames in the distance as they run, sending the pair the ground as a comm slides away from Tim.
Bruce’s jaw tightens as he watches the blaze, Dick’s hands curling into fists as Damian watched his childhood home go up in smoke.
He’s ashamed to admit, even if just to himself, that he almost didn’t mind.
That he felt freer with the Cradle being no more.
Jason held no shame within himself as he thought much the same, calculations running through his mind as he thought of the likelihood of how many had truly survived such a blast. The numbers were much higher for those that likely didn’t.
(Hidden behind the swell of horror for what this act meant for Tim, there was a rush of pride)
“Is that all?” Bruce asked as he watched as the visage of his son in the mist turned to look at the flames, staring at them with a hungry and self satisfied sort of gaze.
“No,” Tim admits, his voice hardly more than a whisper as he waited for the sword of judgement to drop on his head.
The only ones that didn’t seem overly surprised at the answer, knowing that he would never leave such a task unfinished, were those sitting on the couch around him.
Kon took in the sight of the assassin base crumbling with the detachment of someone that had known for a long time now. He didn’t like that Tim had ever had to do such a thing to survive back then. Didn’t like the way in which it all haunts him even now, even if he doesn't realize it. They way in which he watches the shadows warily as if there were assassins hiding within them. The way in which a kitchen timer going off always made him tense and about ready to run.
(All the morning alarms have been set to music on both of their phones, Cassie’s and Bart’s as well, all without a word after days of hearing the other teen waking up to screams in the tower on nights when the four of them were together and Tim let down his guard)
He didn’t like the decisions that Tim had to make back then (back when he was either dead, or Tim thought that he was a hallucination) but he’d rather Tim come home to him scarred, broken, and more than a bit changed than not at all. There was a reason that there were so many futures where if one of them went dark, the other was sure to follow.
(They could never really live without the other, each both a drug and an addict)
Despite not having known the full extent of the things that Tim had done in advance as Kon had, Cassie and Bart found themselves less surprised than they ought to be, and less appalled than they really should have been. But it was Tim and they had only ever seen him so cold in a future never to come true (but one that haunts them all still). It was Tim, and he would always be a part of them even as the hands holding their own had blood dripping from them.
They refused to carve out pieces of themselves, to carve out Tim, just because he was now stained with red.
They wondered if the bats could say the same.
“Kill them all
“Oh, whoa-oh-oh, oh, whoa-oh-oh, oh, whoa-oh-oh”
In the mist they watch as another base in a different part of the world suddenly comes tumbling down in a blaze of fire and smoke, the ceiling of the compound crashing down to the ground as the walls that had been supporting it fell to the wayside.
“That was the base in Vienna,” Damian noted slowly, recognizing it on sight. “But you were at the Cradle…”
Tim taps his thigh with his free hand, wondering how to explain such a thing. “The five major bases were connected through the computer systems network,” the teen settled on as he looked at the image of the tall buildings being engulfed in flames. It was a pretty sight he had to admit. “I used a program to explode them all at the same time with just enough warning for those closest to the exits to get out unscathed.”
It was cruel, he knew that it was. It was cruel, and violent, and costly, and carless with lives.
It was winning.
“You said five,” Dick realized, looking at his little brother as he began to grasp the full scope of what the third Robin had done while stranded on his own. “Five bases all around the world.”
“All thoroughly destroyed,” Tim adds, unrepentant and unashamed. He may have never wanted them to know about any of this, but he would not show weakness for the choices that he made for himself and others.
No one says anything for a while.
“Kill them all
“Oh, whoa-oh-oh, oh, whoa-oh-oh, oh, whoa-oh-oh”
In the mist they see another base in another part of the world, and watch as people are running through the halls quickly, frantically even, falling over themselves and one another as they do, a timer above their heads running close to the end with no exit in sight. They were trapped, destined to never make it out before the flames licked at their skin too.
Steph grabbed Cass’s hand and held it within her own, tight and reassuring as they watched another bat cross the line that they all danced around.
“Kill 'em all
“Oh, whoa-oh-oh, oh, whoa-oh-oh, oh, whoa-oh-oh”
The scene in the mist changes once more. A different base. A different country. Russia this time. They watched as the explosion tore the air, people still fleeing the building that it had taken place within as the number high above all of their heads finally reached zero and flames consumed them all. They watched as people fell to the ground, thrown by the explosion that the third Robin had set off.
Too many hit the ground and never seemed to move again as their bodies laid there in positions that no living person should be able to make. As limbs were lost to the blast, blood staining the snow.
As the ones left alive tried to crawl away from the building heat with limbs that refused to work with them as they should.
They were sure that there would be no shortage of screams if there had not been music over it all.
Jason watched the aftermath of the explosion with a held breath that threatened to tear him apart. He wondered at what the irony must be that one Robin would die from betrayal and metal bludgeoned into his skin, an explosion ending it all. Only for the next one to choose a metal weapon meant for beating as the signature choice. To betray those that he worked for, and then bring the world around them down in flames.
The same story, only told from the opposite side.
Dick held out his arm, biting back a wince as Jason took it and dug gloved fingers into the flesh.
“Timothy”
It’s the voice of Ra’s al Ghul that speaks the teen’s name on a comm that had fallen to the ground but still loud enough to hear, haunting the air around him like the threat that both the Tim of then and the Tim of now knew for a fact that it was.
The threat was clear.
When the music ends its something of a blessing.
Something of a curse.
“How many?” Was all that Bruce asked as he stared into the mist at the fading image of his son, seeing the terror in his body language from the single word that the ancient man had spoken.
He couldn't focus on that right then.
Tim turned and looked at his father, stubborn and defiant. A gaze made of steel. Beneath it all he felt like a fool for hoping that the man would be concerned for him at the end.
“I don't know,” the teen admits, his voice even and honest. Somehow that almost seemed worse than whatever lie he could have told.
“Tim,” Bruce tries once more, his voice a bit more firm in comparison to the haunted sort of thing that had spoken before.
“I don't know,” the teen insisted once more, his own voice growing harder.
When Bruce moves to speak once more he isn't given the chance to do so.
“I don't know!” the third Robin yells, his voice loud and angered. “I don't know. I never cared to look, and never did anything to find out. I just knew that the warning I gave damn sure wasn't enough of one, and I'm fine with that.”
The ‘I would do it again’ goes unspoken but not unheard.
Bruce is silent for a long moment, clearly thinking his words through.
(It's almost a moment too long.)
He knew that he had said - all but promised, he reminds himself - that he would be okay with this because it got both Tim and Tam home.
Because it brought his son home.
But there was a righteous part of himself that wanted to lecture about life, about the excess in which Tim had acted. About how he could have made it home with only the Cradle suffering the brunt of his escape. About how there had been no need to hit the other bases as well. But…
But Damian was sitting on the ground before Tim, each of them soaking up the warmth and comfort offered by the other as if they both thought that it would be stolen from them the moment that they were no longer useful to those around them.
But Jason and Tim were looking at one another and finding far too much understanding and similarities in one another, titles stained red.
But the metas looked defiant and ready to hurt if that was the route that Bruce chose to take. They had spent too long piecing each other back together to not know all the ways to tear others apart.
But Steph and Cass were looking at the boy with something that wasn't quite pitty, but wasn't quite understanding either, a mix of both that stemmed from knowing what it meant to be put in positions that hurt (not just others but themselves), positions that tore you apart.
But Duke still looked at the boy that was his Robin as if nothing had changed at all. As if it didn’t matter what the other had done, because he had done what had been needed, and Duke understood that.
But Dick was still looking at Tim as if the man before him was the same kid that had come to him, asking for help, and had to do it all on his own when he was told no.
…But Bruce found himself looking into the mirror of what he could have become had Tim not gotten to him in time.
“Alright,” the bat himself decides, the word tasting a bit bitter on his tongue, a bit like defeat.
The relief that washed through the room though was something much sweeter.
Bruce thought that it might just be worth it.
“Alright?” Tim asked, confusion all but soaking his tone. He had already been thinking of contingency plans for a while now in case the bats were to ever learn of this time through means where he didn't get a chance to explain (to manipulate, lie and twist into something favorable) he never thought that such plans would be obsolete. “Just like that?”
“Is it so wrong just for me to want my child to come home?”
Everyone knew that he was talking to more than just Tim right then.
They didn’t think that it was wrong at all.
“The next song will start in a few moments.”
Chapter 13: Ruthlessness
Summary:
Tim's fight with Ra's at Wayne Tower
Notes:
Ruthlessness by Jorge Rivera-Herrans from EPIC The Musical: The Ocean Saga
—-
Sorry for the late update, I have really bad back pain that flares up every now and then and it got me all week this week so I’ve basically been just sleeping through it as much as I could
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Sometimes, before the start of another one of the songs, Tim found that there would be something to say, an explanation to give or a question to be asked of him as the context was not enough to peer completely into his mind. There was a part of him that almost wanted that a bit of stalling right now as the mist churned out before them all, gearing up to hand over another piece of himself to those around him. He could already guess what was going to be shown (what else could it be after all?) and he was fine with that. Compared with the things that he had done to leave the Cradle, coming back to Gotham had been somewhat tame. It was the end of the confrontation to come that he was dreading.
Siblings and friends scrambling around him as the image of a gun being held to his head by his own hand played in the mist. It wasn’t a sight that he wanted to recreate once more, especially not when he thought that it might be worse the second time around. Yeah, he had fully intended to shoot himself that day, safety off and finger on the trigger, but he knew that a gun that was never fired would be a lot different than falling from the sky.
It would hurt a lot more to see, knowing that he had gone somewhat willingly.
(And even then, selfishly, he would much rather go through nearly every single suicidal thing that he had done, damned the pain that it caused everyone else to see, than the events likely to be shown after the song that was about to start)
In the mist they could see it swirling into the shape of Tim, still dressed in the original rendition of the Red Robin suit. He was standing on a rooftop in Gotham with Pru at his side, as Dick - dressed in the Batman suit - and Damian stood before the pair.
They could hear a chorus of voices forming words that they couldn't quite understand, as they watched as Tim nodded to the assassin as the group split off into three different directions. Pru went right, the latest rendition of the Dynamic Duo going left, as Red Robin went straight, heading towards the silhouette of Wayne Industries in the distance as the music rose.
“You really do trust her,” Jason realizes, watching the assassin girl run off to fo some mission for the third Robin that everyone else in the room seemed to have been a part of except for himself, Duke, and Bruce (each of those for obvious reasons).
He had thought that it would be a temporary sort of thing, something that didn't last outside of the Cradle. And yet, one of the least trusting of all of the bats and birds had brought her to Gotham and trusted the lives of those that they cared for most with her. With someone just as likely to take them.
(He ignored the small spark of hope the came to life in his chest at the idea that maybe when they leave this place such faith could truly be given to him too)
“She switched to my side when we got back to the Cradle that day,” Tim explains, looking at the small form of his own figure in the mist, running so desperately towards what he was sure at the time would mean death. (Sometimes Tim wondered if he had wanted it to mean such a thing back then. If he had gone just a bit too willingly). “And she has stayed on my side since,” he continues, shaking the thoughts from his mind, “helping me to hunt down the members of the Council of Spiders.”
“I thought that they would have died in the explosion,” Damian says, knowing just how much rubble they must have been buried beneath, knowing that the chances of their survival had been much more than slim.
Tim runs a hand through his hair, something a bit self deprecating in the movement of it all. “Most of them were metahumans,” the teen explains, noticing and ignoring the tenseness that the discovery brought upon the room, “it’s part of what made them so dangerous and effective even against the likes of the League of Assassins. It's a bit hard to fight, you know, when one touch could kill you.”
There was something far away in the teen’s voice as he spoke of them, as if he was remembering something that none of them knew (a girl running into the juggle because the animals there would be much kinder than the beast called man that were chasing her, wanting to tear her apart in a different manner altogether. Spiders crawling all over her skin to the point that she became something more than human)
Kon touched the other boy’s shoulder after a long moment, and watched as it brought the Robin back to them with something a bit startled and haunted in his gaze. He hated how recognized it so well since Tim came back.
“We’ve been hunting them since we were sure that they didn’t die that day,” the third Robin finishes, and though he doesn’t say it aloud, they all know that he was acting out of revenge.
They both were.
(It was part of what made them all sure that the assassin wouldn’t betray him. Not yet at the least)
“In all my years of living
“It isn't very often that I get pissed off”
The scene changes then as the Tim in the mist sings, fast forwarding to when the teen had reached the office. They watched as he stalked deeper within it, though if there was another figure within it (and they were sure that there was) then they could not be seen just yet.
“I try to chill with the waves
“But damn, you crossed the line”
They watch as within the mist, the Tim of only a few months ago walks further into the room, revealing the figure of a man that they had all known that the third Robin would have to see once more, but had still hoped that he wouldn't:
Ra's al Ghul.
The ancient man was standing within what should have been Bruce’s still had he not been lost to time. No one is overly surprised to see the man there, but it was still a sight that left them all unsteady.
Tense and wrong footed to say the least.
“I've been so gracious
“And yet, you hurt this city of mine
“That's right, the city you try to attack, is mine”
They watch as in the mist Tim stares defiantly at the leader of the League of Assassins, looking at the ancient man as if he was no threat to Tim himself. As if he wasn’t the very same man that could fight Batman to a standstill. The Tim within the mist was looking at him as if none of this information meant a damned thing.
It would be almost inspiring if it wasn't more than a bit terrifying to see.
“Your city?” Steph asks, because what else is there to say to all that other than to call the younger teen an idiot, something that they all already knew that he was.
Tim shrugs, pretending for a moment that the forced humor in the other's voice was real. “He was targeting Gotham in retaliation for what I had done to his bases,” the third Robin reminds them. “I wanted him to know that I understood this and wasn’t just going to stand to the side as he did so.”
He never really had been the type that was able to do such a thing anyways.
“No”
Ra's al Ghul sings, though it sounds more than a bit mocking as he does so, as if he believed that Tim had lost long before he had ever stepped into the office. Had this been nearly anyone else opposing him, that sentiment might have stood true, but all of the bats and birds and metas in the room knew better.
Tim was Robin, holding every sneaky trick that the mantle had to give and then adding more of his own to it. Out of them all, Tim was the most like Bruce, like Batman, a true detective to the end. Tim was Red Robin, willing to go to lengths that he wouldn't have before.
Tim was a Drake, knowing that winning didn't always mean the physical fight, but everything else.
He was a cunning bastard through and through.
“I'm left without a choice and without a doubt
“Guess the flock of birds are swimming with the shark now”
As the Tim in the mist sung, the pair took to circling one another as if they were truly sharks, each out to tear the other apart the moment that they smelled blood in the water.
Tim had cut and sliced and put the other's blood there himself just hours before this was supposed to take place.
Somehow that didn’t put any of them at ease as it should have, not even with the teen himself sitting before them all with a bored sort of look on his face as he watched his last actions. The look would have been more believable if it weren't for the world's smallest smirk that sat at the corner of the teen’s lips, small and vengeful all the same.
“I've gotta make you bleed, I need to see you drown
“But before you go, I need to make you learn how
“Ruthlessness is mercy upon ourselves”
They listened at the former Robin sung, something heavy settling into the room at the last line.
“Is that truly something that you should be pushing the evil assassin overlord guy?” Duke asked, even as he didn’t take his gaze away from the scene within the mist.
He already knew what occurred when those with ill intentions were given too much power and far too much will to use it. He had been in Gotham when the Riddler had shut the city down after all, he had been one of the survivors even as many others had not been so lucky. And that was just the Riddler, a human man of average age, not an ancient man made of supernatural waters that flow through his veins like blood at this point.
Tim pauses for a moment as if considering the point, even as he already knew his answer. “I stand by my choice of wording,” the older teen decided, entirely unapologetic in everything that he'd done.
Dick groans into his hands, and Tim bites back the urge to call him dramatic.
“(Ruthlessness is mercy upon ourselves)
“Ruthlessness is mercy upon ourselves
“Ourselves”
Ra's gets close then, gliding acorss the room as if it were something that he owned already, too close, as Tim continues to sing. Though the Tim in the mist doesn’t back away even as he seems to want to do so, his shoulders set tightly, and body held with a careful stillness to it.
Despite the anger and righteousness in the younger’s voice, Jason almost felt as if he were watching a man tied up by invisible ropes, their hold getting tighter and tighter still with each moment that passed. He knew that Tim had the imaginary scissors needed to cut himself free, yet he wasn't, not quite yet.
Somehow that almost seemed worse than him being tied up at all.
“You are the worst kind of good 'cause you're not even great”
Ras reaches out as if to touch the Tim within the mist, only for the offending appendage to be slapped away as the teen sung when the man had ventured a bit too close.
The words that the teen sung were even more vicious than the slap itself, every silable intended to cut and rub salt into the wound as it was washed out with the strongest alcohol on hand, as Timothy Jackson Drake - Wayne looked up at one of the most dangerous men in the world with nothing but disdain and contempt.
And Ra's should look pissed to hell and back from the clear bout of disrespect being given to him right then (he does to some extent though they can guess that that’s more from Tim killing so many of his men and not this part) but he almost seems to be enjoying this far more than he should. A bit like a child that finally found an interesting game that had put up more of a challenge than they had originally thought that they would.
It wasnt a look that Damian liked to see. The people that caught the interst of the al Ghuls hardly ever came out better for it.
“A Demon who reeks of false righteousness, that's what I hate”
They watch as the Tim in the mist takes a step back from the assassin before him, flicking his wrist as the collapsible bo staff grows to its full length. The teen twists a piece of the metal then, some purposeful movement that wouldn't accidentally be made in battle, and a blade springs out at the end of the staff once more.
“Going all out from the start, Rob?” Cassie asked, not really used to seeing such a potentially reckless move from their careful tactician.
“Even if you're not fighting to win, there are some people that you can't afford to hold back against,” is all that the third Robin says in response, though they all find themselves hearing so much more.
Dick feels something cold grip at his heart then. He wished that it wouldn't.
(He didn't want the realizations that his mind was bringing to him)
“'Cause you fight to take lives, but won't leave and don't get the job done”
The scene changes before them in the mist as Tim continues to sing, changing to that of a flash of Ra’s in the Cradle, the Demon’s Head sitting all alone on his throne as his assassins traveled the world on his behalf, following out his orders even as he rarely left the Cradle himself. The fact that he was standing before Tim in Gotham in the mist at all was something rare.
“Grandfather only seems to truly leave the confines of the Cradle when a member of our family is involved,” Damian seemed to think aloud, and if anyone said anything to it then Tim wasn't hearing them right then. All he could seem to hear was that the boy before him had just implied that they were family, willingly at that.
It made something warm blossom in his chest, momentarily halting the dread that had been gripping at him for some time now, as he marveled at such a thing.
Only for a moment though.
“I mean, you totally could have avoided all this had you just killed me”
The Tim in the mist sings unrepentant and more than a little mockingly as he spreads his arms out wide on either side of himself as the shadows behind him shifts like the sea at night as it takes the shape of a graveyard filled with unmarked stones. It was the sort of image that one would only hope to see in an alternate world where everything had gone wrong. Where there was no choice but to break after you have been bent much too far. Bruce supposed that in a manner that had occurred, even if it was within their own world.
“What, you been modded and taking lessons from Darkseid without us?” Bart asked, leaning forwards to look at the older boy with a raised brow.
“Bart,” Cassie says, trying to appear stern, though there is a laugh hidden within the sound even as she speaks it.
She thought that they might have gotten to the point where they had to find humor in the morbid or else all they would see now was the horror. Tim seems to agree as she can see him biting back something that might have one day been akin to a laugh.
“C’mon, Girl Wonder,” Kon starts, grinning down at the girl with a bit more humor than he truly felt, than any of them did. “It’s a decent question for the Wonder Boy.”
“In what world is this a decent question?”
Four heads popped up in unison to look at the voice that spoke from the other side of the room, to where Dick had spoken from, more than a bit of horror in the eyes of everyone else in the room at the thought of the third Robin having been around a Justice League level threat and none of them having known it.
“Tim,” Bruce said, the name alone being the only word that he was able to force from his mouth right then.
It held many things within it still. A plea for information. The sting of not having known till now that there was even information to be learned.
(A desperate sort of need for reassurance as fear seeped into the sound)
Tim looked at his father, and thought that he might be seeing the man’s age for the first time.
“So Santa Claus is dead,” the former Robin says bluntly, as if ripping off a bandage of sorts. He figured that this was the best way to do this, from the looks and groans that he got in response he supposed that it was the wrong approach.
Tim watched with apprehension as nearly every eye in the room turned to meet his, the only exceptions being that of his teammates that had been there at the time and were looking at anything but the bats themselves as their Robin spoke. Everyone in the room was looking at Tim as if he had finally lost it after all of these years, each of them holding varying levels of disbelief and shock in their gazes, more than one mouth hanging open in disbelief.
“Dude,” Kon all but hissed at Tim as Bart zoomed behind the couch to smack their Robin in the shoulder even as the speedster himself was biting back a hysterical sort of laugh. It wasn’t often that one got to see so many bats stumped at once (or at all)
“What?” The former Robin asked, looking between his three best friends, each of them offering up no alternative. “How else do you want to explain this?”
“Santa is real?” Duke asked, looking between the four as if trying to find some sort of sign of a lie being told, of this being some joke.
“Not anymore it seems,” Jason says, his voice more than a bit gruff as he looks between the four teens sitting on the couch before him. “The twerps killed him.”
“We did not kill him,” Cassie hastily corrects before the idea could seep too deep within the minds of the bats in the room with them. Young Justice already had enough marks against them from the beginning to the end of their tenure for the murder of a mythical figure to be placed in their heads as well.
“Just watched him die,” Bart added in a much too bright voice as he vaguely vibrated where he stood.
“And then did his job for him,” Kon says quickly, as if throwing that tidbit of information into the pot would help right then.
“Including sneaking into Apokolips and delivering coal to Darkseid,” Cassie finishes, all of the information more or less laid out before the bats for them to judge.
(Judge seemed to be a weak word for it at the moment though, she supposed, as most of the bats (the big bat himself and Cass excluded, because who could ever read those two) looked to be about another good piece of information away from having an aneurysm right then. She didn’t blame them for it, they got into the weirdest shit back then and by the time that they got to this they had all already been thoroughly desentized to it all, amd have since remained so)
“That was the easy part,” Tim grumbles beneath his breath, though when surrounded by metas he wasn’t even surprised when three pairs of his turned to look at him then and added, “Remember how long it took to deliver all of those presents?”
“Don’t remind me,” Bart whines, the two months or so having felt so much longer to the speedster than any of the rest of them that lived on normal time regulations.
“Can we go back to you having no survival instincts and antagonizing the ancient assassin?” Steph asked Tim as she sat in her chair, Cass subbing at her back as the blonde girl held her head within her hands. “I think that would hurt my brain less at the moment.”
“Yes, let’s,” Bruce agreed much too quickly, not wanting to think about any of the children on the couch, much less his own child, having done anything that they had just said or alluded to. There was only so much that the man could handle at the moment, and they had long reached that amount many songs ago.
No one else said anything, and the music continued.
“But no
“You are far too nice, mercy has a price
“It's the final crack, we're bound to break the ice now”
The Tim in the mist sings, the mood in the room plummeting as they were reminded once more of just what they were supposed to be watching within the mist. Suddenly talking about the apparent death of a Christmas figure that breaks into peoples’ homes at night didn’t seem so bad as they watched at Tim stood much too closely to Ra’s al Ghul and sung defiantly at the man as if begging for death.
Dick can’t help but question where his little brother’s mind must have been at the time if he seemed to think that Ra’s al Ghul was the one being too nice, the one showing too much mercy in comparison to himself.
(He hated that he almost found himself wondering if Tim was right)
Bruce looked at his third son, at the first of his children to choose him rather than the other way around. The first to come into his life as a partner rather than a son. The boy that fought so hard to not become his son at all because he didn’t want his role as Robin to change due to such a shift. He would never say it aloud but he found that he was happy that Tim had chosen to fixate on the Flying Graysons and then Batman and Robin back when he was young. He didn’t want to know what might have happened had Tim chosen to find interest in one of the rogues back then. One Punchline was far more than enough after all, and he knew from everything that the mist had shown them that Tim would have been much worse.
“You reveal your name, then you let me live”
The mist changes to show a flash of a comm on the ground in the hotel in Paris, the one that Ra’s had first spoken to Tim through towards the start of Tim’s time as Red Robin, before he had ever even chosen the name.
It changes half way through to a flash of the Tim in the mist being operated on in the Cradle, his body washed in a sinking green glow from the Pit that they had operated on him next to in case he slipped much too far close to death. They all knew then, even without having to be told, that al Ghul likely would have done almost anything that day to keep Tim alive so that he could deal with the Council of Spiders, something that he was sure to have been regretting by the time that he knew the consequences of such an action.
“Unlike you, I've got no mercy left to give 'cause
“Ruthlessness is mercy upon ourselves
“(Ruthlessness is mercy upon ourselves)
“Ruthlessness is mercy upon ourselves
“Ourselves”
The mist changes to show flashes of the five bases that Tim had destroyed (“How can I help you, Ra’s? Computer Trouble?”) each of them crumbled to the ground with trails of blood strewn at the edges - as if people had found themselves having to crawl away, the ones lucky enough to survive to do so that was - and limbs poking out from beneath some of the rocks. Those that never made it out alive that day.
It was truly a ruthless sort of act. A merciless one that only saved Tim and those loyal to the teen himself.
“And now it is finally time to say goodbye, today you done
“Unless, of course, you apologize
“For my city’s pain and all their cries”
They watched as in the mist the third Robin let the ancient assassin move closer to him as the teen sung, his voice low and promising in a manner that none of them liked as faint images of unclear figures appeared at the younger’s back, the city lights glowing a little brighter to his right. They couldn’t quite tell who the people were supposed to be, but there were cowls and capes in the shadows of it all and that was enough for them to make an assumption or two as to who was being targeted by the Demon’s Head for those that hadn’t been there at the time, or even those that had but had not known the entire list in the way that Tim had.
“You didn’t really expect him to apologize, did you?” Bruce asked, looking at his third son with a questioning sort of gaze. He didn’t think that Tim would think such a thing, but then again, Ra’s al Ghul didn’t exactly act the same around the teen as he did around nearly anyone else.
“Of course not,” Tim replied almost dismissively, but there was something to that tone that he didn’t know.
“Timothy, I meant no harm to you”
Ra’s moves closer to the Tim in the mist once more, setting nearly everyone in the room on edge as he does so. There wasn’t anyone in the room that wanted that man any closer to Tim than he already was.
“I only hurt them to distract you”
They watch as in the mist the eldest of the al Ghuls raises his hand and cups Tim’s face with his hand, something that the teen in the mist allows at the moment, though it doesn’t take Cass to read the clear disgust in the teen’s stance. To see the manner in which the former Robin had to fight down the urge to lean away. It reminded Damian a bit of a street cat that had been domesticated, one that allowed touch, but only for so long as the black in its eyes grew larger and larger still, waiting to attack.
Kon grabbed Tim’s hand and held it tightly within his own, and for the first time during this entire spectacle it was not something done nearly entirely for the other boy’s benefit but for his own. He needed a solid sort of reminder that Tim was safe at his side, and not with the maniac that had trapped them all within Tim’s mind.
That the ancient assassin would never be able to touch Tim again so long as Kon was close.
(Kon was no fool, he was a Luthor after all at the end of the day. He knew that Ra’s al Ghul had tried to break, to shatter, the other boy in more ways than just what they had seen so far. He knew that if he were the head of the demon and wanted a reluctant Tim at his side, that he would have to break him to do so. He knew that somehow everything that was happening right now, showing Tim's memories through the mist, was a part of that. That even if it seemed as if it was going well for the former Robin at the moment, that there was something else at play, even if Kon couldn't place his finger on it. (He knew that Tim already knew))
More than one bat found themselves biting their tongues as they watched as the al Ghul touched the third Robin, a familiar sort of twisting coming to their guts from the last time that the man had been in the same room as Tim. Back then it had only been a ghostly slrt of image, and the teen had assured them that nothing had occurred.
(None of them were quite sure that they believed it. Not then, and especially not now)
“I took no pleasure in their fear
“I only wanted to succeed”
They watch as the Tim in the mist closes his eyes for a moment as Ra's lifts his chin up with his hand, the touch as gentle and soothing seeming as the Devil himself.
More than a small part of Bruce wants to step within the image in the mist and cut off the hand there one finger at a time. A quick glance around the room tells him that he is far from the only one sharing such a sentiment as Cass and Steph were holding one another with white knuckle grips, Duke, Damian, and Dick all looked more than a bit vaguely ill, and Jason and the Titans looked as if they were all wondering at how hard more permanent solutions would be to come by for someone with access to the Pit.
They all remembered the manner in which Ra's had touched the boy similarly before in a previous song, and the sickly feeling gripping at them all increased.
The only person to not look all that disturbed by the sight was Tim himself. Somehow Bruce found this to be worse.
(Tim knew that he didn't have a need to be worried back then, not from the Demon's Head himself at the least. He knew that the older man had a sick sort of want for him, but it was not one that he would pursue in such a manner as everyone else seemed to think.
It was one that he would send someone else to conduct, but they didn't need to know that, not for as long as he could hide it)
“The line between naïveté and hopefulness is almost invisible”
They watched as the Tim in the mist reached a hand up to Ra’s own face as a ghostly image of a younger version of the teen (one still wearing the bright colors of Robin) appeared to the boy's left as the teen sung of naïveté, and the version of himself that he hoped never to be appeared at his right as he sung of hopefulness.
It was hard for any of them to distinguish which side of the line the Tim within the mist fell on. He wasn’t so innocent as when he started, a small boy saying that Batman needed a Robin and not stopping till someone took the role (himself it ended up being). But he wasn't quite as lost as he might one day become either.
Tim thought that he might know which side it was. Back then. Now. He wasn't sure that he liked it.
Jason felt more than a little ill as he watched as his little brother reached up and touched the head of the demon so willingly. It reminded him of days that he didn’t want to think about, times before when Bruce found him. He certainly didn’t want to think about such things in association with the boy that wasn't even yet eighteen (he hadn't been either at the time, so much younger)
“So close your heart, the world is dark and”
They watch as the Tim in the mist's hand shifts like a cobra shrike to Ra’s neck, circling around it in a death grip before pushing the man away.
No one would be ashamed to admit the relief that the simple action brought upon them if asked, if called on it.
“Ruthlessness is mercy”
In the mist, Tim holds out his Bo staff with the blade still out between them, pointing it at the older man in what was clearly a challenge as the teen sings. He looked determined and assured then, like someone that already knew that they had won before the fight had even begun.
It wasn’t the sort of look that anyone thought that he should be wearing right then, but they all knew him well enough to know that he wouldn't be doing so unless he truly thought that he was going to win.
(The war, not the battle at hand though. Somehow that made it all the worse.)
“Die”
They all hear Ra’s all but growl, his voice low and and rumbling like sort of vengeful god before he all but throws himself at Tim, lunging with his blade out before him like the living warrior of old that he was.
“Ruthlessness is mercy upon our- (Master, Red)”
In the mist they watch as Ra's swings his sword in an elegant arc, one honed by hundreds of years of practice. It was something that would be beautiful if it was done by nearly anyone else in a any other situation, but as it stood Tim was raising his staff to block the strike. Though when the weapons meet, the mist flashes to another screen altogether.
There were assassins laying at the feet of Barbara, each of them shrouded in the green light of her monitors, making her look more than a bit sinister as Cassie stands behind her looking every bit the warrior that they both were.
Cassie perks up at seeing herself in the mist, remembering that night. She would never not be amazed by the capabilities of those within the batclan, none of those assassins had good a chance with or without the demigod's interference.
Another flash and now its Lucius Fox in his office with papers in his hands, as Huntress stands close to him, two assassins bleeding at her feet as she kicks them as if to make a point, something a bit cruel on her lips.
No one liked it when a member of their family was targeted, especially not a bat.
“Ruthlessness is mercy upon our- (Master, Red)”
Quick as light, the Tim in the mist throws his Red Robin disks at the older man, quick and efficient and deadly in the aim. Ra’s knocks them away with his sword in the same moment, metal hitting against metal as the scene changes.
They see Bart zooming around Selina, the woman dressed in civilian clothing, as she looks on with the fondness of someone that has spent far too much time around far too many of the Robins to be annoyed or even fazed by the eccentricity of others within the cape community.
“Oh she was so crash,” Bart said excitedly, choosing to focus on that memory rather than the other side of it that was being shown to them all through the mist. Tim seemed to be holding his own right then, but Bart wasn't an idiot, he knew that it had gotten worse for the former Robin while Bart himself had been just fine.
“Ruthlessness is mercy upon our- (Master, Red)”
In the mist the pair spin away from one another, each moving for space. Tim ends up with his back to the window, a position that should have made the teen in the mist nervous, but he hardly changed at all.
Dick goes more than unnaturally still at the sight, enough so that Jason and Duke both notice and looked at the older man with concern. The acrobat wished that it was something that he could brush off to reassure them both, but he couldn't.
Not right now.
(Not with what was coming)
The scene changes once more and now its
the Dick and Damian of back then fighting back to back in the mist, assassins falling around them as Batman and Robin moved with one another.
(No one mentions that the current Batman didn’t have such an easiness with the Robin in the mist)
It changes again and its Martian Manhunter standing next to Jim Gordon, the commissioner looking sternly down at the people that had tried to kill him as if they were misbehaving children and not trained killers out for the man's blood.
“Ruthlessness is -“
The Tim in the mist sings the line, but he doesn't move until a still sort of silence takes over the air, choosing then to raise his arm up into the air, a walkie talkie held within his hand as he does so, held high for the ancient man to bear each word clearly for what it had to say.
They couldn't hear it for themselves, though they could guess based on the previous scenes shown what it was. Either way, they still watched as the Demon’s Head went pale as whatever was spoken settled in, an almost sinister sort of smile spreading across the lips of the Tim in the mist as he saw the reaction that he had gotten.
“What have you done?”
Ra’s asks the Tim in the mist as he raises his sword higher at the teen.
“He actually did ask that at the time,” the Tim of now says casually, looking at the familiar scene. Most of the time the lyrics sung did a good job at alluding to what had occurred back then, but this was the first time that it had been a direct quote as well. “Just add in some more anger there and it'd be an exact match.”
No one else seemed to find it as amusing or interesting as Tim did right then, everyone else far too concerned about the window to Tim’s back and the anger in Ra’s eyes.
They didn’t like where this was going.
“When does a ripple become a tidal wave?”
The scene changes to Kon standing next to Alfred in the kitchen of the Manor, the clone boy looking completely at home as he steals a cookie from the cooling pan that they had been baked on with the ease of one of the Wayne wards (Tim turned and raised a brow to the other teen at the sight, but Kon only shrugged with a cocky sort of smile on his lips) as an assassin was tied up with rope in the corner of the room.
More than one person wondered who had actually taken the assassin down, each of the two more than capable to do so, but they couldn't exactly tell if there were any bullet holes or not from here.
“43 left under your command”
The Tim in the mist says, smirking even as his back is to the window with no weapon to protect him in sight.
“Can you not go one day without taunting the people hell bent on trying to hurt you?” Jason asked, really and truly exasperated as he looked between the visage of his little brother of not so long ago and of now. Jason had been one of those fools that had been on the receiving end of the other's attitude, he knew that it didn’t exactly do wonders for the person's patience.
“Not really,” the former Robin answered honestly, knowing that his mind and mouth often ran far too much when they aboutley should not be doing so, “no.”
“Of course not,” the second Robin says with a sigh. “That would be too easy. Might even keep you alive. Who would want that?”
“When does man become a monster?”
There is a chorus of voices right then, people that they couldn't see until the room filled with ghostly figures at the ancient man's back, all of their blood on Tim's hands.
“I am your darkest moment”
Ra’s sings as he draws closer once more, Tim doesn’t deny it, not then in the mist and not now in the room where he could easily attempt to explain it all away.
(He knew that the things that he and done were much darker, much colder than even attempting to kill out of revenge)
“The monster that always draws near
“Any last words?”
Ra’s asks as if he knows that Tim isn’t getting out of this one. As if he thought that there was no way that he possibly could.
Honestly, they all might have agreed with such an assumption had the teen not been sitting in the room with them right then for all to see.
“All I gotta do is fall”
The lyrics are spoken in an almost cocky sort of voice, mocking from the Tim in the mist. And it might have been an amusing or an absurd sort of thing to see, it might have been a lot of things, but it was none of them given what followed.
No one breathed as they watched as Ra’s foot met the stomach of the Tim in the mist, the already broken glass at the teen’s back absolutely shattering as the former Robin is kicked back into it. Falling through it without any resistance or restraint, almost as if he had known all along that it would come to this.
They watch for a moment as he falls, his cowl torn from the fight and revealing half of his face to the world around him. They watch as his eyes close as the wind rips at his skin, his cape fluttering around him like torn wings. There should be horror there in that moment, helplessness, a child praying to gods that they never did believe in, because seventeen was much too young to die, and yet as he closed his eyes, everyone in the room could see that for the first time in much too long, he truly looked at peace.
He looks like a man already dead.
A spirit that is finally moving on.
(He didn’t at all look like someone that had wanted to be saved)
Dick knows right then with a sickening sort of certainty that the third Robin had never expected to make it out of that fight alive.
“You lied to me,” the first Robin says, his voice nearly silent as he does so, but it comes out as a near broken sort of scream in the achingly silent room as the man stands and Tim draws in on himself.
“Dick-” Tim starts, his voice strained as he does so, as if weighed down by it all.
“You lied!” The older man screams, throwing his arm out to the side, every movement of his being drowned in grief. “You said you knew that I would be there to catch you, but you didn’t!”
“How could I?” Tim all but yells as he stands as well, voice filled with the pain that it hadn’t possessed the last time that they had all been in this position because of his past choices. “You’re a detective, Dick,” he reminds the older man, something a bit spiteful and hurtful and honest, filing his tone right then, “how could I ever have known? You lied to yourself and I just went along with it!”
Dick goes completely still for a long moment as the words sink in, as unmoving as any statue, before the man suddenly snaps into action, storming up to the teen with movements almost like that of a predator.
Kon sees the way that the older man is moving, sees the threat of it all, and snaps himself out of his own grief with the intention of intervening before Dick ever had the chance to cross the room. He doesn’t though, not when he sees Cass shaking her head at him out of the corner of his eyes, everything about the other hero’s gaze being sad but sure. There was a large part of the teen that wanted to go anyways, how could he not when the first Robin’s eyes looked so filled with thunder as they did now, but he stayed where he was knowing that Cass would not ask this of him if it wasn’t the right choice to do so.
And it was the right choice to make.
Dick’s feet stop right before Tim’s but his body does not stop moving, arms reaching up and circling around the smaller vigilante, holding him tightly to himself, as if letting go meant that the other would die right before him. It was a desperate sort of touch, one almost bordering on hurt. Tim lets himself give into it.
The room is silent as the siblings hold one another, as if any sort of noise would break them both. And maybe it would have, as Tim felt something wet brush his face and realized hazily that Dick was crying as he held him.
It was another long moment still before the older man pulls back, but doesn’t yet let go.
“Never do this to me again,” the older man says more than a bit desperately as he does so, as if speaking the words aloud could force them to be binding and true.
“Okay,” Tim answers oh so softly.
They both know that it’s a lie.
It’s one that they let be told anyways.
Dick pulls away completely then, every movement reluctant and filled with a hurt sort of nature as he does so, and goes back to his spot on the couch as Tim slowly moved to sit back down on his own. Even without looking up, the teen can feel the eyes of everyone else in the room on him once more, heavily sitting upon him as if he were some sort of ticking time bomb just waiting to go off before them all. He knows that they aren’t exactly wrong to think such a thing, and hates himself just a bit more for it.
“You didn’t call for me,” Kon says when Tim had fully pressed himself into the other teen’s side, allowing the super to pull him as close as he wished as Cassie leaned into his other side as well and Bart grabbed both of the former Robin’s hands into his own, and Damian trapped his legs against the couch as if restraining all of his movement now could undo his past choices.
“You never would have made it in time,” is all that he says aloud in answer, but Kon hears what goes unsaid.
I didn’t want you to have to watch me die.
Kon only holds him tighter still.
“Is this why you made those wings of yours?” Jason asked, his voice solemn and honest as he latched onto anything other than the fact that he just watched as his brother almost died once more.
“Yeah,” Tim answers, though there isn’t much to his voice as he does so. “You can only fall so many times.”
The words are meant to be something of a joke. They fall flat.
It’s only then that Tim dares to look at the other bats in the room, the desperation in the set of both Damian’s and Dick’s shoulders, the quiet grief in both Bruce’s and Jason’s eyes as they looked upon him all too familiar with birds making choices that end in death. The stubbornness of Duke and Steph, each seemingly refusing to believe that this was the sort of end that Tim would allow himself to meet.
The heartbreaking acceptance of Cass as she knew that her little brother was far too set in his ways to die in anything other than a battle such as this.
He hated that he was making them all feel such a way. That his friends were holding him now as if he would turn into smoke if they were to let go because death was something that they were all far too familiar with.
He hates that he wouldn’t change a thing.
(He had succeeded in his goal after all. He found what was needed to bring Bruce home and saved the ones that his father loved. It wasn’t a bad day, not for him)
“What?”
Ra’s all but screams in the mist as Dick while dressed as Batman swoops in like a shadow before his eyes, a being of the night itself, and manages to grab the teen before it was too late to do so. Before Dick, the son of the Flying Graysons, was forced to watch as another bird crashed to the ground.
Tim wondered for a moment which was crueler, Dick having to catch him after watching him fall, or the older man not having been there at all and only learning about it after. Logically he knew the answer - he had become Robin because those that should have been protecting the city had been broken themselves from being too late - but a morbid part of him wondered still.
There was a silent sort of relief of tension as thievery one watched as Dick flew away, holding the Tim in the mist tight to his side with the same sort of desperation that he had just held the third Robin with only a few moments before.
“Remember me, Detective”
Ra’s says as he watches as the Tim in the mist and Dick become smaller in the distance before him, the words spoken almost like some sort of promise. No one liked the sound of it, Tim and Cass liked it even less as they knew what was to come from such a vow.
“It’s done right?” Steph asked, not really knowing what else there could be to show, it seemed like an ending after all.
Tim only shook his head, the disembodied voice speaking before he could say a thing.
“The next song will start in a moment.”
Notes:
Would you guys want this fic made into a Podfic on YouTube? I'm currently working through a lot of my older fics and doing text 2 speech podfics with them, and I can do that with this too if anyone is interested
Chapter 14: Love in Paradise
Summary:
checking off the items in his "hit list" Tim finds himself following Promise, which leads him to Paris, a place he did not want to be. He wanted to be there even less for what followed.
Notes:
CW: canonical attempted rape and talks of past sexual assault, along with a non - canon suicide attempt (because they do absolutely thing will all of the times that he’s been sa’d and it needs to have some kind of effect)
—-
Love In Paradise by Jorge Miguel Rivera-Herrans from EPIC The Musical: The Wisdom Saga
—-
100k words!
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Cass watched her little brother as everyone else in the room shifted minutely, preparing themselves for whatever was to be shown to them next. Tim moved and shifted as well, though less to become comfortable and more in a self soothing sort of motion, his thumb rubbing up and down his wrist as if to assure himself that it was bare of anything that should not be there. He clearly seemed to have an idea as to what was to come next. Cass did too.
She wished that she was wrong.
The mist churns in the middle of them all, swirling and catching as music starts to build, the eyes in the room going towards it as they knew that they must do.
“Old friend
“It's been too long since I last saw you”
The voice that sings right then is not one that anyone had truly expected to hear, not during this at the least. It was one that they all recognized from countless nights having it spoken into their ears, even without the fiery glow of red hair that was shaded by the green light of the monitors that the owner of the voice held so dear.
Barbra Gordon.
Oracle.
Tim scrunched his nose up at the sight before him in confusion, not quite sure where this was going.
Everyone else felt much the same.
The woman was sitting at her keyboard, countless monitors pulled up before and around her as her fingers glided across the keys and her eyes tracked the movements of the figure on the footage in the screens.
It only took a moment for Tim to realize just what the older woman was looking at and the sight made his stomach drop.
He wasn’t the only one.
There was footage of Tim standing on a rooftop in Gotham playing on the screen within the mist, Batman standing a few paces away. It looked to be a scene that was a lot closer to their present time than what they had seen before.
Going from his stance alone, one might have thought that the man was talking with Jason after the other vigilante had broken the no kill rule once more, but it was Tim that he was looking at.
Tim and Bruce both knew exactly what this moment was.
There were people within the room that wanted to ask just what they were seeing right then in the monitors, but one glance at either of the pair told them just how good of an idea this seemed to be.
“Remember me!
“I am the infamous Red Robin!
“Oh, woah, woah”
The scene in the mist changes to show that of Tim when he had first left Gotham to find Bruce. The teen looked more than a little haggard, even then, running from city to city in search of a man that was all but a ghost, with only desperation to keep him company and determination to keep him alive.
He looked like he was falling apart.
“Let's see where you've been”
Oracle sings as they look at her once more, fingers typing quickly across the keys before her as tab after tab opens on the screens before her, each of them holding one common denominator: Tim.
“She was trying to piece together what happened while you were away,” Duke realizes aloud, speaking more to himself than anyone else in the room.
“I guess so,” is all that Tim can say, this revaluation being as much a surprise to him as anyone else in the room.
Both entirely and not at all.
Babs never had been very good at not knowing everything. Tim knew that the months that he had spent completely without contact must have been like some sort of gold mine for her to pick through and piece together.
The months spent in a sporadic sort of contact honestly might have been even more appealing to their darling Oracle. Always seeing all of the consequences of Tim’s actions but not truly knowing the actions that he had taken or even the entirety of the context around the actions that she did know.
A lot of things had occurred in that time after all, things that dragged him all over the world.
Honestly, it was probably a sign of just how unhealthy their family was as a whole that something warm filled his chest at the thought of Babs looking into him without being directed to do so by Burce, or made to see it all as everyone else was now. It was nice, even if there was a chance that it was just something born out of curiosity and no care at all.
“Keep your friends close and your enemies closer”
The Tim in the mist sings as he walks through the museum from a few songs before, the mist showing them a clear view of the comm in Tim’s ear, the one connecting the teen to Ra’s al Ghul, the Demon’s Head.
“Ruthlessness is mercy upon oursel-“
The scene changes once more, like someone changing to a different tab, and now it’s Tim, Pru, Z, and Owens about to go into the desert. Only two will ever leave it, and hurts like an open wound to have to know that as the Tim in the room looks at the three (the four of them) and sees one of the last times that they had all been whole.
(Sometimes Tim wonders if he’s cursed, if he hadn’t even needed to take up the Robin mantle to lose everyone around him because that was already his fate from the start. And if he was cursed, then maybe times like this were that curse spreading to those around him the moment that they cared about him.
(All Z had wanted after all was to save one person, and he had chosen for that person to be Tim))
“One wrong move and you're done for
“Anything I-“
The scene changes once more and suddenly it’s the White Ghost singing to Tim as the pair stood outside of the Cradle, Tam held tightly in the older assassin’s grip.
“When was this?” Bart asks, not really having enough context to know.
He doesn’t expect Tim to look so ashamed as he answers.
“I had to leave her there when I went back to Gotham to help with the Blackest Night,” the other teen explains. “I didn’t want to, but they wouldn’t let me take her with me, not trusting that I would come back without her being held as leverage.”
Tim will never know if they were truly right or wrong about that.
“Song of past romance, I see the”
The scene changes once more, another tab being clicked, and suddenly it’s Tim and Kon waking together beneath Paris, the clone pulling down the cowl that the bat had been wearing.
Both of them remembered that day, when they had found one another by accident in the city of love.
All of the cloning equipment that could be seen through the open door was enough to distract the vigilantes from the exact words being sung.
Didn't distract Tim or Kon though, as heat rose to both of their cheeks.
“We won't take more suffering from you”
The scene changes once more and now its Tim and Tam escaping the Cradle once more, explosions at their backs.
“Drown in your sorrow and fears”
The scene changes, though not much, and instead of being outside of the destroyed Cradle as they had been before, the heroes were now watching as the Council of Spiders were crushed beneath the rubble as if it were waves crashing in on them. As if they were drowning in it all.
It was a brutal and suffocating sort of way to die.
It was an even worse way to have to live.
“Boss?”
A new voice asks, a bit raspy in the way that Tim's had been after being shot through the throat near the beginning of his time as Robin.
The Pru and Tim were standing on a rooftop in Gotham right then, just the two of them, the time frame clear to them as being right before the attack at Wayne Industries.
It was strange to hear such clear concern in the assassin's voice as she spoke to the vigilante.
“I have to save them”
The Tim in the mist answers, looking out at the Tower in the distance with a desperate sort of gaze. No one liked to see it, but they had already seen what was to come from this, they knew that he survived it.
It didn't make any of this easier to watch, especially not so soon.
“But you’ll die”
Pru protested, looking as if she wanted to say more but couldn't bring herself to do so.
“I know”
Tim's voice says, quiet and resigned as those in the room watch as Tim falls once more, a bird with his wings carved off as he holds the proverbial knife himself.
Dick can't help but shy away from the sight.
“Red, where did you go?”
Oracle asks as the scene changes back to her sitting in the Clock Tower, flipping through new footage that they hadn’t seen before, the images slightly blurred by the mist.
All but one that was.
“Morning, wayward bird”
A new voice sings as the scene changes to somewhere that they had not been before, showing a girl before them that only two in the room recognized. The pair that did immediately went tense, even as they had expected this to come.
The girl had dark hair and a cunning sort of smile as she greeted who those in the room could only guess to be Tim, even as they could not see the third Robin for themselves. As it was, it was almost as if they were looking through the former Robin’s eyes, though the angle strange if that was true, the woman appearing much too tall in the underground room.
“Who is that?” Damian asks, peering at the woman. She moved a bit like a League assassin, though he didn’t immediately know her as he had known Prudence Wood.
Damian wasn't the only one that wanted to know who the woman was.
Tim thought about how to answer that question. The context that would be needed. Usually he would go for less, but today… Today he was stalling.
“Her name is Promise,” the third Robin says, his voice a bit hollow as he does so, something that those in the room had hardly ever heard before. “I met her during a trip to Russia while I was looking into the Unternet, and those behind it.”
“Unternet?” Duke asked, brow raised.
Tim taps his knee, thinking of what details to share, how much to give away. “Its like a virtual reality,” he decides on, “but instead of just wearing goggles, you put your consciousness into it. Its a place where you can act out all of your worst urges without consequences. Everything feels real while you are inside of it, from adrenaline to pain. Part of that is because its meant to corrupt your mind the more that you use it.”
The last part draws the Batman’s gaze. “Have you used it?” The man asked.
“Yes.” The answer is simple and blunt, and makes his father draw in a sharp sort of breath. Tim ignores it for all that he's worth. “I'd found one of the men behind it in Russia, he just happened to also be someone that Promise was after as well. She helped the first time around with it all.”
“The first time?” Steph asked, hanging onto every unnaturally soft spoken word. The Tim sitting before them all now was not the one that they were used to dealing with, she didn't like the change. Liked whatever reasons might have caused it even less.
Tim shrugs again, though the movement is a bit stilted. “I managed to get chased out of Russia because of my looking into all of this,” the teen admits, seemingly nonchalant for having been banned from a country that spanned both Europe and Asia. “Pissed Red Star right off with looking into it all. I found my way back there during the assassin tournament that had been taking place at the time, and ran into her again.” Tim is speaking, and everyone is listening as the words pour out, though the teen himself only half hears them himself, much more focused on pinching his skin as best as he could through the suit, the pain keeping him present.
The self soothing, self punishing movement didn't go entirely unnoticed.
“It was only then that I learned that she was a League assassin and a meta both,” Tim continues on. “She used her powers to knock me out when I wasn't expecting it.”
Cass watches Tim as he is talking and notices what everyone else doesn’t seem to, each of them too captivated by the new information to notice the things that she did. She sees that way he’s drawing in on himself a little bit more each time that he speaks, shaking so slightly that it could be explained away by the movements of his hands as he tapped them against his skin or moved them as he talked.
She sees all the things that no one else ever could.
She sees the way that her little brother is falling apart and trying desperately to hide it behind words, because he knows exactly what is coming next, they both do, and neither of them want to see it.
A glance around the room tells the girl more than any words could. Tells her that the others within it had questions that Tim wasn't going to want to answer, bits of information that he had purposefully left out. Things like what caused a former friend, the Red Star, to get so mad that the former Robin that Red Robin wouldn't be allowed in the country. Things like just what the Unternet does to corrupt those within it. The things that he had done while inside of it, when there were no consequences to any of his actions.
They were in a room full of detectives that had a story with so many holes that they were missing the very real problem right before them now.
Cass wasn't missing it though. (She never could. A gift, a curse, both at once) He was falling apart within his own mind, skating around details, but drawing dangerously close to them still.
Cass stands up from her seat before Tim has to explain some of the more shady things that he had done after leaving the League, a concept that they had all become far too familiar with. The eyes in the room turn to her then, quick and questioning at the sudden movement. She ignores them though as she makes the small walk towards Tim, Damian moving out of the way as she drops down to crouch in front of the younger bat, holding out her hand to the boy.
Everything about what Cass had just done makes those in the room stop, silent as they watch as Tim goes silent and holds out his hand to meet his sister's, the tremors much more noticeable now as he takes her hand in his own, holding onto her as if she were the only thing that he could still clearly see.
Cass hated and loved in equal such a thought.
Everyone watches the pair in silence, watching as Cass tilts her head to the side for a long moment, like that of a bird, before standing suddenly and pulling Tim up with her, the younger of the two going almost completely as if on autopilot, as if he had let himself shut down now that she was with him.
It was alarming for them all to see, more than they cared to admit.
(Maybe that's why they choose to say nothing, only watching as the elder bat takes care of the younger bird)
Cass walks slowly, thinking quickly ahead for the things to come, planning and plotting, and ignoring the way that everyone in the room watched them both as if they were some sick sort of show.
(She knew that they weren't, not really, but she couldn't help the anger at it all. It was bad enough that Tim'd had to live through it all the first time around, that it had happened to him and he had been helpless at the time. He shouldn’t have to see it again, but he was going to have to, because that was just a piece of whatever sick game Ra’s al Ghul was playing with her little brother.)
She leads them both to a room that she had only ever been in a few times before, praying to gods that she didn't truly believe in that the door would lead somewhere. The tension in her shoulders settles just a bit when the door opens to reveal Tim’s bedroom, the closet door already open and filled with casual clothes.
The wonders of a mind she supposed.
Tim didn’t really seem to be all there as she walked him over to the bed, having him sit down on the edge of it as she rooted through his belongings. It was a sign of how truly out of it the other was when Tim didn’t even react at all. Not to the manhandling, nor the silent invasion of privacy.
It was eerie just how lost in his own mind the other truly seemed to be just then.
It only took a few moments for Cass to find a loose pair of sweats between the closest and the drawers. They were soft in her hands, impossibly so, the Superboy symbol sitting nicely on the chest of the sweatshirt. She wondered if the clothes existed in real life. She knew that it they did that the other had likely stolen them from the boy in the other room.
Tim barely notices Cass leaving his side, only realizing when she comes back and places the clothes in his lap, almost like a child being handed a stuffed toy. She taps them once more, the message clear, before moving to sit with her back against the door as she stared off to the side to give some semblance of privacy, like a guard keeping the others out.
Tim stands slowly then, placing the clothes on the bed as he goes through all of the motions of taking off his suit, all of the bells and whistles that he had added to each of his suits coming back to bite him just a bit as he moves quicker and quicker still, wanting the suit off now that he knew that there was an alternative. It felt a bit like his skin was on fire the longer that he kept it on, in the places where the contact was made.
Cass knows that she’s not imagining the relief that washes over Tim when he’s no longer in the Red Robin suit, the outfit much too close to the one in the mist, even if he had changed a lot of it after all of this had occurred, making the suit his own.
The siblings walk back into the room soundlessly (a sort of silence that they had not known that Tim had truly possessed until just then, though the reasons for it made sense without having to be spoken aloud) in a manner that likely would have meant that no one would have noticed that they had returned at all had they not all been waiting for them to do so.
Everyone in the room notices the change of clothing, but says nothing about it, not to Tim and not to one another. Cass looking at them with something stern in her eyes was enough for each of the heroes and vigilantes to keep their mouths shut for the time being, as the girl lead Tim across the room once more.
When she stopped at the couch this time, Cass didn't let Tim sit back down upon it, tugging at the other's fingers when he gave it a try. Instead, she sat herself down upon the ground with Damian, tapping the space between herself and the kid, the meaning clear for Tim to take it.
He does so.
(She questioned if that was the right choice to make, given the things that were about to be shown to them all, none of them exactly kind graces upon the al Ghul name. She figured though that Tim would need the physical reminder that not all of the bloodline of the Demon’s Head were monsters parading around in human skin.
Damian would be that.
She figured too that once all was shown and realized by those in the room, that Damian would need a similar sort of reminder for himself. An assurance as well that Tim didn’t hold this particular day against him.
Tim being there through it all would be that.
(She really hoped it was the right choice))
No one really understood what had just occurred before their eyes beyond the basic facts of it all. They didn’t know the reasons behind the sudden changes, but they had seen enough for it to have left a sort of twisting feeling in their guts at having done so. Especially with the Titans as they watched as Tim subconsciously used his right hand to grab and rub at his left wrist as if it had been held too tight. There had been too many instances like this in the past for the three to not have some idea as to what was coming next. Even if the exact context of it was unclear, the act itself was crystal to the three, and they hated it.
Hated that it happened at all. Hated that because of this, the stupid mist, Tim wasn’t going to be able to talk to them in his own time like the three had been waiting for him to do so ever since they pieced together all the signs. If he would have chosen to do so at all. Hated that they would never know if he would have ever said anything on his own, because that choice had just been stripped away.
Just hated it all.
(It was a shared sentiment among everyone in the room)
“You've been resting for a while”
The woman, Promise, sings as she takes a step away from who they could only assume was Tim, those in the room still watching it all through his eyes. Her voice was a bit too sickly sweet.
“I don't think I'd call being knocked unconscious ‘resting',” Kon snipes at the image in the mist, the woman that couldn't hear him, irritable and angry and having no one else to take it out on that would deserve it.
The others in the room silently agree with the super, knowing a bit better than the clone the difference between natural rest and the sort of rest that one got after having been knocked unconscious by one rouge or another.
“I swore that you were almost damaged
“When I touched your skin”
“What did she mean by that?”
Tim isn’t really sure who asked the question, nor which side of the room it had come from. All he was really aware of was the visage of Promise in the mist back then, the shine of her eyes that left his skin crawling. Still, he thought that the question might have come from Kon, maybe Cassie or Bart.
Maybe no one at all.
“The Daughters of Acheron have a gift that can be lethal if their abilities are strong enough,” the third Robin explains aloud, not looking at anyone else in the room, as he does so. They don’t ask, but he knows that they want to. “Promise’s wasn’t strong enough to be deadly in such a way, but could have caused permanent danger had it not been done right.”
“If they needed you alive, then why would they risk such a thing?” Duke asked, a decent question to be had.
It was one that Tim didn’t want to answer but did so anyways.
“Because they only needed me alive and my organs functioning,” the former Robin answers in a blunt sort of vacant voice, lacking so much of the life that it should have. “Keeping overall movement and intelligence intact was honestly likely a downside for them.”
And weren’t the implications behind that horrifying in nature?
The sickening, twisting sort of feelings in everyone’s guts increases.
“Did you know you talk in your sleep?
“Tell me, though, who's Conner?”
Promise asks, a bit taunting in nature as someone moves in the shadows behind her shoulder, just deep enough within them that no one could quite make them out, but in a room full of detectives they knew enough to know that the shadow was likely more dangerous than the girl singing. The threat more important than the words being sung.
Tim focused on the lyrics though, rather than what was to come.
“He’s my partner”
The Tim in the mist answers, his voice more than a bit of a growl as he does so. It was only then that they see him as he was for the first time during the song. It was a sight that none of them thought that they would soon forget, though for all the reasons that they would ever want to.
The Tim in the mist was in the same underground space as the woman, Promise, wearing the original version of his Red Robin suit, the cowl repaired from the last song. But instead of just being in a heap on the ground, or even just bound to chair as many in the room had expected and experienced themselves in one form or another during kidnappings, the teen was forced down on his knees, being held up by the manacled on his wrists that were attached to the wall in a punishing sort of hold.
The scene is bad enough that no one brings up the words that were being sung, no one really hears them, looking instead at the captured bird. It reminded them all a little too much of a human sacrifice, though the ritual aspect of it all seemed to be missing, at least to a degree. There may be no symbols carved into the stone around the boy in the mist, but it all still felt sacrificial in a way.
Cass shifted at Tim’s side, reminding the boy that she was there, increasing and decreasing her weight against him, giving him a choice for what he wanted, because that was what was important right then. Tim forces his hand to stop holding his own wrist like one of the shackles, and instead moves it to hold Cass’s hand tightly in his own in a grip that almost could be seen as cruel if it weren’t filled with such clear terror.
Cass holds back just as tightly, every action made to remind Tim that she had gotten there in time before, and would soon do so again in the mist, that he wasn’t really there now.
The titans notice the movements, and hate that they now understand why Tim has been so jumpy when someone tries to grab his wrists since he came back, why it seems almost self punishing and not reassuring when Tim does it to himself.
Ideas were swirling around in the minds of everyone in the room, many of them venturing too close to a truth Tim had never truly wanted them to know, but soon would.
“Anyways, I've got all you could want here
“All you will need here”
A new woman sings as she walks into view, her hair a dark color, and dressed in slant clothing beneath the purple of an old fashioned robe. The most noticeable thing about her though were her eyes, solid black with trendles of… something escaping from them.
They knew without question that she was not human. Not entirely at least.
“Where were they keeping you?” Bruce asked then, and if Tim didn’t know any better he would almost think that the man was attempting to stall.
He thinks that he knows better though.
The teen goes to answer the question, it was a simple one truly. Only three words that he had to form, but at some point between the woman walking into view in the mist and the question being asked it felt as if his vocal cords had been stolen from him, locked away where he couldn’t reach them. He tires to answer still, to make his mouth move as it was supposed to, to make sound come out as it should, but all he succeeds in making is a small aborted sort of sound.
It was enough for Cass to know that it was her time to take over, at least for now. One could only last so long before the things that they shoved away came back to take a hold of them, and they were doing that to her little brother now, panic gripping at his voice. She rubbed her thumb back and forth over his knuckles in what she hoped was a soothing sort of motion, and answered for him:
“Catacombs. Paris,” the words are short and leaving no room for question of if they are true or not, or how she knows such a thing if they are.
“Just you and me, my dear, my love for life
“Now, into lust we'll climb and end your time”
The woman walks forwards as she sings with a deceptively pleasant sort of voice, leaning down and ripping off the cowl from atop of the head of the Tim in the mist, leaving his face bare for all to see as she cupped it with her hand and takes off the cowl from his head, touching his face in what would have been a loving sort of gesture had the words being sung not meant what they did.
Dick makes a wounded sort of noise in the back of his throat then, understanding all too well just what was about to occur and never having wanted it to happen to anyone else, let alone one of his siblings. Hating himself for not having known till now, too many months later, that it had happened at all.
There had been signs, he could see them now, things that he had just brushed off as the younger man not fully having forgiven him. There had been signs and he had been too wrapped up in himself and everyone else to see them.
He didn’t think that he would ever forgive himself for that.
“What does she mean by his time ending?” Bruce asks, looking at Cass as he does so, knowing from the last question that Tim was likely not to answer for a while more.
He was right.
Cass opens her mouth to answer, the idea clear in her mind but the words not wanting to come out of her mouth. She lets her hands speak for her in the way that they often do when she’s too emotional for spoken words to find her.
‘Demon wanted to rape little brother, and then use her gift to kill him once pregnant,’ the girl explains, her hands shaking with each movement that she made using them, the signs flowing quickly from her fingers so that she could be done.
The metas at her back may not have been able to understand the words that were being created with her movements, but they knew enough. They knew that the bats knew enough as well to guess what the woman had meant, they just had not wanted to be right.
Jason, his eyes glowing a bright green - like the pit itself - when he opens his mouth to speak, “Is she still breathing?” The man asked harshly, like any answer other than no was the wrong one to give. He got the wrong one as Cass nodded her head, up and down. “She won’t be for long once I find her,” the former assassin all but growls, a promise to be seen through till the end.
Bruce doesn’t object, and Jason takes that to be as good as permission given.
Cass feels Tim smile ever so lightly into her shoulder.
“I'm not your man”
The Tim in the mist growls, hurt and feral in nature as he jerks back from the touch of the League assassin like a wild sort of animal that looked about ready to attack should the predator try again.
The woman almost seemed to be amused by this.
Steph was proud that the other Robin was trying to fight. She knew what it was to be in a position like this, even without being chained as the Tim in the mist was, how it could freeze you. She was proud of him for fighting when so many others might have shut down.
She hated though that this was something that they now had in common.
“I'm what you want here
“I'm what you need here
“Just you and me, my love in paradise
“Now 'til the end of your time
“From here on out, you're mine, all mine”
The woman in the mist stands up straighter then as she sings, taking a few more steps back than she had before as the other Daughters within the room moved out to the edges of it, standing guard for what was about to take place.
“Hell no, I could kill you where you stand
“I'm no pet, I'm a bat, understand?”
The Tim in the mist rages, the teen yanking on the chains that were binding him to the wall as if he could pull them from the stone with force alone. Anything but taking the actions of the woman sitting down.
Glancing at himself now in the mist, Tim wondered for a moment if it might have been more effective if he had not been still affected by Promise’s powers. Somehow he doubted such a thing.
It only made him feel worse to know just how trapped he had truly been at the time, even as he put on a brave sort of front, even as he knew that he would fight no matter what was to come.
(He knew that if he did have to fight that night, on his own and chained, he would have lost)
“Oh Detective, you may try
“But last I checked, Demons can't die”
The woman sings, something cruel and familiar flitting across her face that made those in the room go stiff with something akin to reluctant recognition.
“Just who is she?” Kon asked, his voice rough in a way that it often wasn’t, at least not the times that the bats heard him speak. Tim, Bart, and Cassie recognized that angry, broken sound more than they cared to admit.
The super thought that he might already know who the woman was, but he needed to be sure.
(He needed to know who to help hint once they got out of here)
“Ra’s sister,” Tim whispers in a low sort of voice, one only meant for the super to hear, because if he was going to respond to anyone right now it would be Kon.
Everyone in the room hears it nonetheless.
Jason’s eyes glow brighter still and Damian goes as still as a statue as he sits next to Tim, as if wondering if he needs to move away from Tim now that he knows this. Now that he has the information that he didn’t before. Tim rolls his eyes, finding a strange sort of comfort in his little brother's idiot thoughts and concerns.
The teen reaches over to the boy slowly, knowing that the child assassin was eyeing him carefully just then, and tugs on his arm, pulling him more firmly into his left side as Cass leaned into his right, surrounded and protected on all sides.
(It was easier when Damian was acting like a child and not like an adult in small skin)
Kon lifts his head just a bit and looks at the other red bat across the room, understanding flickering into those green eyes of his as Jason nodded. There were countless timeliness and realities where Kon followed Tim down whatever darker path the other ended up taking (just as many where it was Tim following Kon as well). Tim already had blood on his hands in this time, the super guessed that he was playing catch up now.
Bart tapped one of his hands while Cassie tapped the other, and Kon looked between the pair.
…they always stayed together, now was no different he guessed.
“Demon?”
The Tim in the mist asks, the pieces coming together in real time before their eyes.
They wished that it wasn’t.
“You're adorable
“Bow down now to the immortal Maat, here to entertain
“But fear not, I bring no pain”
The monster in human skin sings as she moves, her cloak falling to the ground as her loose dress slipped from her shoulders, nothing beneath it. And the Tim in the mist has his eyes glued to every movement that the woman makes, though nothing about it portrays any sort of lust, just terror in some of its purest form. He seemed unable to tear his eyes away from the woman even if he wished to do so, because looking away would mean that she would come as a surprise and that was somehow worse than knowing right then.
The Tim of now though was different though. He didn't look at the mist at all, turning and hiding his face in Cass's shoulder in a manner that would have been seen as childish had the circumstances been any different.
It was the sort of action that more than one person wanted to copy as they all felt more than vaguely ill.
“'Cause we've got
“All we could want here
“All we could need here
“Under my spell, we're stuck in paradise
“No one can come nor go, your corpse will stay unfound”
Woman, Ra’s damned sister, moves closer again and runs a hand over Tim's face once more, completely bare before him. The Tim in the mist glares at her in turn, seemingly shoving any fear within him as far down as he could get it.
“She was just going to leave you there,” Cassie growls, the demigod’s voice a bit like thunder as she does so.
Cassie and Tim both had lost far too many people, but at least they had always had a body to bury.
But Tim only shrugs from the ground, he knows that he much rather be left to rot and never be found than having his corpse ending up in Ra’s hands.
“No, no
“I don't belong here
“There's something wrong here
“I won't be drawn to love in hell
“Not 'til the end of time, there is no way”
The Tim in the mist jerks himself out of the ancient woman’s grip, and pulls on the chains with a desperation, well past the point that it should be digging bruises into each of his wrists. If that was the least that it did.
“You're mine, all mine”
The woman sings as she starts to undo the teen’s uniform, it's then that it really clicks with everyone why Cass had dragged him away for him to change out of it as they watch as the ancient woman starts to undo it all even as Tim fights.
(It’s then that Cass realizes that Tim hadn’t fully believed that she would get there in time)
“Seven hours, she's kept you trapped, out of your control”
A new voice sings, quiet and unsure from somewhere that they couldn’t quite see, as a shadow moves through the room, taking out every Daughter of Acheron within the room.
They all have an idea as to who the voice belongs to long before she steps into the light.
“Seven hours?” Duke asked, head tilting much like that of the birds that most of them were named after.
“Flight,” is all that Cass says in answer.
Tim thinks about that it likely would have taken seven hours with moving him from where he was in Russia to a car, to a plane, to another car once they had landed, and then moving him through the catacombs to where they had strung him up. So much time, and they hadn’t done anything until he had woken, because they wanted him to die knowing what had occurred. To live through it.
Sadistic bastards.
(Tim was sadistic too)
“Time can take a heavy toll”
For a moment it seems as if the ghost of Tim from the start of his time as Robin is there instead of his present self, bright eyes and just wanting to help Bruce. To help his city.
The ghost fades and the image changes back to a Tim closer to the present, manacled to the wall with a too hollow sort of look in his eyes.
“Little Brother?”
The Cass in the mist asks as she leans down quickly to pick the locks on each of Tim’s wrists, and get the boy out of the chains that they had put on him.
She wished that she had stepped in sooner, before he had ever even woken up at all.
“All I hear are screams”
The Tim in the mist sings as the scene changes within it, and now they're in a hotel room that looked much too familiar to all those watching, even though it couldn’t be the exact same one. It looked like the hotel where Tim had first met the assassin trio, back when they had been set on trying to take his life… if they could.
It was only then that those in the room other than the pair of siblings remembered that both of these things had occurred in Paris, so close together.
“Tim, get away from the ledge”
The Cass in the mist sings as she’s walking, slow and careful. Bart thought that if there had been noise from it that they might have actually been able to hear the older girl’s steps, something that the speedster knew didn’t happen. Not normally. But she was doing it then in that hotel room because sitting on the railing of the balcony was Tim.
The eyes in the room turn to look at the pair once the scene registers for what it is, for what they hoped that it wasn’t, but neither of the two bothered to look at any of them, just looking into the mist.
“You don't know what I've gone through”
The mist flashes then to another room in another city, with another naked body pressed against a fully clothed Tim as he worked to fight her off, the red of the Robin suit that he had worn to honor the loss of Kon flashing against the white of the sheets.
Cass tugs on his shirt in the present, clear and instant, wanting to know. Tim knew that everyone else wanted to know as well.
“Rose,” Tim said, answering the unasked question. “She snuck into my room in the Tower one night while I was asleep,” the former Robin explains, drawing his knees up to his chest, picking at the fabric of the sweats and looking anywhere bit those around him. As if, if he didn’t look then he wasn’t speaking it to anyone at all. “I woke up with her on top of me, kissing me, planning to fuck me. She thought that sex could assure her place on the team.” Tim stops then and finally raises his head to look at them as he speaks once more, something a bit cold and cruel and deserving in his gaze as he does so, “I managed to handcuff her, and leave her naked on the bed when I left the room for Titan business.”
And Cassie’s mind stops for a moment then because she remembered an instance almost exactly like this, but each of them wearing a slightly different amount of clothes than they were in the mist.
“She tried twice,” the demigod realizes aloud.
Tim doesn’t say anything to that. It’s answer enough.
“How many times has something like this happened?” Dick asked, looking at the paused image in the mist. The image that took place before the younger vigilante had ever left to look for Bruce, maybe even before the man’s death. “For how long?”
Dick needed to know how long he hadn’t been noticing, phantom hands running along his skin.
(He wasn’t the only one in the room that had them. Bruce remembered the early days of Ivy, back when she used sex pollen. Steph remembered her father’s friend sneaking into her room at night as she struggled to get away. Jason remembered sleeping with a woman that had been his caretaker, maternal almost, until the Pit had pieced him back together. He hadn’t really been all there, but she had been. Kon remembered two women much too old for a sixteen year old, let alone one that had only existed for such a short time, flashes of a reporter’s camera, heavy fists.
They all had phantom hands trailing across their skin)
Tim doesn’t meet Dick’s gaze, can’t, not right then.
“Since the beginning of my time as Robin, in one way or another?” The teen answered, somewhat unsure of just how severe an action had to be for the other to count it. Kisses on lips where he had to shove the owner away because he had never wanted them to do such a thing in the first place. Unwanted where the owner promised that they would be more, but never got to make it so as he was saved by the situation at hand. “I stopped counting at some point,” the boy admits, shame building up within him, forcing himself to ignore the wounded noise that Dick made at the thought. (The growl from Jason. The huff from Bruce. The sharp intakes of breath from the other teens in the room. The way that Damian tightened his hold on Tim’s hand).
He doesn’t tell them that he stopped counting because he knew that it would never stop. He already knew to expect a call or two from people that he’s run into over the years, at least those had said that they would wait till he was eighteen, it was more than what most others have done.
No one hides their horror at the words that the former Robin had just spoken, not that Tim looks at them to see it, eyes firmly on the floor. It was the safest place to look.
“Why did you never say anything?” Bruce asks, something a bit broken in his voice as he does so. (He would much rather they go back to watching his son kill people than this. He wondered for a moment if Tim had felt the same, knowing that this would come)
The ‘to me’ goes unsaid but not unheard.
Tim shrugs once more. “The same reason that I didn’t want to be adopted while my Dad was in a coma,” the teen admits, still not raising his head. “We were partners, I didn’t want anything to change.”
I didn’t want to be a victim in your eyes.
Because he had known that things would have changed had he run to him each time like a part of him had wanted to. Instead he took the hurt and turned them into secretes buried within his bones to rot.
“Nothing would have changed, Tim,” Bruce tries to assure, knowing that it will take more than a few words to convince the stubborn boy. “It wouldn’t have changed the way in which I saw you at least, only how I saw the others. None of this reflects upon you, only them and their choices.”
Tim really wanted to believe that, he did, but it had all been happening for so long that he thought that there must be something wrong with him for it to keep occurring. Time after time, person after person. He thought that there must be something broken within him that everyone else could see and prey on but those within the room with him now.
He wondered if they would see it now that it was all out on display.
Bruce knew that he was going to be spending a long time proving to Tim that he still loved him the same after everything that they had seen, not just with these songs but with them all.
“You don't know what I've sacrificed”
The mist changes once more, going back to that of Pru, Z and Owens. Back to the time when Tim had first met them, looking down from his hotel room to where the three had stood looking up at him. Two were dead now, dying for a cause that wasn’t even their own, and dying for a hunt that was still going on.
“Every comrade I long knew
“Every friend, I saw them die”
The scene changes once more as the Tim in the mist sings, changing to that of a place that they had not seen before within the mist but they all recognized still even as the scene playing out was only familiar to one.
It was the Flash museum and standing within it was Tim back when he was still Robin but the green was missing from his suit. The teen was standing before the statue of Impulse, of Bart, his shoulders shaking as he fell to the ground with sobs that none of them could hear.
“I’m alive though,” Bart says, his voice softer than it ever was. He couldn’t understand why Tim was still holding onto such grief when he was back. “We all are.”
“That doesn’t change that I had lost you, doesn’t erase that hurt,” the former Robin says into his drawn knees, the words cutting even though they were not meant to be. “That even when I did get you back, sometimes when you’re not right before me it feels as if it might have been some sort of trick of my mind.”
And Bart understood that more than he wished to.
The speedster leaned forwards and placed his hand on the other teen’s shoulders, just for a few moments. A soft touch to remind him that he was there, that he was real and not a hallucination.
Sometimes Bart really missed the days when all they had to worry about were sentient vehicles.
“And all I hear are screams”
The scene changes once more, back to that of the relative present with Tim sitting on the railing of the hotel balcony, the teen singing as he hardly holds onto the metal even though the distance to the ground looks like that of a lethal drop for a human.
It was terrifying to see.
“It will be fine, brother
“Come back inside, Tim
“Brother of mine, come back to me”
The Cass in the mist sings as she continues to walk slowly towards Tim so as to not startle the teen and make him fall. It was a technique that all of those in the room knew, hero and vigilante alike.
They never thought that they would have to see it used on one of their own.
“Let me close my eyes”
The Tim in the mist all but pleads, looking out at the cursed city where too much has happened to him, too many memories had been made. They watch as the boy tilts forwards just a bit, the wind ripping through his hair as if it too wanted him to fall. The Tim in the mist didn’t really seem to care, seemed to welcome the sting even.
Those in the room knew what the former Robin meant then, knew for sure. They knew that, then at the least, if Tim had closed his eyes he never would have wanted to open them again. A permanent sleep.
Jason wished that he could say that death wasn’t all that it was made out to be, but he knew that it would be a lie and Tim could sniff out a lie like a damned bloodhound. He tries something else instead:
“Life may suck, kid, but it’s better to be with everyone then to have to wait for them to come to you.”
Tim raises his eyes to meet Jason’s then. The third Robin dosen’t say anything to the second, but he does nod. It was more than the man had expected to get at the least.
“I know your life's been hard
“I'll stay inside your heart”
The Cass in the mist sings as she makes it to her Tim’s side, stopping beside the boy and placing her own hand over where the teen’s heart resides in his chest as if her touch alone could keep it beating.
The Cass of now does the same with the hand that wasn’t holding her Tim’s, as if to assure the other bat that the sentiment was still true.
“All I hear are screams”
The Tim in the mist sings, voice aching and desperate in a way that didn't fit the boy that those in the room knew. Though, he still turns to look at Cass as she asked for him to do so in the mist, never truly able to turn other down.
It would be sweet if it had been done in any other sort of situation.
“I love you, my Red
“I love our time together
“Life would be so much worse”
There are tears falling from Cass’s eyes as she reaches up and cups Tim’s cheek in the mist, as if pleading him to come back to her right then.
It hurt to watch the broken pair, but it had hurt infinitely more to have lived it not so long ago. To feel the breeze of the world around them, knowing that one small tilt to the side would end it all.
To know that it had been considered at all. Acted upon in some form.
“Just let me close my eyes”
The Tim in the mist sings even as he unconsciously leans into the other’s touch, into the warmth of life.
“If you had died
“Please stay from away from harm
“Stay in my open arms”
The Cass in the mist sings, shifting the other towards her more. Towards safety and home.
“All I hear are”
The Tim in the mist sings, leaning towards the fall just a bit more even as his body was no longer facing the street below, a deadly sort of compromise that made the bats and Titans wish that they could step into the past and pull him back themselves. Wish that they could do anything other than watch.
“This life is amazing when you greet it with open arms”
The voice that sings then is a familiar one, though younger seeming than they would hear it now. The lyrics were sung a bit sadder than the last time that they had heard them, as for a moment the ghost of a young Kon appears, crouching down on the railing before Tim, smiling that same smile as he raises a hand and just barely doesn’t touch where a domino mask would have sat on the other’s face.
If felt like a punch to the gut to see for the Kon of the present, to watch as Tim thought of him once more before he thought that death was coming for him. He only hoped that he wasn’t going to be one of the ones dragging him towards it.
“How much longer 'til your luck runs out?”
A ghostly sort of figure of Lady Shiva sings, as flash of the room where she had told him to pick a weapon appears behind the teen, looking the same as it had that day in Paris when he had been there with her.
“Waiting, waiting, waiting”
A new voice sings, and at the edge of the balcony they manage to see its owner. Though most of them in the room had never met the woman themselves, they recognized her still as she stood there like some sort of ghost:
Janet Drake.
Tim’s mother.
The Tim of the present shied away from the voice in the same manner as the one in the mist.
“Whatever we face, we'll be fine if we're leading from the heart”
The Kon in the mist sings as he slips down from the railing onto the balcony as if in doing so it would cause the other boy to follow as he always had before.
“How much longer 'til the show goes south?”
Ra’s al Ghul sings, though all they hear is his voice.
It’s enough to make everyone go still.
“Oh
“No matter the place, we can light up the world?
“Here's how to start”
The Kon of the past sings, drifting behind the Tim in the mist and pulling him with a ghostly sort of touch back towards safety, towards the balcony, towards Cass’s real touch. He doesn’t move as much as the super in the mist clearly would have liked.
“How much longer 'til we all fall down?”
The ghosts of Z and Owens sing, looking up at Tim from the ground, though unlike before where they had looked just as the day that Tim had met them, this time they looked like wind weathered corpses rotting down below.
It was a haunting sort of image.
“Oh
“Waiting, waiting, waiting”
The same words coming from the same place as before, but this time it’s a man that sings them:
Jack Drake.
The ghost of the man was standing next to his wife in the corner of the balcony, the pair looking every bit the picture of indecision. As if they couldn’t decide if they wanted their son to join them yet or not. It seemed to be a theme with the three.
“Greet the world with open arms, greet the world with open arms”
The Kon of the past taps his Tim on the face, forcing the other boy to keep his eyes open when they start to slip shut.
“Cass!”
The Tim in the mist calls out, something desperate in his voice as he finally removes himself from the railing and falls into Cass’s hold, letting the older bat hold him tight. Relief sweeps through the room at the sight.
“Please, never do that again,” Cassie pleads, something desperate and almost selfish in her voice as she does so.
She didn’t think that she would survive burying another one of her best friends.
She didn’t think that she would want to.
Tim understands that better than ever wanted to.
Tim turned quickly then, pushing up onto his knees as he wrapped himself around the other, feeling warm arms hold him close as they did in the mist. It wasn’t long before other soft sort of touches were joining, grazing his skin as if they could erase everything else. They all knew that it couldn’t, but that didn’t matter right then.
When Tim does finally pull away, turning to sit back down, it’s not with a promise to never do so (he didn’t know if he would be able to keep such a thing. None of them did) but with a soft sort of smile that promised that he would try.
“He needs help”
The scene in the mist changes one last time, back to where the song had started, with Barbra watching her monitors, the scene from the hotel playing on it as she spoke, clear and precise.
“Babs knows everything?” Steph asked, looking at the first batgirl in the mist. She couldn’t really imagine the woman having uncovered everything and not saying a thing to anyone about it. “And said nothing about it?”
Tim shrugs from his place curled into Cass, much too like how he was in the mist the last time that they saw him for any of their comforts (and didn’t their closeness, their trust, make a lot more sense now that they all knew everything that had transpired in the foreign city?).
“Recent,” Cass answers for her little brother, pointing at the mist.
Bruce sighs before speaking up. “This likely only took place a few weeks ago at most,” the man guesses, a rarity for him to be unsure. “She’s likely still watching Tim to figure out what needs to be done.”
At that Tim raises his arm slightly into the air, shaking his hand in the way that one would a Pom Pom. It showed just how worn the teen was that he let himself do such a thing so childish. Maybe that was why they chose not to dig too harshly into anything that had already been brought up, laying it to rest for the moment being.
“The next song will start in a few moments”
Notes:
I know that they didn’t really get into the meat of the issues with this chapter (or a lot of the other ones, but less so this one than normal) but that’s because I’m saving the real and heart talks for the next part of the series where I have more time to really flush it out
Chapter 15: Puppeteer
Summary:
There is only one item left on Tim's hitlist. Just one person. All he has to do to change his fate is make one right choice, Tim knows that he won't though
Notes:
Puppeteer by Jorge Rivera-herrans from EPIC The Musical: The Circe Sage
---
I started the podfic for this, so if you want to check it out then here is the link to the podfic series playlist. I’m trying to update it every few days. I also have a bunch of other videos and stuff on there if you want to watch some of longer ones to help me reach the time needed for monetization, that would be really cool. A lot of my works on here are either already Podfics on there, or will be soon:
https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLHSTESD1Pfpo7LkK8OJ-bWX0aqU3FRhBI&si=hG0io8S-la3y5Lg2
When I make book two for this, it will also be uploaded there
Also, I made a podfic link fic type thing (you know the ones, where it says [PODFIC] and then has the information and the link in it) that will be in the inspired works of this
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
No one said anything as they all waited for the music to start once more. There wasn’t much for them to say when only Tim and Bruce had any true idea of what was to come. Someone how that day felt so long ago when it hadn’t truly been all that long at all.
Strangely though, Tim found no fear as the music started. Everyone in the room had already seen him do much worse things than what was about to occur, and Bruce already knew so he couldn’t find out twice. Tim knew that circumstances around this and blowing up the League of Assassins bases were startlingly different- survival versus cold blooded murder - but at the same time it was one life versus thousands, and he hadn’t even gone through with it like he had with Lady Shiva.
(He just hoped that he was right to not be overly concerned)
“B, I have something that I must confess”
A familiar voice sung, the room around her washed in the dark green light of familiar monitors as Barbra did so, true concern in her voice.
In the mist they could just barely see the images in the monitors, old images and ones that they had not seen before all vying for their attention. There was the image of a familiar European hotel up in the corner of one, the cursor hovering over it as two figures sat on the balcony floor. It was a different picture though that stood out more on the screen, bigger and the timestamp ever changing in the corner of the tab. It was the image of a Gotham rooftop, a live feed of it with a shadowed sort of figure standing on top of it. The cowl was pulled up to cover their head, but it wasn’t Batman.
It was Red Robin in the mist, Tim.
(Yet he almost looked like a rouge right then)
“Something that I must get off my chest
“Until it is said, I cannot rest
“(B?)”
As Oracle sung in the mist, another shadowed figure made himself known at her side, though as the cursor on the screen moved and shifted over the image of the past, the older vigilante’s gaze stayed fixed on the current security camera feed.
Watching everything unfold once more, the Bruce of the present couldn’t the,l but be filled with regret at the sight now that he knew the things that Barbra had likely been trying to tell him back then. Because those truths meant so much more than anger over a decision that Tim had not even made in the end.
Anger that he let linger for much too long after, that didn’t fade or shift into anything else until fucking Ra’s al Ghul forced him to know the context of everything around that time becuase of whatever obsession the ancient man had with his third son.
(Not that the obsession was new, no it spanned back to the beginning of Tim’s time as Robin, and wasn’t that a bit of a sinking thought for the man? That the Head of the Demon had been so interested for so long, but has just been waiting all of this time for Tim to come to him of his own accord. That Tim had actually done so, even if he had managed to get out in the end. That the actions that he took to escape somehow only made the man all the more interested and wanting for the former Robin to give him an heir… it made Bruce feel sick just to think about it)
“Oracle , go make sure this feed is secure”
The Bruce in the mist sings dismissively as he turns, stalking towards the door of the Clocktower, not hearing the former Batgirl out even as her eyes go a little wide with something like panic, something like anger.
“You’re not even going to listen to what she has to say, old man?” Jason asks, his voice holding more anger to it as he directed it towards his father than it had for a while in this damned room. It had been a few songs now since the older man had been in one at all, doing something to cause the second Robin righteous anger.
“There were more pressing things going on at the time, Jason,” Bruce says, though the excuse sounds weak even to his own ears as he does so.
“There always is with you,” the former Robin says dismissively as he looks away, knowing that now wasn’t the time for such an old, tried and true, fight of theirs. Not when Tim was still sitting on the ground between Cass and Dami, looking every bit as exhausted as they all felt, the teen resting his back against the clone’s legs with his eyes closed in what could almost be seen as sleep if it wasn’t for the tension that lingered in his frame.
No, there would be plenty of time for fighting between them all k e they finally left this place.
“(But Bruce)”
They watched as Barbra sung, turning her wheelchair quickly to face the back of the man, as if trying to convince him to stay, to listen to her about this.
(There was something in her eyes though, something reminiscent of back when she had first started as Batgirl and was first rebuffed by Batman for doing so. s if she knew that the man before her was too stubborn to listen until it was much too late.
She was right)
“there's only so much left we can endure
“Whatever you need to say can wait some more
“Of that, I'm sure”
The Bruce within the mist sang, his form forever slipping into the shadows as he did so, his steps unfaltering as he walked. Unhalting. There were very few people that could stop Bruce Wayne, the Batman, once he has made up his mind, and one of those people was the very person that the Bruce within the mist was going to see. At that moment, Barbra’s pleading words were not as captivating as the actions of the third Robin.
(After all, any talk, no matter pressing or important, could wait when there were lives in the line. Maybe if he had known that Tim wasn’t going to go through with it he would have stayed, heard her out, but he didn’t so she never did tell him)
“(Okay)”
The Barbra in the mist said, her voice filled with frustration and anger as she did so as Bruce disappeared completely into the shadows before her, gone from the room. Tim couldn’t help but notice the small sliver of relief that was present within the woman’s voice as well. As though even though she knew that she should tell the Bruce of the past the things that she knew, she truly didn’t want to do so.
Tim wondered if that reluctance was the only reason that Bruce had to find out through all of this.
(He didn’t know how to feel about all of it. He knew that he ought to feel betrayed or something of the like for the fact that Babs was thinking about saying anything at all, but all he could truly feel right then was a bone deep sort of exhaustion that seemed to seep into his very soul)
The others in the room watched the scene unfold in hesitant confusion, unsure as to why the Bruce of the past seemed so concerned with the video image of Tim standing on a rooftop that he was refusing to listen to Babs, willingly submitting himself to her later wrath. To Oracle’s wrath.
Steph knew that the Tim in the mist was unhurt, or that even if he was hurt Bruce couldn't have known so then. And it wasn’t like he was fighting anyone, or that the Joker was hunting the other teen down. Truly it made no sense to her why the older vigilante would do such a thing. Though she didn’t bother to ask, not right then when she knew that the answers would be given soon.
They always were, whether those in the room wanted to know the truth or not.
(Whether Tim wanted to tell it or not)
“Captain, back so soon?”
The scene changed within the mist as a new voice sung, one that all of the bats and birds a metas had heard before though never in such a manner. In the mist they watched as the Trickster turned slowly to look at whoever it was that he was speaking to, his voice more than a bit condescending in nature as he does so, as if this outcome - failure, they all assumed - was unsurprising to the man.
It likely was. Every rouge in the world was so sure of their own capabilities and plans, but so unsure of everyone else’s. Narcissism at its finest.
“Where's the rest of your loot?
“And by the gods, what happened to you?”
The super villain within the mist asked, curiosity slipping into his tone as he peered at the Captain that he was singing to, a brow raised even as no real concern was there. Why would there be after all? This wasn’t the sort of world that could truly afford such affections unless you were one of the few to dance upon the line between the hero and villain like it was some sort of tightrope. Harley and Ivy certainly did each night that they went out and caused chaos in the streets, the subject of their insanity depending on the night and little more.
“I came across a warehouse”
A new voice sang, one that made Tim go stiff as the figure stepped into the view of the mist. They recognized the man quickly for who he was, though Bruce almost found himself wishing that it was anyone else before them.
Those in the room looked at the teen as Tim went startingly stiff where he sat, though it wasn’t out of fear or something of the like as they had thought at first upon seeing the reaction. No, there was a hard sort of set to the boy’s mouth, a glint like a blade in his eyes as he looked at the man in the mist, Captain Boomerang. Digger Harkness. It was a sort of look that Dick recognized on sight, having seen it in the mirror for years after his parents’ deaths.
It was the look of someone that had lost something - someone - and wanted to kill the person responsible for taking them.
Jason raised a brow at the sight, more supposed by it than he thought that he really ought to be. After all, it was only three or so videos ago that they watched as the teen orchestrated the possible death of thousands without any sort of care for the lives that he was taking. Without any remorse for it at all.
And this was more personal than that ever was.
“That’s…” Kon started, trailing off before he could truly even begin his sentence.
Tim knew what he meant nonetheless.
“The man that killed my father,” the former Robin said, his voice as cold as the waters of the Gotham bay during the winter as everyone in the room joined him in his stillness.
Bruce listened to the way in which the teen spoke and knew then that even if Tim had made his choice back then, there was still a part of him that sought to stain his blood with the man in the mist’s blood. That maybe even sought to make it more personal than he had last time.
Steph’s brows pinched together as she looked between Tim and the man in the mist, something twisting in her gut. She knew that the other Robin used moral lines as a playbook to hold close or throw away on the best of days, despite what he may like to think. She also knew that the boy that was sure to be appearing in the mist soon was nowhere close to one of those days. She knew that whatever was to come next would not paint the younger teen in a kind sort of light.
She didn’t think that Tim really wanted it to.
“Inside I heard a voice”
The Captain continued as he walked deeper into the room that the pair were in, looking more than a little worse for wear as he does so. He looked like a man that had danced his way to the edge of hell and had to be pulled back by the neck of his shirt, just barely escaping in time to avoid a worse sort of fate.
Those in the room couldn't help but wonder just how close this was to the truth.
“It seemed to show no malice
“To greet it was my choice
“But nothing could prepare me for the power that awaited inside”
The man continued, explaining with a desperate sort of voice, as if to force the other man, the other Flash rogue, to see just how serious the situation has been that it drove him away before he could get what he had been seeking.
“(What did this place hide?)”
The Trickster asked in the mist, his voice so clearly uncaring as he does so, though there was a hint of curiosity there beneath it all. After all, it wasn’t often that a rogue left without their objective being completed if it wasn’t for the fact of them having been caught by the heroes and vigilantes in their city.
“Look, since we started, we've faced a variety of foes from a wide range of places
“Heroes, monsters, you know the roster, hostile creatures that we could resist”
Captain Boomerang sang in the mist, as he stalked ever closer, his weapons glinting at his hips as he raised his hands and counted off fingers as he listed the things that he sung. In the mist behind them there were shadowed figures in capes and costumes as he sang. The broad shoulders of Superman, the shield of Wonder Woman, the distinctive lighting bolts in the ears of the cowls of the Flashes.
All metas, all the usual brave and brash heroes of the world that they all knew. Bright and kind and lacking the terrifying sort of darkness that the villain seemed to be singing of.
“But this was a hell of a twist, 'cause we are weak to a power like this”
The Captain finished in the mist, his eyes wild as he does so.
“(What was it?)”
The crazed man asked within the mist, his curiosity seemingly truly peaked as he did so. Those in the room that didn’t already know the story being told before them felt much the same. It wasn’t often that a villian of theirs seemed so distressed for seemingly no reason at all without something like fear gas being added to the mix.
“A bat”
Is all that the Captain says in response, the word heavy in the air.
“(What?)”
Trickster asks with all of the casualness of someone that has been too far removed from the bats and birds of the damned sort of city to truly know the threat that they all posed. Humans seemed so weak when you faced down speedsters so often after all, but that’s why the Gotham Vigilantes were so sneaky.
“He had me in just two words
"’Come inside"’
In the mist they watched as the scene changed once more, going from that of a Central City warehouse to that of one of the rooms within Star Labs. Captain Boomerang was walking through the halls in the mist, and before him was a ghostly sort of figure with a too wide smile on its face, leading the rogue to another room with a gentle wave of their hand. It took those in the room a moment to realize that the new figure in the mist was that of Tim.
“What?” Bart asked, looking between the two versions of his friend, confused as to just what the teen had been doing back then.
“He didn’t take anything valuable,” the former Robin was quick to assure, turning to look at the other boy, though it didn’t quite settle the speedster as much as he would have liked.
“But you led him to stealing from Star Labs?” The younger asked, brows furrowed slightly as he does so, though not feeling as much confusion as he thought that he ought to. Tim’s plans were almost always like this, complicated and erring on the side of illegal. This whole experience was case and point for that.
Tim doesn’t quite meet anyone else’s eyes as he speaks next. “I just planted some rumors, he didn’t have to follow them.”
And didn’t Bruce know that justification well from the end of this whole show that is playing out before them.
“You’re not catching him for a crime that he’s committed,” Dick realized aloud, looking at his little brother as he does so, something heavy settling in his chest, “you’re setting him up for a new one.”
And he thought that Tim might have tried to defend himself from such an allegation, but the teen only shrugs in response. “Something like that,” is all that the third Robin says as an answer.
Jason eyes the boy with a considering sort of gaze, seeing something all too familiar in the frame and tone of the other’s posture and voice. He didn’t know if he wanted to be right or not.
“(damn)”
The Trickster says in the mist, even though he does not appear within it.
“Welcome to the best part of your life”
The ghostly form of the Tim in the mist sang as Captain Boomerang walked further into the room before him. There was something dark in the gaze of the teen then, something violent and more than a bit angry. Something hurt and raw.
Tim wondered then, watching his past self, if he wouldn’t have reacted in such an extreme way to all of this if he hadn’t have gotten so many people back. He would never wish for Kon or Bart or Steph or Bruce to be bead once more - it had more than broken him last time that they were - but getting them all back one after the other only for Z and Owens to remain dead had driven him to drastic actions that he wouldn’t have likely taken had the two assassins been with him and Pru in the Cradle. Getting them all back only for his father to remain dead, it left him with that same need to do something, anything to make the ache stop.
You couldn’t explode everything, that only worked when you were seeking to hurt men like Ra’s who had things to explode, but one could always do worse.
And Tim had sought to do just that.
“Go ahead and rest wherever you like
I've got you, don't worry, Red’s got you now
The Tim in the mist sings as he moves to stand at the side of the man within the image with him, guiding the very real hands with his ghostly own in the same manner that one might guide a mouse towards a starving snake.
“(I should have stayed outside, but I went in)”
The Captain Boomerang of the more present of the two sang, even as they did not see him do so. Instead they watched as his past self worked through all of the alarms and such within Star Labs with quick fingers, stealing away his prize.
“The fake Black Lantern Energy,” Bart realized aloud what it was that the man in the mist was stealing. “You wanted him to take it?”
“I knew that it would lead him to Freeze,” the former Robin explains as he watches his old plan unfold in the mist, so flawless if he had truly gone through with it. “Eventually that is.”
“Take a seat
“Let me bring you something to steal”
The scene changes once more as the Tim in the mist sings, going to something a bit later than what they had just watched, but not quite where they had started with the criminal pair just yet. This time though it takes place in Gotham once more, at Wayne Tech R&D. They watched as the man in the mist tried to sneak in to steal something, a cryogenic freezing unit they realized, but couldn’t quite make it as the Gotham City cops became involved, the thing that he needed just out of reach.
He looked frustrated there, ansty, nothing like the soothing voice that Tim was using to sing. The music and scene before them were so different and yet they made perfect sense as to why, the Tim in the mist that was singing was taking joy in watching the man scramble through his choices, watching him struggle. It was a voice that it didn’t matter if the older man heard or not.
“You're playing with him,” Jason realized, watching the younger former Robin in the mist, the teen standing upon a rooftop and watching with keen eyes as the man below runs away without his prize, a sharp smile on the boy’s lips as he does so.
“I’m giving him choices,” the teen says unapologetically, “he’s just making all the wrong ones.”
Jason looked at the boy a little more closely, seeing it better now than he had before. He realized that the other bat was acting like him, like the Jason that first came back to Gotham with nothing but revenge pushing his feet forwards. But where Jason’s own plans had been meant to reveal himself, to make himself known at the end of it all, a startling reveal. Tim’s plans had the boy almost entirely removed from them by design.
If Boomerang were to make a choice that didn’t align with the plans that Tim had created, then he would be saved whatever it was that the teen was doing. Jason knew that it was this way by design, salvation in the form of rightful choice that the man in the mist was never going to make. And either way it went, no one would ever be able to tie it to Tim, not completely. The assumption could be there, but the evidence would not be.
He couldn’t help but be more than a little terrified of the boy that was a bit too much like the worst parts of himself, with all of the brains of the Bat, computer skills learned from the hands of Oracle herself with his own self-taught abilities in the mix, and the skills imparted to him by the legendary assassins that have taken a liking to him over time.
It wasn’t an exaggeration to say that the teen would make a terrifying villain, they had already seen it for themselves earlier that day. And that was before the experiences that they had seen recently, the ones that stripped him of more and more of the morals that he had held so tightly to.
There were some things that this world never needed to see.
“I bet you're tired from the years spent on your feet
“I've got you, don't worry, Red’s got you now”
The Tim in the mist sings once more as he watches the fading form of the criminal, the teen dancing through the shadows as he worked to keep the officers that had responded distracted and safe.
“(By the time I realized , it was far too late)
“For inside the deal”
The Captain Boomerang of the closer present sung.
“(think of your past)”
The ghostly form of the Tim in the mist sang as he stalked behind the frazzled man, hunting him like some sort of wraith.
“He had laid a trap”
The older man of the more present sings as the younger version of himself walks into a lair that they all knew well enough, it was that of Mr. Freeze.
“(and your mistakes)”
The Tim in the mist sang as the other man passed by his ghostly form. The teen trailed a not there hand over the gleaming weapons as the man passed him, looking at them with all the loathing of someone that wanted to melt the pieces down and then pour the liquid down its owner’s throat.
“I began to fail”
They watched as in the mist Mr. Freeze shot cold blast after cold blast at the thing, though nothing seemed to be working.
“How were you so sure that he’d go to Freeze?” Kon asked, watching as the two adults in the mist struggled, each of their gazes growing colder and more suspicious of the other.
“Because it was Black Lantern energy,” the Tim of the present explains as the boy behind him ran a hand through his hair, the touch soothing yet hesitant after the events of previous video. Tim just leaned into it more. “He was already in Gotham and he needed someone with cold powers, who better than a man trying to bring his wife back from the dead.”
“That’s evil, Rob,” Cassie remarked, though her voice was light in contradiction. It was hard to be angry or anything like that when she was too busy being so thoroughly impressed by the planning skills of the other, even if the plots themselves were a bit harsh. Then again, they weren’t back in their Young Justice days anymore, it seemed like all they had now was harsh.
“(they'll be the last)”
The Tim in the mist sang as he smiled at the sight unfolding before him.
“And grow enemies”
The older version of Captain Boomerang sang as the younger version of himself sprang away from the other man, a boomerang in his hand.
“(mistakes you'll make)”
The Tim in the mist sang as he faded away right then.
“He tricked us”
In the mist they watch as Freeze raises his hands, taking up the challenge that the other’s action so clearly was.
“I've got all the power, yeah, I've got all the power
“No, I'm not a player, I'm a puppeteer
“No, I don't play, I puppeteer, yeah”
The Tim in the mist sang as he watched the scene go down from his monitor, clicking a key on it in the way that one might draw a string on a puppet, as the false Black Lantern Energy came to life and incapacitated the cold villain.
Those in the room thought that puppeteer was a very apt description for what the boy had become during this.
“Why would you do that?” Duke asked, watching as the Gotham rouge laid unmoving but alive on the ground as the other rouge got away. “Didn’t you want Freeze to kill him?”
It was those last words that sent a jolt through the room, forcing recognition and realization into all of those that had been avoiding it till now, not wanting to force themselves to know that this was exactly what Tim had been trying to do. To kill the man that had killed his father.
“I wanted to kill him myself,” the older teen answers, his voice a bit too cold.
It sent a shiver through the room.
“Didn’t go through with it,” Cass says then, both an observation and a question in one.
“I didn’t,” Tim confirms, pressing into his sister’s side, knowing her thoughts in taking lives in such a way. For the sake of taking them instead of survival.
He lets her think that he couldn’t bring himself to do it, he had thought so too at the time after all, it was too personal. But there were few things more punishing than having to continue living. The pain stopped once you were dead after all.
“Hunted me down (this is the price)
“And it wasn't quick (you pay to kill)
“He turned me (the world does not)
“From predator to prey (tend to forgive)
“He led me”
They watched as in the mist Captain Boomerang ran away from the incoming cop cars, not knowing that his fate had been sealed from the moment that he had killed Jack Drake so long ago.
“I've got all the power, yeah, I've got all the power
“No, I'm not a player, I'm a puppeteer
“No, I don't play, I puppeteer, yeah”
They watched as the teen stood once more, twisting his Bo staff through his fingers as he walked away towards the door like the Grim Reaper about to go and lay claim to a soul.
“I have to go save them”
The Bruce in the mist sings as the scene changes once more, back to the beginning of the song though likely just a little bit before the start of what they had actually seen of it. The Batman in the mist sounds more than a bit desperate as he sings, like there’s more than one life on the line.
Back then it had felt that way, but Bruce knew things now that he hadn’t before. He knew now that the only reason that Tim hadn’t killed the man that had killed his father was because it was a personal sort of kill, the other lives that the boy had taken had been anything but.
He wondered what would have happened had Tim desperately himself as throughly from this kill as the others. If he would have gone through with it. Bruce liked to think that he wouldn’t have, but he didn’t know anymore.
“no, you don't”
The Barbra in the mist protests, her voice firm and cutting as she does so, turning to face the man beside her.
“Look at all we've lost and all we've learned
“Every single cost is so much more than what we've earned”
Barbra sings in the mist, her eyes drawn to the images on the screens before her, videos of her bats and birds flying through the sky just as she used to before she lost her legs but managed to keep her life. Managed to make herself into something just as strong as she had been before, even if the form was a bit different than it was before. All of it was so much more than what they all deserved.
There were so many people out there whose families died and stayed gone, but the bats and birds always seemed to come back from such losses. And when they were the ones that had been left in the world of the living, it had been Tim that had brought them back from being little more than ghosts of their former selves.
They hadn’t earned him, not then and not now after the teen had brought Bruce back from what everyone else had thought had been death.
She thought that the man before her needed to have a bit more faith in his partner.
“Think about the children you have left before there's none
“Let's just cut our losses, and let them run”
The words are sung in a manner that was all too much like a stubborn sort of plead, the type that you knew even as you spoke it that it was falling upon unhearing ears.
“Of course, I'd like to let him of course I want them happy”
The Bruce in the mist sings with an angry sort of desperation as the Bruce of the present thought of the recurring theme that it seemed to be with himself and his birds. The need to kill those that had taken their loved ones away. The inability to actually bring themselves to do it. Tim wasn’t exempt from such a thing, and Bruce knew now that he should have been a little kinder, a little more proud of the teen when he had actively chosen not to take Digger’s life when he so easily could and never have been caught for doing so.
“But I can hardly sleep now knowing everything we've all done
“There's no length I wouldn't go if it was one of you I had to save
“I can only hope you'd do the same”
The Bruce in the mist sings, that desperation rising as he does so, and it’s then that Babs opens a tab on the screen, that small image of the hotel in Paris, the song coming full circle there as the former Batgirl seemed to make her mind up with that last line as to what she thought that she needed to do, the things that needed to be said. The things that never were said because the Bruce in the mist left first.
“I can hear him still (no one will find)
“And his voice deceives (their way between)
“What if he can't be killed? (My revenge and I)
“Will you choose to leave? (Their loving king)”
In the mist they watch as Tim soars through the sky, following a a shadow in the distance, a bird hunting their prey. Every movement that the teen made was graceful, beautiful as he moved. One would never have thought that he was moving in such a way to go and kill another.
“(I don't know)”
The Captain of the future says even as they don’t see him do, he sounds contemplative then, as if considering leaving the Gotham vigilante alone.
“I've got all the power, yeah, I've got all the power
“No, I'm not a player, I'm a puppeteer
“No, I don't play, I puppeteer, yeah”
It was then as the Tim in the mist sang that they realized that the teen had been purposefully gaining on the rouge, cornering the man as he let the other know that he was being hunted for sport, making him sloppy as he moved.
“He’s a clever bat (this is the price)
“And he’s hard to beat (we pay to kill)
“It's a game of wits (we draw the line)
“But you don't have to play (watch from above)”
The pair in the mist stopped on a rooftop, panic filling the older’s face as the Australian threw a boomerang at the teen that the bat simply just tilted his head to the side to dodge, knowing that the angle wasn’t right for it to spear him in the back, as it hit the brick of all behind him instead. It still went back to its owner though, imbedding itself in the man’s shoulder as Red Robin watched with cold eyes as the older man stumbled and fell from the edge of the roof.
The room was still as they watched that, only comforted by the knowledge (for Tim’s sake) that the man was still alive, even if he didn’t deserve to be.
“I have to try”
The scene changes then, just for a moment it changes to a scene of the Batman flying through the night sky, bound to be too late to do a thing.
“I've got all the power, yeah, I've got all the power
“No, I'm not a player, I'm a puppeteer
“No, I don't play, I puppeteer, yeah”
They watched as the Tim in the mist moved at the last second, running forwards and casting his grappling gun down to wrap around the man’s leg, holding him dangling in the air, knowing that the other’s life was in his hands and his alone.
“You saved him,” Damian said from Timothy’s side, his brows pinched in confusion as he does so. “Why would you do that? You had no problem taking lives before.”
Tim thinks about his answer then, because what the child was saying was true. He felt no guilt for the assassins that surely died in his attack, but this had been different for him.
“Because staining your hands with blood for survival is different then doing it because you can, because you want to,” the third Robin explains, watching as Damian’s eyes track his every facial movement as he does. “It’s cold and cruel, but lives don’t weigh the same in your eyes when it’s that of a stranger or someone that you.
“Besides,” the older boy starts, knowing that he needs to add this to make sure that the younger wouldn’t one day stray as he had, “I knew through it all that even if I were to kill him, I wouldn’t have felt better. My father wouldn’t have wanted me to avenge him in such a way. I knew that, and I knew that I needed to respect it.”
He knew that it was the main thing holding him back from going through with it.
“How did Bruce react to all of this,” Steph asked, jerking a thumb at the man in question, knowing that the bat wouldn’t answer the way that she wanted if she were to ask him.
“Like I was Jason,” is all that the younger teen says as an answer.
It’s enough.
Jason flinches just a bit at that, having already had the same sort of realization before. He found that it surprisingly was not a comparison that he wanted to have with his little brother; he found that he wanted a kinder sort of end for the teen.
He thought that the others in the room must agree from the slight horror in their eyes. This was the only time that he didn’t truly mind it.
Bruce wanted to apologize for how he had reacted back then, but he knew better than to do so after all of the other times that one of them had tried before. Words meant little to the teen, actions meant nearly everything.
“The final song will start in a moment.”
Notes:
I started the podfic for this, so if you want to check it out then here is the link to the podfic series playlist. I’m trying to update it every few days. I also have a bunch of other videos and stuff on there if you want to watch some of longer ones to help me reach the time needed for monetization, that would be really cool. A lot of my works on here are either already Podfics on there, or will be soon:
https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLHSTESD1Pfpo7LkK8OJ-bWX0aqU3FRhBI&si=hG0io8S-la3y5Lg2
When I make book two for this, it will also be uploaded there
Also, I made a podfic link fic type thing (you know the ones, where it says [PODFIC] and then has the information and the link in it) that will be in the inspired works of this
Chapter 16: Would You Fall in Love With Me Again
Summary:
Tim and Kon reunite after the events of the Red Robin arc, there are things to be said that weren't before his death and before Tim's journey to find Bruce and everything that he did after.
Notes:
Would You Fall In Love With Me Again by Jorge Rivera-Herrans from EPIC the Musical: The Ithaca Saga
This is obviously not canon, but I love them...so skip if you want
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
When the music starts for the final time and the mist shifts into an image, it’s somewhere that everyone in the room recognized though not somewhere that the mist had shown before. The Tim in the mist, one that looked so close to that of the the Tim in the room with them, was in civilian clothes for the first time in longer than they cared to remember, standing in the short grass of a familiar driveway as he looked up at a familiar house, the warm wind lightly kissing at his skin.
There was one person in the room that recognized this moment, and two that knew what was to come next.
Cassie watched with a small smile as the Tim of the present leaned back a bit more against Kon’s legs, letting the other boy take his weight as the super smiled down fondly at the human, playing lightly with a strand of the other’s hair. It was domestic in a way that nothing that they had watched yet had been, the only coming close being the time that Tim had spent training under the assassin woman. She was glad for the pair, they deserved something soft.
They watched as in the mist the door to the home opened slowly, a kind but stern woman stepping out onto the porch as the Tim in the mist turned to look at her.
“Tim, he’s waiting for you”
Mrs. Kent said, her voice holding something like understanding within it as they watched as the Tim in the mist smiled a small, but achingly true sort of smile at her as he walked up the porch steps and passed her into the house with a nod, the woman’s hand trailing lovingly over the boy’s shoulder as he does so.
No one says anything as they watch the soft scene unfold, as they watch as the Tim in the mist climbs the old stairs, his hands shaking against the banister even as his shoulders were set with determination.
“Kon”
The Tim in the mist calls out, even as he knows that the other boy must have heard his heartbeat drawing closer for hours now. They watched as the teen slowly reached out and opened the door to the other’s bedroom, every movement smooth but screaming of caution, as the boy in the mist was about to do something utterly foolish.
“Is it you? Have my wishes been answered?
They watched as Kon turned slowly in the mist, every movement just as cautious as that of the Tim before him. There was something about the way that he sang then that made it seem as if this was the first time that they had seen one another in years, even as they knew that Tim had seen him not long before this moment, maybe a few months at the best. But at the same time it did truly feel like something of a reunion, as if the super in the mist was finally looking upon his bird and not the flightless creature that he had become. Though he would forever be a few feather short.
“Is it really you standing there, or am I dreaming once more?”
They watched as Tim stood still towards the center of the room as Kon approached him slowly, stopping just before where the other boy stood, the toes of their shoes almost touching, but not quite, as if giving the former Robin the opportunity to pull away should he seek it.
He didn’t.
“You look different, your eyes look tired”
The taller of the two boys sung, raising his hand to graze his fingers over the cusp of the other’s face, an action achingly reminiscent of what the super had done during that mission together when they were young, of what the ghost of that boy had done to save Tim not long before.
It was only through this action that those in the room truly noticed just how dark the space around the teen’s eyes looked just then.
“Your frame is lighter, your smile torn”
The Kon in the mist’s other hand joined the first, cupping the shorter boy’s face as he looked down at him with such a careful look, as if one wrong move was liable to scare the bird into flight.
Maybe it was.
The Kon in the mist let his thumb tug against the corner of the lips that he was so used to seeing smirking in triumph, and yet they had hardly shown any positive emotion at all since before the super’s own death. Only worry and anger and doubt.
Such an emotion was still on those lips now.
“Is it really you, my love?”
The Kon in the mist asked, voicing for the first time the words that he had died before ever getting the chance to speak, to admit to himself or anyone else, yet he spoke them with the familiarity of a thousand years of doing so, only smiling sadly as Tim’s eyes went wide in the mist.
Nearly all of the eyes of the bats went wide in the present.
“Love?!” Dick asked, as Jason wolf whistled at the now blushing pair. Steph’s laugh rang like bells through the room as Cass smiled gently at the blushing bat and bird. Duke smiled then, bright as the light that he could create, happy for the his brother, as Bruce smiled something much smaller but no less genuine. He was happy that at least one generation figured it out before it was too late to do so. “When did this happen?”
Tim turned and looked at the super then, something soft and intiament passing between the pair as the blue of the world met the blue of the sky. It was the sort of private gaze that made those that peered upon it feel as if they shouldn’t have.
“Always,” the pair answered together.
There was nothing else to say of that.
“I am not the man you fell in love with”
The Tim in the mist sung, breaking away from the other’s gaze as if it had burned. The eyes that had dulled from their shock before went wide once more, two more gazes joining them as the other two founding members of Young Justice looked at their friends in surprise. They had figured that things had gone smoothly at the start at least, they didn’t think that Tim would try to sabotage it before it could ever begin.
They thought that maybe they should have, it was a very Tim thing to do
“I am not the boy you once adored
“I am not your kind and gentle Robin”
As the Tim in the mist sung a ghostly sort of image of the boy that he had been back when he had started as Robin apparead for a moment in his place wearing a faded version of the original colors that their Tim had long abandoned, buried with the boy before him in the mist.
“And I am not the love you knew before”
They watched as the Tim in the mist stepped back from the other’s touch, dispelling the image of the young Robin and showing the present version of himself once more. It was startling to see how much of a change it was between the two versions of the boys, separated only by time itself. To see how he practically looked like a different person altogether.
It was the sort of change that hurt Bruce to see because it was not a kind one. It was a change built from wars that soldiers would never serve in, but Tim had chosen for himself.
“Would you fall in love with me again
“If you knew all I've done?
“The things I cannot change
“Would you love me all the same?
“I know that you've been waiting, waiting for love”
They watched as the Tim in the mist backed up a step or two more, drawing his arms up around himself in something of a hug, a childish self soothing manner as he sung. As he sung in a way that one would when already expecting heartbreak and scorn. As if he were no longer worth the love that he might have been given before.
It hurt those in the room to see. To see the former Robin broken down to such a small form by his own doubt. As if he thought himself to now be one of the monsters that he had once spoken slaying.
And maybe he was one of those monsters now, after all he had fit in so seamlessly among them since he was small. But Young Justice had been formed as Young Just Us, a bunch of children that only had one another and the robot that they had annoyed so much that he actually felt the emotion. They could never really think of each other as monsters, not for something like what they have seen thus far. They had long seen the darkness that lingered in each of them and had chosen to make it into something bright.
No, Bart knew, as certain as before when he had no information, and as certain as now when he had all of it, that Kon would have loved Tim no matter how many cracks were showing.
“What kinds of things did you do?”
The Kon in the mist asked, his voice and eyes soft with concern and lacking any of the suspicion or anger that one of the bats might have expected to hear from another of their sort of vigilantes.
Tim couldn’t help but feel like a fool for ever thinking such a comparison of the other. The Kents have always been brighter than the sun itself. Kinder too.
“Left a trail of red on every continent
“As I traded men like objects I could use”
The Tim in the mist admits as he looks down at his feet and nowhere else, shocking those in the room with the honesty of his response. They hadn’t really expected it from him, not so outright and blunt like this. Getting answers from a bat was a lot like pulling the strongest of teeth, and yet the teen in the mist was answering as clearly as he seemed to know how.
As he sung, images of explosions appeared at his back, flashes of labs broken into and lonely rooftops, of foreign countries covered in snow. He had split blood in many places during the year that he was gone, and had almost done so in many more.
It was enough red to make him one of the worst of those that they had faced.
“Hurt more lives than I can count on my hands”
The Tim in the mist sung as he unwrapped his arms from around himself to look at those very hands as if he could see the blood that he had drowned them in, as if they could show him each of the lives that he had destroyed in the sake of saving one and avenging another.
And he had, hadn't he? Hurt more lives than he could count on his hands. He had done so long before he had ever set off on the journey that he had taken.
“But all of that was to bring me back to you”
The Tim in the mist declared as he looked up to meet the other’s concerned gaze with a steely one of his own, because it was true in more ways than it should have been. When he had started off on his journey, Tim had only had one goal in mind at the time, all that he had wanted was to find proof that Bruce was alive and stuck within the timestream. He didn’t care about the cost to others, and almost welcomed the cost to himself. Bleeding out in a hotel room and thinking only of the boy before him. He thought that he likely would have seen it as a kind sort of ending had he died then and Kon had truly been waiting for him on the other side.
He hadn’t of course.
The hit list that he had been crossing off ever since coming back to Gotham had been all of the things that he needed to do before he could try and become any semblance of who he had been before. And here he was with that mission as complete as he wished it to be, standing before the other boy and asking to be allowed to be someone even remarkably close to cherished by the other as he had been before. To be loved with all of the damage included.
Directed at anyone else, Tim thought that it might have been a foolish sort of thing to ask, but he knew now that it was anything but.
Kon smiled sadly at the image of his Robin in the mist, things would have gone so much smoother had he just lifted his head and met the super’s gaze from the start. But, then that wouldn’t be them now would it? Difficulty was apart of the human condition, and a clone and a bar were somehow more human than most.
“So tell me
“Would you fall in love with me again
“If you knew all I've done?
“The things I can't undo
“I am not the boy you knew
“I know that you've been waiting, waiting”
Those in the room didn’t pay nearly enough attention to the scene in the mist as likely should have as the third Robin sung to the clone, instead their attention being captured by the present pair themselves as the bat stood and looked down at the other boy with that same sort of question in his gaze. It was more honest now, more full of truth now that the other truly knew everything that had occurred, from the acts that he had committed to those that had been committed upon him. Now that the other could see the full scope of the damage that the bird held within his chest, across his skin like a brand. The threats that still lingered even now.
Though as he looked, the Tim of the present knew the answer that he would get, was as sure of it as he had been in the past, though this time he was right.
The Kon of the present only smirked up at the other boy and tugged lightly at the other teen’s hand, pulling him onto the couch at his side.
He doubted that there was anything that the other could do to make him stop loving him, not even the attempted cloning had been enough for that.
“If that's true, could you do me a favor?
“Just a moment of labor that would bring me some peace”
The Kon in the mist sung, drawing the eyes in the room back to the images playing out before them, to the words being sung. It was not very often that a super found themselves asking for favors of labor from bats or birds. Usually it might be the other way around.
Bart and Cassie both noticed the cunning sort of light in their friend’s gaze though, as the bats and birds were too busy focusing on the resigned sort of grief in the eyes of one of their own.
It was a cruel sort of trick that the clone was playing.
It was a necessary one though.
One that Tim was likely to appreciate once the scene in the mist was done playing out.
The bat of the present was proof enough of this as a flush rose to his cheeks at how he had been tricked.
“See that picture there? Could you carry it over?
“Lift it high on your shoulders and take it far away from here”
As the boy in the mist sung, he pointed at an electronic sort of picture that had been built into the wall, all but glowing in the midday sun. It was a solar powered picture frame, one that all of the members of Young Justice had, the group of them dressed in civilian clothing. Just a bunch of friends at the mall. Tim, Conner, Bart, and Cassie were sitting at the center of the group, with the others filling in around and behind them. The old woman that had taken their photo had accidentally taken a video instead, but Tim hadn’t minded once he had seen what had been done, it had given him an idea.
“How could you say this?
“I had designed that tech with my blood and sweat”
The Tim in the mist sang and he ran a finger over the moving image in the wall, the video clip playing. It had taken far too long to make it all, but it has been worth it to see the way in which the Conner in the image turned to him and had smiled like the sun itself. Tim had wanted that full scene in motion and wouldn’t settle for anything less.
“Carved out of the stone where we first met”
The frames of each of the video images were made out of the mountain stone of Mount Justice, a symbol of where they had begun. Bart’s even had splashes of spray paint on it from what the speedster had made on their first morning together.
“A symbol of us everlasting”
A symbol of a time when there had been nothing but trouble to their names, when they had not even had rooms or beds to sleep in the places that they gathered, or chairs with their own symbols on it so Tim’d had to draw the Robin symbol himself. A symbol of Young Just Us.
A symbol of the two of them, as the Conner in the video image turned at the last few moments to smile down at Tim like some sort of lover even though they had not been so yet. Not even in the mist had they been so yet.
“Do you realize what you have asked me?
“The only way to move it is to tear it from its seams”
The Tim in the mist sings, turning from the image to the boy before him with something a bit desperate and distraught on his face, as if the very thought of even trying to remove the picture from the wall caused him pain.
“Only my Robin knew that
“So I guess that makes him you”
The Kon in the mist sings, his voice just as desperate and just as loud as Tim’s had been, just as determined to be heard and understood. To make it clear how little he cared of the differences between the boy that he had left behind when he had died and the one standing before him now. To make it clear that he loved him still no matter what name the other wore, no matter the things that he had done.
In the mist they watch as the taller of the two boys crosses the room as he sings, making quick strides to the other as the realization of the trick that had been played fills the room, the cunning shining through. If the approval wasn’t already there from the bats, then it was now.
The Kon of the present grabbed the other boy’s hands in the silence that followed his counterpart’s loud proclamation, tangling their fingers together as Tim turned to look at him and bringing the other’s fingers to his lips in a soft sort of gesture. Tim smiled then, something small but unquestionably true.
“Kon”
The Tim in the mist sings, his voice soft and small in a way that it usually never was as the other boy stopped so close before him once more.
“I will fall in love with you over and over again
“I don't care how, where, or when”
The Kon in the mist sings as the Tim before him changes once more, going from the image of the boy that he had been before ever donning the Robin, to his time under the mantle, to when Robin had lost all of the green that it had once held, to the red of the suit that he had last seen the other in. To even a flash of a future that they all hoped that they would never have to see.
“No matter how long it's been, you're mine”
The Kon in the mist grabs the other boy’s hand, lacing their fingers together just as those of the present’s were right then. When he does the image of the Tim in the mist settles into that of the boy that had walked into the room at the beginning of it all, pale and too thin and battle worn, but still his.
“Don't tell me you're not the same person
“You're always my Robin and I've been waiting, waiting”
The Kon in the mist all but demands as he raises his free hand ever so slowly, as if not to startle a wild beast.
“Kon”
The Tim in the mist sings, his eyes wide with surprise and something so hauntingly close to hope.
“Waiting, waiting (Kon)
“Waiting, waiting
“Waiting, up
“For you”
The super’s hand finally reached the other’s face as he finished singing, cupping the other teen’s jaw within the palm of his hand as if it were something precious to hold. As if it didn’t matter which version of himself stood before him so long as it was Tim.
The other hand of the Tim in the mist settled itself on the other boy’s arm, as if giving him permission to stay.
The wordless music swelled as Kon leaned down the, his head resting against that of the Tim in the mist’s for just a moment before moving once more, their lips slotting together in a kiss. It was a private sort of thing, intimate in ways that much more heated sort of acts might not have been. The sort of kiss that made all those in the room other than the pair themselves look away because this was something that they were never meant to have seen.
“How long has it been?”
The Kon in the mist asks as he pulls away, placing his forehead against that of the other’s once more as if any more space would have hurt.
“Too many months”
The Tim in the mist answers with a sad sort of smile on his lips, his voice shaking just a bit as he does so because they both know that it had been much longer than that.
“I, I love you”
The pair sing together, so simple yet likely the most true thing that they had likely ever spoken before.
No in the room said anything as the mist dispersed then, losing all of it form and fading into nothing. There was nothing for them to say, and no time for them to do it as the disembodied voice spoke once more.
“You are free to go.”
Notes:
That is the end of the reaction portion, next up will be them leaving the room and then next book will be everything that comes after this.
Chapter 17: Release
Summary:
They are let free from Tim's mind now knowing everything, but what is the cost of this?
Notes:
The final chapter for this book, I hope you enjoy. It is short, but it’s supposed to just be there to kinda set up where the next book will start.
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
There is a great flash before the eyes of all of those that had been within the room, the world around them being drowned out in a red sort of light, like that of Tim’s suit. When it clears before them all, they are back on the street that had been on before they had been taken and forced to watch a life unfold before their eyes.
It looked as if no time had passed at all.
Superman and Supergirl were up within the sky still, flying down to the ground as smoke from fallen boys danced through the air around them all. The archers were still up upon the buildings, putting the arrows that they’d had ready, but had not needed, back into their quivers. The founding members of Young Justice were still gathered closely around one another, that familiar diamond of a shape. The bats were still as close as they had been when they had begun their walk over after seeing Red Robin take that shot.
Everything was just as it was, and somehow Tim thought that it almost made it all worse.
(Because there should be some kind of marker for what he had just had to endure. Some physical sort of change and not just the memories now within each of their minds)
The only damned change was that the owner of the disembodied voice was gone. The teen wished that they had stayed a bit longer, it would have been a great face to fist conversation.
Tim watched as everyone that had been within the room glanced around at each other, as if to make sure that everything that had just occurred had not been a figment of their imagination, and to make sure that everyone that had been there was back now. They were, even as Tim wished that he himself wasn’t.
It was a quick sort of decision that had the third Robin reaching out to the boy before him, his movements silent and quick in nature as he does so before any of the bats could think to continue their journey over towards the four friends.
Kon startled just a bit as a hand grabbed his own, looking to the owner of it with the wide sort of eyes of someone that had just been through the trenches as they all had.
“Farm,” Tim whispers, his voice so low that Kon might never had heard it if he had not seen the other boy’s lips moving and instinctively moved to listen more carefully than before.
That single word, plea, is all that the boy needs to take the bird up into his arms and them both up into the sky before any of the heroes and vigilantes around them could think to stop them.
(And they did try to do so, yells for them to come back rung in the super’s ear till he was half way from Delaware to Kansas. He never listened to it once)
When the pair land in the short grass around the Kent family home, the warmth of the sun seeps into each of their skin as they take a moment to just exist after everything that had just occurred, the battle feeling so long ago even while it only ended moments before, and the videos feeling as if they took hours upon to get through when it was at most an hour or two with all of the commentary attached. To say that each of the two were drained, both physically and emotionally, would be an understatement.
“You okay there, Wonder?” Kon asks as the other teen moves and rests his head on the super’s chest.
He already knew the answer, but it was something that he felt he needed to ask anyways.
“No,” the bird answers, blunt and honest and breaking in a way because lying came so naturally to the bats and birds that they could do it easier than breathing, and yet here Tim was telling the simple truth.
“Okay,” Kon says, because what else is there for him to say? Nearly anything else would be a lie.
(Especially when he didn’t feel quite that great either after everything)
Both boys turn as they hear the front door to the house opening behind them, their expressions shifting into something softer and kinder in nature as they see Ma and Pa smiling at them from the front porch.
“Hello dear,” Martha said, looking down at the smaller of the two teens as the pair of heroes approached the front steps, “we weren’t expecting to see you today. How are you, how’s that bat of yours doing?”
“Ah, you know, the usual,” Tim answers, attempting to sound kind but coming across as nothing short of exhausted instead.
The elder of the three Kents share a look as the teens walk past them into the house. They’d been around enough heroes in their time to know that something had gone drastically wrong somewhere between the end of what the news had shown of the fight and now. Especially, if one of Bruce’s brood had been careless enough to bring a suit to their home, something that none of the bats or birds of Gotham would ever do with a clear mind, the paranoid lot that they were.
“Dinner will be ready shortly if you’re staying for it,” John says, knowing good and well what the answer will most likely be. Conner wouldn't have brought the boy home to them if he was going to be gone so soon.
Tim smiles, something tired and shaken and so small that it hardly counted as a smile at all. “That would be nice,” the teen admits. Mrs. Kent’s food always tasted of warmth and love and comfort in every way that food could manage. He thought that he might need that right now.
The way that Kon squeezed his hand told the bat that the other agreed.
The two teens make their way up the stairs then, going to the room that Kon had long claimed as his own. The pair take turns showering and changing into civilian clothing, the sun slowly setting outside by the time that they were both done and sitting on the super’s bed, Tim’s hair mostly dry while water was dripping from the clone’s curls.
It was peaceful for a moment, mundane in the way that so few things ever were with them, so of course Kon had to change that.
“I know I already asked,” the super starts, immediately feeling guilty for doing so as the other boy just moves to lay his head on his shoulder so that he wouldn’t have to look the taller boy in the face, “but how are you doing?” This time Tim only shrugs in answer. Somehow this was just as genuine of an answer as before. “I doubt that if you had been doing well that you would have asked me to fly us out of there like we were running from the Justice League… again.”
Tim thinks about not answering more than he already had, but he knew what the other was looking for.
“I just didn’t want to deal with all of them yet ,” he answers honestly, tracing the wood patterns on the floor with his eyes. “To have to sit there and do post mission talks about the whole thing in the cave while we all acted as if I hadn’t already had my life invaded enough for one day.”
And honestly it would be cruel of Kon not to agree, because he had, hadn’t he.
“Yeah, but you can’t hide here forever," he reminds the other, knowing that it would never come to that. The Genius idiot would miss Gotham too much, the demon city that it is.
The smirk that slips onto Tim’s face at that tells him that they are not quite on the same page with what the other is about to say next. “Of course not,” the other teen agrees, “there’s always the Tower and the Nest I could hide in as well. Even a few safe houses within Crime Alley where Jason would never think to look. Mount Justice if I’m feeling particularly nostalgic.”
And Kon laughs at that despite knowing just what the other was doing.
It makes them both feel a bit lighter nonetheless.
Tim watches as the other boy stills after a moment, looking as if he was hearing something that the bat couldn’t, he always was. It was only the lack of panic in his frame that let the boy know that it likely wasn’t anyone that they had left behind in the city.
“Ma is asking for me to help her down in the kitchen,” Kon explains, pulling himself to his feet with a regretful sort of smile. “I’ll come grab you when it’s all ready.”
Tim nods then as Kon leaves, needing a moment alone anyways, just a moment to process everything that had occurred, and really think about what he was going to do next.
He doesn’t get that moment though.
Tim’s phone had been silently going off since the moment that he left Metropolis with Kon, every call purposefully ignored as he knew that it was one of the bats, but had still checked it every time.
(Cassie and Bart knew better than to call right then, knowing that Tim would need time for the night to make himself feel something close to being in control once more, and that they could call tomorrow to check in if they wished to. The pair trusted that he would be safe so long as he was with Kon.)
The only reason that he answers the call at all this time is because he doesn’t recognize the number on the screen and sometimes Pru called him burners or pay phones that he didn’t know.
When he answers it though, he finds himself biting back a flinch at the sound of the voice on the other side of the line.
“Did you like your gift, detective?” The voice on the phone asks, and truly Tim didn’t need anything else other than that to know just who it was that was calling him. He didn’t need anything else other than that to want to throw the device across the room like a child either. “I would have rather had it done for your birthday, but I didn’t know if such a perfect opportunity would arrive once more around then.”
“It was something,” the teen manages to reply, gripping the sheets that he was sitting on to stop himself from digging his nails into his palms.
“You didn’t like it then?” The Demon’s Head asks, so false and annoying for a man that had once told him to leave the jokes to Dick.
“You know as well as I do, Ra’s, that your ‘gift’ was as much a curse as it was a gift at all,” the teen refutes, something a bit venomous entering his tone then.
(Because even if there were apologies and attempts at them all growing closer now that Ra’s had done this to them (to him), there would always be a wonder in the back of Tim’s mind if this ever would have happened on its own if Ra’s had not interfered. Because Ra's took away the chance for them to grow organically without it being stained by a violation such as this. Because he would never know if any of the bats and birds could have loved him enough to see a problem and change on their own.
He would never know if he would have gotten the courage to confess most of the things that he had hidden from them. If he would trust them enough to do so, because there is no trust in force. And this had been all force from start to finish. And he would forever be stuck wondering just how differently they looked at him now, knowing the things that he had done and still might do. How his hands seemed to have been designed to be stained by blood from the moment that he started training for Robin.
There were so many things that he would never know now, but he would forever know the doubt of it all, and that’s what Ra’s wanted to use to destroy him)
Ra’s laughs then, cold and cruel and Tim knows that he’s right.
“Enjoy the gift, detective,” the ancient man says, hanging up before he can say anything more.
And Tim knows that all of this had been to make the third Robin feel powerless and alone, to guess every interaction that came next with the bats, a silent mental torture to break him down without Ra’s having to say anything at all from here on out.
(He knew that it just might work)
Kon walks in as the first tear falls, understanding on his face from having heard everything said in the short interaction that it was. Tim isn’t even mad about that as he just lets the other hold him for a while.
It had been a long sort of day after all, one with too many extra hours attached to it.
They’re late going down to dinner, but the elder Kents don’t say anything about it when they see the puffy redness of Tim’s eyes.
(They wouldn’t have even if it hadn’t been there.)
Tim spends the night that night, his ear over Kon’s heart so that he could hear the beating of it. Ma and Pa know that he is probably going to be staying for a while, as they close the bedroom door, and go to sleep in their own.
Notes:
Hi! Thank you so much to the people that have been here reading since I uploaded the first chapter, the people that found this along the way, and those that have found it once it’s complete. This all took about 4 months to write. Writing it was a lot of fun, and fed my current hyper fixation to the point that I think once I’m done with the next fic I might actually be able to finish the Harry Potter rewrite that I started a while back. All of the comments have meant a lot even if I didn’t reply to most of them.
Side note:
Was that ending bittersweet as hell….? Yes, yes it was. Am I apologizing for it? Never. Though, I do hope that it answers the questions that people had about why Ra’s would do this (mental warfare, gotta break your opponents defenses down before you seek to do anything, we’ll see soon how well that goes)Book two of this series, God Games, will be about the bats coming to terms with the things that they have learned about Tim, and trying to become a family once more. Not just for Tim, though mostly, but to all of them. Every person will get a chapter, kinda like all of the gods getting a part in the song.
I’ll be taking a two week break from this to try and get ahead on some planning for that, and then we’ll go back to the weekly schedule of posting.
I also have a monthly Percy Jackson fic (rewrite where Percy is raised by Amos Kane from the Kane chronicles) that is up if you want to look at that, and a Blue Exorcist x Kpop Demon Hunters fic that I’m hoping to mostly write during one of those weeks off from this series if you wanna check that out (reincarnation au where Rumi reincarnated and became Rin)See you in the next book!
Chapter 18: Announcement
Summary:
Quick announcement (added like two months after the fic was finished)
Chapter Text
Hi, there is a part three to this fic that is just going to be animatics done of this fic, so if you don't want to read part two, then just jump and bookmark or subscribe part three
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