Tim Drake One shots

by Guineapig_Generation

Summary:

Timothy Drake threw himself at people, he knew that. It started with his parents, with him begging them to stay. The with Bruce and Alfred and Dick, working his hardest to stay useful. Then Steph and Cass and Jason and Damian and Babs.

No matter what he did he remained the stabiliser. The extra wheel on a tricycle you take off and throw away when it's outlived it's usefulness.

Life goes on for everyone else and Tim is left behind.

-

A series of unconnected one shots exploring how different people in the Batfamily might react to the many many traumas Tim has quietly taken through the years.

Notes:

Since these are one shots the fic will be labeled as completed but I will intermittently add chapters as they strike me.

Tim had yet to stop moving. Even though every bone, muscle and organ that he had left was screaming at him he couldn't stop moving.

 

He'd been kicked out of Wayne Enterprises building and caught, unexpectedly.

 

He patrolled Gotham to clear every nook and cranny of League assassins, successfully.

 

He watched Ra's plane take off and tracked it out of New Jersey, personally.

 

Finally he crawled on his last legs to the Watchtower to find Bruce, alive and well, in a containment chamber undergoing simultaneous health checks from Leslie, Zatanna and Barry. Faithfully, he fussed over Bruce as he dragged the man back to Gotham and to Wayne Manor no worse for wear than anyone who'd been working without rest for several weeks. Bruce's worst issue was mild dehydration.

 

Tim threw open the doors of the manor to a cavalry of his own creation. Every Wayne and Wayne adjacent had gathered to welcome Bruce post haste given the quick snap Tim had sent Babs from the Watchtower. He watched with glazed eyes, releasing his childish grip on the back of Bruce's shirt, as Bruce embraced Dick in a bone deep hug, settled Damian on his hip without an ounce of protest from the kid, planted a firm and sincere kiss to Jason's reluctant temple, ruffled Steph's very much not dead hair, crouched to pull Babs into the most awkwardly positioned hug ever and used the leverage of Duke's extended hand to pull the unsure child into a warm and familial embrace.

 

Bruce asked after Cass. Nodding when Babs assured him that the right information had been relayed.

 

No one asked after Tim. He'd not asked for a hug he supposed, but he'd not been offered one either.

 

Bruce had come home, Bruce was awake and with his family. But Bruce was not Batman and Bruce was not Tim's family. Tim was Batman's Robin, his carefully curated, expertly moulded other half.

 

Batman would call Tim when he needed him.

 

If he ever needed him.

 

Tim turned his back and left. He'd never even crossed the threshold.

 

-

 

Tim had been avoiding everyone for weeks. Text went unanswered, calls went to voicemail, Tam kept his work schedule mysteriously full.

 

He hadn't even worked with anyone as Red Robin and didn't want to deal with the how's and why. It just sounded so conceited to claim his missions were a bit beyond Gotham now. He's focus was stretched as a vigilante, running Oracle for Pru's hunt for spiders, using Lonnie Machin to track down the source of the uthernet which was frustratingly elusive given Tim's reluctance to leave Gotham quite yet and he was still trying to pin down the insane ancient assassin tournament that he'd stumbled across.

 

That's to say he had no desire to explain any of this to the very few bats he was on speaking terms with.

 

Which is why Tim was extraordinarily confused when his chauffeur didn't take him to the dinner meeting Tam had scheduled in and instead drove him straight to Wayne Manor despite his many protests. Tam was apparently 'tired of his emotionally stunted pussyfooting' and was 'fixing the problem with emotional intelligence that would have probably stopped them from becoming vigilantes if they possessed any'. It was a very long and insulting letter that Tim barely read half of before understanding that he was going to game night if Tam had to sedate him to do it and he didn't doubt she would.

 

-

 

It was strange. No one felt at ease, least of all Tim. He was clearly intruding and while they'd insisted that Tim held an open invitation to family events he wasn't convinced.

 

Tim didn't belong here.

 

Tim wasn't built for this sort of activity, he wasn't designed to relax.

 

They were arranged in a loose circle, a card game abandoned in between them. Dick's long limbs were splayed out in neon yellow hoodie and bright green sweatpants, each limb touching someone different as Dick tried to be in physical contact with as many people as possible. His face had deaged decades as the weight of Batman sloughed off his shoulders.

 

Damian looked oddly adorable in his prim black silk pajamas, a fluffy brown dog plush tucked discreetly behind him, Tim wouldn't have noticed it if he didn't reach out to stroke the fur every few minutes.

 

Jason sat cross legged and leaned backed in loose pajama pants and a worn wonder woman t-shirt looking perfectly at ease like he hadn't been trying to kill them until a few months ago. Maybe they'd reconciled, not that Tim was privy to family things like that. In some of Tim's dreams his family apologised for hurting him, but Tim knew better than to be inspired by dreams now.

 

Cass was in a long white nightgown, her dark hair still choppy and her back tense from her difficult time in Hong Kong. Bruce had gone to get her personally but neither had felt the need to divulge what he'd found once he'd gotten there. Cass hummed gently as she sat behind Steph in a roughly cut cropped shirt and sweatpants, she was braiding Steph's rough blond curls into a variety of different braids with deft hands and Steph, hunched over her own knees with laughter in her eyes, didn't flinch once. With each successive braid, each time Cass's fingertips grazed the back of Steph's neck and felt no goosebumps, Cass relaxed.

 

Babs was lounged in her side on the couch, her wheelchair within arms reach and her hands curled around a popcorn bowl where she and Dick were making an incredibly messy game of throwing popcorn into Dick's mouth. They were predictably unsuccessful but even Tim found himself laughing when three pieces hit Dick in the eye.

 

Surprisingly, Tim felt the most comradery with Duke. They were both unsure about their place in the manor, in the lives of the Waynes, they had families, or had had family in Tim's case, but they weren't really members. Not in the way that mattered. Their lives outside of the group were too vast, their presence within the group too yielding to carve out a place in Bruce's heart or mantle.

 

They had both come in non descript black lounge wear, not wanting to call out to their presence more than necessary. Well Duke had come in lounge wear, Tam had packed Tim the sweater and loose drawstring trousers Tim was sporting since she knew that any attempt to dress him more naturally would have Tim sleeping in the navy business suit he'd arrived in.

 

As the conversation veered towards the bats favourite topic, shit talking Batman, both Tim and Duke found their eyes and shoulders meeting with gentle acknowledgement as the people around them spoke with casual nonchalance about Batman's more parental traits. They shared a silent understanding of withdrawal from the conversation. Duke had family, family that was good and present in a way that meant greater parenting from Bruce would be largely unwelcome and unnecessary and neither Bruce nor Batman had been Tim's dad so he'd had nothing to say.

 

They moaned about bedtimes and health checks, training and diet regimes.

 

"Protecting Gotham is a much more worthy endeavour than bolstering my report card but father will see no reason." Bemoaned Damian.

 

"Hah, suck it brat. That's what you get for getting yourself bat-adopted." Steph grinned in delight.

 

"Ugh, I sympathise with you there baby demon. Bruce is a hell hound for school work. 'No patrolling on a school night Jason. You can't do the stakeout until you finish you homework Jason. What about your college prospects Jason?' He was a nightmare."

 

Dick nodded in sympathy and Tim felt himself nod out of instinct.

 

"Come on baby genius." Steph grinned toothily. "It must have been so much worse for you with all your potential and everything."

 

"I bet Bruce went easy on the Replacement." Jason sighed. "Bet the kid brought home straight A's on 3 hours of sleep and still solved the case at the end of the day." Jason's eyes didn't quite flash green but they turned a more teal hue.

 

Tim froze up, not expecting the sudden attention and locked eyes with Dick. It seemed where Tim had stilled his expression and body language to carful neutrality, Dick did a full body wince. He looked to Babs for help only to find her studiously examining the patternless carpet.

 

Duke nudged his shoulder.

 

"Umm, yes, ahh. Bruce was, well. He - well." The playfully teasing atmosphere had become practically jam thick at Tim's stuttered failure of deflection.

 

"Yes! Tim's schooling was - he did - Bruce was -" All hope Tim had for Dick's timely interruption was squashed as he outcompeted Tim for worst deflection attempt.

 

Tim could see the memories of her time as Robin hit Steph like a brick to the face.

 

"Ugh, I forgot what Bruce was like for you." Steph's face wrinkled in disgust. "I'd be surprised if he knew what grade you were in let alone your actual grades."

 

She'd forgotten like Tim wished he could. The way Bruce's eyes constantly shifted over the more specific details of Tim's face and focussed on the blueness of his eyes, the darkness in his hair and the echoes of malnourishment in his stature, the things that reminded Bruce of Jason.

 

Bruce had seen Tim so far as he could train flexibility into his limbs and fearlessness into his jumps, burning Tim into an echo of Dick.

 

Steph hadn't been Robin long and she'd been, well, Steph. She hadn't been the ghost of those Batman had loved and lost. She'd met Tim's Batman, dependable, protective, ruthless, a man with an axe to grid and a more flexible moral code that appropriate.

 

She'd never had the opportunity to meet Tim's Bruce, a depressed, alcoholic, emotional wreck who was more anger than man and more pain than human. Tim had kept her from that, she'd had so much to deal with already, Tim had had no one, he'd been an empty hole of emotional bonds, a dried up well, blissfully unopinionated about about the liquid that filled him so long as it quenched his thirst. Bruce had given him fury, Batman had given him responsibility, Tim had used them like paper mache to plaster the ache inside his soul and he'd been grateful for it.

 

"What is that supposed to mean?" Hissed out Damian and suddenly Tim was on defence. He could feel the corners of his eyes strain and his muscles tense. Subconsciously, the legs that had been out in front of him curled to his sides for easier movement, from this position it would take him a half second to be on his feet, his hands flew up in a placating stance.

 

"It's nothing big, Dami, Bruce wasn't that interested in me. Or my schooling I mean, he trusted me to be mature about it and regulate myself. I couldn't not go out as robin after all and it's my responsibility to be sensible about it." Tim had thought that was sufficiently neutralising but judging by Jason's incredulous stare he had failed thoroughly.

 

"Besides Batman was great!" Tim tried to fix the situation again but couldn't help but feel like he was shoving his foot past his mouth and into his stomach. "It's Bruce that was the real nightmare! Come one guys!" Tim rolled his eyes playfully and the temperature of the room mercifully rose.

 

"Oh my god, do you remember the time Brucie Wayne had to show up for your parents teacher meeting?" Thank God for Babs.

 

Dick put on a mock affronted look. "You promised to never speak of that again!" He took a handful of smushed stale popcorn of the floor and flung it at Babs who only laughed when the majority of it caught in her hair. Jason was still staring at him.

 

"Father's insipid himbo persona is a stain on the family name and if I have to listen to one more of my classmates thirst over his dilf status I shall fling myself off of father's favourite gargoyle."

 

The room fell into tense silence once more. And then burst into uproarus laughter.

 

"Where-," Duke wheezed "Who taught you- you just called your dad a dilf- oh god I'm going to be sick." Duke's laughter was just coming out in harsh breaths now.

 

"Did any of you see the strip tease Bruce did on that ice sculpture like a decade ago?" Dick asked with a mischievous smile on his face.

 

"Oh my god, Damian wasn't even born when Bruce did that."

 

"Way to make me feel old Babs."

 

" If you feel old think of how I feel."

 

"Yeah, yeah, you're both ancient." Jason chuffed fondly

 

"Guys, guys," Tim interrupted, "I haven't just seen it. I have a recording." Tim's smile was his blackmail smile as Kon called it, equal parts sinister, smug and amused. It was met with raucous cheers and a distant yelp from the kitchen.

 

"Stalker." Cass accused him in a sing song voice.

 

"Always " Tim sang back with a carefree grin. It's not like he'd tried to hide his bat stalking activities once they'd come to an end, it's just that no one had noticed them.

 

"Bruce's drunken shenanigans were the best!" Jason eagerly added. "Remember the time he managed to get a glass of red wine on Lex Luthor and Oliver Queen at the same time? Bruce didn't have a drop on him and Luthor went so red and Queen went so pale I thought we were going to have to call and ambulance." A chorus of laughter rose up again.

 

Tim felt himself relax, drunk Bruce anecdotes were something he had a plenty. He'd never gone out as Bruce's anything in public before he became CEO and his parents had had very strict control over which galas he went to, who he'd interacted with, what he'd done, said, looked like. So none of Tim's experiences with drunk Bruce were at parties but he had more than a lifetime of blackout Bruce stories from his first year and a half as Robin.

 

Tim laughed and drew attention to himself, wiping a tear from the corner of his eye.

 

"I remember once, a few years ago. He downed like, nearly a full bottle of some Macallan and gotten so furious at it being gone that he smashed his whiskey glass into the ground Thor style!" Tim mimed the scene with enthusiasm but felt his mirth drain abruptly out of him as the laughter died down to vibrating silentlce.

 

He let out a few solitary laughs to bring the atmosphere back up again. "He'd even yelled 'another!' like Thor!" Tim was sure he could power through this awkward moment.

 

"Tim." Dick's voice was soft and beseeching and that was just the worst wasn't it.

 

"Oh, fuck off Dick face." Steph always knew just what to say. "That was totally the funniest thing Bruce did over that two year period."

 

"Exactly!" Tim chimed.

 

"You should have heard some of the properly insane shit he did to Timmy while drunk off his ass." Tim was no longer feeling the love. "Just listening to Tim's 'bonding' moments with Bruce made me feel insane." She actually made quotation marks for bonding with her fingers.

 

"Hey! Bruce was nice!"

 

"Please, you were basically a glass pin cushion your first year."

 

"The more glasses Bruce threw at me the fewer punches Batman threw at civilians. I call that a win."

 

"I call that child abuse." Jason interrupted their back and forth to glow an ominous green.

 

"Oh, come on! Not you too Jason?" Tim was tired of this.

 

This is why Tim didn't interact with this family. Every single time they brought up being Robin and Tim would say something that was 'deeply concerning' or 'a warning sign of unknown severity' Tim just wanted to reminisce about his good times as Robin and everyone else made it so difficult. Jason and Dick and Damian got to talk about their fun memories why couldn't he?

 

Tim actually vocalised that last thought.

 

It was Cass, the traitor, that leveled him with the bland stare this time. "Because your memories are not fun. They are sad."

 

"My memories of Batman are great! We once stayed up three days trying to decipher a poem from the Riddler only to find out that he'd said the poem wrong! B had been so furious he actually threw me at the Riddler! Like a football! Now that's hilarious." Tim leaned back having proved his point.

 

"That's. I actually think that's child endangerment." Babs said concerned.

 

"You're accusing Bruce, the man who made a nine year old his crime fighting protégé, of child endangerment." Tim had been told that his one eyebrow incredulous look was lethal and he was directing it full force at Babs.

 

Babs looked away and Tim let the crest of satisfaction wash over him. He'd just been trying to share a fun anecdote and now he felt like the subject of the Spanish inquisition.

 

"B should have protected you from rogues baby bird not thrown you at them head first. Bruce barely let me or Jason more that five feet from him against rogues. Hell, I barely let Damian more that three feet from me his first couple months as Robin."

 

Tim visibly sneered at the idea of being subject to that much oversight, just the thought of it made him itchy.

 

"Come on guys, We've all been through some good old fashioned field testing."

 

"What the fuck is field testing?" Jason really only seemed interested in asking Tim the strangest questions.

 

"You know, the usual stuff. He plonks you down or flings I guess would be more accurate. He throws you into an unknown situation and you get yourself out of it. If you succeed you pass, if you gotta use the emergency button you fail."

 

"Oh that field testing!" Tim thanks the gods that Steph was Robin in the middle of Tim's run. "I hated those with a passion. I always had to be pulled out and B, he always scruffed me like a disappointed cat. It was humiliating." Steph grumbled commiserating. "It was always, 'Tim would have, you should have, Tim can.' blah blah blah."

 

"I'll tell you the secret to passing the test." Tim leaned into Steph as everyone leaned towards him. This was exactly what Tim needed to get this show away from the thorns in his heart and back into the gentle rhythm of their dialogue. "Batman just never gave me an emergency beacon." Tim smiled something wicked and secret and expected to be met with smiles of victory in turn. Tim had gotten one up on the Batman. They should be congratulating him. Instead, the air went frigid and indulgent smiles and anticipating eyes went cold and still like ice. It didn't help that almost all the eyes on him were blue.

 

"Tim."

 

That was not a voice he'd come to hear. Bruce was stood in the doorway, the hall light casting an imposing shadow and shrouding him in darkness. Tim scrambled to stand.

 

"I don't know why any of you are reacting like this!" Tim crossed his arms in front of his chest and puffed up with indignity feeling startlingly like a preteen all over again.

 

Rather than answer him or even look at him, all of his siblings turned to the newly appeared Bruce. Bruce who was wearing Nightwing themed pajamas and was holding a now slack and dripping cup of presumably herbal tea.

 

Tim could feel the burn of his heaving breaths in his lungs coming faster and faster.

 

"I told fun stories just like you guys! My nicest stories! I didn't say anything about all the times I had to carry Bruce up the stairs by myself covered in his vomit and all the awkward showers we have to take together!" Tim backed further to the door as Jason seemed to ooze lazerus from his pores. "I didn't say anything about my 16th birthday, or Azrael or Lady Shiva and King Snake! I didn't even bring up my Robin training! I stuck to the happy stuff!"

 

Tim was choking on the atmosphere here, on the weight of their judgements. He could feel it, the tangible heaviness of disappointment that Bruce had always carried around him permiating the air around him now. Infecting the only people who cared about him. Tim felt his face burn with humiliation. Self depreciating stories were supposed to be funny but no one was laughing. Tim's face was so hot he was sure he was bright red and there was liquid pooling in his eyes and nose, it hurt so much it he was worried it was blood and that he'd turn into a horror movie just to add to his personal shaming.

 

Tim turned an ran out the door with his head down completely forgetting about Bruce's bulk blocking the way. His face slapped bang into the middle of Bruce's chest and a hand came up to cradle the back of his head but Tim pushed away from Bruce with both hands.

 

"I can't - I just can't do this."

 

Tim ran out the back of the manor navigating the darkened woods between the Drake and Wayne properties with expert efficiency, cutting through an old overgrown shortcut that lead directly to the tree he used to climb in and out of his bedroom window.

 

He clambered up with practiced hands and feet, the completely blurred vision and aching limbs not only not hindering him but enhancing his muscle memory as he was plunged to the million identical memories he had from his time as Robin doing this exact thing in this exact state.

 

Tim tipped face first onto the thin sheet covering the bare mattress if the bed that now sat in the empty husk that used to be Tim's room. Tim had never felt more like Robin than he did now. Not when he was looking for Bruce, or bringing him home or fighting with Ra's.

 

It was now, as the moonlight shined across his unhealthily pale skin, that he wondered if the sparkle of crystal shards that used to be a permanent fixture in Tim's palms were a suitable alternative for magic.

 

Robins had magic, Jason had once said.

 

But it wasn't magic that had embedded itself in Tim's skin.

 

All Tim had on his hands was hot, wet blood.

Notes:

I like the idea that Tim's relationship with Bruce is flipped from every other Robin and that's why there's this disconnect. Dick and Jason and Damian have always had to reconcile their dad with this steadfast soldier and struggled whereas Tim had had the easiest time with Batman and thought of Bruce as this overly emotional monster. They see Tim's Robin as perfect because they see the ease with which Tim interacts with Batman where they've always faced conflict but cannot comprehend a relationship in which Bruce isn't a father.