Chapter Text
Sometimes, Tim forgets what it was like to be whole.
What it was like to not be cradling all the pieces of him, carefully taping them together, and hoping a gust wouldn’t come splintering them back apart again. The scars that decorated his body had long etched themselves into his soul. It’s hard for him to remember where it all began – where the abandoned memory of a child became something more.
Not quite an adult, but no longer the untainted kid he used to be.
Maybe it was the first time he realized that love does not mean that someone will stay, maybe it was the first time he fell without knowing if someone would catch him (or when he fell hoping no one would catch him). It could have been lost in the echo of empty hallways, in the bruises blossoming on training mats, or in the blood spilling around him.
It wouldn’t matter. What was lost was lost and Tim knew that he would no longer get it back. But, he wondered if the others ever noticed; if they saw that he had strayed away from the flock – more of an outsider now than the man who had slit his throat – or if they saw torn edges of his back where they helped rip out his wings. The same hands that had once lovingly straightened a loose feather, gently fixed a broken wing, and thoroughly covered his scars with enough love that he couldn’t feel their sting. They would become another thing he'd lose the moment he added red to his name.
Still....sometimes Tim lets himself dream.
Dream of hiding in his mother’s skirts, of racing on rooftops, of feeling safe underneath a warm cape. He dreams of open skies and beautiful wings carrying him right where he belonged. Let’s himself imagine a different life as he sits in his baren apartment waiting for a phone call that will never come. But as the night falls, he slowly dresses himself in the colors he once loved. A robin brings hope to the city, so he must bury his irrational dreams alongside his broken memories and neglected feelings. While doing so, he forgets - that the others were robins too. That they bring hope to everyone in Gotham, even to the most flightless of birds.
---------
The sun was already creeping past the horizon when Tim hears the footsteps. He knows those steps. They used to be hateful stalking him into his nightmares, but recently they were timid, like a clumsy effort to soothe.
“Damian, I know you’re there,” Tim tenses his body, already anticipating the swish of a knife cutting through the air. But only silence follows in the wake of his words. Tim turns slowly, unsure of what was happening and why.
Damian just stands there; his usual glare was absent leaving a look in his eyes that was unfamiliar to Tim. Tim opens his mouth to question why Damian had been following him.
"You....haven't been around," words spill past Damian's lips like he couldn't help it.
"What?"
Damian's face twists in frustration. "The manor. You haven't visited the manor. You missed Sunday dinner for the past six months."
Tim just stares back. Out of all the people to ask about his absence, he would have bet Damian to care the least. He thought Damian would celebrate - privately as to not upset Dick - and definitely would never seek Tim out to ask why.
"Does it matter?" That's not what Tim meant to say, but Damian has unsettled him. Locked emotions rattle around in their cage, banging to be let out. The grimace on Damian's face deepens as his ears start to burn in indigitation. Ah yes, familiar territory, Tim thinks as his hand twitches towards his bo staff. Damian's eyes track the movement, but instead of reaching towards his katana like Tim expects, Damian drops to the floor of the rooftop.
"Sit down." He states, his typical tone of finality soften by something (nerves?). Without even fully understanding why, Tim sits down mirroring Damian's position and returning his assessing look.
"I -" The younger boy glances at Tim before his eyes dart away looking for anything else, "I don't understand."
"You don't understand what?"
"Why you would leave something you fought so hard for?" Damian locks eyes with Tim, his fiery glint returning as he stares Tim down almost challenging him to answer. A challenge Tim doesn't know if he can answer. This was Damian; the boy who had ripped Robin from his painful grip and smiled at him as he stole everything Tim had left. A boy, Tim remembers.
"It wasn't mine anymore," Tim states simply. It was true; the manor that had once been his home was tainted by waves of grief, irreparable arguments, and unhealed scars. Maybe, it could have become whole again. He had seen it firsthand, how a broken home could fix itself with time and care. Tim wants to believe that the house was better now, that it was changed, that the people had changed. Maybe, Damian standing here - asking him why he left - was proof of that. But, Tim couldn't risk it. He was already desperately holding together what was left of him and he couldn't risk them shattering him even more.
"It's yours!" Damian shouts, his voice cuts through Tim's thoughts, "It has always been yours, so come back!" He had shifted closer to Tim - their knees not quite touching, but close - while his eyes bored into Tim like he was trying to will him into understanding. Tim blinks slowly. A boy.
"Go home."
"What?" Damian says back in disbelief.
"Go home. The sun is rising, it's time for robins to go home." Tim gets up and starts to walk towards to the edge before glancing back one more time. A boy. "Fly safely, Damian". Tim grapples off the roof not looking back, but knowing that robins are never alone - not anymore.
"Nightwing....I-" a faint whisper carries into the wind as Tim swings away wondering about the same question he has been asking himself for the last six months - where was he going back to.