Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Tim Drake would like a refund on his life.

He’s four years old when he comes to this conclusion. It isn’t through any special detective work or some magical flash of intuition that leads him to this conclusion. Any child can tell when their parents hate them.

Jack and Janet Drake have hated him as long as he could make memories. Long before he heard the word ‘hate’ Tim knew it intimately. It isn’t the first word he learns how to spell, he’s not that edgy, but it's the defining emotion in his relationship with his parents.

Whatever crime of his birth he committed had been unforgivable and their forgiveness will come long after the heat death of the universe. Maybe it was just being born at the turn of the millennium. He’s a Y2K baby and this will come to define him though he does not know it yet.

But before that, he needs to make it through childhood. His only reference to his biological mother is a coldly dispassionate blonde woman who sometimes appears in his hazy memories before leaving. The woman he mistakes for his real mother is his nanny, a kindly woman who raises Tim in tandem with her own daughter named Stacy. 

They explore the mansion together. Her laugh is a high, sharp thing, and she’s older than him, her limbs longer and her footing surer. He loses every race and comes away from their wrestling sessions covered in mud and bruises. The next day, they do it again and again, one long continuous chain of fun moments. He likes his nanny. She teaches him to read in between her duties as the housekeeper of an empty mansion. Tim calls her Stacy’s mom before he learns to call her Missus Hunter.

Looking back on it, four is the best year of his childhood. Parents indisposed, sent to dig sites and business meetings throughout the year, plenty of warm spring days and a hot summer spent playing in the sprinklers. Tim runs wild during the day and dreams big dreams. One day he’ll be an astronaut. Another he’ll be an architect. On a few, he dreams of being an archaeologist like his parents so he can be with them.

Missus Hunter shows him how to cook basic meals and work the kitchen tools, and shows him to all the storerooms and the equipment shed. Within a day he can recite the numbers she makes him memorise: one for the private hospital the Drakes use, the non-emergency number for the police, and one she emphasises is purely for a life-threatening emergency for one Mister Judge. Tim’s never met the man, so he pays it little heed.

These halcyon days will stay with him even as life grinds down the simple joys of childhood. By the time cynicism is all he knows and anger has coiled its way around his heart, this endless year of happiness will temper his harsher edges.

Jack and Janet’s return heralds hail and snow, a frigid cold snap that seeps deep into his bones and threatens to eat his fingers. If Tim understood metaphor, he would know to be afraid. If Tim even knew there was something wrong with parents who vanish for a year, he wouldn’t be excited to see them again.

He’ll learn in time.

Janet startles when she sees him waiting on the staircase, watching with wide eyes how these strangers enter his house so confidently. Tim takes a risk and walks down to the landing, holding himself uncertainly as his apparent mother watches him.

Missus Hunter dressed him in stuffy clothes that are too tight and pull at him awkwardly. A buttoned shirt and green cardigan, dress shorts and polished shoes. Nothing like the vest and shorts and bare feet of the year prior.

He fidgets as he catalogues these people who are meant to be his parents.

Jack Drake has sharp features and high cheekbones that Tim inherited, his dark hair combed back in a ponytail. Tim can’t see any other features they share. Not the build as Jack is a man of wide shoulders nor the ears as Tim’s are sharp, elfin things compared to the round ears Jack sports.

In Janet, he sees even less of himself. They share the same slightly curl to their hair but hers is more blonde. They share the same long fingers though Tim’s are blunted by the pudginess of youth. Maybe the leanness of his build comes from her?

Jack’s eyes never land on Tim, a dead zone in his perception as he speaks to Missus Hunter. The dismissal is cruel because one has to actively pretend someone doesn’t exist to do that.

Janet, on the other hand, is finding a dozen mistakes in his posture and bearing and general existence. Tim doesn’t know which he hates more just yet.

“You are dismissed. Your belongings will be shipped to a new receiving address in three days.”

“Sir, he’s too young to—”

“Are you still in my presence?” Missus Hunter flinches back. “The boy is not your concern. Dismissed.”

That will be the last time he ever sees Missus Hunter.

When she has left, shutting the main door with a quiet click, Tim is left alone with these elongated adults made of sharp lines and unpleasant expressions. The quiet builds and builds until Janet scoffs and walks past him toward the kitchen, brandishing her designed purse like a weapon.

Jack’s gaze trails after her, a slight softening to his expression. “Always leaving me to deal with the real work.” The warmth calcifies when he focuses on Tim again. “Your name.”

“Tim,” he says with a frown.

“Answer in full when I ask a question.”

“Timmy?”

“Are you asking me or telling me? It doesn’t matter. Timothy Jackson Drake. I expect you to know these things. You carry my name and the name of our family. You will not embarrass me. Can you read and write?”

“Yes.”

“Can you cook and clean?”

“Uh-huh.”

Jack closes his eyes, pinching his nose. A deep inhale and a sharp exhale. Forcing his anger away.

“Janet, deal with your spawn.”

The woman who should be his mother turns to them, currently sipping from one of two wine glasses. Red, the aroma cloying to Tim’s young nose. He’ll get used to it in years yet. “Why? The boy is alive. That is as far as my interest extends. Anything else is for your benefit.”

“You’re impossible on a good day.”

“I haven’t had a good day in four years, three months, and eight days.” Her eyes dart to Tim once. “Unfortunately.”

“Fine. Timothy, you have earned nothing. Your station in life is an unfortunate accident of birth that I must suffer. You are unwanted, your existence a necessity that I will accept only in small doses.”

He’s four and a genius, but his vocabulary isn’t that strong yet. He recognises their tones from the villains in the cartoons he likes watching but not the words. Intent but not the context.

Jack grabs him by the chin and tugs him forward, fingers digging into Tim’s flesh. He forces Tim to meet his gaze, unyielding green glancing at him dispassionately. 

“Here is the rule. One rule that you will follow if you want to enjoy your comfortable life leeching on my protection. Do not ever cause problems for us. We will not be called by the police or concerned neighbours. Not by teachers or principles. Not by a stranger. Am I understood?”

“Don’t be trouble,” he says fearfully.

Jack lets go of him and that’s that, the man entirely erasing Tim from his perception.

They’re gone in three days. They came with the cold and stole the best part of his life, the warmth and joy he’d taken for granted.

As Tim makes himself breakfast, toddling on a stool to fry an egg, he realises Missus Hunter always knew it wouldn’t last forever. She showed him how to fill out the requisition orders so the pantry stores and kitchen will always be full.

So long as he’s resilient and self-sufficient, Tim won’t die.

*

Later that year, he finds a disused laptop from his parents’ spare office and the world will never recover.

Tim’s an early adopter of Reddit—because 4chan being founded two years ago makes it ancient in his young mind—and Youtube because home videos are a pretty cool concept. Wikipedia is pretty awesome as well. He accidentally hits a button and the words on the screen turn to something unintelligible.

This is Tim’s first foray into computer programming. It all starts with HTML script and CSS, but he gets bored of those pretty quickly. They can make pretty web pages and they help him understand what’s happening behind the scenes, but he wants more.

C++ is the first thing he learns. He finds an old textbook on programming in the library being used as a paperweight. Tim devours it and asks questions on forums and message boards and very quickly becomes a creature plugged into the great data source that is the internet. 

He doesn’t spend all his time glued to the computer. Exploring the mansion continues to bring him joy. He discovers a photo album and sees his parents in foreign locales, sweeping desert storms and luscious forests, murky undergrounds and glittering beaches. A whole world that Tim explores through them. As he gets further through the photos, Janet’s belly swells and swells, and whatever happiness the two held fades to cold disinterest. At the base of the box, he finds a ring. More accurately, the three silver rings are inextricably linked with neither beginning nor end. It tugs at him. He knows he’s seen something just like it before.

One day, Tim comes across a crypt with tunnels that seem to stretch forever. He takes one look at the oppressive darkness, turns around to find a torch, and explores. One room turns out to be a wince cellar which is utterly boring but some of the other rooms are weird like the one with the weird circle and squiggly lines or the one with the sapphire that Tim swears looked back at him. Deeper than that are rooms locked tight with sounds like howling winds and metal clanging against metal. Tim is brave but he isn’t stupid and leaves well enough alone.

The attic has some old stuff in it, including a camera. Maybe the same camera that took the last pictures of happy parents. The concept is so big that Tim learns everything he can about it, holding the steel-and-wood body of the camera close to him. It and those pictures are all he holds of a different life that might have been better.

His first pictures are shoddy things. His hands shake and he knows too little about lenses and shot composition to make anything noteworthy. Tim loves them anyway. An empty mansion softened by the blurry shot. The groundskeeper distorted into something comical by the lens he uses. Butterflies in flight are little more than blurry shapes.

*

His parents return on occasion, fluttering into his life and leaving devastation in their wake. The memories they implant are a minefield he is forced to crawl through as he grows.

The first time he dares ask for anything goes terribly and though it does not set the tone, it clarifies it.

“Father, can I—”

Before he knows it, he’s being dragged forward by his tie. It closes around him, stealing the breath from him. “Only call me that in public and only at social functions. Am I understood?”

Tim mumbles an acknowledgement.

“Look me in the eye when I speak to you.”

He never meets his parents’ eyes. They’re far too piercing for that, cutting him down and dismissing his very existence.

He does this time. It will hurt less to obey.

“Yes, sir.”

He’s glad he doesn’t know them better just as much as he wishes there was a chance to know them. He knows them in the negative space that they leave. Janet likes her food to be boring and healthy while Jack gives up on fighting it. The paintings were all picked out by Jack while the furniture was chosen by Janet. They agree on little on politicks except that the Poors are a problem and metahumans are a blight to the world.

Oh, and they both loathe the very idea of Batman.

Which, whatever. knows Batman is cool and Robin is even cooler. He says nothing in their defence, though, focused on his very mature book. Seen, not heard, and minimal on the seeing part is how they want their household.

They start taking him with them to events when they’re around for longer than a week. An opera here, an art gallery there. Pictures of the happy Drake family are taken and when the cameras are put away, his parents continue on their business, meeting allies and making allies of enemies.

He enjoys the restaurants even as he’s expected to keep silent. It’s still bland meals for the Drake family, black pepper too spicy for Janet. Tim can’t wait for them to leave. He’s stocked the pantry with the good spices and he can handle them since he’s a big boy.

One morning, he messes up. Gets the day his parents are leaving wrong. He’s thundering down the stairs with his camera in hand when he sees them in the foyer, freezing in place. Confusion first, then sheer rage from Janet.

“Where did you get that?” Janet asks him.

“The attic.”

“You ungrateful little shit. Come here, right now.”

Jack raises his hand, stopping Tim in his tracks. “Just leave it be. It isn’t worth it.”

“It belonged to—”

“Jan. Enough.” Jack rarely if ever tells his wife what to do. As far as Tim can tell, the pregnancy meant Jack used up every request he was ever allowed to make. “What’s happened has happened. Move on. If anything, you should be happy that a part of him still exists.”

“I loved him more than you,” she says spitefully.

“I assure you that he loved me more anyway.” Jack’s eyes linger on Tim for a moment too long. “Run along.”

Tim doesn’t want to understand what that conversation was about. He purges it from his mind as he flees to the underground crypt and hides there. The darkness welcomes him and hides him from the world, the echoing screams a strange comfort to him. He doses in a corner, arms around his knees, and comes away covered in dust.

He waits till he’s certain the mansion is empty. No cleaners. No gardeners fucking in the spare closet. Just Tim.

When they are gone, he heads to the dusty attic and walks past cobwebs that cling to his face. He’s long since stopped being afraid of spiders. They’ll do as their nature intends. The box with the photos and ring is where it always is, hidden beneath piles of clothes too small to fit Jack and far too cheerful for the cold man he knows.

The box of matches weighs heavily in his right hand, perhaps more so than the lighter fluid in his left.

For a long moment, he wrestles with the decision. Setting them on fire would be so easy. If he’s lucky, the fire will spread and consume the mansion and everyone in it.

It is the first time he considers his mortality.

In the end, he decides against it. Not because he is afraid or realises something truly profound.

Burning everything to the ground won’t solve anything. He may find relief in the cleansing flames, but it will be short-lived and hollow.

Slowly, Tim realises he doesn’t just want to quit despite the hand he’s been dealt. He wants to reach across the table and strangle the dealer with his bare hands. He wants his revenge because he is petty and spiteful.

*

They’re gone for two months this time. In that time, Tim learns the glorious art of piracy, falls in love with LimeWire, and cries when he gets his first computer virus. He desperately asks the staff and eventually, someone takes pity on him and helps him get anti-virus software. They also expose Tim to the concept of a credit card. Specifically, his parent’s credit card. Which leads to his understanding of this whole money and banking thing.

Between learning how anti-viruses work and the different levels of access from guest level to kernel ring zero, Tim starts going through his parent’s financial statements. His parents are meticulous in their record keeping and store their documents in a sealed room. Tim knows the password from observation and is smart enough to destroy the videotapes from the hidden cameras. It’s a string of confusing numbers and terms but the library has tax accounting books and corporate law books.

Where those don’t work, he has all his friends on the forums who think he’s some kind of criminal. It’s not like Tim talked about money laundering first. And foreign bank accounts? Tim’s mind is blown by that.

With how little his parents are home and with how many accounts they handle, they don’t notice that Tim’s gained a new line of credit since he knows all of their verification information and can forge a signature, and since there’s a trust in his name, he can start stashing away money. It’s an open trust, which apparently only exists because heroes need to get paid anonymously, and Zurich doesn’t care about the small transfers he makes—anything shy of twenty grand gets ignored. More a slush fund than anything, the standards for it are lax if you have certain verifications which Tim does.

It lets him slowly acquire things he wants rather than the things he acquires by virtue of being a Drake. Trips to the mall become more common since he can pay a private driver on retainer. They’re trained not to ask questions as long as his account is in good standing and assist with basics like carrying things or standing lookout. Some of the better ones are trained bodyguards. His first purchase is a new laptop. His second is a personal computer, this one prebuilt though he has plans to start building his own. Camera lenses galore are next, from macros to wide angles and fisheyes to telephotos.

He relishes this freedom, getting a lay of the city. He gets a nice physical map of Gotham in the 20s from an antique store. It’s a thick roll of parchment and enthralling to look at. He makes it a point to visit a few landmarks and see how they’ve changed.

His explorations always fade to nothing when his parents return.

For all that they can be cruel, his parents do learn to put up with his presence. Janet doesn’t startle in surprise so often and Jack acknowledges his existence. It’s better, the situation between them more tenable. So long as Tim dresses right and speaks correctly and keeps his presence to a minimum then his parents are more than content to let him be in the same room.

Tim enjoys listening to them. Adult conversations can be boring but he learns new things. The names of people they consider important. Locations in the city worth going to. Hints of the broader politics that make Gotham.

Sometimes, the conversations are painfully uninteresting.

“The Stanfield family is attending the banquet.”

“We don’t care about them. Our business interests don’t intersect and they have nothing to do with—”

“They can manage a conversation unlike some of your plebeian friends. They have some personality.”

His parents argue the matter longer, Tim having long since ignored them. He’s reading a tech journal, intrigued by emerging CPU architecture, glancing over to a computer science textbook for terms he’s not fully sure of. Threading is still a weird concept and—

“Let the boy choose,” Jack says spitefully, startling Tim terribly.

“Fine, but whatever he picks is what we go to. The Fairchild exhibition or the opera.”

Both options are horrid. He racks his memory for other events his parents have mentioned, then remembers an invitation that was sent yesterday.

Tim takes the third option. “Let’s go to the photography exhibition. The Carmichaels are—"

Janet turns to her husband. “I retract my earlier statements. I’ve found something more banal than your friends.”

Jack laughs something sharp and cruel. “Worry not, we will suffer together. The Carmichaels. Ugh, their youngest is flamboyant. And we’ll have to speak to him. I’ll have to speak to him.”

“What’s another scandal rumour for the famed tomcat?”

“Don’t even start.”

The exhibition isn’t for another few days so Tim makes sure to behave. He does the work his tutors assign early, not that his parents check. So long as his tutors don’t have complaints, his parents let him study what he pleases.

*

Tim hates galas, especially of the charity sort. Most of the attendants aren’t sincere and it grates on Tim. He stays close to Jack, the man straddling the line between mild annoyance and bemusement. Then he inclines his head at one of the guests and tells Tim to guess how much their suit costs. Tim does and even gives a reason for it.

“You’re overestimating him. Always look at the shoes. They don't match. He can’t afford that suit. It’s a much nicer rental or even a hand-me-down.” Jack nods at one woman politely. “Her watch. What was it made from?”

“Gold.”

“Pink gold specifically. Diamond encrusted face. Quite an unappealing contrast. Never mix warm and cold colours if you don’t know what you’re doing. It is an art form and most lack any talent for it. Now, the man in the black sweater and jeans. Guess his net worth.”

“Seven figures?”

“Nine,” Jack corrects, almost gently. “You’ll find that tech moguls tend to eschew any dignity at events like that. I would call it reprehensible, but I already expect nothing of substance from new money.”

This is the most he’s spoken to his father and the most pleasant conversation. To be taught by Jack was never something he thought was an option, so he absorbs his lessons. Toddling behind his father, Tim learns to recognise wealth in all its varieties, new and old, genuine and pretend. Despite his time overseas, Jack has a near encyclopedic knowledge of everyone they encounter, their public scandals and their holdings. He can the current stock price of the companies represented here and their relationship to Drake Industries.

“Whatever you do, never speak to the Lukas family. They attempted a hostile takeover of our textiles arm before you were born. The next time I speak to a Lukas will be the day I tell them I’m selling their company for parts at a discount. Lukas Textiles. Engrave that name in your brain. Drakes always get their revenge, and we take it in full.”

So that’s where my pettiness comes from.

“The acquisition of one company by another against the wishes of the former. Wouldn’t it hurt more to make them work at your mercy?” Jack does the unthinkable and sends him a smile. A small smile, but if the sun vanished for a few seconds, you would still be utterly stunned. “I think I might let you decide what to do with it.”

“Oh.”

Tim smiles back, finally seeing the Jack in the photo album who was capable of joy.

“Every Drake needs at least one company they’ve performed a hostile takeover on.” 

Then Jack’s smile dies. His gaze is focused on someone to the side. Tim turns around, keeping Jack between him and the newcomer, a middle-aged man of indeterminate features. You could maybe say he had a sharp jawline but it is also somehow soft. Not too tall and not too short. Not fat or particularly thin. Neither a manicured appearance nor an unruly one. He’s the most non-descript man that Tim has ever seen.

“Mister Judge.”

“Mister Drake, it is good to see you in Gotham once more.”

“My work requires much of my time spent overseas.”

“It was no admonishment, merely an observation. Archaeology. Both you and your lovely wife. Where is she if I might ask?”

“Acquiring a Joan Miro painting. It caught my eye and she plans on getting it for my birthday. Would you be so kind as to not let her know I know where she went to?”

Mister Judge laughs a dead laugh. “Young love. Quite a beautiful thing.” Tim isn’t sure when thirty-three became young but okay. “I am told the Court recently acquired approval for the dig site in Algeria.”

Jack’s attention sharpens. “And who might the contract be going to?”

“I believe you could make your case on Thursday.”

Tim’s eyes widen, feeling betrayed. He pulls on his biological father’s sleeve. “You said we were going to the exhibition together.”

“And who might this be?”

“Timothy Jackson Drake. My son. He’s quite the smart child but you know how smart ones are; they love their books and nothing else,” Jack adds with a false chuckle, his grip on Tim’s shoulder bruising. “Not quite used to functions like this.”

“I can tell. Worry not, I wouldn’t want to interrupt a family activity. Do send Carmichael Sr. my regards at the art exhibition.”

“Of course. Please, excuse us, Mister Judge.”

The man nods and turns about face with envious dignity. His incredibly expensive shoes click and clack as he leaves them behind. Tim watches him for a few moments longer, held in place by Jack’s unyielding grip. Then he is led away.

Jack quickly finds Janet and they all return home as Jack narrates the encounter. Jack’s voice is level, flat, the warmth from it gone. The Jack from the party who mocked people in good humour is gone. He sounds and holds himself like an entirely different person.

They enter the foyer and Jack dismisses the staff for the day. In the kitchen, he pours himself a drink while Janet mentions something about a fund in Gotham. The last of the help staff nods to Jack before leaving, closing the main door behind with a sharp click.

A few seconds pass, then a few minutes. Tim isn’t sure what’s happening. His parents say nothing. He opens his mouth to ask what he did wrong.

He doesn’t make it that far.

Janet slaps him hard across the face. The large emerald snags on his skin, slices through the cheekbone. He stumbles back into the kitchen island face first, sending stools clattering to the ground in the process. 

“Do not ever embarrass the family again.”

His head rings terribly. The words are difficult to parse with how hazy the world is. There’s a coppery taste on his tongue. Soon, he feels his eyes burn.

“Not the face,” Jack hisses before taking a final swig of his drink. Then he smashes the glass at Tim’s feet, sending him flinching back. “I forgot for a moment that you were a disappointment. What was the rule? Don’t cause problems. Simple. Yet somehow you just lost us access to a dig site.”

“Can we still plead our case?”

“No. Mister Judge is an entirely literal man. The contract is closed to us because of family activities.”

“Fuck.”

“We could try for another.”

“I’ll strangle the next one before it goes that far. Should have done the same to this one.”

“Motherhood never did suit you.”

“I gave your parents their heir and that got us the Court seat. They will get nothing more from me.”

Tim didn’t know he had grandparents. Jack and Janet never spoke about them. He’d assumed them dead. At least now he knows they just have no interest in his life.

“Your sacrifice is appreciated.”

“That was the last sacrifice they will take from me. And they will take nothing else.”

Jack’s eyes land on Tim. “Clean those wounds and apply makeup.”

“Yes, sir.”

*

They still go to the art exhibition and Tim is on his best behaviour. His parents give Carmichael Senior the best regards of Mister Judge with fake smiles and even faker congratulations.

All the while, his face aches.

*

Eventually, his parents get a permit for another expedition.

When they are gone, Tim feels like he can breathe for the first time in months. Every day, he’s walked on eggshells, taking care not to set off his parents. Given that remembering his existence set them off as well, that was a futile gambit. Tim becomes an expert at cleaning and bandaging his wounds, learning which kinds of makeup work best for his cuts or bruises.

He goes back to his explorations, enjoying the art of photography. One day, he stays out late and gets lost, finding himself in the sort of streets where everyone has a gun or two. He runs up a fire escape to find safety and there he finds his first true love. The rooftops of Gotham.

From here, the city stretches out like a jewel. Get high enough and the very shape of the city is revealed to you, the elegance of the roads, the curve of the bay, and the gentle inclines that vanish from ground level. So high up, he can feel free for once, unbound by the chains of his name and the cage that is Drake mansion.

A sharp scream startles him from his reverie. Tim cautiously walks across the gravel roof, coming to stand on the lip of the roof to overlook the alley below. Graffiti in neon colours. Men in dark suits and bowler hats. Another man painting the street crimson.

Tim will realise years from now that this is the first killing he notices. In Gotham, most people see someone killed around five, so Tim is pretty late.

He glimpses a spectre in the night descending in the midst. Batman. He stands surrounded and yet he seems bigger than the mob who have harmed a citizen of his city.

It is an act of beautiful violence. Batman is brutality perfected, vengeance made efficient.

One left. He has a metal pipe and charges because in Gotham it doesn’t matter who you’re facing, you stand your ground and fight back. A blur in red and yellow takes him out with a knee to the head, twirling once, then twice, then thrice to land. Robin, the hope of Gotham.

Tim takes a picture before he can think it through and decides to leave in case vengeance applies to children as well.

At home, he takes a look at the photo. It’s blurry, his hands shaking when he took it. Robin is either a rather slim adult or someone in his late teens. Seeing Robin or Batman is rare, both of them clinging to the shadows. They are stories of retribution, not people.

But now, Tim has proof that they exist. Proof for himself.

He goes out more. Each night now. Hoping for a glimpse of anything. Building a police scanner helps him get to crime zones faster and those have the best chance of a picture. He gets lucky maybe once every other week, but he cherishes those photos. There is Batman bringing Robin an ice cream. Here, Batman pulls Robin out of the line of fire. Robin alone, twirling in the sky like he owns it.

Tim wants to know who that boy is. Maybe if he knows then Tim will have a way to be as free as him.

His forum friends are his first avenues of research. The 4chan boards and superhero subreddits are a mess of contradicting information that always degenerates into a fight. The forums he frequents are old school, the interface disgustingly inefficient, but they’re in the know and he gets access to a dedicated relay chat.

Part of him suspects he’s talking with criminals. With how casually they mention where you can get weapons—Tim’s holding off on buying a gun just yet—or how best to monetise minor metahuman abilities for crime, Tim fully expects an FBI raid one day. Assuming they get past his firewalls that he’s continually upgrading.

He spends months working through scattered information, coming up to one dead end after another. It sucks, but it teaches him patience.

One outlandish suggestion is Bruce Wayne. Tim wrote it off initially, but he’s desperate and he can check easily enough. There is distressingly little information on Bruce Wayne given that he’s a celeb and owns a massive company. There should be more information. More pictures. More SEC filings. More records in city hall. But too much of it is missing. After asking his friends, he learns information can be scrubbed from the internet with enough time and money, though it’s impossible to fully be certain. Not leaving a paper trail is better in the first place. It’s a strange curiosity but there’s an obvious connection to Robin that doesn’t need any of that information.

Bruce Wayne adopted Richard Grayson eight years ago. He’s in his late teens now and Robin didn’t become active till six years ago. The two have been spotted in public events on days that the dynamic duo worked together. Suspiciously enough, that’s one of the easier pieces of information to find, almost like he’s being led to it. An easy piece of information to dispel suspicion.

Tim doesn’t buy it for a second. Batman has saved Richard Grayson and Robin’s saved Bruce Wayne before. There are explicit pictures of that. Scattered reports of all four being in the same gala that the Scarecrow interrupted. Bruce’s opinion of Batman is generally negative and dismissive of the vigilante’s efforts.

So much overwhelming evidence that Batman is not Bruce Wayne. Too much. It’s too specific a denial. Tim’s brain sees patterns in data and this pattern is obvious.

Richard Grayson was part of the Flying Graysons. A circus kid. Tim pulls up all the recorded videos he can find of them, which are two ancient advertisements before Grayson would have been alive. He sends feelers for any hand-recorded stuff, offering a decent sum of money because he’s a big acrobatics fan and never got a chance to see them. A few people claim to have the videos. Tim pays it out, getting scammed only eight times before someone has a genuine VHS recording.

It's grainy, taken from a terrible angle. But it’s real. Tim learns how to transfer VHS to digital formats and makes a copy. Tim scrubs through the footage frame by frame eagerly.

There. Richard Grayson doing his act. A flip. And then another. And then one last one, culminating in a delicate landing that sends the crowd wild.

Richard Grayson is Robin.

It’s the year the global economy crashes to the ground and in the nuclear fallout of failed globalism, 808s & Heartbreak is released. It is also the year that Tim Drake, at the tender age of eight, uncovers Batman’s secret.

He feels inordinately pleased with himself. Tim won’t do anything terrible with the information, he just likes having it.

Tim continues exploring the rooftops of Gotham, chasing after his sightings of Robin, of Richard Grayson.

Richard Grayson dances in the air, unlike Batman who hurtles through Gotham with neither hesitation nor doubt. He is an immovable force and Gotham will bow to his resolve.

One day, he just vanishes. The city mourns the loss of Robin. Most assume he died even if there’s no body. In Gotham, missing children tend to die if they aren’t trafficked or forced to be drug mules.

Tim knows it’s due to the very public falling out between Richard Grayson and Bruce Wayne. The media has a field day with it. Dozens of sordid details spill out.

“Couldn’t keep his boy in line,” Jack says when the news breaks, halfway between pleased and disgusted.

“CPS never found anything untoward during their searches. We checked and they didn’t take any bribes.”

“I still don’t like it. Not from a person like him. He’s too promiscuous and never says anything no matter how much he says. He’s pretending to be the idiot.”

“Don’t be paranoid, dear.”

Still, Janet takes Tim’s hand in her own. He nearly startles before mastering his reaction. They’ve been better as a unit, more a mismatched family that might grind itself into something that fits than strangers at war. Her fingers are long, elegant, and perfectly manicured. Her thumb explores the planes of his palm, mapping out the knobbiness of his knuckles, and his crooked ring finger. 

It’s a strange thing that leaves Tim’s hand tingling pleasantly, his heart bursting, and his eyes stinging. He engraves the memory of her touch in the very atoms of himself. Though her right hand is heavy with rings, her left has only her wedding ring. Three bands of gold interlocking perfectly, identical to the one in the attic if not for the material.

It bothers Tim but it fades quickly as he realises this is a chance to be with his mother. The news rattled her terribly. She sticks close to him that day, seeing him in a way he didn’t think possible. He dares show her some of the photos he’s developed.

Sometimes, the universe rewards bravery. They sit on the floor of his messy room—organised chaos is the excuse of the lazy, Janet had said with appropriate gravity though with no heat—as he shows her the things he’s immortalised. From his first toddling attempts to capture the deer that sometimes graze on the shrubs to a candid shot of his parents in the kitchen at the tail end of a stupid argument where they were leaning close to one another. Janet handles them with reverence, staring at them as if they have the answers of the universe, and then staring through Tim as if the architect that laid the cosmic brickwork of the stars can be found in him. As though in Tim, she might find something of the person both Jack and Janet loved.

The day is so amazing that it feels like a fever dream. Janet makes him tea and asks him what snacks he likes. Him. Tim. As if his wants might matter to them. Jack had found them like that, frozen in bewilderment at the doorway, as they interacted.

“Look,” Janet says, tapping one of the photos Tim took.

For as much as Jack runs the household, it is to Janet that he finds all answers and reason. He takes the photo, one of Jack washing his Porsche, taken from the second-floor dining room. Jack is in shorts, his painfully hairy back on display, but contentment is evident in every line of his body.

“This was you?” Tim nods uncertainly. “I see,” Jack says just as uncertainly.

Jack says nothing else about the photo, but he does sit down on the stool beside Tim and enjoys a glass of whiskey.

The Dynamic Duo were smart enough to have Robin continue his patrols in Gotham for another two months after Richard Grayson moved to Bludhaven. A good strategy to throw off the scent, especially with all the social media posts of him exploring his new city and trying out food places.

Two months later, Bruce Wayne adopts Jason Todd. The tabloids must be praying to their gods for getting such juicy stories. Jason’s name is smeared, Bruce’s reputation attacked, and the whole thing is disgusting.

“Black hair and blue eyes again,” Mother murmurs as the news shows the boy. “He’s going to get away with it as well.”

His father’s chuckle is a hollow thing full of despair. “At least now we know why Bruce has never settled.”

Bracketed between his parents, Tim feels stifled by the desolation of their feelings. Mother drums a stuttering rhythm on his knee, Father with a protective grip on the nape of his neck. After Richard Grayson’s exit, his parents had kept him closer, even bringing him on some trips, but the rumours of Jason Todd brought out something possessive in them.

“Don’t joke about this. It’s sickening.”

“It is as it is. Nothing we can do about it. Just hope the kid makes it out.”

“You wouldn’t be saying that if it was Tim.”

“We’d be dead in that case.”

Tim will admit that his parents might be cruel half the time and negligent the other half, but even they have standards.

It’s terrible because Tim knows the truth. Bruce Wayne is Batman and Batman would never do something like that. He would never hurt children.

A terrible part of Tim is glad. Knowing they care, even in this way, is more than he ever expected.

*

Eight months later, there’s a new Robin on the streets.

Those eight months have been wonderful to Tim. Maybe they looked at him, saw his black hair and blue eyes, and saw something terrible happening to him because they started paying attention to him. Sometimes it was as simple as Tim reading in Jack’s office or Janet sipping tea beside him in the kitchen. They took him to the park once, though they’d been furiously whispering to each other on whether children need a leash on their walks.

With stuttering steps, they make their way from a broken idea of family to something that could fit the dictionary definition. He gets to eat with them when they’re home, and when they leave, they sometimes take him with them. On the shorter trips, at least.

“We’ll be back in the evening,” Jack promises, kneeling before Tim. He’s dresses in a neat black suit. “Is there something you wanted?”

“Um, some cake?”

Jack looks over his shoulder at Janet impatiently waiting in the doorway. He winces. “Pick something that won’t have my wife killing us.”

“Sneakers,” he suggests after a moment. People like those, right?

“Sneakers,” Jack says in utter confusion. “Your generation, really.”

He does buy Tim sneakers. Multiple pairs of them. Of varying different brands like he just asked for a selection at the first store he could find. Inside one of the shoeboxes that’s been emptied, there’s a small box with a slice of tiramisu cake in it. Later, at around midnight, his mother sneaks into his room and leaves him a box with a slice of a triple-layered chocolate cake in it. Like her husband did earlier, she strongly suggests he keep quiet about it and not mention it to her spouse.

His parents are fucking idiots.

Tim finds it hilarious.

Perhaps not as hilarious as the second Robin’s debut as he knees a man straight in the face and gives his friends the middle-finger. Jason, the second Robin, doesn’t have the same grace that Richard did. He stumbles and he trips. He’s also made of violence and sounds like Gotham.

Magic swirls around him, hope and determination and faith. A kid from the worst part of Gotham brightening the shadows with a cocky grin and shitty attitude. He’s anger and spitfire, the rage of Gotham’s unwanted and the hope of those unloved by the systems that ravaged this city.

Tim watches him for months, astounded by how his anger is honest to Gotham.

“Oi, fuckface, she’s younger than your daughter. Get your hand off her before I break your hand.” Robin cracks his knuckles, his grin bloody and made for Gotham. “And when your wife serves your divorce papers, you will sign them quietly or I’ll break your hand.

There is one story after another. The kind of cases this Robin cares about compared to the other. Robin the First cared about people in a general messianic way. Robin the Second is selfish, his focus narrower. He prioritises the girls and boys working corners. He goes after dealers who sell a shit product. Abusive husbands and fathers take worse beatings the murderers. And rapists? This Robin has no mercy for them.

He’s a Robin that people can understand. People see his actions and intuitively understand why he could put on that cape and risk getting shot at. His accent drips with the sludge of Gotham’s underbelly and his compassion for people working corners or kids running from home is evident.

Richard Grayson as Robin may have set the standard for child heroes, but Jason Todd puts all of Gotham on his back and forces it to rise above the standard. Robin the first brought the first rays of light to a city so steeped in darkness that its greatest protector will never see the sunlight, but Robin the second shows Gotham what it might be like to stand in the morning. His is the righteous anger of Gotham, the embodiment of fuckups given a second chance, the ability to rise above your origins.

He is Gotham’s Robin in a way Richard Grayson could never be.

Tim finds himself obsessed. He stalks Robin on the roofs and fervently tracks everything Jason does. He does community work helping out at soup kitchens but gravitates to the mosque on 5th and Cunningham. People know him and they call him lucky as hell, but no one holds a grudge. In Gotham, making it out is the greatest victory possible. He also does his best to connect people to recruiters and encourages them to sign up for brand new programs to help with addiction and interview techniques and trauma counselling.

Following that money trail had obviously led back to Bruce Wayne but it was still a fun exercise.

“We should donate to these people,” Tim says, having cornered his father in his office.

“We already donate to charities,” Jack says slowly, giving Tim an opportunity to prove his intelligence.

“Yes, for perfectly legal tax-deductible reasons and to funnel money into other ventures.”

“Correct but do not mention the latter to other people.”

Tim continues his explanation of the groups he wants them to donate to. His father listens patiently, clamping down on his irritation when Tim goes on a random tangent.

“This is a good proposal. Better than my middle managers give. You’re doing this for Bruce’s boy?” Tim nods eagerly. “I don’t understand.”

“I just think he’s doing good stuff. He’s from those areas so he probably knows which groups do good work. Better than us.” Tim looks down at his expensive shoes. “And maybe he’ll feel better knowing other people want to help as well. Maybe he won’t feel so terrible in that house.”

The last part is a lie. Batman is a good person. But his father knows nothing about Batman being Bruce. There’s a sharp inhale from his father.

“Alright,” he says eventually. “We’ll donate to them.”

“Thank you.”

“Did you want to go yourself?” Jack asks before he can leave.

He turns his head over his shoulder. “I would like that, yes.”

“Be kind to the boy if you see him.”

“I will, Dad.”

The sound his father makes is delighted. Tim runs before he’s forced to deal with messy feelings.

Is it perhaps creepy that he’s monitoring Jason? Maybe. Will Tim stop? Never. Not so long as there are rooftops in Gotham and there’s a Robin to follow.

To his endless disappointment, he never does meet Jason Todd in his civilian life.

They’re hit by a rain shower in the middle of what should be a dry summer. It lasts a few hours and coats the roofs slick. Apparently, all the criminals decide they may as well hope Batman stayed indoors and do their thing.

Tim runs and he runs, trying his best to keep up with Robin, heading from one safe spot to another. 

Tim slips on an invisible patch of water and tumbles over the edge.

The scream is out of his mouth before he can process it because fuck fuck fuck that’s the ground and he’s going to die for fuck’s sake because it rained and he hates everything fucking fuckity fuck—

Robin catches him.

“Hey, you’re safe.”

“Huh.”

They land gracelessly, Robin struggling to carry both their weight. 

Tim shakes. Maybe adrenaline, maybe fear. They’re in an alley that smells of piss and condoms. It’s quiet enough and there are no windows on the buildings bracketing them. Not to spec but in Gotham spec is whatever your bribe says it is.

“You with me? I know that was scary. First time I fell off a roof, I pissed myself.” That startles a laugh out of Tim. “Batman gave me a whole lecture about it. No, Robin, you can’t get in the Batmobile smelling of piss, steal your own car. You know, cause even Batman boosts cars.”

Slowly, Tim feels his shakes fade.

“So what’s your story? You are way too young to be on these rooftops.”

He looks anywhere but his warm blue eyes, settling on a mole on his cheek. “Uh, art project.”

Jason laughs and it’s like sunlight seeped deep into Tim’s bones. He isn’t too much older than Tim, just four years, but it makes such a difference. His self-assured confidence is infectious and Tim feels himself standing taller.

“You’re such a bad liar. How’s about you give me that film roll, I destroy it, and don’t tell Batman? Sounds fair, right?”

“Why?” dumb Tim asks instead of taking his out.

“I don’t really care who told you to take those pictures, but you shouldn’t get in trouble for it. Not a toddler like you.”

“I’m turning nine.”

“Toddler, like I said.”

Robin grins. It sends a thrill straight to his chest and he’s left breathless at the very idea that this impossible person exists. His shaky hands shake more as he hands over the film roll and he nearly combusts when Jason pats his head and waits with him for a cab to show up. Doesn’t even ask questions about his destination, just hands the driver a Benjamin.

That encounter awakens something in him. He finds himself comparing the smiles of other boys to Robin and they just don’t compare. Their eyes are dull as well and even the laugh is wrong. Other boys might be better fed, but they lack the sort of muscles Jason has.

Sometimes, when his parents are home, they go to the Synagogue Tim can’t figure out the pattern of their attendance. Best he can tell, they’re excuses for Jack to speak to his society acquaintances in a more private environment. There is never a suggestion that Janet will attend. She’s an extreme atheist and it holds true even after Fawcett city has its annual demon invasion. The trips aren’t a burden on Tim, and as a reward for good behaviour, Jack usually buys him ice cream.

“I’m cheating my diet,” Jack said the first time they went together. “Don’t tell your mother or we’re both dead.”

“This is the point where I blackmail you for more concessions to extract maximum long-term value from you before disposing of you, yes?”

“You’re going to be quite terrifying when you’re older,” Jack says, smiling fondly—fondly! “But unfortunately this is a case of mutually assured destruction. We both lose. It would be quite MAD to reveal the truth.”

“Can I get another scoop anyway?”

“Well, since we’re here.”

That day, specifically, the two of them stay behind to watch the choir practice. That’s the cover, at least, for Jack to have a conversation with a very dangerous-looking man. He walks like a gang enforcer would, violence in every step.

Tim should maybe pay attention to the conversation but his focus is drawn to a boy maybe four years older than him. Curly hair licking at his temple and a smile that livens up the room. A rainbow tie stands out against his black shirt and suspenders in patterns of pink, blue and white.

But his voice? It’s liquid gold. Too beautiful for this world.

The conversation ends but Tim can’t tear his eyes away. He’s never going to make eye contact, but this is the first time he wants to. 

A sharp pain ends his trance. Jack, his fingers digging in Tim’s shoulders.

No words are said, but Tim can read the disgust in Father’s harsh lines. The way he holds himself almost away from Tim.

“Why does he have a gap tooth?” Tim asks quickly, faking his confusion.

The grip on his shoulder doesn’t let up.

Jack makes eye contact with him and Tim forces himself to match it despite how it makes his skin crawl. The assessment is dispassionate, an accounting of failures Tim doesn’t have words for just yet.

“She’s poor,” Jack says tonelessly.

“The shoes are from a good brand,” Tim says with just as little emotion.

He doesn’t know why this conversation is so fraught, but he knows it has changed things permanently between them. Jack looks at him like he’s seeing Tim for the first time.

“Borrowed. They don’t fit her properly. Pay more attention to the small details.”

“I will, Father.” A flash of insight passes through Tim. “Is there something wrong with him? Perhaps his kind shouldn’t be allowed here.”

Jack’s flinch is tiny, but Tim feels it through his shoulder. Something devasted crosses his features before being buried beneath flat planes of disinterest. It doesn’t change the bruising grip he has on Tim, the tiny tremor in his arm as he takes one deep breath after another. Jack masters himself after another moment, letting his hand fall away.

It is the first victory he’s had against Jack but something about it feels like a loss. It feels like the first time Jack hit him but in reverse. Like he betrayed his father with his words.

Tim hates it.

No matter what, though, he stops looking at boys so closely.

*

*

*

“Your father sometimes gets obsessed with his French heritage,” his mother whispers to him, drawing him into conspiracy under the blistering sun, her face cast in shadows by her large hat. “The Drakes had one moderately wealthy French relative before they moved to America. Don’t ask me how they got the name and don’t mention it to your father if you want to avoid a rant. There was this rather boring debacle after the first World War where they managed to restore some of their original land holdings that he will likely force you to listen to. The house in Amiens is traditionally where Drakes have summered these last three generations.”

“And you? Is your family French as well?”

“Oh no, we’re descended from defunct English nobility though, that was so long ago, it only matters to people like your father who are obsessed with blood and status. I know that look. You’re thinking I’m a hypocrite.”

Tim didn’t know he had an expression like that so he schools his features into blankness. “No, ma’am.”

“Please, I’m too young to be called that. Mother will do just fine. Janet if you wish to be irreverent.” 

“Well, Mother Janet”—that earns him a gentle hair tug in the middle of a Parisian street—"where do you come from?”

“Quite a bit of land ownership. A decently sized farming conglomerate. My grandfather, now he was an inventor. Nearly a dozen patents to his name. Very eccentric. He blew himself up right in front of me.” Janet’s laugh is entirely at odds with her dark anecdote. If Tim develops any sociopathic tendencies, he knows who to blame. “I was very young at the time. The rest of it comes from the usual. Very boring management in safe investments. Just enough lucky guesses to offset the bad ones. Lots of bribery and political collusion.”

“How come I’ve never met any of your family?”

“Well, you see, when I told them what I wanted to study and do with my life, they mocked me for it. Now they never will. Oh, don’t give me that look. I love certain things and everything else is just an enemy waiting to happen. And believe me when I say blood is no reason to love someone. Had your father been slightly less endearing, I may have eliminated him. Where do you think you fall on the spectrum?”

There is a bubble of space around them despite the colourful crowd. People instinctively stay away from the predator that is Janet. Tim is very certain that she wasn’t joking about possibly strangling him.

“I’m not sure I want to know.”

“Well, these days it’s the former.”

“Oh, good.”

“I do find your precocious nature quite endearing now that I acknowledge your existence. Did you know your father still hasn’t noticed how swollen your trust fund is these days or how little control he has over it? You’re quite the blind spot for him. I suspect he is terrified of your genius and perhaps more terrified that you’ve inherited any of my more uncomfortable viewpoints.”

“Like familicide.”

“Exactly. Your comfort in discussing this is what scares him. That, and whatever you did to him at the Synagogue a few months back. Gosh, he worked himself into a frustrated tizzy. I spent the better part of the night listening to his incoherent rambling and occasional sobbing without even receiving an explanation.”

“Are you supposed to be telling me this?”

“Your father is a seesaw made of moods. It’s better that you know this now.”

“I don’t even know what I did to him,” he says petulantly.

“Truly now? Well, you are still a child and children are uniformly cruel creatures. Do try to be kinder to your father. He’s of a more delicate constitution than us.”

Things have been better with his parents. His mother still sometimes forgets he exists, shocked to remember she spawned a human, but she swallows her shock whole and keeps moving. Her attention is more exacting, and she dresses Tim like a doll, selective with fabrics and cuts and textures, explaining her reasoning behind each choice. She expects brilliance from every aspect of him even if not formality. A pair of sneakers can go with formal slacks if you know what you’re doing, and his mother certainly knows.

She also cuts his hair for him. They could go to a barber, Tim even suggested he’d do it alone, but she’d just scoffed and told him, ‘They’d never do your ears justice,’ before proceeding to trim his hair. He doesn’t know if he even likes the hairstyle, but he does like that she’s spending time with him.

Jack hasn’t forgiven him for his words at the synagogue—which isn’t fair since Tim still doesn’t understand what he did wrong—and keeps him at a distance, hiding parts of himself once more. Sometimes they leak through, moments where he pats Tim’s head or points out people he wants to make fun of. Sometimes, he sits him down and teaches Tim about the family business or points out places his archaeology ventures have taken him to. Sometimes, it feels like Janet and Jack forget they’re supposed to hate him.

“Do you speak French?”

“Child, you’ve heard me speak French. Rephrase that question.”

He bows his head, accepting the chastisement. “How well do you speak French? I can’t hear it well enough to tell.”

“Better than your father. His language skills are weak. I hope you take after me. You’ll learn French first to assuage his obsession with his heritage. After French, would you like to learn Spanish, Mandarin, Arabic, or Swahili first?”

“Which one is your favourite?”

Janet’s laugh is delighted and makes Tim delighted in turn. He smiles so hard it hurts.

“I have been enjoying Italian. There were these lovers recently uncovered in Modena. Skeletons buried together sometime between the 4th and 6th centuries. If one must go, I suppose being with your lover isn’t so terrible a way.”

“Did they speak Italian that early?”

“A smart question.” Tim preens. “They would have spoken a vulgar dialect of Latin from which the Romance languages descend. I already know Classical Latin and I wanted to learn a new language. And so Italian it was.”

“Italian next,” Tim settles on.

*

Things aren’t perfect but they’re getting there. 

They could do anything at all. Visit art galleries or a winery. Instead, Janet sneaks him away towards a crepe store and orders two servings that are American-themed with how large they are.

“Don’t tell your father. He thinks I don’t cheat my diet.”

Tim, mouth stuffed, says, “okay.”

It’s really quite ridiculous that they both cheat on their diets and hide it from one another. They could have cheat days together. Well, whatever. It means that sometimes Tim gets super cheat days.

Janet rolls her eyes but doesn’t berate him for it. They have five days together exploring Paris as they wait for Jack to finish his business in Algeria. Five days where it’s just the two of them. Tim shows her how to work the camera and she takes photos of him in his neat little vests or ruining his perfect clothes by playing in the park.

“Should we go to the beach tomorrow?”

Tim sits up, eyes wide. “Really? We can go? Just us?”

Janet laughs. “Yes, just us. Who else would we go with? Unless you’re hiding a brother in your room.”

“I’m not.”

“I believe you. Oh, I’ve never bought you swimwear. Let’s go do that right now.”

When she holds out her hand, Tim takes it fearlessly.

Just months ago, had someone told Tim that he’d be on holiday with his mother, he would have called the police on the weirdo babbling nonsense. Now, it feels almost natural. Even his father’s arrival doesn’t hamper anything. They drive north to Amiens. Jack is intense as he explains the places the Drakes lived and travelled through, claiming a heritage that his mother mocks in perfect French much to his despair. Tim, because he’s a little shit, repeats Janet’s French which has her laughing and Jack fuming because he can’t really be angry that Tim’s getting his pronunciation right, especially since he doesn’t know what the words mean.

That’s how it goes. Jack tells him a history of a French family and Janet teaches him how to mock his father in French, sometimes slipping in a few phrases of Arabic.

For a moment, it feels like everything will be alright.

*

Janet Drake dies and Tim only learns a month after the fact.

Tim’s been left alone after they had an emergency meeting in Paris. When they hadn’t come back after three days, Tim knew he’d be in France for a while. No passport or ID with him since his parents always kept those, so no way to get back until they came to fetch him.

They would come for him. He knows that. They’d made plans to visit the Louvre and to get a family portrait done. Whatever else his parents are, they aren’t liars. They can learn to care. They’d left him a hundred Euros just in case he needed it.

If they wanted him gone, they would have better ways of doing it.

Being alone isn’t new to him. The country might be different but the routine is the same. Get food. Make food. Live. Occasionally have fun.

He learns French faster, gobbling it up with morning news which he only understands one word in twelve, at markets where people find it endearing that the tiny American kid is learning the language or too busy to give a shit over a kid wasting time in line, and more than a few action movies he isn’t supposed to watch.

A call comes through on the TV. Like all their main homes, it has a camera and a great microphone system for telepresence calls. Tim answers it and is greeted by Jack Drake.

His father is in a wheelchair over the video call. Old is the first thing Tim thinks. A month away, and Jack Drake looks ancient.

“Your mother is dead.”

The call ends before Tim can process those four words.

He runs them over and over in his head, as he goes about his day. Mother means the person who birthed him. Dead means cessation of biological functions. Your is the possessive form of you. Is represents the present tense of to be.

The words individually are perfectly reasonable in different contexts. Combined as they were, they are obscene and disgusting. Janet Drake was cruel in the way of cats, and she seemed too real to die.

The quiet townhouse in Amiens feels so much lonelier. Three Drakes had vacationed here at the start of Summer. One is permanently gone and the other is in a different country. Only Tim remains, haunted by the negative space of his parents.

He chooses to mourn her and it is a mourning process of extremes.

There is no need to cover the mirrors. They’re all broken within the day and his hands bleed terribly. He cries out his rage and despair like a vengeful spirit. Or maybe like a boy whose mother is dead and his father indifferent.

He doesn’t need many candles. His eyes soon adjust to the pervasive darkness.

Who needs to shower when getting off the couch seems like more effort.

Is fasting a part of Shiva? Tim can’t remember. He’s Jewish but only as an accident of birth. Beneath the performative nature of it, he sometimes thought Jack may have genuinely believed. He’d never stumbled over his words during prayer or song and Tim vaguely remembers seeing a leatherbound Torah in his office.

Seven days to sit Shiva. He remembers that much. And so seven days he will sit for a mother who harmed him more than she cared, who ignored him most of his life except for moments that feel false in his memory now. Was their holiday real or some strange fever dream? He doubts it.

Janet Drake barely loved him. Didn’t acknowledge him for most of his life. Two years can’t change that much.

So why does it hurt so terribly?

*

Alright, week of mourning done. Time to get the fuck out of France.

In a small antique, his eyes stop on a camera, and he’s absolutely stumped to see a genuinely good polaroid camera there. It’s grimy and scuffed to hell, sure, but he’s fixed worse. An impulse has him buying it with the last of his Euros.

Fuck, he wishes he had a good internet connection and his verification documents. With those, he could just get some money and charter a flight back home. He considers visiting the American Embassy for one fleeting moment before realising how terrible the press would be. Drake's Son abandoned by father in France. The man’s obviously been hurt even if Tim doesn’t understand how, but by now there won’t be a reasonable justification. If he was fine enough to call Tim, then he was fine enough to call the authorities and have his return arranged. And there’s no way he missed all the calls Tim tried making.

Jack doesn’t want him back. It’s as simple as that. Well fuck Jack Drake, Tim is his son and he’s inherited pettiness. 

Living in France is a struggle. He picks up odd chores for a couple of Euros and sells the cheapest photos to tourists. A few run-ins with the police and whatever counts for vigilantes in the boonies aside, it’s still better than most of his life. No empty house and no parents who hate him.

When he’s on the verge of sleep, exhausted by the daily hustle, he slips into memories of a father who could smile and a mother who laughed with him. And when he inevitably wakes up in the middle of the night, he finds his cheeks wet and his heart racing.

One day bleeds into the next. He spends time in the evening searching for ways to make a few more Euros and visits the library for access to their computer. He learns that his parents were poisoned with an exotic poison and airlifted to a hospital, reports confirming that Janet died on the way. The reports end there to his disappointment.

He leaves the library close to closing and wanders the narrow streets, sticking to the shadows. He gets turned around at one point and soon can’t recognise the streets or landmarks.

That’s when he’s dragged by burly arms that cover his mouth before he can scream. Tim thrashes but he’s too small to fight it and soon he’s being shoved into a vehicle, arms bound and mouth gagged. He isn’t the only child in the van. 

Of fucking course he gets snatched.

What else did he expect? A reasonable and fun family vacation?

*

A few hours later, Tim Drake suffers the indignity of being processed for human consumption. He’s stuck in just his underwear, frozen in fear as he’s dispassionately observed by three people who note down his physical characteristics.

“They like them blonde back home,” the one with the gun says. Somewhere pacific. Oregon? BC? “The tan is good. Keep him in the sun.”

Tim’s tan has come from long days in the summer heat. It isn’t a uniform tan, odd stripes of paleness against bronze. All of it is on display.

The woman in the sharp suit takes his jaw and forces his mouth open with a pencil torch. “Very good teeth. Underfed but some like them skinny.”

He’d run if not for the ropes binding his legs and arms. It continues much like that and they use his fucking polaroid camera to take pictures. Someone will pay decent money for those pictures and Tim doesn’t even want to know why. He’s miserable and just wants to go home again.

When it is done, he is thrown in a room with other miserable, hollow-eyed kids. Too many of them to fit comfortably. Tim finds a spot near the wall that’s free and sits down to wait for what comes.

He’s never coming back to France, that’s for certain.

*

He counts the days by the one meal they provide at irregular intervals. It’s never enough and fights always break out over it. Tim never wins, but he learns to struggle for his few scraps, feeling the strength leech from his body.

One day becomes five becomes twelve as they suffer in this shitty room. At least they get buckets for piss and shit and those are taken away with the meals. Smart. The kids are too desperate to try escaping when they have food presented to them. The one kid who tried bolting out is still in the corner, his back a map of pain in blue and purple.

On the thirteenth day, they’re dragged outside and hosed down with freezing cold water before being shoved in a van again and driven to a dockyard. They are split and mixed with other kids and some women before being loaded into a storage container. Only a few chemical lights stop it from being a completely miserable experience, just most of a miserable experience.

Tim cries most days like the other kids. Maybe they also have mothers who died and fathers who abandoned them. Maybe they’re also unwanted heirs for old families. Or maybe they started life with nothing and expect life to end with nothing.

Not everyone makes the trip across the ocean. The kid who had been beaten terribly dies in his sleep. Tim is the one who realises first, seeing the blue fingertips and the unnatural stillness. He’s from Gotham and dead bodies are just another part of daily living.

He still screams himself hoarse until the container is opened and the body removed. 

*

When they arrive at their port destination, Tim is quietly hoping to die. He’s been in that state for a few days now, contemplating fashioning a shiv out of the bars housing the chemical light. Sharpen it just right and it will tear through his throat easily enough.

Half the scratches on his arms are from desperately trying to avoid doing something stupid. He just has to keep it together for a bit long. Pain ends eventually. He can make a plan when they’ve landed and from there, Tim will find a way to win.

Just another day he tells himself on the third day. Another day that bleeds into another and another. He buries his despair and builds up his anger into a furnace to keep him warm on the inside. Tim develops a list of things he hates in descending order of current importance:

1. France
2. Jack Drake
3. Amiens
4. French child traffickers
5. Skype calls
6. Cargo containers
7. Small rooms
8. Jack Drake
9. Mothers who die
10. France

It’s a great list and completely reasonable. When Tim gets free, he is going to get his revenge and it will be glorious. There will be fire and brimstone and rage screamed to the high heavens. He’ll bring down half the world to get it.

Yes, his retribution will be merciless and it will be just.

His rage has banked when they finally land and he reassesses his list slightly. Jack gets second and third place instead. That feels fair.

Tim takes a deep inhale when the cargo container is opened, salt air cutting through the thick odour of unwashed bodies and the piss bucket in the corner. The fight has long since fled his body. Too hungry and weak to struggle much, he lets himself be led away. Stay silent, stay quiet, and when they think they’ve won, Tim will run his way to freedom.

To his utter bewilderment, he is in Gotham. Tim would recognise that skyline even with gouged eyes and he would know the distinct sound of Gotham’s misery even if his ears were sliced off. It seems he’s taken the long way back.

Hysterical laughter bubbles out of him. The absurdity of it all. This was his goal the whole time and the universe took the cruellest route to bring him back.

Tim is being shoved into the van when the grip on him vanishes. He twists around slowly at the pained yelp and sees vengeance. Batman. He’s here. Not some figment of his imagination. But here in graphic realism. No one could mistake the violent snap as Batman breaks Tim’s captor's arm and disarms him of his handgun in his other hand.

A flare of his cape and Batman is pouncing on the next person. Gunshots deafen him and screams fill the air. Tim huddles down, shimmying beneath the van. Fuck no is he dying of a stray gunshot.

It ends quickly after that. Most people don’t understand this about Batman but he’s efficient. A fight going a second longer is another second where a stray bullet could hit him. When he kicks you in the chest, the goal is to break ribs. Every punch to the head is meant to render you unconscious, broken skulls are just an unfortunate reality. His grabs dislocate limbs and sometimes break them.

Tim takes his opportunity and sneaks away. He’s been watching Batman long enough to know his right ear is his bad ear and he doesn’t hear quiet sounds as well.

Gotta escape and get home. Before he gets deported to a country that isn’t his own. Or worse, he gets recognised as Tim Drake and his father is involved. No, not that. Jack will kill him if he embarrasses the family like that. Fuck trusting that the man who told him stories still exists. No, Tim has to assume Jack will take any free opportunity to kill him.

Gotham’s docks aren’t familiar to him but so long as he’s heading vaguely southish and away from Batman things will be alright. His feet ache against concrete and glass but he ignores it. Pain is temporary; family embarrassment is forever.

He turns around the next cargo container and smacks face first into Robin. Gentle arms catch him. He’s got a soft smile that has Tim feeling relief and despair at the same time. Of course, he didn’t escape Batman.

“Heyo.”

“Uh, hello?”

“You speak English.” Tim nods. “Do you know who I am?” He nods again. “Good. Come on, let's get you back before you get shot running in Gotham.”

Tim shakes his head. “Non.”

“You know, running off like that isn’t too smart. Did you even have a plan?”

Jason isn’t smiling for once. Exhaustion paints him older than his fifteen years. A hint of grief at seeing a bunch of kids about to be sold off to the highest bidder. Perhaps more sympathy at the life he might have had with a deadbeat dad working as a henchman and a mother who’d sooner sell him for dope than care for him.

“What you call it? A meilleur de plan. A real plan intelligent,” he adds, thickening the hodgepodge French accent he’s picked up.

“Which is?”

“The land of the free. I want to be free.”

Robin sighs like he’s ancient. “It doesn’t work like that. You don’t have papers and you won’t make it ten minutes in Gotham.”

“Please,” he begs, straining to keep any hint of Gotham out of his voice. “Just let me go.”

“You need to go home.”

“What home?” he asks with bitterness that will never die.

“We can get you somewhere—”

“Non!” Robin recoils at the intensity of his shout. “There is nothing for me there. Nothing but death.”

“Your family—”

“Dead. Nothing but death is there. Rather die free than on my back.”

He glares at Jason, willing him to understand the truth. Letting the authorities take him will kill Tim, one way or another.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck, Batman is going to kill me.”

Robin reaches into his boot and then shoves something in Tim’s hands. A hundred bucks. A worried look.

“Don’t make me regret this.”

“Au revoir, Robin.”

It is the last time he speaks to Jason Todd before he dies.

*

Tim heads to one of his boltholes in the city first. A small nook fit only for waiting out a storm, it still feels like home in a way that has him crying himself to sleep then he’s waking up in paranoia, doubting the idea that he’s actually free. He takes a piece of concrete to his arm just to check, pleased when he bleeds red and the dream doesn’t end.

A few bottles of water that he drinks slowly and some energy bars that taste like heaven. He eats them so quick he makes himself sick which is utterly unfair and now he’s crying again. It’s not fair. Nothing about his life has been fair since the day he was born. 

In the morning, Jason’s hundred bucks get him a taxi to streets that should be familiar but feel alien. The driver gives him a passing look but accepts the money and asks no questions. The less the driver knows, the more plausible deniability he has. Enough baby criminals use cabs for their crimes that it’s well known every driver always keeps at least two guns on them.

Tim clambers over the fence easily and slips past the security systems using overrides he installed a year ago. Everything is much the same, the rooms just as well appointed as always. The vases are the same and the furniture is in much the same places. The big difference is the stair lift. The next are the small changes. The books and magazines he’d left strewn about the place. His handmade Nixie tube clock housed in elegant wood vanished.

Worse of all are the photos. The framed photos he’d taken are missing. They were all candid shots of his parents in moments caught unaware. There was even one of the three of them taken on a timer, Tim with a hard hat too big for him but his grin was even bigger, Jack holding him up by the armpits and Janet laughing.

For a time, they were a family. The evidence of that is gone. Tim bites back on his tears. He knows stories and he knows this should have been a triumphant return. The stolen prince has finally returned home. There should have been celebrations and his father waiting for him at the top of the stairs, and when he got there his father would hug him and speak of his pride in Tim, and they would go mourn his mother together.

Life has never been fair to him. It takes even that tiny victory from him.

Tim showers and scrubs his body clean three times. His soul feels dirty despite it. To his dark amusement, his old clothes are loose on his frame.

It is only the next day that he encounters his father.

Even in a wheelchair, his father cuts an imposing figure. His suit is well cut and absorbs the light, contrasting with the streaks of silver in his hair.

“You’ve returned,” Jack says flatly, seeing through Tim. Perhaps seeing the ghost of his wife in his son. He doesn’t notice the bruises or at least pretends not to. Ignores how sharp Tim’s bones are or how skinny his exposed wrists look.

“Yes.”

“Why? The house in France was well appointed.”

“I wished to see where Mother was buried.”

“Months late.”

Tim keeps his expression blank. Four months gone and it feels too short for them both. He wants to scream at his father, demand to know why he was abandoned or how he dares to act like it’s Tim’s fault he couldn’t be here earlier. He wants to scream those weeks in a tiny room and the weeks in a storage container. He wants to shake him and ask if Tim looks better tanned, if his damned society friends would like a boy since Jack so clearly doesn’t.

He says none of this. Fighting against Jack has never brought him victory.

Maybe some of his vicious hatred seeps through. Maybe the cloying darkness pervading his soul infects the room. Maybe Jack has a fucking heart because he backs down and looks elsewhere.

“The driver will take you in the morning,” Jack says and turns in his chair, pushing himself away.

*

It is cold in the morning when he is taken to the private cemetery. Tim is bundled in a jacket that cost more than he lived on for an entire month in France and could have kept him going for another two. He’s crowned in a Gucci cap, his aggressively bright pink sneakers are weapons against the world, and a cashmere scarf shields him from the world.

It is a simple upright slab made of granite so black it seems otherworldly, reflecting the wan sunlight at its edges. It carries her name and the years she lived for. It is not an extravagant monument, nor does it carry a message for those who come after.

Janet did not believe in G-d. She did not even fear death. It was simply a nuisance that needed to happen. To make a spectacle of something she so dismissed would be to dishonour her.

Those who knew her will need nothing else.

Tim should say something. Figure out all the words for love in his heart that he never got to say. Perhaps curse her for leaving and taking with her any warmth that might have lived in their household.

He says nothing and after an hour he leaves.

His mother is dead.

Words aren’t enough.

*

Life settles into an unpleasant routine for Tim.

Jack can no longer go to dig sites and his bitterness consumes him from the inside out. His wife was lost to him, his body crippled, and his passions in life taken from him. Were Tim in his position, he’d be angry as well.

After what he’s lived through, Tim has no forgiveness in his heart left to give.

Jack could afford a caretaker, but he chooses not to. His pride is too great to be seen as weak and needy. And he has a son right there to assist him. Tim learns to wake up at five and change Jack’s bedpan since it will be Tim’s fault if Jack is reminded of his weakness. Some mornings, Jack’s limbs tremble from the poison and Tim will have to help him into the wheelchair and push him to the bathroom for a shower.

On a good day, Jack will forget about his existence. Those days are rare.

In Tim, Jack sees everything he was robbed of.

In Jack, Tim sees the future he was robbed of.

They’re a matched pair, the two of them. Both angry and bitter and spiteful. Both bound by a frayed string of affection and joy that’s turning into barbed wires to rip them from the inside out.

“What did you do with my photos? The ones in the hallways?”

“Did I give you permission to speak?”

“If you want a servant, you can pay for one.”

The glass shatters beside his head. A shard slices his cheek. Tim barely blink. He’s suffered through worse. He can order a replacement bottle easily enough.

Tim pours Jack another drink silently, placing it in front of him, and leaving to get the broom and cleaning supplies. A few minutes later and the room is clean though smelling heavily of alcohol. One day, he hopes his nose becomes numb to it.

“Where are my pictures?” he asks again.

“Gone.”

Tim pushes him to his bedroom as a good and dutiful son would. It is a façade like so much of his life. He settles Jack into bed, tucking his blankets in properly. It would be so easy to kill his father, so easy to complete the job and get away with it. Tim refuses to succumb to his father’s expectations. He is his mother’s son, but not in all ways.

“He would have liked you,” Jack says bitterly, brokenly, lost to whiskey-hazed memories. “He always liked pathetic things.”

“Who would?”

Jack doesn’t look at him, falling ever deeper in memory. “I loved the two of them. They were the only things I ever loved. You took them both from me.”

“I know.”

He receives only stuttering snores for a response.

Chapter Text

Jason Todd dies in a plane crash and Robin goes missing from the streets of Gotham. 

These facts are not unrelated.

Gotham doesn’t care about the billionaire’s adopted kid dying. It’s one tragedy amongst the rest and he got a better life than most before the end. There’s a drought ravaging the east coast and while people might dedicate a few words to the dead kid, they’ll move on and forget him in a few days.

Gotham does care that Robin vanishes.

Batman is real but Batman is also a myth. Batman has been caught on blurry cameras but the contradictory stories of him are captured in HD. He is the silent shadow of justice, a monster to places filled with light like Metropolis or Central City. To the sons and daughters of Gotham, Batman is the only kind of hero they can have. Every Gotham child grows up knowing that it’s just a matter of time, that the mobs or the drugs or the cops or the villains will get you eventually. Batman, though, was the darkness you could wrap around you like a familiar cloak, a protector in the only way Gotham could stomach because you knew he would play by the rules. Ask the streets and one in two kids have a story of Batman just making sure they got home safe at night. Go to a corner and they’ll tell you there aren’t any terrible pimps left because Batman got rid of them. The junkies in rowhouses know the drugs they take aren’t laced with fentanyl or something worse like Venom because Batman would not accept it.

The streets run red now that Batman has no restraints holding him. Before Jason, Batman would never kick someone out of anything higher than a second-storey building and even that was extreme. After Jason, Batman relishes in it.

Batman watches criminals scream in fear and drops them anyway. He breaks faces against concrete when he’s already won. A dozen punches where two were enough. The beds of Gotham’s hospitals rapidly fill with those too terrified by what Batman has done to speak the truth. How can they when any fool that does so finds their worst secrets exposed to light—the boys on the side, the strange sex things, beaten girlfriends and hurt wives, and crimes so vile they won’t survive their first night in a holding cell.

Batman does not kill but Batman does not have to kill to hold Gotham in terror. He is smarter and faster and more experienced. He has rage and determination to sustain him in his crusade to bleed Gotham of infection.

No amount of blood sates him.

Tim learns the fastest way to call the police and get the ambulances to the broken men Batman leaves in the wake of his crusade. He learns how to apply emergency aid and comes home with bloody hands and grateful thanks. 

This too shall pass once a new Robin is found. Robin will temper his violence and heal Gotham’s Dark Knight. That’s the job of the Boy Wonder. The light in the dark, the stars guiding you across the murky waters.

No Robin shows up. No kid with black hair and blue eyes interests Bruce no matter how Tim tries to steer things. He sees past them, sees broken Jason in them, and rejects them. One after another. Good candidates with skills and natural talent. No matter how Tim engineers their meetings, Batman looks past them indifferently.

Eventually, he realises that it will be up to him. There is no one else to become Robin.

He sits on the hood of the Batmobile one evening, shivering in the chill. It started drizzling which is unfair. The rain shouldn’t be around this early. His fingers have long since gone blue even hidden under his armpits.

“Get off.”

He blinks because fuck if it isn’t scary that Batman can appear right in front of you between blinks. “Hi. I have a proposition for you.”

“Tell me the name of your handler.”

“Um, no, I’m not like an assassin or… wait, no, I am definitely not a sex worker if that’s what you’re thinking. Sorry about giving you that impression. I’m really starting on the wrong foot here.”

“Where are your caregivers?”

“That’s not what I’m here to talk about. You need a Robin. I’ll do it.” 

Batman has a crescent scar across his cheekbones. A skiing accident is Bruce Wayne’s excuse. Batman needs no explanation. Tim lets his eyes settle on it.

“Remove yourself from my vehicle,” Batman says flatly, but Tim’s listened to him long enough to hear the exhausted rage colouring his words.

“No. I’ve given you my terms and now I expect you to deal with them.”

“My patience for children has limits.”

“Do you think he’ll see this and be proud?” Tim asks softly. “He loved these streets. He grew up in them. Now you’re destroying them. Could Jason—”

Oh wow, being this high up is weird and Batman’s got enough strength that Tim’s arms feel like they’re about to snap in half. Tim looks everywhere but the strange whites of his cowl, settling on a jaw so tense that teeth will probably shatter if Bruce grinds on them any harder.

“How do you know that name?”

And there’s the anger that makes criminals piss themselves. A Dark Knight is not a kind knight, but it is the only one Gotham can accept.

Tim wriggles a bit, fearless. He’s faced the depths of despair. Batman is a comfort compared to that.

“You can kill me if you want. At the rate you’ve been going, I won’t be surprised.”

His words sap the anger out of Batman, his shoulders sagging even as his grip on Tim does not loosen. Tim kills his momentary flash of enjoyment that passes through him.

“Where are your parents?”

“Dead and or crippled. You should know. You were at the last banquet Jack hosted.”

“Tim Drake. Son of Jack and Janet.”

“And Robin now.”

“No.”

“Yes.”

“No.” Batman sighs. “But I can’t leave you in the rain.”

Bruce is surprisingly gentle when he places him in the Batmobile. The backseat is leather because of course Batman has a leather obsession. Tim stops complaining immediately because heated seats.

“Does this count as kidnapping?” Batman grunts as he takes a hard right that should have flipped the car over but doesn’t. “I’ll take that as a yes. Yay, I got in the creepy white van.”

“Are you incapable of understanding the inherent danger of that situation?”

“Honestly? Kinda. This is a lot nicer than the last time I was kidnapped.”

Through the rear-view mirror, he sees Batman’s focus on him. “There was no incident report of a kidnapping.”

“Nope.”

“There were simpler ways to report your negligent parents.”

“That’s a tautology.”

His parents are negligent so saying that is like saying negligent parents squared and that’s just stupid.

“Then?”

“Jason rescued me.” The air freezes and Tim knows with complete certainty that he’s crossed a line. He just smiles, showing all his teeth. “Maybe when I’m Robin, I’ll tell you all about it. I can’t save him now, but I can save you. I owe him that much.”

“Hm.”

*

Tim knew Batman had a secret underground entrance, but he didn’t know the cave system extended out to the cliffsides. The tunnel leads to a cave. It’s well lit, not bright, but you can read perfectly well.

“That’s a giant coin. And a dinosaur. What am I even looking at? Why do you have this? Are these like mad inventions or trophies from villains?”

A thermal blanket is thrown over his head. “Yes.”

Tim suspects mild trolling in that answer. But thermal blankets are warm and Tim likes being warm more than he likes getting answers. Years of running Gotham’s rooftops through rain and hail do not disprove this fact in his mind.

Besides, when he’s Robin he’ll have access to all the case files anyway. 

Beyond the grandfather clock—because why not at this stage?—stands a man in an impeccable uniform, a full head of grey hair and the most unimpressed expression Tim has ever seen. It’s a level of disapproval that Jack could only hope to emulate.

“I see we have stopped pretending to have a secret identity.”

Tim raises his hand respectfully and waits until the butler nods his permission. “I figured it out when I was eight.”

“Of course you did. I struggle to believe you are older than seven by stature alone. Master Bruce, may I inquire as to why you have stolen the neighbour’s son and why you chose to use the secret passage?”

Tim crosses his arms. “He didn’t steal me. I told him I’m going to be Robin and he agreed with me.”

“Is this true?”

“We’re negotiating the situation,” Batman says.

“Far be it from me to raise any concerns over this apparent hostage negotiation. Master Drake—”

“Tim. My name’s Tim. Don’t call me Drake. That’s Jack.”

“Jack?”

“His father,” Bruce adds pointedly. “Who is in DC and has been so for the past month.”

“Oh, is that where he is? I didn’t bother checking this time.”

Alfred sighs, an undercurrent of anger in his tone. “I believe I grasp the shape of the situation. Come, Master Tim, I was just about to make hot chocolate.”

“No way. British people only drink tea. And I don’t believe Batman drinks hot chocolate.” Alfred winks at him, his smile mysterious. “Oh my god, this is wild.”

Alfred does make him hot chocolate and it’s objectively the best hot chocolate Tim’s ever had. Not that he has anything else to compare it to. He never thought to ask his mother to make it for him.

She would have, before the end.

She would have done a lot of things for him.

*

They let him spend the night and Alfred makes him a breakfast that Tim only picks at. He’ll eat when he’s gotten Bruce to accept him as Robin.

He keeps showing up to Batman’s patrols and instead of bothering with the cold, Tim picks the lock to the Batmobile and takes a nap instead. He wakes up often to Batman shaking him awake in the Cave and Alfred’s profound disappointment.

It takes two full weeks for Tim to wear Batman down before he’s willing to train Tim. Maybe he gets tired of finding Tim in the middle of his patrol route no matter how much he changes it or perhaps he feels mildly worried about a kid being so close to places where the bullets are flying.

The training hurts but it’s for a good cause so Tim forces himself up after every punch. He takes a stance no matter how much his knees shake, and his arms feel like lead. He grins through the pain of a bloody nose when Bruce shows him how to take a punch to the face—and laughs silently as Alfred tears Batman to shreds for that.

Alfred carefully disinfects the cut on his eyebrow from the blow in the aftermath, his concern barely hidden by British disinterest. Tim winces at the spray of disinfectant but stays steady otherwise. He’s seen what can become of infected injuries. A dead child in a shipping container stares at him whenever he closes his eyes.

“I am of a mind to put a stop to this immediately.”

“Why? It’s just a punch and this is way better than anything I ever did on my own.”

“Does he ever raise a hand against you? Your father, that is.”

“Not often. Janet did most of the disciplining in the early days. Jack just wanted me to disappear. I mean, he did stop Janet when it would have left visible marks so there’s a good thing he did. It wasn’t all bad.”

“I sincerely doubt it.”

“There were good days. I like to remember those.” Tim grins. “Hey, Robin’s supposed to be able to find the good in everyone so that means I’m doing a good job, right?”

“I would prefer you did not feel the need to do a good job as Robin.”

“Did you try to get the others to quit as well?”

“Futilely, much to my bitter disappointment.”

Tim’s eyes rove to the glass case containing Jason Todd’s bloody uniform, a monument to the second Robin. Tim’s Robin. The Robin that Gotham never earned but got anyway. The Robin who was the hope of every gutter kid and corner girl to make something more of themselves. Just by existing, he pulled them out of the mire and muck that is Gotham.

A good soldier is not how Jason Todd should be remembered.

Gotham does not ask for soldiers. It does not want them, and it does not honour them. It could never stomach the discipline. There have never been any rules of engagement. You live and you win by whatever means necessary.

Robin the Second was Gotham to his core. He wasn’t a soldier. Jason was kind and brilliant and magical in a way that only Gotham could make.

When Tim thinks of Jason, he won’t ever see that ruined uniform. He’ll see the boy with anger in his heart and a smile that tugged at his heart.

But that’s for Tim Drake and he seeks to become the new Robin. He doesn’t know better than Batman. 

That queer longing whenever he thinks of Jason gets buried deep with everything else wrong with Timothy Drake.

If Batman says he was a soldier, then Robin was a soldier.

Tim can be that. Batman will be his commander and Tim will follow him till the end. And if he finds a replacement Robin quick enough, he might even make it out alive.

The next day, he’s back at training, his small body landing on the mats. He trains and he trains, taking every blow without fear and every correction without backtalk. He’ll be a soldier for Batman even as his knuckles bleed and bruises cover his skin.

Duty before joy. Duty over joy. Duty, not joy.

He says those words to himself when his body is at its limits and then forces himself up anyway. Batman needs him to be ready. Gotham needs him to be ready or the streets will run red at Batman’s rage. This isn’t about Tim, not really. It’s about saving Gotham in the only way he can.

He runs the obstacle course over and over and over. It takes him dozens of attempts before he learns the goal isn’t to make it to the end—one day, yes, but not right now—but to learn how to fall and catch himself.

“Good,” Batman says on the first day he catches himself with an old-school grappling hook, rope and anchor knotted by hand. “The tug from a grappling hook will hurt if you aren’t ready for it. At worst, it will dislocate your shoulder. You want to control your momentum through your body, not against it.”

Tim takes those words to heart and practices grappling from different angles with varying degrees of momentum, his mind cataloguing the results as easily as he stores the physical locations of every photo he’s ever taken or the bewildering file system that even Bruce can’t make sense of.

The first night he goes out as Robin, only three short months after he begins training, he barely manages a petty drunk. He’s the skinny kind that has wasted away and isn’t dangerous. He nearly loses that fight despite his training. Mass and height aren’t advantages so easily overcome. He wins by punching the guy in the balls.

Fuck it. This fight wasn’t fair in the first place.

But at least he wins. Batman nods and handles the rest, keeping him close for the rest of the night, and allowing him to observe from the sidelines. Tim is soon exhausted, his muscles burning, his lungs screaming as he tries to keep up with Batman who never slows down on him.

Tim falls further back but he is implacable. Even if he collapses, he will get up again. When he catches up to Batman, he receives an energy bar and a water sleeve for his efforts. Tim gobbles the energy bar up, his complicated reservation for food assuaged by Batman’s implicit approval.

A few minutes later, they drop down onto a rooftop.

“Commissioner,” Batman greets.

“Jesus H Christ, Bats, another one? This one is younger than the others.”

“The age reversal ray still has kinks to work out.”

“That lie didn’t work the first time.”

Maybe Tim should intervene. The night wasn’t particularly bloody and there will be consequences if Batman takes his frustrations out on the Commissioner.

“By the way, one of your offices is taking mob money. Here’s a drive with about a dozen high-quality photos.”

Commissioner Gordon takes the hard drive, bewildered, staring at Tim like he’s grown a third eye. The Commissioner takes a deep breath and turns back to Batman.

“He’s gone. Well, kid, it looks like it’s just—for fuck’s sake, not you too.”

Batman waits for him on the next roof, hidden by a water tower. “You were too noisy in your escape.”

Tim nods, his stomach curdling at the disapproval. “I’ll do better.”

“See to it.” 

*

He becomes Robin in increments, one day bleeding into the next. His already ruined sleep schedule is taken out back and shot by the beautiful concept that is biphasic sleep schedules. Three hours in the late afternoon before patrol and three hours after. Tim manages two hours at best and enters a more loving relationship with energy drinks—no sugar allowed, unfortunately, Alfred is ruthless about that point.

The rooftops become his second home, Wayne Manor his first, and he runs across them confidently, knowing when he can make a jump between rooftops and when to grapple to another building. His aim with the batarangs slowly improves and he misses only four shots in five these days.

“And where is your father this week?” Alfred asks, placing a plate with an omelette, bacon and tomatoes in front of him. To his despair, being Batman or Robin requires a strict diet, one tailored to each individual. He learnt Grayson needed a mountain of carbs—so he got pancakes and waffles all the time—but Jason put on too much fat at the hint of them. They’re still figuring out what works best for Tim.

Assuming they get him to eat more than a few bites here and there. It’s too much food, far too much. He hasn’t earned a meal this good.

“Um, in Vancouver. I think. Wait, no, he should be in Winnipeg. I have no idea why he’s even there because even Manitoba doesn’t want Winnipeg. I’m not saying we should nuke Winnipeg, but I’m not in any rush to stop some villain who wants to. I wonder how much Bane would charge for that?”

“Likely nothing if your opinion of a city you’ve never visited holds any truth in reality.”

“It’s completely true. Come on Al, don’t you trust me?”

“Only once you cite your sources.”

“Money is my source. Jack said that when you have money the truth is whatever you want it to be. Huh, that might have been the last time he talked to me since I became Robin.”

“Dear boy, you know this negligence cannot continue.”

“Why not? I’ve been taking care of myself for years and I can basically take care of Jack when he’s home. Which, I mean those weeks aren’t fun, but it’s whatever. I have you the rest of the time.”

“Kind as the compliment is, I am neither family nor your primary caregiver.”

“You’re literally the first person who I can call either without reservation,” he says, expecting Alfred’s tiny flinch and feeling victorious to see it.

“It shouldn’t be like that. A man like Jack Drake should not be allowed to walk free.”

“He can’t walk. He’s in a wheelchair. Permanently.”

“Forgive the troubling metaphor.”

“What, no, I don’t care about his feelings, I just want an accurate metaphor. Something like he can’t race around freely if that’s a metaphor. Also, please don’t call the cops on him because I will deny everything, and I’ve burnt any evidence you collected. Calling the authorities is the worst thing that you can do to me. He’s barely there and when he is there, he forgets I’m alive. Which means I can comfortably be Robin. And if you call CPS then I’ll be at the mercy of either the foster system or whichever one of Jack’s very wealthy allies decides they want me. Bruce won’t get me, not after he lost one kid, he adopted so recently.”

“You have grandparents.”

“They made Jack so I’m not doing that. With my luck, they’re probably villains. I should check that. Please be something mundane like drugs and not magic.”

“I struggle to understand why you are so blasé with your life.”

“It is as it is. I can’t change what’s happened before and what’s happening now isn’t a problem to me. Besides, living well is the best revenge. Jack would hate me being Robin so that’s what I’ll do. He would hate me being good and kind and generous, so I’ll do that. And when he dies, I’m going to use his fortune for good. This is how I win.”

“I wish you the best of luck but please do not use this as a stepping stone to world domination.”

“Alfred, would I really be so gauche as to be a villain?”

“Do you know what gauche means?”

“I read it in one of my set books for English lit. Which I wrote a report on and didn’t read the Sparknotes summary,” he hastily adds. Alfred raises his brow. “Which I will go write a report on right after breakfast.”

“I won’t be tricked by that. You’ll work at it until you’ve finished your food.”

Alfred is brilliant, Tim will give him that. Eight hours later, when he’s finally finished the last rasher of bacon, and he’s put the finishing touches to the paper, he feels thoroughly manipulated.

*

*

*

He slowly settles into his role as Robin. He gets used to being hurt on patrol and hiding it with makeup. Navigating Jack is easier as the man mellows out. He’s getting used to his situation in life and he is driven to set his to order while he still can.

Both of them can see Jack only has a few years left. Tim more clearly since he’s hoping for it on some level. Jack defies his fate, making business deals and securing the Drake legacy with each passing breath. He does, in fact, gift Tim the Lukas Textile company after initiating a hostile takeover. Ownership of the shares is held under Tim’s trust fund, so Jack doesn’t even have access to it.

Sentiment of any sort is unexpected from Jack Drake. That conversation had preceded Tim ruining his attempt to get access to a new dig site. The memory of it should drive Jack to rage, not to fulfilling a promise he made in jest to an unwanted child.

It destroys his precarious equilibrium. Tim finds himself spiralling into dangerous patterns of thought. He takes to gloves despite the warmth so he doesn’t claw at his arms and his appetite is worse than usual. What little remained of his sleep schedule dies violently and he’s up for four days when he loses it.

“How come Richard never comes home?” Bruce chokes on Tim’s question. Tim’s smile turns downright vicious. “I know Nightwing’s busy, but Bludhaven can’t be so busy that he can never visit. Is it my fault he never visits?”

Bruce’s wince is a small thing, but Tim is good at noticing them. He’s great at reading those close to him and hurting them in ways they don’t know exist yet.

Today is just one of those days. He’s angry to the core, raging at the world for every reason imaginable, but there’s no one to take it out on.

“We’re having creative differences.”

Tim’s eyes widen in mock horror. “The disco suit was amazing, you monster. You’re the reason he never wears it anymore.”

“That is in no way what I said.”

“Disco suit was best suit. Wait, no, your rainbow suit might have edged it out. That was super brave of you to think you could rock colours.”

“Dick insisted.”

“Why?”

“He wanted me to show my support for the community.”

Tim tilts his head. “For your sake or his sake?”

“For anyone who found comfort in the idea that Gotham’s embodiment of vengeance fights for everyone in the city.”

He feels something that he’s never wanted to articulate, a truth—perhaps many truths—that he refuses to shape and loathes immensely.

“Not everyone appreciated it.”

“Not including you, yes,” Bruce says, daring Tim to disagree, his voice shifting more to Batman than Bruce. “You’re far too intelligent for base bigotry.”

“Nah, not me. I honestly love the rainbow suit because Janet and Jack lost their shit. You went from being an undesirable to being one of the bad ones corrupting children and I should want nothing to do with you. Well, suck on that Janet, I’m being personally cared for by Batman. I even got in his car.”

That wasn’t necessarily how that conversation went. They’d been more upset with how Batman’s reputation for child endangerment and keeping around a boy showing too much skin would affect the perception of the community. But in broad strokes and in twisting the context, he’s mostly accurate.

Bruce goes through a complicated set of emotions. A bit of grief, a flash of regret, a moment of disgust, and a flare of anger. Tim enjoys how easily he can control Batman’s emotions.

“You intentionally said that in the worst way possible,” Bruce settles on, swallowing whole his emotions and leaving the blank slate he uses to interact with humans. It’s an interesting thing, the way he completely destroys the emotions within him and reforges them into a weapon.

“I have worse ways of saying it.”

“Please don’t.”

“Can I use this as blackmail material to get out of my English homework?” he asks, pushing aside his anger before he says something to ruin his tenuous relationship with Batman.

“Only god can save you from Alfred.”

“I could definitely kill god if I tried hard enough.”

“How much caffeine have you had?”

“I’ve seen what’s in your stimulant mixes. Caffeine is harmless compared to that stuff.” Batman grunts. “You use your preferred artificial pick-me-up and I’ll use what I like. J'utilise des ingrédients naturels, Le Batman.”

Batman tilts his head. Batman, not Bruce. Bruce is never meant to have that kind of steely focus. “Your accent is Northern French. Almost Belgian. Who taught you?”

“The school of mind your own business.” He sticks his tongue out at Bruce, before shifting his accent to Jack’s more Parisian French. “Est-ce que je te demande si ta grand-mère fait du vélo?”

“She did,” Bruce says blandly. “I would suggest taking a nap. You’re suffering mild personality changes and a lack of impulse control from your sleep deprivation.”

“Never.”

Batman sighs then flicks his hand forward. Tim feels a prick in his neck and stares at the tranq sticking out of him.

Tim flops forward on the table.

“Et toi, Bruce?”

“Enjoy your nap.”

*

Tim will not give Bruce the satisfaction of knowing the nap was great. A full six hours of sleep? In this economy?

It doesn’t do anything to pay off his sleep debt but that’s larger than the US foreign debt so who cares? Not like it can be practically solved.

“I suspect I would have a harder time with your sleeping habits,” Alfred says, checking Tim over for any lingering effects from the tranq. “I would generally have an issue with Bruce tranqing you like an animal, but I suspect more and more than you aren’t entirely human.”

“I’m a real-life cryptid.”

He’s still angry and frustrated with his father for just fucking with his worldview, but it’s settled to a simmering sort of anger. Far easier to manage than the implosion that was happening in his chest.

*

 Days later, Tim is summoned for a mission briefing, appearing in the Batcave right on the hour.

Batman stands in front of the massive screen, bathed in harsh blues, and refuses to turn around. A map of the globe is on the screen, flashing red lights for ongoing emergencies and white pins for those gone cold.

“I believe you are ready for international cases. This one will require the entirety of your weekend. Will Jack be indisposed?”

Tim nods having memorised his travel schedule for the next three months. “He’s away for the weekend so we’re good.”

“It will be a simple mission. Information gathering and surveillance. No combat and we will be retreating before engaging.”

“Our last two surveillance missions went loud.”

“We will be avoiding that this time. Your skillset will make this trivial. You have a natural French accent and will blend in perfectly.” Tim feels his blood turn cold. “We will need to lighten your hair and use contacts but—”

“I just remembered I can’t go and Jack’s actually at home.”

Batman gives no indication of anything. No annoyance at the interruption or disbelief of Tim’s lies. He’s a stone statue that’s made hardened criminals break with his gaze.

“I don’t want to go to France,” he adds once the silence starts crushing him.

“This is a mission, Robin.”

“I’m allowed to veto missions. Go get that French vigilante to do the thing.”

“Explain.”

“I just happen to be busy. Sorry, I’ll check my schedule better.”

“I have Jack’s devices copied to a live server. He’s out of the country and will remain so until Wednesday.”

“You didn’t need to ask me about it the first time, did you?”

“Explain your reasoning,” Batman says again, ignoring the accusation.

“I just don’t think I’m a good fit for this mission.”

“Lying again. I do not need a partner I cannot trust.”

“You can’t fire me.”

“You will find that I can. The truth. Now.”

He looks anywhere but that impossible glare. “I told you I just don’t want to go.”

“Robin,” he growls in that way which means he’s at the edge of his patience and someone is about to have their jaw broken. Usually, it’s criminals. Tim remembers the broken bodies Batman left not so long ago, blood gushing from wounds as Tim desperately tried to keep criminals alive because Batman never killed and Tim damn well made sure of it.

“Because my mother died when I was in France and I didn’t know for a month!” Batman takes his words as easily as any punch. “There. Are you happy? Do you want me to say the very idea of going there makes my hands shake? That I still have nightmares? What do you want from me? Fire me then because I’m not going!”

“You will if you know what's good f—”

Sharp footsteps cut through whatever response Batman might have given. Alfred, carrying a tray of tea and hot chocolate, every echoing step a guillotine descending. Tim finds himself standing straight and squaring his stance, his brain subconsciously noting that Alfred’s steps were only audible when he chose for them to be heard.

“It seems that Batman will be flying solo for this particular mission.” Alfred sets the tray down on a bench, taking his time to pour tea with expert precision. He then hands the cup to Tim who takes it because Alfred right now carries himself scarier than Batman ever could. “And yes, Robin has the right to veto a mission or to call a retreat. A rule that exists because Batman and Robin are in an equal partnership. Have you forgotten, Batman?”

“His language skills would be advantageous.”

Alfred comes to stand beside Tim, his hand firmly on his shoulder, grounding Tim. A titan stands behind him and offers his support freely.

“It seems you will have to make do without those skills this time. Should you continue this way, you may find yourself without Robin’s skills permanently. I have always thought Master Richard wore the Bat with more grace than you. Now run along, Master Bruce. You have a flight to catch.”

Tim watches in awe as Batman backs down, submitting to Alfred. Batman, who fights people like Joker and Killer Croc and strange god-aliens, retreats from a fight with an old man.

“How did you do that?”

“Do drink your hot chocolate. I would hate for it to cool before you enjoy it.” Tim frantically takes a sip, tongue scalded by the heat.

“Thanks.”

“Your manners are better than the very fallible man you emulate.”

“He’s Batman.”

“And you are Robin. You, and no one else. Moreover, your presence in this household is not contingent on you being Robin. Whatever else happens, that is true.”

“Yes, it is. You wouldn’t have cared about me if I wasn’t Robin.”

“I would not have met you, no. But I would have cared had I met you under other circumstances.”

Tim doesn’t like that. Alfred’s honesty is a startlingly brilliant thing that cuts through the cynicism deep in Tim’s soul. It reminds him of Jack carrying him at that dig site in Algeria, holding Tim tight to his chest when tiredness had sunk its claws deep in his young body and pulled him to the depths of slumber.

“I have to be Robin until Bruce finds a replacement for me,” he says, avoiding those messy feelings.

“Why are you so certain he wants a replacement? He has certainly never mentioned any such thoughts to me and Master Bruce has never hesitated to tell me of his most foolish thoughts.”

“He just threatened to fire me.”

“He threw a tantrum.”

“Batman doesn’t throw tantrums.”

“An uncontrolled outburst of frustration and anger. Would you characterise his actions as anything else?” Alfred sighs in that way only British butlers can do, posh disappointment mingling with disappointment in a world where people dare demand that artefacts be returned. “Batman has excellent mastery of his emotions, but he has little control over them.”

“I feel there’s no real distinction there.”

“It is a most subtle one. Now, how would you like to go on your first solo patrol in Gotham?”

“Really?”

Alfred smiles pleasantly. “Quite.”

*

Meeting Spoiler is worth more than any stupid mission to France.

Tim tells Batman as much when he returns and finds a blonde girl eating at the breakfast table.

*

*

*

Technically, Tim is supposed to go to a prestigious prep school. Technically, Jack is supposed to be a responsible parent who remembers their child needs schooling before a suited bureaucrat drops by and asks difficult questions.

“Find tutors,” Jack says when Tim reminds him, playing with Janet’s wedding ring hanging from his necklace. Her wedding ring is gold, a colour Jack always disfavoured. He prefers platinum, silver, and then white gold in that order.

He makes sure to look suitably submissive. “Yes, Jack.”

Jack hesitates just a moment, his fingers falling still. “You can study anything you want. Anything at all.”

Tim twitches. Where the fuck is this coming from? He’d been insulted just yesterday for existing.

“Of course, Jack.”

“I mean it.”

Tim looks up and notes the uncertainty in Jack’s posture. He chooses to push just slightly. “Including archaeology?”

Jack’s fingers dig into the fabric of the couch as he takes a long breath. Tim waits patiently, wanting to know which version of his father he’ll get. The one who remembers kindness isn’t a weakness or the one who sees Tim as the source of all life’s ills.

“If you want to.” Another long breath. “Have you considered any colleges yet?”

“I'm turning twelve.”

“You've been reading at a college level for years in two languages.”

Three languages, you negligent fuck. Tim is his mother’s son. Languages come to him as easily as breathing.

“I didn’t know you knew that.”

“Think nothing of it,” Jack demands.

“I won’t.”

“Good.” Another darting glance, an uncharacteristic moment of indecision from a man entirely certain of his superiority. “Your mother got a degree in linguistic anthropology. She wanted to know what older civilisations cared about. The words that shaped them. The ideas that infected their cultures. The shape of their poetry and the cadence of their writing.” Jack nods, coming to some unseen conclusion. His next words are more confident. “She was better at languages than me. Picked up French and outpaced me just for the sake of mocking me. Made new translations of great poetry that she’d read whenever I was trying to focus. Bothering me was a passion of hers. If there was a mild inconvenience she could throw my way, she would, and she would do it gleefully. Very few people ever tried inconveniencing me because they feared me. I worried your mother would devour me whole if I ever lowered my guard.”

Jack falls silent, staring through Tim, seeing the wife he lost. Tim hates knowing that he’s a replacement in the negative, a reminder of what could have been. An image of all the things Janet wasn’t and through that, Jack reconstructs his wife.

“Why are you telling me this?” he asks, tiring of being an idea and not a person.

“She wanted you to go to Princeton.”

“Oh.”

Jack nods and then turns his wheelchair to leave.

“I was thinking Yale,” he offers as a parting shot.

“Don’t be crass.”

He shares a tiny laugh with his father and leaves, burying the moment deep in his heart. It cannot last. Tomorrow will probably be a bad day and they’ll fight again. In a week, Jack will entirely retreat and vanish.

His education will either impress Jack when he finally remembers to check or there will be consequences such as ceaseless insults, the occasional beating, thrown bottles, and shouting, of which Tim only considers the bottles a punishment because of all the physical destruction it causes.

Really, if Jack wanted him dead there were easier ways to do it. Tim’s basically a ghost to the world. He could strangle him on their private jet and dump his body somewhere over a rainforest or ocean. But no, even Jack can’t kill his own kin. Ruin them easily but never murder them. It would have been easier if they were bitter enemies instead of this strange half-life that sees affection decay to resentment.

A public high school would make Jack sick to the stomach, the classist prick he is, so Tim happily picks a crappy one. He’s spiteful like that.

The pragmatic reason is that they won’t ask too many questions if he just doesn’t show up and he’s sent a very formal letter to the principal to the effect of my son needs to learn socialisation and so long as his attendance is ignored, I will continue funding certain programs. Certain programs being football and basketball. For whatever reason—money, copious amounts of it—those two sports are worshipped.

Tim does earmark a million or so for after-school programs in arts and sciences and stares Bruce into matching his contributions, knowing that Bruce will over-commit. The Drake’s contribution will be drowned out if anyone looks at the financials. After all, where Bruce Wayne moves, others must move as well.

“Were your rogues to learn that a pleading expression was all it took to make you cave,” Alfred says with easy humour, “I dare think their schemes might even be successful with your assistance.”

“I can say no to people.”

“Forgive me, my memory of you buying Dick a private island on a childish whim must certainly be fake.”

“Entirely fabricated,” Bruce agrees, pausing for a split second as he seeks a human response. “We should get you tested for memetic agents before you betray us all.”

Well, human enough for Batman-wearing-Bruce-Wayne as an ill-fitting suit.

“I’ll order a new testing kit off Amazon immediately.”

“You can’t get those off Amazon.”

“Sarcasm, my boy, sarcasm.” Alfred turns to Tim. “I expect to see your English reports and homework.”

“You’re not the boss of me. Bruce doesn’t ask for them, so you aren’t allowed to ask.”

“Except that I am his boss. Unless you wish to be benched for life, I expect to see you maintain a respectable grade in English.”

“Bruce, save me from our draconian overlord.” Bruce mumbles something incomprehensible. “Oh, come on. You can’t be serious.”

This is what Tim gets for wanting to improve the plight of the impoverished and downtrodden lower classes. This is why no one does anything good in the world. It always comes with consequences like English homework or heavy taxes or bad press. Better to just accumulate your wealth through exploitative means and sleep on a pile of money because either the proletariat masses will eat you—as they should and will, he tells his MW3 lobby in the evening—or some villain decides to steal your money unless you’re Lex Luthor in which case you’re the villain.

He spends the entire evening spreading the good word of the eventual working-class revolution, taking care to dox all the idiots with a thing for racial slurs and add them to the list of people whose lives he plans on ruining. He won’t fake any crimes and if he can’t find legitimate crimes, there are always browser histories that people think vanish with incognito mode but is always available in the background, ripe for the taking.

He mentally crashes around 1am and his win streak gets fucked because he keeps playing till 3am.

Alfred makes him breakfast with waffles for his first day at school because Alfred is an angel, and the Silver City will never get him back so long as Tim breathes. Also because Tim woke up on his own and made his bed and therefore deserves a reward.

It’s a rather manipulative reward system.

Alfred even takes Tim to school and tells him to behave as a parent should. In a moment of insanity, Tim darts forward and hugs the man. It is entirely unlike the few hugs he’s stolen from his father. Better for being so dissimilar.

“Master Tim?”

Tim steps back, mortified at his display of emotion. He wrings his hands nervously. Alfred is nicer than his job requires, but Tim’s a job. He knows that.

“Uh, sorry.”

Alfred ruffles his hair because angels are always angels no matter their job. “It is quite alright. Do try to enjoy your first day.”

Tim makes it about three hours before some asshat tries tripping him. Tim slams his foot down on his ankle instead.

“Pick someone else,” he growls and carries on his way out of the cafeteria as the kid cries like a little bitch.

Just like that, Tim‘s made himself a target to some and untouchable to others.

At least he’ll never have to deal with cafeteria nonsense because this food tastes as bad as the slop they served on the cargo container and probably has less nutritional information to boot.

To his utter dismay, Tim is forced to interact with humans two weeks into the term.

“Group project I guess.” It’s the boy speaking. Blonde with thick glasses and a certain swagger to everything he does. Probably the type to wear a trench coat and make it work.

“We three without friends,” the girl says, her accent vaguely Ukrainian to his ears. “Sounds like a poem.”

“You’re supposed to introduce yourself and vaguely be polite.” Tim blinks slowly at the boy, avoiding his eyes. “I mean, not that you have to. I didn’t mean to be an ass.”

“You didn’t introduce yourself,” she points out.

“Guess I didn’t. Name is Sebastian, never Seb, and always Ives.”

“Ariana. No strange nicknames for me.”

“We’ll find you one yet. Now you, Mister I don’t make eye contact.” Fuck off, he thinks, focusing on the bottom rim of Ives’ glasses. “Exactly, like that. You’re doing it again.”

“Tim,” he says for want of explaining how uncomfortable people’s eyes are. He’s never explained it to B or Alfred. He’s certainly not going to be vulnerable to some strangers.

“We could meet at the library after school,” Ariana says to which Tim nods, focusing on her. She doesn’t seem to be an asshole.

“Or TeamSpeak. Skype if I must.”

“I don’t have a home computer,” Ariana says, just daring anyone to say anything. “And no visits to my home. My baba won’t stand for guests.”

Grandmother, Tim vaguely translates. He might not English well, but other languages are easy. Other languages make sense. 

Ives and Ariana argue the matter while Tim slips away, still confused as to why he ordered only left pairs of the Black History Month Air Jordan 3s and only rights of the Zodiac edition last night. He spends a few minutes making anon conspiracy posts about the missing shoes. If he’s really bored later, he might make an ARG out of finding them.

“Any suggestions Tim who isn’t listening?” Ives asks.

“Hm?”

“Places to study.”

“My condo,” he says, then hastily adds, “should do without my parents around.”

It is one of the many properties Janet Drake owned but rarely used, one in a part of downtown she’d never personally visit except for whichever boy toy she’d picked up. Tim does not like considering his biological material donors as sexual beings. As he’s grown, he’s come to understand their relationship is a labyrinthine monstrosity at the end which laid only horror and a box of pictures in the attic.

The condo is still vaguely furnished, the heat and water paid for, and served as Tim’s bolthole when he was still snapping pics of Batman and Robin. He’d had to move any sign of that, practically tore the place apart including the floorboards to find them all.

Three days later, he walks an excited Ives and a very suspicious Ariana up the stairs to the quiet lobby of the building.

Tim would have done the project alone if he could. Not that he couldn’t convince the teacher to let him do it alone—money talks—but because Tim can’t understand The Odyssey to save his life and he could care less about a history project on the time period and how it influenced the author’s decisions. Fuck, he can barely tell a simile from a metaphor and he’s eighty percent sure metaphors were made up by alien overlords. Janet would have known this but Janet’s dead and so is his interest in the humanities.

So yeah, he’s stuck with group mates for a project he doesn’t care about at a school that disinterests him because teenage rebellion made a fool of him.

All he wants to do is be Robin, convert Drake Industries into something that does moral good, and prepare for the coming of the glorious worker’s revolution.

“Dude, you got any food in here?”

“I can order pizza.”

“Nah, it’s fine. No need to put yourself out for us.”

Tim nods and points to the couch. Ives sets his back down and pulls out his laptop and some stationary. He’s got a mini whiteboard which is strangely endearing. Ariana on the other hand sits primly on the two-seater, hands folded in her lap.

Ariana scoffs. “I searched you up, Tim Drake.”

Tim doesn’t let his muscles tense up. He was thorough scrubbing his name and face from easily accessed accounts. Sure, the League of Assassins might know him but a google search won’t show anything. His birth certificate was removed, and Batman had helped him remove his name from as many government documents as he could. His name shows up on a few tax documents as a dependant—hah—for certain tax breaks, and there are gala invites with his name on them but those were all hard copies, made by people Ariana should have no access to. The Carmichaels certainly weren’t going to talk to some poor Ukrainian girl and they’re considered odd on a good day.

Even Tim will agree that their youngest is painfully flamboyant.

“Why?”

“I wanted to confirm your address but I didn’t have your number. Checked Facebook and out of the five Tim Drakes from Gotham, none of them was you. Nothing online. Nothing in City Hall. Nothing in the newspaper. I searched Dark Web boards”—Tim immediately relaxes because at least now he knows why his name got pinged—“and still nothing. You’re a ghost, Tim Drake.”

“Ariana, pro tip if we make it out alive, don’t expose a maybe potential serial killer in Gotham unless you’re dead sure you can escape.”

“Is that a concern here?”

“Just Gotham things,” both Tim and Ives say together.

“This country is weird.”

There’s no fighting that. If your country has Joker and Kite Man as villains then yeah, it’s weird.

“But since we’ve exposed your potential serial killerness, I don’t think you’re a serial killer. I mean, you’ve got furniture that hasn’t been used in ever, there’s no food in your fridge and I think you’re too young to have that many condoms in the cabinet… please tell me you—”

“I don’t do that,” he snaps, angry at himself for not searching the place better, angry at Janet for dying, and angry at Jack for leaving him to get trafficked.

The two share a look they don’t think he can see. Tim aggressively ignores the pity and concern. He is not pitiable.

“I’m not a serial killer so can we just do this project and never have to see each other again.”

“Sure, we can do that Tim. Right, Ari?”

“Yes.” A pause. “Don’t call me that.”

“I can tell this is the beginning of a glorious friendship.”

To his dismay, they think he’s a runaway kid from an abusive household. He only realises this on the third day of them sitting together at lunch and the conspicuous extra food Ives always brings though Tim always ignores it because what did he do to earn it?

“Do I have a sign on me?” he asks his reflection, applying makeup to hide the deep bruise under his right eye.

*

Tim will occasionally return to the attic of Drake mansion and look at the photo album hidden in the back, beneath clothes his father could never fit or would ever wear. Clothes belonging to the stranger who took those photos. In the early pictures, when they were young adults, the photographer settled for simpler shots, portraits and group photos and simple landscapes. The further down he digs, the better the photos get. Candid shots of his parents: Jack in archaeology gear passed out across a couch, looking at peace for once; Janet in snorkelling gear resting on a rock, her gaze directed to something far off the horizon; the two of them nothing but shimmering blurs in the desert, their shadows stretching forever.

Tim loves them and he loves the chance to see what could have been but never will be. They were capable of joy and easy humour. But things fall apart. Tim was conceived and with each month of the pregnancy, frustration, resentment, and bitterness built and built till a trio became a duo became one hateful man.

One day, he might be ready to learn more and uncover how one person so thoroughly tore through Tim’s life without ever appearing in it.

For now, these pictures will be enough. He carries the camera that took them, and he can take more memories.

He pauses, remembering that he has taken happier photos with his parents. There was a time when they came to cherish him and love him as a son. A time when they didn’t harm him and were capable of this strange thing called love. It was pleasantly bright, warming him to the bone, and seemingly a thing that would last forever.

It still fell to ruin.

That realisation has him furiously wiping away his tears.

*

*

*

The year is 2012. Gangnam Style has the world in a death grip even as Death Grips release their debut album and the Pope joins Twitter. The world is a strange place, Tim working himself up in a manic state to encourage groups working on space travel just in case the Mayans were right about the world ending in December.

A wave of exhaustion strikes him without pattern one day as he’s buying up half the world’s stock of the Golden Moment Jordans. His sneaker ARGs are something of an underground phenomenon and have spawned so many conspiracies of the new world order. Some days, Tim is concerned that he is, in fact, the great Q when he’s in that fugue state at the end of a weeklong state of unbroken consciousness and colours start tasting strange.

These episodes are the unholy love child of a depressive episode, a fugue state, and spiralling self-doubt with a dash of suicidal ideation. They can come right after he’s beaten his best records and gotten praise from B. Maybe a disappointed look from Al at his caffeine intake can set it off. Maybe he just wakes up wishing he could stop existing.

He hates those ones the most. At least if he’s already moving, he can fake it a bit better. But in bed, or whichever flat surface he’s napping on, the effort to crawl out of his blankets is daunting.

Usually, he hides it as pure exhaustion from being up for the nth day straight. Usually, he can lie with the best of them. Usually, Alf doesn’t find him lying in the hallway.

“Master Tim, I thought we agreed on beds being the optimal sleeping surface.” Tim vaguely mumbles something. “Master Tim?”

In moments, Alfred is kneeling beside him and performing a basic medical check. Checking for signs of poison, then signs of exotic poisons, then signs of burnout. Tim’s eyes can track his movements but doing anything more feels impossible.

Alfred shouldn’t worry about him like this.

This is all he’ll ever amount to. An unwanted and worthless thing, a creation that should have been strangled in the womb. His best efforts will amount to nothing in the end. Jack was right, he was always right. Every insult was just a truth Tim wasn’t ready to accept.

There is nothing good or worthy in him. He is an unlovable parasite that worms its way into places it should never be.

When he next fades back into awareness, he’s in bed, covered in blankets. His favourite Superman blanket is wrapped around him. It had once been Bruce’s till Tim snatched it up like the thief he is.

“You’ve been pushing him too much,” Alfred says firmly from the hallway. The door is closed but Tim’s hearing has always been good. “He’s eleven.”

“At eleven, I was—”

“Crying because your nightmares were terrible. You didn’t take a punch before thirteen and that was at a karate class for children where the worst you received were bruises. Do not misrepresent your history and project your historical fantasy on him.”

“He needs to be better.”

Tim doesn’t really need the reminder that he’s an unworthy successor to Jason. He knows. A stopgap is all he is.

“When did you get better?” Alfred asks in a voice better suited to the trenches watching your brothers in arm die one by one.

“He can do more,” Bruce insists. “Be more.”

“He is as he is and that is enough. You will not ruin this child, Bruce. You will not carve him out until all that remains is another child soldier for you to bury.”

“Remember who you work for.”

“My boy,” Alfred says in a voice so cold it chills Tim to the bone, “remember who raised you. We fail Tim every day we leave him in that household. If you are incapable of kindness and compassion, then I suggest you take a vacation, and we will consider your activities afterwards.”

“You can’t fire me.”

“You will find, sir, that I can, and that not even the Justice League would countermand my words.”

A long moment of silence. “Fine.”

How much time passes is a mystery to Tim. He doesn’t like the idea of time right now. It’s distorted, stretched out to an infinity of malaise, and then snapping back to jagged heights of grief that carve his chest open and leave the soft bits of him exposed, ready to be devoured.

It’s at the peak of one of these heights that he senses someone beside him. Tim forces his eyes open despite the effort it takes.

Batman stands by his bedside, occupying one of the few uncluttered spaces on his floor. He is a gaping maw of darkness that all innocents in Gotham consider a symbol of hope. In a city drowning in blood and corruption, someone as bright as Superman or as noble as Wonder Woman would be antithetical to the idea of life in Gotham.

Watching him. Judging him. Finding him wanting of Robin, of a place by his side. 

Tim wants to get up, really, he does, but this is worse than the others. This isn’t a crash, it’s an implosion that’s torn through everything that he is and dreams of becoming. Nothing triggered it. Nothing but life.

“I’m sorry.”

A gloved hand over his forehead. Tim leans into it, the feel of leather on his face familiar from training, comforting even if the lack of violence is disquieting.

“Sleep,” Bruce, not Batman, says. “Rest. Alfred will watch over you.”

It’s Jack leaving him for the first time and the nth time. The empty house with wind howling through its cold foyers, terrifying a young Tim. The lights off because they were gone for six months and forgot their son needed parents.

Bruce leaving feels like all of that and worse, twisted by the gaping emptiness in his chest. He wants to waste away, but he doesn’t want to go into the cold night alone.

“Don’t go,” he begs, tears pricking at his eyes. “Don’t leave me.”

He’s never asked for anything else from Bruce.

Tim dreams of what could have been. A life where his parents took him to dig sites in his teen years and attended his graduation from Yale. Jack would have sniffed haughtily at being forced to breathe the same air as Yale students and Janet would have mocked him in a dozen languages that only Tim could understand. It would have been for something ridiculous like photography, a useless degree that they would be proud he got because it was what Tim wanted to do.

Or maybe Janet would always be gone, but Jack would have been there with Tim. They would have mourned together and then they would rebuild as a family. It would be Jack worried by his bedside during these episodes. Jack would tell him stories of everything and nothing.

He dreams, in short, of a happy future murdered by a yawning pit of grief.

When he wakes up, Batman is asleep on the floor. He is smaller in sleep, head resting precariously on the edge of the bed. He holds Tim’s hand in his own.

Tim bursts out crying at the sight.

Batman is up instantly and sitting on the edge of Tim’s bed. His gloved hand goes to his forehead, moving aside the hair plastered to his forehead. It only makes him cry harder. Why can’t he stop? Why can’t he be more than this fucked up waste of space?

“Are you in pain?”

“No.”

“Can I help?”

Tim buries his face in Batman’s thigh, hard leather familiar and comforting. This is embarrassing. It’s shameful.

“No.”

“What do you require?”

“I don’t know.”

Batman grunts but he says nothing else. He merely stays beside Tim.

It’s more than he deserves.

*

He can’t even keep Alfred’s food down and that just makes him feel shittier. Why is he getting pancakes for failing? Why the smoothie and fruit bowl when he’s such a failure? None of it stays down despite them being his favourite things.

Alfred’s brow is increasingly furrowed and his conversations with Bruce are increasingly fraught.

Eventually, Alfred hands him the blandest bowl of oatmeal.

It tastes great for a moment. Fuck. It’s my fault Batman stayed off the streets. It tastes like ash after that. All the deaths that happened last night are on him. Every newly orphaned child. Every parent mourning a child snatched off the streets. Spouses dead in the gang violence. All of it is Tim’s fault.

“You are quite wrong about that, Master Timothy.” He blinks tiredly at Alfred. “You look like you were blaming yourself for Bruce staying in. Might I assume you were blaming yourself for the state of Gotham as well?” Tim doesn’t answer. Speaking takes too much energy. “Gotham is not so fragile and its defenders number more than one man on a mission. Should you ask Cassandra or Stephanie, they will tell you the city was no worse than usual. Better, in fact, for Nightwing’s presence.”

“Nightwing?”

“That’s my name, kiddo.”

Tim blinks but the impossible lights don’t vanish. Yes, that’s Richard Grayson wreathed in light like an angel descended from the heavens. This is the first time Tim’s seen him so close. The first time he’s heard his voice.

“You look like you’ve been through the wringer.” Richard raises his hands peaceably at Alfred’s glare. “Don’t take me super seriously. No one does. You mind if I take a set?” He waits patiently for Tim to nod before sitting on the corner of the bed. “Oh wow, this is a comfy mattress. Mine is nowhere near this nice.”

“Perhaps because you refuse to touch your trust fund.”

“Exactly.”

“Living in a den of inequity does not make you stronger. If you wish to simulate poverty, then you have no right to complain.”

“Ouch. See what I have to deal with whenever I visit. No love.” He hides his mouth from Alfred and stage whispers, “I’ve decided you’re my new favourite, Timmy.”

Richard Grayson isn’t real. There is no way this man is real. This is a hallucination. How can someone this upbeat and bright survive Batman?

“You left your city.”

“Bludhaven’s not like Gotham. I don’t have a bunch of crazy supervillains every night. You know what I have? Corrupt politicians, corrupt cops, and crumbling institutions. More gangs than I know what to deal with. But no Poison Ivy’s or Mr Freeze.”

“Should have patrolled.”

Richard shrugs, his smile still so blinding. “It was my day off. I think I can stand to help the family on my day off.”

“Not family.”

“Oh, baby bird, don’t you know that if you’re a bird or a bat then you’re part of the family. We’re a pretty crazy bunch and our collective dad is weird, but I like you guys enough to show up in Gotham for a weekend. I basically have a little sister, you know.”

“Spoiler isn’t a bird or a bat.”

“Don’t ruin my touching moment with your facts and logic. I’m the pretty one, not the smart one.” That startles a laugh out of Tim. “And if she wants to be family, she gets to be family. Bruce has like negative resistance to kids asking for attention. Take advantage of it now because once you grow facial hair, you immediately stop being the light of Bruce’s life.”

“I believe it was the third chandelier you broke that caused that. Or perhaps the bannisters? Why, it might even have been the stained-glass windows you redecorated by leaping out of them.”

“Alfred, stop airing my dirty laundry. Tim won’t respect me if you do.”

“Any dream of being respectable is long since dead.” Alfred stands with haughty superiority. “Master Tim, I leave Master Richard in your care. Please ensure he does not do something inane like repaint another office.”

“Pink one?” Tim asks after Alfred has exited.

“Pink is an awesome colour. I will accept no slander. Anyway, Bruce tells me you’re a better detective than him. You really impressed him because he never praised me that well.”

“He never told me,” Tim croaks.

Richard rolls his eyes. “Of course, he didn’t tell you. Look, Tim, here’s a tip before you drive yourself crazy: Bruce is the smartest idiot you’ll ever meet. He’s proud of you, even if he’d rather go ten rounds with Wonder Woman than say it.”

“Wonder Woman?”

“Oh yeah, she’s terrifying. I mean, Supes will at least let you think your pitiful mortal strength is worth something. Wonder Woman will give you a masterclass on getting your ass handed to you. It’s pretty awesome. I had the privilege of watching her embarrass Green Arrow once and I’m getting distracted again. I do actually need your help with a case.”

Tim sits up which makes Richard smile brighter. He accepts the flash drive before leaning over, searching the underside of his bed for a decent laptop. Not the gaming one and not the business one. Ah, there’s the one with secure access to the Batcave servers.

It’s a homicide case, one that should be open and shut very quickly. Murdered with a weapon and motive in hand. Wife and child killed in a violent act of passion. A tragedy, but one that is unfortunately commonplace.

“Just a feeling,” Richard says, poking Tim with an opened granola bar. Tim bites it just to get it out of his face. “Lots of people say they’re innocent but I believed him.”

That’s enough for Tim. If Nightwing says a man is innocent, then the man is innocent. 

The case is trivial for Tim to solve. It involves remote hacking, some social engineering, and analysis of financial transactions. All things he can do in his sleep. The hardest part of it was figuring out the background politics of it all.

In the end, the crime is so petty that Tim feels a sharp flash of hate. It’s about a building permit that would have ruined someone’s view from their backyard. As though single-family housing is somehow this mythical thing worthy of reverence. A man was framed for a murder he didn’t commit because someone took Not In My Backyard a bit too far when all that man was doing was trying to help with affordable housing.

Richard Grayson ruffles his hair and says, “Good job. You’re way better than me at this.”

Tim just about dies at the praise.

“I’m not.”

“Don’t sell yourself short. I’m competent because of repetition, but stuff like this isn’t my forte. You’re a genius. What’s your IQ? 160?”

“Bruce thinks closer to 180.”

“No shit,” he says, impressed. “I’m on the opposite end of the bell curve.”

“Liar. Your spatial awareness, fine motor control, social skills, and infiltration scores are higher than the rest of us.”

“Been reading up on little old Dick Grayson. I feel so special. Did you also see the collection of B and Cs on my report card? Or how I dropped out of college?” Richard rises and tugs on Tim’s arms, wrapping them around his neck. “Let’s get dinner. I’m famished after all that hard work.”

“You played Clash of Clans all day. And spent a lot of money on it.” Tim growls when Richard pulls him up in a piggyback. “I thought you were supposed to be poor.”

“I’m slumming it for the aesthetic. That’s what Babs says anyway.”

Tim stops his whining when he realises he can hide his face in the crook of Richard’s neck and avoid meeting Alfred’s concerned gaze and Bruce’s fondly bewildered one. Richard balances two platters and Tim as he takes them to the pink office that Tim never liked because the colour is too aggressive, and the outlet locations were atrocious.

Richard speaks a mile a minute about everything from the Titans he led and still takes missions with to his many, many, many failed relationships. Tim greatly enjoys the former, but the latter nearly puts him to sleep.

He manages to keep his dinner down that evening. Fruits and yoghurt shouldn’t be anything special, but Alfred looks relieved when he sees the empty plates and Bruce carefully says nothing when he passes by the door despite never using this part of the house for anything.

Tim learns the couch in the pink room is the easiest to fall asleep on.

“Rest up, baby bird.”

*

It takes time for Tim to get up again.

Richard leaves with a smile and a wave, promising to be around more often. Tim doesn’t believe it, but he keeps that doubt off his face.

He sends messages to Ives and Ariana that yes, he is alive, and no, he isn’t high or in any sort of danger. They gang up on him, demanding proof so Tim walks to the garden and takes a photo there. The sunlight feels good on his skin, rejuvenating.

They don’t believe it isn’t photoshopped. Tim has to call them and prove he’s alive. The call ends with Tim cursing them out for existing and Ariana sending him grumpy cat memes in impact font. He decides he’ll learn Ukranian just to surprise Ariana. He’s been hankering for a fourth language.

Steph is easier.

She barges into his room as he’s changing—yay for his first shower in three days—and gets a full frontal shot of him. Tim’s not sure who screams louder between the two of them but somehow, he’s the one who gets hit by the shoe.

“I was just coming to tell you I’m stealing Bruce from you. He’s my billionaire dad now.”

“Keep him,” he says, still flushed red.

“Also, by the way, do you think I can fit your Robin costume.”

Much as he loves Steph, sometimes she annoys him. He’s not sure what it is about it that bothers him so much. The punching bag in the smaller gym accepts his violence.

Alfred finds him there and observes him for a few minutes. “Excellent form. It is good to see you up again, Master Timothy.”

He grunts, accepting a protein shake and an apple. They taste like ash and annoying friends.

He’s surly for another two days.

*

Richard Grayson returns with a grin and a pile of pizzas from the only good pizza joint in New Jersey. Tim believes the latter but struggles with the former.

“Told you I’d be back. Now suit up, we’ve got a mystery to solve, and I need the smartest mind in the city.”

“This is my city,” Batman says, though it sounds like whining even to Tim.

“The city belongs to Spoiler and Nightwing.” Steph hi-fives him because she’s a traitor. “Batman and Robin are old news. You need us if you want to bump up your approval ratings.”

“Come on B, I wanna solve some crime before midnight. Gotta wake up nice and early for my history test.” Steph tugs on his hand, dragging Batman to the Batmobile. “Oh, here are my flash cards. I need you to quiz me.”

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen B lose an argument before it started,” Richard says as the Batmobile screeches away.

Patrolling with Nightwing is completely different from Bruce. Nightwing always has a joke to crack and he’s always asking for Tim’s thoughts on everything. It’s kind of overwhelming to have that kind of focus on him.

They don’t work perfectly together, no, but Nightwing lets Tim set the pace. He never pushes Tim but still, Tim wants to run faster, jump higher, and be better just by being beside him. Beside the first Robin. The one who set the standard and then left it in the dust by becoming something greater.

Tim hasn’t ever visited Bludhaven but he can already see the city it will become under Nightwing’s influence. It will have towers not of glass and steel, but of graffiti and crowded balconies, a downtown crammed with laughing kids and yipping dogs instead of dreary business suits and gang leaders. It will the kind of place anyone can find a home, no matter their religion or sexuality or skin. In Nightwing, Tim sees a vision of the American Dream made manifest, one beyond the grinding corruption of capitalism and the allure of supposed enlightened self-interest.

Gotham will always belong to the darkness and Metropolis will be trapped at noon, but Bludhaven will be everything in between.

Richard Grayson is immaculate, and the world is better for having him.

Tim realises he hates him right to the bone. Richard Grayson shouldn’t exist. He is so far ahead of Tim, so perfect in every regard, that it makes him feel sick to wear Robin’s colours. What right does he have to Robin red when he can’t put people at ease with a smile and a few words? How can he wear freedom’s green when his fighting skills are lacking so severely? Or the yellow that is Robin’s magic when there is nothing magical about his existence?

They take a break around eleven. Richard buys him ice cream from a gelato store which is such a Gotham thing that Tim bursts out laughing. They get the Bat discount which isn’t great but nothing in Gotham is great.

“Pro tip with B, don’t take everything he says seriously but especially don’t read too much into what he doesn’t say.”

They’re on the roof of an apartment building, listening to the sounds of a peaceful Gotham: gunshots muffled by oppressive towers, the cries of the damned and the weak, husbands fighting wives and mothers taking out their anger on children. It is a vile thing to listen to but anything less painful would be anathema to Gotham.

Tim stabs his tiny plastic spoon in a mound of his pecan and rum ice cream.

“He basically never says anything.”

“I love B, especially when we’re not fighting, but he is terrible with words and emotions. Just trust that he loves you even if he’s never going to say it. He’s just messed up. Don’t let his damage mess you up in turn. You deserve better than that.”

“You can’t know what I deserve.”

“You deserve to be happy and loved. You deserve to be surrounded by people who make you laugh and a father who makes you feel loved. You certainly deserve more than a brother who doesn’t show up because he’s still feeling angry at his dad.”

Nope, he is not unpacking the idea of being Richard Grayson’s brother. Tim isn’t even adopted by Bruce and he has a living father. He’s just going to pack that away and ignore it.

“Did they tell you about my parents? About Jack?”

“No, but I can guess enough. I’m sorry we weren’t there to save you.”

“I’m here now, aren’t I?”

“You’re surviving when you should be thriving.”

“You don’t know anything about me.”

Nightwing nods, biting into his abomination of a cone covered in all the sprinkles, chocolate fudge making a mess of his fingers.

“I’d like to. Know you, that is. If you’d let me.”

Tim watches him obsessively, cataloguing everything he can.

He’ll never match up to Richard Grayson, but neither could Jason, and Tim is just his replacement until someone better comes along. A more perfect Robin. The ideal everyone knows he can’t live up to. But he still tries to engrave this memory of Nightwing ignoring all of Gotham for Tim, eating ice cream on a roof with the man who inspired hope in Gotham and then left to uplift another city.

Nightwing turns to him.

“You deserve Robin.” His smile is a small thing, one that speaks to grief and regret. “I never told J that before the end. I think it hurt him a lot trying to live up to a myth that didn’t exist. I’m not going to do that to you. Don’t be Jason. You can’t be him and that’s a good thing. You’re you and I suspect you’re better than I could ever be.”

A fire flares in the distance and the Bat Signal consumes the sky, gunshots ringing out. Nightwing’s attention remains on a failure of a boy. The city collapses around them, but Tim realises Nightwing won’t move because, for some unfathomable reason, Richard Grayson thinks Tim Jackson Drake is worthy.

“You deserve to be Robin,” he says to a silent Tim, willing him to believe it.

For a terrible moment, Tim finds himself believing.

*

*

*

Time marches ever on, inexorable and indifferent to anyone hoping otherwise. Alfred monitors him closely after the episode. He doesn’t necessarily coddle Tim, but he is more hyperaware of everything Tim says and takes his self-deprecation more literally.

It’s nice to be worried about. His concern must have filtered to Batman because their patrols shorten just slightly and he is fed more snacks during them. Rather cute, all told.

They do try to fuck with his caffeine intake which just has Tim threatening to go solo because no one is taking his one true love for him. They settle into pretending Tim isn’t an addict whose heart will likely explode in five years, Tim because he knows he’s perfectly fine, and Alfred because he understands the value of a strategic retreat.

The year comes to a close like any other year in Gotham. Lots of blood, crime, and people resiliently living against the despair that threatens to destroy the city.

Tim has been Robin for two years and he still doesn’t know what faith Bruce holds true besides Violence, Vengeance and the Gotham Way. But, as they did last year, Tim kindles the Hanukkah lights, a silver menorah in the main foyer standing proudly for a few days before it gets packed away to storage. The first day of Hanukkah. Hopefully, it’s as uneventful as last year.

There is another menorah, this one of engraved brass, that Bruce lights each night with the same silent contemplation he holds as he overlooks Gotham screaming for deliverance.

Were one to make it past the security systems and all the way up the main drive, they would see the lights from the candles on either side of the main entrance through gleaming glass. To enter is to be embraced by holy light flickering and casting shadows of doubt on the honesty of the faith of those lighting the candles.

Tim can put aside those thoughts as he goes on patrol with Steph. Robin and Spoiler together, a miracle of some sort now that Tim is spending more time solo, and Batman works surprisingly well with Steph. It’s not a fully solo ride, he’s twelve and still untrained, but he’s getting good at his job, and he can focus on the specialised cases Batman isn’t good at.

And wasn’t there a shocker to know that he’s significantly better than Batman at cybercrime and deciphering the communications networks the gangs are using?

For now, though, Black Bat is here, and she terrifies Tim in ways he can’t articulate. No one so thoroughly saw through him in a glance. Steph loves her but fuck if Tim wants to be anywhere near her. And thus, the state of affairs; Black Bat with Batman taking out the high-tier rogues while Spoiler and Robin deal with lesser crimes.

They’re tracing rumours of kids who went missing near the storm drains. With entrances to the sewers, it makes sense to search the underground. Traces of struggle and signs of blood had drawn them in further.

Then they’d turned around and fled.

“You think Killer Croc likes the taste of Robins?” Steph asks cheerfully, matching him step for step as they flee the roaring villain. They’re bold and brave, not stupid and suicidal. Croc is on Batman’s list of flee-on-sight villains for them. Tim’s battered body is a testament to why. An errant swing is all it was and he’ll be nursing bruises for a month.

“If you believe unverified accounts—shit, duck, move left—then birds and crocodiles get along just fine.”

Steph twists over Croc’s tail, more graceful than the Robin hat Tim stole for himself. Tim throws a smoke bomb in Croc’s mouth, pleased when he rears back giving them just enough time to clamber up the ladder.

“Those accounts were so wrong and I hope they’re being chased by crocodiles in the afterlife.”

Gotham air greets them, only one step removed from a sewer. Tim’s setting a proximity micro-bomb on the manhole cover. It won’t hurt Croc, but maybe he’ll consider it annoying enough to stay down.

“Maybe it was you in a past life.”

Tim raises a brow. “Excuse you, I can science.”

“I’ve seen your notes.”

“Just cause you can’t work through my organisational system doesn’t mean it’s bad.”

“That’s the definition of a bad system.”

“No, it’s unintuitive, not objectively bad.”

“Your handwriting is also shit.”

“You write worse than a doctor.”

The ground shakes violently and Killer Cros emerges, smoking from explosives that did nothing, and roaring his rage for all of Gotham to hear. His is the rage of the downtrodden who were never given a chance.

Tim doesn’t consider how he knows that. He’s too busy trying to survive.

*

It’s the fourth day of Hanukkah and they’re no closer to finding the missing kids. Tim spent the last two days scouring the sewers with a drone network that was systematically destroyed by Killer Croc. He’s pretty sure Croc has nothing to do with the disappearances as he’s never stolen people even if he’s ripped intruders in half. A fierce defender of his home but not one to make the first move.

Not knowing the truth grates at Tim. Batman comes home each night with a dozen success stories because Black Bat is great and awesome and just the fucking best. Tim gets it, but could Batman be more subtle in trying to replace Tim? It’s a bit sleazy to just try out replacements like that. It’s not like she can be Robin anyway. She doesn’t have blue eyes.

Tim knows Bruce would make either of them Robin if he didn’t have a predilection for boys with blue eyes and dark hair. The boy part is probably negotiable, but not the other two factors.

“Coffee!”

Steph’s excitement for caffeine is part of the reason they’re best friends and part of why he can bury his anger at her working better with Batman than he ever could. She challenges Bruce in a way he never could, and Bruce responds like a flower unfurling in the sun, cracking the occasional deadpan joke and even taking away the intimidating edges from his uniform because it scares the shit out of kids, you asshole. 

Steph is sorta amazing.

Her coffee is a large Americano that’s really just all the espresso shots with a hint of water and a box of mini doughnuts from the hipster café Tim frequents as Robin.

“See anyone fun?”

“Mr Freeze was getting an iced coffee that was basically coffee flavoured cream. Really disappointed in him. I used to have sympathy for the man but he’s not a true caffeine lover.”

The unofficial truce regarding coffee shops and Bat Burgers is Tim’s favourite part of being a hero. So long as he’s in a coffee store in uniform even the Joker won’t bother him.

“That sucks. Let’s convert his freeze gun to a coffee gun?”

“Oh my god, I love you. You’re the most brilliant human I’ve ever met. Marry me for tax purposes.”

Steph’s grin is electrifying. “Hell yeah. Fake marriages for the win. I won’t even have to introduce you to my mother.”

“She loves me more than you.”

“Take that back.”

“It’s true. She’s under this false impression that I can clean my room.” Steph smacks him lightly. “And that I’m not a manic gremlin.”

She laughs bright and clear.

They sit together companionably, the sounds of Gotham washing over them. The screaming matches from broken families harmonising with gunshots echoing violently, the steady thrum of streets still packed with vibrant teens laughing and choosing to live freely despite the horrors of this city. Staying in Gotham is asking to die, but before that, you need to live.

“Do you think we’ll find them soon?”

“You know the statistics better than me, boy wonder.”

“So what, we just give up and move on?”

“No. We find them but until I know for a fact otherwise, I’ll stay believing they’re alive.”

That’s just Steph, headstrong and unwavering no matter the case. They finish their coffees and continue their search, talking to informants and hacking through security cameras. There is no forensic evidence, not for a case like this, so intuition drives Tim as much as data analysis does.

In the end, this night is fruitless like the others.

They make it back to the Manor decently early. Steph sends her mother a message and gets no response. Tim doesn’t bother with Jack. These days, he only pays attention to the alerts that Jack is within a hundred kilometres of Gotham.

Steph watches him and says nothing as he stands in the holy light, head bowed out of obligation more than sincerity.

“You don’t say anything?”

“There’s a lot that could be said. I only really do this because Bruce does.”

Steph crosses her arms. “Liar. You only do what you want and sometimes that intersects with what Bruce wants.”

Tim shrugs. “I know these lights are sacred, but I don’t know what sacred means. Nothing’s sacred in Gotham. I don’t know what it means to believe in something beyond me. I don’t say anything because I don’t want to speak lies if I can avoid it.”

“That’s pretty sad.”

“Life is entirely sad.”

“No, it isn’t.”

“Prove it.”

Steph glares and makes a quick trip to the room she’s claimed as her own, Tim following sedately. He had been lying to her when he said he didn’t know anything. The obsessive part of him that needs to consume knowledge had clung to words he didn’t care for. He could recite Hanerot Halalu as easily as all six verses of Ma’oz Tzur. The only words he believes in are those that are true to him, that his soul was sated with misery and his strength spent with grief.

He waits for her to rummage in her closet with clothes Bruce bought, a terrible hodgepodge of fashion and styles because Bruce doesn’t know what Steph likes so he just buys everything. They pretend three of the Manor’s rooms aren’t filled with gifts for Steph. Bruce is weirdly desperate for her approval.

She comes back, holding a present and thrusts it into his arms.

A shoebox by the shape. Tim unwraps the Spoiler-themed wrapping and startles at the red snake-print box.

He knows what he will find inside. A pair of the Adidas Detroit Players, the Big Season edition of which only 380 pairs of these were ever made, supposedly with Italian leather. Tim had missed out on buying a pair despite his best efforts. Just chance and circumstance had conspired against him.

“See, you’re smiling.”

“I guess I am.”

*

The last day of Hannukah is celebrated in blood and regret. As irreverent as Tim is, he didn’t want to defile a holy period like this with blood pooling at his feet and covering his gloves, anger in his heart and grief clawing at his soul.

“How do you do it?” he asks hollowly.

“Do what?”

“Smile even when you’re sad.”

There’s no way she isn’t sad. Steph cares. If even Tim finds the corpses of children ritually sacrificed for a false god saddening, then she’s feeling something more profound.

It should have been an easy case. Just find the missing homeless kids. Nothing out of the ordinary in Gotham. But the reports had come slower, harder to verify with transitory kids, corroborating stories impossible when most of the witnesses were a few grams from an OD. His efforts with the drones came to nothing till the last moments. By then it was too late.

This was their first real case without oversight. Something simple. Low risk, decently low stakes—compared to the city-wide emergencies Black Bat and Batman dealt with, at least.

Tim stands amidst his bloodstained failing and knows only grief. A dozen children, ranging from as young as a toddling five to an unfairly stolen fifteen, dead as only Gotham can know death.

“Because sadness ends,” Steph answers, her voice steady. “Because my father wanted someone as miserable and angry as him. Because I get to choose who I am, and I choose joy.”

Tim closes the eyes of the last child. He removes his cloak and lays it over the girl’s mutilated corpse. It isn’t enough. Not at all.

“How do you choose joy when you see this?”

“I don’t know. I just do. Tomorrow, there will be someone else who needs help. The day after and the one after that. I don’t know who I’ll be if I let this change me and I don’t want to know.”

“I wish I could do that.”

“How do you keep getting up when you wake up each morning hoping to die?”

She asks it as simply as anything else. Tim loves her for it but sometimes he hates how well she knows him. They barely know each other but they fit together like cogs in their pain, the broken parts of them meshing so well he struggles to understand how they’re different people and not extensions of the same whole.

“Duty. Robin is my duty.”

Duty before joy. Duty over joy. Duty, not joy.

It gets him up in the morning and drives him forward. Forces him to stand no matter how much it hurts. No matter how badly he falls, he’ll stand again even on broken legs. Maybe that’s why they work so well together. Maybe he needs some joy in his life and only Steph can bring it. Maybe she needs someone who believes in Batman’s cause with the totality of their being.

“They say when the Messiah is returned and the temple rebuilt, the dead will be resurrected,” he says numbly. “How long do you think people have been waiting for the Messiah?”

Steph hugs him and Tim hugs her back harder, trying to steal some of that impossible joy she carries with her.

When he returns to the Manor, he stands in the foyer holding his bloody cape, caring little for his secret identity because no one will be allowed to enter the sacred land that is Wayne Manor, made holy by the tireless sacrifice of Gotham’s greatest defender.

Tim cries because children shouldn’t die like that. He cries his rage and knows that out there, Batman wreaks Vengeance upon the wicked nation of Gotham.

He will cry himself hoarse and his knees will go numb kneeling in the foyer. His body will grow cold as one after another, the candles go out. Before the last putters out, deliverance is made manifest.

Bruce’s hand carries the weight of violence and his promise to be the rage of the downtrodden and abused. Tim feels it acutely, feels it in his bones that burn hot and his heart that churns with anger.

Robin recites Ma’oz Tzur and Batman joins in, his words strong and even, unlike Tim who stumbles over them.

Maybe something like G-d is too big for him, but Gotham and Bats and Vengeance are real. They are martyrs, all children of Gotham, dying free or living fettered. No matter how they may be scattered, the echo of Gotham’s siren song reaches them, screaming that the time is nearing where all people are free, and the tyrants vanquished.

In Batman, who holds his truest faith, he sees the Lord made flesh. It is Tim’s duty to see it through, that age that Gotham hopes for, where vengeance has set them free.

He will do it because he is Robin, his nation is Gotham, and his lord is vengeance.

*

Tim returns to the home of his father in the early hours of the morning, before the sun has crossed the horizon, driven by a need for isolation and a yearning for a connection he can never have. The contradiction tears at him, guilt from his failure churning in his chest. His simultaneously wrung out and twitchy.

He had a duty to those children and utterly failed them. The debriefing had been cold, clinical, and detached. Tim and Steph had their failures analysed; every mistake examined until fifteen dead kids fit in a report five pages long.

By the end, Tim was trembling, unbalanced by just how neatly his failures could be filed away and systematically organised. He’d left the first moment he could and sought silence in the one place no one would bother him. Drake mansion. Quiet without Jack at home, the groundskeepers on holiday leave until the household stutters to life again in January.

He is greeted by a cold hallway lacking the holy lights he’d become accustomed to. The heat is on and he can hear the pipes creaking. it still feels colder than it has any right to be. He tugs his thick coat tighter to his body, slamming the door shut before the warm air can leave. It is as he is hanging his coat that he notices it sitting innocuously on a side table.

The package is small, addressed directly to him. Strange. He usually routes his packages to one of his other properties and the few unsolicited packages are kept in a storehouse for him to peruse when he has time.

Thick letter stock is taped to the front of the package. He pulls it off and breaks the wax seal with a batarang he keeps hidden on him, wondering if the groundskeeper had assumed this was important simply because of the seal.

He flips it open, and dread consumes him.

Dear Tim,

Happy Hanukkah.

I hope this finds you in good spirits. I find myself trapped in an unrelenting blizzard as I write this. Perhaps the Mayans were right and the world is to end. I hope not. There is much left to see in the world. I would not wish you to miss out on the wonders left to experience. Consider the countries you have never visited. The people you have never met. The goals you will discover mean everything to you. The passions that will drive you forward ceaselessly. In the fullness of time, you will find your soul enriched.

I suppose sentiment is something you have not come to expect from me, nor have I given you a reason to expect it. Letters, I think, are easier for honest words especially when they do not match my actions.

I do love you, even as I cannot bring myself to say such words. This storm makes me strangely nostalgic for days long gone. I dream of France lost to us and your mother in all her arrogant ways. I imagine the suits she would have dressed you in and the ruthless things she would have you do. I remember how you smiled at her and how she could not help her smile in turn. You were always more her son than mine. I have never known if that was a good thing. It terrifies me to consider her personality with your intellect.

And yet, you are your mother’s son. You will survive and those you choose to love will know the fierce depths of your emotions. I have witnessed your easy joy in France, and I have seen glimpses of your rage afterwards. I hope one day that you experience the crushing depths of love.

May this gift bring you as much joy as it brought me.

Jack Asher Drake.

P.S. Burn this letter. It will hurt you too much otherwise.

The words are written in Jack’s elegant and loping cursive, steady and exquisite. Tim feels a mild flash of jealousy that his writing is a terrible chicken scrawl and resentment that his father never bothered to try and teach him to write like that.

Tim nervously tears through the packaging and gets his first look at what Jack thought was so important for him to have. The frame is stately gunmetal grey, heavy and solid. Delicate patterns of rose gold dance on the surface like vines drawn to the warmth radiating from the moment immortalised forever.

A photo of the family trip to France that could only have been taken by his father.

It is Tim asleep, the photo taken at an odd angle. His clothes ruffled, grimy shoes desecrating the irreplaceable antique couch. A sin forgiven without begging for it. In repose, Tim looks at peace, his mother’s delicate fingers caught forever brushing away a lock of hair from his forehead. Her features are obscured by the angle of the shot. The tenderness of the scene is evident, and it seems to reach through time to embrace Tim.

It hurts as nothing else in his life has ever hurt before.

Chapter Text

In the span of one painful year, Tim will shoot up to his full height of five foot five. His muscles scream in protest every night and his joints just don’t feel right. Tim powers through it with spite and anger, lording his height over Steph with glee.

He has a bar mitzvah because that’s a thing he’s supposed to get as a good Jewish kid from a good Jewish family even though they’ve never been a good family or particularly Jewish.

Really, it’s just an excuse for Jack to prove his disability and widowhood haven’t weakened him at all. Jack is painfully sober and has been for a week now, going cold turkey on command, proving to Tim that his behaviour when drunk is intentionally cruel. Tim accepts the insults easily, calm in the knowledge that he will bury his father soon and finally be free.

The preparations and subtle politicking are things Tim can thankfully ignore as he does the important work of being Robin. There is a marked uptick in child abusers being arrested as the bar mitzvah approaches but Tim refuses to acknowledge any correlation between the two.

“No, not ready to succeed me. I have life in me yet,” Jack says in the morning before the crowds have assembled to witness Tim lie about his faith. That won’t happen for hours yet. “The boy will learn, Mr Judge. Of that, you need not worry.”

Tim watches this exchange from behind a pillar. He keeps his breathing even and doesn’t turn around, doesn’t give any indication that he can sense the Talon behind him. The assassin is good but not better than Batman.

“Your boy carries himself quite well. Mister Cobb would greatly appreciate a new protégé and your boy moves better than most.”

“He’s parliament bound. Do not insult the Drake lineage. He was made for greater things.”

“Forgive me. It is a shame he was not born to a lesser house. His skills would have been honoured as a Talon.”

“The greatest shame that he was not a lesser son of a lesser house,” Jack agrees blandly, not understanding that a Talon waits on command to kill him and the heir to his legacy. “But his blood runs true, and he will surpass us all one day. Of that, you can be certain.”

“I will eagerly await his ascendancy. What will his speech be on?”

“Loyalty.”

The Judge of Owls smiles in the way only people who have been ground down by nihilism can smile. “A good quality to cultivate in a boy his age. Excuse me, Mister Drake, and give your son my best regards.”

“You honour him.”

Tim exhales when the Talon vanishes, forcing his rage from his body. There are things to be done and lies that must be told.

Jack finds him eventually and pulls him aside, the two of them nervous in different ways. Tim because he’s about to go on a stage where people will see him lie and remember it forever. Jack for whatever unfathomable reason makes Jack Drake nervous. Jack takes a breath to steady himself and reaches out to Tim who stays still. Jack’s arm lands on his bicep, which has him frowning for a moment. Then a new emotion crosses his features.

Surprise.

“You’re too tall,” Jack says wonderingly, looking up at Tim. His expression is approaching warmth which makes Tim’s insides churn. “You’ve grown while I wasn’t looking.”

You stopped looking at me. You ran from me. You left me alone and didn’t care what happened to me. You didn’t even try to care.

“I wasn’t going to stay a child forever.”

“No, you weren’t. I knew that. I just… it’s happening so quick. All of this. There isn’t enough time left. Not enough.” Jack shakes his head erratically. “I saw what you did with Lukas Textiles. Ousted their board and installed puppets. It was good work. Vicious work. Efficient. Like your mother.”

It feels like a blow to hear pride from his father. “I don’t know how to respond,” he says, because that’s at least true.

“Make sure your enemies never realise that. Now kneel, you’re too far away.”

Tim does so, lowering himself to the ground. This conversation has been confusing enough. He isn’t prepared for just how weird it can get.

“Your mother never believed in things she couldn’t quantify or touch. Faith, she understood. Faith in family. Faith in systems. Faith in language and culture. But never in Hashem. There is G-d in people, she would say.” Jack caresses the metal of his wife’s wedding band, so startlingly vulnerable that Tim can only stay silent. “I always found that a bit too blasphemous. I always believed the Messiah would come and my belief has only grown stronger. Even if your mother was a non-believer, the Messiah would surely be kind enough to reunite us, however long away that is. Holy Baal Shem Tov visited the Messiah in spirit and asked when the Messiah would come. The Messiah said, ‘I will come when your rivers flow outwards’. Spread the word of Hashem, in short. My thoughts have turned to that more and more in these final days. We’ve waited so long, and it still isn’t enough.”

With quick fingers, Jack unlatches the necklace holding his mother’s ring. Tim’s eyes widen as his father reaches forward and settles it around his neck. The chain is warm from being around his father’s neck. For some reason, he thought it would be as cold as Jack’s affection for him on a regular day.

After her death, Jack kept her ring close to his heart. Now, Tim carries a piece of his mother with him always. It weighs heavily on his neck. To carry the enormity of a mother’s legacy with him.

It hurts in new and varied ways but that’s just what having Jack Drake as a father is like.

“There were three of us once. What still remains is a crippled man about to die and his son about to become a man. I see him in you, sometimes. Your anger is the same. That keen eye of yours. There’s a lot of him in you and very little of me. You must be glad, to be so little like me. To not be the wrong kind of person. Does it disgust you to know your father like that?” Jack asks spitefully, self-hatred dancing on his tongue.

“No,” Tim says honestly. He hasn’t felt honest for a very long time. “I just never understood why you never spoke about him. Either of you.”

His father is still recovering from Tim’s admission, his mien opening and revealing shock. There is a touch of grief in his green eyes.

“It hurt too much.”

“A convenient excuse.”

“I suppose it is. He would have been proud to know you. Your mother would have been proud. I know she would have come today.”

“Are you proud to know me?”

“When I’m not so terrified of you.” Jack laughs humourlessly. “When I’m gone, know that I’ll wait for the day the Messiah reunites us.”

There are moments like this, painfully tender moments, where it feels like the father who laughed with him is still buried deep within this cold and callous man.

Later, his arm is bound by faith he doesn’t hold, tefillin forced on him by a father who never loved him enough. A performance for people who never knew him and would use him as a weapon for evil. This is his life, a series of masks worn just to survive another day, pretending to be perfect in one way or another when he’s never been worthy, not of his parent’s love and not of the Robin mask he stole.

He speaks for that is what is expected from him, reading holiness in a book he’s never opened in his own time before this. He reads the words of Moses, the greatest of the prophets who made a nation out of the masses.

He reads from Devarim, the final words Moses gave unto the Israelites ahead of his death, not internalising his words. They mean little to him just as this ceremony means little to him. Only his pettiness forces him to read the words himself. Tim will not let others lie for him.

“… and now, O Israel, what does your Adonai demand of you? Only this: to revere your Adonai, to walk only in divine paths, to love and to serve your Adonai with all your heart and soul,” he says, finally pulling himself out of the dull haze he’s trapped himself in.

In the back, he sees Bruce hidden in the shadows. He sees his commander and leader, the man whose ideals Tim has taken on faithfully. This is his promise, the only true and meaningful words he’s spoken. And from Bruce’s tiny smile, Tim thinks he understands. Perhaps if G-d were as worthy of reverence as Batman is, then perhaps Tim would believe him. He thinks Moses is a fool because how can someone believe in something so big as the creator of everything or even try to comprehend that kind of glory?

He wishes, for one childish moment, that Bruce was his father.

It will be his last wish as a child.

One day, Tim will be brave enough to turn around and face his family and the legacy they left him. As an adult, he promises to himself there and then that he will see the Court of Owls destroyed and the Drake name reclaimed.

He promises this because his name is Tim Drake, his nation is founded on lies, and his lord will forgive him.

*

*

*

To celebrate thirteen for himself, Tim builds a new computer. Wayne Industries partnered with AMD recently and they’ve just released their new CPU and GPU lineup. Tim’s made Drake Industries an obscene amount of money because while insider trading is technically illegal, it really isn’t. His new rig is built into his desk and surrounded by water channels and looks way better than Lex Luthor’s boring RGB-everything-build. The news might claim Luthor works sixteen-hour days for 365 days a year, but they don’t tell you he spends at least 2 hours playing a certain critically acclaimed MMO reborn from the ashes of failure.

They’re not friends. Tim just likes the backdoor it gives to Luthor’s systems. Never trust 3rd party sites with any information. Ever. If you do, an overly caffeinated gremlin currently on his fifth all-nighter might add mining software to your low-security PCs because while Tim knows decentralised finance and practical blockchain services are about fifteen years from practicality, he’s still going to make money off it. 

All that’s to say Luthor has a boring gaming rig because he’s a boring man and Tim’s is awesome.

This is relevant only because Tim desperately misses his PC and wishes he had that computational power instead of his phone. How is he supposed to function without thirty-seven browser tabs open on his fourth monitor? Or Apple Music exclusively on the fifth? Tim adds funding another music streaming surface on his to-do list; maybe help Zune do something productive?

He could do this with a remote desktop, but he hasn’t coded his own system and doesn’t trust any of the commercial ones not to have some weird spyware on them. And anyway, there are random consciousnesses on the airwaves monitoring everything. Tim isn’t being paranoid. He just has to catch one first.

“How do you keep stealing sneakers?” Ives asks, draped over the couch, and taking a picture with the polaroid camera Tim owns. Though the body is old school, Tim had ripped out all the old internals and replaced them with high-end parts. Not as good as any of his usual cameras, but it doesn’t raise questions as an expensive mirrorless camera would.

Oh, that’s something he needs to respond to. Tim shrugs. That should be fine, yes? Did he shrug or did he just think he shrugged?

Ives and Ariana have settled into the lie that Tim’s a genius who ran away from home and is living in his rich uncle’s unattended apartment. Parts of it are true enough that he doesn’t bother correcting them. For one, Tim’s bought out both floors and the only tenants are very boring people who haven’t done anything fun since they left home and fucked their first frat bro. Or sorority girl. Tim doesn’t judge. Some of them might even have had a straight phase.

A part of him does understand that there might be concerns about running incredibly invasive background checks on lower middle-class families with the intent of keeping them near the poverty line so that they can serve as distractions if his cover is blown and someone dangerous gets his identity. But most of his brain rationalises it away since this is the single most secure building this side of Gotham and the local clinic is basically free and the farmer’s market is super cheap and honestly they’re lower middle class in income but their disposable income from all Tim does says otherwise. He owns the nearest dealership. They’re leasing their cars so cheap Tim’s making a loss.

He's pragmatic, not a complete monster.

Ariana snaps her finger in his face. Tim blinks to awareness. Ah, Ives was asking a question while Ariana plays Smash Bros Brawl. Tim vaguely remembers writing the code and implementation for rollback netcode when Ariana complained. Which, he shouldn’t have done because at some point the two will figure out why their first-world problems continually disappear. Tim isn’t going to try fixing Ukraine. He’s a genius with money, not God. He’d likely have to dismantle Russia’s entire system of governance to even fix Ukraine, and he knows the Russians have alien tech to detect interference.

He wishes Area 51 had shit as cool as the Russians and Chinese have. Or the average villain in a small town in America who went to a hardware store and chose to shit on the laws of physics.

“Tim, you with us?”

“Sneakers good,” he finally says. Wow, that was hard. Words hard.

“Ari, has he… taken anything?”

“It’s Tim, so yes.” Ariana pokes him carefully. “What did you take?”

The caffeine. All the caffeine. “All of it.” Glorious, amazing, spectacular amounts of caffeine. He’s so buzzed that the world is fuzzy and he’s pretty sure those are new dimensions of space and oh, where was that project he was working on a few days ago? Shit, it’s in the Batcave. Time to redraw it from memory and work from there.

“Tim, friend, person we don’t entirely hate, please understand that you’ve drawn squiggles and what might be a Satanic summoning circle.”

Why is Ives such an idiot? The plan is right there. Can’t he see how suspicious the power grid in Washington is? Fuck man, how can he think Tim’s meticulous analysis is anything short of magnificent and brilliant and so awe-inspiring that Batman would kneel in amazement?

It’s obvious there’s a huge—

“Why am I in bed?” Tim asks, then tries his best to get out of there. He never changed the linen from when his mother was fucking whatever boy toy she found and get it off get it off get it the fuck off before he rips his skin off and oh, that’s a nice floor.

“Why are you speaking French—no, not important. Tim, I’m going to call 911.”

The world comes into startling clarity. “Don’t do that.” He blinks. Oh, that was French. He tries again, this time in English. “Don’t do that.”

“You’re shaking, incoherent, and I’m not sure you’re not having a heart attack.”

“I’m fine.”

“You’re really not. Dude, I don’t know what you’re taking—”

“Nothing. Jesus, just fuck off already.”

“Yeah, no, fuck you too. You can be as shitty as you want but I’m making sure you stay alive first. Then I’m fucking off.”

Tim gives him the middle finger and passes out right there.

God, he really should have gone to sleep in the last two weeks.

*

He wakes up with the dawn, a band of sunlight assaulting his eyes. Tim is on the couch, which is fine. Janet wouldn’t be so gauche as to accept a couch fuck. No amount of brain bleach has managed to purge that knowledge from his traumatised mind.

He finds Ives on the chair in the corner. Tim takes a picture of Ives sleeping in a ruffled Attack on Titan shirt, one leg thrown over the armrest and a puddle from a knocked-over water bottle at his feet. Tim slips the polaroid into his pocket and takes a moment to clean the mess.

The side table shakes, startling Tim. Ives’ phone ringing. The Lumia 1020 was basically a giant camera to hide the shortfalls of the rest of the system even though the sensor and image processing meant it was also a shit camera. It’s such an Ives kind of phone to have.

Ariana on the caller ID. More worrying is the battery. Anything lower than 35% gives him anxiety. 8% is about eight seconds to a panic attack.

He answers before he can think about it.

“Hey there demon, it’s me, ya boy.”

“Tim?”

“That’s me. Alive and awake and all that jazz. Surprise.”

“I was worried sick I’d be attending your funeral.”

“I won’t do—”

“Yeah, don’t ever do whatever you did again. This winter break was not fun because of you.”

Tim vaguely likes Ariana but not enough to give up caffeine for her. “Sure,” he lies.

“How’s Ives?”

“Dead to the world. I’ll make sure he eats and stuff.”

“Thanks, but you should look out for yourself. You weren’t in a good place yesterday.”

“Sure sure.”

He checks. No, he didn’t miss patrol.

Because he’s a decent human being, he rummages through his box of cables and finds a charger for Ives’ phone. He can’t wait until chargers are unified and everyone is using something better than Micro USB. Otherwise, he might start his villain arc. As he’s doing so, he finds what he was working through last night.

Large sheets of paper with carelessly drawn plans and annotated squiggles cover every surface. Tim tilts his head until they fall into alignment. Then he immediately starts cursing loud enough to wake Ives.

“Oh shit, Tim, you’re alive.”

“Food?”

“That’s the least you owe me.”

“You’re paying.”

*

Young Justice is founded in a flurry of rebellion and coincidence. Tim is undercover on a mission with Pennyworth providing oversight.

“We will discuss your disappearance extensively, Master Tim. Mark my words, you will be grounded for the rest of your life.”

He’d booked it after making sure Ives ate and got home safe, stuffing his Robin equipment in a gym bag and stealing the private plane. He’d landed in Dulles International, affected his best ‘I’m a rich brat’ impression, and ditched the driver once he was in the city proper.

By then, Alfred was already screaming in his ear.

He has a leather jacket a bit too big over a shirt saying Down with the Monarchy because a new royal brat has been born and Tim is now a devout anti-monarchist. It gets him weird looks, but people pass him over and go about their day. DC is weird. In Gotham, they’d have dragged him into a dark alley and beaten the shit out of him. Here, they just let him go about his life.

“Weak,” he says with a sneer in a thick French accent speaking into his bullhorn. “Down with Prince George! Bring the guillotines out!”

People give him a wide berth and there’s probably at least one person calling the cops. But this is America, the land of free speech, especially for people who look like him.

“I quite like the monarchy, Master Tim.”

“You’re British so it doesn’t count,” he says into his mic. “Now, where is that mysterious void in the power distribution charts?”

“Approximately one point two kilometres northwest.” A pause. “No complaints on metric measurements?”

“If drug dealers use metric, everyone should use metric. Besides, down with the monarchy and all forms of imperialism. It’s the time for true freedom across the world.”

“Freedom in the actual sense or freedom in the American neo-colonialism sense?”

“Yes.”

*

Turns out, it’s a cloning facility.

Lex Luthor is cloning Kryptonians. The idea is so absurd that Tim spends a good five minutes laughing before he begins his infiltration of the underground complex. Take out a guard here, avoid the camera over there, hack into the security system and start looping video, wear the Robin costume as he downloads all the mainframe data.

Tim is making excellent time on his infiltration when an explosion rocks the building.

Well, time to go loud.

His life becomes a blur, his concentration condensing a series of fights and movements into disjointed flashes. A flip here, a cracked skull there. A beautifully placed smoke bomb and three guards go down in the confusion. Robin is unleashed, fighting, and winning because Bruce made him this way and he will not lose.

Things start going wrong once he sees the killer robots. Five of them, all linked by some mesh network from how fast they turn their blasters on him.

Then the world around him blurs and snaps back. Tim fights to keep his food down as he stares at the trees suddenly surrounding him and the kid vibrating in front of him.

“Robin? Holy shit, it’s Robin.”

Tim hates speedsters. You literally can’t react faster than them.

“A Bat. A Flash. A Wonder. Hell yeah, we’re like, four away from a full JL lineup.” This is news to Tim. He didn’t know Troia was in the area. “Oh, I’m Impulse by the way which you already know since scary Bat gave me the name.”

“Are you also investigating the Kryptonian cloning facility?”

“The who in the what and how the hell do you clone Kryptonians?!” Tim uses Batman Glare #3. It’s super effective. “Um, I was just taking a cross-continent jog when I saw Wonder Girl smashing robots in DC. Oh hey, big red button.”

“No!”

Too late.

At least the angry Kryptonian decides to murder the robots first

*

The fighting spills out into the streets. Sirens blare and emergency cars are thrown around as Tim battles beside his new compatriots. He’s still pretty upset it isn’t Troia. She’s cool. She’s the best. She also knows what she’s doing, unlike this Wonder Girl. And the Superman clone? He’s causing more destruction than anything else.

He passes spare communicators to Impulse who treats this like a game but at least he gets them to the others.

“Just deal with the big one and stop fighting me,” Tim snaps into the comm. “And you, Wonder Girl, move that tank. It’s aiming at civies.”

“Who died and made you boss?”

“Competence did.” Impulse’s laughter just annoys Tim. “Clean comms, Impulse.”

It’s a mess. The whole fight barely works. The others don’t know how to work in a team and Tim is too used to working beside someone who knows him perfectly. They don’t listen to him and he can’t just slot beside them perfectly.

Then, for a moment, they fit together perfectly. For one glorious moment, Tim just knows Impulse will handle the sniper bot peaking with his gun just as the Superman clone will slam headfirst into a tank and Wonder Girl will barrel right into the lead robot that towers over them, giving Tim the moment he needs to throw a batarang that drop a crane on the command unit he’s spent the entire fight looking for.

One moment where he finally understands why Batman puts up with the Justice League. The robots stutter without their leader and from there it's just a matter of dealing with them cleanly.

“Hell yeah! That was so cool. Does this make us like the League of Super Awesome Badass Best Friends?”

“That’s the most cringe thing I’ve ever heard,” Wonder Girl says, “and I have this codename.”

“Agreed,” a resoundingly deep voice says.

Tim turns and oh wow, those pectorals should be illegal. There are supermodel pectorals and then there are divine pectorals. The clone’s suit was destroyed in a wave of red energy from the robot’s canon. He seems completely unbothered by looking like an erotic pin-up model, a Greek statue come to life.

His mouth fails Tim, his words caught in his throat as he tries to understand how anyone can have such perfect facial features and unblemished skin. The clone glows in the radiance of the winter sun, effervescent in the fullness of life.

Tim throws his jacket at the guy. He was raised in a good Jewish household, and he needs to save everyone around him from deviant desires.

The clone gives him a smile and Tim nearly falls over face first. He’s more tired than he thought. A nap on those abs will—no, he doesn’t need a nap, he just needs caffeine.

“Thanks.”

Tim doesn’t respond. Words are a bit too hard right now.

Impulse comes to a stop between the clone and Wonder Girl, arms around their necks. It’s a strange sight because they’re both too strong to be brought down to their height and he’s mostly hanging off of them. 

“I think we should have victory shawarma.”

His grin is childishly bright and unbelievably earnest.

It’s super effective.

“I guess we’ve earned it,” Tim agrees.

Tim is a monster but even he can’t say no to Impulse’s cheer.

That’s how the four of them wind up in a shawarma place that survived by exactly three meters, a robot carcass sunk deep in the street next door. Impulse is on his fifth serving, Wonder Girl on her phone, and Tim carefully filling out an incident report, trying to wrangle the other’s perspective of the whole incident. He also has a few sockpuppet accounts making inflammatory comments about the whole incident. Both #ArrestLuthor and #NewSuperTeam are trending, so Tim counts it as an overall win.

“Can I have my jacket back now?” he asks the clone, Conner, from the data Tim stole.

The owner of the shawarma store handed some clothes that fit surprisingly well on Conner who has long since changed. Nothing fancy, just a plaid shirt and ripped jeans, but with how much the clone stretched them with his muscles it had given them a certain aesthetic appeal.

“Nah, nerd, it’s mine now. It’s too cool for you. Barely fits you as well.”

“I’ll grow into it!”

“No, you won’t,” Superboy says lowly, and something about his voice renders Tim mute.

He’s saved from saying anything by the arrival of the Justice League.

*

“Weekends only with the team,” Bruce says hours as they fly back.

“I never said I was joining.”

“I reviewed the footage. You need the experience in a team.”

“Is this an order?”

“If it helps you accept events to come. You’ll need to maintain your grades at school and your secret identity.”

“I could just graduate early and dedicate all my time to the team.”

“No. Alfred says you require interaction with civilians.” Well, there goes that idea. Alfred’s word is law, always has been. 

“Imagine if the villains found out Batman was grounded by an old British guy with a Peaky Blinders obsession. What would Bane say? Oh god, the Joker would weep to know his greatest nemesis is so easily defeated.”

“The Joker is scared of Alfred.”

“Bullshit.”

“Language.”

“I hear you say worse every night. I’m just doing as you do.”

“Do as Alfred says, not as I do.”

“You don’t even do what Alfred says.”

“I am a lost cause. Alfred still hopes to get a functioning human being out of you.”

“Is he also still dreaming of a resurgent British Empire?”

Batman exhales slightly louder than usual which is basically hysterical laughing when he’s like this. “I expect your countermeasures by the evening.”

“Can’t I use the standard Justice League ones?”

“Can you?” Batman challenges. “Do you know that their powers map identically to members of the Justice League? Do they hold the same psychological weaknesses? The same chronic injuries? The clone’s abilities operate through entirely different—”

“Conner.” Batman grunts, curious. “His name’s Conner so don’t call him a clone. Let’s not go around creating villains by being assholes.”

“Is he your friend?”

I wish.

“No.”

“I made friends amongst the League.”

“Are they your friends or have they just learnt to put up with your weirdness?”

“Is there a difference?”

“For you? Probably not.”

“You should spend time with your civilian friends. Their browser history is mildly concerning.”

“Oh my god, you have one caffeine crash and suddenly everyone thinks you’re an addict from an abusive household.”

“Which you are.”

“B, keep your truth and logic away from me.”

*

He receives a call later that evening as the sun dips past the horizon, pinks fading to navy. He Nearly drops his phone at the caller ID.

“Hello? Jack?”

“Tim,” his father says, stretching his name out. “I returned home and found you absent.”

Shit, fuckity fuck. You’re supposed to be gone.

“Uh, I was with friends and didn’t know you’d be back.”

“I can believe the latter if not the former.”

“I can make friends. Just because they aren’t—”

“That’s not what I meant. Are you safe, wherever you are?”

Tim is a few hundred meters from Drake Mansion. He could be there in a few minutes if he so chose.

“I am,” he says truthfully.

“Good. That’s good.”

“Why are you calling? You never do.”

“I saw the news. This Young Justice thing. They were fighting robots in DC. Did you catch that?”

“I think everyone did,” he answers in a strangled voice.

“They all looked so young. Children. I have a hard time believing any of them were older than thirteen, fourteen at most. Fighting things that could kill them easily. 

“That’s why you came home? Because you were worried?”

“I am capable of emotion.”

“Sorry, I… I’ll be back in the evening,” he promises.

“I can’t ask that of you. It wouldn’t be fair to you.”

“When did you ever care how I felt?” Silence. It stretches out, the awkward mess of their relationship strangling him. “Sorry. That was unfair of me.”

“Just stay safe. Wherever you are.”

Jack Drake ends the call and leaves Tim in silence.

*

*

*

Bruce Wayne hosts a party for no discernable reason. Tim knows it’s so Bruce can subtly insult Luthor with his dumbass trust fund baby persona that everyone falls for despite the fact that Wayne Industries’ valuation has quadrupled since Bruce took over as CEO. People are stupid, unfortunately, and very few are worth anything.

Tim had attended under sufferance, formally lodging a complaint but knowing someone had to represent the Drake family with Jack in hospital for a few checks.

It’s long since security would have encouraged even the most belligerent of drunks to leave.

Steph sits on the roof of the manor, framed in cool starlight and purple party lights. Her head is tilted back, gazing at the vastness of infinity beyond, a golden river of hair against the soft grey of her pullover. Messily strewn around her are containers of stolen finger foods, a bottle of cheap vodka, and two glasses.

Tim raises his camera and takes a photo, immortalising her in a way that memory will never manage. The same way his parents were immortalised in photos taken by a man Tim will never know.

“I should sue you for that. Reasonable expectation of privacy and all that.”

Tim takes a seat beside her. Steph immediately lays her head on his shoulder, her fingers working to unknot his tie. “Who’s going to fund your legal team?” 

“Bruce. He likes me more than you.”

His tie slips away, the fabric pooling in his lap above his camera. Tim exhales in relief, surprised by how constricted he’d been feeling without noticing.

“Batman is my man. We’re destined. Get your own vigilante billionaire.”

“Like who? Green Arrow. That dude gives me mild creep vibes. I mean, I know he’s not because B would have annihilated him, but that goatee. It just screams bad intentions.”

Tim pats her head, running his finger through her hair, gently working to untangle a knot he finds. He should have brought his mini comb, but he wasn’t looking for Steph, hadn’t even known she was in the manor. Bad planning on his part.

“Fine, we can work out a timeshare agreement on the billionaire vigilante we trust not to be a child molester. You can have him on the weekends.”

“Not even going to fight for Gotham’s peak crime time? I thought you liked patrolling.”

“I do. That’s never changing. You see what I was up to a few days back?”

“Spoiler’s official account supports #ArrestLuthor. Bats gotta look out for each other.”

“Did you add a Bat symbol to your uniform while I was away?”

“I don’t need one. Everyone just knows. Go ask anyone in Gotham and they’ll tell you that. In fact, they think Spoiler is the best Bat.”

“Black Bat.”

“No one believes Cass exists. You see, that’s the problem with being the super sneaky ninja in the group.” She nudges him slightly. “What’s up?”

“He’s making me join the team.”

“Awesome.”

“Are you fine with me joining?”

“Yup,” Steph says without hesitation and Tim’s fate with Young Justice is sealed. If she’d vetoed the decision, Tim would have listened to her. No one else has his best interests at heart like her.

“And you have no interest at all in it.”

“Nah, the Birds of Prey are more than enough for me. Just because we’re joined at the hip doesn’t mean we have to be dangerously codependent.”

“We’re not even mildly codependent.”

“And let’s keep it that way. How’re your friends doing? Ariana and Ives, not the new ones.”

“I guess they’re fine.”

“Let me guess, you haven’t talked to them in weeks.”

“I saw them at school.”

“Which you barely go to.”

“B wants me to spend time with them. Apparently, I have no social skills or something and they’re really worried about me and I need to prove I’m a functioning human being before their search history escalates from signs of substance abuse to how do I extract my friend from a bad situation.”

“They sound supportive.”

“They’re invasive and nosy.”

“Please tell me you can recognise the irony.”

Tim shoves her aside playfully. “I don’t even know what irony is.”

Steph chuckles as she reaches for the bottle of vodka she likely stole from the party and fills both glasses to the brim, handing one over to Tim.

“To the cool kids,” Steph says, raising her glass to the moonless sky.

Batman does not drink and so Robin does not drink. What his commander does is law and Tim is a good soldier.

Bruce, however, does drink, and Tim isn’t Robin right now. There must be some leniency afforded to him.

Tim raises his red cup with her.

His first drink burns down his throat, a vile thing that instantly makes him regret rebellion. This was a mistake.

Steph laughs as he chokes, patting him on the back. They sit like that for a while, the warmth of her palm seeping through his shirt and into his back, grounding him in a way little else does.

“Wanna kiss?”

His throat constricts suddenly at the innocuous question, asked with less reverence than she asks about which meme to post.

Tim could say no, and nothing would change. Steph wouldn’t hold it against him. She’s not like that, not petty and vindictive like he is. A thrum of tension runs through him as he considers his options, grateful that she lets him think it through. He’s never wanted to kiss anyone before, not really. Some people have a certain aesthetic appeal, but he’s never wanted more from it than that.

“Sure.”

He’s a man now. He might as well get some experience with someone he trusts.

Steph kisses him as one year of this ceaseless war gives way to another.

He hates the kiss only slightly less than the alcohol.

*

*

*

Jack Drake dies.

It isn’t anything special. The poison that killed his wife and left him crippled has ravaged his body and immune system. That he lived as long as he did is a testament to the sheer miracles that wealth brings.

Tim always knew it was coming especially in those final months. They both knew. Once a week, Jack would demand he visit. Once a week, Jack would impart the secrets of their family—from the mundane secrets to destroy their rivals to the horrifying reality that Tim is expected to take a position in the Court of Owls. Once a week, Jack would break down each way that Tim is and always will be an unworthy heir, a fucking waste of an egg and sperm. Once a week, he would speak with strange pride of Tim’s achievements in his own private business ventures. Once a week, Jack would forget he is supposed to be an asshole, and tell Tim of his mother instead.

Every week, Tim is forced to confront the mess of contradiction that is his father. This man who simultaneously loves him and loathes him, who sees nothing but regret when he sees Tim, but also sees the Drakes resurgent in Tim.

Jack is a withered husk of a man but full of petty spite. Too weak for visitors but strong enough to speak his last words to his son. Tim allows it until Jack tires, his breathing growing laboured. Jack scowls at his body failing him, bitter to the bone but resigned to his end.

“Your grandparents were declared mentally unfit for society and will never see the light of day,” Jack explains once he’s gotten the futile rage out of him. “They will have no claim to the fortune Janet and I built. It will go to you and no one else. The vultures will come but you will not let them pick apart your inheritance. It is yours and yours alone.”

“I never met them. My grandparents.”

“Unambitious fools of no redeeming qualities. Too old to adapt to a different world and given to base bigotry. Forget their existence. They served their purpose by facilitating my match with Janet. By the time I was nineteen, I had already ousted them from power.”

“Why do you hate them so much?”

“They could never accept who I loved. They drove me away for it. But I got my revenge in the end.”

Jack lifts one hand to the other. Tim watches the surety of his movements despite the weakness afflicting him. Hand curled around the other, he easily slips off his wedding ring. A finger twitch gestures Tim closer.

With shaky hands, Jack places his ring in Tim’s hands. Three interlocking bands of platinum, the last of a set of three. Tim carries the golden ring around his neck and knows the silver ring is in the attic of Drake mansion.

He closes Tim’s hand around his ring. His fingers are almost skeletal, his vitality sapped away. It isn’t like the old whose skin becomes papery and translucent. This is an unnatural way to die. 

“You will be engaged to the Farnworth daughter when you turn twenty. By then, your training will be complete. I have arranged for Mr Judge to take custody of you until then. He will ensure you thrive in this world of ours.” Jack descends into a fit of painful coughing. Tim waits patiently. “It will be an acceptable match, a fitting shield, and one you can easily break should you desire it. Marry only for love. Anything else is a compromise for a lesser heir. This was the best I could do with the few allies I have left.”

“No.”

Jack’s rheumy eyes sharpen, focusing on Tim, seeing him for the first time in a decade. Recognising the boy and not merely the vessel for his disappointment and hate, for his complicated love and strange dreams.

“What?”

“I changed the paperwork on your will. Bruce Wayne will be my guardian. You won’t live through the afternoon, and I’ve ensured no one else will visit you. You will have no chance to change your will. You have lost, Father.”

A glimmer of something that might be pride were Jack Drake a lesser man given to sentiment. Tim isn’t foolish enough to believe it. Consider it malicious interest and one might approach emotions Jack Drake understands. It’s easier if that’s all he is, he tells himself. Just die a monster and nothing else.

“All that you are is because of us,” Jack says, and Tim doesn’t know what emotion hides in the depths of his raspy voice.

“I’m just doing what you did to your parents.”

“Bruce will ruin you like he ruined Jason. Like he ruined Richard. It is his greatest skill. Whatever kindness he’s shown you is a front. Don’t do this to yourself.”

“You don’t even know I’ve been Robin for years now.” Jack’s eyes widen and Tim leans forward, gleeful to have twisted the knife of betrayal further. “One day, I’ll destroy the Court as well and that will be the legacy of the Drakes. Betrayal in the blood, they’ll say.”

“You monstrous little thing,” he says, wonder in his raspy voice. Perhaps even joy. “You’re just like your mother.”

“This is on you. This is on your mistakes.”

Tim willingly meets Jack’s eyes for the first time in his life and glares at him, standing his ground no matter how much this makes his skin crawl. He will not be intimidated. Not by a man on his deathbed. Not by a man that Tim’s beaten so thoroughly.

Jack accepts his loss and turns his head away, closing his eyes.

“The best revenge is living well,” Jack finally says. “We are Drakes. We claim our revenge in full.”

He takes the chair near the bedside and waits the agonising few hours as Jack withers away. Soon, it will all be over. He just has to wait for Jack to finally stop breathing.

Through it all, Jack never lets go of Tim’s hand.

Tim never tries to extricate his hand.

It is raining when Jack Drake dies as though his death is a great loss for the universe. So much rain that the streets flood as the drains are overwhelmed. Maintenance was meant to be done by a subsidiary of Drake Industries. Tim finds it poetic in a way to know the Drake name will destroy itself no matter how high it rises.

There may be no justice to the universe but sometimes it allows a bitter son to watch his father die in agony. It will never fix all that went unsaid and Tim will not forget the thousand tiny harms Jack inflicted upon him, but it will make it easier to swallow the pain.

Tim heads outside.

Waiting for him at the base of the stairs is Richard Grayson, his blue eyes painfully warm. Framed by the sun peaking past the rain clouds, he is something ethereal. Something more than human. An idea more than a man.

“Heya kiddo. Was there anything you wanted to pick up before we went home?”

What still remains of his life in Drake Manor?

Some clothes that mean little to him? Items and artefacts that belonged to Jack and Janet? Every wall chipped by Jack’s anger and every dark corner he hid in from Janet’s wrath? The walls missing the pictures of what little joy they could cobble together? A lounge he never used and never when his biological donors were around? All the moments of kindness that leave him confused and bewildered?

“No.”

Richard wraps a soggy arm around his shoulders. He’s a slim man but Tim feels like nothing will ever harm him beneath Nightwing’s aegis.

*

Bruce helps him through the funeral and Batman benches him whilst he mourns his loss.

This Shiva is meaningless. He hates faking it, pretending as though he could ever mourn Jack.

Bruce joins him for some unfathomable reason.

“My parents were Jewish,” Bruce admits, helping Tim light candles. He’d forgotten to shave, and his beard grows in quick. Maybe that’s his meta-ability; super beard growth. “Alfred didn’t know enough to teach me and couldn’t pretend to be someone he wasn’t. Took me to Sunday service at an Anglican church when I went through a phase of trying to find God.”

“And did you?” he asks, standing beside that man who will mould Tim into someone worthy.

“I think that matters less than what you need out of me.”

He stares at Bruce out of the corner of his eyes. A towering bastion of strength that Tim will never be anything like. Driven by rage and grief and trauma to be something more, something better.

I need a father who loves me, he thinks and will never say.

Instead, he slides his hand between Bruce’s, silently asking for comfort that is given freely. Bruce’s hand is so much larger than Tim’s, filled with endless vitality. Scarred and hardened by decades of fighting, they still envelop him in comfort.

On the third day, he lets the last candle die out. He has sat Shiva long enough to be acceptable but shorter than tradition dictates.

“We’re done here.”

“You’re allowed to mourn. There is no weakness to mourning.”

“I’m not mourning. I didn’t know him. Not at all. Understanding him was impossible.”

Bruce is quiet for a long minute. “He should have loved you better.”

“I’ll never ask for the impossible.”

“I hope you know you will never be asking the impossible with me.”

Tim closes his eyes and turns his head into Bruce’s massive bicep. “Don’t say that.”

That night, Robin returns to the streets of Gotham and they do not mention Jack Drake again.

Chapter Text

Spring begins with a shower of decapitated heads.

Tim wishes his life wasn’t so weird.

The heads are mailed directly to everyone in Gotham that Batman considers a friend or ally. Bruce Wayne receives one. Selina Kyle another. Tim gets three just for fun. Commissioner Gordon wakes the neighbourhood with his screams.

He loves Steph but did she have to take a selfie with her decapitated head?

“Likely a meta,” Tim surmises as they autopsy a recovered victim in the cave’s primary morgue. Batman has three, apparently, much to Tim’s mild disquiet. How does he keep hiding these rooms? “The cuts are too clean to be a hacksaw, but they don’t have machine precision. It was done in one swing with a very sharp weapon.”

Batman nods in approval. “Personality?”

From the footage, Tim can tell that Red Hood is a native of Gotham. He moves with the careless grace of every true child of Gotham.

“Extremely focused rage. The bodies we recovered were brutalised, but he still took care to avoid damaging the heads. All individuals are key links in many industries ranging from organ harvesting and child trafficking to lobbying and gang work. Anyone lesser affiliated was killed with a precise bullet to the head.”

Red Hood is the rage of Gotham’s dead, a spectre of retribution demanding an ocean of blood for every drop of blood spilt. He is every coldly efficient murder and crime of passion, every unanswered call for help and each act of betrayal from those who should have loved you most. Red Hood is Gotham in the same way that Batman is. They walk the same road that leads to the same ends, separated only by the methods they take.

Tim knows this because Red Hood is the endpoint of Batman after Jason’s death. The broken bones and filled hospital wings, each intentional maiming, the cruel ruthlessness in his actions.

Alfred sets down a tray with hot chocolate, biscuits and mini sandwiches loaded with meat. Batman takes a deep sip of hot chocolate. Tim does his best not to laugh at the foam clinging to his lips. 

“Combat proficiency?”

“As skilled as me at the very least. He’s far stronger and shrugs off minor injuries. He’s also ruthlessly pragmatic and only grandstands once he’s attained victory. Either he read the Evil Overlord List or he’s learnt from other villains.”

“Recommendation?”

“Flee on sight for me and Steph. We won’t survive. Cass would win with minor injuries. Unknown if you or Nightwing would win.”

“Excellent analysis, Master Tim.” 

“Thanks,” he says, and finally takes a sandwich because he’s earned it.

“May I misplace my hope that you will follow this recommendation and avoid interacting with Red Hood?”

Tim grins over the corpse at Alfred. “If I don’t tell you where to put your hopes then I won’t be responsible when they’re shattered.”

“How considerate of you. Perhaps I won’t even use the subdermal trackers in you.”

“But I got rid of it.”

Alfred smiles mysteriously, sliding on his medical scrubs over his butler outfit. While Bruce is excellent at forensic investigation, only Alfred is good at performing in-depth autopsies. Apparently, he’d aided Thomas Wayne in more than a few surgeries. Tim suspects Alfred was a serial killer in his youth.

Alfred hadn’t been amused at the insinuation.

“As you say, Master Tim. I certainly never had to deal with the antics of rambunctious vigilantes for two decades.”

“B, please say I don’t have subdermal trackers.”

Batman takes another swig of hot chocolate. “I don’t have subdermal trackers.”

Tim bites down on a screech. Sets his sandwich down. Stands. “I hate the both of you. Excuse me as I have a freakout.”

“Make sure the security systems are active first.”

He would give B the middle finger, but Alfred would sigh in disappointment and that’s not worth the guilt trip.

*

The Batmobile burns soon afterwards.

Well, first it’s blown up, but the fire happens after.

Tim snaps a pic of it and uses it as material for his English report. It amuses Alfred enough that the man ignores his very obviously forged report card. Tim can’t English or humanities, but he can science the fuck out of life.

Honestly, Tim was quite lucky. If the explosive had gone off any later, Tim would have been a rather crispy bird.

“I want fried chicken,” Tim declares as he applies burn cream to his palms. They’re reddened though the suit dissipated most of the damage.

Alfred stares at him in horror. “How have I failed you so terribly?”

“You didn’t?”

“Where did I go wrong? You eat cheap chicken nuggets and drink energy drinks and have no refined palette. After all that I’ve done, this is my repayment. A demand for fried chicken. I will make you a three Michelin star meal if you like.”

“I just want some fried chicken.” Alfred gasps in despair. “Oh, you know where there’s great fried chicken? The place just down the road from YJ HQ.”

“Master Bruce, surely you would rescue me if I was trapped in my own personal hell.” Batman very hastily turns around and pretends none of this is happening. Alfred sighs. “Well, now that my heart is thoroughly shattered and my reason for living is gone, sure, have fun with your friends.”

Even Batman can’t figure out a reason to refuse Tim spending time with the Titans. If one person can take out Kon and Cassie and Bart in their own HQ, then there was no way Tim’s safehouses were any safer.

*

Tim will never tell anyone, but decapitated heads create associations in his head that he’d rather not examine. It reminds him of a dead boy in a cargo container staring back at him with lifeless eyes and that sends him back to the worst points in his life. Thankfully he has a better solution than just compartmentalising his problems away: Joker venom.

They have more than a few papers on the correlation between Joker Venom concentration and the long-term effects. So, he takes the concentration that B can power through and dilutes it to one-tenth of its usual concentration before taking a dose.

Nothing happens immediately but by the time he’s back in San Fran he’s excited—excited!—to see Young Justice. It almost feels like he won’t completely fuck up and ruin a simple conversation with them. He greets Bart warmly which has the speedster bewildered but Bart just goes with the flow because he’s the best. He doesn’t appreciate the frantic gesturing Bart’s doing behind Tim’s back when he gives Cassie a side hug and claps Kon on his shoulder.

“Hi, Kon!”

Kon pats the hand on his shoulder distractedly, staring at Tim in mild concern. His palms are enviably soft. “Your pupils are dilated.”

“Ask me no questions and I’ll tell you no lies!”

Oh, he should probably stop holding Kon’s shoulders. Maybe. But those shoulder muscles are magnificent. If Tim had a sense of rhyme or rhythm, he might consider writing poetry to describe Kon’s supple contours and the strength of mountains and warmth seeping deep in bones.

“You know we could help out,” Bart suggests tentatively later when Tim’s a blissed-out puddle of dopamine on the couch. He’s having slight issues remembering how he got there.

“No metahumans,” he says quickly, remembering that Batman’s laws are holy writs. “It’s the commandment and the last time you tried breaking it—”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah, Bats caught us in an hour and sent us to get a spanking from our mentor. But that was months ago and without the weird religious overtones. We’re way better now. Look, I’m so fast even Jay’s getting jealous and I’m just gonna get faster and—”

“There’s cold pizza in the fridge,” Cassie interrupts, unconcerned when Bart is back and munching through pizza before she’s finished her sentence. He’s eating slowly for their sake. “Have you considered a first strike mission? We could get it done quick. In and out in an hour.”

“Supes told me Batman’s got contingencies for that and I know Tim wrote ours.”

“Is Kon telling the truth?”

He gives a thumbs up which certainly doesn’t warrant the way Kon leans away as if his finger has kryptonite in it… Does it?

“Every Bat does it,” he says, after biting his thumb just to check for kryptonite. It’s currently pressed against Kon’s incisors. How did that get there?  “We’re invasive and nosey people with no regard for privacy. Don’t take it personally, I’m never going to use any of them assuming you don’t become evil or get brainwashed.”

Cassie sighs beside him but doesn’t move, her hands on his shins comforting. Tim feels incredibly safe bracketed between her and Kon on the couch. He blinks, analysing that thought, and realises he’s partially draped across Kon’s lap. That explains how he got his thumb in Kon’s mouth. It doesn’t explain why Kon is still putting up with it besides being a bro.

Bart sits alone. Tim is fine enough with someone drumming a pattern on his skin, but he draws the line at constant fidgeting jostling him around. And once he gets irritated, Kon gets irritated, which means Cassie has to stop the inevitable fight from destroying another room.

“See, no kryptonite,” he says brightly, taking his thumb back. It’s his thumb, not Kon’s. Tim is fine sharing, but he’d like to discuss it first. Just to make sure it’s known, he bites that same thumb.

“I have so many questions,” Cassie says. “So, so many, and I don’t want any of the answers.”

“This is amazing,” Bart replies. “He’s like soft and fuzzy, not sharp and growly.”

“Can we just watch the movie?” Kon asks, despondent.

“I still can’t believe this is what survives a thousand years of cinema,” Tim says around his thumb, agreeing with Kon. Somehow. “I’m more fascinated than disappointed at this point.”

“You take that back,” Bart snaps without any true heat. He’s smiling for some reason. “Space Lanes VIII: The Last Shogun of Jupiter was pretty much prophetic in how the conflict went down. So accurate they remastered and redubbed it with like an hour of extra footage and inserted some of the other principal characters of the conflict. If you had any history class about that conflict, which was everyone since, you know, it defined the government, you watched this movie. Do you know how many books have been written about this movie? It’s so accurate that I checked to see if the developer had developed time travel somehow. Haven’t ruled out prophetic dreams but it’s whatever.”

“It’s terrible is what it is.”

“You can see the cameras in the reflections,” Cassie sighs. “Like you could in the last six.”

“At least there isn’t a weird random sex scene in the middle of the climactic battle like the last one.”

Bart visibly shudders, popcorn flung everywhere. He catches them all before they hit anything, a gag for their benefit more than anything.

“That was so disgusting,” Bart says, glancing at Tim. “Why do people think that makes sense ever?”

Tim shrugs, his shoulder bumping against Kon’s perfect abs. He might have a bruise in the morning. “People are weird. Why is it so impossible to imagine a movie without a gratuitous sex scene?”

On-screen, the eponymous man who will become the Last Shogun has a plasma sword held at the ready. Calling it plasma is an insult to everyone who worked in the VFX industry and learnt the most basic skills. It is the classic showdown between the hero and the villain, thick black bars narrowing the focus and probably hiding the crew members. And just as their blade clash, the screen turns black, and the logo in synthwave aesthetic and terribly mismatched font arrives, announced by the clang of swords. 

“You know in the future there’s tech that just automatically scrubs that out for you.”

“And you didn’t bring that back!”

Tim sits up. Or tries. He mostly winds up flailing his limbs, Cassie keeping his legs in place, Kon his upper body. Wow, Kon’s arms are muscular. Like, unfairly sculpted from marble.

“Sorry,” he says, eyes darting to Kon instead of Tim. Rude. Tim was talking.

Kon coughs rather aggressively as the inciting incident is written in what is clearly a Star Wars parody but in the same synthwave aesthetic.

“Oh hey, look, you get killed for ruining someone’s sneakers in the future. Those were a gift and I liked them.”

Tim looks up at Kon, a wave of warmth coursing through his body. He meets Kon’s impossibly blue eyes straight on. They remind him of Gotham Bay at noon on a summer’s day, painfully bright to look at but sparkling in mesmerising ways.

“Thank you,” Tim says.

Kon and Cassie share a look they probably think is subtle. Oh, come on, I thank people every once in a while.

“On a scale of 1 to 10, how worried should we be? Because eye contact seems like a nuclear threat.”

“His breathing’s fine and it’s not like he can do anything with his muscle coordination.”

“He’s honestly the last person I expected like this.”

Cassie scoffs. “It’s usually the really uptight prep school types.”

“What are we talking about?”

“Just me being sorry,” Bart says after a beat without a hint of regret. “I’ll pay you back when I get a job.”

Kon’s eyes flicker away—no!—and he gives Bart a flat stare. “You can’t get a job.”

“Why not? He has a secret identity.”

“I mean, it works but it really won’t hold up to any scrutiny. It’s why Jay keeps telling me to stay under the radar.”

“I’ll make you another secret identity this weekend. Do you want an ID photo with long hair or short hair?”

Bart blinks. “Short?”

“Cool. A trust fund from a rich uncle should have you covered for money so it won’t look suspicious. I don’t recommend Allen as your last name, but I’ll let you choose anyway.” He jots down three alarms for tomorrow to remind him to start working on this. Wait, Tim doesn’t use an Apple. Whose phone is this? Kon’s? Eh, whatever. “And I’ll get you a new pair of sneakers, Kon, so you don’t have to murder Bart.”

“You know you don’t need to solve everything yourself.”

“Or throw money at it,” Kon adds, “especially when you’re high.”

Silly, unfathomably endearing boy sculpted from marble with divine inspiration. Tim isn’t high. He’s just in a good mood. The universe had to nerf him the moment he was born just to give the rest of humanity a chance.

“I have a literal fortune. What else am I going to do with it? Watch you stress over a budget when you’re already stressing over saving a city? Not buy Kon an infinite supply of leather jackets—which I love, never change them for something boring like a plain black shirt. Tell me there’s a better use for this money than making sure it gets to heroes.”

“You could always try to improve Gotham.”

“I do,” he says brightly, hands gesturing faster than he can react, the pads of his fingers tingling. When did he get free of Kon’s embrace? Why is he standing? Not good, not good, not good. Fall right back on that lap. Good. “Did I ever tell you how I watched my dad die, stole his fortune, and told him I’d use all those evil capitalist boatloads of money to do some good? It was fucking great. Do you know how many inner-city schools have funding for art and science programs because of me? I’ve got non-profits settings up harm reduction sites everywhere. You see a needle disposal site? Me. See a safe consumption site? Me. That line you call in to get housing support? Also me. Gotham is mine, y’all, and I’m going to save that damn city from itself no matter what I have to do.”

“Is anyone else really scared right about now?” Bart asks, eyes so wide they’re going to fall out and then Tim will have to figure out organ cloning because his friend was an idiot—pencil in stealing Cadmus’ IP for next Tuesday. “Because I think we have a supervillain on the team.”

“I’ll settle for him not taking over more than just Gotham.”

“Please, I’m smart enough that they’d make me Overlord of Earth with thunderous applause.”

And just because he’s in a good mood, he gives his best cackling laugh. It becomes genuine when Bart vanishes and both Cassie and Kon are backing away from him fearfully.

Cowards, the lot of them. They wouldn’t last a day in Gotham.

Remember to administer the antidote if laughter does not stop in five minutes.

They never do finish the movie.

*

His actual hideout is the apartment below the one he enters in the early hours of the morning after reassuring his team that he’s fine and he did not take any illegal substances. They didn’t believe him for a moment, which, fair. Tim is mortified to hear what he was doing and apologised profusely to Kon.

Kon, in turn, had been strangely flustered.

Tim doesn’t really understand why but then again, Kon’s part alien so he should be part-weird. Tim shakes his head as he steps into his closet and pulls aside a bit of panelling, revealing a spiral staircase that leads to an even deeper closet. From there, Tim steps out into his actual hideout, leaving the decoy one.

It feels good to be back in a space where Tim can just be Tim without anyone judging him for using Joker venom or planning out a proxy war with the mercenary group he owns or funding minor villains he finds amusing. It isn’t villainy, just capitalism.

Alfred would have an aneurysm if he saw this hideout. By his impossible standards, it would be a hovel unfit for human habitation which is just plain wrong. Tim’s kept the place clean and dusted. Just because his organisational system is non-standard doesn’t mean it won’t work.

Yes, sometimes he buys a lifelike android of the Red Hood and forgets about it, but that’s honestly not weirder than the kryptonite bombs, the rock of signed Jordans, or the stolen quantum computer currently working to decrypt nuclear launch codes. He’s not sure how he’ll ever explain the kryptonite bombs to Uncle Clark without disappointing him but that’s a problem for Future Tim. 

Present Tim is currently distracted by the fact that his Red Hood statue can talk.

“Hello, Replacement,” the Hood droid says, tapping a gun on the armrest to make a point.

“Why’d I buy you and how advanced is your learning module?”

“What?”

“I mean, I’m not sure whose making androids so lifelike but—”

Bang.

Tim flinches because oh shit that’s a real gun and Tim only has some batarangs on him. And all the explosives lining the floor and walls. He did have a turret that popped down from the kitchen extractor fan but that’s been dismantled by Hood.

“You called me Replacement. I take it you preferred the older Robins.” Tim shrugs placatingly. Hey, maybe Hood only decapitates criminals. “Probably a boring choice, but I’m a fan of the second.”

Hood is in his space within moments, striking with the force of a raging god. Tim twists around the blow, the wall shattering from the blow. Shit, metahuman strength. Tim scrambles to the side, jumps over the couch and slides under the table. There, his spare Bo staff.

A swipe forces Hood back. A sharp thrust to the ankles has him stumbling. Tim backs up, putting space between them. One batarang—that’s immediately shot out of its trajectory because of course Hood is that fast and accurate.

A hammer swing from Hood. Tim raises his staff and nearly loses his shit when it starts warping. Not good, not good, not good.

“No decapitated head as a present?” he asks, thinking a mile a minute about how he’s getting out of this alive.

“I was thinking yours, tied up with a cute bow.”

“A lovely suggestion. How’s about no?”

A sharp kick that Tim barely twists around. Not good enough. He still goes stumbling back from the force of it. Before he can react, Hood is twisting in the air, his heel hitting Tim right in the shoulder. Tim’s feet leave the ground, shoulder cracking from the impact.

The Hood is good. Better than good. Batman levels of good. So good that it’s in a realm Tim can’t begin to parse.

There is no chance of winning in a straight fight. A glancing blow from Hood left him reeling, head spinning. To make it worse, Hood is quicker than Tim and reacts faster. Just metahuman enough to make a difficult fight impossible.

Time to run. Smoke bombs on the ground. Leap away. Get dragged back by a sharp tug on his cloak. Flip and mule kick Hood. Freed, Tim bolts, activating all the traps he has left.

None activate.

Fuck.

A moment of hesitation is all it takes. Hood is on him, slamming him into the counter. One punch to the face disorients him. A quick motion and Hood’s shoving him into the stainless-steel fridge. Tim’s back screams in agony.

Final resort time. The R on his costume detaches and Tim flicks his hand.

Hood’s head snaps back. For a moment, Tim feels hope surge in him. It lasts until he realises Hood hasn’t let go. Fingers tighten, his windpipe constricted till barely choked wheezes come through. He scratches and kicks, but it does nothing.

Slowly, Hood turns back. Hair as dark as night. A streak of grey that has to be dyed. Eyes burning malevolent green. Young, maybe three or four years older than Tim. Determined anger writ large upon the flat planes of his face.

That face. That mole. The eyes might be different, putrid green instead of navy, but he knows them anyway. He could never forget.

Jason.

Tim stops fighting, arms going limp. Tim could never raise a hand against him.

A stopgap is all he was and now Jason’s back. The real Robin. The best of them. Richard may have been the first, the golden boy, but Jason uplifted Gotham with every smile. Everyone could hear the Narrows gutter in his voice and if someone from Gotham’s shitheap could be better, then everyone could damn well try.

The Joker stole that hope.

Tim won’t question it. Whatever Jason did, Tim won’t question it. You don’t question hope’s return. The knowledge is in Tim, passed down from his father to him, and from his father before.

Tchiyat Hameitim, the resurrection of the dead. When the Messiah returns, the temple will be rebuilt in Jerusalem and the bodies of the dead will be returned to life, merged with their spirits once more. Before Jack’s death, he told Tim of the meeting Holy Baal Shem Tov had with the Messiah. He asked when he would return and was told only when the word of G-d was spread far enough. Many had proclaimed Superman the Messiah, but Tim denounced the idea. Superman is a foreign saviour, inherently impossible for any human to understand. 

Gotham is the only holy land Tim knows and Batman the only Messiah he holds faith in. What is Jason but proof the Messianic Age has come? Body and spirit reunited.

Or does this make Jason the Messiah and Batman the Lord? Tim puts it aside. Smarter and more faithful people can work through that.

I’m sorry for not saving you. Thank you for saving me. I forgive you.

Let him be as Isaac, a sacrifice to G-d. Only in Gotham, blood must be spilt for myths to be true. A sacrifice for Gotham’s hope doesn’t sound so terrible a bargain even if it isn’t kosher. 

“Au revoir, Robin.”

It’s been a good run, but he’s served his purpose. With this, at least, the tainted blood in him will fade away. Let the Drakes die and let Tim’s achievements wash away their sins.

The pain stops.

Tim gasps, brilliantly clear air filling his lungs. Spots dance in his vision but that’s better than the darkness.

“You were that kid. The French one. I gave you fifty bucks—”

“A hundred,” Tim corrects because he never leaves well enough alone, his throat burning. He coughs violently, trying to get air in, bewildered that he’s still alive. “The hundred you always hid on you. Narrows taught you that.”

Those noxious green eyes narrow, green slits promising death. Tim looks away, focusing on his mole. “Batman tell you that?”

“Found out on my own when I was seven. Always checked it on the roof of the mosque by the corner of 5th and Cunningham. Eleven fifteen on the dot. You felt safe there probably because you could eat there without being hassled. Usually, the days where your dad would come home angry or your mother—”

Maybe Tim does deserve the punch.

Darkness. A few seconds of lost time. He blinks himself awake, disoriented to see Robin alive again even if he’s wearing stupid contacts and started taking HGH.

“Awake again?” comes the growly voice of the Red Hood.

At least it’s a gentle punch. Nothing broken when Hood could break his face in easily.

“What was the question again?” Fingers tightening around his neck, one step from breaking it in half. Concussed Tim is an idiot that Regular Tim will need to fire if he makes it out of this alive. “I wanted to know about you.”

“Why?”

Tim scrunches his nose. “What do you mean why? You’re my Robin. How could I not want to know about you? Also, you need to be Robin again.”

“Robin died.”

How is this so confusing for Jason to get? He’s smart. Tim knows that for a fact. One doesn’t just walk into Gotham, take out crime lords, and evade Batman without being smart.

“But you’re back. B doesn’t need to find a good Robin now. Jason, I’m not your replacement. I’m not good enough to be your replacement. I was just a stopgap for B to find someone good enough to be Robin. Me? I just stole this costume. B doesn’t even want me.”

Hood drops him abruptly. Tim pats his throat. He’ll have bruises in the morning. Makeup for a month. No need to worry Alfred.

“I want a fucking explanation. I spent years worried that your stupid ass was being sold to creepy old men.”

“Alfred’s obsession with old Doctor Who is pretty creepy,” he agrees, standing uncertainly. Waiting to see if Hood will hurt him again.

The longest minute of his life passes like that. The two of them just staring at each other. Tim’s memory isn’t great, but he doesn’t remember Jason having so many scars. And Jason shouldn’t be this tall. Years of malnutrition had stunted his growth before he became Robin and neither of his parents was so tall. His frame is too big for the teen he should have grown into, not this colossus who could give Bruce some lifting tips. Maybe if he’d been raised on a perfect diet and trained from the day he was born, he might be this big, and that’s a big leap.

Jason shifts, settling his hands in the pockets of his red vest, loosening his stance deliberately. “Tenant’s run was amazing.”

“I’m more of an Eccleston guy myself.”

“You’re an uncultured twat is what you are. Now explain.”

“Buy me food first.”

For all that it’s a Concussed Tim question, it’s Smart Tim asking it, pushing Jason to see just how long his control holds. If he can rise above the obvious bait and put aside his killing rage. It leaves Tim nervous, this game he plays with his very life in the balance. He doesn’t care if he dies, but he wants it to be worth something.

Which is how he winds up witnessing a crime lord walk into Bat Burger and walk out with two Wonder Woman Happy Meals and a thirty-pack of Robin nuggets.

Tim watches in amazement from his perch on a balcony as the Red Hood walks out with the brightly patterned Wonder Woman bags. It’s an image that will stay with Tim till the day he dies.

“Nuggies!”

“You’re a toddler.”

“I was about a minute away from dying. Let me have this.”

“I’m not apologising.”

Tim shrugs, grabbing at the nuggets. “This counts as an apology.”

“Fuck right off.”

The nuggets taste like burnt grease and discard chicken parts, uncomfortably hard breading and far too much salt. They’re about as bad as it gets in Gotham and Tim loves them dearly.

Jason eats his burger more sedately than Tim. He isn’t a complete weirdo like Bruce who uses a fork and knife, but he still shoves a thick toothpick—where did he get that?—in the burger so it doesn’t collapse, and chews with impeccable restraint. Jason eats the same way Alfred would the one time he deigned to insult his pallet with a burger.

“How’d a rich kid like you get trafficked and then become Robin?”

Tim takes a big gulp of soda to swallow his stuffed mouth, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. Probably smearing grease all over his face by Jason’s horrified look.

“France was a family vacation. But my parents never stop being busy, so they went for a lunch meeting with some executives. Their food was poisoned. Could never figure out who was the target or if it was all of them. Janet died quickly. They flew Jack back here once he wasn’t critical because of private jet privilege.”

“That doesn’t explain how you were shipped from France to be sold.”

He shrugs. “No passport. No money. They expected to come back the same weekend. Took a month before I had any contact. And, well, Jack told me Janet was dead when he called me. That was it. No way to get home. I guess he was hoping I’d just never come back, and he could say I was lost while he was in the hospital. A pretty clean way to get rid of me. Then he could find a pretty young thing to knock up and make another heir.”

“Do you want me to kill you dad? Because I will. Gladly.”

“Nah, the poison got Jack eventually. Fun times. The funeral sucked and B really thought I’d sit Shiva for him instead of doing anything else.”

“Robin fits into this how?”

“Because B lost the plot when you, um, were unalived.” Jason snorts but waves Tim on to continue. “He got violent. Properly violent. He wasn’t trying to stop criminals and he wasn’t sending a message. He just wanted people to bleed. I stopped that before he became someone as bad as all the villains. Sat on the Batmobile and told him I’d be the next Robin. Guilt-tripped him by mentioning your name.”

“And he didn’t erase your memory?”

“He can do that!?”

“Fuck, kid, how do you think he’s managed so long? That he never made a mistake? No, I had to do a few memory wipes of my own.”

“That’s terrifying.”

“I hope you never find out about the Crisis Contingencies. And no, I am not going to tell you about them because I very much enjoy existence. Even I’m not dumb enough to fuck with those.”

“Right, so B just casually has a world-ender or two and you don’t want me to think about it. Fine. Cool. Why not?”

“Good. Now tell me why you think B doesn’t want you?”

“Because I’m not you. I’m a terrible Robin, you know. You and Dick defined what Robin should be to Gotham and I’m not that. I can’t be that. So, I get to wear this costume until B’s found a better kid to be Robin and then I’ll retire.”

“And he’s told you this? To your face?” Jason asks, his voice harsher than when he’d been trying to kill Tim.

“I mean, no, but it’s obvious. He didn’t choose me. I had to wear him down until he just stopped trying to get me to go out as Robin. Don’t get it wrong, B is objectively right for not wanting me on the streets. I’m half-trained at best and I have the emotional stability—”

“Of a suicidal lemming?” Jason offers, his expression doing something very strange.

“Well, no. Lemmings can’t conceptualise suicide like I can so that’s a stupid analogy. I have the emotional stability of a teen—”

“Toddler.”

“Teen vigilante being trained by Batman who came prepackaged with a whole slew of issues.”

“Metaphors aren’t meant to be literal. You know how they work, yes? It’s basic English.”

“The only reason I haven’t flunked out of English is because I hacked my grades.”

“I need a drink. I need a lot of drinks.”

“The fact that I can’t do the wordings is what gets to you.”

“Yes!”

Tim rolls his eyes, feeling a bitter pang at knowing this could have been the last three years. Arguing with Jason over nothing on the rooftops, learning from him. Maybe just knowing him would have been enough. If he was still a child, he might wish for things to have been different, but wishes died when he became a man.

“Still can’t convince you to be Robin again?”

“I’d rather die again.”

“Rude.”

“I’m a violent murderer who decapitates people. Rudeness is included in the package.”

“Explain the heads. Seriously, why the heads?”

“They’re the sort of criminals to buy a blonde French boy.”

Oh, well, that’s completely different from murdering complete randoms. He’d thought Bruce’s no-killing rule was completely inviolable, a certain way that things would always be done. But Jason is the real Robin, so if he says it’s fine, then it is. At least for monsters who buy boys for their pleasure.

“Say less.”

Jason doesn’t. Hood, he should say. He sits there for a while longer before vanishing from Tim’s senses. It feels different from how Batman does it, not a mirage vanishing in the night, but a gaping shadow swallowing him whole. Freaky as hell.

Tim munches on his nuggets.

It’s not the last time they meet.

*

The next time he sees Hood, two weeks have passed, and Alfred’s nearly forgiven him for hiding his injuries. Tim is working a drug case solo, the sort that involves human pack mules. That it leads into Crime Alley eventually isn’t a surprise. That Jason barges in partway through his interrogation of the last criminal is surprising.

He stares at Jason with his ridiculous Scorpion-knock-off mask and brandished guns in a bit of astonishment. Who the fuck just enters what might be a heavily armed drug den? That’s how you get killed—

Tim, sighs, understanding why there was a free Robin slot.

“Look what we have here, my favourite two-for-one deal: a lost little birdy and bricks of heroin.”

Tim throws a batarang. Jason deflects it with a pistol easily because of fucking course he can. Unlike Tim, he was trained.

“Please shut up. I’m having a caffeine withdrawal headache.”

“You’re chugging an energy drink.”

Tim looks down and remembers he has an energy drink in his hand. Shakes it and finds it empty. “I’m trying to get back to baseline.”

“Just how much caffeine do you drink?”

“Enough for my nervous system to get the attention it needs to focus on things. So about two thousand milligrams per day.”

“How have you not exploded?”

“Don’t tell Batman I’m a metahuman and my power is spite fuelled by caffeine.”

“You’re a bigger danger to yourself than anything I could do. Excuse me, I’m going to kill Batman for leaving another Robin to die.”

“Please don’t kill B. I don’t think Agent A can handle being my guardian… wait, I can get emancipated.”

“You’re six.”

“Fourteen.”

“You look six.”

“Turning fourteen,” he concedes. “I’m only two inches shorter than average."

“And how many pounds?”

“Unlike your magical bullshit or B’s copious steroid use—”

“He doesn’t take steroids.”

“Dude, you’ve seen Nightwing, yes? Nightwing doesn’t take steroids. Now look at B and tell me 300 pounds of muscle is natural to my face.”

“Three hundred pounds of muscle is natural.”

“Whatever. I’ll have an easier time convincing a judge I can take care of myself than convincing a dudebro that Batman’s physique is in no way natural.”

“I am not a jock, you philistine. Just for that, any judge you bribe, I’m going to kill.”

“Why are you ruining my life?”

“Because I don’t trust you not to expire if someone isn’t monitoring you constantly.”

“Excuse you, I basically raised myself.”

“Yeah, I’d give you an F. Congrats Timbo, you’re a failure at life and raising life.”

“No names in the field, asshole.”

Hood shrugs, poking at a brick of heroin, and bringing his finger to his mouth, tasting it. He frowns. “This is laced with fentanyl. Fucking shit bricks in my city.”

Jason shrugs. Aims his gun faster than Tim can react. Shoots the last criminal still conscious.

Blood splatters across the grimy floor as the corpse jerks out of the chair, landing at Tim’s feet. He takes a long moment to stare at the blood pooling at his feet before looking away and aggressively compartmentalising the sight.

“Why?”

“Three can keep a secret if two are dead.”

“Oh, I see, that works because you’re already dead.”

“No, that was a threat you dumb shit.”

“Then make good threats. I’m going to have to write a report on how I couldn’t save that guy because you’re an asshole. Hey, do you have any tranqs on you? I’d like to sleep possibly once this week and splattered brains aren’t great for that.”

He’s delightfully entertained by Jason’s guilty flinch. Tim doesn’t need tranqs. He’s quite indifferent to dead bodies ever since the fifteen dead children on Hannukah thing. He’s just very cruel and very petty.

“Why is my life filled with fucked up kids?”

“Have you looked in a mirror?”

“I died, Timbo, I get to be fucked up.”

“Fair enough even though I don’t think that gives you a monopoly on being fucked up. I mean, mailing heads to people still isn’t weirder than being a furry vigilante dating another furry vigilante with a leather fetish.”

“Never say that sentence again.”

“Okay,” he agrees easily. “How’d you come back from the dead?”

“Jesus fucking Christ, work up to asking me about my trauma.”

“You’ve taken me out like twice already. You’re supposed to put out by now.”

“Kid, don’t. You’re a fucking baby. Don’t ever make that joke again.”

Jack Drake’s voice echoes in his mind. A thousand things Tim should never have done. Shouldn’t have spent a moment too long looking at that boy from the choir. Shouldn’t have ruined his relationship with Jack with his words.

Too many shouldn’ts warring inside him.

“Sorry.”

And then he’s bolting out

*

“I was too angry to stay dead, so I came back,” Jason says the next time they meet.

It wasn’t planned. Tim’s defusing a bomb from a terrorist and Jason was stealing from some crime lord one floor below. Rent is so fucking expensive that even criminal enterprises have roommates. Well, building mates, but that’s basically the same thing in comparison.

“Can you tell me your tragic backstory when I’m not about to blow up?”

“Blue wire.”

Tim snips it without thought. They don’t blow up, so he considers that a win. “Okay, fine, tell me the tragic backstory.”

“That was it—shit, do not lift that pin any further if you want to live. Fuck, why is Batman making toddlers defuse bombs.”

“A violent crime lord is decapitating a lot of other criminals and mailing the heads.”

“That’s not an excuse,” the violent crime lord complains. “I haven’t even sent you a head in three whole days.”

“Is that because you haven’t had time to decapitate anyone?”

“You’re focusing on the wrong things, Timmy.”

“So, like, how angry do you have to be to tell Death to fuck right off?”

“Have your mother sell you to the Joker who beats you to death and you’ll find out.”

“My mother’s dead so I guess I won’t know.”

“I hate how that’s what you focus on. What the fuck is wrong with you?”

“Oh, mildly sociopathic tendencies, avoidant personality disorder, and some form of C-PTSD. The childhood abandonment and isolation didn’t help and the ongoing trauma from being shot at regularly have only made things worse.”

“If you know all of that, why aren’t you getting out?”

“What else would I do? This job is quite honestly the only thing that will allow me to handle my issues productively. And if not me, will you be Robin again?”

“Fuck that shit.”

“Then I’ll have to be Robin.” He snips the final wire, the red one. It’s always the red wire. Traditions, or something. “Batman’s made a plan to corner you tomorrow. Please don’t shoot me.”

“Eh, I’ll graze you.”

“I’d prefer that my childhood Robin doesn’t shoot me. My ongoing issues can’t really handle that.”

Stealing Joker venom is a nightmare with all of Bruce’s security systems. He’d prefer to not need to make an emergency dose. Remember to start manufacturing some.

“Fucking get some therapy.”

“And get benched? In this economy?”

“You don’t get paid. Robin doesn’t get paid.”

Tim raises a brow. “My allowance is enough to rent a penthouse in the nice parts of downtown. How exactly am I not paid? There might not be a legally binding contract and I can’t form a union, but I get paid very well.”

“You’re a trust fund baby.”

“No, I’m a baby of free market economics with a side of exploitation, government bribery, probably a secret society or two, and very unethical practices aimed at extracting maximum value for humans while treating them as close to slaves as is legally possible.” He pauses just long enough for Jason to process his rapid-fire stream of words. “And I’m a trust fund baby.”

“Have you considered that you might be the bad guy?”

“Unlike you, I wasn’t adopted by the billionaire so you’re like a thousand times the bad guy.”

“Your language is atrocious.”

“Al thinks so too which is so lame. Get with the times. My gen speaks like this.”

“We’re the same fucking generation, you twat.”

“Whatever you say, millennial.”

*

Jason doesn’t shoot him the next day, thankfully. Kicks him out of the building but the big trash bin he lands in is filled with soft materials, so it barely hurts. Stinks, but that’s just normal Gotham.

Tim closes his eyes and takes a nap unworried. When Batman fights his rogues, you get the fuck away if you want to make it through the night. No one will dare come close.

He wakes up to find himself on Batman’s back. Batman carries him like a child, hands under his hips to stabilise him, Tim’s limp arms around his neck. He smiles against Batman’s suit, knowing he won’t feel it through the polymer armour.

“Did you have a comfy nap?”

It was probably the change in his breathing that gave him away.

“Yes.”

“No sleeping on the job. You have a bed. I spent lots of money on it.”

“The floor’s comfier.”

“Commissioner Gordon might steal you away if he thinks I’m not taking care of you.”

“For what? Child endangerment? He’d probably get arrested as well for watching it happen for years and doing nothing.”

“Better late than never in those cases.”

“Did you beat Hood?” A grunt. “Hm, so it was a draw, and he ran away?” Another grunt. “Well, at least you’re not injured. Agent A won’t be super duper angry with you.”

“I wish you didn’t use atrocious speech patterns for petty amusement.”

“You could beat it out of me and give the Commissioner a reason to take me away.”

“You’re terrible and I regret every moment of our partnership.”

Tim chuckles, tucking his chin over Bruce’s shoulder. One day, he’ll be too big to be carried like this.

One day.

*

Jason looks like shit when he stumbles into Tim’s booth at Bat Burger. It’s just Jason this time. No sign of Hood’s weapons or armour. There’s probably a knife hidden in Jason’s crocs, but the sweatshirt and vest aren’t going to save him from a pebble, let alone a knife.

It’s the most vulnerable Tim has ever seen him. Hair dishevelled, a dark bruise around his chin, and deep bags under his bloodshot eyes accentuated by the flickering fluorescent lighting.

“You look worse than B.”

“Fuck off, Timbits.”

“I’ll have to get Canadian citizenship if you keep calling me that.”

“Don’t you rich folks have like a dozen passports?”

“I only have citizenship in America and Monaco. My Russian citizenship was lost after a few public comments about the metahuman gulags. Well fuck them, they’re not getting anything Drake Industries makes when I’m sixteen and I can finally oust the rest of the board.”

“Sounds like a lot of market share to lose.”

“Eh, it’s worth it. The Board is filled with amoral monsters who deserve a guillotine. I’m blackmailing the shit out of them right now but I’m throwing a party the day I get them all sent to prison.!

“Eat the rich and all that jazz.”

“Ew, no. They taste disgusting. Just throw em in a mass grave and forget about them.”

“Including you?”

“Yes, especially me. I’m not a hypocrite, Mister I-was-adopted-by-a-billionaire-before-I-died.”

“So were you.”

“No, I wasn’t. B’s my ward and that’s it.”

“I think you have that the wrong way round.”

“Does B parent his kids or do his kids parent him?”

“Are we the egg or the chicken in this?”

“Yes.”

Alfred is going to be so upset when he sees Tim’s double cheeseburger with a side of twenty nuggets and a giant soda. He’d be even more upset to see Tim dissolve a few caffeine pills in the drink.

“That’s gonna kill you,” Jason says, pointing with an onion ring at the drink.

“If I die from energy drinks then I’ll be doing something right.”

“Is B killing the Joker?”

It astounds him that they’ve reached a point where they can talk about it so easily. Tim will take it if it means no more invading his safehouses or mailing decapitated heads. They’re such a nuisance to clean.

“I mean, you could just let him get arrested in a state with the death penalty. Like, I really don’t get why it needs to be B who does it. You know he doesn’t kill and it’s not like it would bring you back. Why let Joker win twice? The first time was on him, definitely,” he adds hastily because Jason’s eyes are painfully green, “but giving Joker a free win? Nah, that’s just bad decision-making.”

“I’m not forgiving him.”

“Then don’t. Just don’t expect an apology as well. B can’t do that.”

“I’ve definitely seen him apologise to Alf.”

“Gee willikers, I wonder what event could have completely calcified his emotional responses and left him in such a violent rampage—”

“I fucking get it. He’s an idiot who won’t do the smart thing that will save the most lives and he won’t do the stupid thing that’ll get me personal justice.”

“Pretty much. Dick says Bruce is like the smartest idiot you’ll ever meet. He doesn’t ever do what he’s supposed to.”

“He probably shouldn’t have made child soldiers.”

“Well, if he wasn’t supposed to make child soldiers then I wouldn’t have met you so no, you’re wrong.”

“You’re fucking weird.”

“Yup.”

Even stained in blood and revenge, Jason still smiles as Robin should. It’s bright and bold, carrying magical warmth and forcing Tim to sit up. Looking at that smile, Tim finds himself believing that everything will be alright.

Jason’s smile freezes on his face.

“Hello, Jason,” Bruce fucking Wayne says in the blandest way possible. “I believe you had a lot to say about me.”

“Well shit,” they say together.

Chapter Text

The sunlight streaming into the greenhouse is comforting. It has seeped into his favourite patch of floor and his back absorbs that warmth greedily. The greenhouse is a home away from home for Bart when life with Jay was too confining, Keystone City is all too limiting, and he wants some time alone.

Tim made it specifically for Bart to have all the fruits he could ever want with seeds for just about everything. Vaults of fruits in stasis to tide him over when he can’t wait the days it would take to sate his cravings.

They all have spaces like that. The theatre for Kon with every movie known to mankind and the sunroom for Cassie that gets light all year. Tim does appreciate the irony of the Kryptonian enjoying the darkest room in the base.

Tim’s favourite space is wherever he can nap uninterrupted.

“I am in so much shit back home,” Tim moans dramatically, arm thrown over his face.

He’d been sleeping on the floor, awoken by Bart stacking mandarin peels on his face. They’re strewn all around him, citrus clogging his nostrils. A peel hits him on the lips.

“How’d you get in trouble? Batman thinks you hung the sun in the sky for him.”

“Red Hood is old Robin and I found out and I didn’t tell Batman. For a month. And then ran from home.”

“Even I think that was a bad idea,” Bart says, stumped. A stilted pause. “Wow, I just thought this through for an hour and that is objectively a terrible decision.”

“I know. I’m so dead. I had to send all my trackers across the globe just to hide for a bit. Hopefully, he’s checking France right now.”

A whoosh, just long enough for Tim to flinch, and then Bart is back. “Yup. He may have seen me but unless he’s getting a ride from the Flash, you’re good for a few hours. And don’t worry, I’ll hide you somewhere else.”

Tim groans. “I’m so dead. Make sure to bury me shallow because apparently Robin never stays dead.”

“Morbid. Should you even be telling me this?”

“I’m already dead so what does it matter?”

“You could be dead in more painful ways.”

“Cassie would fight for me. She’d save me, right? Right? Where is she anyway?”

“Good question. Give me a sec.”

One second turns into four minutes which in Bart-time is four days. Tim is so worried that he’s up and pacing, wringing his hands together. He’s going to give it another minute before he mobilises every hero he can get his hands on. He is not going to be responsible for Bart dying if he could have prevented it.

The communicator vanishes from his hand before he can press the emergency button.

“Let’s not do that.” Bart, leaning heavily against a counter. Blood on his costume. Blood on the floor. “So, good news, Cassie is involved in a Deathmatch against Ares and is owning him. The bad news is that Olympians are like Deadshot fast and now I've got an arrow in my fake knee.” Between blinks, Tim finds Bart holding a bloody arrow in his hands. “Correction, I had an arrow in my fake knee.”

“You were very close to getting sued for copyright.”

Another blur and the room is squeaky clean. Worrying over Bart is an exercise in futility. He could take a shotgun to the knee and be fine before you knew it. Has taken a shotgun to the knee. He didn’t need to let Tim see the blood, but he did because Tim would have worried otherwise.

“Copyright lawyers are scarier than an army of pissed-off Amazons.”

“Maybe some of them should start a law firm.”

“No, bad Tim. No evil plots for world domination. Don’t give the universe ideas to make things worse.”

“Gar would be happy to be thrown out by Amazons.”

“Ew.” Bart shudders for effect, startling a laugh out of Tim. “He’s like the exact opposite of us.”

“Us?”

Bart pauses, visibly, for Tim’s benefit. “You’re joking, right? Oh, my fucking god, you’re not.”

“Joking about what?”

“I can’t believe I know something you don’t. No one’s ever going to believe this. I don’t believe this. You’ll find out one day? Probably. Maybe when you’re older.”

“I’m older than you.”

“Yeah, well I have 30th Century egalitarian principles helping me out here. You people are so backwards about things. Um, tell Spoiler I say hi and that she deserves a gold statue for managing you.”

“Bart, I love you man, but you’re being confusing on purpose.”

“I could not have been more obvious. I felt sorry for Kon already but he’s going to be suffering.” Bart claps his hands, Tim’s only warning before they’re on the roof’s skate ramp. “I did a quick check and Batman is just booked first class back to Gotham.”

He rolls his eyes, but he accepts the very abrupt subject change with grace.

“That’s bait. He took his jet with him in the first place. Killing the planet just to wring my neck. What a terrible hero.”

“I’m pretty sure he’s smart enough to fix complete environmental collapse if he tried hard enough. You think he’s smart, so he has to be actually smart. Like smarter than Lex Luthor and Brainiac since you think they’re dumb.”

“Oh, they objectively have a higher IQ than Batman. Much higher. It’s just that their schemes are dumb because they have obsessions and the emotional control of a toddler with shit impulse control…”

Tim glances at Impulse from the corner of his eye. His friend is still swinging his legs, still whistling an off-key tune, but Tim can recognise all the lines of tension in his body. The harsh thumb of his heel against concrete. The throbbing vein in his neck. The clipped nature of each whistle. The wind steals away his first attempt at an apology.

“Sorry. I didn’t mean it like that.”

“It kinda sucks man. I didn’t choose this name and I’m stuck with it. Kid Flash was so much better but no, Speed Force shenanigans took that from me. I’m sick and tired of everyone treating me like I’m an impulsive idiot.”

“I don’t think that. It's what you make of it. If you let Impulse mean klutz and failure, then that's what it will be. If you want it to mean something better, then you have to put in the work to change its meaning. And I believe you can.”

“That’s nice and all, but you don’t count.”

“Why?”

“Because you’re like mythical. Biblical. You just forgive everyone and love us all way too much. Sometimes I hate that about you,” Bart admits, shame lacing his voice. “You give us all these chances to disappoint you, and we do, and then you still help us.”

“That’s what friends do.”

He would be a hypocrite not to when he’s lied to Batman since the day they met, and disappointed everyone around him. They have given him so many chances and they keep giving him chances no matter how angry or petty or cruel he is.

Even Jason gave him a chance and Tim was ready to die if it meant he could come back.

“You literally never ask us for help and then work yourself to death trying to help us. Look at this place.” A tiny pause, a disorientating lurch, and they’re back in the greenhouse. “You made this just for me and there isn’t anything I’ve done that comes close.”

“I never asked for anything.”

“No, you never do. That’s the problem. You never want our help.” Bart stares him in the eye. Tim stares at the smattering of freckles along his cheekbone in turn. “Don’t you trust us?”

“I do.”

“It doesn’t feel like it sometimes. A lot of the time. You talk all the time, but you never tell us anything. Trusting you with my life is as easy as breathing, but you’ve never trusted me with any part of you.”

Honesty doesn’t come easy to Tim. Not when he had to lie to his genetic donors every moment he spent with them. Not when the lies he’s weaved to protect himself are so tightly wound around his heart, constricting it every time a truth threatens to come to light.

He’s more like Bruce than he realised. Quiet with his feelings and silent with the truth around those who matter most to him. He ran from home because he kept Jason from Bruce, kept father from son because some part of him felt his claim to Robin the Second was stronger.

“I didn't choose Robin,” he admits slowly hating how dry his throat feels, hating how even Bart’s freckles hurt to look at. “Not like how everyone thinks. Batman needed someone to fill a role. Gotham needed it. I’m not Robin because I want to be a hero. I’m Robin because there was no one else. Everyone knows it. Gotham doesn’t want me as Robin. They want the fun Robin or the cool Robin. Not me. I was just expected to be a clone of them, and I failed immediately. I'm not them and it was stupid to try. I can’t be them. I’ll never be that good no matter how hard I try. I don’t know how to stop trying to be perfect for people.”

“Including us.”

Tim nods, finally letting himself look away, hand rising to his chest to check for blood. Odd that his shirt isn’t soaked red any with how gutted he feels.

“Including you,” he agrees.

“I’m sorry.”

“For what?”

“For thinking you had to be perfect for us to accept you. How long were you keeping that in?”

“Maybe my whole life.”

“You never told any of us.”

“I never wanted to say it to myself.”

Bart’s hugs are crushing, always have been. Most of the people he loves the most could break him in half with barely a thought. He’s never thought they would. Not for a single second. Tim leans down, relaxing when he feels a hand on his neck.

“I want you as Robin. I don’t care about Nightwing or Red-gonna-decapitate-you-Hood. You’re my Robin. Ours. Me and Kon and Cassie. And even if you stop being Robin, you’re not getting away from us.”

“Thanks for the hug.”

“Yeah, I’m telling everyone you need like all the hugs. Like, you’re way more fucked up than I thought. Want a dragonfruit?”

“I’m not eating your weird alien egg fruit.”

*

*

*

Tim returns to Wayne Manor to find Jason and Bruce in a screaming match. The fact that Jason is screaming doesn’t surprise him since Jason is a mass of volatile emotions on a normal day. It’s the fact that Bruce is shouting just as loudly.

If the broken cabinets, shattered glass and bruises are any indications, this is the deescalated version of the fight. Tim edges around the periphery as Jason screams about being replaced and Bruce screams about his son being a murderer.

The fighting doesn’t stop. Not that day and not for the next four. Tim huddles behind Alfred who is a bastion of calm, his aura of not my damned responsibility these two fools can’t speak politely somehow means the thrown glasses and chairs swerve around him.

Tim stays glued to Alfred as much as he can, making himself smaller than his five foot five. And maybe he grabs onto Alfred’s coattails with shaky hands that one time Jason draws blood with a violent punch, but it’s normal when your lord and messiah are trying to murder one another. Alfred gracefully takes him to his sewing room and teaches him to crotchet. It is strangely impossible with his stiff fingers that aren’t moving right.

It helps. Certainly, it helps more than Alfred telling the two idiots to stay away from his kitchen in a frigid voice when they have a knife fight. Both Jason and Bruce have scratches, and Alfred’s favourite carving knife is bent out of shape.

Alfred’s weathered hand rests heavily on his head as he glares at the two. Tim steals a glance, sees the flash of annoyance on B’s face, and immediately looks away. It takes Alfred snapping his fingers before the two leave.

There is silence for all of two minutes. Then, a crash as someone is thrown into a wall. Tim flinches. Alfred sighs, pulling him closer, an almost hug.

“I am certainly not going to clean any of this,” Alfred says when Tim asks, sipping his tea calmly even as they spy B falling out of a window.

“Is the clean-up going to be a bonding exercise?”

There’s Jason following after. He has a wooden chair leg raised as a club and barely misses Bruce’s head. The leg shatters. Bruce kicks Jason off him and then the fight continues.

Tim turns away from that window. No. Focus on the coffee—coffee!—that Alfred made. Alfred never makes him coffee.

“Oh no, I merely see an opportunity to take a paid leave of absence. This Manor will be sparkling by the time they are done. For now, I plan on doing nothing to assist them in living. If they choose to starve to death from fighting then that is on them.”

“And me?”

“I do quite enjoy your continued existence.” Alfred gives him a sunny smile. “How would you like breakfast for lunch?”

“I’d like that.”

Alfred makes him a full English breakfast for late brunch and the two of them eat together while the two idiots fighting continue their fight in the gardens. Which is great because if they’re far away it means the violence isn’t in his home, just near it. Tim can deal with violence in the streets and death anywhere in Gotham, but a raised voice in a place he calls home sends him into a panic bad enough that after barely picking at his food, Tim excuses himself to puke it out.

One day becomes another, the fighting ceaseless. Tim holes up in his room, uses his best noise-cancelling headphones, and plays Random Access Memory on max volume. His eardrums rupturing is preferable to listening to the doors slamming or the screaming or fists on flesh. Fuck, he misses being able to keep a meal down.

He officially decides something needs to be done when Bruce picks up a glass pitcher and throws it at Jason. It sails across the room, Jason ducking it easily, and comes to crash next to Tim’s head.

Tim goes perfectly still. He sees Jack in that moment, remembers every time he threw a bottle and mocked Tim when he cried at his cuts. Jack at his drunkest and most violent. Batman should never be like that.

He’s running out, ears ringing and eyes burning. Maybe someone calls after him. Maybe they don’t even notice, so confused by their stupidly needless fight that only hurts the people around them. Whatever the case, Tim won’t do this. He won’t put up with another day of this. He’d rather die than watch Batman become that bloodstained man who filled the hospitals and hurt people because he enjoyed it.

Bruce needs to be better than that. He’s their exemplar and his commandments are the reason Gotham emerged from the absolute depravity that infected it. If Batman breaks his code, then Tim’s efforts to be the opposite of what his parents would make of him will be for nothing.

So, he’ll force them to set aside their issues and work together. He just has to put himself in danger and pray Jason’s guilt complex is real and not a manipulation.

On the day Jack died, between his father’s last breath and Nightwing taking him to his new home, an invitation had been left beside him by a Talon that Tim had pretended not to notice.

An invitation to the Court of Owls.

Nearly a year has gone by since he received it. No directions or instructions were given. Anyone who could not find the Court enclave would have been too stupid to contribute anyway. Tim has investigated it in his vanishingly short spare time.

Now is as good a time as any to join them. Tim promised to destroy them. If he can accomplish many other goals at the same time, then all the better. Tim likes being efficient. Perhaps it is a trait his mother gave him, but he’ll make use of it for good.

Staging a kidnapping from his favourite safehouse is easy enough. Some blood here and there from the bags he has in storage. Destroy the careful order that only someone of Tim’s intellect could understand. Damage some of his favourite sneakers and stab a monitor with a disposable knife he picks up from a criminal. A few artful gunshots here and there, and the tattered ruins of his Robin costume complete the image.

Oh, and dispose of his subdermal tracker. He can’t believe Alfred actually put one in him. Really, how did the man find the time to implant it? Only Jason should know about that safe house so that should provide him a few days to operate freely before they start panicking. As long as his trackers are in Gotham, Batman tends to leave him alone. It’ll only be when he misses mandatory check-ins that the panic will start.

Tim uses an underground path to the Court.

Beneath Drake mansion is a crypt leading to a series of tunnels. Tim had explored them as a child and left many of the rooms well enough alone, rightfully afraid of the strange symbols and artefacts that hurt his head to look at. Older now, Tim knows how to set explosive charges and has stores of napalm—thank you, Uncle Sam—to destroy the room he’s pretty sure has a demon trapped inside.

The tunnel turns from rough-hewn stone to polished concrete before spilling out into a larger annexe. A dozen other paths converge here, too many to fit in the spatial dimensions Tim is perceiving. A great working of magic. Appropriate for an ancient cult.

Eventually, oppressive darkness gives way to weak candlelight. He spies orange LED strips running along the sides of the wide foyer, dark wood inlaid with embossed red wallpaper and cool accents that clash horribly in a way only New Money would think is good.

A man waits for him dressed in a simple suit with excellent shoes. Tim can’t recognise the brand, so they are a custom job. Classy and understated black leather wingtips.

Behind him is a Talon bristling with enough weaponry to make Jason blush.

“Do you know who I am?” the man asks politely.

“Mister Judge.” Tim inclines his head. “Your role is your name. I believe you wanted to train me as one of the fellows behind you.”

“I did. Neither your father nor your grandparents had impressed the Court. Your mother would have been preferable, but she made no secret that she considered us a curiosity at best.” Tim fights to restrain his proud smirk. “You showed promise as a Talon. Had your intelligence been lacking, we would have made you one.”

“And why didn’t you?”

“You were smart enough to outmanoeuvre your father and take control of the company at a young age. It was quite exhilarating to work backwards through your schemes and witness your ruthlessness firsthand. Some of the punishments you’ve inflicted upon those who disobeyed you made even me shudder.”

He’s going to have strong words with Over-Caffeinated Tim later. That guy’s a villain who needs to be stopped.

Moderately Caffeinated Tim says, “Thank you.”

“You have come to take your place, yes. Come.”

Tim follows sedately, his steps silent, as Mister Judge leads him to the room the court convenes. He pauses only once to hand Tim a porcelain mask painted in silver licks of flame shaped vaguely to resemble claws. Dragon’s fire and dragon’s claws for a family of dragons. How endearingly obvious.

The court convenes in a space similar to a grand lecture hall with seating wrapping around the oval space, all of it overlooking the central stage. Tim catalogues the number of them, cataloguing empty spaces, and marking out escape routes. There are assassins clinging to the ceiling, their dark grey uniforms blending into the gloom. They are made more difficult to see by the floodlight focused on Tim as he stands one step behind Mister Judge.

“Welcome, one and all, to another meeting of the Court. We begin today with a claimant for the Drake seat.”

Mister Judge bows to the Court and then to Tim. With exacting steps that echo in the chamber, he exits stage right.

“I have come for what is owed to my family,” Tim says haughtily, arrogance dripping from every word. “My seat at this Parliament.”

“I don’t remember us accepting toddlers.”

Tim doesn’t glance over to the left where the woman’s voice came from. He can’t see her well even with his polarised contact lenses.

“Drake Industries is under my control. What did you do to earn your seat? Did you remove those who would control you and your wealth? My Board of Directors is controlled by me. Every position of importance was filled by people I can control. Look at me again and call me a child, Mrs Clairwood. I dare you.”

“How do you—”

“Your nasal tones are very distinct. By the way, I’ve shorted your company to the ground since I came here. I’ll let you remain as CEO under my new management.” He looks away from her spot, sweeping his eyes over the deathly quiet Court. “Are there any other inane questions that need to be asked? No? Good.”

Tim claps his hand once, the sound causing a flinch in the audience. He ascends to the Parliament of the Court of Owls and claims the seat of the Drake Family. A scion of old Gotham wealth returned to his seat of power, claimed by ruthlessness and cruelty. It sounds prophetic. Maybe there is a prophecy for it.

Tim hesitates only a moment before sitting, taking up his best slouch of villainy. The kind of pose comic book artists dream of drawing. It exudes such complete disinterest that it both draws the eye and makes the weak look away in fear.

He hates how easily he fits into the seat and finds himself at home here. He can see the webs of power and influence that would be so easy to wrap around his fingers to puppet. This could be his throne room if he wished it and these could be his peers—no, not peers, but peerage; the lie of equality granted to weaker masses that overreach their station.

Tim lets them prattle for hours that drag forever, interjecting only when his patience is worn thin. These people are idiots. No, don’t try to take over the League when Ra’s will happily accept any contract and he wouldn’t dare harm Gothamites as the city is under Batman’s protection. The politicians in Bludhaven are hopelessly corrupt but they’re incompetent and honestly should be replaced with someone who can make the city wealthier and thereby make any slice of wealth much larger in turn.

Sure, Tim is more than fine with using his inroads at Wayne Industries to support some ventures. That was the entire reason he chose Bruce Wayne with his predilection for boys with blue eyes. It sickens him to say that lie but that sickness is consumed by rage at how they accept that lie as though Bruce is like them, a base beast with no restraint.

This was the group Jack so desperately wanted approval from? These fools who survive only because someone smarter directs their every action?

His estimation of Jack Drake lowers even as his respect for Janet rises. She was smart enough to see the folly in this venture but loved Jack enough to provide him with an heir for the seat he so desired.

It got her killed. Love, the downfall of someone who loved only three people. Tim, in time, became one of them.

Would she have encouraged him to control the Court or destroy it? Or would she have been happy no matter what choice he made? Janet was strange like that. Her love came with many conditions and for Tim, the most important was that he be a brilliant star no matter what path he chose.

Tim would vomit if he had anything in his stomach. Nothing he does will ever truly escape their influence. He is a product of their conditioning and it runs so deep that even seeing the chains doesn’t set him free. As it is, he merely suggests that the Talons assault Richard Grayson in Bludhaven and pave the path for Tim’s ascendancy as heir to Wayne Industries. Give it another decade and Bruce Wayne can die in an unfortunate skiing accident. Billions will be under Court control if they merely accept Tim’s plan.

He isn’t surprised when he’s kidnapped right after the meeting and taken further underground, the veneer of enlightenment fading away to reveal grungy brickwork and dusty rooms. He is led to what was likely a cell and now serves as a medical clean room. No, it was an old operating theatre.

Mister Judge sits on a simple chair beside the gurney they restrained Tim upon.

“Unfortunately, Mister Drake, the Court finds your independence far too disruptive for you to remain in your seat.”

“I thought you enjoyed my ruthless nature.”

“Your mistake was in making it too obvious that you would never be bound by Court rule. Harming a fellow member on your first outing is gauche to the extreme and your self-serving plans were unsubtle at best. You certainly are brilliant, but wisdom has yet to temper your youthful exuberance. So, I offer you this choice. Become a Talon and retain control of your family legacy or suffer a slow death.”

“That’s not much of a choice.”

“I suppose that choice was not made in good faith. Write your will with Lady Clairwood as executor and we will grant you the mercy of a quick death. I believe that is a broad spectrum of choices.”

“Really? Death of personality, slow death, and quick death are the options and they all sound pretty similar to me.”

“Worry not, we are merciful. If at any time you wish to choose a different option, merely say so.” Mister Judge snaps his finger and the Talon melts from the darkness. “Have you ever had an organ removed?”

The Talon takes a scalpel.

Tim screams.

*

How long has it been?

Tim lost track sometime between the third and fourth torture sessions. The third had been terrible mostly because his blood caffeine level had approached zero and that just made him infinitely more aware of every sensation on his nerves. It also gave him seizures but that was a good thing because they stopped the torture for a little bit.

Which, yay, but honestly could they at least have given him some coffee with the waterboarding? That just seems like good torture etiquette. Tim is going to find the guy who trained these idiots and ruin their lives because Uncaffeinated Tim is Tim halfway through his villain arc, the part where he takes great pleasure in petty cruelty.

His favourite part of the torture was the sleep deprivation phase. Idiots. He’s a zoomer. Sleep deprivation is the only thing his generation knows. Well, there’s depression but that might be the cause of the sleep deprivation so they’re basically the same thing.

Oh hey, that’s the jar with his spleen in it. Tim stares at it for a long moment, feeling something overwhelming that he desperately tries to kill. No. Compartmentalise that away and lock it with the rest of the trauma. What’s a bit of torture compared to being violently beaten by a villain? Or getting trafficked? Or all the other shit Tim’s lived through, day in and day out.

The door opens violent, harsh light blinding him. Finally. It’s been forever since his last human contact even if that contact was with a torturer. 

It turns out to be Mister Judge in a rumpled and stained suit, screams coming from the hallway he just left. His expression is livid, spectacularly so. His composure utterly shattered; the pretence of control destroyed. This is Tim’s favourite part of fighting villains. They never know how to adapt to their convoluted plan being ruined.

“You little shit,” Mister Judge hisses, looming over Tim. “Who the fuck are you?”

“Tim Drake.” That earns him a punch. “Tim Jackson Drake.” Blood gushes from his nose after that punch. “What was the question again?”

Maybe not smart to provoke him, but this guy doesn’t punch as hard as most gang enforcers Tim has dealt with let alone a metahuman. Jason’s glancing blows hurt more than this. Sure, he’s going to be purple for a month but that’s just a risk he’d known going in.

“Why are the Bats here? Tell me now and I’ll give you a quick death.”

“You don’t know Bruce Wayne is Batman and I’m Robin,” he says in mock shock, biting down on his pain. “My, how incompetent you are.”

Mister Judge wraps his arms around his neck and starts choking. Tim’s throat burns and he bucks against his restraints futilely. Fuzzy spots in his vision then darkness encroaching around the edges. Utterly helpless.

“I’m going to—”

Bang.

Mister Judge’s body snaps to the side violently in a shower of blood and viscera that lands on Tim. He gags because oh ew that’s brain matter in his nostril and fucking cartilage on his tongue. Tim spits it out desperately just as his saviour comes into view.

Clad in the brown leather raiment of his station, the Red Hood appears flooded in light. He carries the holy vessels of his office, the sacred pair of Colt 1911 firing blesser rounds, cleansing the world with each drop of blood spilt. Tim will never say it, but he’s pretty firmly accepted Jason as his personal Messiah. Batman can be the lord, Hashem, and Jason his Messiah. At some point, he’ll need to figure out how Richard fits into this but that’s a problem for recovered Tim.

Maybe a prophet? The Dick Prophet. 

Jason quickly slices through the leather restraints which is good because Tim needs to violently wretch out the nasty stuff in his mouth. It’s bile mixed with brain matter. Fucking vile stuff.

“Heyo,” he gasps out.

“Fuck off,” Jason growls, his voice distorted by the mask. “What the shit is wrong with you? How the fuck did you get kidnapped?”

Tim doesn’t answer and makes grabby motions to the water bucket nearby. Hood brings it over. Tim takes a desperate gulp, gargles his mouth, and spits watery and bloody vomit on the floor. A few more times and Tim feels slightly less than completely disgusting. 

“You know, I think this is what they used for the waterboarding session. Great fucking time.”

He’s rewarded by Jason’s flinch. “Just stop talking. For my own sanity.”

“What about warning you about the guys behind you?”

Hood raises his 1911 and fires without looking. Bang, bang, bang. Three shots, all centre of mass. Impressive for someone who isn’t Slade Wilson or lacks precognition like Ravager.

“That’s an exception. Can you walk?”

“I’d prefer not to.”

Jason sighs before throwing Tim over his shoulders like a sack of mouldy potatoes. Tim muffles a scream by biting his lip bloody. Apparently, he’s got some cracked ribs. That might have happened during the boring beating session.

He feels Jason’s wince through his leather armour. “Sorry.”

“I’m fine.”

“You’re not but okay. Do you know how much trouble you caused me? B came to me thinking I’d kidnapped you for real this time.”

“Oh, that’s good. I thought I’d be dead before the plan worked.”

Hood tilts his head and Tim gets to see a glimpse of his intellect as he works through that.

“You willingly walked into the den of an ancient conspiracy running Gotham to force me and B to work together,” Jason says without emotion.

“Honestly, the shouting at the manor was getting a bit much. You two were destroying my relatively stable home environment and making it actively hostile. I really was getting paranoid that Bruce would hit me because that’s what I associate with loudness at home.”

“You aren’t objectively the most fucked up kid I know—”

“Thank you.”

“But you are verging ominously close to it. I thought you were dead. Another Robin dead. Because of me this time.”

Tim frowns, ignoring how it pulls on his bruises. And here I thought that was your plan when you tried to kill me the first time, he thinks but doesn’t say. Tim can be graceful and forgiving.

“How would it be your fault? You didn’t aid them, and you didn’t tell me to come here.”

“How are you like this? You’ve never died. Your mother isn’t an assassin. You don’t get to be this absurd.”

“I like being this absurd. I’d be a nervous wreck otherwise.”

Jason’s inarticulate scream of rage is a glorious thing. Tim gives him his time and doesn’t even chastise him when he shoots an idiot who tries to take advantage of his distraction.

“Where’s B?”

Jason takes a steadying breath.

“The Bat squad is violently dismantling what’s left of the Court. The bits that didn’t commit ritual suicide at least. Do you have any idea how angry Nightwing is? If there’s so much another Owl in the world, he’s going to hunt them down.”

“Oh, that’s sweet.”

“Sweet? There is nothing sweet about an angry Nightwing.”

“Yo! Even Jesus gets angry.”

“Dickhole is not Jesus.”

“His second coming?”

“Stop worshipping the golden child. His ego is big enough.”

“Fine, fine, fine. You’re my favourite Robin anyway, my dear patron saint of decapitated heads.”

“You’re not mine and you’re Jewish. You don’t believe in fucking saints.”

“Let me joke through the pain, bro.”

“Jesus fucking Christ, I’m sorry.”

Tim smirks. Jason’s such a softie once you get past all the decapitated heads. Tim can very easily see him as an English major wearing a tweed jacket as he murders the violent infidels who can’t tell the difference between defiantly and definitely.

“So, my plan worked, right? You and B getting along.”

“I told B I’d kill him if you were dead so sure, it worked. I am officially not killing B for this specific reason.”

“Aw, you do care and my plan worked since B trusted you with me. See, I’m brilliant.”

Jason sets him in the passenger seat of the very boring Honda Civic. It’s not beige which is code for ‘drug car’ in Gotham, but the salt-rusted white is genuinely insulting to Tim’s eyes.

“By the way—”

“Don’t you fucking dare say anything. No. I’ve had enough of this shit. I would rather die than hear what you’re about to say.”

Tim smiles. “I may have lost my spleen.”

Jason slams his head on the steering wheel.

“Fuck!”

At least the honking drowns out the swearing. It’s honestly quite impressive how long it’s going on.

“I would really appreciate some antibiotics right about now before I get a fever. I hear those are bad when you don’t have a spleen.”

“I should have stayed dead. I choose death.”

“Maybe Hell accepts refunds.”

Tim is fast asleep before Jason finishes cursing the world out.

*

*

*

Tim dozes fitfully only to awaken when Nightwing chokes him with a hug. Tim taps his arm frantically and gulps down as much as he can when Nightwing frees him. Then he’s being helped onto an examination table even though he’s fine besides the face.

“Tim-Tam-Timmy-Tammy, you’re grounded forever.”

“You’re not my dad,” he grumbles as Nightwing cleans the wounds on his face. They’re in the Cave’s medical bay, Batman running his blood through a series of tests. The usual battery to check for poisons, exotic poisons, nanomachines, and a whole host of mind-control techniques.

In the background, he sees Spoiler needling Jason. No, that’s a serious argument. The way Steph’s stance is firmed with her hands clenched, ready to strike, speaks to her willingness to inflict violence. Jason’s stance is looser, as close to placating as he gets.

Antiseptic spray forces a hiss out of him. Richard mumbles an apology. Tim would accept it if the bastard didn’t take that opportunity to snap his nose back in place.

“What’s up with the burns? Electrical?”

“Cattle prod,” he confirms.

Dick nods wearily, rummaging for a bottle of salve. He grabs the variant they have for minor burns and rubs it on the spots on Tim’s torso and shoulders that suffered the worst. It is cool relief compared to the antiseptic. That done, he prods at his torso, eliciting hisses from Tim.

“Three cracked ribs at least.” Dick is gentle as he wraps Tim’s torso in bandages.

“What’s up with them?” he asks, nodding over Dick’s shoulder.

Fick looks back to see Steph standing right in Jason’s space, all one-hundred soaking wet pounds of anger against a titan of a man and Batman analysing (read: cowering) in the corner. He sighs and claps his hands once.

“Enough. Both of you hit the showers and head to bed. You can continue this tomorrow.”

“Fuck you Dickhole, you’re not…”

Whatever expression is on Richard’s face has Jason falling silent. He curses Nightwing to high heaven even as he retreats, Steph heading to the changing rooms as well.

If there was ever proof that Richard Grayson was made from impossibility and starstuff, then this is it. A clap, a few words, and a glare have done what even Batman gave up on. Getting Steph to behave is harder than a meteorologist getting the weather right. Asking Jason to back down is like asking Superman to be an asshole. Pretty much impossible but now Tim fully expects Superman to dabble in some racism and antisemitism tomorrow.

“Alright, bud, you know that if you ever need some backup, you can just give me a call, right?” Tim nods cautiously. “This also extends to Bruce failing to communicate with his children in a healthy manner because God forbid, he has anything besides silence and violence.” Batman grumbles something. “What was that? Apologising for fighting with one son for a week and ignoring the other? Speak up would you.” Batman stays silent. “Good.”

“How are you even real?” Tim asks in awe.

Richard’s wink is filled with warmth. “Pay a bit more attention to Alfred.”

“Where is he anyway?”

“Sedated. He hasn’t been in a good way since you went missing.”

He ducks his head, avoiding the painful compassion of Richard’s gaze. “Sorry.”

“You’ll have to apologise to him as well. Unlike B, Robin has to be accountable to those around him. We might fly solo sometimes, but we have a nest to roost. Burning it down out of spite helps no one.”

“This wasn’t about spite.”

“Wasn’t it?”

Nightwing takes Tim’s small hands in his own. They’re nothing like Bruce’s. His were the strength to crush heads. Nightwing’s strength is in all the hearts he can hold in his hands and tend to so carefully.

“I can be around more if things with you and B aren’t working well. That’s not on you. Robin and Batman might be a partnership, yes, but he’s still the adult. It’s on him to treat you well. You’re not some magical solution to his flaws. You’re you and he needs to match you, not the other way.” Precise fingers tip his chin up. Tim focuses on Richard’s nose to avoid his eyes. They’re too much for him. “You don’t exist to fix him. The person you are at your core. The person you’re still trying to figure out. It’s Batman’s job to bring out the best in you, not for you to stop his worst tendencies. Understood?”

Time swallows. “Yeah.”

Richard releases him and stands, his hand resting in Tim’s hair. “Hey B, I think you and Tim have some things to discuss.” A grunt. “If that grunt doesn’t mean ‘of course, Dick, I’ll do it posthaste’ then I will be very upset tomorrow. So upset that I might have to refit the Batman suit and we both don’t want to see that happen.”

A kiss is pressed to his crown and Tim’s soul leaves his body for a few seconds. He’s perfect. He isn’t real. He can’t be real. If Grayson doesn’t have a seat in heaven, then Tim is invading and taking over.

He waits a few minutes as Batman finishes on his bloodwork, sitting with still hands in his lap just like his parents demanded from him.

B’s hair is still plastered to his head in thick clumps when he stands, sweat and leather shaping it into something abominable. It would be humanising if the human wasn’t Batman and the mask Bruce. As it is, it looks like an alien tried sculpting a human from memory. Like, if the uncanny valley was an endless abyss and you looked long enough, this Bruce would stare back at you.

Tim remembers the day he grew past Bruce’s elbow. He’d made an entire production of it and drawn B’s minor amusement. He’d hoped for medium amusement which would be a tiny smile. Major amusement is reserved for people like Alfred to whom all things are possible and Richard who could make a war god laugh in delight.

Standing, now, before his commander and leader and the one he calls lord in heart, he feels nothing but resignation.

“Speak,” he demands of Batman and cedes his control of this engagement. Every conversation with Batman is just the continuation of another battle and Tim has accepted his defeat.

“This arrangement is no longer tenable. It was a mistake to assume it would be practical and a further mistake to continue permitting it.”

Those words are like daggers removing sections of flesh, removing any and all marks of his history as Robin. Erasing him totally. Rejecting him in the fullness of B’s authority as Vengeance’s avatar. Tim nods. He hadn’t thought it would be this bad but maybe he did push too far. As Richard said, don’t burn down the nest in spite.

Tim’s a danger, not just to himself, but to the others. That’s not Robin. It can’t be what Robin stands for.

“I’ll have my room packed by the morning. Just let me apologise to Alfred first. He deserves that.”

Batman shifts, his head tilting at a very precise angle. “Explain.”

“You’re repudiating me because I was born to be part of the Court of Owls,” he says slowly, not sure if Batman’s being willfully obtuse or if he wants Tim to list out his crimes so they can be accounted for. “I lied about knowing this the entire time that I’ve known you.”

“Tim, look at me.”

He hates making eye contact. Bruce knows that. Everyone knows he’s the fuckup who can’t make eye contact or take care of himself or make something worthy of his life. There’s pressure behind his eyes, around his eye sockets, as he forces himself to meet Bruce’s gaze. They are more grey than blue, more headlights on rain-soaked asphalt than the warm navy of Dick or the formerly electrifying blue of Jason. A flat colour for a man less a man than he is an ideal.

“You were injured.”

“It was a bad plan. I know. It’s not worth fretting over now.”

“That is not my point.”

“Then what is your point?”

Bruce’s hands splay out and then clench. Boiling frustration, a prelude to an explosion. Tim carefully unfurls his fingers, showing his palms, making himself harmless. Making himself smaller. Avoiding hurt doesn’t come naturally to him, but even Tim can learn given enough time.

“You did this because of Jack. To attack the representation of everything cruel and unloving of your father. Destroying it totally so you can see only the good came from him. You should not have done it.”

“I had to. It was my duty and the only way I can atone. What I am is what my parents made of me. I’m not a good person because whatever goodness was in me was carved away by them. The lessons they taught me aren’t acceptable for Robin and the things I’ve done have proven them right. I was only ever meant to be a stopgap until you found a worthy successor.” He feels the anger building in him, his bitterness at everything shaking his body. Things unsaid and hidden away demanding a chance to be heard. “I have never done anything that made you proud. I have never done anything that’s made you look at me like I was worthy of this mantle. Richard can say whatever he wants, but Robin has always been your choice.”

“That is not true.”

Tim’s smile is brittle. “It was fun while it lasted. It was a good dream. Thank you for that. But let’s stop pretending. You have Jason back. Steph is here and she’s better for Gotham than I could ever be. Black Bat is a better fighter than you. I’m not needed. I’m surplus to requirement. You don’t need to pretend anymore. Concern is a bad look on Bruce and Batman doesn’t wear Bruce well.”

Batman flinches back as though struck by a visible blow. His expression is complex, parts incandescent rage and parts drowning grief, a hint of bewilderment bleeding into determination.

Bruce takes a breath and squares his stance. “You are my son.”

Tim feels cold rage run through him. The world around him sharpens with his anger. Whatever he might feel about it, his parents were Jack and Janet Drake. No one else can claim him as a son. All that he is, he inherited from them. His ruthlessness. His cruelty. His intelligence. He hears his own laugh and remembers his mother. He sees his smile in selfies and sees the laughter lines of his father.

His failings might be innumerable but there was a time when his mother saw him and saw her son. Even when things were at their worst and Jack at his cruellest, his father’s home was always welcome to him. Those memories and feelings belong to him.

“No, I’m not.”

Bruce has no right to take this from him.

“You are.”

“My name is Drake, my nation the Court, and my lord is Gotham corrupted.”

Tim gestures at himself then gestures to encompass the world that is Gotham. This is truth and what has always bound him. Before he ever thought of Robin, his sins were innumerable. Before he knew the concept of good, his existence had ruined hundreds. He was born to secure his parent’s bid for a seat in the Court of Owls. The very act of his birth had been an evil act. That he benefited from their place and power is proof of the wrongness of his existence.

There is no atonement. Good things cannot come from terrible things. One cannot murder an innocent and then turn around cleansed of their sins if they scream redemption. One cannot keep murdering innocents and say I was born to this, and I can’t change anything. Everyone has a choice, even if that choice is being honest in their evil.

“I know my blood,” he says slowly, enunciating his words through his rage. “I know the sins I inherited. Mine is the blood that ruined this city and made Vengeance necessary. I’m a fraud and I’m sorry I wasted your time, but there was no one else and Gotham needed a Batman who didn’t hurt it more than he harmed it.”

“You aren’t listening to me.”

“Then say something!” His voice rings out in the cave with the force of all his fears unsaid. “Use your words for once in your life. Tell me I’m a failure and that you’re getting rid of me, but just say it. Please. I’m tired of guessing every new way I’ve failed you.”

The silence presses down on him, choking him worse than those hands that squeezed and squeezed and nearly finished squeezing the life out of him. It hurts worse. Everything about Bruce hurts worse because Bruce exists in the negative space of Jack and Janet, everything they should have been but never were. 

“I’ve failed you.”

He startles so bad he trips backwards onto the examination table. “What? No, you didn’t.”

“I did,” Bruce says implacably, declaring it to the world and demanding his sins be writ for all to witness. “Unfathomably so. I didn’t realise how badly I had failed you. For that, I apologise.”

“The fault’s always been in me. It’s me that messed up.”

“No, Tim, you are wrong.” One step and then another brings them closer. “I was talking about patrols without supervision. I believed giving you more freedom would show my trust in you. I did not realise you would take it as a sign of my disinterest.”

Batman kneels before him, a supplicant kneeling before his lord. In the harsh lines of Bruce’s face, he sees pained devotion and a boundless field of love made of biting brambles, hooks that dig bloody gouges but never let go. It is the only love Gotham knows, something as painful as it is true. As Bruce is Gotham’s Vengeance, so too does he love as Gotham loves.

“You are my son. Whatever name you carry, you are my son. You are in my final will and testament, and you are in this shrivelled thing I call a heart. When I die in battle, you will carry my coffin with your brothers. But you are the only one I hope will sit shiva for seven days.”

His eyes burn suddenly at the promise of a father who cares for him. It’s not fair that Bruce holds this much sway over him.

“Don’t say it. Don’t you fucking dare.”

Bruce’s hands are impossibly gentle as he palms Tim’s face, his thumb brushing away a traitorous tear that dares fall.

“I want you to have my name if you will accept me.”

He said it, Tim thinks awestruck, those impossible words. They ring in his ears, so loud that he can’t deny their reality. He’d wished for it but never believed it to be possible. Jack was the only father owed to him, but Bruce was the father he wished to have.

He doesn’t deserve it.

“Timothy Jackson Wayne,” he tests slowly, the name impossibly heavy on his tongue.

“I will warn you now that Bruce Wayne is a terrible father. He will fail you and he may even bury you. He will fight you and hurt you because he doesn’t understand what it means to be a father. But he will love you every moment of every day. Whether you take his name or not.”

Tim’s laugh is watery, his grin pulling at his bruises and cuts. He must make a terrible sight, a kid in mottled bruises laughing like a fool.

“Drake-Wayne is such a mouthful. What if I have kids? They’d have like three whole last names because Steph isn’t accepting anything else.”

Bruce winces. “Please do not mention your… entanglement with Stephanie ever again.”

“Why? Jealous?”

“You’re grounded for a year.”

“That’s never worked before.”

“I can pray.”

“Organised religion is a scam and Hashem isn’t real. The truth is an artificial construct to control the masses and tax exemptions should be illegal.”

“I don’t believe all of those are true.”

“You’re right, tax exemptions aren’t a scam, they’re a legal loophole made to protect the entrenched interests of the bourgeoisie class.”

Bruce’s eyes crinkle. “I enjoy my exemptions as much as the next person, yes. I’m glad you’re in such cheer but you do not have to pretend for me or deflect from your feelings.”

“I’m pretending for myself. I learnt to deflect from watching you, so take that.”

“You’re a menace but you’re my menace.”

“Don’t be so casual with affection. It’s weird when it comes from you.”

“This is a special one-day exemption.”

“I don’t want it to always mean something terrible,” he says, not knowing which time zone they’re using to determine the end of the day. “I don’t want Drake to only mean what my parents made of it.”

He loves them still. Foolish as it is, for all the harm they caused him, he dreams of a life with them. When he sets aside his anger and bitterness, in the moments just before sleep, he mourns what could have been. He mourns the short bursts of warmth they gave him. The hatred he holds for them is matched only by the love he carries.

It isn’t fair that they left him with these contradictory feelings. It is, however, as it is. He can only move forward, clutch the bramble of painful emotions in hand, and scream defiance against a world that seeks to grind him down to nothing.

Bruce smiles something small and terribly sad, perhaps reading his thoughts.

“Then we will make it into what you desire it to mean.”

*

Alfred examines him again in the morning and changes the dressings to his wounds. His left hand trembles, which is new, but his right was always his dominant so a tremble in his off-hand is fine. He mutters to himself as he catalogues the litany of injuries on Tim’s small body.

“You will not scare me like that again,” Alfred demands.

“Understood.”

“You will be having a checkup with Doctor Leslie tomorrow.”

“She never gives me lollipops.” At Alfred’s glare, he hastily adds, “but that’s no problem and I won’t raise a fuss.”

“You will be entirely honest regarding the extent of your injuries.”

“Even Wonder Woman’s lasso couldn’t compel that from me.”

“Master Timothy, I never thought I would need to have this conversation with you. I thought this nonsense was over after Bruce. But fine, I will now give you the same seminar I gave Bruce on How to Not Walk into Ancient Evil Societies.”

It’s a great seminar, all told. Alfred’s notes are neat and concise with a startling amount of dry humour. There are even a few caricatures of Ra’s al Ghul which is just great and a whole slide on not ‘sticking your dick in crazy’ which is gross but hilarious.

“Now, when an obviously evil assassin offers to train you to unlock your potential, what do you do?”

“Go with them, get all their skills, and then dismantle their organisation.”

“If I didn’t do a genetic test, I might think you Master Bruce’s clone.”

“Is that a good thing?”

“No, because now I am certain the problem lay with the city. I will do what I must and cleanse it of this illness.”

“Alfred, no, don’t go on a villain arc!”

“It is too late, Master Tim. The antics of the Bats have sent me over the edge and now I will not stop until Gotham is under new management. Worry not, I shall spare you my wroth should you immediately sing God Save the Queen.”

“I don’t even know the words!”

“Then we must rectify that immediately.”

Tim bursts out laughing.

He is thirteen and this year has been a terribly busy one. He became a man and his father died. He took his revenge against the legacy his parents left him and gained a new father. It seems so absurd to think that it all took place in one year, like time compressed on itself and he has been stuck at thirteen for a decade. Who cares, though. He’s alive, and maybe he isn’t thriving, is barely living, but he’s got time left to figure that out.

He’s not sure what tomorrow holds but he suspects things will be just fine. 

Chapter Text

Tim is not traumatised. He has no idea why Alfred feels the need to chip him with two trackers or why there is a rotation of people just to watch him through the night. He doesn’t even try to escape. He’s too tired to try.

Apparently, torture is tiring. Who knew?

Tim would like a refund on his life.

When he crashes the first night back, it’s honestly the best sleep he’s had in a while. Pure, blissful unconsciousness for a full day. When he wakes up, it’s to another lecture on How Not to Tim Drake Under Any Circumstances which is entirely uncalled for. Sure, he’d been micro-dosing on Joker venom to get through the day without crumbling apart but no one else knows about that, and in low concentrations, it is a very decent anti-depressant. But that doesn’t mean anything. He’s fine.

“The good news is that they used very clean torture implements and Tim isn’t showing signs of infection,” Doctor Leslie says, utterly unimpressed with that prognosis. The flickering lights of the clinic’s backroom grant her an air of disproportionate menace.

“And the bad news?” Bruce asks, sitting up anxiously. Visibly anxious. Like, clenching his fists anxious.

“You’re stuck trying to keep Tim alive from himself for longer.”

Bruce deflates. “I believe we’ll manage now that he’s grounded for life. For all that he’s—”

Steph leans close to him, drawing Tim’s attention from Bruce’s nonsense, her lips brushing against his ears. She smells of spices, the same as his body wash. It cuts through the sharp smell of chlorine and the lingering odour of sickness that pervades every inch of the clinic.

“Does he think that’ll work?”

“He’s kinda dumb,” he whispers back, hands intertwined. Hers is scarred lightly, thick callouses from training, and damaged cuticles from neglect. His is yellowing from bruises, his pinkie splinted due to a fracture he hadn’t noticed.

Their hands feel strangely mismatched, his trembling and hers steady. They used to fit perfectly together.

Tim doesn’t want to think too hard about it.

“Honestly, I recommend benching him permanently,” Leslie fucking Thompkins has the fucking audacity to fucking say.

“Um, no,” he says instead of the string of curses he wants to utter instead. Look, anyone who can get the entirety of Gotham to respect an area as a safe zone is not someone you raise your voice against.

“Tim, son, please.”

“Emotional manipulation will not work on me. I had two parents who did that already.”

“As curious as your family drama is, I am not a therapist, and if I was you wouldn’t be able to afford me. You might be in peak physical health because of your training and vigilantism, but that will be what gets you sick as well. Every cut from a shard of glass. Every scrape from a Gotham rooftop. Every bullet graze. It’s all a possible infection vector.”

He suddenly wishes Richard had followed them in but there was a limit to how many people could fit. Steph, Tim, Alfred, Bruce, and Doctor Leslie all in the same room had been pushing it. It would still be nice. Being with Richard makes it easy to swallow his anger. It’s honestly not fair that Dick just is. 

“Six weeks off the field minimum.”

“Hell no.”

Stephanie elbows him in the side. Tim hisses, folding over into her lap like a marionette with its strings cut. The corners of his vision white out. Shit, that hurts.

“I have a no violence policy, Miss Brown.”

“It’s not considered violence to restrain an unruly patient. And I put like no force into that.” 

Doctor Leslie hums. “You’ll be volunteering here twice a week until I get sick of your presence.”

“Do I have a say in the matter?”

Bruce chuckles, or Batman realises Bruce would chuckle at that point and so performs the expected human behaviour. “I think that would be a suitable punishment.”

“But—”

Alfred clears his throat, her protests dying swiftly. “We do not cause additional injuries. That is a rule you are aware of and there was no justification for that elbow.”

“Fine. Twice a week.”

“You can choose your days and don’t think an Arkham breakout will get you out of this. I’ll need more hands on deck then. Now, Tim, on a scale of one to ten, how much pain are you in?”

He raises four fingers of his free hand. That hand is rather undamaged, just a few minor electrical burns from the cattle prod.

“Now, as to your mandatory downtime—which will be happening because I refuse to autopsy another Robin, this one from negligence. For the next three weeks, the most activity I expect from you is walking around the house. After that, we’ll evaluate what kind of training level you’ll be on. Alfred, a diet high in iron if you please…”

He lets their voices fade away. Steph pats him gently, tracing his hairline. Gentle as it is, the pads of her fingers still feel like rods of hot steel against the mess of bruises that is his skin. It’s as comforting as it is painful and slowly lulls him into a light doze. He’s already accepted getting benched. Alfred’s all for it and as far as Gotham is concerned, Alfred’s word is holy writ.

Six weeks won’t be so bad. He has quite a few projects to catch up on. What did I want to do with Cadmus’ IP again? The organ cloning tech? Ugh, that will involve Luthor and that will involve raiding on Luthor’s favourite MMO. Tim doesn’t want to do that. His hands are kinda messed up. Somehow sensing this, Steph begins massaging his palm.

If he was a cat, Tim would be purring. This is much nicer than the rest of the things he and Steph do in their relationship. Not that he wouldn’t do just about anything she asked right now, but this is something he also enjoys. The sex is fine if he’s drunk enough.

“…we’re cutting his caffeine intake to zero.”

“I’m running away,” Tim declares solemnly, already making plans in his head.

“You haven’t had any caffeine in your body for days now. You can survive a few weeks.”

“Preferably a few lifetimes,” Alfred adds.

“You people want me, Tim Drake, the guy who usually has more caffeine than haemoglobin in his blood, to have a grand total of zero milligrams of heaven’s nectar? What have we said about making our own villains because this is how you make your own villains!” Steph snorts above him. “And even if I don’t, can you imagine how much damage I would do to the world if I had a regular sleep schedule?”

“He raises a good point.”

“He does not, Master Bruce.”

“I’ll smuggle you some,” Steph whispers in his ear as the 

“I love you.”

“I love me too.”

Doctor Leslie claps her hand. “Okay, all of you can get out.”

*

To his delight, Jason and Bruce are functionally grounded and have been put to work cleaning up the mess they made fighting.

“Master Jason, I see your ‘useless’ woodworking classes are now quite relevant,” Alfred says as Jason works the wood lathe to make a dowel—knob? Leg? Fuck if Tim knows—for the side table he broke.

Tim snickers, drawing Jason’s attention. “Shut it, Replacement. This is all your fault.”

“I didn’t make you and B fight. I ran away from all the fighting.”

That earns him just the slightest flinch from Jason. The cruel part of Tim practically purrs in delight at making a zombie flinch from his bullshit.

“Fuck you and all your problems.”

 “That is language most unbecoming.” Jason scowls but ducks his head, suddenly intent on his work. “Now come, we have lunch to attend.”

Alfred pulls at Tim’s leash and Tim follows reluctantly. His body still aches from everything he was put through, but he knows the walk will help in the long run. He’s mostly gotten over the embarrassment of being leashed like a common animal. It’s to avoid him running off and falling deep into a cult. Alfred hadn’t appreciated Tim pointing out the Bat-family is itself a cult and he’s like the head priest or something.

“You already have trackers on me,” Tim grumbles, awkwardly matching Alfred’s pace.

“What was that? Did you say you want to be cuffed to the pillars while I make you lunch? Are you requesting more restrictions for your prior bad behaviour? If so, I am more than happy to oblige, Master Tim.”

“This is unfair. You never made anyone else suffer like this.”

“Please do find me another member of this family that has lost an internal organ through entirely preventable means.” They pass by Bruce trying to install a stained-glass window with Steph’s help. They both freeze in place. “Miss Brown, what exactly do you think you’re doing?”

“Would you believe me if I said the draft reaches my room?”

“No. Your room which you rarely use for reasons I find insulting is well insulated and heated.”

“I like my door being open.”

“Please try a different lie.”

“That I thought this would be a fun bonding experience with Bruce?”

“Had you said you wanted to bully him, I might believe you. Run along now, Miss Brown. This is not your responsibility and aiding either of our two fools will lead to you cleaning the cellar. The old one connected to the tunnels with bat guano and we certainly do not want that.”

“No, we don’t.” Steph shrugs and smiles remorsefully at Bruce who looks vaguely betrayed. “Sorry. You’re on your own from here.”

She skips by, pressing a quick kiss to Alferd’s cheek like a good and contrite granddaughter trying to appease her grandfather.

“Have you sufficiently contemplated the consequences of your actions?” Bruce grunts, balancing the glass pane awkwardly now that Steph is gone. “Your inability to communicate with your children is why you are in this mess. Perhaps consider asking Jason for assistance and show the tiniest hint of character growth. Unless your unfortunate inclination to leather has worn away all ability for growth.”

“I pay you,” Bruce grumbles like a petulant child. “You can’t make me do any of this.”

“And yet, here we are. You have known this would happen for weeks now, Master Bruce. It seems that you can’t do everything with sufficient prep time.”

Tim’s eyes widen. “Someone call Superman because a violent murder just happened.”

Bruce pauses a moment, considering it.

*

He helps Alfred with the cooking, mostly by staying out of the way, but occasionally he gets to measure things out. How exciting. Tim loves Alf but he would like it known that he isn’t a complete disaster. Only most of one. And he can cook. It was necessary with all the times he was alone. Saying so had earned him no points with Alfred.

Tim waits until Bruce is free a few hours later, stalking him to the library. The room has largely been claimed by Jason despite his short time back. He’d practically pissed on the floor to claim ownership. Metaphorically, of course. Alfred would have buried him had he done that.

“You should be more mindful of your breathing when you’re injured,” Bruce says, not looking up from the legal reference book he’s reading. “Particularly if you want to sneak up on someone.”

“Excuse you, I can sneak.”

“As you say.”

Tim drags a chair over and flops onto it with artificial casualness, one leg thrown over the armrest. He slides a packet of papers across the table. Bruce finally sets his book down to take them, his brows rising in genuine surprise.

“Yes,” he interrupts. “I stole them from your office. So yeah, there’s my signature, I’ve made a package with all the supporting documentation—and I expect you to memorize it all by tonight—and I’ve scheduled a home study, but you should be used to this by now.”

“You want to be adopted?” Bruce says, his voice cracking partway through.

“I’ve decided on Drake-Wayne.” He stares intensely at the scar on Bruce’s cheekbone. “That won’t be a problem, will it?”

“I would be honoured.”

“Good.”

“Good.”

*

To his immense frustration, he gets an infection that has everyone from Alfred all the way to Jason monitoring him. It’s utterly unfair. Tim isn’t a complete disaster. He’s just most of one.

Six weeks later, he gets the worst shock to his system yet.

Damian fucking al Ghul.

*

*

*

The year is 2014 and it belongs to the Messiahs. Stay with Me’ has stolen the airwaves despite D’Angelo making his comeback as the Black Messiah, Obama has come down to spread the holy word of the hard-g gif, Bill Cosby falls from grace in fiery disappointment, Net Neutrality is going to work even if Tim has to spend all of Bruce’s making an artificial messiah, and Tim Cook is to be crowned the gay tech messiah.

Tim Drake is very displeased with the latter because Hashem doesn’t exist, and if he did, he certainly wouldn’t make being gay a gift. Not that Tim has an issue with the gays. Not at all. Not for a moment. It’s just that the sentence Tim is gay should never exist. His skin itches terribly at the idea so he shoves it to the depths of his mind alongside the other things he doesn’t acknowledge.

Besides, he’s got more important things to worry about. Like Bruce’s colossal fuckup that he had with Talia fucking al Ghul.

Batman’s blood child should have been the true messiah come to save Gotham, to reunite the bodies of those long gone with those now living. He should have ushered in an age of light and glory to Gotham, and built a new temple on a foundation of vengeance and blood. Batman’s true son should have been his ideals perfected and enhanced.

Damian al Ghul is a false messiah, an anti-messiah, an anti-Batman, a demonspawn made to corrupt the holy lands of Wayne Manor from the inside.

The misbegotten bastard child of a Demon and Bruce’s mistakes is one step away from getting thrown in prison and Tim is all there for it. Fuck this murdering little shithead, fuck everything he defiles with his very existence.

Ten is more than old enough to know violent murder is bad.

And yet, he bandies his skill as a murderer proudly. Damian stands tall in his rejection of Bruce’s ideals, denouncing them with every breath he takes and spitting on the legacy Bruce built. Tim’s never wanted to kill someone so much as Damian. Not even his father came close. Tim chose Batman, he chose to accept his ideals as his own, made a lord out of vengeance, and each day he patrols to stop evil is an act of worship to that ideal.

When Tim sees Damian, he sees evil given form. He sees wrongness and feels it so viscerally that he wants to choke the arrogant brat till he’s blue in the face. Damian’s existence is a heresy so powerful that Tim can barely acknowledge it.

Worse than just being a perversion of Bruce’s ideals, Damian is an insult to the League. Ra’s runs an organisation of assassins. Professional assassins. They don’t kill unless it’s for a contract. They have their own strange systems of justice and honour. Damian lacks anything approaching justice or honour. He is arrogant, entitled, and a craven coward with no ideals of his own. The world exists to serve him and nothing more.

Tim tries. He really does try to give the abomination his space. One needs only cleanse themselves if they do not touch filth.

Or speak to it.

Or interact with it.

Alfred had looked to Bruce the first moment the brat was gone. “I see we didn’t pay attention to my presentation on Ancient Evil Societies™. What did I say about crazy?”

“Don’t stick your dick in it,” Tim helpfully supplies when Bruce looks away like a petulant child.

The last assassin he dealt with tortured him for a week—that was not my fault, it was an excellent plan and worked and we are packing this thought process away—and the Demon brat stalks, talks and behaves the same way.

His patrols are clean and flawless. His strength returns to him rapidly and he takes to the rooftops easily. Gotham almost breathes a sigh of relief to see Robin back. Usually, when a Robin goes missing for a month, it means they’re dead and about to be replaced.

He must have been terribly missed because during Croc’s rampage—well, calling it that isn’t accurate since some C-tier goons from a different city tried setting up shop in the sewers like idiots—he’d avoided breaking Tim in half. Had barely left him any bruises and even his insults lacked heat. Disinfecting his wounds had been a priority that night and he’d done so carefully at Steph’s place. Fuck if he was going back to Wayne Manor and possibly letting a demon learn his weakness.

Tim’s been doing well. Bruce praised him on his work and Richard’s agreed his acrobatics are back in top form. Jason even sent a vid of him decapitating a head which in Jason-speak is a bruising hug.

So why did this murderhobo call him the weak link in the family that should be put down before his weakness infects the household?

Whatever appetite he’d had shrivels up and dies a violent death. And he just knows he won’t be able to keep anything down later as well which isn’t great because of the whole missing spleen situation and the mandatory diet.

“Yeah, no, I’m done,” Tim says, standing from the table, food hardly eaten. “Sorry, Alfred, I tend to lose my appetite around a deranged homunculus.”

He’d been willing to give the brat a chance despite everything. A chance to prove he could be anything more than a future Arkham inmate. But no, even that peace offering was spat upon.

Tim turns around, anger filling him as he stalks away. This is his home, his safe space, and now he’ll go every day flinching at shadows that move too quick or reflections in the corner of his vision. Someone’s following him, he can tell. They’re polite enough to make their steps the slightest bit too loud for true stealth.

He steps into his room. “What do you want?”

“He’s a kid,” Dick says, closing the door behind him. One of those conversations.

“I was also a kid and I also had evil parents.”

Dick winces slightly. “Yeah, you’re a bit of a miracle.”

“You can’t tell me to give him a chance when you’re not even here most of the time. It’s me he’s going to try and kill, not you.”

“He won’t try to hurt anyone.”

“Sure about that? Because apparently, I’m the weak link that needs to be eliminated yesterday.”

“Um, English is his second language and that was a terrible translation of a metaphor?”

“Even my illiterate ass knows that’s bullshit.” He takes a deep breath, hoping it will calm him. It doesn’t. This situation is so fucked and there is no unfucking it. “You know, I kept on talking about my replacement, but I didn’t think B would take it this literally.”

Dick places his hand heavily on Tim’s shoulder. “He isn’t your replacement.”

“A blood son already trained. Sounds like a fucking replacement to me.”

“You are not Jason’s replacement just as Jason was never mine. We aren’t the same people. We aren’t similar at all. Bruce is your dad and that won’t ever change. He didn’t stop being my dad when he found Jason and it won’t stop now. Robin is yours and only you get to choose who it goes to.”

“Shut it. Bruce made his choice and you know it. I guess B really wasn’t happy with Drake-Wayne.”

He tries pushing Dick aside, only for his left wrist to be caught. He scowls, doing the maths and realising Dick will have full control in two steps.

“I won’t let Damian replace you.”

“Right up until he slits my throat and steals the costume. Now let me go.”

“I think not.”

One step from Dick and Tim is twisting around, kicking at Dick’s ankle. Dick steps over the kick and pulls Tim by the wrist. He was expecting as much and knees Dick at the waist. A pained exhale. A refusal to let go of his arm.

And then they’re fighting for real. No space between them. A scrappy battle of sharp elbows and quick backhands, hip checks as they try to throw one another. The ordered chaos of his room is flung into total chaos as they fight, moving back and forth across the room in a strange sort of battle, linked as they are. Dick’s got height and mass, Tim’s got spite and viciousness.

He sees an opening and goes for it. Leads with his right leg, swinging his momentum around Dick’s neck, his knee pulling heavily to bring him down. Left leg shooting past Dick’s waist and he locks his legs together in a triangle submission.

“Oh, that’s inspired,” Dick says brightly. It isn’t a perfect submission, his wrist long-since trapped by Dick, but his other is free to apply pressure to Dick’s neck.

Gently, because Dick isn’t an idiot, he lowers Tim to the ground. The moment Tim has leverage, he tries reaching out to pull at Dick’s ankle and bring him down fully.

Dick is faster, using his greater strength and violently shoving Tim’s arm. His shoulder feels like it’s ripping apart as he yelps, control lost. Then Dick is on him, flipping him around like he’s a prop.

I need to get this good, he thinks, stunned at how quickly all advantage was lost.

Dick is heavy as all hell. Too heavy for Tim to push off, especially not when he’s been pinned so effectively. As casual as it was, Dick’s taken control of his hips and his arms are trapped behind his back.

It’s easy to forget that Richard Grayson was forged as a lethal weapon from the tender age of nine and didn’t simply fight Gotham at its worse, he won and forced it to stand in the scorching light. He’d fought when the GCPD’s precincts were split between which mob boss they took their real paycheck from, a time where if you looked Irish or Italian in the wrong neighbourhood, you were shot on site, let alone what happened if you were anything less acceptable.

Tim wriggles slightly, testing the textbook classic heel hook. The moment he does, Dick applies just a hint of his full force that has Tim’s hip joint aching, threatening long-term damage.

“I know exactly how dangerous he is,” Nightwing says flatly, without any of the easy cheer that people expect from him. “Your safety is my priority.”

Tim’s a bit freaked out and taps out immediately, gratified when the pressure lessens even if Nightwing doesn’t let go. This is the Nightwing who would surpass Batman if he wanted to. This is the Nightwing who would look gods in the eye and tell them ‘no’ without fear. The one who fights Bludhaven alone because he needs a challenge and Gotham is too crowded now for Nightwing who shines so brightly and would burn his fellow heroes out of existence by standing too close. The golden son that Jason hates and Tim resents for being so perfect.

“No, it isn’t. You’re never here.”

“I’ll take him with me if he can’t coexist with you,” Nightwing promises steadily, willing the world to accept his words as universal truth. “I’ll raise him myself if Bruce can’t or won’t, and I will not let him make another soldier out of that child.”

It’s easier like this when he can’t make eye contact. He doesn’t want to know what’s swirling in the eyes of someone so willing to steal Batman’s son without repercussion.

“He’s already an assassin.”

“He’s a ten-year-old. A fucked up and ruined kid who doesn’t know anything else. I’m not going to ask you to ignore what he does or give him a pass, but I’m going to ask you to give him a chance.”

“This isn’t fair.”

“When has this family ever been fair?”

“Let me go.”

“No. I think this is a teaching experience. How would you escape a completed heel hook?”

You can’t, Tim thinks, analysing the sheer control Dick has over his leg. One twist and it will be dislocated. But they’re Bats and they don’t play fair.

He reaches out quickly and snags a heavy engineering textbook with his free hand and throws it spine first at Dick, who lets it hit. A moment where there isn’t so much pressure on his heel and he pulls, hiding it from Dick’s arms. Next, he snags his other leg around and pushes on Dick’s lower back as he reaches for Dick’s elbow and switches control between them.

A few moments more—with Dick providing no true resistance—and he’s reversed the hold fully. He bares his teeth at Dick who has a cut lip from the textbook.

“Good job. You don’t have to be scared. You’re stronger than you know.”

“Fuck off and get out of my room.”

Dick laughs brightly.

*

*

*

They fuck sometimes, he and Steph. Whenever she’s in a particular mood and Tim can stomach it. He loves her, he genuinely does, and kissing her makes his heart flutter in weird ways, but he hates this portion of it. Hates how much control he cedes to her; hates how he has to stop himself from flinching, pretending at enjoyment.

He tries his best to get it done right before a patrol, so he has an excuse to shower and pull away from her embrace.

Bruce knows they’re fucking. The condoms and pamphlets on consensual sex that suddenly replace his illegal coffee stash speak to that. He’s still bitter about the invasion of his privacy but at least Bruce didn’t find the Joker venom.

He might not enjoy the sex, but he doesn’t completely hate it. And it also means he doesn’t have to be in the same area code as the demon.

Strangely enough, they haven’t had sex in a while despite Tim coming prepared with condoms and alcohol. Steph had just waved them away and they’d watched a movie instead. That was… good. Really good.

Probably the best he’s felt in a long while without microdosing on Joker venom.

“So, is the manor still off-limits because I really miss Breakfast by Alfred? And stealing money from your dad?”

He zips the backs of her thermal undersuit with practised movements, taking care to lift her ponytail so she can shrug on her suit pooling at her waist. “You could just ask for money.”

“He ain’t my daddy.”

“He likes you more than all of us.”

“Cass.”

“Well yes, but Cass is objectively everyone’s favourite so she’s not competition. We’re all fighting for second best here.”

Armguards next. He pulls those tight, taking a moment as always to admire the sleek lines that convey her aggression. Tuck her gloves just beneath the lip of the suit’s sleeve and cinch them together.

“I really do want to meet the midget, though. I bet he’d like me best.”

“Even Alfred agrees that he needs some stability and you’re chaos incarnate.”

“Rude but true.”

She tugs at his utility belt, drawing him closer. Steph leans down for a quick kiss on the corner of his lips. She deepens the kiss, and he allows it even as she feels him up, assessing how well he’s worn his own costume.

Kisses aren’t so bad anymore. He’s gotten over them as time has gone on, accepted them as part of this thing he’s doing with Steph. Learned to enjoy them.

He still hasn’t accepted her being taller than him. It’s half an inch, sure, but she wears hills on everything just to emphasise the point.

Before she fully pulls away, Steph nudges his groin with her knee. As awkward and embarrassing as it is, it’s still the best way to test the seating of his groin protector before someone inevitably tries kicking him in the dick.

“Do you ever think we rushed into this without thinking about it?” she asks, seating his cape properly around his shoulder.

“Not me. I had spreadsheets and decision matrices on why being Robin was necessary. I don’t really get the societal pressure that makes Spoiler necessary, but I’m pretty sure you understood them on an intuitive level even if you never wrote them out.”

“Yeah, of course, the decision of being a child vigilante is exactly what I’m talking about.”

“What else would you be talking about?”

“Nothing, nothing. Don’t worry about it.” She pauses in lacing up her boots. “Hey, when we’re done with this, ask Nightwing how he handled his relationships where his partner couldn’t understand subtext. Or were possibly entirely incompatible with him.”

“Uh, sure, I can write up a report on that. I didn’t think he’d had a bad time with any Titans but he also smiles when he’s sad so who knows.”

“And when he asks why you want to know, tell him Steph insists he sit you down and go into great detail about communications, boundaries, informed consent, and compatibility.”

“Can do.”

*

*

*

He never does talk to Dick about those things.

Tim isn’t stupid, he’s just incredibly proficient at compartmentalising things he doesn’t want to think about. So, he seals the conversation in the dark corners of his mind and moves on, staying focused in the moment.

The demon, thankfully, hasn’t tried murdering Tim. Yet. Hasn’t tried yet. Tim has caught the demon brat glaring and contemplating it, but he hasn’t tried just yet. Whatever Dick said to him on their short bonding trip must have scared him into submission as easily as Dick placed Tim in a submission hold.

Patrols are sluggish things. The city feels restless, waiting for something to happen. Or maybe that’s Tim projecting onto it. He investigates a drug ring and is joined by Cass for most of it. Which, objectively, is great. Nothing comes close to hitting him.

On the other hand, he hates Cass because he can’t lie to her. There’s no point in even trying to lie to her.

When they are finished dismantling the drug ring—which, really, could people do some basic research on what Gotham’s like before trying to expand here for the nth time—she pats him on the head like he’s a fucking toddler.

“Be kind to yourself.”

That’s all she says. Tim sighs when she vanishes into the smoggy night. At least she didn’t call him out on anything.

The next day, he gets a notification and understands why he’s been so listless.

In the privacy of his room, he lights a Yahrzeit candle on the anniversary of the day he learnt his mother was dead by Jewish reckoning. Tim never truly mourned her, he realises. It was all so quick as he flitted from one tragedy to another.

The picture his father gave him is hidden at the bottom of his closet, obscured by sneakers, skateboards, and possibly an IED.

It isn’t the only picture he has of his mother, but it is his favourite. Tim is mature enough to admit his love stems from his father taking it, immortalising forever that tender moment between the two of them. Tim, asleep on her lap, a tiny slip of a thing back then. Janet’s face hidden by her hair as she looked down at him, her hand brushing aside his stray hair. Love and tenderness in a woman to whom those feelings were alien.

Janet was a remarkably efficient woman. She loved few things, didn’t acknowledge the existence of most, and actively plotted the utter annihilation of the rest. Tim fell into the second group for most of his life. Dick Grayson’s falling out with Bruce, the vanishing of Robin the First, and Jason’s adoption shifted him to the first category, worthy of attention because his eyes were too blue and his hair ever so black. She went from not knowing his name to knowing Tiramisu was his favourite dessert and teaching him how to style Air Jordans with a suit.

She would have made him a monster.

Of that, Tim is certain.

A brilliant monster that scorched the world clean of its sins, but a monster nonetheless. He’s inherited bits and pieces of her teachings despite his best efforts. He is ruthless, efficient, and amoral on a good day. Only his devotion to Batman’s ideals keeps him from being the monster everyone thinks when they see his actions and fail to reconcile the quiet boy sleeping on the counter with the manic prince starting wars on a whim, acting on the impulses carved within him by genetics and teachings. How easily his smile slips from cheerful to cruel, the tilt of his head sliding towards malevolent as he considers how to annihilate the world around him.

He can’t help but yearn for that life as a monster because at least Janet would have been with him. She would have smiled as he conquered the Court of Owls, and she would have stood beside him as he gobbled up first Wayne Industries and then LexCorp. Janet would have helped him write his first speech as Supreme Overlord of Earth, taught him how to allude to great leaders and how to subtly demonise his enemies.

Even if he’d chosen a different path and become a photojournalist, she would have been there, cutting out his weakness and shaping him till he was the most perfect diamond. But humans aren’t meant to be diamonds, impossibly hard and impossibly perfect. They’re meant to be flawed things given to weakness and occasional moments of majesty.

No matter what path he chose, she would have made him a monster.

That is what it meant for Tim to be loved by Janet Drake. Utterly unlike her love for Jack which was a leopard painfully amused by the gazelle fawn that stumbles its way into the predator’s jaws, so amused it showed mercy and decided to keep the fawn, watching as it grew into a distorted gazelle with the instincts of a predator.

“Oh,” he says, heart constricting, as he realises a facet of the mess of contradictions that was his father.

The candle flickers, casting strange shadows on the photo he holds delicately. Is that what his father saw? A predator showing kindness to a monster? A moment of something that might never happen again. Is that why he took it? To remember, the monstrous and predatory things he cared for despite his nature?

Tim can’t know. He can’t ask his father just as he can never ask his mother. Even in his mind, he struggles to hold them separate from his heart, to name them Janet and Jack instead of mother and father.

He wishes, then, to sprint to her grave and ask her a million questions, but he knows he can’t. He never will visit her grave again. Janet didn’t believe in death, and she certainly didn’t believe in Hashem or the afterlife.

In his heart of hearts, he wants to see her denounce her return to life during the Messianic Age. He wants to see her rage at being given another chance at life and laugh at her strange plots to kill the Messiah, whoever they truly are. Maybe Jason would survive her. Who knows?

He thinks for a terrible second of the sheer chaos the two of them could cause and laughs himself silly.

*

The week passes in a blur as he works on minor optimisations to everything, he can lay his hands on, flitting from one project to the next. The encryption on the communication software they use. Better sound cancelling on their earbuds, though he’s tentatively jotted down bone induction for the next generation. A quick change to the dishwasher’s sensors so the water runs hot enough to satisfy Alfred that the dishes are clean.

He's fine. Everything is fine. Nothing is wrong, B, so stop asking and hand over the schematics for the Batmobile’s ECU.

“Just let me fix it,” he snarls, ready to tie Batman up if it gets him out of the way.

Bruce, using his single point dedicated to emotional intelligence, steps aside and lets Tim get to work. Four hours later and Tim is certain he’s fixed the power regulation issue that’s plagued this generation of Batmobile. He needs to do this work now while the gremlin isn’t allowed in the Cave. Tim is still annoyed that Jason got him patrol privileges—and still has nightmares about Bruce and Jason fighting, again, this time with Dick getting involved—which is terrible, but the brat at least follows routine like clockwork. A windup demon, Tim thinks cynically.

Tim’s got this window now to work in peace and finish his modifications. He does so after five annoying hours of fiddling around with Bruce’s terrible electronic design work, scant minutes to spare before the others fill the cave. Before he can go far, Alfred pulls him aside and reminds him that he isn’t allowed to go on patrol when he’s so sleep-deprived.

Fine. Tim submits but only under noted protest and heads to the pink office. He’s been meaning to rip out the wiring and set electrical sockets in better positions. Where did the buzzsaw go again?

Before he knows it, the room is dealt with and Tim is ensconced with multiple monitors around him, a server he doesn’t remember acquiring, and enough energy drinks to completely replace his blood. Alfred was a fool to think going cold turkey would make Tim amenable to being caffeine free. Fools! It only made the sweet song of a caffeine high all the more alluring.

A blink.

Tim sits at the table with a crazed grin. He is a data king, a binary crown made manifest by his insatiable need to know more, to know everything. At his fingertips is the power of the only heaven that matters: dataspace. With a simple thought, he crashes a company’s stock so he can buy it out and get the employees a decent wage and some reasonable living conditions. In the next moment, he’s passing on illegally gained alien schematics to the R&D division of the Wayne conglomerate because they have the knowledge for clean energy and Tim will not let the world burn for corporate greed. If he’s going to be running The Megacorp™ then he’d like his beaches to not be flooded and his forests not burning.

“Tim, stop causing global market fluctuations,” Bruce says, his voice distant and wobbly.

A blink.

Oh, the Oracle System needs an upgrade. He sends Barbara a list of recommended hardware though he falls short of ordering any of it as he’s installing a new generation of shrapnel mines on the manor grounds. She has exacting standards for her system and Tim just wants her to have the best of the best. And maybe for her to build an AI to monitor the entirety of America on an Oracle network that puts the worst dystopian novel to shame.

“Tim, arresting people for thoughtcrimes will get weaponised by politicians you don't like very quickly.”

A blink.

Tim errantly eats the turkey wrap Alfred leaves for him on the rooftop, hanging precariously as he works with a laptop he found somewhere. Unimportant nonsense. Tim’s needs are immaterial, found only on the digital highway. Hack the medical databases and make sure Ives gets to skip the queue for experimental cancer treatment. Make sure Ariana’s mother’s resume is slipped to a non-profit that does good work and is a short walk from where they leave. What other good causes can he support? Oh, Jason hasn’t decapitated any bad guys in like two whole—

“No killing or giving Jason targets to kill.”

A blink.

Fine, he won’t send Jason the location of the human trafficking ring operating on the east coast. He’ll send the report to the FBI… the Director is so horribly corrupt that Tim just leaks his deeds online. Fuck anyone hiding that. Let him get crucified anytime he tries to get a burger. Anyway, the human trafficking ring can go to Young Justice. They need something to do, the boring little things moving at Tim’s direction. Now, time to rig the next election. It’s 2015 and the candidates are the opposite of competent or morally decent. America needs someone younger and full of vigour, not a dusty old pile of ineptitude. Maybe a metahuman. Possibly queer and ambiguously brown with aggressively left-of-centre politics. Someone to revitalise Capitol Hill and then torch it on the way out. Someone like—

“Even if we completely dislike a candidate, we do not manipulate the electoral process. Please direct your efforts to thwarting foreign interference.”

Tim the Data King stares at Bruce in utter annoyance, struggling to understand why he’s in the Batcave’s experimental weapon’s room and trying to fit a shield emitter inside his bo staff. Stupid. Ridiculous. A waste of time. A shield emitter would ruin the weight distribution completely and they never look cool anyway.

“I can’t destroy Facebook. You said no market fluctuations.”

“I’m certain you’ll find alternate means. Also, leave the nukes alone.”

“Ours or the global supply?”

“Yes.”

He shrugs. Not like he’s finished decrypting Britain’s nuclear launch codes anyway. And he doesn’t have a pressing reason to nuke anything right now. Besides, there are more important things to do like completely destroying Lex’s proposal for a space fleet. Which no, just no. Lex is not getting a space fleet before Tim. He does bribe a designer at Nike to make a sneaker set mocking Luthor’s bid for space domination. Let space be free and all that jazz. And if not free then under Dick Grayson’s control. Spread peace, love, and cheer across the galaxy.

A blink.

Where is Tim anyway? The floor. Which is incredibly comfy. He could crawl the rest of the way to his bedroom, but his limbs are completely refusing to move.

Whatever. Tim can recognise his crashes pretty well by now and the floor is perfectly acceptable. Except, why are his thoughts still going to Dick? Oh, it’s Dick carrying him. That’s fine. His confused brain labels him safe and passes right the fuck back to sleep. 

*

Coffee.

Coffee.

Coffee !

Beautiful coffee made exactly the way he likes. Scalding hot nectar from heaven. No one ever gets it just right. His body fucking explodes as he’s brought up from his baseline, forever chasing a caffeine high that gets further and further away with each day. But this is close to divine. A blend of his favourite dark roast from Kenya blended with an aromatic roast from Zimbabwe’s Chipinge region. Deep, full-bodied, and fruity.

Whoever made this it is his new favourite person and he’s giving them the world if that’s what they—

The demon brat.

Fuck.

His depression dies a very quick death and he’s alert in a moment. No, if he’s ever choosing suicide-by-assassin he’s picking someone he doesn’t viscerally hate like Lady Shiva or Talon or Ra’s al Ghul. Not the fucking demon brat. He’ll settle for Richard Dragon at this point.

“Nope, get the hell out,” he snarls the moment he can make his jaw work.

“Blame Grayson,” the demon says in that nasally fucking voice. “It was his insipid request that forced me here. Do you think I want to be here, attending to a treasonous traitor like you?”

Tim turns his roar into an aggrieved grunt, fingers itching to reach for a knife. “I thought we had something good going on. You ignore me, I avoid you, and no one gets hurt. Pretty simple. Why are you destroying the equilibrium?”

The demonspawn won’t leave Tim alone for reasons Tim doesn’t understand. Why the fuck should it matter that Dick told him to be here—and Tim is going to have violent words about Richard leaving a bloody assassin in his room while he was defenceless; protect me my ass, he thinks.

He can tell things have been moved. The subtle order turned to disarray.

Maybe there is no way to make the demon leave but there are ways to hurt him.

“Fine, let’s see how you like it.”

“Drake, don’t.”

“Why? You spent all night in my room doing who knows what. Turnabout is only fair play.”

Tim has avoided the demon’s room as much as possible thus far. It’s about as far from Tim as it gets, closer to Cass than anyone else. A subtle means of control that might matter if Cass was around more often. He shoves his way into the demon’s room.

Barren, is his first thought.

Damian’s room is neat and perfectly organised, not that he has much to organise. The bed is made with military precision, the sheets the simple grey and blue sets used for all the guest rooms. Not a hint of personality like Jason’s Wonder Woman plushies and green bedding or Cass’s sheer black everything design or even Tim’s chaotic mix of blankets, Afghan blankets and comforters that make more of a nest than a bed. It extends further. No knickknacks or baubles on the dresses, no photos or books on the desk that lacks a monitor. Not even a TV, which is the most surprising because Tim thought every room had some kind of TV to it.

He stands in a barren wasteland of a room as the AC wafts cool air from the floor grates. The window is bolted shut, Tim realises with a hint of disquiet.

There are shuttered and disused guest rooms with more character than this blank slate.

Tim kills whatever hint of sympathy is betraying his heart. No, he is not thinking about this. No making connections with unfortunate implications that lead to horrifying conclusions. No thinking of Talia who always wore immaculate and elaborate outfits in white and greens. Not Ra’s who dressed as a sultan in green or a modern businessman in his expensive black suits that held light patterning and shimmered in the light. Don’t pay attention to Damian’s closet filled with mass-produced shirts and pants, all simple blacks, and all startlingly low quality for the son of a billionaire.

Stop thinking stop thinking stop thinking this is nothing like me, no you traitorous piece of shit brain, stop fucking—oh hey, look, a notebook. Time to invade baby’s privacy.

It isn’t a notebook, he realises as he approaches the side table. A sketchbook. He sees a charcoal pencil resting on it and barely spies a set of coloured pencils through the crack of a drawer.

“Get out,” Damian orders curtly, lacing it with every inch of authority he thinks he possesses.

These are good, Tim thinks with a certain disquiet as he flips through the pages. Maybe he says it as well. Damian should not be a person who creates beautiful things. There is Ace caught mid-yawn on the front porch, basking in the sun. The next, a stylised sketch of Nightwing against a Gotham backdrop that bleeds red, electrifying blue holding back the dark. One of Alfred made up of the rooms of Wayne Manor, the pink office his head and his heart the breakfast nook they use. Another of a golden sunrise in the desert, a boy being born again in the scorching sands. So many that it astounds him.

A glint, light from reflected metal. Tim’s eyes widen, a blade brushing against his cheek, embedding itself in the wall behind him.

Damian doesn’t miss. That’s not a thing that happens. Tim’s seen him thread a bullseye with a blunt weapon on no sleep after a day of training. His aim isn’t just excellent, it borders on the preternatural. He’s as close to Cass as a person can get. So, he intentionally avoided hurting Tim.

It makes Tim hesitate a moment.

“I said get out, Pretender!”

Then, to his utter confusion, Damian flees. The assassin with a chip on his shoulder so big it may as well have a gravitational field, runs away from Tim. Jumping out the window that Tim was sure was sealed shut.

Tim follows only until the window, catching the black blur that is Damian as he crosses into the tree line. He inspects the window. Of course, Damian would have broken anything locking him in place. It might be madness, but he takes his phone and deactivates the security systems keeping Damian from escaping the Manor grounds.

Pretender, not Replacement. Tim wonders if degrading insults were part of the League’s training.

The Replacement Robin.

The Pretend Son.

Things just got complicated.

*

“I’m fine,” Tim later insists futilely.

Bruce won’t let him go around with Tim having untreated injuries. Too easy a risk for infection. And Too easy to incur Alfred’s wrath. The blade wasn’t poisoned, though B had been in a frustrated tizzy that Damian had access to weaponry in his room.

“I’ve learnt not to trust your own assessment of your health.”

“Fuck off.” He bats away Bruce’s hand. The wound has already been disinfected and he’s taken antibiotics. Anything else is just needless paranoia.

“Language.”

“That doesn’t work on me.” He sits on the corner of Bruce’s desk, glaring at the man. “Question, have you been to Damian’s room?”

“Yes. Why?”

“Right. And has Damian asked you for anything?”

“The League practices austerity.”

“I’ve seen what Ra’s and Talia wear.”

“They are the exception.”

“And their heir isn’t?” Bruce grunts, demanding he get to the point. Tim would. He really would.

Except Jason chooses that moment to call. Bruce practically jumps across his desk to answer. Yeah, no favourites my ass.

"Jaylad? Hi, you never call,” B says, almost stammering through his greeting. A pause. “Yes, I can keep quiet for a fifteen-minute lecture.”

You wouldn’t do that for me, he thinks bitterly. The most interesting thing about the next five minutes is how quickly Batman gives up the pretence of Bruce Wayne, a total lack of emotion that Tim’s given up on emulating.

In the end, Batman nods. “Understood.”

“Yeah?” Tim asks once B sets the phone down.

“He was in Crime Alley with Jason. He beat down five people. Three are in the ICU.” Well, there goes any sympathy Tim might have been harbouring. Case closed. The brat is an unrepentant and violent creature. “Jason said I need to take responsibility.”

“He’s a bit young for Blackgate.”

“As a parent. He said this is my fault for not setting boundaries between you two.”

“Bullshit. I set my boundaries and they were violated.”

“He also said he’ll burn the manor to the ground if I even think of dumping Damian in any prison, asylum or institute because I failed to parent him.”

“On the one hand, he won’t because Alfred will be sad. On the other hand, I’d like to say the failure was on Talia’s part.”

“That’s not how that turn of phrase is meant to be used.”

“I can’t do the English. Anyway, you still can’t just let the kid be violent and get away with it. Fuck his childhood. We all have fucked up childhoods, but I don’t see anyone else leaving people in the ICU.”

Batman tilts his head slightly. “Isn’t that why you became Robin? Because I was doing that.”

“You know what, fuck you and fuck your recollection of events.”

Batman blinks once, considers arguing with his son, and then turns his attention back to his computer because Batman is a coward. Tim huffs, coming to lean against a wall as the minutes tick by.

He does his best to stop his brain from thinking too much, blanking his thought processes as Damian sweeps in, standing at parade rest in front of the desk. He’s glancing at a spot just over B’s shoulder. Tim can tell. He’s been avoiding eye contact his whole life.

Strange. Damian never shows weakness like that.

Tim listens to the interrogation, feeling a surge of confusion when Damian lays the blame squarely on himself. Stop thinking. It means nothing. He probably just assumes I blamed him and Batman always believes me.

“And yet you were still coherent enough to escape the manor and evade the security systems,” Bruce says. Tim avoids wincing because that was definitely his fault. 

“You would not wish me to harm Drake,” Damian says.

But hey, if the brat wants to take the fall, Tim will gladly hand him the sword to fall on.

“You would have tried,” Tim mutters.

Batman doesn’t acknowledge that comment visibly. “Of the five you fought, three are in the ICU. I need to understand why this inspired such a violent reaction in you.”

Tim nearly snorts. Really, B? What could have inspired a violent assassin to hurt people? Do you start with nurture or nature? Which do you choose to forgive as you come to the same conclusion with the other? Can the two even be separated? Batman and Talia al Ghul are his parents. His nature is violent, and he would have always been nurtured with violence.

“I was raised to be Mother’s blade and she gifted me a sword. Mother gave me sweets as well. You raise me now to be a soldier and gift me a role in your war. You give me colours as well.”

That… Tim expected just about any other confirmation of his nature versus nurture thoughts. Just, what?

Batman’s face does something funny at those words. Tim recognises guilt predominantly but regret as well. Strong emotions warring for control on a man that generally needs to pretend at emotion.

It’s worse in Tim. He knows what having bad parents means—they made him, laid the foundation for a monster within him. He also knows loving them anyway. Hardly a week has passed since he watched the Yahrzeit candle for his mother burn out and he has thought of her every day.

His mother raised him to be a brilliant star and gifted him ruthlessness. She gave him crepes as well. His father raised him in isolation and gifted him a fortune to wage a war. He gave Tim photos as well.

Stop! Just stop thinking. He’s a violent monster. We’re nothing alike. I made choices to be different. He’s just a murderer. 

“That sketchbook was mine and I no longer had control of it,” Damian adds hastily as though he’s afraid. Afraid of what? Bruce? Batman? Robin? Tim? “It is all I have. It is no excuse. My reaction was unbecoming of your Heir.”

“Why?” Tim blurts out. “What does the heir thing mean and have to do with your reaction?”

It’s been bothering him, the weight of the word. The solemnity attached to it. Not just a descriptor, but a title. Tim wrote it off as a way to denote a Prince by al Ghul standards, but he’s starting to suspect it’s something far worse. The empty room. The notebook. Staying in his room for four days. Soldier. Gift. War. Colours.

Right there, at the edge of his perception, the answer waits.

The shape of it is something monstrous, a yawning chasm threatening to swallow Tim whole.

“I am unable to kill the emotions within me,” Damian begins steadily, terribly ashamed as he admits to a secret most profane. “It is my failing and taints this body. The Bat has never been compromised by emotion. Both Mother and Grandfather recognised it and so I was sent here to learn from Father. If I am to be Heir to Grandfather, I must excise that weakness from my marrow. It is my purpose here and why Father accepted me.”

Commander. That’s what Tim has considered Batman his whole life. A kind commander who lets him sleep in the whole weekend and forgives the nervous mess that makes up his existence, but still a commander. One who took him in and moulded him to be a detective, to wield tech and intelligence because he had Dick who was moulded as a perfect leader and Cass who is the best fighter to ever live and Jason with physical strength none of them will ever match.

So, what would he want of Damian, then, if he was a good commander? A perfect soldier. One without Tim’s weaknesses or the rebellious streak of everyone else. Someone who stalks the night as though he was born to it because he was birthed by shadows. A nameless, faceless, deniable agent that kills quietly and efficiently. The same thing Alfred stopped Batman from making Tim.

And here’s Damian, already that.

It makes sense, even as Tim rebels against the idea. B is better than that, always has been. It doesn’t matter that Bruce hasn’t signed the paperwork for any adoption forms or willingly let Damian leave without supervision from someone who could beat him or give a shit that he didn’t leave his room for four days.

“Is that true?” Tim can’t help but ask, rage burning deep in his bones. It can’t be. Not Bruce. Not another parent that makes monsters out of unloved children.

“No,” Batman says over Damian’s, “Yes.”

Damian kneels immediately, head bowed, so still Tim thinks he’s stopped breathing. Tim certainly has at this display of obedience. Contrition and fear from a boy who stood proudly and fearlessly since the day Tim saw him.

“Apologies, Father. I was unaware of the arrangement you came to regarding this body. I did not mean any disrespect.”

Body. Not his training. Not his upbringing. His body. An object to be owned and made into something by hands that take and take and never stop taking.

Tim feels sick, viscerally so. This is worse than anything Jack or Janet could have done. Worse than anything they would have done. For fuck’s sake, even Jack actively stopped the Court from making Tim a Talon.

They wanted greater things for Tim, even at their very worst.

What does Bruce Wayne want for his blood son who doesn’t even carry his name?

What does Batman want of this perfectly trained child soldier who obeys his orders?

For once, Tim’s unshakeable faith wavers.

*

Later, after their shared punishment with Alfred, after Damian reveals he found Tim’s threat assessments on his laptop, Tim finds himself in the Batcave, shrouded by darkness. A dozen monitors bathe him in light. He stares at the threat analysis for Damian. Screen after screen of skills and observations with contingencies to eliminate him.

Deleting them hurts more than he wants to admit. It feels like betraying B. Feels like committing blasphemy against his lord.

When it is gone, all that remains is a photo of a surly kid with more anger in his damaged heart than even Tim held at his worst.

He chooses then to begin anew with the lost child with four simple words:

Damian likes to draw.

Chapter Text

Tim slips through Crime Alley with an ease borne of walking down this route many times.

The window is booby-trapped. An electric field which is an improvement over the high-yield directional explosives of the past. Tim still has a burn from setting one off. He slips into the darkened bedroom, avoiding the pressure plates and tripwires. The biometric sensor is the easiest challenge. Usually, it would be the hardest since any sort of tampering would set off the explosives lining the walls.

Tim scans his thumb, wincing at the sharp sting as it takes a blood sample as well. The door slides open and Tim walks down two flights of stairs to the actual apartment, a technique that Jason stole from Tim.

Jason is cooking, herbs and spices and hot fat making Tim’s mouth water and stomach rumble. He barely spares a glance for the three people gagged in the corner.

“No birds in my territory,” Jason says, turning briefly from his frying pan. Tim is pleasantly surprised to see him wearing the ‘Dead Robin is Best Robin’ apron he got as a gag gift. 

It’s one of those fancy kitchens, all chrome appliances and granite tops and bland pastel cupboards. Very boring but Jason has three coffee machines so Tim forgives it. An espresso is already waiting for him which Tim takes gratefully and downs in one go. Relief will come soon now that he’s maintaining his blood caffeine level—and no, Dick, it isn’t an addiction, I will quite literally die if I go cold turkey.

In the corner of his vision, he notices one of the captives break free of their bindings. Jason does as well by his pleased smile, though one would be forgiven for assuming it has to do with the food.

“You let Damian here.”

Jason errantly shoves Tim aside to reach for the knives. The set was gifted to him by Alfred for his last deathday because Alfred has a morbid sense of humour beneath the affected British disinterest. He tests the weight of one as the captive shimmies out of his ankle bindings. An expert.

“He’s not a bird.”

“Robin can’t be a killer.”

The captive bolts. Tim tilts his head just as a knife sails past his face.

“He says, speaking to the Red Hood.”

A dull thud. A body crashing to the ground. Tim is impressed. Jason managed that right through the eye.

“Yeah, but that was after you were Robin.”

“I am forever fascinated by your ability to compartmentalise and rationalise that away.”

“Gotta compartmentalise that trauma away, bro.” He raises his hand. “Hi five, trauma bro.”

That gets him an elbow to the ribs, right where his spleen would have been if he still had one. Tim staggers back and quickly puts the counter between them.

“Stop being a nuisance.”

“There is no one on this planet who has ever stopped considering me a nuisance. It’s innate in me at this point. That’s like asking Bruce to develop healthy emotional responses.”

“How am I the normal one in this disjointed mess of child soldiers. God didn’t even want me and I’m still better than you fucks.”

“You could have gone to hell,” Tim offers, nibbling on a banana. Jason’s become one of those people who has his life so put together it’s offensive to the rest of the human population. Seriously, actual fresh fruit at the glass table in a fruit basket that’s somehow pretty in dark wood and doesn’t clash with the rest of his home.

It does clash with the growing bloodstain but not everyone can be perfect.

“Bitch, I was a saint.”

“Ah yes, Jason of Gotham, Patron Saint of Decapitated Heads and Crime Alleys.”

“And don’t you fucking forget it.”

In fairness to Jason, he hasn’t decapitated anyone in a whole week.

Jason always cooks for four which to him is a meal and a half. High metabolism from whatever fuckery the Lazarus Pit did to him.

Tim enjoys his cooking. As much as he loves Alfred, and he knows the man has greatly expanded his culinary range, he still defaults to cooking like the rest of his kinsmen who forgot they colonised the place spices came from. Jason cooks like Spanish is his first language, his best friend’s (read: boyfriend) girlfriend is Vietnamese, and the first things he ate after his resurrection were from the cultural explosion that was the League. They made excellent food the one time Tim was a hostage at one of their bases. Kill well and eat well. That’s all to say that sometimes Tim wants a hint of spice to his food and Jason never kicks him out no matter the threats.

“Damian is fucked up.”

Jason chews his food slowly in a most passive-aggressive display of etiquette, setting his fork and knife down at that stupid angle, and dabbing his face at non-existent sauce. Tim waits patiently, silently despairing that Alfred infected one of them with manners and stuff.

“What a grand revelation you’ve encountered. Your brilliance is astounding and no one at all could figure this out by spending five minutes with him.” Jason takes a sip of his stupidly fancy red wine—a 1953 chardonnay from a small winery in Provence to be specific, because, unlike Jason who affects a dignified upbringing, Tim owns the winery. Just in case he needs to cut Jason’s supply. “I’m starting to doubt your IQ.”

“Please, 190 is underestimating me. Data analytics and computer science are my specialities. I did half the work on the Oracle system in a week-long bender that I do not remember.”

And completely upgraded Batman’s digital security systems but Tim’s not allowed to mention that because his file trees are so terribly organised that Bruce has a hissy fit at the very mention of it.

Tim refuses to consider how smart Damian had to be to breeze through his personal computer’s security. His self-esteem can only take so many hits in a seventy-two-hour period before he has a nervous break.

“Unfortunately, human psychology isn’t one of your skills.”

“I can understand—”

“Metahumans and aliens, yes.”

“There’s a reason Killer Croc likes me and not the rest of you.”

“He’s fattening you up before he eats you.”

“He’s not a cannibal despite what people speculate. He just has really sharp teeth and the strangest biological disease I’ve ever seen which makes me suspect it has something to do with the water. It’s not turning the frogs into gay hermaphrodites, but it has to explain at least a little bit of why Gotham is Gotham.”

“You’ll get an answer once you figure out how I refused to die.”

“It rained that day so there’s your answer. It’s all in the water. Water, however, doesn’t explain Damian. Does he understand he’s a person?” he asks, grabbing the last stuffed pepper and refilling his milk glass. He won’t pretend he can survive all the chilli in the lamb’s spice mix. 

“Have you treated him like one?” Jason counters like he’s had this discussion already. Probably with B. “Or did you treat him like an enemy at every turn?”

“Our enemies are people as well.”

“What do you think a kid is going to learn from that? That everyone in his home is ready to kill him at any time? Not that you care. He hates you and you hate him. That’s fine enough.”

“I don’t hate the demon. I just want him to stop threatening me all the time.”

“He thinks you hate him and I get why. Has he actually tried to kill you?”

Tim frowns, ready to say yes, but that’s not accurate. Requested that his body be used for organ harvesting on more worthy warriors and even given a moral justification on how his sleeping habits make him ineligible for any breeding experiments, but not actual murder.

“Huh, that’s… that’s really strange. It’s not like he could—”

“He can. Very easily. He’s not a great fighter because he has the build of a toddler but I’m almost certain he could kill Bruce if he wanted to. And you, little Tim Tam, are not that good.” Jason likes leaning forward when he makes his points. Tim just wishes he’d knock over his wine glass and make a fool of himself. “So maybe get over his potential lethality when he’s done nothing to you. You gave me a chance and I actively tried to kill you. Why can’t you give the kid the same chance?”

Because I don’t like being scared in my home, he thinks, but will never say because that means confronting the thing that Jack and Janet wanted to mould him into. A perfect son with a fake smile and dead eyes and not an ounce of kindness.

Worse, still, if they’d had less pride, they may have made him a Talon. They would have made him a creature who kills and kills and—

They would have made me Damian.

“Tell me what they did to him.”

“Why do you care now? You never did before.”

“All he cared about was what B wanted to be done with his body. His Body. He wasn’t afraid of being punished. He was afraid that he’d fucked up some strange arrangement Ra’s and B came to regarding his body.” Tim swallows nervously, looking away from Jason’s cheekbone. “It was like his greatest fear was not being sold to someone.”

“I don’t know all the details. I wasn’t there for all of it and I shouldn’t have let him stay a day longer. That’s on me no matter what bullshit excuse I give myself. Damian isn’t a person. He wasn’t raised as one. He didn’t even have a name for years. Even after that, he was still just called Heir or Vessel—and don’t ask me what fucked up shit that was about because I don’t know. Damian isn’t even the name I knew him by.”

“But Talia loves him. I’ve seen the pile of corpses Talia’s left behind that tried to kill him.”

“When you’re that damaged, what the fuck is love supposed to mean? At least you have a concept for love. You have the words for it. Your parents were fucked up but at least you knew they were doing something wrong. Every time they broke his hands or let a Pit mad brute beat him to the ground were good things in his mind. They were the right thing to do. Anything else wasn’t love.”

“You can’t fix that.”

“You can. Just takes time and effort.”

Time that no one but Jason’s put in as far as he can tell. The kid ran to Jason and it makes sense the longer Tim thinks on it. Jason stood up for him when Bruce neglected Damian—and it hurts to consider it neglect, four days isn’t neglect, that’s barely a long weekend—and kept on standing up for him. The brat wasn’t even allowed outside if not for Jason.

All Tim has done is fight him and treat him as a threat at every turn. Treated him like a blade when he deserved sweets, expected a soldier when there was a boy who liked colours. Saw the terrible thing Janet and Jack wanted to make of him instead of anything else.

“If I don’t compartmentalise this, I’ll probably be crying in a shower at some point.”

“If you do, will you care?”

“No,” he admits, defeated, eyes closing. “No, I won’t. Why is being a decent person so hard? I could be a sociopath. It would be so easy.”

“You chose to be Robin.”

“Fuck me I make stupid life decisions.” A snort. “What is it? His real name.”

“No. You don’t get that. That’s his to give.”

Tim blinks. “You really do love him.”

“He took the blame for all my mistakes in the League. Did it because that was his role as Heir. He still does it. Lets the blame fall on him no matter how scared he is. Won’t show it as well. That kid will die for you if you don’t look out.”

“Just you. You’re his favourite.”

Jason shakes his head. “You still don’t get it. If he tried keeping me safe, what do you think he’ll do for someone as pathetic as you?”

That’s not a question he wants to consider. Not today. Maybe not ever.

“Are we going to talk about those two guys in the corner?” he asks instead, compartmentalising the entire conversation for another day.

“Oh, them. Help me carry them to the torture chamber. We’ll do small chunks in a suitcase and feed them to my talking barracuda sharks.”

“I am not helping you kill anyone to your delusion of talking sharks.”

The knives are thrown quickly, blades lodging deep in the men’s heads.

“You’re helping me dispose of the bodies. Come on, you owe me for the food.”

“No.”

*

If Bruce ever asks, Tim definitely did not actively take part in the surgical dismemberment of two men, and he was never entirely certain of the contents of the briefcases.

*

*

*

Steph is ordered to report to the Manor coincidentally on the same day Richard is back and takes Damian for a trip to town.

It smells of a setup. Tim wonders what she did to antagonise Bruce. He shares a look with Steph and shrugs, unsure as well as they both stand in Bruce’s office.

“So, what’s up, old man?”

Bruce tells them.

Tim feels the floor drop out from under him, a feeling he sees mirrored in Steph.

“Um, excuse you, why are you sending me away for a year? You can’t do that. You aren’t my daddy.”

“Your mother calls him your sugar daddy,” Tim points out, pleased to see Bruce turn a shade of green. He deserves worse. “What the fuck, Bruce? You can’t just send people away.”

“Entirely inappropriate suggestions aside, I thought this was what you wanted to do.”

“Me?!” he screeches. “Why would I want this?”

“Not you. This isn’t about you.”

“Yeah, Tim, stop trying to make this about you.” Steph whirls on Bruce. “Explain yourself.”

“You mentioned a trip to Europe.”

“I wanted to go on a trip to Europe but not like this. With my friends, not some stupid rich kids who’ll grow up emotionally stunted like you.”

“I can remove the five you dislike the most.”

“Money isn’t going to make this better.”

“I’ve also paid Lady Shiva an exorbitant amount of money to train you.”

“Well, why didn’t you lead with that.” Steph turns with a thousand-watt grin. “Sorry, Tim, I’m giving my heart to the super scary assassin lady. I guess you can call this the breakup.”

Tim’s mind blanks. What? Steph’s breaking up with him? That makes less sense than the Joker reforming himself. They’re supposed to be forever. They have those stupid promise rings Steph insisted on and everything.

“Oh, thank god,” Bruce says.

“Hey, that doesn’t mean you get a shot. You’d be lucky to have me as a sugar baby.”

“I don’t need such disturbing imagery about my daughter.”

“Not adopted. And you want some disturbing imagery?”

“Gods no.”

Not even the gods could stop Steph. She leans her head out the window overlooking where Cass is lying on the grass, basking in the sun as a lazy cat would.

“Cass, we’re going on a Europe trip! Me, you and another scary assassin lady.” Even from here, Tim can see Cass give a thumbs-up. “Said scary assassin lady is your mom by the way.” It turns to a thumbs down. “But she’s being paid to behave and her fashion sense is great so please forgive me because we’re the best and we should definitely get married for tax purposes and adopt two munchkins in a decade.” Thumbs up once more.

“Green Martian can wipe this memory for me,” Bruce says slowly, horror lining his features. “My sweet baby girl deserves better.”

“She deserves the best and that’s me.”

Tim clears his throat. “Can we talk about the fact that I just got dumped? And that you basically got together with my adopted sister in the same conversation. Do my feelings not matter here?”

“Sigh, give us some privacy, daddy. We need to talk messy emotions.”

Bruce flees from his own office because he’s a very dumb man who can’t handle being teased on a good day or having messy emotions.

“Did you seriously say ‘sigh’ in a conversation?”

“Yes, lmao.”

“Lmao isn’t French.”

“It should be.” Steph sighs even more dramatically this time, hands on her hips. “Look, let’s be real, this relationship isn’t working and hasn’t been for a while. This is as good a place to end it as any.”

“You didn’t even tell me you weren’t happy!”

“I did.”

“When?”

“When I suggested we stop boning for a while and think things through.”

“We were being shot at by mercenaries.”

“Clearly you didn’t listen to me. I’ve been dropping progressively less subtle hints about taking some time apart or maybe even ending things. Like, flat out mentioning it. Also, the sex is stale. You’re such a pillow queen.”

His eye twitches against his best efforts. “Maybe because we always do it when you want.”

“And the only time you want to is when you’re drunk. Don’t think I haven’t noticed. I’m not stupid.”

“Sorry I need a bit of a pick me up.”

“Stop making yourself the victim here.”

“I think I have every right to.”

“You don’t want a vital part of what I need in a relationship. Ergo, we should end this relationship before we stop being friends. I’m willing to fix you, but only as a friend.”

“I’m not broken.”

Steph snorts. “Sure, you aren’t. I also need some emotional availability.”

“I can do emotions. I have emotions. All the emotions.”

“You’ve got spite, anger, resentment, and depression. Oh, and religious devotion. I can’t be the one doing all the work emotion-wise.”

“We could be long distance.”

“Sorry, my heart is going to Cass. This is my last hurrah as a free spirit. The things I’m going to do to those French boys.”

Tim flinches despite himself.

Steph notices. She always notices these things no matter how much he wishes she wouldn’t.

“You know, sometimes when you’re tired, you speak in French,” she says gently.

His mind feels brittle. No. He doesn’t want to have this conversation. Not with anyone. He shakes his head. “I don’t speak in my sleep.”

“You do.”

“I don’t,” he snaps, squaring his stance. “I do not.”

“Talk to me. Please. You can’t keep trying to solve everyone else’s problems and ignore your own.”

Tim shakes his head. “There’s nothing. It’s nothing.”

“Tim.”

“Leave it alone,” he says flatly.

“Well fine, don’t tell me but for the love of all that’s good, just tell someone.”

She kisses him then, a passionate thing with feelings unsaid. Tim kisses back just as hard, trying to memorise the taste of her, the shape of her lips and the sound of her gasps. To know her is to know himself and drown in self-love. It is to find joy beneath duty, and he knows she finds the inverse in him, the joy within duty.

He loves her terribly in the easy way of first loves.

When she pulls away, Tim knows it is over between them.

“Anyway, love you lots, it’ll always be Steph-and-Tim no matter what, I’m face timing you daily and if you don’t like all my posts with your sock puppet accounts, I will be very upset.”

*

*

*

He feels numb in the aftermath of their breakup, a grey tinge cast over everything. Caffeine pills find their way into his water supply as he tries to stay awake, stay focused. He’s a jittery mess prone to crashing abruptly, almost sick with anger and too tired to act on it.

Why is he always this fucking tired? Why is the demon gremlin still in the house?

He knows he promised to be better to him but that can wait till Tim has his own shit together. His patrols have been messy, he’s taking blows he shouldn’t and being more violent than he usually is. Violent enough that Jason tells him to stay the hell away from Crime Alley until he sorts his shit out.

It might be an abrupt decision, but Tim withdraws entirely from school. He was barely there anyway, attending maybe once a month to let Ives and Ariana know he was still alive. They can message him if they still care. They won’t, obviously.

He stands before the door leading to the game room with the others in Young Justice, three friends he doesn’t have to pretend so much with. Pausing for a moment, he takes out his phone and mutes notifications from Ives and Ariana, before putting his phone away. Leave them be. He feels no guilt. Just like his relationship with Steph, his other childish relationships need to end.

Squaring his shoulders, he steps into the chaos the game room has descended into. Bart and Kon are playing the fastest chess game in history, pieces rearranging so quickly that Tim only sees a blur, even as Kon uses his free hand to lose an arm wrestling challenge with Cassie. He appreciates that they pretend to have not noticed him hesitating at the door.

“Guess who brought alcohol.”

The bag is taken from him before he can process it. Then he finds himself on his preferred spot on the couch, a controller in hand as Dark Souls II is scrawled across the screen. He sighs. Apparently, his frustration constitutes entertainment for these idiots.

They already have drinks in red cups and he gets to bash his head against a boss that’s been ruining his week. Finding alcohol that works on metahumans is a nightmare that the adults solved years ago, before the golden son took the name Robin. Stealing it, though, now that’s an art Tim perfected.

“Maybe try rolling through the attack?” Cassie asks helpfully, a cheery smile blossoming across her features.

It’s Tim’s fifth death for the day, bringing his tally up to thirty thus far. “Thanks, I’ll remember to try that next time.”

“Do baselines even have the reaction time?” Bart asks, still engaged with his chess game—oh, no, they’ve just reset and are halfway through a new one.

“It was made for them so maybe? I beat all of the bosses on my first try because they move so slow.”

“Thanks, Kon. Please, continue making me feel worthless. I love it.”

He tries again. And again. And throws the controller at the screen, screaming expletives at everyone who worked on the game.

Bart holds the controller inches from the screen, his smirk infuriating.

“I’m fucking done.”

“Hey, Operation Remove the Stick Out of Tim’s Ass is complete, now for Operation Fun.”

Spin the bottle isn’t the dumbest thing they’ve ever done. They have an honour system with a lot of their games. Poker is boring when Bart just checks everyone’s cards and rearranges the deck in his favour—though making a game of calling bullshit on his changes is a different thing entirely. They can’t do sports when Tim’s very best won’t ever bridge the gap between metahuman powers. Even Ouja boards get wonky with Cassie’s powers occasionally summoning actual ghosts and that always becomes a case to solve.

Tim shrugs at Kon when the bottle lands on him. “Truth.”

“Worst injury you never told us about.”

“Define worst.”

“I hate that you can say that with a straight face.”

“If we’re talking long-term ramifications then probably the time I lost my spleen.”

“Excuse you, what?”

“Spleen. It’s why I’m always on medication.”

And why he likely always will be. Tim wasn’t ever a sickly child but years of malnutrition from neglect haven’t left him with the most robust immune system. He’ll be lucky if he gets off the antibiotics before eighteen.

“I thought those were anti-depressants.”

“I don’t take those.”

Well, he doesn’t take legally prescribed medication that passed FDA approval. Joker venom does a much better job anyway.

“You should.”

“I’m not weak.”

“No one said that,” Cassie says steadily. “No one here thinks you’re weak.”

“But you are kinda super depressed,” Bart adds.

“Excuse you, this is not analyze-our-issues hour. I would know. I handle our scheduling.”

That’s the end of that discussion. Rather ridiculous that they think they have an opinion on this. He spins the bottle and grins when it lands on Bart.

“I dare you to give Flash a hug in the Kid Flash outfit.”

Bart scowls at him. He’s back in an instant, throwing his phone at Tim. A picture of Bart hugging Flash from behind in what might be any city in the world greets him, Flash utterly bewildered and Bart sending a death glare through the screen. Entirely because of the yellow spandex and red lightning bolt. It’s petty on Tim’s part, weaponizing Bart’s insecurities like that.

“You’re an asshole,” Kon says with a sigh.

“Thank you.”

They keep going, the others getting mildly drunk while Tim travels right past mildly tipsy and straight to belligerent drunk. His remarks become increasingly petty right up until he reaches the depressed drunk phase.

That’s not fun. He doesn’t like this phase. He does stupid things in this phase.

“Truth,” he mutters at Cassie.

“Um, how big is your drug stash?”

“If by drugs you mean Schedule 1 and 2 drugs, I only really have painkillers because I’m a squishy human. Yay.” And then he lists exact quantities for them, savouring how their eyes glaze over at the boring information. Knowing Tim has five thousand milligrams of Percocet in all of his first-aid kids isn’t entertaining.

“Okay, nope, we’re done with this,” Kon says, spinning the bottle out of order.

Tim chuckles, sipping on his drink, pineapple Vodka mixed with three different energy drinks. Always balance out the depressant with the stimulant.

Eventually, Bart gets to spin the bottle again after being skipped over twice while he was distracted. He read an entire trilogy between turns and spent his next one gushing over the characters because ships that could turn into people and drink lots of tea and body swap are entirely relevant to their game.

It lands on Tim. Fuck, he thinks.

“Dare you to kiss Tim,” Bart says with triumph, as though he’s figured out the worst thing in the world. Which, a year ago Tim would have taken to mean Tim himself. Now he knows anything involving humans swapping bodily fluids sends Bart running for the hills.

For some unfathomable reason, Bart thinks they’re alike. Which is just plain wrong. Tim is very straight, and he very much likes kissing and sex.

“No,” Kon says sharply.

Tim gives him the middle finger. “It’s just a dare. Call one of your many booty calls if you’re jealous.”

“Ew,” Bart mutters, shuddering.

Tim turns his focus back to Cassie.

Cassie shrugs at him, giving Tim the chance to say no. To refuse the dare. Truth or dare may be sacred, but they love each other far more than a game. They’ve all refused dares and truths and they’ve never held it over one another.

This isn’t a terrible dare so he leans over, nearly knocking over his drink, and swaying so much he nearly misses. Well, he does miss but Cassie isn’t so drunk.

It’s the first kiss they share. She tastes nothing like Steph, feels nothing like his best friend that ditched him for Europe, but by God does it let him forget for a moment. Just a moment. One fleeting moment. He wishes moments ran like hours and he could forget for so much longer.

This is the start of something beautiful, he just knows it.

*

Their relationship ends surprisingly amicably. Given that it was four weeks of screaming matches and arguments, that’s the best thing about it.

They are on the roof, gazing across what seems like an impossible gulf between each other. He’s felt less tense facing off against Batman’s rogues. He keeps his breathing even, glad that this far away, looking anywhere at her is almost like looking her in the eye. Between them lay a legion of unconscious ninjas. An announcement of a gift from Ra’s, for whatever strange reason that creep comes up with.

“Cassandra Sandsmark.”

“Timothy Drake.” Tim keeps his bruised hands loose at his side, watching Cassie do the same. Treating him as an enemy just as he is. Just as much as they treated the ninjas as enemies. The problem with having a man as powerful as Ra’s al Ghul as an enemy is that secret identities aren’t very secret.

Their constant fighting hadn’t been a secret.

Who technically leads Young Justice? Is it Tim for coming up with the plans and organising them or being the field leader? Or is it Cassie for inspiring them and forcing them to be better no matter what? The person they look to for logical reasoning or emotional support?

That question had come between them almost instantly. Avoiding the Manor, avoiding the spectre of Steph’s departure and the maddening presence of the gremlin had drawn him to work with Young Justice extensively. He’s practically lived here for the last month.

They have a routine, the three of them, one that never included Tim. Schedules and rotations he’d barged into, jokes and group-speak he lacked. Tim was an intruder, stumbling through Kon’s preferred social media spot and unwittingly claiming the room Bart uses when he can’t stomach being at human speeds. Cassie had been kind about pointing these things out but it always felt like recrimination from her, and that just pissed him off.

Part of him understands that it is on him for having spent so much time away from them, barging in and leaving like a hurricane whenever it suited him. That part gets strangled and locked away tight. Tim is blameless, always.

The quiet mounts between them. It used to be so easy to talk to each other. Now, those days feel impossibly far away.

“We’re so bad together that Bart’s run back to Keystone,” Cassie says with a wry smile.

Tim exhales so hard he nearly folds over. “Yeah, we are. He gave me a two-hour lecture on how dating inside friend groups is a terrible idea. I’m pretty sure he was reading from a script someone else wrote.”

“Probably Kon. He’s been… catty.”

“If he wanted to date you then he should have said so.”

Cassie rubs her eyes, errantly kicking a ninja back to unconsciousness. “Right. Yup. That’s definitely his problem with our relationship.”

“Not like there’s much of one. How do you want to do this? Mission debrief style?”

“Sure, let’s keep it brief. We weren’t ready for this relationship,” Cassie says firmly, standing as Wonder Girl would. “Neither one of us communicated what we wanted out of this. Your refusal to ever clarify your interests or inclinations pissed me off all the time. You constantly demanded access to my time but never once offered your own. Oh, and that thing you do when you say something vaguely terrible to get me to back off from asking you anything was annoying. Maybe not as bad as how you constantly ran from my ‘messy feelings’ which somehow includes your opinion on dinner. And everything always has to be about you.”

Well, that was… he knows he asked for it but it still hurts.

“Thank you for your candid words,” Tim says blandly, letting his feelings numb.

“Your turn.”

“Nah, I think I’m good. I get it. This has been lovely, but I think I’m going to head out now and let us both cool off.”

Cassie sighs. “You’re doing it again. Running from messy feelings and trying to make me unreasonable for wanting to continue this conversation.”

“Well sorry, I thought my mental health could survive…” Tim pauses, running his words against her debrief. “Oh. That’s the vaguely terrible thing thrown in your face.”

“Yup.”

“Sorry.”

“It’s fine, I guess.” Cassie is rubbing her arms despite being impervious to the cold. “Did we ever have a good moment this whole time?”

They did have a good day. One. Singular. Day. Tim had called her, stuck at the Manor because of family obligation, and Cassie had answered without hesitation. There were words bubbling in Tim’s throat, resentment at Damian and doubt that he would still have a place in this household. Cassie had spoken when he couldn’t, told him of her history paper and the weird guy who kept on playing a shitty xylophone at midnight, and a dozen other little things. They’d talked for hours, the sun setting and rising on their conversation. Even when she’d dosed off, Tim stayed on the line, and they’d kept talking. He’d micro-napped easily to the sound of her voice, flitting between true slumber and fitful awareness as easily quantum probabilities collapse upon observation.

He tells her in much fewer words. Cassie smiles sadly. “Yeah, there was that day.”

“Anything else you want to get off your chest about how terrible I am?”

“Always have to make it about yourself. You’re exhausting, Tim. Just… I spend so much time trying not to set you off and send you into some weird manic spiral where you start wars in random countries for profit—”

“I did that once,” Tim says firmly, remembering the lecture he got from Alfred. “And I made sure to get all their artefacts from the British Museum back.”

Reminder: Plunder the rest of the British Museum. Maybe invite Selina?

“Tim, that’s a crime.”

He scowls at her. “It’s justice. Everything they have in there was taken by force and if they don’t have the force to keep them then no one gets to complain. I’m not even suggesting assassinating anyone.”

“Oh, that’s the other thing. I don’t think I can date a villain.”

“I’m not a villain. I’m just sometimes an anarchist.”

“Tim, Deadshot wants you as an apprentice.”

“Coincidence.”

“Ra’s al Ghul sends you presents with the assassins.”

“He’s a creep and this isn’t about any of my morally questionable actions. Or behaviours. Or anything. This is about our breakup. Are we done here or is there something else to add?”

“I guess I didn’t like being your rebound.”

“You were never that.”

“Tim, you’d been broken up with Steph for a week before we started dating. If that’s not the definition of a rebound, I don’t know what is.”

He winces. “Okay, I may have been bitter and angry about Steph. And I may have used you to deal with that.”

“You think?” Cassie shakes her head fondly. “Is she why you can’t even stand kissing or was that a me thing?”

“Neither.”

“Then?”

“Just not my thing.”

“Do you even like girls?”

“Yes,” he says instantly, and it is true. He liked Steph and he liked Cassie at the very least.

“I’m not judging. None of us would care otherwise. But dating people you don’t like doesn’t work.”

“Did we not just go over the many reasons this didn’t work despite me liking you? Okay, this has been lovely, but I really have to go. Like, legitimately. I’m taking delivery of a small nuke. If you hear anything about one of Luthor’s launch sites suffering a catastrophic failure due to their nuclear reactors, it was not my fault.”

Cassie takes a deep breath. Sits down. Hides her face in her hands. “Go. Just, go. And make sure no one dies.”

“I’m not an amateur.”

“At least Kon will stop glaring at me,” she mutters.

“Yeah, we kinda did kick him out of his home.”

“That’s not what I—no, nope, not my responsibility anymore.”

“Exactly,” Tim says with a smile.

And then he’s off.

*

Exactly thirteen hours later, Tim is pretending to sleep on a kitchen counter in the Manor when news breaks of an unexpected malfunction in Luthor’s planned test flight.

No one at all suspects him.

“I say, Master Tim, it is rather strange that Lex’s long-term project for space flight has been completely destroyed only three days after he scuffed your sneakers. Do I have to get the leash again or will you accept your grounding with grace?”

Okay, maybe Alfred suspects him.

Tim sits up, giving up on the pretence of sleep. Oh, there’s Bruce drinking hot chocolate and pretending he has nothing to do with this.

“I could have bombed Big Ben, but I didn’t. Therefore, I don’t deserve to be grounded.”

“The leash it is.”

*

*

*

Tim accepts his grounding with grace and only destabilises the regional political scene by listing each and every politician who was against public healthcare and transit. He also leaks their dirtiest secrets just for the fun of it and sits back as people draw lines in the sand and go to war, both at Capitol Hill and on Twitter.

Just to balance things out a bit, he drafts Bruce’s PR statement and makes a link showing all the positive things Gotham’s local billionaire has done. From the infrastructure projects to the orphanages and the network of emergency shelters. He gets #WayneForMayor trending and uses influence-by-association to bribe (read: legally lobby) for a few building permits in exchange for ringing endorsements to maybe not throw the current Mayor under the bus. Really, this was the most expedient way to get his community centres and after-school projects zoned appropriately. It was also cheap. Just a hundred grand and a bit of fuckery.

Tim cracks his knuckles. Midnight has just passed and it is daytime in Europe. Time to see how terribly he can destabilise a foreign continent. First, he needs to find out if there’s anything particularly European that annoys him.

His phone rings. Tim sighs, answering the voice call without checking. Only a handful of people get the ringer.

“Hey, hey, hey,” Steph says in her Spoiler costume. She’s perched on a building, the Louvre Museum pyramid right behind her. Tim nearly ends the call right then and there because his mother took him there. No matter how long she’s been gone, his psyche seems to orbit all the harm she did to him. “I heard you broke up with Cassie.”

Tim doesn’t flinch. It’s a close thing and exactly what he would have said to her were the situation reversed.

“Going right for the throat.”

She smiles sadly. “You know it. Anyway, you’re way better than Cassie and you definitely dumped her.”

“You don’t have to defend my honour or pretend you don’t like her.”

“Bro, you’re my ride or die. If you don’t fuck with someone, I don’t fuck with them. That’s just us, you know.” Steph sighs. “I’m still not over you before you think something shitty about yourself. It just needed to end before I started hating myself for making myself into someone I wasn’t. Before you hate me for demanding you be someone you never could be.”

“I wish I could be better for you.”

“It’s not about being better. You never listen to what I’m saying. Actually, no, you do listen, you just always take the worst interpretation possible. Tim, you don’t get who you are, not yet. Took me a while to figure it out but you being yourself isn’t a bad thing. The person I needed you to be to make our relationship work would have killed you. It would have been your fakest smiles every day, pretending things were fine because you’d made yourself into the right sort of person. And I… Tim, I love you too much to do that to you.”

“Random heart-to-heart at midnight was not what I expected or wanted from a midnight call. Thanks, I guess.”

“You guess? You’re infuriating,” she says with a laugh. “So anyway, you’re really scaring Bruce and he’s asked me to convince you to stop doing anything political. Apparently, you’ve made five congressmen resign. Good job on that.”

“Thanks. I wouldn’t be doing anything if I wasn’t grounded,” he says, pitching his voice loudly for whoever is spying on him. Not Damian, the demon’s outside with Alfred. Maybe Jason if he’s here for free food. Hopefully Bruce. “Also, don’t think I can’t see the graffiti on the pyramid.”

“You saw nothing.”

“There’s paint on your shoulder.” Steph is too well trained to so much as twitch. “Whatever. Not my business what crimes you commit on your trip. Are you and Lady Shiva having fun?”

“I want to say yes but she and Talia have been trying to kill each other all week. Decided I need some me time, you know. Um, anything you want from the Louvre? I’m definitely going to be in trouble for the graffiti which I did not do, so we may as well add theft to the list.”

“I’ll settle for you burning it down.”

“Nah, arson’s not my thing. Burning everything to the ground is your thing.”

“Look, my boredom just hits different. I need constant stimulation. People should understand this by now. Now, if I could work a case or do something fun, I might not cause chaos. Did you know I just finished decrypting the nuclear codes in Britain? And I have access to Avalon. There’s some fun I could do there.”

“So long as it doesn’t get me in trouble with Alfie, you do you. Did you know the crepes in France are kinda terrible? That little place in Bludhaven’s Chinatown has better crepes. I don’t get it. Weren’t they invented here? How do they not know how to make them?”

“Apparently Japan makes them even better.”

“Maybe next trip.”

Tim tilts his head, understanding her as well as he understands himself. “When are you coming back?”

“Flight in a few hours. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“Missing Gotham?”

“Missing Gotham,” she agrees. “Love you lots. Bye.”

“Peace.”

Tim sets aside his plans for world domination for a few hours and goes to sleep.

He learns a few hours later that the graffiti was a depiction of Gotham’s mayor getting eaten by a bat and a dragon. Tim laughs himself hoarse. That’s just perfect.

*

The next morning, Steph is back and tells the whole family to fuck off as she sleeps off her jet lag. Tim laughs at Bruce’s barely hidden despair. At this point, Tim’s resigned himself to fighting to be his third favourite after Cass and Steph.

Alfred makes stacked tomato and burrata salad, one of Bruce’s favourites. Surprising, since B has been a mainstay on Alfred’s shitlist since before Tim came around. Tim isn’t the biggest fan of tomatoes on a good day where eating doesn’t make him sick to the core. Eating doesn’t seem like a good idea today. Not for any reason he can figure out.

“These were harvested from Master Damian’s work,” Alfred says proudly. Bruce inclines his head slightly which may as well be jubilation.

Well, shit, I have to eat them now, he thinks.

He is hesitant as he slices through a chunk, expecting it to be poisoned despite knowing Alfred would never let anyone tamper with his meals. The tomatoes are sweet and firm, a strong burst of acidity cutting through that sweetness.

He isn’t exaggerating when he says these are the best tomatoes he’s ever had.

Another thing to add to Damian’s profile. It is painfully bare after deleting his last one, the threat assessment that painted him entirely as a monstrous killer. He is. A killer, that is, but not a monster. Just a fucked-up kid.

Damian likes to draw. He goes for ballet lessons three days a week with Cass. His favourite ice-cream flavour is whichever one Dick picks for him. Now he likes growing tomatoes.

How much more is hidden beneath the killer? If they baptise him in kindness and cleanse his sins, what will the child beneath show them?

Tim finds that he wants to know. His traitorous heart that forgave his shite parents wants to give a demon a second chance.

*

Evening comes and with it pandemonium.

It wouldn’t be Gotham without an Arkham breakout every few years. The last one happened before Tim was Robin. He remembers that night, smart enough even at nine to stay inside and barricade the doors, hiding out in the attic. There was a small window he could escape from if the worst happened and the mansion was breached.

The very air tasted different that night and it tastes different tonight. It fills his nostrils and coats his throat with thick sludge, that heady promise of violence and death. Gotham shivers in anticipation, it shimmers with visions of the violence to come.

People will die tonight. People have died tonight. People are dying right now.

Tonight, they must stand as Gotham’s protectors. They must be her soldiers against the armies of evil. If they fail, if they fall, Gotham falls with them.

Tim is paired with Damian. A choice that has him grimacing at the necessity of it all. No sane person, not even an insane man like Batman, will let a ten-year-old fight alone on a night this dangerous. Batman, Nightwing and Black Bat are their heavy hitters. They’ll handle the most dangerous out of Arkham, the likes of Joker and Man-Bat.

Spoiler isn’t here, but she’s with Batwoman, already patrolling the bloody streets.

And Jason, well, trying to make Jason do anything but what he wants is a fool’s exercise. 

“Keep each other safe,” Batman orders before they leave.

Tim nods, accepting the commandment and branding his skin with it. No matter the cost, he’s making sure everyone comes home. So long as his lord and commander demands it, Tim will do it.

“B won’t say it, but everyone’s coming home tonight,” Nightwing says. It is not hope that colours his voice, but the determination to make his hopes reality.

They take to Gotham in the rain, each of them to their important duties. Tim and Damian are reconnaissance, advance scouts marking out the important areas that need to be dealt with. Leave the minor robberies and break-ins to the police. Mark the gangs with automatic weapons. Find Joker’s minions and identify the areas Poison Ivy’s taken over.

Strike where they can. Strike once, strike fast, and never strike again.

Tim gives quick orders and Damian follows them perfectly. A lethal instrument trained from birth, he doesn’t hesitate to jump into the fray. Tim is careful, so, so careful, to keep him away from the most dangerous enemies. He will attack from the shadows while Tim takes centre stage as a distraction.

They work well together, fighting in the rain and smoke. It reminds Tim of working with Nightwing in reverse. Damian’s patterned his movements to fall in place beside Dick, instinctively moving to the places Dick doesn’t. Tim makes use of it ruthlessly. He isn’t Nightwing, but he’s paid attention to him religiously.

Tim grins at his enemies. “Looking for this?” he asks a gunman in the same tone Richard would, taking on more and more of his mannerism as the night goes on.

It’s fucking exhausting. He has no idea how Nightwing does it every night. Between assaults, when they’re swinging to the next battle, the next burning building, the next gang with Blockbuster in their veins, Tim is silent. Hand signs are easier.

They converge on a battle with Jason and join him easily. Jason fires his guns relentlessly, his precision impeccable. He hits knees and shoulders like it’s a videogame with the difficulty turned to easy, and he’s strong enough to punch through concrete.

Damian turns strangely frantic during that encounter. Tim has to pull him out of the way of two attacks because the brat thinks he can handle a three-hundred-pound man easier than Jason.

‘That kid will die for you if you don’t look out,’ he remembers Jason telling him, and he sees it now in action. His heart catches in his throat. No. This brat can deal with the gunmen in the back while Tim fights beside Jason.

The moment the fight is done and two dozen men are unconscious—or dead, but they don’t ever talk about Jason’s corpses—Oracle sends them another location to assault. Activity north. Multiple points of interest. 

Tim acknowledges it. Makes sure they all drink electrolyte water and the high-density nutrient bars. Safer always to recharge for a few minutes and avoid collapsing in the middle of a battle. They can’t save anyone, and if they fall, more people will die.

That done, Tim makes patrol routes for the area. Damian’s will always intersect either Jason’s or Tim’s, the brat never more than five minutes away from backup. Damian glares at him ineffectually. The brat is eleven and tiny. It barely phases him.

They disperse.

Tim grapples from rooftop to rooftop, scouting the areas for activity. An arms deal here, a big drug deal there. Harmless crimes compared to Scarecrow dousing a hospital with fear gas. To his frustration, Damian keeps interfering in worthless battles and starts lagging behind. Children, he curses, hoping he was never this difficult, and knowing he was far worse.

Before he can say anything, a gunshot takes his attention. He walks across the wet gravel of the roof and kneels, the dark portion of his cape obscuring him. An old prep school two blocks away. A man is dead in the courtyard. Three more surround him. Even more patrolling the grounds and the towers at either corner of the building.

Tim approaches from the shadows, slinking like a wraith. He stops beside one of Gotham’s ubiquitous gargoyles—B has to be funding their construction—and listens. Italian accents. Well, American-Italian accents.

“Major activity in those buildings,” Tim says over the comm. “Looks like a resupply base for Falcone’s men.”

The radio crackles. Jason. “Y'all good to handle that shit because Black Mask is somewhere in here. I’ll be too distracted to help.”

That’s Jason-speak for ‘I’m going to decapitate some heads’. Well, if they can cut down two gangs in one evening, Tim will consider that a win.

Damian settles beside him minutes later, his greys and blacks blending eerily well into the darkness. Hair plastered to his face from the rain and eyes that burn green. 

He assesses Damian. He’s breathing calmly, eyes alert. His grey and black uniform has a few rips, and the armoured plates have a dent here and there, but he’s unharmed.

Damian watches him with the same intensity, daring Tim to consider him anything less than a perfect soldier.

“We’ll be fine.”

Tim will soon regret those words.

Tim gives his orders and soon they’re infiltrating the school that’s become a fortified compound in Gotham, stalking across the slat roofs. With the rain, they can move quickly without worrying about silence.

Egress comes through a second-floor emergency exit. Tim leans his back against it, pushing it open carefully. Dark. Damian slips through the tiny gap. A muffled thud.

By the time Tim is inside, Damian is already restraining one of Falcone’s men. Tim takes his walkie-talkie and checks the frequency. Adjusts his own communicator to include that frequency.

Then they’re moving deeper into the building, sticking to the pools of shadows. This wing is quiet, more activity to the west.

They come to a central landing where the arteries of the school converge.

His communicator screeches as it is disabled. 

Then, light. Blinding light.

Tim’s moving already, dragging Damian away before the first shots are fired. He drops smoke bombs at their feet and throws his only flashbang right as they go left. Time fragments. Tim lets his training take control. A punch to the throat. Bo staff to the knee, crippling a man. Batarangs that cut through hands holding guns.

Around him, Damian moves with lethal precision. Lighter, more acrobatic, and far more lethal. His blunted sword makes up for his lack of mass and his ruthlessness has him taking out the people Tim leaves in pain.

They work well together. Tim keeps circling back to that thought. It’s emphasised when he twists automatically, Damian using his back as a counterbalance to land a devastating knee against a gunman. Tim’s bo staff sweeps out with that momentum, knocking a man down. Before he can process it, there’s a knife in his free hand and he throws it with perfect accuracy at the man in the courtyard outside who just aimed his gun.

It hits him in the chest, Tim notes with a hint of revulsion.

“He’ll live,” Damian hisses, his back to Tim. “Shoulder.”

His mind quiets. Of course, Damian would know exactly how lethal a thrown knife can be.

Then the fighting starts again. Through narrow hallways and packed classrooms, bullets flying and blood spurting, up one flight of stairs and then another, they keep moving, keep fighting. Tim loses track of the original objective. Survival is all that matters.

Out the corner of his eye, he sees a gunman with a bead on Tim—no, he’s aimed at Damian, his stance perfect, no chance of missing a shot so close. Time slows, narrowing to a simple binary decision.

Let Damian take the shot or—no, it isn’t a choice. It 

Oh. Tim moved without thinking. Shoved Damian away.

could never be a choice. Whatever he was before, whatever his parents would make of him, Tim isn’t that. Damian’s ten, nearly eleven. He doesn’t deserve to die.

Pain.

The impact rips through him. He’s stumbling back, stunned by the abruptness of it. A high calibre round, he notes vapidly, his mind working overdrive. Only a high calibre round could punch through his armour plates so easily.

Getting shot hurts. Tim would like to punch the idiot who decided being a vigilante would be a good idea. Punch him real hard.

No, stop. Figure out which direction to fall. Back or front? No blood dripping down my back. No exit wound. Okay, figure it out. There’s a way out of this that lessens the risk to me. The pain is in my gut. It could have torn my intestinal lining, punctured my spleen if I still had one. Sceptic shock will get me if the blood loss doesn’t kill me. What I am—shit, I’m already on the ground.

Wake up.

Pay attention.

Live you “Idiot. You’ve compromised the mission and injured yourself,” Damian is saying insistently, standing above him. There’s panic in his voice. A hint of resentment. “My corpse can be recovered and used.”

No no no, not like that. Stop thinking you’re that. You’re not a body.

“Don’t wanna see your corpse,” Tim fights to say, Damian doubling in his vision. “You’re my brother.”

Coherency becomes a suggestion after that.

Good. He doesn’t want to deal with the mortifying ordeal of admitting feelings of affection for the gremlin.

He’s too big to be carried but Damian tries anyway. Tim musters whatever energy is in him and trudges on painful step after another, his vision as hazy as his thoughts. Pressure, pressure, pressure, he repeats to himself as they amble through the building complex.

Damian sets him down in a storage room in one of the towers. Stationery and supplies, stacks of paper and miscellaneous objects from field hockey sticks to old textbooks.

“You are a fool but even you can understand basic instructions. Stay there. Stay silent.”

Tim can do that. He tries nodding, but Damian’s already gone, the door somehow locked from the inside as well.

Physician, heal thyself.

Robin’s outfit is a lean thing. He’s muscular but nowhere close to Batman. The difference in height and mass can’t be bridged. So everything he has needs to work the first time and work perfectly. Absorbent wet-wipe that also doubles as a disinfectant to wipe away the blood from the wound; he bites down so hard on his bo staff that he feels a tooth crack. The anti-sceptic spray is heavy duty, so powerful it leaves a patch of skin red with how potent it is. Bandage next. The edges of it bind into his flesh, sealing itself. Tim carefully shifts the armour plates of his red vest, tying them in a new configuration to apply constant pressure on the wound.

That done, he passes out. Whatever happens, happens.

Damian’s smart, a survivor. He’ll get himself out. 

It could be seconds or hours before Damian is back. He looks rough even to Tim’s confused vision. His central armour plate dented, almost caved in by whatever blow he took. Favouring one leg. Talking, though Tim is too confused to hear him fully.

Wake up, he demands, focusing on his pain, and working through it to find clarity.

The device, whatever it is, is a jury-rigged monstrosity. It looks like a fucking weapon to Tim’s blurry vision.

“This device can only sustain one person. Anyone else and you will crash. Your injuries are hardly stable enough to survive that.”

Tim forces a weak smile. “I’m tougher than I look.”

“Ah, so a defenceless slug becomes a defenceless snail. Such an improvement. Now stop wriggling.” Damian pulls the final belt tight around Tim’s chest tightly, agony cutting through his awareness. “You wouldn’t be in pain if you had chosen to not be a fool.”

Wait. Something’s wrong with this. One person?

“Where’s yours?” Tim asks slowly, battling through his pain.

Damian probably gives an answer. Tim sees his mouth moving. Whatever answer he gives is complicated and interrupted when the door breaks down.

Tim’s not sure what Damian made but he grabs Damian’s wrist, pulling the cord on the system. And then they jet off together, the window behind him breaking.

Exhausted as he is, he still tugs Damian close and angles his body to land first.

The impact is violent.

His vision whites out from the pain. Ears ringing. Agony everywhere. Stomach warm and wet; blood everywhere.

Tim feels like he’s dying. Torture was never this bad. Stay awake. Fight through it. Damian needs you awake.

“Fool, you blithe idiot. You’re going to kill yourself and me and—”

“Shh, Damian. We’ll make it.”

Damian will make it. He deserves to make it. The universe is uncaring, but it isn’t actively malicious. Miracles happen. Jason returned to life. Batman forgave Tim his sins. Richard Grayson is a living, breathing, person, and the impossibility of his existence gives the universe its forward momentum.

His eyes burn. “You’re going to bleed out.”

Probably. He’s cold, terribly so. If death has a song, he can probably hear it. Maybe Gotham’s already mourning another dead Robin.

“You first,” Tim says, reaching for Damian’s shoulder. Blood seeps through the grey uniform. A worrying amount for a boy who weighs nothing. Every drop is too precious to lose.

Damian keeps speaking. Maybe Tim answers, maybe he doesn’t. The kid has Bruce’s thin lips. They look like a flaw against Talia’s more delicate features.

“Damn it all,” Damian hisses loud enough to pull Tim from his reverie, discombobulated from the image of a perfect assassin. For all that he’s rude and cruel, Damian never curses. 

He looks like Bruce, Tim thinks, delirious, but he can’t shake it. Not his eyes which are green or the shape of his face which is all Talia or his hair that is curlier than Bruce’s ever could be. It is determination. The resolve. The fear swallowed by unshakeable duty. 

Tim closes his eyes.

Chapter Text

He will learn later that they operated on him through the night, and it was a series of miracles that he didn’t get sepsis because that would have killed him, no questions asked, as Leslie so aggressively told him in his first moment of lucidity.

Of course, he still gets an infection from everything else.

Tim got away lucky. He knows it. He has no idea what happened between closing his eyes and waking up on a medical bed. Not until Nightwing comes to visit.

“You really scared me,” Dick explains the first day he’s lucid. His shirt is rumpled and he looks like he hasn’t slept in days. That’s only a good look on Tim. “I thought we’d lose you. We nearly did.”

Tim tries speaking. Nearly chokes to death on nothing. Accepts help by taking a few sips of water.

“Damian?” he asks.

“Killed two on the spot. Another died in the hospital.”

Tim blinks. Okay? “Injuries,” he clarifies.

“You don’t care about the dead bodies he left? You? Tim Drake?”

“Jason.”

“We don’t talk about Jason.” Tim tries shrugging. He fails miserably. “Don’t try moving. Anyway, Dames will recover. Besides the beating and bruised ribs, his worst was a clean bullet wound. Took it before we could get to you. He saved you. He was ready to die for you.”

Tim knows that. Can feel it deep in his bones, the certainty that Damian would have died if it meant Tim living. And not in the selfless way of Robin. Something worse. The League's way of living.

“I… Tim, it’s messed up. Him and B. They had a fight, and it wasn’t good. B was crying.” Tim just about flatlines right then and there. “This was you and the Court but ten times worse. He kept on bringing it up while he was in his drunken rant and no, he did not throw anything, calm down. He’s a weepy drunk. Look, I need you to get better, and then I need you to be kind to both of them. I know I’m asking a lot—”

“You’re not.”

“I am,” Dick says firmly, carrying the blame on his shoulders. “I’m asking you to set aside your hurt and swallow it whole. I’m going to use you unfairly. Hurting people is a thing you do and I can forgive it all the time. I love it, how petty and spiteful you are. But you’re more mature than Damian and Bruce. I need you to put aside whatever resentment you have and help me with them. Dames’ just found out his whole purpose for existing just got destroyed—and that’s a real doozy, let me tell you, because apparently Ra’s was going to scoop Damian’s conscience out and use his body like it’s a fucking vessel. Bruce is losing it because he failed another son and nearly lost two in one night.”

“Sorry.”

“This isn’t your fault. It never was. It’s on Bruce for not knowing how to be a parent and it’s on me for not doing enough.”

“Not my dad.”

“Yeah, I know,” he says sadly, as though he’s failed, as though he should have been a father to them all.

“Not fair.”

Dick doesn’t deserve that. Tim’s learnt that even though he’s barely been fifteen long, he’s always been the adult between him and Bruce. Dick did it first and then he had to make amends for all of Bruce’s shortfalls, had to be the father-brother-protector that B could never be, and he did it with a smile and a laugh.

He shouldn’t, for a moment, think he failed.

“You’re the best,” he says with the strength still remaining in his body.

Maybe Dick is crying or maybe that’s what Tim wants to see. Either way, he’s unconscious again quickly.

*

At least Kon visits him as he’s laid up in a private clinic for his recovery period. After the field operation in the Batcave, they’d transferred him to a private hospital. Easy enough to avoid answering questions when Gotham was practically on fire with rogues and criminals.

He’s glad, honestly, that neither Bart nor Cassie comes to visit. The former because he’s just too much excitement for an injured person and the latter because Tim is a petty, vindictive little shit who would say some vile things.

“I wish I got this kind of treatment when I got injured. Maybe I should get a rich billionaire daddy.”

“I’m a fucking billionaire,” he mutters angrily, sleepily. Reaching out to slap him impotently. Kon takes his hand and brings it to his face, helping Tim complete the rather pathetic slap. He leaves it there, strangely enough. “Build you a Fortress.”

“Superman’s copyright lawyers might not be on board with that.”

“They’re my lawyers.” Are they? Tim can’t remember. Batman funds a big chunk of the Justice League’s operating budget, including the legal firm, and Tim functionally controls Wayne Industries, so maybe?

“Sure they are,” Kon allows indulgently.

His face is smooth with only a small scar on his chin from an encounter with a New God. Otherwise, he is flawless. Humanity, perfected and enhanced. A god amongst men. Tim wishes, for a fleeting moment, he could draw as Damian can, and maybe he could capture a fleeting impression of Kon’s glory

“You’re not allowed to leave me like that. Promise me you won’t.”

Oh, he’s supposed to be answering a question. Not getting distracted by the planes of Kon’s face, the wide nose and the sharp cheekbones. There’s a delicacy to him that runs counter to Superman. He would have been a saint or a god in another lifetime.

He is a saint and a god in Tim’s lifetime.

“You’re the best,” he slurs instead of blurting those disgusting thoughts.

Kon smiles beatifically. He really does have excellent eyelashes, Tim notices, nearly distracted by the rising pitch of the heart monitor. 

“Yeah, I know.”

Kon tilts his chin down and for one insane moment, it feels like he is kissing Tim’s palm.

They must have him on the good meds.

There’s no possible explanation otherwise.

*

*

*

Damian al Ghul Wayne.

Not Damian-without-a-name in public.

Not Damian al Ghul to those in the know.

Damian Wayne.

A year. It took a full year for the gremlin to get that name. Tim didn’t even realise it because it was never a concern to him. He’s a Drake, cursed with a bloodline that he plans on taking to the grave. He’d kept it despite Bruce adopting him.

He contrasts it with his own adoption. His had been expected, a quiet thing barely anyone in Gotham had batted their eyelashes at. They were neighbours, the Drakes and the Waynes. They moved in similar wealth brackets, though Wayne Industries’ has a valuation two zeroes greater, and Tim’s wardship had been part of his father’s will. Sure, Tim illegally forged it, and maybe Tim has been conducting very illegal insider trading, but what people don’t know won’t hurt them.

Damian’s adoption is a sordid affair that puts even the worst moments of Jason’s to shame.

If the rumours and tabloids are to be believed, Bruce Wayne was a war tourist who may have supported the Taliban—Tim fucking panics and is doing absurd levels of damage control even as he buys out a decent chunk of Wayne Industries’ private stock at a discount—and charitably knocked up a woman displaced by the war, or less charitably had his way with a war orphan. Tim’s not sure how the pro-Nazi stuff cropped up but then again, he’s still trying to figure out why some people think Dick’s the actual parent. It’s not technically impossible, and Dick has already proven to be a better parent, but it’s still pretty rude.

Also, apparently, Bruce learnt how to use full sentences and parent whilst Tim was recovering? And now both Jason and Dick think he’s an alien? Tim has no idea how these events came about and he’s honestly too scared to find out.

Fuck it, it’s hot and the counter is vaguely cool. Tim crawls on it and takes a nap.

*

Trying to be the better man is not something Tim is good with. He can do it out of spite, but there’s no spite left in him regarding Damian. It’s all worn out and he just sees a wet cat staring back at him each time he sees the brat.

So why is it so hard to set aside his biting tongue and be kind to him?

“But it’s so hard,” he complains to Kon over the phone. Well, Tim is on the phone. Kon is probably listening to him from Kansas. “He just looks so miserable, but he’ll stab you if you mention it.”

“Then don’t.”

“How? It’s like impossible.”

“Since when has impossible ever stopped you?”

“When I’m being lazy,” he says flatly. “How are the others doing?”

“I think Cassie is in space dating some aliens and Bart’s chilling in the 40s with Mr Garrick. It’s hilarious watching the photo album change in real-time.”

“That is in no way, shape, or form how time travel works. If it’s a closed time loop it should instantaneously change. Anything else is stupid.” He blinks. “Why is Cassie in space? Is that why they didn’t visit me?”

“Obviously. Time and space literally stopped them from visiting.”

“Oh.”

“Tim, I love you—we love you, but man is it hard to get you to believe that. And don’t even try to lie. I can hear your heartbeat.”

“Why would I assume extraordinary reasons for them not visiting?”

“Because we’re extraordinary?”

“Fine, keep your secrets.” He knows he sounds petulant but whatever. “No one else came to visit me. Besides family. And you, but you’re basically family.”

“Are you telling me that you, Tim Drake, extreme perfectionist, wanted other people to see you weak? Is that the lie you’re trying to sell?” He pauses for a beat. “There’s this alien bridge I’ve been meaning to sell.”

“That’s an idea.”

“Oh no. Tim, no. Whatever you’re thinking, no. I’m not doing it.”

“It’s just a small favour in the grand scheme of things.”

“No.”

“So anyway, alien tech in infrastructure projects sounds like an untapped market and you have access to Kryptonian crystal tech. Now, I could get it myself and make everyone uncomfortable because of my willingness to use green space rock—”

“Just stop talking. I’ll get you some tomorrow.”

“Lovely.”

“Maybe I should bring Jon over.”

“I am going to assume this Jon isn’t your boyfriend.”

“Ew, no.” Tim’s heart skips a bit, disgust pooling in his stomach. “Oh, stop doing that with your heart. That hurts to hear. Didn’t I tell you about my brother from an alternate universe?”

Tim hangs up. No. He is not dealing with multiverse shenanigans. He is ignoring this. Nope. Not looking into it.

It is dawn before he pulls himself out of his investigation of files Bruce intentionally partitioned away. An entire server that he wasn’t aware of.

What the fuck is this shit? Alternate universes colliding? Time shenanigans? The personification of death throwing a hissy fit and putting down stricter rules? What?

Whatever.

That nonsense is beyond Tim’s ability to care. On the other hand, he can work at something.

He takes the demon brat to the shops and buys him his first pair of sneakers, not that Damian can appreciate a good pair of sneakers. The sheer disdain when he’d worn the Chicago Air Jordan 1s had been insulting as hell.

Tim had gritted his teeth through it, remembering all the boring black shirts and pants. All identical. Not a hint of personality to them.

So, they get sneakers and Tim walks him through his first fitting for formal clothes with the tailor. Measurements for the eight pairs of formal shoes he’ll get whether he likes it or not.

Then they visit Hot Topic because Tim will personally force a personality down Damian’s throat if it’s the last thing he does, and since he’s already 90% edge, they may as well go all the way.

“How are we to carry these… I hesitate to call such clothing as the insult it does to true clothing is inconceivable.”

He glances down at Tim with a haughty expression. Tim hates it mostly because the kid is already taller than him and a bit heavier with muscle. Tim works his ass off to maintain his muscle mass but Wayne genetics apparently makes monsters out of men. Give it five years and Jason will look small next to the brat.

“Damian, we’re rich. The formal stuff will get delivered and I’ve organised a courier for the rest. We don’t carry clothes.”

“You are the only one of Father’s misbegotten adoptions who understands your status.”

Tim knows that’s a compliment. Somehow. He’s not going to try and figure it out, but he can feel the earnestness from here.

“It’s an aesthetic choice for Dick.”

“An aesthetic of false poverty lacks grace.”

“I’ve tried telling him that before but he doesn’t ever listen. People say B’s the stubborn one, but no one can make Dick do anything he doesn’t want. I doubt even Alfred could.”

“Impossible. Pennyworth’s word is the law.”

“Dick’s above the law.”

Damian pauses, tilting his head all bird-like. “This is true. Grayson conforms to neither societal nor judicial systems of law.”

Because Tim is a kind and compassionate person, he takes Damian to Bat Burger and watches the brat gorge himself on the Nightwing Happy Meal.

One day, I’m going to be someone’s favourite.

*

Days pass. Tim keeps up with his training to get back in shape, his diet strictly monitored by Alfred. No skipping meals. No skipping supplements. No skipping daily checkups. It’s tedious and incredibly boring. Necessary, yes, now that he lacks a spleen, but annoying.

One morning, he gets the urge to look in on his friends. Ariana’s doing well, her mother enjoying the job Tim arranged at a non-profit. The pay is excellent and Ari’s been doing some work with the in-house lawyer. It’ll look good on her college applications.

Ives is doing decently well. He’s gone through his first round of cancer treatment and he’s responded fairly positively. Unfortunately, his grades have also slipped. Tim sighs, changing those pesky B’s to A’s remorselessly. Tim makes a note to get Wayne Industries’ engineering division to reach out and help fund some clubs in schools, with special emphasis on robotics since that’s what Ives seems to enjoy most.

That done, he checks their trust funds. The investments are doing very well and are all entirely legal. A rarity for Tim. Doing things legally is usually boring and morally reprehensible. 

He hesitates when he comes across the group chat. A few hundred notifications he hasn’t looked at. Tim mutes them and sets his phone aside. They really don’t need him. They never deserved to deal with his damage.

Tim sets his phone down and does what he does best: he runs from his problems.

Steph isn’t surprised when he shows up in her apartment.

Her mother, however, is. “I thought you two broke up?” She accepts the flowers, chocolate, and bottle of wine Tim brought as a gift. “And that you liked women now?”

Steph laughs. “I can like both without being evil. It’s 2015, not Hays Code America.”

“I don’t even know what that means. I’m too old to understand you two at all.” Steph’s Mom shakes her head. “And you share the same... you know, the same older gentleman.”

“Oh my god, Mom, go away. Now. You have a shift you’re late for.”

“Sure, sure. The pills are in—”

“Mom! Out! Now!”

Steph buries her face in embarrassment as Tim laughs, grabbing plates for the Thai food he grabbed from the nearby takeout. They eat quickly as Tim pokes fun at her. Well, she eats quickly. Tim just picks at a few bits from her plate. Steph frowns at his thievery, likely guessing exactly what’s started up his eating problems.

She knows him too well. Just as Tim can instinctively tell she and Barbara are likely fighting about something stupid. If it was a fight with Cass, she would have complained the moment he walked through the door. But Birds of Prey stuff is always left unsaid. If it was a Huntress problem, there would be more bruises. By process of elimination and just fucking knowing her better than he knows himself, Tim can know the truth instinctively.

They agree not to talk about it without saying the words. Later, Steph grabs her laptop and leads him to her room where they agree on a shitty horror movie to watch.

Tim slides into the blankets behind her, arms curling over her shoulder. “Was she talking about B?”

“Yup.”

“That’s stupid.”

“Especially since he’s my sugar daddy and he adopted you, so that makes it creepy.”

“Trust me, I know just how creepy it is. Fucking black hair and blue eyes. You know my parents thought B was a bit of a paedo?”

“Are we talking about your parents? Is that a thing I’m allowed to do now?”

“Is this one of those things I blew up at you about?”

“Yup. All the time. Surprised you’re self-aware to realise it. Cassie?” He nods against her hair. “Please tell me you didn’t treat your breakup like a mission debrief.”

“You didn’t treat your breakup like a mission debrief,” he repeats faithfully, even matching the cadence of her words.

Steph cackles loud enough that it drowns out the insanity of the stupid gore flick on the laptop. “I forgot how much I loved your particular brand of insanity.”

“Don’t tell Cass. She might get jealous.”

“We can’t ever date people who’d get jealous of the two of us.”

“You have to admit we are a bit weird.”

“And the people who choose gotta have big hearts to love all the weird things about us. It’s me and you, Boy Wonder, right till the very end. No one comes between us.”

“I’m sorry I didn’t love you enough.”

Steph sighs. “Listen to me, never do you do.”

“Okay, Yoda. Listen to you, always I have,” he says in the same nasally voice.

“Love me enough, destroy all that is Tim, you would. Tim you would not be. That, I did not want.”

Tim laughs, a weepy sort of laugh. The bitter humour that comes from being a Bat for so long. Maybe he’s a fool, but seeing her mischievous smile, he remembers why he loved her in the romantic sense as well.

They share a kiss, long and indulgent. Tim stiffens at first, startled by his own daring, then relaxes at the familiarity of it all. It’s still Steph he’s kissing and that’s as normal to him as breathing. The best parts of his youth without all the baggage and trauma associated with it.

They kiss long after the credits roll, and they continue exploring all the new parts of themselves they hadn’t realised existed and the parts they had forgotten.

They aren’t dating, but it is complicated.

*

Life settles into a simpler rhythm. He patrols as usual, sometimes with Damian, but with Steph a lot more as if they were youngsters figuring out the rooftops. During the day, he does whatever Alfred decides he needs to learn for homeschooling. Never the sciences, much to his despair. Always literature and history and absurd things like ethics. Ethics! Why would Tim Drake need ethics?

He misses the days when Alfred would pretend not to notice that Tim hadn’t gone to school and his grades were all forged. Those were the best days. It’s not like school had much to teach him when he’s a genius. Not the only genius, much to his annoyance.

Damian completely outstrips in history and law, can recite passages verbatim and translate them into multiple languages. He’s also better at pattern recognition and codebreaking. Thankfully, he can’t code a program worth shit and he’s nowhere near as good at engineering.

They don’t talk about instruments. Ever. Not since the Violin Incident. In fairness to Tim, Damian had been a little shit and playing it right outside his bedroom in the early hours of the morning just to troll him.

“See,” Damian says haughtily, jumping to stand on the couch and tower over Tim. “I’m the best and Robin should be mine.”

“How the hell does Smash Bros translate to Robin?”

Especially since the brat picked up Bayonetta just to troll Tim’s Fox main. DLC privilege is real.

“It means I’m better than you.”

“You’re just you, brat. You don’t need to prove anything to me.”

“I have to prove myself worthy of Robin.”

“Did you ever ask for it?”

“Of course, I…”

And no, he hasn’t. He can recall everything perfectly, and the closest he’s come to asking was his breakdown before Father. And that wasn’t asking to be Robin.

“There can’t be two Robins.”

“There’s been more than one Batman before.”

“It is yours.”

“It can be yours as well,” he says without thought, but he immediately feels how right those words are.

Damian deserves it if that’s what he wants. Maybe he didn’t always deserve it, but he’s proven it. He’s done the work silently and without complaint. Saved people and risked his life.

Just as Richard gave his blessing, Tim as well can give his blessing. Damian has tried so hard to be something other than what his mother would make of him.

“You could be Robin,” he insists to Damian’s stunned silence.

Tim is in no way, shape or form prepared to deal with Damian’s breakdown. It happens quickly. The tremble in Damian's fingers. The controller clattering to the ground. Carefully controlled breathing failing him.

Fingers gouging into his arms. Tim’s eyes widen and he pulls Damian close, using his bigger bulk to pin Damian’s hands away before he can hurt himself further. The brat is shaking like a leaf. Incoherent, he screams and shouts at Tim, screams at the world.

“Stop it,” Damian yells. “Take this from me. I hate it. This is insufferable. I can’t survive this grief. Take it away, Drake.”

“What grief?”

“I killed them. I killed them all. So many. I did that. I can’t be Robin. Robin isn’t a monster.”

“I’m sorry,” he says, because what else can he say.

“You did this to me. Take it away!”

“No one can take away regret.”

He carries it with him. What his parents wanted to make of him. The lives lost and the damage done. It stays with him and a lifetime of work won’t make up for it. He’ll do that work anyway because it’s the right thing to do.

“You can. You’re impeccable. You’re the family genius. Figure this out.”

“I’m not that smart,” he says sadly. Tim takes Damian’s hands, holding them carefully, wishing he could spare Damian this guilt. “Tell me about them.”

The sun is high in the sky when Damian begins in frantic tones, desperate to speak his sins and have them accounted for.

It’s about halfway through Damian listing everyone he’s killed—please be halfway, please be halfway, I can’t listen to any more children being killed—that he regrets trying to be a better sibling.

This is vile. Horrendous. A nightmare of human experiences. The worst Jack and Janet tried doesn’t approach the casual horror of Damian’s life.

Tim hates it. He hates Talia and he fucking loathes Ra’s. He hates Janet and Jack and every adult who gave a child a weapon and told them to fight. It ruins them, all of them. Leaves broken things shaped like humans.

Tim cries when Damian cries, wishing desperately that the world was a kinder place.

*

The next morning, Tim hatches a mad and daring plan. It involves raiding an ancient temple, stealing some tech from Star Labs, and generally causing chaos. A pretty tame plan by Tim's standards.

He’s standing in the middle of a glowing summoning circle when they arrive.

“Tim, why did you call us here in very cryptic ways and why is there a portal?”

“I just want to know about the weird crystals,” Bart says, flitting from platform to platform. “Oh, hi Tim, if I forgot to say that.”

“This, my dearest friends, is a portal to Gemworld.”

“You technically answered my question.” Cassie sighs, resigned with his antics. “Evil aliens? Evil magic people? Evil clones of ourselves from a future timeline?” 

“We don’t talk about evil Tim,” Kon hisses, shifting to stand between Tim and the portal. “Or Evil me. Let’s just all pretend they didn’t ever exist.”

“Give me a sec and I’ll find out,” Bart says, before disappearing into the portal.

Tim sighs. “Spoiling the surprise. Just let me have my moment, you—"

A gust of wind. Bart standing in front of them in a plaid shirt and jeans, a hoe resting on his shoulders and a cornstalk in his mouth. The straw hat just completes the look.

“Yo, it’s a farming world,” Bart says, bounding on the spot. “It’s like Stardew Valley but for real. Kon, Kon, Kon, I’ve found your people. It’s a world of farmers. Oh my god, it’s cute. Come on come on come on.”

“Why not Farming Simulator?” Kon asks, helplessly in the face of Bart’s cheer, and letting himself get dragged away.

“What’s Farming Simulator?”

“How do you know Stardew Valley but not—”

The portal steals his words.

Cassie gives him the side-eye. “A farm world. Really?”

“Look, time in there runs like ten times faster. We’ll be in and out one day our time, three tops. A nice, chill vacation. No alien conquerors. No time travel shenanigans. No weird anything. Just the four of us vibing for a month.”

“But farming. Why?”

“If my murderous former assassin brother enjoys it, then it’s probably super fun.”

“And not because you’re trying to make Kon happy?”

“I’m always trying to make you guys happy when I’m not being an asshole. Look, being real with you, I’m tired as hell and still need to finish up my physio. So portal to another world that also counts as a vacation.”

“You’re going to take over the planet, aren’t you.”

“Oh, fuck yes,” he admits with an exhale. “It’s like a victimless crime. The victim being me after I’m grounded. B and Alfred can’t complain because I won’t even be on Earth. Leather jackets are going to be mandatory by the time I’m done.”

She pats him on the cheek like he’s a pet. “I guess every team needs a token evil teammate.”

“Depending on the timeline, that’s all of us.”

“No prison camps.”

“Define prison camp.”

“Tim, no prison camps.”

“Fine fine fine, I won’t institute prison camps. I’ll just copy America’s prison system and get legal slave labour for minor crimes. And you know what, I was going to do a benevolent dictatorship and build strong institutions, but now I’m just going to bring Freedom™ to the farm world.”

 “Sometimes, you terrify me.”

“Thank you.”

She pauses. “What really happened to you?”

“I learnt a bit more about my brother’s life and if I think about it, I’ll be sick. Don’t ask me, please. Just… let’s enjoy the farm world. Some mindless, empty fun.”

Cassie pulls him in for a hug. She’s as tall as him. Most people are. He sags into it, the tension in his body evaporating. Tim clings onto her like a life raft, drawing comfort from her enveloping warmth. Hugging Cassie is nothing like Steph, that was a cynical act of self-love from a person who was split in two at birth and didn’t realise for years.

Cassie simply is, a promise to always be there, and that’s the kindest thing for someone like Tim.

“Okay, I’m good,” he says with a shuddering breath. “Let’s never talk about this again.”

“You should. Talk, that is. Even if it’s not with us.”

“Nope. No analysing me. Mindless fun now.”

*

They barely make it back through the portal before it collapses, the four of them landing on a pile on the floor. Tim’s lungs are burning. He struggles to take deep breaths. It feels like he ran a marathon and then ran it back with a weighted vest. They make for a terrible image, a pile of miserable teens covered in soot, blood, and dirt.

A sniffle cuts through Tim’s wheezing.

“Bart, don’t cry.”

“I’m not about to cry.”

“Because if you start then I won’t stop and no one wants to see that.”

“I’d like to see you crying,” Kon hisses.

“Can we all agree that Bart is never running a country again?” Tim asks the group.

“This was not my fault!” He emphasises his shout by kicking Tim in the side. The voice crack was more than enough. “You made a political party and ran it from the background. A political party in a perfect communal society with advanced tech. You literally ruined everything for them.”

“A fun vacation he says, a fun vacation I do not get,” Cassie growls, also kicking him. “Could I tell you how I became a member of Tim’s secret police? No. Did I somehow still become the villain for a whole world? Yes.”

“Not the whole world and I was running a fever the whole time.”

“Because you left your stupid antibiotics!”

“They were kicked down a drain by your stupid secret police. I had to make my own penicillin.”

“You fucked the whole world before the fever.”

“I’m not going to say sorry.”

“Asshole.”

“The absolute worst,” Bart agrees. “Kon, love you bud, but all your weight is on my bad knee and it feels like it’ll snap like a twig. Thanks. This armour is purely decorative.”

“At least you got to wear clothes,” Kon says, kicking Tim for the third time in as many minutes. “I looked worse than Leia. In the Jabba scene.”

“Who’s Leia?”

“It helped distract the visiting dignitaries,” Tim protests, even as Bart repeats his question. “The party thanks you for your body.”

“The party you made,” Cassie says mockingly, frustrated tears in her eyes. “Says a lot about you. How many marble statues of Kon did you commission?”

“Just like five. And Bart got a few as well in the palace.”

“Oh, those were not the same thing.”

Bart coughs, a wet sound closer to a sob. “This is about to go places I don’t want to know about. Kon, get off me so I can run away already.”

“Oh shit, sorry.” A shift in their pile of limbs. Tim takes no less than three elbows to the side and a stray knee to the face. Fair. He deserved that. “There.”

“Nice seeing you. I’m going back to Keystone and I’m going to play some board games or whatever old people do. A nice, relaxing time before I have a nervous break. Making me run a country of all things.”

Cassie crawls her way out from under him. “Kon, keep him pinned down. Don’t let him do anything.”

“No. I’m going back to my farm where I’m not a political tool. This month has been hell.”

“Bye guys. Should we do this again?”

“No!”

Tim laughs himself hoarse. He had a great time.

“Um, I can convince Jason to make us fried chicken and waffles.”

That is how Jason winds up cooking for four filthy teens in his apartment. They’ve ruined his nice leather seats with alien blood, alien viscera, and alien dirt. They’ve also eaten him out of his house.

Jason watches them, cynical amusement dancing in his gaze. “So, you brats got caught up in a Tim Plan with a capital P.”

“Shut the fuck up, Jason, this is not my fault—”

“Yes, it is!”

*

*

*

It begins with a bounty.

One hundred million dollars for Damian al Ghul, wanted dead or alive, preferrable the former. That’s not the strange part. Bounties come and go like the weather. Even the amount isn’t what has Tim confused.

It’s the fact that Ra’s al Ghul posted the bounty.

The underground world splits in half and then splinters into a dozen factions after that. It is war across the globe from then on. Batman Incorporated, an ill-formed idea at first, is founded with ferocity and they wage battle against the League, from New Jersey to Paris and Mombasa to New Delhi. Sides are taken and then betrayed. Who can say who Talia is working with after her second double-cross? Nightwing and Spyral have the strangest relationship going on, and it always ends in bloodshed.

In the end, the warfare converges on New Jersey and then narrows in focus to Gotham. No Man’s Land is declared. Bullets fly. Officers die in the streets. Formerly untouchable kingpins are shot dead by real killers.

New Jersey burns but Gotham is a wildfire by the time matters are resolved.

Tim watches the Heretic kill Knight and knows rage, true rage.

They were cornered, the three of them, a fighting retreat through the streets of Gotham. Knight stayed back but even he couldn’t stop Heretic.

It’s just him and Damian now.

Fine. So, he—

Instinct screams at him and he’s pushing Damian aside. Whatever hits him knocks him out for a few precious minutes. When he blinks his way to awareness, he sees Damian being dragged into a helicopter by Ra’s.

Tim forces himself up. No. Not like this. This isn’t how Damian’s story ends.

Standing between him and victory is the lumbering clone.

It isn’t about the mission or anything like that.

Heretic let Ra’s steal Damian and that’s all there is to this.

Tim has one of Jason’s guns holstered and his bo staff in hand, anger thick in his throat and determination burning in his heart.

He will win and nothing will stop him. He has a demon to save.

*

Tim loses.

*

*

*

Seven months later, Tim awakens to a world changed in new and horrific ways. Jason’s skinny now, for one. Nowhere near as skinny as Tim who has withered away in a hospital bed, but it’s noticeable. Damian pulled a Jesus and came back from the dead. Black Canary’s pop-rap album is second on the charts, beaten only by Bastille’s Pompeii.

Oh, both Cassie and Bart are dead. Have been for months now.

It was a mission to destroy the remnants of the League and anyone who ever joined hands with them. To avenge Tim and bring him justice that was already served. They’d thrown so many assassins, monsters, and rogues in prison that they’d set a record. Anger and bitterness had driven them down that road and at the end of it, only death greeted them.

Kon survived, of course he did, and was left to suffer months watching over his last friend in a coma, dealing with his grief alone.

Just the two of them now. Half of their little family is destroyed because even though heroes die, the people beneath the mask need to be buried one day.

It still doesn’t feel real. He still checks the group chat every morning. Looks at the news in disbelief. Screams himself hoarse at the very idea that their base is empty now.

Young Justice is dead and they died young because there is no justice in this world.

“Do you think they hate me?” Tim asks Kon after one of his episodes of screaming and throwing things. It must count as good exercise, throwing books and his laptop and tablet and the fucking tray with shitty soup he can barely stand the smell of.

Kon’s hands are open, palms exposed. He’s breathing carefully, steadily, with no sudden movements.

“Never.”

“It’s my fault they’re gone.”

“That’s not on you. We went on that mission knowing we might not come back. We made stupid choices and we didn’t think things through. Walked right into a trap and didn’t ask for help until it was too late. We did that, not you.”

Tim laughs a hollow laugh that rattles his too-thin chest. He can count his ribs easily these days. All the muscle he’d worked towards eaten away by his weakness. One loss that ruined his life and the life of others.

And Kon has the audacity to say this isn’t his fault?

“Fuck off. Stop trying to placate me.” He raises a shaking hand and gives Kon the middle finger. He’s exhausted. Could fall asleep again, but he’s afraid it would last forever. They won’t even let him have caffeine yet.

“That’s not what I’m doing. I felt guilty for a long time. Why me? Why was I the one who lived? Why wasn’t I the one in a coma? I still wake up confused, trying to hear your heartbeats, not sure who I haven’t lost. And there’s no answer for that. It was luck and it’s shitty, but that’s what happened.”

“Time travel—”

“Flash stopped me the first two times I tried,” Kon says bitterly. “Superman the third. Constantine brought kryptonite when I tried summoning a god or two. It’s done, Tim. They’re gone. We don’t get to ignore death. Not anymore.”

“Damian came back.”

“With the last source of Lazarus waters in the universe. It’s over.”

“Nothing’s ever over.”

“Sure it isn’t.”

Kon shakes his head and walks away, leaving Tim alone in his rage. It doesn’t abate. Not that day and not the next few weeks. It drives him forward, spite fuelling him through physical therapy. He stumbles. He falls. He forces himself up again. Not since he was training to be Robin has he felt this much singular focus.

Tim forces himself to eat a perfect diet. Gets up and does more exercise than he ever should. Stretches his body till it gives out and he’s left trembling on the floor in a puddle of sweat.

Then, he stands again and does it all over.

They move him to the Manor. Tim knows it is so Alfred can guilt-trip him into resting. Well too bad for Alfred. Tim’s guilt is a vast thing that chews at Tim’s core.

He trips one day, failing to grab the railing in the ballet room they’ve converted for his physio. It hurts, though not as much as everything else.

Kon’s there, laying hands on Tim to help him up. Of course he’s there. He practically lives here now. Funny, now, that Damian’s found his time consumed by the Kents because of Jon. Almost a hostage exchange between the Kents and the Waynes. A cynical thought but his thoughts have tended towards that now.

“Just leave me alone,” he snaps, smacking Kon’s hands away. Trying to. Even at his best, Tim could never force Kon to move.

“You don’t have to push yourself so hard.”

“Just because you gave up doesn’t mean I will,” he hisses coldly, feeling vile hatred curl around his heart. “They deserve better than you giving up. They wouldn’t have given up on us, you asshole. They’d have killed themselves trying.”

“Like you are. There’s nothing at the end of this road.”

“Yes, there is. They’re right there. I’ll get to them.”

“When? When you kill yourself because it can’t be done? Is that it? You’re just going to leave me alone because you’re selfish and stubborn.”

“If bringing them back costs my life then I’ll gladly pay it.”

“I’m right here and all you want is to leave.”

“I told you to fuck off already. Not on me that you can’t get it through your fucking skull. I hate you.”

“Being bitter and miserable isn’t atonement. Dying alone won’t bring them back. You’ll just hurt everyone around you.”

“Just leave me the fuck alone!”

“No. I’m not leaving. Not now. Not ever.”

“Kryptonians die.”

“Yeah, we do. And so do speedsters, Amazons and Bats. So will you. But you have to live before you die.”

*

He stays there for a while, sitting on the floor with his thoughts. How long he stays there is a mystery to him, bitterness and rage deep in his bones.

A shadow falls over him. Steph. Towering over his pity party.

“Walk or carry?” she asks without her usual easy humour.

“Fuck right off. I’m fine where I am.”

“Walk or carry?”

“Just leave me be.”

“Carry it is.”

He’s too weak and exhausted to fight her off. He still gives it a valiant effort, battering her back with trembling fists. Steph, the unrepentant monster, whistles a jaunty tune as she carries him to her room.

It is neat by virtue of Steph not spending so much time at the Manor

Not every bedroom in the Manor has a shower. That would be absurd. That wasn’t a design goal in the era that Wayne Manor was built—same as Drake mansion—but all the main rooms had them, and a few were built in to reduce the number of bedrooms to something more manageable.

Steph helps him pull off his damp vest that both clings to his body and hangs off him. Then his sweatpants that still need to be cinched at the waist to fit. Why buy new clothes when old ones work just as well? He means to wear them again someday.

She tugs at the hair that curls around his shoulders. “You want this gone?”

“Not today.”

“I can shower by myself,” he says when she begins stripping down.

“When you fall, and you will fall, I don’t trust that you won’t turn your head and drown yourself.”

Steph was right. He does stumble, and he would have fallen if she hadn’t been there, bracketing him and taking his weight. She says nothing of his weakness. She would never say anything of his weakness. It would hurt more than it would help and besides, Tim took all the cruelty between the two of them.

They dry themselves off with the fluffy towels. Steph shows him how to wrap a towel around his hair now that it’s so long. Not necessary when he’s been considering a trim for the past few days, not enjoying the way his hair tickles at his nape.

The six different after-care products are absurd, though. One type of lotion is enough for him. Who needs a different kind just for a face? Steph giggles as he growls. His skin is not cracked and flaky. He can groom himself.

She helps him to the bed eventually and they lie beside one another. Tim takes her in, eyes roving over the sinuous strength of her muscles. She’s a scrappy woman, built more for speed than the rest of them. Even Cass can’t match it.

He wonders what she sees in him. Does she count his ribs? Does she look at the hollow pit where his abs once were and mourn? The strange negative space where his shoulder muscles once gave the impression of someone much bigger.

Steph reaches out, her finger tracing his collarbone that stands out starkly against his flesh. He follows the path of her exploration: from the terrible scars from all the knives and blades on his chest, the old burns from the torture session with the Court, and his crooked fingers from all the breaks. He’s a mess of a person, broken.

In her, he sees a mirror of devastation. Just as scarred. Just as battered and burnt. He knows them all. The jagged ropy cut on her hip that sometimes stiffens in bad weather and impairs her mobility. The incision beneath her breastbone where someone had tried to skin her alive. The starburst behind her ear from Black Mask. So many scars and still, he finds beauty within her.

“Do you want to talk about them?”

“You’ve definitely heard me screaming about it. All of you.”

“We were being polite and pretending we aren’t all invasive fucks with no concept of privacy. Also, everyone else is afraid of what you’ll do if they set you off.”

“I’m not going to destroy any countries if someone mentions them.”

“Sure you aren’t.”

“Why did we break up again?”

Steph stops her exploration by grabbing him. Tim freezes for a moment before exhaling his fears. Not of pain, never that, not from her. But from the other thing.

“Because I really like sex.” Her hand moves away, coming to cup his cheeks. “It just wouldn’t have worked. What do you want? Right now.”

“I just want to forget.”

She draws him in for a kiss. Tim falls into it, his hand threading through her hair, drawing her closer. He wishes, always, that he could have changed aspects of himself because Steph will always be his first love and likely his last love. When he was young and made of many broken pieces, Steph had been the glue that made him into something whole, creating a sound vessel of him that could be filled with all the things he was denied.

He's done much the same for her. Filled her with bits of himself till they were a tangled mess unable to tell where one began and the other ended. He can taste the younger bits of himself that she’d wound tight around her soul, can find the divots and divides that Tim loved feverishly.

A Toned leg wraps around his boney waist and brings him closer, forcing him into her space until there is no space at all between them. The warm joy of her intermingling with his cold and calculating affection.

A bang startles him, breaks the rhythm of their kissing, the subtle and unconscious negotiation of their bodies.

“You also heard the door banging, yes?”

“Oh, that’s just Kon seething.”

“What’s he got to be angry about now?”

“I love how oblivious you are.”

She kisses him again and he forgets his worries.

Chapter Text

He gets better with stuttering steps. Two months then three before he’s comfortable walking alone. He misses the flexibility he once had and how long he could be on the treadmill before collapsing in exhaustion. There was a time he could run a marathon with a weighted vest—fucking Batman paranoia—and immediately jump in a ring to spar.

Now he considers it amazing that he can jog-walk five kilometres before tipping over.

“You’ve done well, Master Tim,” Alfred says, having joined him for his run.

Tim scowls at him, baring his teeth in annoyance. For a man just shy of seventy, Alfred is enviably fit. Not that Batman would allow anyone in his household to be short of peak physical performance in case they needed to flee an enemy. Just one part of many contingency plans.

“Show some manners. I dealt with Bruce’s feral years and I have no interest in revisiting those in another.” Alfred hands him a spare towel which Tim accepts gladly. “Lunch will be chicken salad in an hour.”

“I hate chicken salad.”

“Fried chicken salad.”

“I love chicken salad.”

“I thought you might. You’ve done well, my boy.”

He eats a full serving despite not feeling like he’s done anything for it. Disappointing Alfred is a worse feeling than forcing an unearned meal down. He naps for an hour before pulling himself to his feet and picking up some work to do.

The schematics draw his interest and soon he’s lost to them.

Clack-clack-clack. Tim hears it errantly.

Soon, arms wrap around him, blonde hair consuming his vision. Steph.

“Yo, yo, yo, Steph in the hizzle. What’s good my brother in crippled limbs?”

Tim raises a brow, setting aside his designs for artificial limbs. It wasn’t going anywhere. Biomechanics isn’t his field at all. Maybe he can fund someone already doing good work in the field?

He pats her arm sympathetically. “Boo hoo, Steph broke her leg because she didn’t look before leaping.”

It’s been a month since then.

“Making me a cripple.”

“But it’s going to heal so you can’t be one.”

“You don’t know that.” Tim hesitates a moment too long. “See. I’m technically right which is the best kind of right and you don’t get to complain.”

With a pained grunt, Steph sprawls across his desk, using his arm as a pillow.

“I’m going to get pins and needles,” he warns.

“I hate physio so much,” Steph whines, hiding her face in the crook of his arm, and ignoring his concerns. He leans forward and presses a kiss to her temple, only mildly annoyed that she has him wrapped around her finger. “Why can’t I have indestructible limbs? Why don’t I just get a super formula made so I never have to suffer this again? Do you know how much it sucks watching Cass pretend not to know I’m about to start crying?”

“Are you still being obnoxious about her ability?”

“I’ve stopped being passive-aggressive about it. Now I just leave the apartment until I can handle the omnipresent feeling of concern. Like, I’m a grown woman. Fully grown, right?”

Steph and Cass are basically married with cats these days, much to Tim’s amusement and mild resentment. He loves them both, but it still hurts occasionally.

But then Steph shows up and reminds him that it has always been the two of them together, not Tim and Steph or Steph and Tim, but Steph-and-Tim or Tim-and-Steph, an inseparable unit.

“Am I just your excuse to be a shitty girlfriend?”

“No, you just have the best pastries. If you keep going at this rate, you’re going to get fat.”

She presses her thumb against his bicep to emphasise her point. Which is unfair. He’s only gotten a bit pudgier and putting on muscle has always been hard for him even when he could use the weights.

“Let me be happy. I deserve happiness and only carbohydrates give me happiness.”

“I’m telling Jason and he’s going to nag Alfred to take care of you better.”

“Don’t take this from me.”

He glances at his drawer that has a box of pastries he’d smuggled in last night. He has a problem, alright, but fuck if he wants to address it. His relationship with food is complicated and he suspects he gorges himself on pastries to bury some sense of guilt.

“Oh, I will.”

“My suffering shouldn’t be the only thing that brings you joy in the world.”

“It’s not but it does bring me joy now which is all that counts.”

Steph’s lying. He knows her well enough to pick it out. Hiding her concern beneath something else. He wishes she didn’t know him better than Tim knew himself.

“Um, who is dealing with Gotham now that like half of us are out of commission,” he says, poorly changing the subject.

It’s still a valid concern. Damian is retired, Gotham was never Nightwing’s city, Jason skinnier than a twig and limping after resurrecting Damian, Tim and Steph in physio for different reasons.

“Bruce found a whole new kid.”

Tim bursts out laughing. “He has to be cursed. There’s no way he keeps tripping over black-haired kids with blue eyes. There aren’t that many kids like that in the city. I ran the numbers. This is fucking great.”

“Damian’s got green eyes.”

“I’m not entirely sure that’s natural as opposed to Lazarus exposure.”

Steph pauses for a beat. “That’s mildly horrifying.”

His arm getting uncomfortably numb, he taps her on the shoulder three times. Steph sighs before sitting up carefully. Four weeks with good care is enough for them to usually be back on their feet but there’s no rush. Also, Steph barely takes care of her injuries and powers through them like B. Steph presses her heels into his thighs, elbow on her knee and face cradles in her palm. She cuts an imperious figure, gazing down upon him.

Tim reaches behind her and takes a sharpie to sign her boot with a penis.

“It’s very artistic.”

“Thank you.”

“Anyway, new kid does not follow the same pattern so yay for Bruce realising there’s a whole world of children to kidnap. Duke Thomas is his name and he’s really weird.”

“Weird how?”

“He’s a normie.”

“No,” Tim says, horrified. “A normal, functioning human being without a mountain of baggage?”

“I know right.”

“Are we sure Bruce hasn’t been replaced?”

“Cass and Dick checked.”

“With the lasso?”

Wonder Woman might not hand it out for frivolous uses but she’d done it the last time for her own amusement, no reason to expect her not to.

“With everything. Parallel universes. Magic. Mind alteration. Everything, Tim. Bruce has finally lost it and now he’s interacting with normies.”

“Huh, a normie in the family. Damian’s going to devour him in a day.”

“Jason is trauma dumping in the first five minutes. Dick’s gonna mother hen him so much. This is gonna be great.”

“Does Bruce know how to talk to normal humans without doing the weird playboy persona?”

“He won’t do that on a minor.”

“Says the man’s sugar baby.”

She hits him on the shoulder. “A girl has to make her money somehow. Can you imagine Bruce trying to make normie small talk? Have you seen the weather we’re having here? Ah yes, how are your private investments doing? Have you considered joining the local Batman cult for entirely reasonable reasons because I have it on good authority they are decent people?”

“This is going to be a disaster and I love it.”

*

*

*

Kon is with him more often when he isn’t out being a superhero and getting trapped in a pocket dimension for a month. Tim hadn’t slept that entire month, working his ass off to find Kon and bring him back. Every time he’d closed his eyes he saw images of Kon dead.

They’d had a terrible fight about it when Kon was returned and hadn’t cared. A rather violent one on Tim’s part. He’d broken three knuckles punching Kon, not caring in the slightest how stupid that idea was.

“Fuck, just get some therapy already.”

“Fuck you!”

By the end, Tim was exhausted from throwing himself at Kon. The room had been destroyed from all the things Tim threw. It made Kon flinch for some strange reason. Why? Nothing Tim can do will hurt.

“You know what, no. Find me when you’re done throwing a tantrum.”

“A tantrum! You’re the one who doesn’t give a shit about yourself. You could have died and you act like nothing can happen. You’re not faster than Bart and you sure as shit aren’t as brave as Cassie.”

Kon takes a breath. Turns around. Walks out.

It takes Tim a few moments to realise what he said. Then he’s running downstairs after Kon. Some lines shouldn’t ever be crossed. Using your dead friends as a weapon is one of them.

He only just catches Kon flying away from the porch.

Tim sits heavily on the steps. He’s exhausted. The last month-year-decade-lifetime just pressing down on him. It feels like just yesterday he’d found out what happened to Cassie and Bart. How long has it been since he watched his father die? Years, but it feels like weeks ago. One loss after another just crowding him, sucking out what little oxygen he has in his lungs.

He wants to sleep forever. Go back to that dreamless sleep of his coma and never come back.

Tim awakens to a jacket being draped around him. Tim blinks blearily, before realising just how cold he is. He tugs the jacket around himself, trying to understand why he’s outside in the middle of the night. 

“You shouldn’t sleep outside,” Kon says.

Then it all comes back to him. “You came back.”

“Yeah.” Kon sits on the other end of the porch. “I guess I am an idiot.”

“I called you that, huh.”

“You said a lot worse.”

“I was angry.”

“You’ve always been angry but you never tried to hurt me. Hurt us.”

“I thought I’d lost you.”

“Doesn’t matter.”

“Why did you come back?”

“You stopped saying sorry in your sleep. Thought you froze to death while I was angry at you.”

“My heartbeat—”

“I wasn’t thinking rationally. You should know all about that.” Kon sighs, staring at the sun peaking over the horizon. “I can’t fix you just by being me.”

“I’m not broken.”

“You’re a mess and you know it. You just don’t want to do anything about it. I’m not going anywhere, but I don’t want to watch you destroy yourself. I can’t watch that happen. I can’t be there just for you to throw things at whenever you lose it.”

“They don’t hurt.”

“It hurts whenever you are trying to hurt me. They don’t leave bruises but it’s a shitty thing to do.”

“I’m sorry.”

“You’ve always been good at saying sorry without changing anything. Get some therapy.”

“Therapy doesn’t fix shit.”

“It does.”

“Then why don’t you get any if it works so well.”

“I talk to Lois,” Kon says flatly, sounding just as exhausted as Tim feels. “I talk to Ma and I talk to Pa. I told Lois about this fight, all the fights, and she… you know she said our friendship sounds toxic as hell. Don’t interrupt me, alright. Let me say this. I spent time with you when you let me. Let us. It was always your schedule and always what you needed. The Team was for you to learn some skills. And like, I love what it became. It became family, but it didn’t start that way and it wasn’t that for a long time. I get it. Your life’s been shit but it’s always shit, Tim. I can’t tell you any of my problems without you dismissing them. And when you do address it, your solution is always money.”

Tim feels like he just took a few blows. “I like spending time with you,” he says weakly.

“Now that you can’t be a cape, sure. But we used to go so long without seeing you. You never talked in the group chats. You told us what to do and you didn’t really want our opinions. It was… Young Justice a lot of the time felt like the Robin spinoff.”

Tim sneaks a glance and sees Kon still focused on the dawn. Tim doesn’t know what colour his eyes are. Blue, that much he knows, but not the precise shade.

“You guys really hated me.”

“No. That was the worst part. It would have been easier if I could have hated you. I wish I could have looked at you and been hateful. You’re my best friend and I love you.” Kon reaches out and takes his hand, bridging the impossible gap between them. “We all love you. I just… loving you can’t fix you and I’ve tried my hardest. Talk to someone, please.”

Kon’s hand is strangely delicate for someone with strength enough to hold up the universe. His fingers are perfectly shaped and entirely unblemished. Soft. Tim knows this already from a thousand casual touches that he’s locked deep in with the key thrown away. He wants to hold Kon’s hand so tight that not even Superman’s vision can tell where Tim ends and Kon begins.

He’ll never say it and he swallows those strange, queer feelings whole. He isn’t his father. He didn’t inherit his deviancy.

“I talk to Steph.”

“She’s a Bat. You all just reinforce bad behaviours.” Kon’s glare intensifies. Bitterness and a hint of jealousy. “And I can put up with the weird thing the two of you are doing, but you two just accept your trauma and don’t do anything about it.”

“You really think this will help.” Kon nods. “And if it doesn’t?”

“Then I’ll be right here, waiting for you. As always.”

Kon squeezes his hand tight and all thoughts of arguing flee his mind.

*

Actual therapy is weird and uncomfortable. Apparently, he’s supposed to talk about his feelings and where they came from and the events in his life that might have led to the former.

Tim stares at his therapist in confusion. She came highly recommended by Harley Quinn. Apparently, a former meta back in the 80s who’d decided that dying was not worth it and got a degree in psychology. Tim did very extensive background checks and besides her clientele including the likes of the Spectre—how???—she’s painfully normal.

She also somehow knows everyone’s secret identity given that she’d asked if he wanted to be called Robin or Tim.

“I mean, do you want me to list the events in chronological order or severity?”

“Whichever you’re more comfortable with.”

“I feel like I’m being scammed.” His therapist merely maintains his pleasant smile. “Fine, probably the time I got trafficked. That’s like the big one.”

“Tell me about it.”

“I’d prefer not to.”

“Why?”

“Because I don’t like thinking about it, obviously. Do you enjoy relieving your shitty memories?”

“It does tend to help when I talk about them,” she says implacably. “Why do you consider that event the big one over, say, your encounter with the Heretic? Or any other event.”

Tim doesn’t make it through the session. He throws a fit halfway through and storms out.

*

Tim screams at Kon about it. 

“That sanctimonious piece of shit!”

Kon listens to him rant with the patience of a saint. Tim’s been at it for two hours now, longer than the session itself. She hadn’t seemed surprised at all by him leaving, barely done more than raise a singularly judgemental eyebrow.

“Where does she get off trying to tell me about my issues? Fuck her and her entire profession of bullshit shysters. Like, address my issues with my parents and how it made Robin seem like the only option I had? Fuck her.”

Kon pats his shin. “This is honestly the most you’ve ever told me about your life.”

Tim comes to a halt in his tirade. “What? You know everything about me.”

“I was today years old when I learnt you were trafficked. Or that those rings around your neck are your parents. Or how young you were when you became Robin.”

“No way. I’ve definitely told you this stuff.”

“Tim, you never told us anything. You still don’t.” Kon exhales tiredly, as though he’s had this conversation with Tim already. Like Tim’s forgotten it a dozen times. “You should go again.”

He stands up.

“Fuck you.”

And leaves.

*

He still returns two weeks later.

“My best friend thinks I don’t talk to him and it’s all your fault.”

“Please, spend this entire session telling me how I am responsible for the state of your friendship.”

“I’m getting there. Don’t fucking rush me.”

*

Tim spends his morning driving through the Narrows in his beat-up off-white Hona Civic. It’s rusted on the sides and the rear lights don’t work. It has one wheel cover left, the other three long gone. He drives for no real reason but to see how the city has changed over the years.

The liquor store that used to be a drug stash house on the corner of 7th and Franklin is an STD testing clinic and the tenement that took up three blocks southbound have been flattened by the war that set Gotham alight, a memorial park was built instead. Tim spies a few of Hood’s enforcers keeping the peace as he drives deeper.

A lot of the big-name mob bosses lost when they learnt that the name Falcone might mean something in Gotham but to Bane, it's just another group to crush. They’d found Penguin dead, a calling card from Lady Shiva to Cass for their duel.

Not many gang leaders made it and the city is better for it. They’d broken the city and bled it dry till. Better a benevolent dictator like Hood with strict policies and stricter engagement policies.

Tim parks two blocks down from the rundown apartment complex and calmly approaches, feeling more eyes on him than he’s strictly comfortable with. But it was either this or sneaking into Jason’s apartment and Tim lacks the dexterity for that right now.

He nods at Jason’s favourite enforcer, a woman called Snoop with a rather grizzly rap sheet and more bodies than most from Baltimore. She’s cool though and didn’t even pistol whip him that one time he got kidnapped in his Tim Drake identity. Jason had been angry at Tim for forgetting to replace the milk.

She lets him through and tells him to head to the inner courtyard. There, he finds Jason working his craft with loud grunts. Tim takes a seat on a bench, counting the bullet holes. He’s found twelve when Jason finally notices him. 

“Hey, Timbelina. Just give me a sec.”

“Sure.”

There is an unspoken agreement to ignore Jason’s more violent activities. Mostly because Bruce caves immediately whenever Jason raises his voice because favourite kid privileges. Tim’s fine with it because he’s so messed up that seeing someone get violently murdered is Tuesday brunch.

Tuesday brunch is in the brown paper bag he’s carrying. Fried chicken sandwiches. Tim’s going through a bit of a phase—I can stop whenever I want, Steph, don’t take away my fried chicken. He even got it from one of those pretentious eateries where it costs double what Popeyes does for no reason.

Jason rises on shaky legs, exhaling in relief. He leans heavily on his bloody cane, pulling out a handmade handkerchief to wipe away the blood splatters on his face. Then he drops it over the ruined face of the man he just beat to death.

The scent of fresh blood is heavy when he takes a seat beside Tim and grabs his sandwich, chomping down tiredly.

“I thought you weren’t officially the Hood anymore.”

“Hood is taking an extended vacation with his life partner and he’s left a vengeful spirit in charge of things while he’s away.”

“That explains the rumours of Jason Todd being alive again. You’re not even trying to hide it.”

“Nope,” he says, popping the p like he’s a shitty idol instead of a violent killer. “The brat gave me the idea.”

“He’s surprisingly sweet when it comes to the dead.”

Jason elbows him. Before, that would have bowled Tim over. Now, it just hurts a bit. A fair trade-off to see Jason’s blue eyes again instead of the ill-fitting Lazarus green.

“I’m undead, bitch. Get it right.”

“How’s that work out anyway?”

“The Unusual Lifeform Citizenry Registration Act here. If cyborgs, plant people, and actual aliens can be citizens now then one kid who didn’t die properly can also be a citizen. Luthor really opened the floodgates with that.”

Tim frowns, then his eyes widen. “Superboy? Really? How’d Supes take it?”

He’s going to strangle Kon for not telling him about this.

“Not well. It could have been worse. Half the world could think he’s a deadbeat dad.”

“Then?”

“Oracle had the brilliant idea to flood the internet with memes. And a certain kind of image.”

Tim buries his face in his hands. “Is that why I can’t search up Superman without a smart AI filtering out all that shit?”

Jason claps him on the shoulder sympathetically. That’s a shirt ruined by blood and chicken grease. 

“A bald man is the poster child for humans can fuck everything.” Jason takes a breath, bracing himself for what he’s about to say. “And for humans having children with everything.”

“But he’s a test tube baby.”

“The internet doesn’t care about facts.”

“The internet was a mistake.”

“Yup.”

“No, I’m not thinking about this. Nope. Tell me why you’re bringing Jason Todd back instead of some random persona.”

“Firstly, I fucking like my name. Secondly, it’ll be easier to take my criminal empire legit. Not all of us stumbled into an evil empire.”

“Fuck you, Drake Industries is a fiefdom at best. Wayne has the kingdom and Luthor has an empire.”

“And you run two of those.”

“I only have a minor stake in Wayne Industries and I do not receive any information that isn’t publically available. You overstate my influence over the company. Wayne Industries and Drake Industries are entirely separate.”

“You practice telling that lie?”

“For like a whole hour,” Tim admits. “I couldn’t stop laughing. Do you know people think I play fair?”

“Idiots.”

“I know right. B mentioned something about union negotiations?”

“Oh, that, yeah. A fucking pain in my ass. Someone—”

“Steph.”

“Someone,” Jason snarls, “convinced all my workers that they’re allowed to form a union and now I have to listen to dipshits. My people went on strike when Hood took his holiday. Strike! What the shit? They had a form and everything.”

“Not paying them enough?”

“Bitch, please, you and B would shut my whole operation down if I didn’t. No, they want ‘reassurances that they won’t be haunted by vengeful spirits in their contracts. How am I supposed to guarantee that? Do I look like some sort of exorcist? Gotham’s a hotbed of mystical bullshit happening all the time.”

“No, it isn’t.”

“Tell me the tunnel network isn’t bigger than the city it's beneath.”

“We agreed not to talk about that!”

“Then stop fucking lying.”

“Fine. Jesus. Finish your fries or something so we can leave.”

“So you want me to disappear who exactly?”

“This asshole Senator. He’s in Gotham for a day and he’s saying we don’t need more funds to deal with villain attacks. Like, fuck him. He just wants to pocket an extra forty-three grand. I know. I traced the lobbying money.”

“You could counter lobby.”

“Why? I’ve got you to scare him to death.”

“The things I do for you dumb fuckfaces.” Jason sighs. “Do you think B would like guys next decapitated great with signs of a violent beating beforehand or a clean procedure?”

“Why do you think I understand your strange decapitated heads fetish.”

“One, it's not a fetish, and two, because you're an amoral sociopath.”

“Rude.”

“But true.”

“Well, it's whichever one leads to a longer case since that gives B more time to talk about you. Fucking favouritism.”

“I think I have the wrong equipment downstairs to be in contention for the favourite.”

“Right, that’s why he constantly forgives you for breaking his golden rule and desperately tries to get your affection. You know what, fuck you Mister Spoiled Middle Child.”

“I’m sure you’re someone’s favourite. Maybe Batcow.”

“Get fucked.”

Chapter Text

Autumn sweeps through October, the switch between verdant green to soft oranges abrupt as a cold snap winds its way through Gotham’s streets. Just a few short years ago, it would have claimed hundreds of lives. With stronger institutions, it will only claim dozens.

Drake Mansion still operates thought at a reduced rate. A few cleaners here and there. A gardener to clear out the weeds. Repairmen when repairs need to be made. An unassuming state for such a grand estate.

He comes today at his therapist’s suggestion. Confronting his past or some such drivel. From anyone else, he’d ignore it. But ever since visiting his therapist, Tim’s had an easier time sleeping and isn’t so drawn to spiralling bouts of manic focus. Besides, Tim never truly did go through his parents’ belongings. It had hurt too much. But like a diseased limb, sometimes cutting it off is the only option.

The mansion isn’t dusty, much to his disappointment. It lacks a certain aesthetic appeal in its abandonment. The shuttered blinds cast uneasy shadows as Tim struggles to navigate his childhood home. There was a point he could have mapped it with his eyes closed. No longer. Time is relentless and erodes memory without mercy. One day, he may even forget all the spots he was hurt in this household.

The room his parents occupied is the same as it was the day Jack left to spend his final weeks in hospital. In the months before, Tim had caught Jack quietly packing and setting his personal effects in order. Jack had done it with an enviable dignity, asking for no help even as his strength had withered away. It was honourable in its own way. Looking back on it, Jack was hyperaware of Tim’s presence, giving him space and ceding control to his heir with each day. Stepping back to allow Tim total command of the household. No matter his choice, not a single word to the contrary had been uttered by Jack.

Tim sits on the foot of the unmade bed, mattress exposed to the world for all to see. He takes it in, this space his parents shared when they remembered they had a son waiting at home. The bay of windows overlooks a field of manicured lawn at the edge of which is a stately iron fence, the yard and home large enough for a dozen children. Beyond that is the forested land that takes up much of Wayne Manor.

Had seeing their enemy withered away their hearts, one dreary evening after another? Had Janet been trapped in this room during Tim’s pregnancy, souring her on the idea of a child, or had that cruelty been in her the entire time? Had it been losing the man Tim can never find that had ruined her? Every question he asks of them comes with a dozen answers, all equally true at the same time.

Around his neck, his mother’s necklace hangs, joined with his father’s. Gold and platinum bound together above his heart, claiming him in all the ways that mattered. They weigh as heavily as the Robin mantle ever did.

His mother’s drawers are neatly organised. Notebooks filled with translations of ancient works and research papers. An article on the Lovers of Modena nearly has Tim bawling. He flips through the notebook and finds the occasional note on Tim himself. An itemised list of his likes and dislikes, dated for effects. Notes on styles and cuts that flattered him. Questions on the looseness of his morality and the extent of his intelligence. He was an experiment to her, one to be dissected and understood.

He suspects those were the only words for love she held in her heart.

Jack’s drawer feels somehow more intimidating. Maybe because Tim had more years of silence and abuse from the man. Perhaps because he is scared Jack’s ghost will return and berate him for his sentimentality. Who can tell? Certainly not Tim who hesitates for long minutes before finally opening the topmost drawer.

Jack’s tallit greets him, neatly folded and strangely misplaced. It should be in one of the many clothing drawers. The blue stripes are still vibrant despite years spent here. With shaking fingers, he removes it and unfurls a piece of Jack’s faith.

Something slips out, falling to the ground gently. Tim catches it before it does. A photo. Crinkled and scuffed. Stained with tears. Tim feels his heart freeze as he realises what it depicts.

There, trapped forever is Janet laughing. Beside her is a young Tim with a hard hat on his head, smiling brilliantly as Jack lifts him by the armpits. Their shadows are long, cast by the setting sun that ignites the sky in pinks and oranges. A blistering moment of simple joy between them. One glorious moment where everything had been going right. A son loved by imperfect parents. Loved, despite how little they understood about raising and caring for a child.

One fucking moment that should have lasted a lifetime.

“He kept it.”

The bastard lied about getting rid of it.

Tim laughs, bitter to his core. Nothing was ever simple with his parents, certainly not with Jack Drake. Nothing was easy about their relationship and Tim hates him terribly for it.

Tim loves him as well.

*

Tim returns after searching through his family home for more pieces of his life. There weren’t many surprises. Jack had kept all the photos he claimed were gone, boxed them neatly and annotated them on the backside. Tiny notes, some as simple as the date taken, others with poetry fragments. Scattered baubles and items Tim thought he’d lost in one of his many manic periods only to find them in neatly labelled boxes. His favourite cashmere sweater that his mother got him. Sneakers that stopped fitting when he was nine.

It has been three years since his father died and Tim is learning he knew him less than he thought, and all he knew was a desolate wasteland. He could have simply asked. Tim would have gladly offered his entire life, ripped his heart from his chest and presented it to the man. Tim was always there desperately wanting a father and down the hall was a father desperately seeking a son but too fearful to take that final step.

Tim settles those boxes in his old room and seals them tight alongside his feelings. One day, he’ll be brave enough to work through it all.

Autumn leaves crunch beneath his boots as he enters Wayne Manor. Someone calls a greeting that he returns thoughtlessly, hanging up his damp coat and replacing his shoes with indoor slippers. On the second floor of Wayne Manor, in the lesser used West Wing that overlooks the entrance to the forest, is a room everyone has a claim to.

It is littered with pictures. Some are set in elegant frames. Others are cheap prints taped to the walls. It is a hodgepodge of moments shared amongst them.

Photos of Dick standing with the Titans in their civilian outfits. A selfie of a very disgruntled Jason and an excited Steph. Cass accidentally photobombing an interview on prime-time news. Alfred cutting Tim’s hair under the sink. Paintings as well, one after another of their family, all done by Damian. Tim feels an uncomfortable swelling of amusement at how often he’s depicted asleep in them.

Others, too, are more complicated. Red Hood fleeing a crime scene. Steph without a smile for once. Cass, bruised and exhausted, Lady Shiva retreating in the background. Newspaper clippings of Catwoman getting away with another crime. Even a painting of a Robin bleeding out as green rain falls.

Tim isn’t certain who started this room but there is no judgement to it. It’s the greatest weakness of their secret identities, but anyone who can get through all the layers of security already knows.

Today, Tim sets down two pictures on a floating shelf. The first is the one his father gifted him in a letter that Tim reads on occasion. Depicted is Tim asleep with his head in his mother’s lap, a painfully soft moment between them. The other is a picture of all three of them together at the dig site. His feelings for them are messy and complicated. This room is the only one that could possibly contain them.

Bruce finds him there. Someone must have noticed his silent tears. Tim lets himself lean against Bruce’s arm. Bruce, at least, is as steady and simple as the mountains. Perhaps Bruce is barely cognisant of how to be a human, but he holds love enough for them all anyway.

“He wasn’t all bad. Jack. They weren’t great, I know, but at some point, there was a chance we could have been family. Times where he just spoke to me and taught me lessons. Shitty lessons about class and exploitative wealth, sure, but I remember one day we sat at a park for no reason at all. He would point out people and make fun of them, coming up with stories of who they might be. That skinny twig of a woman was secretly the best underground MMA fighter and the guy with the long beard was a ballet dancer in his youth. Sometimes, I thought we might be okay. And then I ruined it.”

“You ruined your relationship with your father at eight? Nine? That implies fragility on his part.”

“In my Robin file, the one you have in the offline server, there’s this line about watching for latent homophobic tendencies. Which, one, I’m not, but I get why it’s there. I didn’t get why Jack was so weird about seeing me watch a kid with a rainbow tie so intently. I didn’t have the words to understand what those colours meant, what nation she belonged to. Jack loved another man at some point, and it ended terribly. So, to hear his son call people like him an unwanted aberration probably hurt him permanently. He’d always been afraid of me if Janet was to be believed. Terrified, really. I guess he just saw how much I could hurt him if I wanted to.” Tim stares at Jack’s smile in the photo, the casual ease with which he held Tim.

“That doesn’t excuse the abandonment, violence, or abuse.”

“Are you talking about yourself or Jack?” He feels more than he sees Bruce grunt in frustrated hurt. “Just kidding. You didn’t do the first.”

Bruce works through his thoughts for a few moments. Tim is content to be patient.

“Dick threatened to take you from me many times. I don’t think he ever forgave me for making a child soldier in Jason and he never forgave himself for letting me make you one. I didn’t care for your needs. Ignored your emotions. Let everyone else raise you because that was easy. That you can honestly say I was violent and abusive to you—”

“You aren’t. Or if you were, I was asking for it. No, stop, don’t try and talk about victim complexes and being a minor. I’m a genius, B. Smarter than you. I knew what I was getting into from the beginning. I did this to me. It was the only way I could save myself.”

“There were more ways.”

“It was the one I wanted.”

“It should never have been an option. Being the least bad option isn’t good enough.”

“If I wanted Dick for a dad, I would have gone with him. Do you know why I never? Why I’ve always avoided Dick. He would have destroyed me. He’s just too much for me. Too fast. Too kind. Too good. Too bright. Too Robin. He would have snuffed me out just by existing. Made me someone entirely different. Shaped me unconsciously into his image. He still does that to all of us child heroes. He was our template and no one of us can come close to him. It probably kills us just trying. Even if your shadow hurt me terribly, it gave me space to be myself. Figure myself out.”

“And have you?”

“I’m sixteen. It’d be weird if I had things figured out.” Tim sighs. “On his deathbed, when his son had revealed he was an enemy, do you know what Jack said to me? After I’d told him how thoroughly I subverted everything in his life, can you imagine what parting words he would have for me?”

“No,” Bruce answers truthfully.

Tim smiles gently. “The best revenge is living well. That we Drakes take our revenge in full. It’s so fucked up the way he left me fucked up and confused.”

“We can work through it. You’ve taken a powerful first step in talking to me.”

“Which book did you get that from?”

“Hayley’s Guide on Surviving your Teenager’s Angst.”

“I’m fucking insulted. I don’t have angst. My problems are real and all-consuming. I was trafficked, you asshole. Don’t diminish my suffering.”

Bruce freezes. “What?”

“Did I never tell you that?” he asks nervously, trying to take a step away, only to be stopped by an iron hand on his wrist.

“No, Timothy Jackson Drake-Wayne, you did not mention being trafficked. You will now explain everything, leaving no detail out, or I will get Alfred.”

He tugs his arm uselessly. Batman doesn’t so much as budge.

“In fairness, I—”

“Am grounded. For life. Yes. It’s nice of you to agree.”

“Like that worked last time.”

“I’ve learnt my lesson since then.”

“Fuck.”

* 

*

*

He’ll say this about Bruce, he’s very much like Janet Drake and overreacts when he assumes his spawn might be in trouble. Janet had pivoted from aggressively forgetting his existence all the way to deciding Tim was the most brilliant star of her life.

Bruce is unfortunately less rational than Janet ever was.

“Faith is important to people,” Batman pretending to be Bruce Wayne begins awkwardly one morning, having dropped Damian off at a violin recital.

It’s not a very effective impression seeing as Tim is literally leashed to the lounge. Bruce is playing no games and got the adamantine shackles. Kon couldn’t break these if he tried, and Tim certainly encouraged him to. Alfred had very politely told them to experiment in privacy which had Kon fleeing and Tim’s soul fleeing.

“This is true,” he says uncertainly. This is Bruce at his most unpredictable. When one can’t tell what aspect of humanity he’s so thoroughly failed to understand.

He’s slightly better these days. All the screaming Jay did helped, but it was largely seeing how he’d messed up Damian that got him to shape up.

“You are Jewish.”

The sun rises. Gotham is a shithole. Superman is genuinely a nice person. Dick Grayson is Jesus and Jason Todd is the only Messiah Gotham needs. Tim is a contrarian. What else is new?

“Um, my mother wasn’t, so I’m not. Christian a ways back. So technically I’m not Jewish by matrilineal descent? Jack’s line was Ashkenazi. We’re from Amiens from the get-go and I think there’s a Polish connection some seven generations back. Jack was post-denominational as far as I can tell, maybe secular. Not sure. I was raised to be an aesthetic Jewish if I was even raised Jewish at all. Not very Yiddishkeit of me.”

“You lit a Yahrzeit candle,” Bruce counters patiently.

Tim shrugs, flicking to a different channel. History Channel, so alien conspiracies and trashy reality stuff. “I also lit the menorah you leave out for me during my first Hanukkah with you. Would have been rude not to.”

“I didn’t mean to make you celebrate something you didn’t believe in.” Bruce pauses as Batman runs through his ‘interacting with humans’ decision matrix. “I did that in hopes you would feel more comfortable when you were with us and that you might freely receive a piece of your identity. I had to cobble together my understanding of who I was and my place in the world.”

“You don’t study the Torah or Talmud. Not very Yiddishkeit of you.”

“There’s more to it than reading,” Bruce says wryly. “Your generation does enjoy applying gatekeep-girlboss-gaslight to everything.”

“Say that again and I’m working with Luthor from now on to take over the world.”

“You speak Yiddish,” Bruce adds as evidence supporting the point he still hasn’t made.

“I am my mother’s son. She was the one who taught me French. Belgium French like you guessed years back. Still haven’t forgiven you for that panic attack. All my language skills are from her. Jack couldn’t learn a new language to save a life and believe me, he tried to learn French.” He adds quietly, “I learnt Yiddish during physio. Gave me something to do.”

“You don’t sound particularly proud about that.”

“It didn’t do jack shit for me. Didn’t change anything for me.”

“Being Jewish isn't being any single thing.”

“He says to his adopted vigilante son who was raised to inherit a hereditary seat as a villain.”

“Your mother may not have been Jewish, but she left you the skills to find your identity. That’s not a bad way to remember her.”

“I thought you hated my parents.”

“I would gladly strangle your father and see your mother in prison for their mistreatment of you, yes, but I can see you still care for them.”

For once, Bruce does sound entirely honest. Had he the chance, he would have annihilated Tim’s parents. But his mom died young, and his father followed shortly afterwards.

Tim does his speciality and avoids thinking about it.

“B, you’re awkwardly skirting whatever you want to ask me so can you just do that already?”

Bruce… doesn’t meet his eyes, that would be incorrect. But he does turn his attention to Tim without that expected pressure of eye contact. It is such a simple thing to do but no one else has ever so easily acknowledged how much Tim loathes eye contact and done something about it.

More and more, Tim understands that even though Bruce is a mask for Batman, the mask has bled into the cold and unfeeling avatar of vengeance. It’s easy to love him.

“Would you like to observe High Holy Days with me?”

“Why?”

“I am technically your father.”

“Don’t you dare bring up technicalities with me.”

“The honest answer is that I’ve never had anyone else to go with me. I never knew anyone I could ask. Dick’s nominally Christian though I think he would love at you if you tried pinning a religion on him. Jason’s doing strange things I don’t want to think about. And Damian’s… I have no idea, but I don’t want to listen to him cut my beliefs down.”

Another channel. MTV is still around? What is this, 2003?

“Since when do you listen to your children’s opinion?”

“He says as though he doesn’t enjoy watching Dick bully me.”

“Don’t copy my speech patterns. And get some friends to join you.”

“I will ask the very large and very plentiful Jewish cape community to accept me into their arms and learn how to handle me at my most awkward.”

“Isn’t Supes?”

He doesn’t ask about Kate. It’s easier if the two only ever meet in costume and even then, have a mediator. Bruce is… petty at best.

“He’s from the middle of nowhere, Kansas.”

“That’s a tautology.”

“Don’t let him hear you say that. He went to Sunday mass like a good boy and made Alfred bemoan the fact that he was completely straight since I have an obsession with women who will stab me.”

“No talky talk about your sexual preferences. Ever again. Or I’ll stabby stab.” Tim tugs on his handcuff. “Especially when I’m cuffed. Someone will get the wrong idea.”

Bruce turns just the slightest shade of green. Still nowhere near as badly traumatised as Tim is.

“You really need some friends,” he says as a peace offering, changing to another channel. A nature documentary on blue whales narrated by David Attenborough.

“You’re my friend.”

“No, Bruce, I’m your adopted son, your crime-fighting partner, and your dependant. We are not friends.”

“Is this because I don’t send you deep-fried memes? I can find some. They’ll even be Yom Kippur themed.”

Tim throws the remote. Bruce catches it before it hits his head. “Who taught you these things?”

“Steph.”

That makes an unfortunate amount of sense. Tim sighs, sinking deeper into the couch. The documentary is decent enough though he doesn’t get the Attenborough hype. Not even he can soothe Tim to sleep.

“Imagine Trump finding out Batman’s a Jew.”

“I’ll wear a shtreimel in costume for the gram.”

“You sound like a Facebook mom trying to relate to their teenage daughter. And look, I’m not going to tell you how to identify, but I’m listed as your son for reasons I’m starting to regret.”

“Stop being so extra.”

“I will murder you if you don’t stop.”

“Sounds like a pretty lit time, fam.”

“Bruce, I will leak your nudes.”

“Bold of you to assume I don’t know about your countermeasures and that I haven’t subverted them entirely. I’m lowkey brilliant.”

Tim reaches into the space behind the seat. Where did Damian put his spare knife? He feels sharp steel and grins.

It’s time to commit parricide as a good Drake always does.

This should be fine. Alfred will forgive him. The world doesn’t deserve Batman sounding like a terminally online zoomer.

This is for the good of the world.

*

*

*

Timothy Jackson Drake-Wayne attends Rosh Hashanah service with his father. Breaking that sentence down to its constituent parts doesn’t make it any easier for him to stomach. From his contradictory names to being on his third father—the first time he ever understood loving his parents was through pictures taken a lifetime ago so that man is as much a father as Jack was—everything about this situation feels off.

Gotham is an immigrant city, perhaps more so than New York only six hours away by train. Plonked in the middle of a bay and connected by rail to the north and south, it is a natural hub of travel. It is also a hub of contradiction.

New Jersey opposed new acts of slavery even as it opposed freeing existing slaves. Gotham, though, stood apart from the New Jersey mainland then as it does now. It was a strange refuge for the Underground Railroad and bridged passage to New Jersey.

From Tim’s trawl through the Court of Owl’s history, they hadn’t particularly supported slavery and the moment it had been untenable, they actively opposed it. But until then, they extracted the maximum value they could from it.

The contradiction of Gotham, the worst people mingle with good ideas, and the greatest of people stand aside and let evil occur.

Gotham accepted all evils without thought and cared little for one’s background. The Court wasn’t uniformly lacking in melanin. So long as one had the money and ruthlessness, one could claim a seat in the Parliament. Whether you were a freedman with access to gold reserves or a runaway Chinese railroad worker from British Columbia, the Court accepted you. Oh sure, bigotry would never die out, but the penultimate Judge was an immigrant from Malawi, a literal African Prince, and the one before her a ruthless killer from Columbia.

Five generations ago, the Judge had been an Ashkenazi Jew by the name of Asher Drake.

His family built this city, and they embedded the evil that still thrives within it. He purged the mind behind the evil, but evil is an infection that thrives even without direction. A disease spread by vectors of corruption and indifference.

These are the thoughts that consume him during the prayer service and as the story of Isaac’s binding is told.

Beside him sits Batman wearing his Bruce Wayne mask. In Batman, Tim found deliverance and faith. In Batman, Tim found a creed he could follow. If you dress a child up in a mask and a cape, give them orders, and tell them to fight a war, are you not making them a sacrifice for Gotham and its people? Child sacrifices might not be a good thing, but they happen, and they are accepted gladly. Those sacrifices are uplifted. Some even become martyrs and saints.

Robin the First is a call to arms and a call to faith in oneself. Robin the Second is a prayer to the people of the Narrows and Crime Alley. Robin the Third died in the eyes of Gotham, raised as a sacrifice, and martyred in battle against a Heretic.

Tim has always considered the story of Isaac a cruel one because he as well is a sacrifice and Tim knew, always, that Robin would destroy him. It broke him and left him in a coma that some declared a miracle for him to awaken from. It should have killed him. But he knew because of Jason, because of all the other child heroes who fell, what would come for him one day.

To be a sacrifice is not horror. To be sacrificed without knowing leaves him sick to the core.

*

He finds himself maudlin when he returns. His camera is held loosely in his hand as he snaps up pictures where he can. Cassandra notices him, obviously, but she doesn’t move out of her perfect eight-angle pose—astavakrasana, he recalls, after the sage to King Janaka—that gives Tim muscle cramps just from looking at it. There is Alfred the human antagonising Alfred the Cat, one chasing after a laser dot on the floor. Here is Bruce staring at the portrait of his parents, his hands unclenched and loose at his side despite the frustrated line of his shoulders.

A ghost would have more presence than Tim gliding through the loud hallways of Wayne Manor. Ace chases after Titus, the two leaping around Tim easily. Jason in the woods doesn’t notice him as he performs some ritual that is likely a crime against magic. Oh, that’s Steph sunbathing on the roof who doesn’t notice his wave.

Bitterness wells in his heart, unfair as it is. One can’t expect others to notice them when they try to hide.

A woosh. Tim turns in a single moment, catching whatever was thrown at him. A pomegranate?

“Were I an enemy, you would be long dead.”

“Yes, yes, you’re a vicious assassin. What else is new?”

Damian scowls a slightly deeper scowl than his usual one. “This is what you eat, yes? On Rosh Hannah.”

“Um, sure.” Honestly, Damian probably knows better given his perfect recall. Tim might be a genius but even he has to put in some effort to remember all the knowledge crammed in his head. 

“You are Ashkenazi, are you not? There is a slice of apple dipped in honey awaiting you in the kitchen.”

“Either you were listening to me and Bruce talk or you’ve been going through my family tree.”

Damian’s brow scrunches in confusion. They are alike, Bruce and Damian, hardly knowing the appropriate response for humans. He’s not an object to be owned or a vessel for Ra’s mad plans anymore, but a lifetime of mistreatment isn’t solved in a year or two.

“Can it not be both?”

“Well, I guess it can, kiddo. That was sweet of you.”

“I did nothing for you. I wanted sweets and this was the only way Alfred would permit an additional allocation of sweets.”

Tim pauses. “Hold up, when you said a slice, you meant a single slice.”

“Are you deaf as well as inarticulate?”

Despite the cruelty of the words, there is a certain hesitance to them. Tim is certainly not Damian’s favourite, but they are the closest in different ways. Tim understood what colours and sweets meant to him first. Tim took a bullet for him as well. He’d offered for them to be equals as Robin, and though Damian rejected it, he rejected the idea of vigilantism, not the idea of being equals.

And, well, they’re the youngest in the household with enough daddy and mommy issues between them to make Freud weep.

“Did you want to join us?” he asks carefully.

“Such practices of faith are beneath me. I know my destination. A lifetime of work will not change it.”

“Where are you going?”

“I already witnessed hell once. This is merely a detour to the same end.”

“Oh.”

“Close your gaping mouth, you fool. It is as it is. Now, excuse me.”

He watches Damian walk away.

Well, fuck that noise. Tim’s fixing that. Damian is not going to hell.

He’s worked miracles in less time. Ten days is more than enough. Besides, these are ten High Holy Days. Hashem better loosen the rules a bit.

*

It takes Tim four of the Ten Days of Repentance to save the soul of a boy he never treated right. It includes a short jaunt to hell. He’s hoping there’s some leeway to consorting with demons. He has no hope he’s being forgiven for consorting with John Constantine.

The sixth day he spends with Bruce. It’s the most time they’ve spent uninterrupted and without the need for Robin coming between them. They did yoga in the morning since Tim’s mobility hasn’t fully returned and watched Zootopia afterwards. Tim had caved to Bruce’s insistence that they watch it because Bruce is a toddler trapped in the body of a man who should have had a midlife crisis. Maybe good parenting is his midlife crisis?

“I was considering taking Drake Industries public in a few years.”

“Being beholden to that many people will drive you insane.”

“Think about the money.”

“But then you would have to file more paperwork when you want to purchase additional minority stakes in my company.”

“At least it wasn’t Luthor buying them.”

“You have my thanks. Besides, won’t it feel better if you increase your company valuation of my own merit?”

“Being efficient at exploitation isn’t necessarily merit.”

“I think you would have managed to build a company of your own. Isn’t that the beauty of the American Dream?”

“First off, the American Dream has been dead forever and only some groups get that. Secondly, the idea of a meritocracy is a lie.”

“I don't know if I agree,” billionaire playboy philanthropist Bruce Wayne says around his silver spoon in the second dining room of his ancestral Manor funded by generational wealth extracted from the millions lost during the middle passage and the millions more who never saw freedom in their lifetimes. “I like the idea. Anyone can be anyone if they try hard enough.”

“I bet you do. The Wayne's were southerners some six generations ago, yes?”

Bruce’s lips thin in annoyance. “I know where you’re going with this. Fine, meritocracies are only true for people who functionally have every advantage available to them.”

“I'm glad you pulled your head out of your ass with your bootstraps without assistance from your manservant. I don’t think you pay Alfred enough for that.”

Alfred the Cat yowls loudly in agreement.

*

*

*

Tim attends Yom Kippur service at Gotham Central Synagogue just three blocks down from the mosque on 3rd and Cunningham that Jason found shelter in when he was younger. He has fond memories of volunteering at the latter and one of his non-profits still runs a dozen programs out of it. For a moment, he recalls getting Ariana’s mother a job there and feels a pang of guilt. Or maybe that’s a hunger pang from fasting? That would be more convenient.

It's just fucking perfect that Tim’s feeling melancholic this day of all days.

Gotham Central Synagogue is a grander affair than the one Jack had him attend when he was younger. The architect thought awe and made it into stonework, then tried to make it open with vaunting ceilings. They were dearly in love with the Alexander Nevsky Cathedral as they’d designed Gotham Central to be a dome with brass domes on patina copper domes with cross-sectional geometry of a dome from at least four angles. But Tim he gets the sense they went to Eldridge Street Synagogue as a child from the stained-glass relief in shades of icy blue and murky greens that emulates the cosmos framing the elegantly simple bimah in white wood. The Torah Ark seems to Tim to almost be holding up the cosmos depicted in stained glass with how the inverted dome of its crown seems to cradle it delicately.

The service had been unfortunately well-done and incredibly thoughtful. Unfortunate because their cantor is an absolute asshole who gave Bruce the side-eye, staring long and hard at Tim with his blue eyes and black hair. Perhaps he recalled the vile rumours against Bruce or the torrid affair that was Damian’s adoption.

Tim had even worn a pair of canvas shoes to avoid leather and skipped his morning shower. He’s observing traditions and this asshole’s still looking at him like he’s the scum of the earth. Well, Bruce was right. People can be more than one thing. A truly profound orator can also be an asshole the size of Jupiter.

Tim remembers it in fragments, the speech the cantor gave. He’s never been good at memorising speeches, always struggled to sit still and focus. But vast chunks of this one stay with him.

*

“How will you be an optimist this new year?

I ask you this question because it was the same question I asked myself when this city was declared No Man’s Land. All of us here today remember the horrors we experienced. I will not recount them because they are innumerable. I will speak instead of the moment I realised the horror had ended.

There was a video we have all seen by now and it brought me to tears my first time viewing it. In the devastation of our downtown district, there was this girl in a sunflower dress. She stood in the rubble of our sins, and she did not know where to begin. At first, I thought she was sobbing and felt grief deep within me. 

She sang alone, yes, but not for long, and that was when I understood she was not sobbing. She shed tears but her voice was steady and as strong as any I have ever heard.

I had never heard the song before. I’m old enough that when I say I don’t understand these young folks or their music, I receive only fond eyerolls. And yet, as more and more singers joined in, I saw a welling of emotions. They sang that day of their isolation and grief. In faces profoundly young and unbearably hopeful, I saw something new and beautiful being crafted out of broken dreams and shattered innocence. I witnessed hope enough to bring anyone to their knees.

Pompeii was not the song I expected to define a year. The eruption of Mount Vesuvius was a moment of sheer devastation so powerful it demanded to be immortalised through its own might. How can one seek hope in devastation? Perhaps that is why so many found it so powerful. I hear it hummed whenever I take a walk. I hear it sung at celebrations. I find myself bobbing my head to the beat when I cook.

I ask again, how will you be an optimist about this? When it feels like nothing at all has changed when you close your eyes, how will you remain optimistic? When the city that you love is but rubble, how will you remain an optimist? 

Shall I tell you?”

(The cantor had then placed one plushie after another on the railing bracketing the bimah. Children’s toys. Tim remembers being confused for a second before he understood what they represented, the ten of them.)

“They hide their true names and ask for no thanks. They came together, in their own time, because they had the power to change people’s lives for the better.

They came forward and stood to be accounted for because it is what they do. Some were lost to us, and our mourning has yet to end. They made the pilgrimage to fight for the soul of a city many would say is damned. They stand apart from us, but they stood for us.

The Days of Awe are a time of forgiveness and a time for apologies. This, we all know. But it is also a time to look toward the future and set aside past grievances. As we did then, we begin anew, and we learn to live again.

This Yom Kippur, think not only of those whom you have wronged as you try to make amends. Think of the Batman and the Black Bat. Think of Spoiler and think of Nightwing from our sister-city. Think of the nameless defender and think of Batwoman. Think even of the Red Hood whose ways are strange to us but who stood for Gotham when our city was torn asunder. Think as well of the Robins we have known in this city of ours, now lost to us, our boy saviours: Robin the First who laughed for us all and demanded we be better than we thought possible; Robin the Second whose righteous anger could not hide his love for the downtrodden or his faith in the worst of us; and think as well of Robin the Third, the quietest Robin but whose love for this city was felt so deeply that he freely gave his life so that we might see a new year.

Think of how to make this world a better place than you have found it. Think of the girl in the sunflower dress. Think of the beautiful harmony that gave this city hope again.

Begin this year with them in mind.”

*

Fragmentary parts of the speech still swirl in his head even after they’re gone, though they were waylaid by far too many people who made a spectacle about the local billionaire with his independently-a-billionaire son attending Yom Kippur. To Tim’s eternal horror, some people attended his Bar Mitzvah and fucking remembered him.

“Is it always like this?” he asks Bruce, red in the neck and terribly embarrassed.

“Surprisingly no. You’re the interesting one. No one cares about Bruce Wayne these days.”

“Alfred would say that’s a good thing.”

“Alfred is very wise,” Bruce agrees, his words pleasantly gentle like a summer breeze. He feels very soft today, fuzzy, a dandelion instead of a mountain lion.

“What do you do for the rest of it? Sit around bitter and hungry?”

“I sate my bitterness by thinking of those I failed and the lives I left to harm.”

“Ugh. Could you not be dramatic for once? So is the cantor always this good?”

“Unfortunately, the more of a jackass he’s become, the better his oration skills. He’s not even hopelessly corrupt like the last one.” Bruce hums pleasantly. Bruce. Not Batman pretending to be Bruce. “There’s also Madame Rene’s pastries that keep me coming back here just down the road. No better way to break your fast.”

That explains why they’re walking down the block, Bruce with his hands in his pockets. He’s wearing a crisp white shirt and black vest, a well-worn tallit over it, walking with unconscious grace. Tim fails to match him, feeling a fraud beneath Jack’s tallit. Bruce’s broad hand comes down on his head, the weight of it comforting. They walk like that, father and son, a thing Tim thought he could never have for a myriad of reasons.

“You? Having carbohydrates?” he asks snidely because emotions are messy.

His body feels tingly still from the speech. Meeting the cantor and realising he’s a bit of an asshole had dimmed it, but only slightly. To see a crowd nod when Tim was called a saviour feels almost like a joke. Tim was no one’s Robin. He didn’t give his life for them. He just lost a fight. There was nothing noble about it.

“Where do you think Damian gets his sweet tooth from?”

“His mother.”

“Talia thinks pretending to have a sweet tooth makes her more relatable.”

“Oh wow, pretending to be relatable. I wonder who else does that, B.”

Bruce tugs at his head affectionately. B comes to a stop under a tree. They’ve taken the longest route possible to walk three blocks.

“We do far too much pretending in our family. I failed you all in that regard. Do you know I can’t tell when Dick gives a real smile anymore? Steph scares me for that reason. She’s just so cheerful and so relentless and so much like Dick but absolutely nothing like him. Cass never pretends which is why she’s my favourite. Jay’s the easiest to read. I like how honest his anger is. Damian, though, is like trying to understand an eldritch alien. Sure, it’s alive, but you never really understand why it’s doing anything.”

Tim just about dies with laughter. This B is fun. Tim likes him a lot.

“And me?”

“I have you mapped out in perfect spreadsheets, and I still can’t figure out what you’re going to do next. You’re a bit terrifying, bud.”

“I’m not that scary.”

Bruce resumes their journey with a quiet chuckle. “You’re on so many government watch lists it’s quite amusing. I believe Canada’s plan is to give you full reign of Manitoba and see if you can fix that.”

“It’s not my fault it’s a shithole province.”

“Language.”

“Don’t give me that.”

“I am your father.”

“Technically. Also, I think I want to forgive my father. Jack, not you.”

Bruce nods, smiling easily as the autumn leaves fall around him.

“Forgiveness isn’t easy.”

“If I don’t forgive him, I don’t know if I’ll ever forgive myself. It’s not rational, I know. It is what it is.”

“Do you think you can forgive me one day?”

“For what?”

“I’ll send you my itemised list.”

“Don’t,” he says sharply, stronger than he expected. “Just delete it. Let’s start from the beginning if that’s the case. Turn over a new leaf and all that jazz.”

“Thank you.”

Bruce leads him into Madame Renee’s with the quiet surety of a man who has cheated his diet many days. It is a cramped shop with old linoleum flooring and a battered glass display hiding a sea of pastries that makes Tim’s mouth water immediately.

“Mister Wayne, here as always.”

“Call me Bruce.”

“Ask me again next year. This place wouldn’t be running without you. A bit of politeness never hurt anyone.”

“Politeness amongst friends might be considered rude.”

“It’s a good thing I don’t consider you a friend, then.”

Madame Renee is a tall woman of broad shoulders with a voice low enough to shake mountains. Tim offers a small wave and receives a brilliant smile in return.

“And you must be one of Mister Wayne’s problem children.”

“I am not a problem,” he stresses very carefully. “I just don’t believe kids should be seen and not heard.”

“I can tell. Now, what can I do you for, Wayne? The usual order of decadent trouble.”

“And make it double. My youngest will eat us out.”

Intentionally unfortunate phrasing aside, the selection of pastries is glorious. Tim insists on all the coffee-related products. Bruce doesn’t even veto him.

“Which Robin do you miss the most?” Bruce asks as Madame Renee places the coffee-apple cake slices in a box.

Her fingers fall still, revealing a simple gold band against her very dark skin. She thinks about the question, emotions skipping across her angular features. Cheekbones that could slice diamonds on her. A flat nose that’s been broken at least twice.

“I miss them all equally but in different ways,” she finally says. “Maybe if you put a gun to my head and forced me to answer, I’d say the third one.”

Only Bruce’s hand on his neck stops him from stumbling back.

“Why?” Tim asks in a choked voice.

Madame Renee returns to boxing the pastries. “He filled shoes that needed filling. Stepped up to it. Got him killed but Gotham kills everyone.” She shakes her head, smiling in that way only a parent who has lost a child can. “I don’t know how he stomached it, living up to the two behind him, but he did. Gave this city a Robin we needed but never deserved. Not much braver than that.”

“What would you tell him if you could talk to him right now?” Bruce asks serenely.

Tim not so serenely steps on his shoes.

Madame Renee watches this byplay without comment. Tim doesn’t think they’re going to get an answer. Not after they’ve paid for their order and certainly not when they’re in the doorframe about to leave.

“I’d tell him to rest easy. We’ve got it from here.”

*

*

*

Tim’s life has always been a tightrope of failed expectations and occasional success. Those two extremes have tugged at him until his flesh was peeled off and once that was exposed, his fears and longing and failings had sliced through him.

Yet, when he wakes up, his heart feels curiously empty. Not desolate, no, but the miasma that’s been chewing away at him since he was a toddler who first recognised the lack of love in his life has cleared. Like a dam breaking, the sludge building up in him for so long has finally escaped leaving only an empty reservoir that can be filled with whatever he desires.

This is what hope feels like, he thinks. Hope without condition. Hope that asks for nothing but sits there like a pleasant hearth. It sits beside his traumas and depression and suicidal ideation, nestled between his fervent loyalty and ceaseless duty.

Tim rises almost as though in a trance and goes about his day. He must seem strange because Alfred checks his blood for exotic poison and Bruce calls Clark to check if he’s still Tim.

The next day, he rises again and though the feeling has lessened, it has not faded. When he sees Steph, he finally catches a glimpse of that impossible joy she holds tight to her heart and uses as fuel to fight an impossible hope. Tim takes a bite from it and lets it settle beside the bundle of hope in his chest.

On the third day, when hope has stopped burning and has settled in his bones, Tim comes to a conclusion that was made long ago and he’s only just now catching up on.

“I think I’m quitting,” Tim says three days after Yom Kippur.

Bruce chokes on his drink, drops of beer ruining his polo shirt. It’s just the two of them today, watching over the pool in the blistering heat that came as a surprise to everyone. Tim’s legs relish the cool waters as he works on his tan. Contrary to what everyone else thinks, the outside world doesn’t entirely hate him, and he tans very well. Bruce on the other hand has such a high grade of sunscreen that Tim’s shocked he isn’t getting paler by the second.

“No.”

Tim raises a rather imperious brow. “You let Damian quit.”

“The circumstances there are different. I failed Damian entirely. I barely managed to avoid ruining you completely.”

“I’m not entirely sure that was an apology, but self-reflection and acknowledgement of your failings is a massive improvement so good on you.”

“I’m glad I meet your standards.”

“Now where are the Robin resignation forms?”

“Explain your reasoning.”

“Ever since I lost my spleen, I’ve been out of commission a quarter of the time, recovering the other quarter, oh, and I was in a coma another quarter.”

With each quarter listed, he splashes water at Bruce. It’s petty but why not?

“You’re missing a quarter,” Bruce says fondly, splashing him back like a man who never stopped being a nine-year-old in an alley with pearls scattered on the ground.

“Um, let’s call that physio. I’m a mess. My immune system is shot to shit, and I don’t think I’m ever getting back to my peak physical condition. I’m a liability more than an asset.”

“You’ll never be a liability to me.”

“B, you’ve got an excel spreadsheet for what makes a person a liability.”

“For field work, yes. Not one for what being a liability to Bruce means.” He gestures at the pool, at the two of them just sitting in the sun and drinking beer instead of working. “That category will never exist.”

“Bruce is just your mask you use to pretend at humanity.”

“Please don’t turn this into an analysis of me. We’re talking about you. Do you want to quit because you’re afraid I’ll be disappointed with you later so you may as well give up now before you’re hurt in the future?”

“When did you learn basic child psychology?”

“The pile of parenting and child psychology books left conveniently in all the places I spend time. You haven’t answered the question.”

“It’s not that I’m worried about disappointing you later. That’s not really it.”

“Do you feel that I’m already disappointed in you?”

“Depends on the kind of day I’m having.” Bruce grunts without meaning. “I wasn’t ever happy as Robin. All Robin let me do was ignore my problems with violence. It let me outsource my emotional development and stability to everyone else. My reason for being Robin died quickly and I’ve just been throwing myself against the wall to be useful because if I wasn’t then I thought you would all drop me.”

“We haven’t and we never would.”

“Yeah, I know that now.”

“I’m sorry I didn’t do anything to alleviate your unhappiness.”

“B, I hid it from you.”

“You didn’t. I have it in the physical notes you never found. Clinical depression. Suicidal ideation. Ongoing trauma. I knew, but I did nothing because you managed to be Robin and I assumed it would save you the same way Batman saved me. And if the substance abuse wasn’t impairing your fieldwork, I would be a hypocrite to mention it.”

“I wasn’t an alcoholic. I barely drank.” He pauses a beat to drink his beer, feeling all his sixteen years. “Except all the times I did.”

“I carefully monitor all supplies of Joker venom.” Tim winces. “I allowed it because you treated it as a research experiment and because it allowed you to function better.”

“Would you have let me do heroin if I was still functioning?”

“I know now that saying yes is morally wrong and likely indefensible.”

“There’s a certain disconnect between your words and your tone.”

“I am aware.”

Tim shakes his head, amazed that Bruce exists and hasn’t imploded from all the contradictions of his existence. Functional insanity, Tim decides. It is the only thing that can explain Batman who wears Bruce like a mask.

“Damian’s happy and I’ve been so damned jealous that he figured this whole living thing before me. Jason had his shit together after coming back from the dead. Dick’s just so good it’s impossible to even be upset with him being better than you. I’m just the Robin who failed. I want to retire because I want to be more than this stopgap replacement that never went anywhere. I want something other than Robin.”

“That makes you the Robin who succeeded.”

“How? In what world did I succeed?”

“I drove Richard away. I let Jason die. I didn’t let Damian try. But you’re setting it aside because you’re choosing to do so. That means you’ve outgrown Robin. You’ll be the first.”

Then the strangest thing happens. So strange that Tim’s mind shorts out for a few seconds as he tries to process his new reality.

“Did you just hug someone without prompting? This is weird.”

Bruce is strange in his physicality. Tim always knew Batman’s hardened leather, could trace the ridges of his armour plates and knew which edges would cut. Bruce is soft and warm, his strength just as crushing but with no threat of Batman’s violence.

“I’ve never hugged you before.”

“That’s honestly really depressing. Hug me some more.”

“I will, son. The books say I should.”

“You’re such a terrible dad. I have no idea why I love you.”

That’s a lie. He does know why.

He knows it in the same way he knows his name is Tim Wayne, his nation is made of contradictions, and his lord is his father.

*

*

*

Before he sets aside his cloak forever, he has one last thing to do. It will be his last act as Robin. It may very well be his greatest.

Gotham never received closure for their Robins. Never. Robin the First petered off his patrols until he wasn’t seen again, dead as far as Gotham was concerned, and Robin the Second was killed by the Joker who never shut his mouth about it. They watched Robin the Third fall to a heretic and die a martyr.

Gotham might not deserve better but Robin damn well gave it better.

His costume had to be altered. He’d lost muscle mass and put on an inch. It was somehow too tight and too loose. Just his luck. Alfred had done it with a resigned sigh.

“Yes, yes, yes, I’ll take it easy and avoid any of the big fights,” Tim says as they assemble, the whole team of them.

His announcement of his plans had everyone assembling. One last hurrah for Robin? An epilogue to the story of child soldiers? Even the most cynical of them—Kate, it’s Kate—can’t help but find the idea worthy.

Batwoman and Nightwing are already out on the rooftops, somehow paired despite being antithetical to each other. Maybe Dick’s getting tired of being the oldest? Or Kate’s going through a strange maternal instinct? Either way, it’s creepy in an entirely different way from Spoiler and Red Hood getting along so well.

Steph gives him a high-five. “Go get 'em, tiger.” Then she hooks an arm around Cass’ waist and pulls her away. “I’m booking northside. All of you stay out. I’ve got a smoking hot date tomorrow and you will not destroy the area.”

“Should I get a date as well?” Cass asks.

Steph laughs. “Sure, I can share with myself.”

And then they’re gone, grappling away. Batman looks distressed at the interaction. Tim’s not sure what bothers him so much about the relationship. Maybe his overprotective father instincts got crossed twice over. Absurd, really. Steph would punch anyone who called Bruce her father.

“You will call for backup,” Batman demands.

“I’m not an idiot.”

“Tim is an idiot,” Damian says at the same time, his grey and black uniform blending into the night. More a League combat outfit than anything else, softened over time by splashes of green and red.

He glances at the brat, feeling more than seeing Batman vanish now that no one is watching him. “No names in the field.”

“I’m nameless, remember.”

“I’ll keep saying it till you believe me. Robin is yours as much as mine.”

Damian gives him a strange look before saluting with his katana. And then he’s dropping from the roof. Tim looks over, not surprised to see a red and blue blur catch him. Jon, his best friend. Damian’s retired, technically, but the instincts have never left him, and Tim doubts he could survive without keeping himself trained. One day, Tim hopes the brat can set aside those instincts and embrace retirement.

For a moment, Tim savours the isolation. Then, Oracle is speaking in his ear and directs him to his first crime. Tim focuses on smaller crimes. It’s what he wanted. A mugging here, beating the shit out of an abusive partner there. Pulling a kid away from the line of fire before busting the minor drug deal happening. Calling an ambulance when he finds some dumb kid overdosing with his even more dumbass friends and staying with them till the ambulance loads the boy. Pulling civilians out of a burning apartment.

Small things compared to the massive crimes Tim uncovered in his past. But this is how he wants Robin’s last night to be remembered. Robin is for the people and for the people Robin fights. He might stand apart from them, but he always stood for them. He needs Gotham to remember.

Gunshots. Tim grapples over, savouring the freedom the air grants him.

Hey, there’s Red Hood. Tim didn’t think he’d be out here tonight. Then again, firing a gun isn’t the same as beating a man to death. Tim skips past it. No need to interfere with Jason’s business. That way lies decapitated heads.

He oversees a simple arrest only because the energy feels wrong. There weren’t any weapons used, little more than a bit of shoplifting, so why the fuck does the officer care so much, and chase after him so hard? Tim follows from the shadows and watches the crook get subdued with a taser. Fine, simple enough. Painful as hell, but Tim was taught to break faces at eleven so he can’t judge.

It’s the arrest that bothers him. The aggression to someone already subdued and held down. The slurs and the sheer needlessness of it all. The desperate calls for help gone unheard by a man high on power.

A part of him rages at police brutality. It’s too common and he hasn’t figured out how to solve it. The problem is so systemic, so embedded in the nation that he’d have to dedicate a lifetime to dismantling it.

More than that, he doesn’t feel like he’s the right person to do it.

Either way, Tim drops the officer right in front of the precinct. There’s a small crowd gathered. Whenever the roofs are this busy with vigilantes, people crowd Commissioner Gordan’s precinct. It’s well known that most of Gotham’s capes like the man and people will do anything for a glimpse of a vigilante.

Phones flash as dozens of pictures are snapped of him. At least two people are going to be big on the socials for livestreaming Robin dropping a bad cop—another tautology, he knows, but he likes tautologies—in front of the precinct.

“You know, getting rid of the obvious corruption doesn’t help if you don’t deal with the moral corruption as well.”

Commissioner Gordon nods in greeting, face expressionless in the way one only learns from being friends with Batman. “Robin. I thought the big guy killed you.”

“A lot of people thought so too but Robin never dies.”

“Everyone dies eventually, kid,” he says, but Tim can hear the warmth in his tone, the relief of knowing he didn’t watch a child die.

Tim’s smile brightly, his grin electrifying. He draws on memories of Dick who laughed so easily and Jason who is the rage of Gotham given form. He carries their legacy. He carries their hopes. Gotham will hear his words and they will know them to be true.

“Not Robin. Sometimes we find a new cause like Nightwing and sometimes we come back from the dead with anger problems like Hood did. You really think we’d up and leave Gotham alone?”

A very minor widening of the Commissioner’s eyes even as the crowd is swept by a wave of exclamations. He’s glad he discussed this with the two of them earlier.

“And you? What will you do?”

“Me? I’m retiring. It’s in your hands now. You’ve got it from here.”

And then he’s gone.

*

He continues patrolling for hours yet. The others conveniently bump into him as they check on his condition. Tim ignores it all. Tonight is his night. He isn’t going to go to bed just because his dad said so. It is just shy of three when he settles on a rooftop, landing with an intentionally loud thump. No need to startle the man who turns to face him with dull eyes.

“You could do it. I won’t stop you if that’s your choice,” Tim says gently.

“Heroes aren’t supposed to say that.”

“I don’t think most heroes have been there like you and I have. Can I take a seat?” he asks, gesturing at the lip of the roof, stained with bird shit and marked with graffiti.

Moments pass, and then minutes, before the man nods once. He sits beside him, leaving a gap between them. Large enough that he can’t easily close the distance.

“You been here long?” Tim asks, not meaning the physical roof but the mental ledge. 

The man nods. “I can’t remember not feeling like this.”

“I’m sixteen now and I’ve spent the last ten years of my life hoping to die.”

“But you’re Robin.”

“Happy, sane people don’t become Robin.” Tim draws his legs up, resting his head on his knees. “I’ve been here. Not this ledge, but it’s all the same ledge, isn’t it?”

“Then why keep going?”

“I lost two of my best friends. I’m not telling you this to make it about me. I’m telling you because I don’t know why I kept going. I don’t have that answer for you. Wish I could tell you something and those feelings would magically just end. Spoiler told me once that sadness ends. Don’t think I’ve found it just yet.”

“I’m tired. Always tired. It’s in me. This feeling. Never stops. Never ends.”

“I never wanted to go it alone in the end,” Tim admits, staring out at this damned city he loves so much. “Maybe that’s what stopped me. Being too scared to be alone. Kinda pathetic.”

Fire blooms on the horizon. Gunshot, a staccato rhythm of them, pierce the soundscape. Sirens, some rushing to an accident, others ferrying away people on the verge of death. Gotham screams in agony but then again, it’s always screaming for deliverance. Her saviours are out there, wearing masks and capes, or suits and ties. They sit huddled around fires beneath a bridge or shiver in apartments without warmth, ill-fitting clothes failing to keep their too-small bodies warm.

Only Gotham can save itself.

“You should go help. They need you.”

“I’m not going anywhere. I’ll stay with you until you’re ready to go.”

“I’m not worth it. You can’t tell me I am.”

Beside Tim sits a man who might never make it into a newspaper, who might die alone and forgotten. He is as much Gotham as Batman, and that means he’s worth the world to Tim. He has a duty of care. More than that, Tim wants to do some good in his life. 

“I can. I will.”

“You don’t know me!”

It feels terribly strange to be here, a reversal of the conversation he had with Dick when Tim was at an all-consuming low. He’d spat self-loathing and despair at Dick who accepted it all and showed him how terribly weak it was in the face of kindness.

“You’re right, I don’t. I don’t know what life has done to you. I don’t have any idea what you’ve gone through. I couldn’t name all the crap you’ve been through. All I know is it’s hurt you enough that you’re here and you doubt that even Robin could care about you.”

He meets his dark eyes calmly, seeing an abyss of pain that’s been swallowed whole. Life in Gotham is never kind, it is never easy, and it will always kill you.

Sirens wail and Gotham is in chaos around them. Gotham screams, oh how it screams, but the loudest scream of all comes from one man quietly sitting on a ledge.

“Do you really have no one at all? Not a single person?”

His jaw clenches, muscles spasming. Silence. Tim waits. He can wait. He’s got all the time in the world. It hurts to look him in the eye, but he does it with endless patience. What little hurts he experienced are nothing from the reprieve of saving a person.

Besides, he can always stare at the figure in black leather instead. That hopeful symbol on his chest hidden two rooftops away, watching him always. Silent reassurance that everything will be alright. That even if Tim is on a ledge, someone will catch him.

“My nephew,” the man says slowly, looking away. “I was supposed to take him to the barber tomorrow.”

“Tell me about him”

“What’s there to say? He’s my nephew. Just a kid.”

“I think there’s more to it.”

“Fuck you. You’re my least favourite Robin.”

Tim chuckles. “I get that. The second was my favourite too.”

A humourless huff. “He likes Wonder Woman the most in the Justice League. Got bullied for it a lot. He’s… he isn’t built for the life we’re living. I just don’t know how to help him. He can’t throw a punch to save his life. He doesn’t want to throw a punch. How do you fucking live the streets we do and not want to punch someone? Like at least want to punch Trump. It’s so stupid. But he’s like that. That’s just how he was made. I think he might graduate,” he adds like it’s a terrible confession. “The very first in the family to make it. To make it out of this hellhole.”

“Do you think he’d want you there? To see him graduate.”

“He would.”

“Do you want to see him graduate with your own eyes?”

“I do.”

“I think you know what to do.”

“Help me up,” he says, defeated and reinvigorated at the same time.

Tim clasps his hand and pulls him up. Leads him away from the ledge. And gives him a smile.

“What now?”

“You live. Just remember, don’t make your nephew responsible for your life. You still have to figure out how to live yourself.”

“Did you?”

“I’m getting there.”

This is what it means to be Robin. Not the punching people or the cool acrobatics. These quiet moments where he reaches to the very depths of Gotham and finds something beautiful hiding away.

Robin only ever needed to save one life to save Gotham.

He hopes that whoever picks up the mantle next knows it. And even if they don’t, they’ll figure it out eventually. Gotham is like that. It teaches lessons. Sometimes you don’t survive them, but if you make it to the other side, you learn all the things you didn’t think were inside you.

When Robin the Third returns to base, it is Tim that hangs his cape beside Jason’s and Dick’s.

On his plaque, he engraves one simple phrase:

Learning to Live

It will be enough. He’ll make it so.                      

Chapter Text

“I never thought I would see the day that you would formally leave the nest, Master Tim,” Alfred says, wiping an imaginary tear. “Why, with how little time you spend at the Manor, I wasn’t aware you considered it home. I am truly honoured, young master.”

Tim scowls, holding a box with some of his less important items. “Don’t do this, Alfie. I just don’t want you worrying about me over dinner.”

“Perhaps when you learn to feed yourself.”

Tim is seventeen and old enough to take care of himself.

It isn’t that he’s moving out permanently or even has a real reason to, but he wants space to figure himself out with Alfred’s constant worry or Bruce’s endless observation or even Damian’s harmless threats.

He moves into Janet’s condo again. He’s come to appreciate some of the styling choices Janet went with. The table in grey wood with wrought iron embellishing? Perfection. The twisting web of lights? Surprisingly inviting. Even the understated view overlooking Admiral Square’s inner courtyard is soothing.

Without Robin, Tim thought he would be less busy, free to pursue his life as he pleased. Then he’d taken a look at his many to-do lists and been sucked into a web of insanity.

His first step of business had been to oust the Board of Drake Industries. Physio had distracted him from that. It was something he should have done the moment he turned sixteen but it’s whatever. It makes for a sordid scandal and his company drops down in credit rating, but that just means it's easier for Tim to buy out their other investors looking to jump ship. And the few he couldn’t afford with personal funds, he purchased with a sizeable loan from Wayne Industries through a private equity firm just for that purpose.

In one fell swoop, Tim consolidates control of his inheritance. Now, to set them to work on his evil—it’s not evil if I’m right, Alfred—schemes like building affordable housing in the Narrows or funding a network of clinics like Doctor Leslie’s.

He also decides he’s taking over more of the global shipping market. Globalism concerns him, tugging at the back of his mind. He partners with Wayne Industries, obviously, because using daddy’s money to get what you want is never a stupid idea.

Tim’s got long-term plans to run the world. Screw Luthor. That man’s an idiot. Always with the stupid scheming. Stupid because he creates brilliant technology but then does nothing of note with it. It takes Tim months of cornering all of Luthor’s markets on his preferred MMO before he screams at Tim to take Cadmus if he just lets me have this one joyful thing in my life before they ruin my class in the next patch.

His therapist has trouble believing he did that without indulging in a caffeine binge. Haters gonna hate, unfortunately.

He slows down as it gets closer to the day Jack died. Tim finds himself more stressed, snapping at people unfairly. Kon takes the brunt of it, still so insistent on spending more time with Tim no matter how much he tries to sabotage their friendship.

He fucking hates it. Kon’s an unrepentant asshole with an arrogant streak that would make the average supervillain look humble. He crowds Tim’s space and anchors himself to Tim like a moon in stable orbit. Tim loves it as well.

There are moments when Kon smiles and Tim can’t speak, his throat so heavy that he doesn’t know what to make of it. He catches reports of Superboy on the news and can’t help his smile. His skin feels too small when he’s near Kon, his stomach doing strange acrobatics.

It’s some strange human-Kryptonian hybrid superpower. That’s the only thing that makes any degree of sense.

Jack’s death passes without a lit candle, the calendars not aligning. It is a quiet sort of day, one where he does simple paperwork and watches a movie in the evening with Kon.

“Shouldn’t you be fighting crime?”

Kon shrugs expansively, jostling Tim where they share the couch. “I’m a daytime superhero.”

“You’re lazy, that’s all.”

Kon pulls him close for a half hug and Tim swears he feels the press of lips against his crown. No, that’s not possible. Kon’s affectionate but something like that would toe a bit too far past their heteronormativity. They’re life partners of the heterosexual sort, nothing more. When Kon finds a nice girl to settle down with, she’ll ask Tim for his blessing. The same as what will happen when Steph finally finds Tim a good date. He’s still waiting, for fuck’s sake.

“No, I’m smart, unlike you bats. Who wants to be up till 3am every night? Nine to five fighting aliens and magic people is where it’s at.”

When he’s falling asleep, Kon carries him to bed. Tim tugs his wrist when he tries to leave. He doesn’t want to be alone, not tonight. Kon slides under the covers beside him and takes his hand with a startling gentleness.

Later, he’ll wake up before dawn and stare at Kon. He is peaceful in sleep, his leather jacket terribly rumpled. Tim wants so desperately to reach across and brush his forehead. But they’re platonic and this is already verging into some very uncomfortable territory.

They don’t speak about it that day nor the next two when Tim wakes up to Kon in his bed, always dressed in his jeans and shirt. Sometimes even his leather jacket as well. They aggressively don’t talk about when Tim wakes up with Kon’s head on his chest and they practically fly apart the one morning they awaken to Tim’s arm around Kon’s waist, cradling him despite being so much shorter.

No, words are bad and at the end of that road are messy feelings.

*

“You’re sleeping with your friend?” his therapist asks at his next session. “And you’ve been doing so for the last three months.”

“I wouldn’t say I’m sleeping with him. We’re sleeping in the same bed, separately. Without intercourse. Or feelings. With physical separation. And we only do it on occasion.”

“By on occasion you mean one a week? Once a month?” Tim looks away. “More than once a week?”

“What does every day mean?”

“It means you’re sleeping with your best friend daily,” she says drily.

“Well, I’m not because he’s not my best friend and that’s that.”

“How’s about we table this and see if anything’s changed by our next session. Until then, I have some pamphlets for you to read.”

*

He doesn’t read those pamphlets for nearly a month.

The day before his next session, he devours them in one sitting.

*

Today is a bad day. Not the worst day. Today, he can get up and take a shower and cry without anyone seeing him—though Kon hears and sends him stupid deep-fried memes that don’t make him feel better but they also don’t make him feel worse—and fix a smile on his face.

Living isn’t easy. It’s a set of barely cobbled-together coping mechanisms and a lot of lies. It’s also friends who never let go and remind you that there’s something worth it all in the end.

“You look like shit. Fake smile kinda day?”

Tim stops, finding Steph on his bed, trying on a pair of his sneakers. They’re about the same size for a lot of things. She would drown in his shirts because of his broad shoulders but having breasts helps. It’s why he isn’t surprised to see her wearing one of his fitted shirts—a playful one in vaporwave pinks and oranges—and a cashmere vest over a leather skirt.

It takes him a long moment to realise he instinctively drove to the Manor instead of the condo.

“Hello to you too and yes. Those sneakers don’t match everything else.”

“I’ll make it work.”

“They really won’t.”

With a sigh, he goes digging in the back of his closet, past explosives, dresses, a corset, three pairs of stilettos, an M4, two Glocks—oh, that’s where my Tokarev went to—he finds the box of sneakers he wants. Canvas high-top Vans with black leather decorations, a middle finger elegantly drawn by Damian. He throws them at Steph before grabbing a cardigan from the hanger. He can’t tell if it belonged to her first, but it’s Tim’s now. The sleeves are just so long and soft.

When he looks back, Steph is trying out the sneakers. They fit much better with the rest of her outfit. Just as chaotic and noisy, but seamless chaos and noise. The Jordans she was trying on earlier were discordant.

“Ugh, why are your feet like half a size smaller than mine. These are uncomfortable as shit.”

“Because you have flat feet and I, through my impeccable genetics, have perfect arches.” He raises his foot to show them off, wriggling his perfectly manicured feet. He’d never had a manicure before dating Steph but he hadn’t looked back after it.

Besides, Kon like—no, we are not thinking about that.

“Yes, yes, you’re a designer baby and I’m just a mongrel.”

“So long as you know.”

“Buy me shoes that fit.”

“Ask your sugar daddy for his credit card.”

He catches the Jordans before they hit the wall. They’re not a particularly special pair, but he still likes them being treated well. Tim sets it down before walking over and collapsing on the bed.

Steph hums, reaching out and placing her palm over his heart. Tim sighs in relief, grounded by her presence. He lays his hand overtop hers and closes his eyes.

Kon is his special friend but Steph’s his best friend. She knows him inside and out. Nothing about him will ever surprise her.

“I just don’t get how you of all people retired,” Steph says as though she’s genuinely confused. “Like, I looked up to you so much and here you are just leaving the job.”

Tim frowns. “What are you on about? You were better than me on day one. I tried matching you but I always fell short.”

“Bullshit. You’re smart and compassionate and everything Robin should be. I was just that random girl in the purple. Compared to Cass, what the hell did I bring?”

“You kept getting back up.”

“Anyone can do that.”

“Not like you. The rest of us broke when we got punched too hard. We’re like glass and all that remains are the shattered pieces of ourselves we found on the floor. You’re just… no matter how bad the blow was, you picked every part of yourself up and made yourself brighter. Dick ran. Jason died. I quit. Dames never had a chance. You, you’re still fighting the good fight. And no one wants to improve Gotham like you do. 

“You do.”

“Because I go on a caffeine binge and I need to do stuff. Not because I actually care.”

“Liar. You try. You do good. Gotham’s doing better because of you. Fewer overdoses. Fewer people freezing to death. Mental health programs which, for the record, what kind of millennial shit is that? Those losers can’t just joke through the pain like the rest of us.”

“They’re built different, and not in a good way, that whole generation.”

“Millennials always taking Ls.”

“Imagine not being resigned to the inevitable destruction of the world because older generations didn’t even try not to be useless shits.”

“Like, what do they do during their avocado toast brunches? Drink kombucha and talk about their investments and how their mortgages went up by half a per cent?”

“Only corporations have mortgages these days. I’m never affording a house in Gotham and no one wants to live here.”

Tim pauses. “You do realise—”

“That your incredibly invasive father made a trust fund for me that included a house? Yes. I’m also aware the one you made is stupidly large. Like, bro, don’t remind me that I’m privileged when I just want to complain about millennials.”

Tim laughs. “Sorry, sorry. What did you want to vent about during my vent session?”

“You know, in a fucked up way, I’m kinda like Bruce the most.”

“You? Stephanie Brown, the light of Gotham, so cheerful you make Superman look dour. You’re like Batman the most?”

“Yup. Because unlike the rest of you, quitting isn’t in me. Don’t take that the wrong way. I mean it literally. I need to be Spoiler and I want it more than anything else. I don’t want to do something else. I don’t want to be someone else. I’m Spoiler from beginning to end.”

“Batgirl—”

“Was my short-lived goth phase. Some girls use eyeliner and pretend to be edgy, and I cosplay Batman with boobs.” Steph laughs which makes Tim laugh as well. “Spoiler’s all about spoiling crime, right? But it’s not just the crime. It’s the despair that comes from it. It’s the helplessness you get when you think your only hope is finding a pimp who doesn’t hurt you too bad or a corner you can hold for a while. I hate that about Gotham. It’s everything that was my dad and that’s just not a thing I’ll be. I wrote joy in my bones and happiness in my heart. I won’t stop fighting because I need to help people more than anything else.”

“There are better ways of doing that. Helping the city.”

“Bro, I’m a Bat. We’re all varying degrees of damaged. I am psychologically predisposed to associate violence and crime with my dad. There are more efficient ways to help but none of those light up all my dopamine receptors. So, I can’t quit because there’s nothing else for me, and even if there was, even if I could rewire my brain a bit, I still wouldn’t want to do anything else.”

He squeezes her hand. New nails, he notices. Probably Cass complaining about the usually deplorable state of Steph’s nails. “I don’t like thinking you’re anything but this pure angel I built in my head. It’s weird to me.”

“I was never an angel. You just put me on a pedestal.” She shifts suddenly, coming to straddle his waist. Tim opens his eyes, confused. “I put you on a pedestal as well. We didn’t really see each other back then. I wanted something you weren’t, and you didn’t know how to tell me no. I’m sorry for that.”

“I did want you.”

“We were incompatible in a relationship. I knew that early on, but I really thought I could fix you. It took me a while to learn there wasn’t anything wrong to fix.”

“Thanks for tearing me down with your apology. You’re just like B. Apparently, all girls marry their fathers. You took it a step further and became your daddy.”

“Bruce never adopted me.”

“You’re his sugar baby and we all know it. You’re the biggest line item in his budget. Have you seen your outfit? It’s got the most high-tech bullshit in it. Your cape could probably tank a tank round.”

“Just because he recognises that I’m a delicate woman—”

“You have chipped nails half the time.”

“—does not make me his sugar baby.”

“I can prove it right now.”

“You can’t.”

He sits up and Steph falls back with a laugh, her head landing between his feet. Her hair is unfortunately very ticklish. Tim reaches past her cashmere vest and stolen vaporwave shirt to slide his fingers into her bra, quickly grabbing what he wants. She bats his hand playfully, pretending to be affronted. 

In his hands is a black credit card inlaid with 24-carat-gold. He uses it to tap her knee, still wrapped around his waist.

He knows this isn’t normal, how easily they slide into this level of intimacy. There’s no real desire to it, nothing more than two people acting through the motions. As much as he pretends Kon is his heterosexual life partner, the truth is that Cass had come to Tim and asked for his blessing in dating Steph. Not that she needed to, Steph’s allowed to do what she wants, but it made it easier.

He knows how dangerously co-dependent they could have been had things been just the slightest bit different. As it is, he’s fine with where they are, even if they still sometimes take showers together and Tim’s had to help her with her period by buying tampons. Life giveth and life certainly fucking taketh.

“How big is your line of credit Miss I-charter-private-planes-for-my-weekend-shopping? Shame on you to kill the planet like that. It’s no wonder Ivy hates you the most.”

“Feeling better?” she asks instead, pinching his big toe on his left leg.

Tim shrugs and pulls her upright. Her hands come to rest on his shoulders as she looks down at him.

“Not really.”

Steph presses a kiss to his nose, making him giggle like a young teen.

“Well, whatever. Just remember I love you and I’ll resurrect you if I find you dead. Then I’ll nag you so much you’ll wish you were dead.”

“Don’t learn necromancy on my account. It’s not very kosher.”

“Don’t force me to. Get new jokes.”

“You know, I think I’m asexual to some degree.”

“Yeah, I know.”

“While we were dated?”

“Near the end,” she admits and presses a kiss to the corner of his mouth. He leans into it, missing her terribly, and deepening the kiss.

It is so much easier to kiss her now that he’s admitted part of that truth. Was, easier, when she told him this truth in a roundabout way. They might never have sex, but that’s alright. They may never date, but Tim’s a terrible person to date anyway. This, whatever it is, is more than enough.

A gentle and entirely platonic kiss can be many gentle and platonic kisses all through the night.

For once, Tim isn’t lying to himself.

*

*

*

Years pass and he lights candles for those he lost. He lights them for Jack and he lights two for Janet each year, one on the day she died and one on the day he found out. Two more on the last day he saw Cassie and Bart, the morning he lost to Heretic, and sent them on a path that would see them six feet under.

The hardest one is for the man his parents loved and who broke them by vanishing. Tim still doesn’t know what happened to him and it’s the one thing he actively avoids knowing. That one he lights the day he was born. Morbid as it is, he feels it a fitting way to remember someone he should have known.

He learns to breathe and take life slowly. Tim was desperate once to make his mark on the world and fix everything. He’s learning slowly that it wasn’t always on him to come up with solutions. He can turn away when things go wrong and learn to live without guilt.

To his immense annoyance, he gets kidnapped by Killer Croc because Gotham just has to Gotham. Tim just sighs as he’s dragged through the sewers.

“Oh no, someone please save me,” he says bored out of his mind. Gotham engenders indifference to villainous insanity after a while and Tim knows Killer Croc is mostly harmless.

Just give him a wide berth and he’ll tend to ignore you.

“Thought you were dead, kid,” Croc rumbles after the obligatory I’m going to savour your bones threats that stopped being scary about eight years ago.

“I don’t think we’ve ever met.”

Killer Croc reveals his gaping maw, rows upon rows of teeth. “How many were there? When you found them? Those kids.”

Fifteen, he thinks.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

Killer Croc drops him in a puddle of sewer water. “Tell Hood to stay out of my sewers or I’ll rip his arm off.”

Why can’t Gotham just be normal for once?

*

Sometimes, Tim thinks of his mother. He thinks of golden France in his memory when things were optimistic and learning at her feet, laughing at his father, and feeling their impossible love. During that trip, Janet had told him about the Lovers of Modena. A good way to die, in her words, beside your lover. For a woman like Janet to whom the number of people worth loving could be counted on one hand with fingers to spare, it was a beautiful story. Together in death, kiss as they had been in life. A husband and wife immortalised because of their love.

The Lovers of Modena were men.

The year is 2019 and Tim’s worldview has just been upended. It feels like someone pulled the rug out from under him.

Friends. They were friends. Definitely friends. No other option possible. The best of friends.

Kon, his best friend, with his cheek popped up by fist, merely hums where he’s lying on his half of the bed. Which, they’re sharing purely because it’s cold in Summer. Kon’s a space heater and the best way to conduct heat is through skin-to-skin contact.

“Obviously, they were battle brothers and their companionship lasted to the grave. It’s sweet, if anything, to know your friends are that loyal to you.”

“So when we die are we getting interred together holding hands?”

“What? No. I’m getting cremated. I do not trust someone not to make an evil clone of me.” He pauses a second, lost in the divot between Kon’s exposed pectorals for a moment. They are mathematically perfect. “Not that I have an issue with clones, it’s just the non-consensual ones that consent to the evil they commit that I have an issue with.”

“Nice save.”

“Sorry. Fine, we’ll get buried. But I’m rigging the coffin to explode if anyone tampers with it.”

“You’re the most paranoid person I know.”

“I’m not more paranoid than B. Am I?”

“Oh, you most definitely are. Can we talk about all the kryptonite types you have right beneath the bed?” Tim winces. “Thanks for sealing them up properly. Also, why is there an automated sniper aimed at me?”

“It tracks biological signatures that aren’t me. Just in case.”

“Paranoid.” Kon’s smile is a lazy thing. He reaches out and takes Tim’s hand in his own, his thumb resting heavily on Tim’s pulse point. The pressure is a heady thing that has Tim swallowing uncomfortably.

“What’s up?”

“Just in case the explosives blow us up, I want to get a head start on the handholding.”

“We’ll get sent to opposite sides of the room if that happens. I mean, just look at where we are. You’ll probably rip my arm off. Come on Kon, I’ve sat you through enough seminars on ballistics. You should know this. I know you know this.”

“I could always use a refresher.”

“Your memory is better than mine,” Tim says, suspicion lacing his voice. He trusts Kon, really, but he’s very aware of how easily Kon could press his thumb through Tim’s wrist. His awareness doesn’t stem from fear, just a perfect awareness of everything Kon’s capable of doing. Tim knows how much he can lift and how hard he can punch to the third decimal. His max flight speed and the exact dimensions of his body.

Tim could paint a map of him into the stars without thought. He could sketch out every whorl and valley of Kon’s thumbprint even bleeding out.

It isn’t an obsession. Tim hasn’t collected this knowledge carefully for years. He’s just… come across it naturally.

“I like this thing we do,” Kon says instead, patient as the stars, staring at their intertwined fingers. Such elegant designs they are, two products of perfect breeding that fit seamlessly.

Tim feels breathless for a long moment. It’s there, resting on the tip of his tongue, something to do with their hands and the first day they met and every moment between.

“It saves on rent,” he says instead because a strategic retreat is not cowardice.

Kon rolls his eyes and tugs Tim over, tucking him close to his body. “I don’t pay rent,” he says fondly, pulling the covers up despite how hot it will inevitably get.

Which is the point.

Since it’s cold.

In summer.

*

A few days later, Tim wakes Kon in the morning. He’s incredibly considerate all told.

Kon groans, despairing at the idea of being up before 8am. It’s only 2am. What a loser. Tim keeps poking him until he gets the attention he desires, and then launches into his rant.

“I mean, obviously they wouldn’t have been buried together if they were lovers. The church’s prevalent attitude at the time wouldn’t have permitted it and they were injured in battle anyway,” Tim says, eyes burning. Fuck, he needs to sleep. “There were other tombs. These guys were just best friends. Or maybe family members of similar age who just happened to be in the same unit.”

“This couldn’t have waited another two hours?” Kon asks, knocking his head against the headboard. Thud, thud, thud.

Tim pats him on the chest just as many times. “No.”

“How long have you been up?”

“Four days but that doesn’t mean anything.” Tim leans forward until they’re nose to nose only so he can shove a breath mint in Kon’s mouth. His thumb doesn’t linger on those alluringly thin lips that never dry out. “It means nothing. Don’t you dare tell Steph.”

Kon makes a show of chewing the mint. Then, he reaches up, his palm coming to rest on the side of Tim’s neck. “If I let you rant ten more minutes, will you let me go back to sleep?”

“Deal.”

Tim launches into it. He’d taken the time to read his mother’s notebook and found the section where she detailed her thoughts on it. She as well was annoyed by every double burial being Lovers with a capital L, but she couldn’t help but find it an endearing way to go.

Kon listens for half an hour because this is very interesting stuff and certainly not because Tim keeps poking him. Tim lists forward tiredly as he rants, entirely unsurprised when Kon braces him with an arm around his waist.

“So they couldn’t have told others they wanted to be buried together?” Kon asks, his fingers drumming a pattern against Tim’s exposed flank. He’s mostly laying on Kon at this point.

“Exactly. As friends. It’s like what Ruth said: ‘Where you die, I will die, and there I will be buried,’ to her mother-in-law. Because you know, back then they actually understood friendship and close relationships.”

“Ruth from the Bible?”

“I read it from my father’s Tanakh but same difference.”

“Can I go back to sleep now?”

He glances up at Kon past his bangs and finds him entirely alert. His heartbeat is soothing to Tim’s ears, calm and steady. That warmth of him penetrates Tim’s skin, seeping into his bones.

“It’s past seven. You can take a nap later.”

“Oh my fucking god, I can’t believe I love you. Fine, which other Biblical figure is everyone getting wrong and why are we not going to analyse your sudden obsession with the matter?”

Despite his words, he still presses a kiss to Tim’s crown. Platonically. The same he does for all his other close male friends. Tim knows Kon’s just affectionate like that.

“You know the story of David and Jonathan?” Kon shakes his head. “Good. We’re skipping all the details because you can read that on its own. But like, some people get obsessed over the intentionally political and highly mythologized stories of two people. I’ve seen how people want their relationship to be more than a close friendship by projecting modern understandings of relationships on people. Why would them kissing on the mouth matter? Has anyone met the French? I’m pretty sure someone from the Bible Belt experiencing that for the first time would think it’s something else entirely. And why can’t a man mourn his friend terribly? Especially since they loved each other. Saying ‘your love mattered more than a woman's back then is not the same as today since, you know, women were basically objects at best.”

“Please say that in public around your family. Please.”

“It’s not my fault history sucked.”

“What about Achilles—”

“Has been debated endlessly. Just let bros be bros, my dude. Achilles and his pal were just platonic friends.”

“I don’t even know how to begin unpacking this.”

“There’s nothing to unpack.”

“Tim, you are sitting in my lap.”

“You have very comfortable thighs,” he agrees, patting Kon’s leg with his free hand.

He lets his hand linger, tracing the contours of those firm muscles. Lines of alien strength and genetic brilliance culminating in a physical form so perfect it verges on the mythic. He wants, then, with ruinous desire, to map the contours of those legs with his mouth and learn if he will remember Kon in a new way. Given the chance, he would make a temple of those thighs and learn heretical ways of worship.

Then he remembers who he is and who he can be and draws his hand back.

Kon laughs breathlessly, endearment and frustration at odds within him. “Forever isn’t long enough with you.”

He recognises the almost uncomfortable line of heat pressing against his own leg. The human form is terribly uncontrollable, he thinks, despairing that not even alien genetics can fix it. He sits back, earning a sharp hiss from Kon.

“What’s that?”

“My sanity fleeing,” Kon squeaks, a sound Tim never thought possible from Kon.

“Oh. You lost that forever ago.”

“Please just go to sleep.”

“Fine.”

*

Tim awakens abruptly and finds himself incredibly comfortable and very, very hot. It’s like he’s been wrapped around a space heater. It takes him a moment to recognise the shape of Kon’s arms cradling him, the morning pressure against the small of his back, and the shape of the lips listlessly pressed against his neck in sleep.

“Hey, wake up.”

“God, no, please no.”

The sun is just peaking through the windows. Early. Around five in the morning. A perfectly reasonable time to wake up.

“This is honestly just the Hasanly Lovers all over again,” Tim says, latching on a thread he’d lost last night. “People making a big fuss about nothing and projecting modern and very western views of sexuality on ancient peoples.”

“You’re the only one who cares.”

“Shush and give me my phone.” Kon does so with an aggrieved sigh. “Look at this picture.”

“They look like they were kissing.”

“The bodies were just moved that way by gravity over time. Don’t read into that.”

“You’re telling me this as if you aren’t the one with an obsession.”

“I’m obsessed because the internets are wrong and misinterpreting this.”

“If you know they’re wrong, why do you care so much. Why are you trying to convince me of this? I didn’t even know before you brought it up.”

“Ignorance is no excuse to be wrong. Look, if we were dying of asphyxiation in a jar under a burning building, I’d hope my friend would be nice enough to hug me in my last moments. That’s not asking for too much.”

“Tim, we are literally sleeping together. In the same bed. We hold hands. And cuddle.”

“Platonically. Because you’re a great friend and you don’t make a fuss when I kick you because of my nightmares.”

Gentle hands cup his face. Kon forces him to look his way, though Kon’s eyes are focused on Tim’s forehead. Considerate of him.

“Tim, nothing needs to change between us. You don’t have to change yourself if it hurts you this much.”

“I’m not changing at all.”

“I love you and I’m not going anywhere.”

“You’re contractually obligated to say that.”

“I love you and I’m not going anywhere,” Kon repeats, his voice steady. “That won’t ever change. Now please let me go back to sleep.”

“Sleep is for cowards.”

Kon shifts his hand to cover Tim’s mouth and silence him.

*

He settles down in the following weeks as he writes his polemic on why everyone is wrong about everything. He’s going to prove them all wrong. They shouldn’t have been called Lovers in the first place, but just because Tim sees the inherent hypocrisy of calling them anything else the moment they’re revealed to not be man and woman, doesn’t make it right to bandy incorrect assumptions.

The rabbit hole for Tim goes so deep that he starts reading literature, and of the ancient variety. Strangely, he understands why Janet enjoyed it, but Tim is not Janet. He likes facts and logic, not interpretations of long-dead people distorted by translations and time.

The front door opens. Tim ignores it. Just Kon from the footsteps. Or the lack thereof since he’s floating.

“How was superheroing?”

“Ah, don’t you watch me on the news?”

“I have better things to do.”

“Rude,” he says, dropping down with a thud.

Tim finally looks up and—

His heart freezes in his chest.

Soaking wet from the rain, his telekinesis field turned off, Kon looks like something made to define glory. To exemplify it by the very act of living. Droplets pool on the hoops of his earrings. That constant smirk that never disappeared because Kon still thinks himself immortal. The sharp lines of his jaw and his enviably delicate hands. Kon is in that moment an intersection of everything Tim has never allowed himself to feel.

How long has Tim refused to simply look at him like this?

He’s up before he can sort through his thoughts. Instinct long dormant has him grabbing Kon by the collar and pulling him down. Impulse drives him to lean forward. Fast for a human but like molasses for Kon. Long before his mind has caught up, Kon already knows what he’s doing.

Tim presses his lips against Kon’s.

It feels right, two puzzle pieces fitting perfectly for the first time. The two of them were joined by the grief they shared and the joy they lived through.

It’s revolting.

It is the first time kiss the share and Tim bursts out crying.

He pulls back immediately. Stumbles back into his desk. He would fall if no for Kon suddenly bracing him and no no no he needs space fuck fuck fuck. Tim’s thoughts are a mess as he tries to place an impossible distance between them.

Kon is there, arm extended uselessly, holding himself utterly still.

“Tim?”

“I’m sorry. You deserve better than this and I can’t do this, I just can’t. I’m this wrong thing that was never made right and I’m not ever going to be fixed.”

He cries about everything he’s never been allowed to want because Jack Drake let him think it was abhorrent. All those things he kept hidden deep down and never addressed.

And then he’s being pulled into arms that he knows perfectly, held against a chest he could map with his eyes closed, every ridge and divot known to him intimately. Tim could sculpt Kon from the negative space of his memory, from the feel of Kon’s embrace alone. He could fill a notebook with schematics of Kon down to a genetic level and he would keep it as his personal bible, reference it on lonely nights and find inspiration on dull days.

“Don’t touch me. Stay away from me.”

His voice sounds terribly weak.

“No.”

“You deserve better. You deserve someone who can love you the way you want.”

“Tim, I’ve loved you since I was six months old no matter how creepy that sounds. I loved you when you were too dumb to figure out you liked boys and I loved you when you were being an asshole which is always.”

“You can’t know that.”

“It was always you. It was always going to be you.” Kon exhales steadily and Tim realises he’s been matching his breathing pattern unconsciously. Gently, Kon floats him to the bed they’ve shared and seats him on the edge.

“Don’t do this. Stop. You’ve got a whole life to live.”

“I am living that life. I’m choosing that life with you.”

“Why?”

“I’ve loved you since you gave me that leather jacket the day we met. It was the first kind thing someone ever did for me.”

“I’m not kind.”

“You’re an asshole,” Kon agrees easily, his hands easily encapsulating Tim’s. Love enough for the two of them. “You’re spiteful and petty and intentionally oblivious. You drive me to madness, and I’ve never met anyone who makes me so angry so quickly. I love you so terribly it feels like I’m going to lose my mind.”

“You don’t make sense.”

“I’m an alien hybrid. Your puny human brain couldn’t possibly comprehend the depths of my feelings.”

“Fuck off,” he snarls, trying to free himself, but Kon’s grip is stronger than the gravitational pull of a black hole. “You should want someone who loves you back.”

“It doesn’t work that way for me. It’s you. You’re the only one for me. Whatever you give, I’ll accept. That’s all I want.”

“Don’t be stupid.”

“I’m not.”

“You’re a liar.”

“I’ve never been able to lie to you.”

Tim knows that to his bone. He’s always been able to pick out all of Kon’s lies. He obsessed over him since the day he met and can reference the mental bible he’s made of Kon’s every movement and expression to separate the truths from the lies. He knows the shape of Kon’s dark passions and light joys, a study of chiaroscuro that he knows intimately.

So when he sees unconditional love in every pore of Kon, in the very atoms of him, Tim knows it to be true.

“Kryptonians are forever,” Kon adds once Tim’s reached that conclusion.

“You just made that up.”

His smirk is arrogant and utterly loveable.

“Prove it.”

“I hate you.”

“You don’t.”

“I do.”

“Saying something doesn’t make it true. That’s not how the truth works.”

Kon presses a feather-light kiss to Tim’s temple, the idea of physical desire more than the reality of it.

“I love you.”

“Don’t.”

Kon raises his hands, Tim’s captured within perfectly, and kisses his knuckles with gentleness unbecoming of the bad boy Super. He does it with infinite patience, murmuring his love ten times, and then ten times more until Tim dares accept what he’s known unconsciously for seven years now.

Tim thinks of Micah from the Book of Judges who worshipped idols in his home, and kept idolatrous teraphim sacred in his home. And yet, for all that, he was still the hero of the tale. Flawed immensely for his love of other G-ds, but a hero who led his Tribe of Dan against the Laish and conquered it, installing a high priest in a foreign land for his idolatrous desires.

Tim thinks of Batman in the mythos wound deep in his heart, the lord he chose and whose commandments he promised to keep holy. What is the son of Superman but the son of a foreign god? Was Tim not a hero of his nation, of Gotham, as well? One flawed by blood and belief, but a hero nonetheless?

How easy it suddenly is to slip into the ancient shoes Micah trod and understand why one would break a commandment from G-d.

Tim would wear an ephod as the high priests of the old Israelites, as Micah did, and garbed in his holy cloth, he would lead a war to conquer a nation in the name of his Adonis, his Adonai, his Kon, who has chosen Tim. Tim would anoint Kon in oil and make a temple of his body, chant profane prayers with joy in his heart, and Inscribe new verses to his already immeasurable bible.

When he kisses Kon, it is a tentative exploration of the things he has never truly permitted himself to feel. He tastes of stale coffee and stolen bagels before rushing back home, of Gotham’s sulphuric rain and alien blood. He tastes foreign and homely at the same time. He tastes as Tim would expect.

Kissing him doesn’t hurt as much as he expects.

And when he pulls back, Kon lets him go freely. He doesn’t ask for me, doesn’t expect more even unconsciously. No, he looks as if he’s found deliverance in a shitty kiss from a fucked-up kid who can never make eye contact.

Tim finds himself believing.

Kon has hands to hold the world in his palms, arms wide enough to embrace the universe, and he uses that impossibly biblical strength to hold someone as small as Tim. He cradles Tim close to him and together they watch the streets of Gotham through the bay of windows. They listen to Tim’s nation scream in agony, demanding a saviour come and heal it. But as Tim has learnt, no physician can truly heal Gotham.

He understands, with startling clarity, that Gotham the city does not scream for itself, but it screams for the people who inhabit it. The small people without voices. The men standing on roofs saved only by nephews who need a barber the next day. The kids who were thrown out and made to run drugs. Wives beaten by husbands and children beaten by bitter mothers. Gotham gives them all a voice where no one else could.

To fix Gotham is impossible. To heal its ills is absurd. But to heal its people is not so impossible.

“I can’t give you what you need.”

“I already have you.”

After all, hasn’t Tim been healed?

*

*

*

He and Kon move to Metropolis because why not? Superman’s busier than ever with Justice League business, spending more time off-world than on it, and Jon’s barely ready as Superboy. Kon’s help is invaluable.

They get a townhouse in the sort of neighbourhood that won’t ask questions about two rather pretty men living together. The kind that’s bright and colourful in defiance of the grimness the world wants to impose and probably had people who have spent their lives fighting for their right to exist in peace. A perfect place for a superhero to blend in.

Tim, however, sets his sights higher than petty crime. Namely, driving Luthor insane and conquering Metropolis to remake it in Kon’s image. The man had slightly widened his eyes when he saw Tim casually on the street which in Luthor-speak is screaming in terror. Drake Industries has most of its biomed business in Metropolis, on the same road that houses KordTech, Wayne Industries, and LexCorp’s biomed divisions. It’s a crowded market place but Tim plans on outpacing them entirely. 

It's fun work and Luthor plays very fair because he still thinks he can get into Kon’s good graces and what better way than his boyfriend?

He visits Gotham on occasion when Metropolis is too blinding and Jon’s presence too irritating. How do you make a child that excitable and bubbly? He’s got so much energy that Tim can barely keep up. Even Steph would find him exhausting.

He says as much to Damian who throws a shuriken at him. Tim kicks it up with his heel and catches it between his two fingers.

Today, he’s with Damian. The kid is unfairly tall, already towering a full head over Tim. Fifteen and it seems like he’s going through another growth spurt. Just, what the fuck? Tim wants to know how to get a refund for his genetics.

Damian tilts his head before Tim can call for the elevator of the five-storey apartment building.

“Oh, that fool.”

Tim knows that tone. It’s Damian’s rather rare ‘we should be panicking’ tone. Given that the brat was killing at three and saw hell at twelve, Tim is very, very, very concerned. He becomes hyperaware, his focus narrowing as he assesses the building. Strangely quiet. The apartment lights are on but something feels off.

“What is Jason doing?”

“In your old threat assessment, you noted my green eyes.” Tim blinks, genuinely having forgotten. Damian gets to cheat by having perfect recall. “Well, I am certainly attuned to the magicks of creation, particularly of death. Especially so after the ritual Jason and mother conducted to resurrect me.”

“Are you getting to a point?”

“This entire apartment complex has occupants. Only three of them register as being alive.”

“Are we two of them?”

“Astute as ever,” Damian says condescendingly.

“I am refusing to question this. No.”

“If it soothes your strange sensibilities, the occupants were all invited as opposed to being ritually bound through violence.”

“That doesn’t, no.”

Because he’s not a fucking idiot, Tim takes the stairs all the while ignoring the strange chill down his spine. Damian grumbles the entire way. He’s ignored too many dead bodies and decapitated heads to get done in by an angry ghost. A dog barks as he stalks down the fifth-floor corridor. Probably a fucking ghost dog.

Tim pounds against the door insistently.

Jason opens the door with a gun out. “The fuck is wrong with you.”

 “Heyo, no longer dead Jason Peter Todd Wayne.”

“All four names. How the hell did I piss you off?”

“I wonder how.”

“Well, fuck right off Timothy Jackson Drake Wayne.”

Damian shoves his way forward and fuck he’s big enough now to actually throw his weight around. “Might we do this inside? Yes? Good.” He shuts the door and throws his expensive sneakers away messily.

It’s a very deliberate pretence at childishness. Damian doesn’t do anything messily unless it is intentional. A way to make someone lower their guard before shoving his knife between the third and fourth rib.

He catches Jason’s painfully fond expression. Tim’s come to accept the complicated favouritism that goes on in their extended family. Cass is unambiguously everyone’s favourite person, but second place is always fluidly changing. He thinks Dick’s currently Alfred’s favourite by virtue of not being around to cause problems. Tim might be Damian’s favourite at the moment. Damian has been Jason’s favourite ever since he got him magical swords that only activate in the presence of evil because that’s a thing apparently.

“Sustenance is demanded, Todd,” Damian says loudly, flopping down on the couch. “Drake will collapse soon without nourishment.”

“Fuck right off.”

“The Retired Robins meeting is going well.”

“It’s Former Child Soldiers without Sexy Asses according to Dickhole.”

“We don’t listen to Dick.”

“I shall tell Grayson your secrets if food does not manifest,” Damian interrupts.

“I did not agree to host the next meeting,” Jason growls as though he’s going to do anything but cook the best-goddamned fajitas out of spite. Tim hopes that the mouth-watering smell is from fajitas. He spies pans simmering on the stovetop and the oven is on.

“Your consent is neither needed nor wanted.”

Tim reaches over and pats Damian’s head to get his attention. 

“What?”

“We don’t joke about consent, alright.”

“We don’t joke about many things.”

Damian’s fifteen and nearly as tall as Tim, packing on muscle with each week. He’s got steely eyes and a painful history, a tenuous concept of self and likely no concept of consent.

“Yes, well, we have to be a bit more careful with what we let you joke about. Not because we don’t trust you but—”

“Because of my childhood.” Damian sighs. “I have a hobby and I play an instrument and I garden. The therapist says I have made incredible progress. I’m the model of a healthy fifteen-year-old who doesn’t need to be held back by his past. I even have friends—”

“Who aren’t the children of superheroes or assassins or magical dictators from beyond the grave?”

Damian crosses his arms petulantly. “Yes, Todd. Colin is none of those.”

Jason throws Tim a bewildered look. “For real?”

“First gen meta who nearly called himself Abuse and it would have been an understatement.”

“No,” Jason says firmly, slamming his knife down on an avocado. “You will not introduce me to another traumatised kid.”

“Scared you’ll adopt them?” Tim teases.

“Shut up and set the table.”

Damian snickers as Tim is put to work. Damned favourite sibling privilege. Tim knows where everything is and makes sure to grab Jason’s favourite Wonder Woman-themed plate. Just to be petty, he gives Damian a Robin III-themed one that sets him off. Jason has more boring plates but he’s accumulated a pile of joke cutlery by very petty Bats.

Seriously, how is he the one with his life together?

At least there aren’t any soon-to-be-dead bodies joining them this time. Fifty-fifty odds on that happening.

“I know how sexual reproduction works,” Damian says later in the middle of the main course. “I was raised to understand every aspect of it in the event it would allow me access to an assassination target.”

“As an adult, right.” Damian rolls his eyes. “Right?”

“It was unlikely Grandfather would have accepted inhabiting a stained vessel.”

“Just one normal dinner,” Jason mutters under his breath. “Just one.”

“Imagine being that optimistic.”

“Are we actually sitting this brat down and having this talk? 

“Do we want to trust the American education system? Remember, this is Gotham.”

“Retired Robins, sometimes teaching consent. This is not where I wanted to be.” Jason stabs his fork through a spring roll. “Alright, genius bird who still managed to die like an idiot, let’s have a hopefully painless discussion.”

It isn’t. Painless, that is.

Damian doesn’t really understand consent. Not in the affirmative sense, at least. Anything short of killing someone counts as consent for everything from a pat on the head to Jason’s increasingly graphic descriptions of sexual acts.

Tim pencils in destroying one of Talia’s businesses for raising her son as an object and not as a person.

Damian is passed out on the couch after eating a box of homemade maamoul cookies. Tim never gets dessert from Jason so he’s officially jealous. He’s still grateful Jason cooks enough for twelve people even though his metabolism is back to baseline human. It meant he could make Damian eat dessert to the point he passed out.

Tim helps with drying dishes. He can’t be trusted not to wash them. Not after the Thanksgiving Fiasco of 2017 that they’ve all agreed to never talk about.

“Jon owes us so much in a few years,” Jason mutters.

“Are they actually?”

“Not for another few years hopefully. I don’t want to explain power imbalances as applied to metahumans. That talk is always a doozy. Try telling a kid that just because they’re an empath doesn’t mean they should use their powers on someone they’re interested in.”

“I’d have thought telepaths were worse.”

“They tend to get psychic feedback in the moment. Hurts them worse.”

“How are things at the centre going?”

“Good. We’re helping kids get shelter when they need it most. Didn’t think this would be what I turned part of my criminal empire into.”

The Martha Wayne foundation exists to help queer youths and provide them resources in a city like Gotham where they don’t just fall through the cracks, the institutions exist to drive them through the cracks and straight to some abuser.

“We’re spreading out to Bludhaven next. Dick wasn’t too happy when I threw the statistics for at-risk youth in his face. Then he started crying when I got to trans kids.”

“Punching people isn’t the most efficient form of reform, I agree. In fairness, he’s been stuck dealing with ageing institutions, brutal cops and corrupt politicians. They’d have bled any program or charity dry.”

“Speaking of charity—”

“How much?”

“Two mill. Preferably in tax-deductible donations. And whatever dirt you have on a few officials blocking this. You still owe me for that Senator.”

“We agreed not to talk about that.”

“We don’t talk about a lot of things,” Jason says with a dark laugh.

Tim's brain makes a connection he suddenly hates it for making.

“Jason, did you invite the spirits of kids who died to live in this complex?”

“How upset would you be if I said yes?”

“Fuck.”

“In my experience, your post-death existence can be just as fun as your pre-death existence.”

“Stop talking to me, Zombie man. We’re not talking about this. Why can’t you be normal?”

“Evil Robin says to the first Robin to die.”

Chapter Text

The year is 2020. Social distancing died a still death and the global economy is in shambles. Heroes are taking stances and dabbling in beliefs they shouldn’t while Netflix is making money hand over fist.

The year is turning into such a shitshow that it couldn’t get any worse.

Then Batman dies and the world continues.

The world continues because Batman dies and children lose their father.

It was the only fitting way for Batman to die at the heart of a Crisis that would have consumed everything, everywhere, all at once. He fell where he stood and the world only stands where he fell. He died for the world, through time and space, he died a million billion trillion times to right the wrongs set by the tampering of humans with too much power and gods with too few morals.

Tim remembers it, the last moment of the Bat in linear time. That glorious moment where it was Bruce who stood there, smiling at his children and friends and allies. That final moment before he burnt for their sins, doing what needed to be done because that is what Batman has always done.

“You’ve got it from here.”

Those were the last words of Batman. They were also the last words from Robin the Third. The symmetry in it would be poetic to someone who cared for things like rhyme or meter or symbolism.

Tim just wants his dad back. 

Timothy Jackson Drake-Wayne is twenty when he loses another parent, his truest parent at that. Jack and Janet donated the biology for him but even that was tenuous. Tim always looked more like Bruce Wayne’s son than he did Jack or Janet. Bruce wasn’t perfect but he was the only dad Tim had. The only one who raised him and set a standard worthy of emulating.

Jack tried destroying anything good in Tim because of his bitterness. Janet would have made a monster of Tim from her cruel love. The man who took the photos hidden in the attic of Drake Manor is a ghost. Bruce made a child soldier of him, but at least he let Tim retire, rejoiced in the little happiness he found, and stood beside Tim.

For Bruce, Tim will sit Shiva for seven days. 

He will do it because his name is Wayne and his nation weeps for his lord that is fallen.

He will cover the mirrors and light the candles. He will move through the Manor carefully, remembering moments with Bruce. Seeing the man in the negative space he left. The conversations they had on the stairs. The arguments and broken railings. The laughter and mockery.

For seven days, he will mourn surrounded by his family. Bruce was wrong. Terribly so. Tim isn’t the only one who sits Shiva for him. Damian joins him wordlessly, a non-believer given to faith in people. Dick offers shitty jokes as Tim tries to explain and Jason for once is without caustic commentary. Cass is a steady presence and Steph is a joyful one. They mourn as a household for the man they all loved, the man who ruined them in different ways but whom they forgave anyway.

Just as Bruce wished, his sons will carry his coffin. The skies are grey on the day of the funeral but the rain refuses to fall. The wrong season for it entirely, but all seasons are the wrong season for Batman to die. In their black suits, they carry an empty coffin to the Wayne Family Plot. He sees a sniffling Alfred bracketed by Steph and Cass. Behind them, standing apart and standing awkwardly is Duke. The newest of them. Less a son, more a partner.

Bruce Wayne is buried at noon on an unremarkable summer day. It is an insult to the man. The world itself should mourn with them. The universe should grieve the sacrifice of its greatest defender. Tears are not enough. Words are not enough.

Tim is filled with anger, resentment and far too much grief to bear alone. As the speeches go on, the readings from the Tanakh, empty well-wishes and insulting political plays, his rage continues to build. He takes to walking where he can, drawing Bruce’s tallit tighter around himself. It all happened too quick and now Tim is adrift, lost without a father to guide him.

He isn’t the only one. His siblings are a mess. Dick cries enough for the more stoic of them. A man with a heart big enough for all the messy feelings their family kept and strong enough to show them without breaking. The greatest of them all.

There’s Damian with Jon. One crying and the other stoic. Kon behind Jon, rubbing his back as he cries enough for Damian as well.

Tim skips past them, skips past Uncle Clark and Aunt Diana. Stalks away from Lois before she can say something that will make him bawl like a baby.

Stumbles right into Ives and Ariana.

His brain freezes, his thought processes halting violently as he looks at two people he cut from his life. Ives is painfully thin, blonde as ever, and with arrogance running along every line of his body. Ari is more open, taller than he remembers, and with a more assessing expression.

“Why did you come?” he asks stupidly.

“That’s the first thing you say to us,” Ari says flatly. Ariana, he reminds himself. They haven’t been friends in years.

It takes him back to being a kid again. He looks away, embarrassment warring with guilt. “Sorry.” It always used to work. Maybe it will work today.

“This is going well. I could cut the awkwardness with a blunt knife.”

Steph slides right up to him. When did she get so close? Or had she herded him here, manipulating his journey without words?

“Cause I invited them. Go easy on him, will you? He’s kind of an idiot.”

“Trust me, we know.”

He desperately signals to Steph not to leave him, the subtle shift of his stance, the way he curls his hands closed, even his breathing pattern. Steph gives him a petty smile and darts away.

“Um, hi?”

“That’s one way to start this. For some unfathomable reason, I thought you’d stop being an awkward mess of a person.”

“Fuck off, Ives.”

“There he is. Come here.”

The hug hurts almost as much as losing his dad. He lets it happen because he’s weak and lonely despite all the people around him.

*

The conversation continues awkwardly between them. Tim’s still not sure how to continue and desperately looks for any way to escape. Something about the placement of people is bothering him. The people themselves are bothering him.

“Gotta deal with some drama. Give me a moment.”

“Yeah, sure. I guess we’ll see you whenever.”

“Whenever,” Tim agrees, already following someone he is certain is an assassin.

Tim doesn’t know how they were infiltrated but he’s putting an end to this. These bastards do not get to defile Bruce’s funeral. Not like this.

They’ve congregated in the west wing of the household. A ballroom, maybe. One of the many rooms Tim’s never had an interest in besides sometimes leaving explosives. There, he spots Damian and Cass surrounded by what may as well be the entire assassin community.

It’s been a while since Tim picked a serious fight, some four-odd years. Today, he’s going to break some bones.

That is the plan. At least until Jason stops him in his tracks, grabbing him by the shoulder.

Years without the waters of Lazarus running through him have left him weaker, a tremor running through his hand. There is strength to him, built from hard work and the determination to reject the very idea of death.

“Don’t.”

“Give me a good reason.”

“They’re here to pay their respects. None of them will start anything. Not today.”

“He was their enemy.”

“And he died a good death. There isn’t a higher honour. So calm the fuck down, Timbo, before you piss off all the assassins in the house.”

“Are we really just fine with this? Half of these people sided with Ra’s.”

“They were paid to do a job. Nothing personal.”

“It felt personal to me.”

“Yup.”

That’s Richard Dragon shaking Damian’s hand. Tim wants to scream. No one fucking likes Richard Dragon.

“Congratulations,” Richard fucking Dragon says. “You learned his lessons well.”

Damian's dispassionate gaze is a thing of beauty. “I’m out of the job. I plan on staying out.”

“We all say that at one point.”

“Honoured Demonslayer,” another one of them says to Damian. “To challenge the summit at such a young age does your line credit.”

“Goddess of Victory,” someone says to Cass. “You felled many of my friends. They send fond regards from their prison cells.”

More and more assassins pay their respects to Damian and Cass. It’s sickening. Both of them are heroes. Were, in Damian’s case. But Cass will be Batman one day soon.

Only Jason’s steady grip on him keeps him from throwing a punch. It is such a strange ritual. The respect that they hold for Bruce, the pride they have for Damian and Cass as though they’re great assassins. The victories they praise the two for.

“You should be proud of them instead of fearful,” Talia al Ghul says beside him, appearing from shadows despite how well-lit the room is. “Theirs were achievements rarely seen by assassins twice their age. My son killed the eldest living assassin and rose from the dead. Few feats will ever live up to that.”

“My daughter defeated you at the age of eight,” Lady Shiva says from Jason’s other side. Lovely. “She stood against the bets the League had to offer and won. Stood against gods and won. Stood against Gotham and won.”

“I’m feeling my life expectancy drop,” Tim says breezily. Lady Shiva and Talia al Ghul in the same state, let alone the same room, is a disaster waiting to happen.

“You are hardly important to the proceedings today, chaos child. When the governments of the world awaken to your threat, I will gladly take your head.”

Tim blinks at Talia. “Is that a threat or compliment?”

Talia smiles mysteriously, an affectation of mystery. Talia is very much Bruce’s equal. Tim doesn’t believe for a moment that she can do emotions naturally. Even fucking Ra’s felt rage.

“Useless banter whilst your progeny has failed to live up to his legacies,” Lady Shiva says, as cold as any goddess of death. “He will not be the next Bat. My own daughter has won that mantle.”

“He was made for greater things.” Talia al Ghul tilts her head imperiously at a woman who could snap her like a twig. “That greatness is for him to decide, not you. Neither Bat nor Demon could determine his future.”

“Sentiment from the Mother of Serpents.”

“Sentiment from the Mother of Death.”

For a moment, he sees Janet Drake standing beside these deadly and venerated women. The image chokes him because why couldn’t she be here? How many parents can one person lose before they break?

The two assassins turn away from one another and walk away.

He isn’t sure who won that engagement.

Then again, Lady Shiva’s side lost the war so maybe it was Talia who won that confrontation?

Tim just never thought he would see the day when Talia would defend Damian.

*

Tim finds them in the garden, secluded by an unspoken agreement for friends and close family. He spots Diana Prince in conversation with Alfred, Commissioner Gordon toasting a beer with Renee Montoya and Oliver West. There sitting beneath a tree are Dick’s Titans, orbiting the man, drawn ever towards him by his inexorable gravity.

Sitting awkwardly together by the lily pond are Ives and Ariana. It sends a jolt through him to see them together, no longer children but adults living lives. They’ve moved on, grown without him. What still remains of the childhood they shared that they felt the need to come? Ives is still fashionable, bordering on TikTok pretension, and he’s got that casual swagger that makes him feel as big as the literal heroes amongst them. Ariana is forever quiet, assessing everything before she makes a comment, deciding her method of victory before acting. And Tim? Do they still see the same fucked up kid who never made eye contact?

“Sorry, I shouldn’t have left you guys for so long. Just some family drama I had to deal with.

“Dude, today’s the one day you get away with being an asshole. But only the one time.” Ives gives him a brilliant smile. “How much drama are we talking about? Fun drama?”

“Step-mom drama.”

“I’m into it.”

Behind Ives, Tim sees Uncle Clark wince. “I can see why you might say that.”

Cass and Damian had very attractive mothers. Even Tim can recognise that.

“Don’t be creepy.”

“That’s asking for too much from me.”

Ariana nods. “If you want, we can get out of here.”

He seeks out Kon stuck playing babysitter with the brats. He’s good with them, better than Tim ever was. Then again, Kon’s only ever had to be the cool brother who lets Dami and Jon get away with everything. Tim’s the responsible one. Kon thumps Jon on the head, giving a thumbs up at the same time. Jon squeals in annoyance and then they’re having an argument, drawing attention to themselves.

Tim stands. “That’s our cue.”

The bar they settle on after an argument in the Uber is smoky and smells of unwashed bodies and sawdust. The music is deafening as people drink to forget that the only not complete dogshite billionaire is gone. It’s not Tim’s kind of place at all. Too many eyes, too many people, too much sensory information.

Ives fits in perfectly, smiling. He’s talking to a girl while Ariana negotiates a booth for the three of them. Tim leans against the bar awkwardly, politely telling the guy next to him to fuck off and bother someone else.

Tim wonders how Gotham will react when they learn Batman is dead. It will be weeks yet before it is announced. On that day, all of Gotham will grieve. Cass might succeed him, wear the mantle and fight the same battles, but they will all know. Not even Richard could replace Batman.

Cass will be better, he thinks, and knows those words to be true. She will be a better, truer version of what Batman should be. His ideals distilled down and unburdened by the traumas of Bruce Wayne. Someone who was mired in death and chose a different life will champion the never-ending war.

They settle into their booth, Ari dragging Ives behind her. He slumps over, annoyed.

“What was wrong with her?”

“She wanted to get hitched in Reno tonight. Tonight, I tell you.”

“Is that a thing that happens to you?” Tim asks.

“Ives has girl troubles all the time. It’s quite hilarious.”

“As in, every girl is trouble. All of them. You as well, Ari. You try to make me a decent person and who wants to be that in 2020?”

Tim shrugs. Not like he knows what a decent person looks like. A waiter comes over and they order starters. Tim chooses cheesy garlic bread. Not because he has a carb problem. He just likes cheese and bread together.

“I felt so stupid when I figured out you were that Tim Drake,” Ari says after the waiter is gone and they have the illusion of privacy. Tim’s running a scrambler to ensure their privacy is real. “I mean, it made sense that you’d be able to hire people to scrub your data so thoroughly, but I still felt dumb. It just didn’t make sense that you’d be going to an inner-city school. You should have been kidnapped every week for that stunt. What happened to you? Your attendance got worse and you stopped responding to us, and then you just vanished. Then No Man’s Land happened and we thought you were dead for a long time.”

That’s what Tim wanted. To step away and be forgotten by them, just a strange part of their acquaintanceship. He feels a flare of guilt anyway. Having given up Robin, what does that really leave him? Who will remember him when he finally dies? Or will he just fade away, forgotten and unwanted?

“Coma for six months, physio for a lot longer,” he says casually.

Ives snorts. “Timeline doesn’t add up. Let's say the coma and physio were two years total after No Man’s Land, there are still four years since then. Oh, and the whole year before that when you ghosted us.”

“I’m not going to explain myself.”

“Typical,” he mutters as the waiter comes back with their starters.

Tim takes a vicious bite of his steaming bread. “Fuck you.”

“At least you’re still as feral as I remember. Yo, Ari, what was the crazy thing you found out like three years back?”

“You mean my tuition being covered. Rent and board as well. Unlimited with no requirements. A stipend that pays better than any job I could get at school. Just normal things, I guess.”

“Good school?” Tim asks.

“Yale.”

“That's good by a certain definition of the term,” Tim says with a haughty sniff. He’d have been a Princeton boy if things had been different, had his parents lived. Had anyone forced him to stay in school instead of letting him roam like the wild child he is.

“It’s a great school. What school are you going to by the way?”

“I’m rich. We go to school because our parents are bored with us. And, well, that’s not a concern for me anymore.”

“Rich kids. Always doing weird things. Ari, your Ma swears she never applied to the very conveniently located non-profit. Weird, but hey, sometimes people forget. They definitely forget there were three hundred and sixteen other people in front of you for the experimental cancer treatments you went through. And then I find out I won’t pay a single cent for any of my cancer treatments,” Ives says, taking a sip of his beer.

Tim shrugs. “A lot of people on your dad’s side had cancer. I just wanted to make sure in case anything happened to me.”

“Creepy how you knew all that.”

“Just Gotham things.”

“You organised all of that, but you couldn’t even give us a call.”

“I’m not going to apologise.”

“You’ve always been such an asshole. From the day we thought you were just a weird serial killer—”

Ariana snorts. “How long did that last before we went to abused kid on the run? Five minutes?”

“However long it was. Every time we tried being friends with you, you blew up on us.”

Kon said much the same about Tim and his time with Young Justice. He’s been going to therapy long enough that he knows there’s truth in those words.

“You know my dad just died. You could try not being an asshole.”

Just because there is truth to their words doesn’t mean he has to deal with it today. Or ever, preferably.

“And that’s the other thing you always did. Had some sad shit happen close enough that we couldn’t question it. Oh sorry, can’t ask anything about your childhood because of mom and dad. Sorry, your favourite food sucks because mom never let you have anything. I’m sorry, we won’t ask why you got a hundred bruises on you underneath all the makeup.”

“My makeup was perfect.”

“Yeah, and it covered up all your blemishes. Easy enough to catch that. But it didn’t hide how you’d wince or the broken nails or all the other shit. You were a whole mess.”

“Just another kid getting wailed on in Gotham.”

“Not like you.”

“Say what you mean.”

“I’m not sure I know. Never was much you shared with us. Not your real family. Not your parents dying. Not anything.”

“That wasn’t yours to demand.”

“But our shit was yours to steal?” he counters angrily.

“I can go if you want me to. I didn’t come here to get shouted at.”

“You’d deserve it,” Ives grumbles, but he sits back in a peace offering.

“You’ve got a pretty big family,” Ari says peaceably. Tim nods, accepting the subject change. “I’m glad you weren’t lonely.”

“I even made some friends.”

Ives scoffs. “Bullshit.”

“I’m being serious.”

“Fucking call them then.”

“Not sure if heaven has reception,” he says callously, his smile bitter.

Ives throws his hands up. “I’m sorry your friends died and I’m sure that shit hurts, but you’re doing it again. Throwing your pain at us so you can be lonely.”

It’s been six years since he lost Bart and Cassie. Six years since they vanished when he was in a coma. They died for him.

Sometimes, before he’s fully awake, he’ll send a stupid gif to them. Then, when it fails to send and he remembers why, he rages at how unfair the world is.

“Fuck you too.”

“No, fuck you, Tim Drake. What made them so special?”

“They were close friends and it was different with them. I didn’t have to hide as much with them. I didn’t have to hide that I was rich as shit and somehow more fucked up. Never had to pretend my parents didn’t hate me from the moment I was born and that sometimes I wish they would have hurt me more because at least they would have fucking seen me. And now the only dad I had is dead and I haven’t done shit with my life but fail miserably. Now I’m crying. Fuck you. There. That’s my trauma dump.”

“I have cancer,” Ives retorts easily.

Ariana elbows him. “It’s not a competition.”

“I lost a spleen,” Tim says pettily, but he feels just a hint lighter.

“You’re not winning the trauma Olympics. I’m the pro here. Come on, Ari, you at least have to enter.”

“Fine, my baba hasn’t remembered my name in three years and I got some cousins killed because I spread unpatriotic ideas back home. And my dad won’t talk to me because sometimes I kiss girls so yay.”

A grandmother with Alzheimer’s is the sort of pain Tim doesn’t want to know. He imagines Alfred unable to remember their names and feels sickened to the core. Tries to imagine Bruce rejecting him because of Kon and nearly bursts out crying again.

Bruce was a lot of things. A commander who made soldiers of children. A terrible father who never learnt to communicate until it was nearly too late. But the day he’d spoken to Tim, named Tim his son, he’d promised to love Tim no matter what happened. He never broke that promise. Not for a single second.

Bruce rejecting him feels wrong in the same way as Batman killing feels wrong. It’s matter and anti-matter colliding in cosmic annihilation, ideas that can’t be reconciled.

“Well shit, sorry.”

“We don’t do sorries or pity here,” Ari says patiently. “Usually, we take shots but you don’t drink so we’ll leave it at that.”

“I drink.”

“Since when?”

“Since like fourteen.”

“You? Tim? Control freak extraordinaire? Drank?”

“A lot, yes.”

The legal drinking age in Gotham is twenty-one. Technically. The practical age depends on which part of the city you’re in or how big a bribe you bring. Tim slips a Benjamin to the waiter and knows no questions will ever be asked.

They drink three rounds of Jameson for three rounds of trauma.

“Drinking was the only way I could stomach having sex with my girlfriend,” he explains without prompting. “Not because of anything she did. I was just too young to figure out why I didn’t like sex.”

“Because you’re gay? Dude, everyone could see the way you stared at Bernard.”

“I’m bi, excuse you, and who the fuck is Bernard?”

“Kid you were pining after for like the whole time we knew you.”

“I think I would remember pining after someone for years.”

“I am not here to talk about your frankly awe-inspiring ability to repress and compartmentalise things.”

“Then why are you here?”

“Because we’re friends, you dumbass. Doesn’t matter if you ditch us for years, we’re friends till the end. I’m going to be giving you shit till the day you die, and if you die first, I’ll be giving your ghost shit for dying.”

Tim nearly spits out his last shot, laughing brightly. “Necromancy’s illegal in Gotham. Don’t do necromancy on me.”

“Just watch me. Anyway, now we talk about good things now. You gotta have something good for every bad thing, doesn’t matter how big it is. I posted a personal best speedrun for Sekiro and my parent’s divorce was amicable as fuck. They also threw me separate remission parties.”

“The cancer’s gone? For real this time?” Ari asks.

“Maybe. It’s done this before but hey, here’s hoping.”

“This time for sure,” Ariana says, and they all take a shot. “My mom tells me dad keeps asking after me and he watched Young Royals with my little brother so maybe I’ll be invited for the holidays. I got on the honour roll again and I think I signed up for my first internship.”

“You guys really just lived your lives.”

“What else were we going to do? Wait for you to show up again? You’re a narcissist, Tim Drake, but that’s okay, we like you anyway.”

“Thanks. I feel the love. All of it. Right here,” he says, raising his middle finger. “Shove it up your ass.”

“It’s 2020, that’s tame as shit.”

Ari sighs fondly, elbowing Ives and kicking Tim in the shin. “Well, it’s your turn to say some good things. Let’s say three things because we can be nice on occasion.”

“To start, I have a boyfriend.”

“Bullshit.”

Ariana smiles. “He’s definitely Canadian.”

For a moment, Tim remembers why they were friends.

*

They sit together in the cemetery at two in the morning. No plan was made but they found themselves here one after another. Tim had found Cass and Richard together. They had been slowly joined by the rest.

Damian sits on his own grave that now holds his stillborn sister—Athanasia al Ghul Wayne, brother to Hafidh whose identity was swallowed by Damian.

Cass has taken Jason’s because she is everyone’s favourite and gets away with everything.

Tim is partway between drunk and hungover. He’d puked on the sidewalk like a good Gothamite and stumbled his way to a cab. His drunken mind had led him here and he doesn’t regret it.

“Steph and Duke?”

“Punching their feelings away.”

Tim nods, a sharp pang of regret in his heart.

Jason is the last to show up, the sharp tap-tap of his cane familiar to Tim. There was a time that Tim used to blame himself for it but that lasted until he learnt it saved Damian. A sacrifice for family. Something that should never be dishonoured by such petty feelings of guilt.

Jason slumps onto Bruce’s grave, setting his cane aside. He lets out a shuddering sigh that they all pretend not to hear just as they all pretend they hadn’t left the gravestone for Jason. Some things never need to be said.

“What? My knee hurts.”

Richard forces a smile, fake to anyone who knows him. Tim feels like he barely knows him at all.

“You just want to be closer to dad.”

“Fuck off, Dickhole.”

Just them, those who hold the Wayne name. Not that it’s the only meaning for family, but there’s a connection there that not even Steph who was Bruce’s second favourite shared or Duke who made him give up on his no metas rule. It was different for them. At least, he wants it to be different. He wants to feel special today and he’s allowed to feel special as he mourns.

“I miss him already,” Cass says in the pained silence, speaking to the truth of things as easily as she sees the truth in people.

“I’m not going to jack off his memory if that’s what you’re expecting. The man was a shit father—”

“He wasn’t,” Tim says, his soft voice cutting through Jason’s lies. Angry lies are easier than the cold reality of grief but Tim cares little for that. Pain isn’t an excuse to hurt others and if he hadn’t seen Ives and Ariana again, maybe he wouldn’t have said a word. “Not to you. Maybe he wasn’t perfect, but you were always happy as Robin.”

“And what happened after?”

“Life. That’s all. You lived your life as best you could.”

“I doubt B would agree.”

Cass shakes her head, still tapping the same pattern against her knee. “Proud of you. Of us all.”

“He could have said something.”

“In the two odd decades I knew him, Bruce never learnt how to talk about his feelings,” Dick says. “Not the messy ones. Even when he was quoting those stupid parenting books to try and articulate all the things he never learnt to say. That just wasn’t in B and life just took away his smiles and laughter.”

“I remember all of Father’s smiles,” Damian says in a voice even deeper than Bruce’s. Sixteen and nearly as tall as his father. Sixteen and already carrying the weight of the world. “He smiled at Steph most—”

“—fucking knew it—"

“—and then Jason right after. Rarely when he was talking to you but whenever he thought of you. When he saw your picture or read about Hood in the news. You gave him faith in the future. If you were around, it meant he hadn’t failed completely.”

“He failed us a lot.”

“But he never meant to hurt us.”

From Damian who was hurt the most by Bruce, those words mean too much to dismiss. Even Jason’s scoff is tinged with acknowledgement, a willingness to back down from his stance.

“You Father was a broken man who loved you all so much,” Selina says, stepping from the mist. She settles next to Jason, leaning her head against her husband’s gravestone. “His heart was a shrivelled thing when I met him. You each taught his heart how to beat, taught him how to fill the empty parts of himself with love enough to spare.”

In her hands, she holds Bruce’s wedding band and gently lays it in Jason’s shaky hand. Jason was the best man at the wedding, an idea everyone had called out for the ridiculousness of it all. It should have been Clark, and everyone knew it.

Bruce hadn’t changed his mind, not for a single second.

That was the kind of man he was. Stupid, stubborn, and easily loveable.

“He never stopped being that child who lost his parents in all the time I knew him. Not when I was a gutter trash girl stealing his watch and not when we got married. I won’t pretend to know the innumerable mistakes he made as a Father and I don’t want to count them against the mistakes he made as a husband. We all know he was far from perfect. Yet, we love him anyway and nowhere near as much as he loved us.”

Everyone here would die for everyone else. There is no question of that. It’s in them. Not in their blood because they don’t share a lick of that, but in their spirits that Bruce moulded and life tempered.

That isn’t the same as erasing your immortal soul from existence to become the lynchpin around which their universe exists.

“I wish it was m—”

“Don’t,” Richard interrupts, stopping Damian from being an idiot. “No one would ask that. No one at all. He would choose us first every time. I know it hurts, but we have to live from now on. That’s what he left us. That chance. We’ll figure it out, I promise.”

Has Tim ever seen Damian cry since that day when Damian was twelve and learnt a lifetime of murder was an impossible burden to carry? Perhaps Dick has for how easily he holds Damian, how easily they slot together.

“I wish I had more than six years to know him.”

Richard wraps his arm around Damian’s shoulders. Even from here, Tim feels the warmth of that hug. He would have been a good father. Maybe he was the Father Damian deserved but life is not made of wishes.

“I’ve got twenty years of stories if you’d like to hear them.”

“I’ll tell you about the furry convention. That one still has me rolling on the floor.”

“Wait, he took you to a furry con as well?”

Damian stops crying long enough to ask, “Did he take us all to one?”

“Said it was for a case,” Cass says, confused. Alarmed, even.

“I don’t like where this is going,” Dick says.

“Well, your father did dress up as a bat and marry me.”

“No fucking way.”

“I think it says quite a bit about your detective skills that it took you until he was buried to figure out.”

*

*

*

Tim is twenty-one and listless. Everything that seemed so important is distant now, untethered without Batman’s grounding influence. He was a mountain looming in Tim’s memory. Now, he’s a cosmic force that can’t be felt by humans, a dream and a hope, a memory of a beautiful future unseen.

Taking over companies doing terrible work isn’t fun anymore. Starting wars and destroying government black ops teams isn’t entertaining. He barely enjoys following up on the Panama Papers and getting a few dozen people arrested. It doesn’t change anything. It can’t. He’d need to burn it all to the ground and rebuild it in his image.

Bruce wouldn’t approve. That’s the only thing saving the world from an overlord.

That, and the many distractions of his family. He’d sighed when the alarms were tripped and kissed Kon when he gave him a ride without prompting, crossing between Metropolis and Gotham in moments. It feels good to be back in Gotham, the unseen presence of the city welcoming him. Tim walks the tunnels beneath Gotham, heading to what should have been his seat of power as the heir to the Drake name but was instead the site of one of his great victories.

He finds Damian sitting on the stage of the Court of Owls, swallowed by the darkness he was born to. The violent edge that’s never really left is magnified, his eyes twin suns of green brighter even than Jason’s in a Pit Rage. Tim takes a seat beside him, staring mournfully at the seat he’d claimed for a day.

Damian towers over him even sitting, heads and shoulders taller than Tim. A colossus of a man despite being a teen. Taller even than Bruce. He never looked much like his father, more Talia in appearance than anything. Shocking vane from a woman of lethal efficiency.

He smells of cigarette smoke. Tim rolls his eyes at such youthful indecency. Damian would never smoke cancer sticks but he’s also a terrible influence on people around him.

“How’s Jon?”

Damian scowls petulantly, the expression at odds with his size. “Likely annoying your clone.”

“Don’t call him that.”

“Apologies. I find myself frustrated.”

“I know the feeling. Feels like there’s something more important I need to be doing but I can’t find it no matter how hard I search. I’ve done some shitty things this past year to put that feeling to rest and nothing works. Spinning my wheels like a hamster trapped in a cage.”

“Even wild hamsters are hardly as feral or manic as you.”

“Don’t they get heart attacks from stress or something?”

“Stress could hardly kill you. If we could power the world with your stress, the impending energy crisis would vanish before our eyes.” Tim forces a laugh. Damian notices, of course, but he smiles in return. “I am considering graduating early.”

“You had the credits years ago,” Tim agrees. “Though I hope you’re prepared for all the crying when you do so. I think you’d be the only one since Dick who graduated.”

“How do you geniuses fail to succeed a guaranteed pass?”

“Effortlessly.” He ducks Damian’s punch. “And I think Steph graduated? I don’t know, I was going through some things back then. What do you want to study?”

“Chemistry and physics. My knowledge in those fields is inadequate.”

“That’s my niche,” Tim growls. 

“Are they? I thought you specialised in computer engineering, business, and languages.”

“You little shit. You’re doing this on purpose.”

“Maybe you’ll diversify your knowledge base. Perhaps go to school and get a degree.”

“I’m wealthy. I do not need a degree or any education I can’t cobble together for myself. Fuck you, I could make a hyperloop viable instead of the bullshit Musk is peddling just to destroy high-speed consumer rail.”

“I do not doubt you could. But that is business predominantly. And likely enough manipulation to get yourself called a villain.”

“Capitalism is fun, ain’t it? And then? After the dual degree?”

“Why do you think there will be anything after?”

“You’re too arrogant to settle for just graduating with a double major early.”

“I have considered medicine,” Damian admits after a moment.

Tim understands in a flash of empathy and insight what Damian truly means.

“You don’t have to rush just because Bruce is gone.” Damian very carefully keeps his stance loose, a blaring signal of distress to anyone who knows him. “That’s not what he wanted from you. He never wanted anything more than your happiness. Maybe not at the beginning, but certainly at the end.”

“It was a terrible beginning,” Damian agrees. “I am… lucky to have survived it.”

“I’m sorry for my part in things. For not calling Bruce out earlier. I should have noticed that he was doing the same dumb shit he did to me. He’d failed Jason by letting him did and he didn’t know how he was failing me, but he knew he was failing me. And then you came around. You were all the nightmares he’d never had made manifest. You were Bruce if he never left the League. You were the culmination of his philosophy gone wrong. He took that out on you. I did as well.”

“We do not need to rehash this history. I remember it acutely. I accepted your apology years ago.”

He stares at the seat reserved for the Drake family. Second row, a bit to the left. Important, but not pivotal. Privileged, but not untouchable.

“This could have been my future. It could have been me as a villain if I’d never met B. They wanted a Talon to train me. The Court’s Judge, the very highest member. Said it straight to Jack. Their own personal brand of assassin. Do you think we would have had an easier time getting along if that was the case?”

“Don’t be a fool, we would have murdered each other in a few hours. Only useless sentiment makes you think we are alike which is a malicious lie. I am not carrying around a gut.”

“I am not fat.”

Damian pokes him in his flabby stomach. It’s not that he’s unfit or even overweight, but the near-zero body fat he’d maintained just to compete as Robin is no longer necessary. He’ll settle for spending an hour in the gym each day instead of three hours of training each day.

“The immaculate Timothy Drake, fat and indolent.”

“Fuck right off.”

“I merely speak the truth.”

“Well here’s a truth, you dumbass. We can’t change our pasts, and we can’t change the circumstances of our birth, but we get to choose the legacy we leave, not the one they tried to force us to fit. Don’t be what you think Bruce would want of you. Definitely don’t be whatever Talia would make of you. If you wanna go surfing for the rest of your life, do that.”

“Surfing? Me?”

“You think I don’t have pictures of your West Beach trip?”

“I’m going to kill Jon.”

Tim throws his head back and laughs. He’ll never tell the brat he stole the pictures from Maya. Let Jon get in trouble for once. Maybe if someone screams enough at him he’ll give up the whole cancer stick aesthetic.

“Continue laughing, Timothy. I have vast quantities of blackmail on you as well.”

“Dami, why on Earth do you think I have any dignity left? I’m a laughingstock when people aren’t terrified I’m going to misplace one of my nukes.”

“You were a laughingstock even carrying a nuke.”

“Asshole.”

Damian flashes him a smile. A genuine one. Those are terribly rare.

“Father told me he would be happy with whatever I chose to do even if it meant not being a soldier in this war. He went to my recitals and he hugged me and he tried so much to let me be a child. I know that was true. I still think he would be disappointed in me. I could be a great Batman. Better than he ever was. Better than Cass.”

“Still arrogant.”

“She’s a better fighter but I’m nearly as good and a better detective.”

“She has Babs to help, and Gotham loves Spoiler. Doing it alone is what hurt B the most and why he hurt us the most.”

“I would still be a great Batman.”

“You would. Or you could be any other hero. Or you could be a surgeon like you want to.” He sighs, rubbing the scars on his fingers from every bone the Heretic broke. “I have nightmares that they’d be disappointed in me because they were heroes to their bones. Bart came back a thousand years and laid the road for us to run to the future. Cassie could have been a goddess, she had every right to be one, but she chose us instead. They were heroes and I was just me. Just a guy with issues. There’s no reason I shouldn’t be fighting the good fight. Nothing stopping me at all.

“How do you deal with it?”

“I remember all the ways they loved Tim Drake. Bart brought me coffee from Turkey and Cassie took me flying on nights when I couldn’t fall asleep. They didn’t ask me questions on days I had to punch something until my knuckles bled and they didn’t interrupt me when I bitched about nothing. When they asked if I was hurt, they didn’t care if Robin was injured, they just wanted to know if Tim was alright.”

“Is that enough?”

He shrugs. “If it’s not, I know they’d forgive me anyway. I know B would forgive me. He did forgive me my sins. It’s enough, Dames. We’ll be just fine.”

“You promise?”

“Promise.”

Chapter Text

Tim is twenty-two, Macaron is President of France again, Elon’s bid for Twitter has failed spectacularly and Tim’s short sells on Tesla are finally in the green. Millennial existential dread might not be at a peak but it’s peaking in rap with Denzel Curry and Kendrick beating trauma over everyone’s heads, and Tim watches an anime gaslight the world into thinking an okay-at-best game was good, actually.

In genuinely good news, the Queen is dead, but fuck the new King.

“Hey, Selina.”

“You understand that I’m retired,” Selina Kyle says. Technically, she is his mother-in-law. They don’t talk about it much because then they’d have to address Tim’s childhood crush on her and that’s just not happening.

“Please, I’ve seen all the things you’ve stolen this month alone. Anyway, I have a big job for you. The biggest job. A real lulu of a job.”

“Oh, I’m dealing with Manic Villain Tim. Lovely. He always has the best schemes.”

“He’s back and worse than ever before. So, how would you like to steal all the artefacts from the British Museum?”

“And I was planning on having brunch with Alfred this weekend.”

“It’s fine, he’ll forgive us eventually.”

Obviously, Tim doesn’t expect Selina to manage it on her own. They plan the scheme for weeks, recruiting the very best talent like Mister Miracle and Kite-Man and Ghost-Maker.

One morning, a guard walks into the British Museum, finds it empty, and raises the alarm for the greatest heist completed. Tim will drink to his victory all night long.

*

Kon is very entertained by the story the next morning. Tim had stumbled home, drunk, and passed out on the couch.

“Coffee,” he demands, glaring at Kon through his headache. It’s partly due to his hangover but mostly due to the sheer lack of caffeine in his bloodstream.

He’s given an energy drink instead. Which, with how terrible Kon is at making coffee, is a fair compromise. He chugs it alongside two caffeine pills.

“Have fun?”

He gives Kon a thumbs up. “Was great. Gonna go down in history.”

Kon takes his hand and presses a kiss to his thumb. Tim just about dies. His heart skips a beat if Kon’s smirk is anything to go by.

“You know they called here, right?”

“They?” he asks, standing and stumbling his way to the kitchen.

“Everyone important. As secretive as you think you are, there aren’t many people who can pull off something like this. Don’t worry, I followed the rule and denied any and all allegations of my complicity.”

“You pretty little liar, you. As if you’re not always listening to me.”

“Not always. Just most of the time. If I know what craziness you’re getting into I can avoid white hairs.”

Tim glares at him, assessing his features for any change. He finds none. Kon looks the same as he did a decade ago. His haircut is different, long hair caught in a bun, but his features haven’t altered. No new scars. No facial hair. No growth at all. It’s partly worrying but Kryptonians also live for centuries. Clark’s already facing questions about his absurdly graceful ageing, especially next to Lois who has put on a few wrinkles.

“You know, if you don’t start ageing, I’m going to be a creep in like ten years.”

“Don’t worry, I’ll happily push your wheelchair and change your bedpan when you’re decrepit.”

Tim tosses an apple at him. “Ew, don’t be gross.”

Kon takes a massive bite of the apple. “It might be gross, but I’d do it for you. And hey, everyone will think you have the game to snag someone as good-looking as me.”

“They’ll think you’re my sugar baby and I’m a creepy old man.”

“Well, I was like six when we started dating and you do buy me all this stuff.”

“Please don’t say it like that.”

Kon tugs him by the hem of his pants. “You’re a cradle robber and I’m okay with it.”

Tim laughs helplessly. There’s nothing he can say to that. Well, he can always pull Kon closer and kiss him, barely suppressing his laughter.

“Go. Now. Please. I can’t with you.”

“Love you too.”

One last kiss on the corner of lips. Barely anything at all. 

Maybe if he’d known it would be their last, he would have savoured it.

*

It is another fight during another boring day of heroism for Kon. The standard kind that happens so often that Tim pays them no attention. Certainly not in Metropolis where things are peaceful, and three Supers stand vigil over a glorious city. Crime is on the decline with heavy funding going into programs to stop villainy at its root causes: mental health, poverty, and corporate malpractice.

He’s reading a legal brief, the news playing in the background when Kon goes down. He doesn’t even look up. That happens so often he’s learnt to filter it out.

Maybe some coffee? Who is he kidding, coffee is always a yes. Tim goes out to the coffee shop just down the road and picks up his usual drip coffee with three shots of espresso. The barista is oddly distracted but that’s not strange. Tim isn’t very exciting and there’s a bit of a battle going on outside.

He’s barely reached his door when his phone rings loud enough to startle him. Tim trips, catching himself on the railing as his coffee clatters to the ground.

“Shit,” he says, taking out his phone. Ariana. “Heyo, what’s up?”

“Tim, are you near a TV?” she asks like she’s rehearsed this already.

He’s suddenly worried, pushing himself up and into his home. “I can be.”

He turns the TV on and there it is. An unvarnished truth. Superman and his son on TV, devastation writ large upon their features. There, lying in the street is a fallen god.

Kon didn’t get back up and Tim didn’t even fucking see it.

“Tim, I’m so sorry.”

2022 is also the year Superboy dies.

*

Kryptonians have two weaknesses. Everyone knows about Kryptonite. Few know about magic.

A magic sword to the chest and one moment of distraction. That’s all it took to take the life of one of Earth’s greatest heroes.

It wasn’t anyone special. Not Darkseid or Metallo. No, just some C-tier villain who got lucky and picked up the right magic sword. A schmuck who will be remembered eternally now for doing what no one else could: killing one of the Supers.

Tim rages, oh how he rages. He destroys the man’s life, shatters it to pieces and then goes after his family and friends. Ruins them as well with every resource under his disposal. He does it with ruthless efficiency and is not satisfied until the man commits suicide in his holding cell.

No one questions Tim on his actions. No one tries to stop him. They’re all too afraid of his rage and what it might become. This has always been in him, this vile need to burn everything to ash. He wants to burn it all, make a pyre of this world because it is worthless without Kon. It is in his very marrow.

Tim contents himself by stopping when he gets confirmation that the piece of shit is dead, and the magic sword melted to scrap. He knows Kon would be disappointed if he went further.

Even if he didn’t, the shock of Kon’s funeral would make him stop. Kon’s, not Superboy’s.

Another funeral. Only two years since Batman died. Two years since Tim lost his dad. It feels like that chapter barely ended before this one began, two moments of loss sandwiched so closely together that it feels like a cosmic joke.

They bury him on Kent farm beside his grandfather who he called Pa and loved just as much. They bury him on family land just as they will one day bury Clark and Jon decades and decades from now.

Once, Kon had called Young Justice his family. Back when they were all so brilliant and young, and before he’d found his footing with the Kents. Before he was graced with a name from Krypton of the House El and showered in love for his human name as well, this would have been unthinkable. Tim thinks Kon would be grateful. To know he was loved enough for an entire community to come and honour his life. To have that community see Kent farm and think of Kon and of Conner.

It is land made Holy by the body of Adonai, of the blasphemous G-d that Tim found in Kon.

“He deserved rain,” Tim says bitterly, bracketed by a stoic Damian on one side and a weeping Jon on the other.

“No, this is good,” Jon sniffles, sixteen and with enough tears for all of them. His jacket smells terribly of cigarette smoke. “He wouldn’t want it overcast. He’d want it bright enough to have a BBQ. He deserves us laughing at the things he did.”

“I don’t think I can laugh today.”

“I don’t think I can as well,” he says in a wobbly voice.

“Worry not, you may laugh at your own idiocy,” Damian says haughtily, and from him, it may as well be a hug. “And should yours fail, Timothy plays quite the clown.”

“You’re the biggest clown around,” Tim says.

Damian huffs, but he doesn’t offer any further insult.

Jon forces a chuckle. “You know he left you his signed posters.”

“Me?” Damian asks incredulously. “We hardly knew each other.”

“Dames, you basically lived with us. He wanted me to trick you into calling him your brother just to see if Uncle Bruce would try and steal him from Dad.”

Tim feels his heart skip a beat. “That does sound like something he would do.”

“He loved you, Dami. He did. He really did.” Jon’s smile is bittersweet. “That was just how he was.”

A heart too big for the world to contain. Hands large enough to cradle the world. An endearing arrogance and a sense of humour that was strangely petty. The best of friends. The best of lovers. The best of them.

Jon tugs on their hands. “Come on. You’ll want to see what he left you. I haven’t even checked it out.”

“Allow Tim the honour of doing so first,” Damian says, and Tim loves him so much in that moment.

He enters the house calmly, errantly nodding to the other heroes he sees. Some try to console him because Kon and Tim had been in a relationship longer than most heroes managed. They were meant to be forever, Kon and Tim like Lois and Clark. Tim doesn’t need their fucking platitudes.

He slips into the bathroom quickly and washes his face with chilly water. Forces his heart to calm down before he has an embarrassing outburst on what should be a solemn occasion.

Outside, he’s greeted by someone he wanted to avoid.

“Tim.”

“Hi, Aunt Lois.”

“I’m sorry this is how we had to meet again.”

“Shouldn’t I be saying that to you?”

“Since when did we start following the rules? Come on, I want to show you something.”

Kon’s room is just as Tim remembers it. Loud and brash, cheap posters and solid furniture. A bed with a Robin plushie between the pillows. Robin the First, because Kon was an asshole like that. Tim takes a deep breath to steady himself then regrets it. The room still smells like Kon.

Aunt Lois opens the closet and reaches in, retrieving a jacket from a hanger. Tim takes the leather jacket with reverent hands.

“I have a whole storage container of these,” Tim says with a fond smile. “He went through them so quickly. I was worried I’d have to recreate the brand. I wish I had to.”

Aunt Lois shakes her head. “Look closer.”

No spikes. That’s what he notices first. It isn’t the same brand he’d bought the entire stock of, the same brand Kon wore to every fight. This one is simpler, more grey than black, and half a size too small for Kon’s massive shoulders.

“He stole this from me the day we met,” Tim says. It feels like the world is tipping over. “I thought he’d lost it.”

This is what makes it real for him. This is the moment he knows Kon won’t come back with a laugh and a smile. That it’s over and it wasn’t forever for them.

Hers is a smile only a mother who has lost a child could give. Lois’ heart had gobbled Kon right up and never let go. She had taught him what it meant to be family until one day, Kon had proudly shoved Tim forward and said, ‘mum, meet my boyfriend,’ and froze the moment he realised what he’d said.

Just like that day, Lois pulls him close and hugs him tight.

“He always said he’d give it back to you one day.”

Tim gives up on hiding his emotions and cries because Kon might not want rain but he damn well sure deserved tears.

When he is done crying, Lois takes his hand and leads him outside. Her eyes are dry despite her grief. He hopes she cries when they’re gone and can be vulnerable for a moment.

Superman gives the speech and Tim wishes he could say all the words for love in his heart, but those prayers were for Kon and no one else. In the end, they go together, a community of heroes who do good things because that’s who they are, and they carry torches for the burning life Kon led.

The gravestone is Kryptonian crystal. And maybe it isn’t helpful for a secret identity, but who cares when it shines so bright and illuminates the world around it?

Kon was like the sun he drew power from. Long after he is gone, he will still brighten the world for those who visit.

He understands, finally, the purpose of the menorah lit during Hannukah. Standing in the holy radiance cast by his love, by his Adonis, by his Kon, Tim finally understands the nature of faith itself.

Tim just wishes this day could have come when they’d had decades together.

*

*

*

They don’t let him stay alone for the first few months after the funeral. He is far too loved—and far too feared—to be left abandoned like that even as his brain revolts against the idea of people caring for him in a healthy manner. The penthouse is cramped with him and Damian and Jon intruding on a space already shared by Cass and Steph and Alfred.

They make it work anyway. They will always make it work. They might bump over each other in the kitchen and there are arguments about who gets to choose what they watch, but those are all minor things. Damian and Jon share one of the spare bedrooms, Tim has his own, and there’s still a guest room left over. Alfred is very aggressively retired these days and watches the chaos with fond disinterest.

“You can’t expect me to clean up after every mess,” Alfred says as he makes soup, watching Cass and Damian try to strangle one another over something inane. Probably who had the most traumatic upbringing.

Tim would laugh if he had it in him. There’s grief and resentment warring in his soul, sapping his spirit as he sits Shiva for seven days, and then seven days more. The first seven for Superboy who was more than a man, who was Adonai in his eyes. The second he sits for Kon who was all too mortal, who loved Tim unconditionally.

On the first day, Jon sits beside him on the couch. The teen is shooting up in height, as tall as Tim now. Hopefully, he doesn’t get close to Damian’s impossible height or bulk. Tim’s accepted he’s going to remain the shortest in the family but he’d like to have a family visit without everyone towering over him.

“It’s seven days, right?” Jon asks carefully.

“Sometimes more, sometimes less,” Tim answers patiently. “Depends on circumstances. Sometimes feels like it never really ends.”

Jon nods earnestly. Everything about him is honest. “He always talked about your faith, how much you believed. He said it made him feel small but in a good way. Like when you look at the stars and realise you aren’t even a grain of sand. That no matter how small you felt, there was always a place for you. Made him smile to know his place was with you.”

“I’m barely Jewish,” he deflects, tired of these feelings that devour him whole. “I can’t really tell you about faith.”

“That doesn’t matter to me. He said he wanted a candle lit for him when he… when he died.” Jon looks away, facing the bay of windows overlooking Gotham at noon, a city that somehow functions despite the impossible odds it faces. “I never thought it would matter. He was just so much bigger than us. I don’t even know why it’s important. Just that it was what he wanted.”

“The soul of man is a candle of Hashem if that answers anything.”

“Not really.”

“I don’t have answers. I never did. I just did it the first time for my mother because that’s what I was supposed to do. And then I just kept on doing it, doing this. It doesn’t mean anything, not really. Just motions I go through.”

“No one could make you do things you don’t consider important. That’s what Kon said.”

“I think he overestimated me.”

Jon turns back to him with teary eyes, but anger in them as well. “He didn’t. Not for a moment.” He takes a watery breath. “Can I sit with you?”

Tim nods and he shows Jon how to light the yahrzeit candle that will burn for seven days more. Kon loved his brother something fierce and Tim does as well. The grief they share is different from everyone else. The two of them were the ones he was closest to anyway. Whatever kingdom Kon left behind, he gave the keys to Jon and Tim.

*

Days pass, the weeks coming and going as they learn to live with their losses. He can tell his grief reminds Cass of Bruce being gone and that makes it hard for them, Tim unable to hide his feelings and Cass is confronted with her own grief again. Alfred’s not mourning a grandson per se, but he is mourning the possible future of a grandson-in-law and everything that could have come from that. Steph is Steph, forcing them all out of the penthouse and forcing them to live with joy in their hearts no matter how hard that gets.

Tim comes home after a day of wandering the streets of Gotham, seeing how it has changed. The people mourn Superboy as well, a foreign god now dead. It reminds them of their own mortality just as all the superhero deaths have. But even then, they’re also reminded that Robin never dies, that Nightwing and Red Hood were their martyrs returned to life, and that the final Robin simply retired. It is tragic, but Gotham will continue. Gotham and her children will live.

He chucks his boots aside after he enters and spies Alfred napping in the sun, a book in his lap. Tim throws a blanket over the old man. He’s done more than enough for them, raised them as his own and asked for nothing in return. Better, infinitely, than anyone could deserve, and so kind that Tim could never feel guilty.

Tim scrounges through the kitchen for his energy drink stash and chugs one down as his pot of coffee brews. When it’s done brewing, he takes it with him to the lounge. He pauses, spying two boys sitting on the balcony, legs dangling from the railing. Jon’s in his school uniform, having chosen to commute back and forth between Gotham and Metropolis High. Sixteen is more than old enough for those decisions. Certainly, it’s old enough to be sneaking cancer sticks.

Jon’s picked up smoking for purely aesthetic purposes as far as Tim can tell, still bewildered at the decision. A way to toughen his boyish looks and soft features. His parents were kind enough to pretend they didn’t know about it. As though you could hide something from a Pulitzer Prize-winning superjournalist and her husband, the alien.

He spies Jon pressuring Damian into accepting a cancer stick—and if that’s not a declaration of love undying from Damian, Tim doesn’t know what is, because nobody can peer pressure Damian. Dami inhales and immediately starts hacking his lungs out to Jon’s boisterous laughter.

He turns to Kon, ready to make fun of them for being dumb kids.

Kon isn’t beside him.

“Oh.”

Somehow, that makes it painfully real.

*

Steph slides into his blankets silently later that night. Tim shifts, making space for her. They fit together seamlessly. Always have, even when they were at their most different. When Tim didn’t understand himself enough and Steph understood him too well.

“It just hit you today, didn’t it?”

“Why are you asking questions you already know the answer to?”

“Because letting you stay silent was one of the worst parts of what went wrong with us. I’m sorry he’s gone. I’m sorry it hurts. I’m so sorry.”

“I know. You never need to say that to me.”

“Maybe I just want to.”

“Well, that’s on you if you want to waste your time. You know, we never spoke about this thing we’ve got going on. Me and Kon, that is. Never really sat down. Never asked him if he was fine with it. Just forced him to accept Tim-and-Steph.”

“Pretty shitty thing to do,” she acknowledges, nibbling on the juncture between his neck and shoulder. Tim hisses and she does it again.

“I’m a shitty person.”

“You’re fucked up like the rest of us. I wouldn’t have said anything to Cass if she didn’t confront me day one.”

“Need to stop copying my behaviours.”

“Acting as if we’re not the same person. Did you ever check on that? If we are actually the same person.”

“Genetically? No.” He kisses her temple. “Spiritually? You could say that.”

“So what was this? Masturbation the whole time?”

That startles a laugh from Tim. “I think the term is selfcest.”

“I am not a narcissist.”

“Neither am I. And look, as weird as we are, I don’t think there’s nothing we won’t rationalise away to keep doing this.”

She kisses him, achingly deep. Tastes him for all his worth, her finger curled around his ribs forcefully. He’ll have bruises on him tomorrow. Good. Kon was never harsh with him, never so much as left a tiny bruise despite his strength. Treated Tim with reverence, even a hint of loving delicacy.

He loved it but anything like gentleness would drive him to tears now.

“I just realised someone has superhearing in this penthouse,” Steph says after she’s pulled away, torn between laughing and grimacing.

“If Jon wants to listen in, then it’s his fault for getting traumatised and not learning his lesson on ignoring things he can hear. Everyone in that household knows everyone’s preferences.”

“That must be nightmarish.”

“Our family is its own surveillance state. Can’t be worse than that.”

“True.”

And though he kisses Steph, he only thinks of Kon and what could have been.

*

*

*

The world cares little for the losses he’s suffered. Tim continues ever forward. Days become months and before Tim understands it, another year has passed. His work is listless, disinterested. He, Tim Drake, loses at a hostile takeover and even lets one of his side businesses get consumed. He’s sloppy with his communications and a revolution he’s funding collapses in a month. 

Tim is still a certified mess. He chooses to pull back from anything intense. He decides to stick to local concerns, running Drake Industries as his main job and occasionally contracting for Wayne Industries. The latter is the latest way people have taken to keeping watch of him. Tim accepts it gracefully, too tired to fight on it.

“Tim?” He stops in his tracks and looks around in a crowded Gotham street. “Tim Drake?”

“Um, yes?”

The guy is about the same age as Tim. A jean jacket over a pink shirt with white joggers. It’s an obnoxious image that Tim can’t help but stare at anyway, his brain doing its best to place this guy who interrupted him. Not a journalist and not some influencer, wrong aesthetic entirely for that. Maybe someone trying to get into city politics or a job with Drake Industries?

“It’s me, Bernard.”

Where does he know that name from? “Bernard from school?”

“Bernard from your social circle that you just ditched, sure,” he says with an easy smile and oh fuck, Tim suddenly remembers all his years pining after Bernard. Fuck, Ives was right. Tim’s a disaster. “At least you remember me a bit.”

“Sorry, it’s been a bit. And you lost all the acne.”

“Fuck off.”

“Sorry. I was trying to say you look good. God, that just makes me sound vain. You look like you’re doing well and—”

“It’s alright, you don’t need to continue trying to save that thought process. It’s been shot twice in the head by now. What happened to you? You kinda just stopped showing up to school and then went missing.”

“Long story short I was in a coma and after that, I guess things just happened.”

“Shit, sorry man. I didn’t mean to be an ass about it.”

Tim waves it away. “Honestly, thanks for remembering I existed.”

“I’m sorry about your father.”

“Jack’s been dead like eight years now.”

“I meant Mr Wayne.”

“Oh, you meant my dad, not my father. Yeah, that kind of sucked but it was two years ago. I’m over it.” He’s not. He just has Kon’s death looming over his head to distract from that pain. “As much as I’d love to chat, Riddler’s threatening the building I’m having a meeting and that’s like the best way to cut out all the fluff from a meeting.”

Bernard’s sudden laugh makes Tim’s heart clench painfully. Reminds him that he’s alive and allowed to be alive.

“That’s brilliant. Just don’t go hiring the bad guys next time.”

“No promises.” He works his throat, mind racing. “Um, I can tell you all about it over drinks or something.”

Bravery feels strange after so long being hidden from the world. Secluded in his castle. Protected by a legion of family. He’s been a coward in mourning and that leaves him guiltier than ever.

“I’d like that,” Bernard says with a grin.

Sometimes, the world rewards bravery.

*

The Riddler’s riddle is solved by Ariana long before any of the Bats get to the building.

Ariana technically doesn’t work for Tim. He just made and funded a law firm that would do the work she loved the most, fighting for the rights of those silenced by society and by unjust laws.

“I got a date,” he says around a Double Everything Bagel which, in Gotham, includes some weed and a sprinkling of coke. A nice pick-me-up when caffeine isn’t doing the job.

“Bullshit.”

“I’m being serious. You remember Bernard from school? I bumped into him and asked him out.”

“You, Tim Drake, asked someone out?”

“Yes?”

“I’m struggling to believe this.”

“Look, you can just say whatever you want to say.”

“I don’t think you’re over Connor.”

“I’m not,” he agrees easily.

“But you’re still going on this date?”

“Because I won’t be over Connor when I’m sixty but that doesn’t mean he’d want me to stop living. Besides, it’s just drinks.”

“If you’re sure.”

“I am.”

Kon would never be so petty as to ask Tim to stagnate and live a hollow life. His love was too great for that, too kind and selfless. A benevolent Adonai clad in mortal flesh that chose Tim out of everyone else in existence.

It is an impossible burden to carry that love but he needs to keep moving forward, needs to carry Kon’s light into another dawn.

*

The series of events leading to his next encounter with Killer Croc is less comical than they are annoying.

“What do you even want from me?” he asks, held upside down by the ankle. The hold, while bruising, hasn’t liquified his leg which Killer Croc is more than able to do.

Tim listens to Waylon Jones patiently. They’re cool that way. Killer Croc’s been threatening to kill him for years now and Tim just vibes with it. You don’t get more Gotham honesty than you get from Waylon Jones. And, well, Tim’s done his job to give Waylon as much peace as possible and he honestly has a smaller body count than Jason. He gets a pass as far as Tim is concerned.

“This plan is stupid and it was stupid the last two times you did it. Even if you get the ransom money, which you won’t, how exactly are you going to spend it?”

“They’ll have no choice but to give me my money.”

“You don’t even—know what, I don’t give a fuck. Take my credit card. The PIN is 7854. It’s got a 200-grand limit. I don’t know which ATM has that kind of money on hand but that’s a you problem. Now can I go for my date?”

Killer Croc drops him. Tim flips over, landing elegantly. He barely comes up to Waylon’s waist. Would barely survive a glancing blow from him. But if Batman can marry Catwoman, Nightwing can be BFFs with Harley Quinn, Jason be a professional decapitator, then Tim can have a cordial relationship with Killer Croc.

“I liked you more in the chicken suit. And your shirt’s inside out.”

“Fuck. Thanks, I guess.”

“Tell Isley that her plants are giving me allergies and I will eat her if she doesn’t get rid of them.”

“Um, yeah, sure. Bye now.”

Tim bolts. He was just taking a back-alley shortcut when he got dragged into the murky depths of Gotham’s sewer system. As much as he loves Gotham, these things are inconvenient. He’s panting, out of breath by the time he gets to the restaurant he promised to meet Bernard.

“Sorry, I got held up by Killer Croc.”

Bernard wrinkles his nose. “I can smell.”

“Fuck.”

“How’s about I grab food and drinks from here and meet up at your place after you’ve taken a shower and burnt those clothes?”

“Do I have to burn them? These sneakers are limited edition.”

“I’m sure they were nice sneakers before Gotham happened to them.”

“I hate Gotham.”

Bernard laughs and shoos him off.

All told, it is a lovely dinner. They talk well past midnight and Tim, saint that he is, pays for Bernard’s Uber.

*

*

*

“The fuck you want,” he hisses a few hours later. Dawn hasn’t broken and Tim’s running on thirty minutes of sleep and too little caffeine, so he’s a bit cranky.

“Hiya, Tim.”

Jon’s grown into someone resembling his mother. No offence to Uncle Clark but two of them would be far too much. He’s also infinitely cheery, unlike his father who is just a dork.

“It’s five. I just got to sleep. What the fuck do you—oh my, is that a triple espresso macchiato?” Tim takes it and starts chugging. Just as he’s setting the Styrofoam cup down on the ledge, Jon is putting an energy drink in his hand. “Okay, fine, all is forgiven.”

“Yay. So, you see that building? The one that looks vaguely phallic-shaped? We’re about to do some illegal things to it.”

Tim blinks, calculating the brat’s age, then realising he doesn’t care in the first place. “As much as I’m intrigued by watching Godzilla fuck itself on a phallic-shaped building, I also don’t want to get involved in that. It might awaken something in me.”

Jon snorts, covering his mouth with a delicate hand to hide his laughter. “I get why Dami calls you an idiot all the time.”

“I think he reserves fool for me. So what’s the job? Standard infiltration gig? I just need to disable the security systems and start a distraction? Anything else?”

“I’m fast enough to get in and out. I just need you to break the encryptions and analyse the data for me. Much as I love Damian, the boy can barely use a computer.”

“You know there are other superheroes who can help. I’m sure Cyborg would happily help. Hell, Oracle would do a better job than me.”

“Yeah, but they have morals and will ask me questions.”

“Okay, but none of this should have them asking questions.”

“I may or may not need you to set off the self-destruct sequence.”

“I feel I should discourage this, but I am a bit too entertained to do so. Is this your anti-hero arc?”

“Christ no. I just can’t legally get this data. My other option was to steal someone off the streets and interrogate them.”

“Ah, you want to commit a victimless crime so you can do some actual crime fighting.”

“Yup. And everyone’s going to be like ‘oh no, this is how you start thinking the ends justify the means’ and all that nonsense. I’m just destroying the facility before they start whatever ridiculous monster-of-the-week scheme they have going on. Like you said, we need to stop making our own villains.”

“I feel like you’ve spent a bit too much time around the wrong parts of my family. Whatever. Evil Jon sounds fun.”

He gives Jon a flash drive and tells him where to find the mainframe. It takes all of seven seconds before Jon is back, Tim’s got direct access to their servers, and he’s reading through their documentation.

It is cartoonishly nightmarish. Deniable black ops teams funded by the government. Grotesque experimentation that kills people in agonising ways. The reason so many kids in cages never saw their parents again.

“I support Evil Jon, now and forever. Please, rid this world of true evil. I can even get you an intimidating black costume with red Tron lines.”

“Not even as a joke.”

“Fine. But no one would be upset with this.”

“No, they’ll be upset that a Super isn’t fighting generic monsters who’ve already done the evil or rescuing people from burning buildings. As if I’m somehow scarier than the Flash fucking around with the timeline every other weekend just because I want to prevent making our own villains. And yes, I know exactly how slippery that slope is, but everyone forgives you, and I’m nowhere near as bad as you.”

“I should not be your measuring stick for how morally questionable something is. Please use your mother instead. Ask if she’d be fine with it. She’s an investigative journalist who has been embedded in warzones. I’m sure she’s got a great moral compass with enough ruthless pragmatism for you to work with. This makes me want to… did you invite me here knowing I’d do morally questionable things to the people involved?”

“Maybe?”

“You little shit. Fuck off, I’m out of the hero business. This ain’t my problem.”

“You’re out of the hero business because technically everyone has you on their villain of the year lists. The entirety of the British Museum. Leaking like all the CIA’s classified documents. How many wars did you start this year alone? Scratch that, how many evil and ancient conspiracies are you the head of?”

“When you say it like that, I sound like I’m not a great person. But if I wasn’t, then someone would stop me.”

“Someone? Which someone? You have contingencies for everyone and the one family that could actively stop you is your family.”

“You could.”

“I can literally see your lead-lined shoes. I know you’ve got enough Kryptonite gas to kill me.”

“That’s not specifically for you. I’ve got other gases as well.”

Jon shakes his head. “Your family is crazy. You’re crazy. I’m crazy for being friends with a terrorist.”

“I’m a revolutionary, not a terrorist. I fund the guys trying to overthrow CIA-backed dictators and help them rebuild in the aftermath. I’m the good guy here.”

“What exactly did you do to the IMF?”

“It is in no way, shape, or form my fault that all the directors had bounties put on their heads in Switzerland during the same week Deadshot, Lady Shiva, Talia al Ghul, and all the other assassins were having their yearly award ceremony.”

“Right. Sure. I believe you.”

Jon reaches into his jacket pocket and takes out a cancer stick, lighting it with a quick burst of heat vision, taking a long drag. There is something intentional about his motions, a ritual more than an addiction. He lets the cigarette dangle loosely from his fingers, leaning against the wall like the platonic ideal of 1920s New York.

“Those will kill you, you know.”

“My brother in Christ, if this is what offs me then I’m doing alright. Besides, Dami thinks they’re cool.”

I bet he does. “Damian is an idiot who thinks everything you do is cool.”

“Is it that obvious?”

“That you look at him like he hung the moons and stars just for you? Yes. Does he look at you like you’re the sun made flesh? Who knows. You’d have to talk to him about that. Preferably in three years. I don’t want to have to arrest my little brother for, you know, you being a minor.”

Jon laughs humourlessly. “I don’t think that will ever be a problem. He’s about as interested in human sexuality as he is in Teen Wolf. Which is to say he doesn’t understand the concept. It has to be a curse on us Kents. Fully expect my baby brother on the way to fall in love with whoever Grayson finally has kids with who also won’t like sex. It’s destined, I tell you.”

“It could be a baby girl.”

“Not the point. Also, I’m seventeen, not twelve. I can date whoever I want.”

“Sure. Go tell Damian that, why don’t you. Enjoy him trying to stab you with a kryptonite blade and having no idea why he’s incensed.”

“He wouldn’t hurt me much. Want one?” he asks, gesturing with the cigarette.

“Nah. I have enough bad habits.”

“Alright. By the way, these don’t really do anything bad for me. Grandpa says Krypton had a lot of particulates in the air and our lungs are really good filters.”

“Kryptonians are bullshit.”

Jon laughs brightly. “We are, aren’t we. Yellow sun and boom, we’re even more of the best. Did you know we were evil conquerors back in the day and what me and dad do would get us exiled?”

“I like peaceful Superpeople so I fully support you being nothing like old-school Kryptonians. Let’s call 'em conservative Kryptonians.”

“No need to get political. Some people might think you aren’t a radical.”

“Well, they haven’t been paying enough attention and I need to start another revolution.”

“Lalalala I can’t hear you and that means you aren’t my problem.”

“Don’t be childish.”

“I’m happy for you.”

“Hm?” he grunts, confused at the abrupt change in topic.

“You’re dating again. I didn’t think you’d ever move on. Got worried you’d be stuck in a rut forever.”

“Were you seriously listening in on me?”

“I’ve been spending too much time under the Wayne surveillance state. Your habits brush off on me. Sorry about the sneakers. I bet they were nice.”

“It doesn’t bother you? Me going on a date.”

“Kon loved you too much to want to see you sad and lonely, even if it was with another person. I guess I’m sad I won’t be his best man at your wedding. It’s stupid, I know, but—”

“Missing your brother isn’t stupid. Missing anyone you’ve lost isn’t stupid. I still sometimes find myself typing a message for Cassie and Bart before I remember. Walk into the Cave to ask B a question and I get confused that he isn’t around. I turn around expecting Kon to be there and he’s not. It’s just like that.”

“Yeah, I guess it is. You know, Dad sometimes looks at Damian and calls him Bruce. The look in his eye when he realises.”

“They were good friends. Does Damian handle it well?”

“He doesn’t bring out the kryptonite so yes.”

Tim huffs. “Yeah, that sounds about right.”

Jon flicks the stub of his cigarette and incinerates it with heat vision. “Is the thing with you serious? That’s all I want to know.”

“No idea. It was just one date.”

“Do you think it could be?”

“Maybe if I work at it. I think that maybe I want to put in that work.”

“Then go tell him. No one’s around forever.”

Jon lights another cigarette as dawn breaks. They sit together for a while yet.

*

*

*

Bernard is delighted when Tim calls him the next day for another date. Much to his delight, Bernard enjoys obscure and strange memes as much as Tim. He manages to fax—when did I get a fax machine?—the absolute worst version of loss memes. Tim collapses to the ground in laughter and had thus begun their strange war, memes sent over the fax machine.

They make it work in small increments, learning about one another. Tim is polite and doesn’t monitor Bernard or trawl his life history. If there was something strange about Bernard, his siblings would have found it and dealt with him. Far as Tim can tell, Bernard is just a directionless twenty-something working odd jobs to fund his fashion addiction and who is deeply invested in his web of conspiracies. The conspiracy blog is where he makes most of his income.

“Robin the Third is definitely some kind of villain. Just think about it. The second one became Red Hood and the first is 100% planning on being the Mayor of Bludhaven, and, like we should rename that city to Corruptionhaven. And that’s tame compared to some of the shit the third one did. Remember his beef with Luthor? Or how wherever he went, something blew up.”

“The absolute worst of villains,” Tim agrees indulgently. Bernard is hilarious when he’s gesticulating wildly, hair mussed and slightly flushed. “What happened to liking Robin?”

“I can like someone and acknowledge they’re a villain. The system won’t allow them to be called a hero. Remember all the newspapers calling Robin III an agent of chaos after the whole Court of Owls nonsense. It's cause he’ll dismantle everything.”

“Aren’t I one of the evil elites?”

Bernard waves that away. “You know how much research I put into you just to make sure you weren’t a complete creep trying to kidnap a poor teen? It’s a lot. What’s up with funding programs through the mosque on 5th and Cunningham? You’re about as irreverent as anyone I’ve met.”

“I’d forgotten all about that. You know, I’m not sure why. I think maybe Jason liked the place… shit, I had the weirdest crush on him as a kid. Oh ew, that was a weird period in my life.”

“Yeah? Is this Tim Drake lore time?”

“Oh, you don’t deserve lore. Your theories are far more entertaining. Come on, tell me something about my parents. Nothing you say can possibly offend me.”

“You sure?” Tim nods. “Um, you realise they were, you know, kinda not the nicest of people. I mean, it took me a while to track down your old nanny. She did not have fun stories to tell. Same with some of your old groundskeepers. And I’m eighty-three percent certain they were affiliated with the Court in some way.”

Tim keeps his indulgent smile but beneath it, he’s rather surprised that Bernard went to all that trouble. “You can add seventeen percent to that. And they weren’t all bad. There were two great years when we did the happy family shtick. I’ve tried pretty hard to be nothing like them.”

“That’s good. There’s still the whole matter of how unethical being a billionaire is, but hey, I’m getting free lunches, so it’d be hypocritical to complain.”

“Just because you benefit from a system does not mean you aren’t allowed to criticize said system. People thought divine rule was impossible to move past and yet we did. Sometimes, you just gotta burn it all to the ground.”

“I really don’t know how you became a radical anarchist given your circumstances, but I am all for it.”

Tim laughs. It is just one of many dates, many coffee meetings, and discord calls as they play Titanfall 3 well into the early hours of the morning. Parts of it feel like a normal childhood he missed and other parts are this awkward new territory of connecting to someone who isn’t a cape, who has no experience with the violence and insanity of their life. Well, everyone in Gotham has that experience to some degree, but not everyone dons a mask and fights.

“You were part of the We Are Robin movement,” Tim says between laughs, shaded by the tree behind him. They’ve been going strong for four months now.

Bernard bangs his head against the tree trunk, legs spread wide on the picnic blanket. It’s an uncharacteristically warm day this deep in winter but Tim took the opportunity and he’s glad for it.

“Shut up, I was going through a phase. And I look pretty hot in a Robin getup. You wouldn’t believe it.”

“I’m not going to objectify you. Not my thing.”

“Yeah, I can tell,” Bernard says, a hint of annoyance to his words.

“Hmmm, that sounds serious. How’d I piss you off now?”

“It’s nothing.”

“Yeah, that’s not flying. I’ve spent too long avoiding relationship problems and they always blew up in my face. Do you not want to be in a relationship?”

Bernard winces. It isn’t a good look on him. Discomfort, that is. Some people mastered aesthetic suffering. Not Bernard.

“It’s not that. Just that I don’t know where this is going. I get that you want to take this slow, but you get uncomfortable with physical contact in weird ways.”

“Oh. That. Yeah, we should talk about that. Now. Before I run away from my problems. This is going to be the awkward part of things where I lay out the things that I can’t or won’t compromise on.”

“Like caffeine?”

“I can compromise on the frequency, sure but I’ll compensate with volume.”

“And sleeping on any random surfaces?”

“I barely do that anymore. Maybe like once a month. I really like you so can we take this a bit seriously? I am trying to communicate like a functioning adult.”

“Sorry. Please, go on.”

“Sex is probably not going to happen the way you think. I am not putting sticking it anywhere and nothing is getting stuck in me. Unless I start drinking again in which case there are more concerning things to worry about.”

“I’ve seen this scene in a movie before. Okay, that’s not in any way a deal-breaker for me. You don’t have any issue with kissing? Because you seem not to enjoy it.”

“Not specifically. I just need to have a bit more control and… huh, I guess I was reflexively not doing it to avoid the implication of doing anything further. Not the most fucked up thing I’ve done, I guess.”

“That’s not reassuring at all. Cuddling?”

“Preferred.”

“I sleep nude. If we ever make this permanent, will that be a problem?”

“Go right ahead. Steph does that.”

Bernard recoils, toppling the lunch basket and sending a perfectly good sandwich to the ground. “I’m sorry, what? Who? Steph? Your best friend Steph? You’re sleeping with her.”

Tim winces, picking up the discarded sandwich and taking a bite. “Yeah, that was the other thing. Me-and-Steph have this thing that’s been going on since we were... I don’t know, fourteen? Thirteen? Long story short, we’re a package deal. Not in the sense that you have to do anything with her or even like her, just that we’re not strictly platonic life partners.”

“And why don’t you date her?” he asks flatly, his jaw clenched.

“Tried that. We’re not compatible in that kind of relationship.”

“Sounds like you have things figured out right now.”

“Look, she’s married with cats to my sister—and fuck, I worded that terribly. Look, she’s in a very loving and committed relationship with her girlfriend who is my sister—don’t think too much about it—and I am going to be the best man when she finally gets married. Or the maid of honour? I don’t want to wear a dress but that’s not”—Bernard inhales sharply, startling Tim with the intensity of his sudden blush—“Um… I am willing to consider negotiating on that if we can get past the rest of this.”

“Okay, explain in simple words the thing with you and Steph. Two sentences or less.”

“She’s my life partner that I sometimes sleep with in a non-sexual but intimate manner. Well, I guess it depends on your definition of sexual congress but yeah, that’s all. No biggie.”

“Excuse you, this is a massive thing.”

“Yeah, but it’s part of my whole baggage. If that’s the deal breaker, then cool, but like you need to know now. I didn’t tell my last boyfriend and I’m pretty sure he was only cool with it because he was deeply, maddeningly in love with me in the unhealthiest way unconditional love can be. Unhealthy because I was involved and back then I was really messed up. A lot worse than now.”

“I need to think about this. Like, a lot. Holy shit, I cannot process this entire conversation right now.”

“Fair enough.”

“And talk to Steph and her girlfriend—who is also your sister? Wait, I’m sorry, that’s the weirdest part. What is this House of Dragons shit? I know GRRM made incest sexy but it’s still weird.”

“Sister as in we were adopted when we were both teenagers, we did not know each other in our formative years, and the adoption was less about the rest of the family and more about our daddy’s issues.”

“Don’t you mean daddy issues?”

“Oh no, Bruce was the one with issues.”

Bernard takes a long breath to steady himself. “I need to go. Fuck, I need to go.”

“Sorry for ruining the picnic.”

“Just stop talking.”

Tim does.

*

*

*

The bar is loud, designed for privacy and perfectly accepting of illegal activity. Tim counts three drug deals taking place on the floor, an arms deal occurring in the booth, and only Hashem knows how many civil servants are taking bribes. It’s infinitely better than the Gotham Tim remembers when he first became Robin. For one, no one is getting roofied. For two, no one has been shot here in a month. For three, Jason’s decapitated enough people that they’ve learnt to not involve underage people anymore.

Ives takes one look at his distress and bursts out laughing.

“Scare the new beau off with all your weirdness?”

“Not that weird these days and fuck you for figuring it out.”

“That’s technically true on a relative scale, but on an objective level, you’re probably in the ninety-ninth percentile of weird. Start any wars recently?”

“Just a minor conflict over a magical artefact.”

Ariana snorts. “Minor, he says. Magical artefact that could probably destroy a country, he says.”

“Did not. The last bit. The country destroying bit. It could only break an island at most. Apparently, it makes the perfect cup of coffee. I was thoroughly underwhelmed. So was Alfred.”

“I should be shocked. I am very worried that I’m not. Moving on from your side projects, how’d you scare off Bernard. You two were adorable together.”

“Well, I told him about the Tim-and-Steph thing.”

“The you and who thing?”

“Me and Steph? My best friend? Former girlfriend? None of this rings a bell? Have I seriously never told you about her?”

“Imagine Tim Drake-Wayne telling people about things.”

Tim takes a shot and begins the story of Tim-and-Steph from their first steps as vigilantes and the romantic relationship that lasted two years, the Cass dating Steph-who-was-always-with-Tim, Cassie rebounding off Tim-and-Steph being on break, and Kon’s silent acceptance of Tim-who-will-always-be-with-Steph.

By the time he’s done, Ives and Ariana have gone through half a bottle of vodka and have shared perhaps a dozen ‘what the fuck is wrong with Tim Drake™’ looks.

“The incest thing makes this sordid tale of miscommunication, silence, definitely a bit of cheating, and terrible polyamory etiquette into something surreal.”

“There was no cheating on my part.”

“He says, having described emotional cheating at the very least. Are we starting from the top or bottom?”

“I don’t get paid enough to be his therapist,” Ives complains, taking another swig of his beer straight from the pitcher. Tim has no idea where it came from in the first place. “Let’s start with Cass, your sister. Have you two ever had a conversation over the fact that you’re in a relationship? With your sister.”

“We’re not in a relationship.”

“Oh my fucking god, Tim, I am not dealing with this. No willful obliviousness. Go talk to Cass, your sister, and hash things out. Then go talk to Steph and hash things out. And then maybe look in a mirror and hash things out with yourself. This is just not fair. How are you getting this much pussy and dick when you don’t even like either? Fuck the injustice of this world.”

“You’re straight. You don’t want dick.”

“I’m not snagging any amount of dick anyway, you piece of shit. God. What do I have to do to get a girlfriend in this city who isn’t a supervillain, a supervillain groupie, into really weird fetishes, or that weird astrology sign shit? I’m going to die single and alone while Tim fucking Drake, the most awkward human in the world, snags people that supermodels would be envious of. Fuck! Just fuck me sideways.”

“It can’t be that bad?”

“That was the last four people I went out with. You want to know what they were like? Decently attractive librarian that is still sending me letters from prison after the whole turning people into books thing. Very sexy barista with no thoughts in her head but how much she wants to blow King Shark. This sweet, tiny thing who immediately tried pulling out whips, chains, and things I am still too scared to research.”

“The astrology chick? How bad was she?”

“I could have lived with that. But she was lesbian as shit and kissed me because it ‘cancelled out’ whatever the fuck that meant. And look, I’m monogamous. None of this side chick business.”

“Mildly misogynistic as well,” Ari adds playfully.

“I grew up in a middle-class conservative household. Excuse me for only being mildly offensive these days.”

“Forgiven but only this time.”

“Like it isn’t every time. Besides, I’m an ally and all that jazz. More of an ally than Tim ever was. Remember when he was bitching about Hollywood’s agenda to make everything gay. Internalised homophobia much.”

“Fuck you.”

“Not even if you paid me.”

“Have you ever tried dating Ari?”

“Ari can speak for herself and is not an object of desire. Besides, Ives is like a brother to me and unlike you, I don’t do incest.”

“It’s not incest,” he says tiredly, feeling like he’s had this conversation with someone before. Maybe that someone is himself.

“If you have to say that, it probably is.”

He raises a glass. “A toast to my fucked-up life.”

“Cheers!”

*

*

*

Tim waits patiently for Bernard to contact him again. Days bleed together as he resists the urge to spy on him, but he’d promised to give Bernard time and he trusts him enough to call Tim if it’s over.

“You talked?” he asks, setting down his tablet.

Steph nods against his shoulder. She’d dropped in from a patrol and stripped out of her Spoiler outfit quickly, rummaging through his fridge for food. His condo is as good a safehouse as any but only Steph drops by unannounced.

“Yup.”

“How was—did he say this was fine? Is he breaking up with me? Is this too weird for him?”

“Spoiler.”

“That joke was old a decade ago.” Tim frowns, trying to read her. “How are you doing that?”

“Doing what?” she teases. “Hiding my thoughts and feelings from you? I wonder who I could be living with that taught me how to do that? Are the mixed signals sending your brain into overdrive?”

“Yes. This is unfair. We’re not supposed to lie to each other. I didn’t even think we could hide things from one another.”

“You hid France from me.”

“Okay, fuck you too.”

“How’s therapy treating you?”

“Good, I guess. We’ve dropped down to once a month so I can’t wait to explain this shit to my therapist. Which part do you think will have her running to the hills?”

“The part where Tim Drake pulls a Tim Drake Special™.”

He jostles her with his shoulder. “Hey, I haven’t done one of those in years. No running straight into horrifying situations to avoid dealing with my problems for me anymore. I’m a reformed man who understands healthy communication and boundaries and shit.”

“Even you don’t believe that.”

“Yeah, but I like saying it.”

*

*

*

Bernard appears in his life again with two knocks on the door to his condo. He’s drenched from the rain, a small puddle forming in the hallway. The way his hair is plastered to his face makes Tim’s heart skip a beat.

“Hey.”

“Hey,” Tim says back for want of anything smart to say. Then his brain starts working again. “Come in. Shit, let’s get you out of that. Take a shower and grab whatever you want from my closet. Besides my sexuality,” he adds, managing to get a snort from Bernard. “I need it to stay there for a while. Um, what variation of coffee do you want?”

“Something with chocolate in it.”

“I’ll get that.”

“And we’re talking first.”

“No. These floors are expensive. Skip the shower if you want, but no making a mess of my expensive floors.”

“Fine,” he agrees with a humourless laugh.

Bernard doesn’t skip the shower, smart boy that he is. Steals one of Tim’s many sweaters—Steph’s sweater in this case which does very strange things to the more uncivilised part of Time’s brain— with a plunging neckline and a pair of joggers that exposes his ankles. The fluffy slippers make him snort.

“Why exactly do you have slippers in my exact size and why is there a section in your gigantic closet with clothes that match my fashion taste and would fit me perfectly?”

“Boundless optimism,” he offers.

Bernard yawns then, stretching his arms. It hikes the sweater up, revealing the flat planes of his stomach, and a hint of his hips. He’s doing it on purpose, Tim can tell. Tim is also enjoying it too much to care.

“Ground rule. It’s just Steph. That’s as much sharing as I’m willing to accept.”

“I don’t think there could ever be anyone else.”

“Good. Because this is weird and uncharted territory that will probably blow up in my face. I should run far away from this. That’s the smart play.”

“So why don’t you?”

Bernard looks at him like he’s an idiot. Takes a sip from his macchiato. Says, “Because I’m head over heels in love with you, dummy.”

“Oh.”

“I’m thinking entirely with my dick and that’s rarely a smart idea.”

“I’ll try not to disappoint you.”

Tim reaches out and takes Bernard’s hand in his. They don’t fit perfectly. No one’s fit him perfectly, not for a long time. But that’s alright. He’s got cracks and breaks and imperfections. He’s learnt to fit himself into the spaces people have left for him and spent more time learning to make space for others. It won’t ever be perfect, but perfection is an overrated concept.

“Can I kiss you now or are you still navel-gazing?”

Tim huffs and leans forward. It isn’t the greatest kiss in the world nor is it the worst. They’re both tentative with the new developments but Tim feels it will work out.

*

*

*

It takes Tim two months to convince Bernard to move out of Bludhaven. Tim suffers Nightwing’s pouty act because apparently Tim was meant to move there instead. As if it’s any of Dick’s business where he lives.

“No one likes Bludhaven,” he complains childishly over the phone. Such an incongruous thing from the impossible Golden Child made of starstuff. “It’s only ever me and Babs. You lived in Metropolis, but rinky-dink Bludhaven isn’t good enough for you.”

“Fuck off, Dick. Get over it. You have your own friends. Get Garfield an apartment there if you’re so lonely. Shit, I’m sure he and Raven would appreciate it.”

“No one films any projects in Bludhaven.”

“I will fund a project if it gets you to shut up and stop complaining about this. Why do you have to pretend to be poor? It’s a bad look on you.”

“Because who would I be otherwise? Let me stick to my roots.”

“Sure. Whatever. Now please let me go to sleep. I’m trying to maintain a sleep schedule.”

“Oh, sorry. Drop by next weekend and visit.”

“No promises. Bye.”

“Bye.”

He follows through on both. Arranges Garfield’s next acting job and visits Richard. Bernard is utterly confused by the chain of events but shrugs it off with enviable disinterest. Tim loves it.

Bernard is joy and hope and brilliance in a future he didn’t know he was allowed to have. A normal man who saw Tim and demanded he be happy just by existing.

Waking up next to Bernard is edifying. Sometimes, he takes a moment and just observes him. The normalcy of his existence. The knowledge that he won’t be betrayed. That Bernard came back even after learning just how fucked up Tim can be.

“I used to be Robin back in the day,” he murmurs in the soft morning light.

 “Yeah, I know.”

“How?”

“I just matched up your attendance records with Robin sightings and injuries. It wasn’t perfect, but the pattern was too strong to ignore.”

“You can never tell my brothers. They’ll never let me hear the end of it.”

“At least you’re finally telling me.

Bernard presses a kiss to Tim’s shoulder and falls back to sleep.

Bernard is utterly unlike Kon, entirely dissimilar to Steph or Cassie. The way Tim loves him—and it is love, he doesn’t fuck people he doesn’t love—is remarkable in its simplicity.

Steph was easy, less two people dating and more an act of self-love because not even Superman could tell where Tim begins and she ends, but it was that ease that hurt them most. Teenagers believe otherwise, but they hardly know themselves. They do not know every line of the shape that makes them. They do not know what pressures they can survive, and they do not know where they will break. More importantly, they do not know their own strength. Loving Steph was an act of self-love without enlightenment, and it hurt them both for a long time.

Cassie was a mistake that came and went like the flood, sweeping away parts of himself he didn’t know existed. Eroding hard-won confidence and sinking the bastions of his strength. It had left him adrift, seeking purchase for days that became years filled with grief. They’d never had a moment to really work past that mistake of a relationship and he wishes, desperately, that she could be here to be frustrated with him.

Tim loves Kon—loves, not loved, because it could never end—in the biblical sense as one loves their lord, as one loves Adonai. He loves Kon as much as he needs air to live and gravity to survive. Loving Kon was a revelation. It was transcendent. It was perfect. Loving Kon taught him that nothing perfect lasts forever. That even forever must end.

Loving Bernard is a messy thing, full of strange brambles and surprising pits of quicksand. They argue over cleaning schedules and what to eat for dinner. They scream at one another when Bernard picks up another job without telling Tim or when Tim vanishes for days on end in his most manic phases. They call each other out on bullshit and sometimes they make each other cry.

To love Bernard is to love a person and be loved as a person.

Tim never knew this could be possible.

*

Unfortunately, Tim has a terrible sense of timing.

“I do not want to talk about your old boyfriend right now. Do not kill my erection right now.”

Tim rolls his eyes. He was largely disinterested in the more physical part of the evening anyway. “You’re not a replacement for Kon.”

Bernard looks down at his crotch. “Fuck. Okay, that’s killed the mood. I’ve never had my boner shrivel up so quick. Could this not have waited a few minutes? I’m not asking for much here.”

“No. This is important. Like, listen, Kryptonians are forever. That’s the thing. Once they choose you, they never choose anyone else. I thought that was it and I wasn’t upset, not at all—”

“Not that I asked but continue.”

“But I was barely sixteen. I didn’t know anything about myself. I barely even accepted I liked boys as well back then. Didn’t understand how I liked people. Couldn’t figure out why I fell in love with certain people and not the rest. He was everything I wanted at sixteen and if he was still around, you and I wouldn’t be dating.”

“Jesus H Christ, destroy a man’s self-esteem won’t you.”

“He still died,” Tim says implacably, willing Bernard to understand. “He could have crushed mountains with one hand and flown through the sun, but he still died. We didn’t get that magical happily ever after and I haven’t stopped missing him. I probably can’t stop missing him.”

“I won’t pretend to understand—”

“I’m not asking you to understand my confusing mess of emotions when I fucking don’t. I just need you to understand that I didn’t settle for you. You’re not his replacement or someone convenient. You were there when we could have been together, and you were you. Life led us to this point, and I wouldn’t change it for anything. I was never happy in life and I’m still not happy a lot of the time, but I want to figure it out with you. I never figured it out with Kon because I was too fucked up to think I was allowed to be happy. And you just”—Tim shakes his head, giddy with feelings he can’t fully name—“you just changed me because you didn’t accept my bullshit excuses to keep on being worse than I was. You drive me insane

He looks Bernard in the eye. It is electrifying and painful, a needle jabbing through his head to meet those jade eyes. But he does it anyway because other people need him to make eye contact sometimes. Building a bridge to them, a connection, and letting the truth flow through.

“I love you, Bernard Dowd. And like, I know that was a super heavy trauma dump in the middle of this which I’m not sorry about but—”

He shuts up when Bernard kisses him. It is a quick kiss, one that Tim wishes could last longer.

“I can’t believe you’re so dumb.”

“Me too.”

“I love you.”

“Good. Because I’d be crying if you didn’t.”

“You’re supposed to say it back.”

 “I gave you a long-ass declaration of how and why I loved you. You’re the one slacking here.”

Chapter Text

One morning, Tim finds himself driving to the west coast. He takes the drive slowly, enjoying the solitude. Only his phone accompanies him and he glances at it occasionally. Solitude, today, he feels he needs.

Tim is twenty-five. A quarter of a century. Such an unfathomably long time that seems to have vanished before his eyes. No part of him was ready to be this old. Not his shite immune system or his creaky joints. No part of him was prepared to make it. Whether by his own hand or by an enemy, Tim did not expect to be this old. Other, more deserving people should have made it.

He passes through Niagara Falls wishing he could have taken photos of his parents here. Wishes they could have visited Chicago and walked the streets together. Lake Okoboji glitters in the setting sun, mosquitoes eating at his flesh till he’s forced to flee inside. Bruce would have laughed at him and they could have watched the sunset together, beers in hand. Mount Rushmore is a monument that unfortunately exists, one that Kon would have had to convince him not to destroy. Yellowstone is as beautiful as all the pictures imply but by then, he’s tired of wallowing. Time’s run out for that anyway.

The Golden Gate Bridge greets him first, the familiarity of it sending a wave of grief through him. Tim parks his car and walks two miles to his destination, taking note of all the changes that have occurred since he fled his home away from home. 

He lights two candles and sets them at the foot of a monument.

They were buried together. They feel where they stood and they fell together. Half of Young, Just Us. With them went justice. It has been a decade since they died and it feels like yesterday they were together.

“Hey, Bart. Heya, Cassie. How are you guys doing upstairs? I know you’re there. You have to be. The world is indifferent but it isn’t monstrous. At least, I hope it isn’t. Fucked up that I can’t tell. Fucked up that I’m not sure who I am anymore. I haven’t been sure of that even before I stopped being Robin. Who was the Tim Drake that you knew? Do you think he’d be proud of me if he could see me now? Do you think he’d look at all I’ve done and try to become me?”

Not even the wind answers him. It is an unfairly pleasant day, unheeding his demands for rain or thunder. The world continues, always, despite his impotent rage.

“It’s been ten years since you guys were gone. It took me a whole decade to man up enough to visit. Sorry for the wait but you always knew I was a bit slow. You especially Bart. Excuse time: it was so much easier not to visit. It wasn’t as real if I didn’t come. I could pretend you might still be there if I turned around quick enough. You know I tried, right!? I fucking tried. Did everything. Tried everything. Called every demon and angel and god I could get my hands on. A dozen different kinds of time travel. And it didn’t fucking work. Not the one. I saw Death, you know. Waiting for me after I unmade the universe trying. Just gave me a sad smile and told me it was over. The dead stay dead. Funny thing is it’s all Bruce’s fault. He died to fix this universe. Make sure it works just right. What a piece of shit.”

Tim kicks the monument in a fit of anger. It only leaves his foot in agony.

“Fuck. Shit. God fucking damn it. Why’d it have to be you? You guys did good. The world needed you. The world deserved you. I love you and I will never stop loving you. I miss you terribly and I wish every day it had been me instead. I’ll go on living. I don’t know who I’ll be by the end, and I don’t know if I’d make you happy, but I’ll try.”

He wishes they could have grown up and figured themselves out together. Maybe Bart would have become Flash or maybe he would have made Impulse a name greater than Flash. Maybe Cassie would have taken her rightful place in Olympus, or she might have led a new team of heroes. They deserved better. They deserved the right to walk their own path to the future. 

“Save a seat for me at the bar and don’t let Kon make fun of me for being old and grey.”

Tim is all that is left of their legacy. The last member of Young Justice and the only one to make it out. It’s on him to live. More than that, it’s on him to find a reason to keep living.

*

*

*

He awakens abruptly, pulled from his memory of visiting Bart and Cassie’s monument a year ago. It takes him a moment to blink away his tiredness and be alert. Tim is a lapsed hero at best. He can’t remember the last time he threw a punch at someone. But training isn’t so easy to ignore so he calmly slips out of bed without waking Bernard, and slips out of their bedroom, a shadow following him all the while.

They’re good, excellent even. Their presence skitters at the edge of his ability to sense. Not an enemy, so maybe Cass. Not Richard because he would call ahead and enter in a whirlwind of positivity. Damian, then.

It still astounds him just how big Damian got. The kid was all of four foot nothing when they met, a twig of thing with only wiry muscle on his tiny frame. Now he’s taller than Bruce though he doesn’t maintain anywhere near the same bulk.

May as well put the pot on the boil. It isn’t one of those silent ones because Bernard thinks they’re pretentious and that a good cup of tea needs a good whistle to be made. It’s as absurd as it is illogical, but Tim’s lost that argument a dozen times over.

“You look terrible,” he begins gently, long after they’re through their first cup.

Damian was a feral thing when he first came to them but so long as one can think, they will learn etiquette under Alfred. Tim thinks of him fondly and decides to visit him tomorrow. He’s still living at the penthouse with Cass and Steph. He’s glad they pulled him out of that empty manor that held nothing but heartbreak for them.

“I lost patients today.”

Damian retired from the assassin business and somehow he is still mired in blood and loss, the very thing the three of them chose to escape. Damian’s young still. Barely Twenty-two and already partway into his residency. Certainly, money played a role in getting him through faster, but he’s still a genius and anyone who could name every artery and organ by three or slip a knife between layers of flesh for a clean kill can become a surgeon. It doesn’t help that he’s a savant when it comes to cutting up the human body and he can memorise every medical journal.

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be. It isn’t on you.”

“The Joker?” He waits for Damian to nod. “Are you going to be okay?”

“I didn’t know them. Just more casualties to add to the list of Gotham’s dead. One more incident after another where the only relief will be mocking the empty platitudes grieving loved ones will be forced to swallow. Have you prepared your thoughts and prayers tweet?”

“You’d have to ask my PR manager.”

“Bernard’s asleep. You should get better security. An untrained child on a sugar high could break into your house.”

“I can count on two hands the people that can break into my house and Cass would deal with all of them before they got anywhere near.”

“There is some truth to your words. A whole host of defenders would stand between you and harm.” Damian leans forward and moves a pawn to G4. Their chess game, taken two moves per visit. Tim moves his castle to C6. He thinks Damian will win this one just as he’s won the last four. “Not that you have ever needed protecting. The immaculate Tim Drake who rules a fiefdom that fools would say runs from Gotham to Metropolis.”

“And people who aren’t fools?”

“They would know your influence spans the world and only your inability to focus for more than a few minutes at a time saves the world from you as our overlord.”

“You make me sound like a toddler with an executive disorder.”

“Aren’t you?”

“At least I don’t try to hide from my feelings. How’s Jon?”

Damian flushes. “A fool, as always.”

“He’s made a fool of you, I agree. Got you wrapped around his finger. I mean, your Super Sons phase was terribly cute, the best really, but you literally outgrew that in a year.”

“Young, Just Us.”

“Point taken. What are you really here for? If it was just my company, you would be nagging me to make my next move. Just say what you’re going to say.”

“I’m going to kill the Joker.”

Tim blinks, feeling trapped between two extremes, suddenly focused on the katana resting beside Damian’s chair. Batman never killed and he never permitted it under his rule. Cass took that rule and ran with it, holding it tight to her chest and finding absolution in her immense duty. The same as Steph who stands so tall in his memory and doesn’t kill because even if seems impossible, she’ll find a way to win anyway. Not even Dick after his edgy phase involving too many spies and secret agencies allowed himself to kill anyone.

On the other end stands Jason tempered by a life in the Narrows, a death of sheer brutality, and training under the League, who sees death as acceptable because he stepped through it and came out on the other side. Learning Damian’s stance had been the work of years of careful conversation and proving through his actions that he would never harm Damian for speaking the truth.

“He keeps stealing futures from people who should have a chance,” Damian continues calmly.

Death, to Damian, is a thing that must happen. It is inevitable and denying it is cowardice because the inevitability of it gives life its forward inertia. To live life fiercely and nobly is to live life knowing that one’s time is limited.

Tim doesn’t know where he firmly stands on the matter of killing. Maybe closer to Jason than anything. His hit lists assumed killing would be necessary in many cases. He never disavowed Jason’s actions, helped him dispose of bodies, and even gave him the names of people who liked foreign boys. Forced a villain to suicide.

More than that, he’s never had any moral compunction towards violence or chaos. He distanced himself from it, from the monster his parents would make of him by taking on Bruce’s ideals as his own. But that was blind devotion, religious zealotry that’s faded as he’s grown. Quite a few people call him a villain these days.

“Dick won’t forgive you.”

“I’ve accepted that no reason I give will satisfy him. He absorbed Bruce’s ideals most closely. But I cannot live like this. No prison will hold the Joker. Our legal institutions fail against him. More and more children will die in my hands because I refused to do anything. I’m damned anyway, the lives I save will not atone—”

“You’re not,” Tim snaps, harsher than he intended. “Damned, that is.”

“I saw hell when I died.”

“And I know John Constantine. You deserved more than what Talia tried to make of you.”

“You never told me of this change.”

“I’m bad at communicating.”

“Thank you,” Damian says sincerely.

“You’re still going to do it.”

“My apologies for wasting your effort.”

Tim inhales, steadying his racing heart. Not certain if he wants this to happen. Not certain if he doesn’t want to join in.

“Robin can’t be a killer.”

“I was never Robin.”

“You deserved it as much as any of us. Don’t doubt that.”

“I do not. I am merely reminding you of an unaltered history. I was not Robin. I took no name as a hero. That was my choice, one I continued to make. Perhaps that choice is why I can stand in the surety of the act I am to make.”

Damian stands slowly, picking up his sheathed katana. A gift from his mother. An indulgence from a woman of efficiency. A gift that Batman had locked away and eventually given back to his son. It has not taken a life in many years. Tim watches as the boy who became a man walks to the window, taking in the lethal grace of his every movement.

“If Bruce were here, would you still do it?”

“Does it matter?”

“You have to be certain of this decision. Bruce never did this because it would prove the Joker right.”

“The Joker is an insane individual given more leeway than he deserves. I took no vow to never kill anyone. One more life will not weigh heavily on me.”

“Will Jon be able to live with it?”

“Kryptonians are forever.”

He says it gently.

It still feels like a punch to the gut. Kon said those words and of course he taught those same words to Jon.

“Don’t take advantage of his love.”

“Do you think he isn’t listening to us right now?”

He is limned by moonlight, crouched on the window seal. A fey creature straddling darkness and light making a choice that will change everything.

“Goodnight, Timothy.”

Damian leans back and falls out the window. He is gone in a blur of red and blue, cigarette smoke lingering in the air.

*

*

*

“The Joker is dead.”

Four words swallow an impossible idea whole.

Dead, his cooling corpse left at the foot of City Hall. No witnesses. No claim to glory. Just a dead mass murderer. The city waits as the corpse is verified.

When the Mayor says those four impossible words, a cheer shakes Gotham to its foundations.

The party lasts for a week and leaves Gotham hungover. And the only cure for a hangover a Gothamite knows is more drinking. Drink more and party harder before the Joker gets you. It’s why no one ever gave a shit if a tween was in a club smoking away. The kid would probably be dead in the evening anyway.

For the Waynes, they assemble in Wayne Manor. Closed for years now, cloth covering priceless artefacts and dust in the air. By unspoken words, they make their way to the home they shared. Jason with the distinct clack of his walking stick. Cass who appears from shadow. Steph who barges through the hallways. Dick who walks like the only normal one among them. Damian who shadows Tim in some strange protective instinct.

Finally, Alfred, who settles into a chair with a cup of tea. No one says anything. Not till he’s comfortable and waves them on. An observer, not an arbiter. They’re all old enough to throw punches and live with the consequences of their actions. Alfred is far too old to be managing them.

“Who put you up to this?” Nightwing asks, his voice colder than Batman’s could ever hope to be.

Damian blinks lazily, a feline unashamed of his actions. “Myself. The legal system. The reality of the situation. If you seek to blame anyone else for my acts, you will be searching for a lifetime and a day.”

Nightwing is like a cold sun, brilliant and absolutely frigid. “You don’t kill,” he says, demanding a lie to be true.

“I have. I did. I will.”

“No,” Cass says, standing across from Damian.

Damian stares her down. Maybe in another life, with more training, he could be a threat to her, but Cass is the greatest to have ever lived. No one beats her.

“If they cannot be held and they cannot be rehabilitated, I will do it again. Solving those problems is your job, Batman.”

Jason chuckles, then, a deep and horrifying sound like bones breaking against steel. The laugh of a monster, cruel and without mercy.

“Well shit, someone finally did the thing B should have done decades ago.”

“The thing you failed to do,” Tim adds.

“Bitch please, I tried. You fuckfaces all stopped me and these days I can’t hold a gun worth shit.”

Lie. A blatant fucking lie that no one buys for a second. Jason can shoot the wings off a fly. He just likes pretending at being harmless until he needs to decapitate someone. They all get a decapitated head on their birthdays. It’s… Jason is a piece of work.

“May we get to the true purpose of this assemblage?” Damian asks though it isn’t a question. “Am I to be sent to Blackgate? Am I to be treated as a villain for this act? Has this gone too far for you, Cassandra? You could stop me. I am not so arrogant to think I would defeat you, not when Grayson and Brown will support you. But even if you observe me relentlessly, you cannot stop me from killing someone. I am simply the greatest assassin.”

“The balls on this kid,” Jason says, dark amusement dripping from his words. “Asking the same question B refused to answer with me. Same question you all ignore with me. Some major hypocrisy if you hold him accountable but not me. At least the kid’s got a good enough reason. I just do it because I enjoy it.”

Nightwing punches the wall, his fist going straight through ancient wood that’s stood the test of time. He breathes carefully, one inhale after another. “Damn it, Jay, don’t say shit like that.”

“It’s the truth. It ain’t on you. I’m not going to have you responsible for my actions. Not going to try and guilt you into something. But this, right here, you’ve got to decide if you’re going to ignore it or fight Damian. Fight me. Fight us.”

“Don’t do this to me.”

“Fuck, you might even have to fight Timbits over her. If we’re talking tangential shit, he’s probably got a bigger body count than all of us.”

Tim opens his mouth to protest then pauses, thinking through all the proxy wars and revolutions he’s funded, the lives he’s ruined. Kon’s killer. Every member of the League tangentially related to Cassie and Bart dying. Far too many people employed by Luthor. People who never made it out during his courteous evacuation notices before he hit the big red button in every villain's lair.

“Huh,” he says slowly. “You might be onto something. Is this my fault?”

“Nope. Just the truth.”

Tim ignores him, immediately turning to his left just as Steph turns to face him, the two of them in perfect sync as always.

“You knew,” Steph hisses, betrayed to her core.

That’s the problem with knowing someone perfectly. Tim knows how much she hates the idea of killing and accepts it only in Jason because that ship has long since sailed. But Damian? The child soldier who they had cleansed of his sins, wiped the blood from his fingers and mouth with patient hands till they found the confused boy beneath all the horrors of his existence. To have failed to stop him is one thing. To have stayed silent is to be complicit in the killing. In a corruption utterly unthinkable.

“I did,” he says steadily, settling his stance. Making eye contact. Steph flinches at that. Tim has never liked making eye contact, even now as an adult. Not even to make a point or emphasise something. That scratchy feeling he gets behind his eye socket, the strange chill running down his neck. But he needs Steph to understand fully that Tim won’t change his mind.

“Fuck you, Tim Drake. You’re supposed to be better than this.”

He shrugs. “Maybe it was never meant to be. Maybe we never really change.”

“Don’t throw a fucking pity party for yourself right now. You could have stopped him. Called us.”

“Do not blame Timothy for the inevitable. He couldn’t win in a fight against me and none of you could outrun a flying Kryptonian.” Damian shrugs slowly as the others realise just what that means. That Jon helped, in some way. Was complicit. Maybe he was even a participant. “As I said, there is no true way to stop me. I have given you my ultimatum. Build perfect prisons or rehabilitate the worst criminals.”

“You’re better than this, Dames.”

“I’m really not, Richard.”

“You’re breaking my heart here. Breaking our family apart.”

Damian turns away with utmost dignity. “It is a burden I will bear. Alfred, sleep well.”

“I certainly will, if only to emphasise my disinterest in this matter.”

A nod and Damian is gone, striding past a family divided. He looks at no one and acknowledges them less than the floor he’s walking across. Hardly a moment of hesitation as he unlatches the window and falls out.

None of them misses the blur of red and blue that sweeps him away.

“It’s different for us,” Jason says to the silent room. “The standard you judge us by. Me and Tim, we’re the ones who never tried to be something else. I won’t ever stop killing. Tim won’t ever stop creating chaos. That’s in us and we keep choosing it. But Dami? Makes you think you failed. And now you can’t handle the hypocrisy, Dickhole.”

“Got any more lingering resentment you want to take out on Dick?”

“Oh shit, I’ve got a whole boatload.”

“Don’t act like you’ve got any moral high ground!”

“Shove a moral high ground up your ass. Fucking run away from Gotham like you always do and hide in Bludhaven where shit is easy. Where the choices are clear and you never have to think about them.”

“Not killing is the choice and I make it gladly.”

“And that’s why you’re a hypocrite. Letting me get away with it all the time.”

Alfred chooses then to clear his throat. “I have watched you all grow so I know this discussion will go nowhere but violence if it continues tonight.”

“But—”

“Do not inherit Bruce’s habit of arguing futilely with me, Master Richard. Whatever words you wish to say now, swallow them and sleep on them. The same applies to the rest of you.” Alfred stands slowly. Tim imagines he hears bones creaking. “I expect this to be handled without any hospitalisations.”

So Alfred said and so shall it be.

*

The killing shatters their family in truth.

Richard quietly leaves for Bludhaven in the dead of night and speaks to no one. Spares only a moment to hug Alfred before he’s leaving for his dazzling city that reflects him so perfectly, not this city that celebrates the perversion of ideals he holds close to his chest.

Jason is firmly in Damian’s corner—he will always be in Damian’s corner carrying the guilt of leaving him in the League and watching him die—and utterly unrepentant, preaching of the joy and hope suffusing the Narrows. He’s in the best-damned mood of his life and Red Hood Ltd is having the party of a lifetime. Everyone has received a bonus and efficiency has skyrocketed despite how inebriated everyone is.

Steph and Tim—not Steph-and-Tim anymore—can’t be in a room for longer than a few seconds before they’re screaming at each other. Not their usual arguments. The things they say to each other are vile, cruel things. Things that were always off-limits from the get-go. That’s the problem with knowing someone so well. You know how best to hurt them.

He’s not certain where he stands with Cass for a long while. Not until he’s woken up from his afternoon nap by an assassin.

“The Mother of Serpents sends her regards to the killer of the Joker. Make him aware that contracts are available for him to take now.”

“Tell him yourself,” Tim snarls, throwing his phone at the asshole who dodges easily, drawing his blade.

Tim is on his feet, manages to avoid the first and second swings, before stumbling into a counter. A moment’s hesitation. Just enough for the assassin to swipe the tip of the blade just beneath Tim’s left eye.

“The blood of a loved one. The first reminder of an assassin’s weakness.”

Well, at least now he knows where he stands with Cass.

The cut stings terribly.

Tim swallows his antibiotics and schedules a visit with his family doctor, ironically not Damian despite being the doctor in the family. Damian, for all that he’s a brilliant surgeon, hates anything to do with managing humans and keeping them alive. He’s fine to visit in a pinch but he gets cranky. Doctor Leslie is not an option. She’ll tear Tim apart for causing trouble.

“You guys have assassins now?” Ives asks in bewilderment that same evening. The sun’s just set and they’re both nursing beers. A surprise visit that Tim had welcomed. “But you’re not even in the hero business anymore.”

Bernard aggressively sighs from the kitchen as he prepares dinner. He isn’t too happy about the whole home invasion thing. Or the assassins. Or the drama.

“Yeah, well, my brother’s back in the assassinating people business and assassin culture is weird.”

“Wait, did he—”

“Yes.”

“Well shit, I need to get him a present. What does he like?” Bernard sighs again, making Ives wince. “I take it this is off limits at the table.”

“We’re not talking about it right now,” Bernard says. “I need a bit more time to unpack this.”

“In fairness, this is pretty tame by Tim Drake standards.”

“I know.”

Tim scowls, raising his beer in mock threat. “You don’t have to sound so despairing.”

“Watch me.”

*

*

*

“Will he come for me next?” Waylon Jones asks him a few weeks later.

The disused safehouse has been treating Waylon better. For one, he doesn’t smell like a sewer. For two, he’s calmer, a bit more settled in his skin. And he also hasn’t killed anyone or caused any destruction in months. Under the warm lights of the skylight, Tim can see the damage that Waylon has accumulated over the years. Rips and tears, chipped scales and deep gouges. A lifetime of damage with hardly a moment of reprieve.

“Who?”

“Joker’s killer. The youngest of you.”

Tim visits more often, trying to do some uncomplicated good works. He likes being a good guy. He doesn’t enjoy the idea that he’s a villain. Oh, there are systems that just need to be burnt to the ground, and those actions he supports fully, but far too many of his acts were born from cruelty, pettiness, and boredom. Actions that were forgiven only because people rightly realised he’d go further off the deep end if he was called out on it.

He isn’t a good person. Not by nature and not by nurture, but he can choose to be less bad. He can choose a homeless shelter instead of hiring mercenaries to raid a villa and return the paintings to their home countries. Mercenaries with no interest in limiting collateral damage. Fuck, he’s got enough skill and knowledge to get people arrested without explosions. He can expose corrupt politicians and horrid systems. He can fund scholarships and make sure forgotten cities get water without health advisories. A dozen other things before he chooses pettiness.

“He won’t,” Tim promises, wincing as the train rattles the floor.

This isn’t Tim’s favourite safehouse but it has hidden access to the sewers barely large enough for Waylon to squeeze through. An oddly shaped and forgotten space nestled between two buildings, an overhead train track, and a scrapyard. But it has power Tim is siphoning from the grid, a fridge with food and beer, and a TV. Barely anything, but more than Waylon was ever granted.

“You’re not the kind of person he deals with,” Tim adds after Waylon grunts, forcing him back from his thoughts.

“Who is?”

“People who can’t be imprisoned and who don’t want to change.”

“No prison can hold me.” Waylon reaches out, a claw carving through the wrought iron table easily. “You really think I can be something different?”

“I think I’m going to sue the fuck out of every institution in Gotham until they decide arguing that isn’t worth it.”

“I’m sorry, what?”

“Get used to it. I’m going to change your whole damned life.”

*

*

*

Years and years ago, Tim diagnosed himself with dysthymia. Continuous and long-term depression. He knows he didn’t have it since birth. He can trace the traumatic moment it began to his mother’s death in France and days on a boat, a dead kid’s face haunting his dreams. Before that, he’d been angry and bitter but never depressed, never clinically suicidal.

He’s been in therapy for ten years now. Tried medications and different diets. Tried writing journals and behavioural monitoring. Some things have stuck. He sleeps better now, doesn’t have so many nightmares, and doesn’t wake up each day hoping to die. It doesn’t mean everything is fixed. Some days are worse than others.

He cries sometimes. A dozen different reasons. A dozen different people. Cassie and Bart. The breakup with Steph. The day in the Cave with Bruce, ready to throw himself away. Watching Damian be stolen and losing to Heretic. All the heads Jason sends him.

The days that leave him paralysed are the days he thinks of his parents too much. Jack and Janet Drake. He loves them terribly and misses them more so. Family has a way of digging its hooks in your skin and dragging you along regardless of your best efforts. He cries because they weren’t there to see his glories and failings. Even as he’s denounced all that they were, he still desperately wishes to have had them. He wishes for more years when they loved him. Dreams of a world where he and his father could have mourned his mother. Golden France haunts him, a possible life where they were great together, stolen away by petty evils.

Maybe, if things had been better, Jack would have walked him down the aisle and handed him over to Kon. Janet would have been waiting in the wings, radiant and accepting.

Bernard holds him on those nights, draws him close and lets him rage and weep and sob. Lets him show emotions other than perfection and compassion. He isn’t just those things no matter what the world thinks. He’s an angry and bitter thing, broken first when his parents’ love was finally taken from him, and every moment after.

Then in the morning, when he’s swallowed his pain whole and centred his soul, he goes and does the work only he can.

“Jack Napier is dead,” Tim says flatly to a star chamber filled with petty politicians. A place of true power. He sees lobbyists from the biggest pharmaceutical companies. Politicians long since owned by Luthor and his ilk. And the fools who think good intentions are enough to make a difference. Tim’s finding he’s increasingly in that latter group. “I refuse to call him by that stupid name because it doesn’t matter. I refuse to let his legacy haunt Gotham. I’m going to kill his name by making his signature weapon into a symbol of something good.”

Tim paces the rectangular room, refusing to meet any eyes. Savouring how people flinch away from his manic energy. They are in the know. They know the chaos he can cause on a whim and rightfully fear the villain in their midst. Well, Tim refuses to be that anymore, but he’ll use that reputation if he must.

“In low concentrations and mixed with the right compounds, the terribly named Joker Venom is little more than a long-lasting anti-depressant. Cheaper than anything else on the market and more universal. We’ve always been hesitant to use anything made by anyone called a villain, but we’ve also rejected the work of heroes and geniuses because they would disrupt monopolies. Usually, those of you against progress with entrenched interests could get this stopped.” He pauses near the camp of Luthor’s cronies sitting beside Big Pharma’s people. “The thing about a nation where villains are a dime a dozen and chemical weapons can be made out of anything is that the FDA’s power has been reduced steadily by one exemption after another, one special circumstance after another emergency powers act. I will personally back this with everything I have and I’m going to give it for free afterwards.”

This will get pushed through at a state level if nothing else. All that matters is how much money Tim has to throw at it and Tim has a lot of money. Half of New Jersey’s political system owes the Drakes a favour and the other half the Waynes.

Tim stops where the politicians are. Some are shamelessly indolent. Others are petty crooks surviving on loopholes. A few are doing good work because that is what good people do.

“We have a chance here to change things for the better. We live in a world where every hero has a social media account and political careers are killed by their tweets. I ask you to remember that though lobbyists bring you unmarked briefcases, it is the people of New Jersey who vote you into power, and those people love Nightwing and Batman more than you. They love their first family of Gotham and they love the Supers. What will they do when they learn the next villain was preventable by medicine and programs you refused to fund?”

Tim lets the silence speak for itself.

*

His work picks steam. Tim is relentless, refusing to stop. A year passes in a flash, then another, and he’s soon celebrating his twenty-eighth birthday in a courtroom packed with an eclectic mix of journalists, perpetually surly Gothamites, a few villains, an inordinate number of lawyers watching precedent be set, and what feels like half the Justice League. e Tim’s seated three rows behind Uncle Clark who chose to get front-row seating to the biggest legal event of the year, unlike Lois who has to sit with the press. A shame.

Taking the stand is Killer Croc, insistently referred to as Waylon Jones, dressed in a bespoke three-piece suit, represented by Arian Dzerchenko in the Supreme Court of New Jersey. Today, the closing arguments for the case of Jones v. City of Gotham are to be made.

The news cycle has been dominated by what will set the precedent for all cases of villains and their creation, and the role the state and society had in their ongoing activities. The facts have been hashed out, witnesses cross-examined for over a year and evidence evaluated ad nauseam. Tim has been lost for most of it, a failing of his sharp focus on sciences and business.

To his right sit Bernard, Ives, and Jason who, months ago had to give testimony of his experiences following the Unusual Lifeform Citizenry Registration Act allowing him to be declared Jason Todd with all attendant legal rights and responsibilities despite the whole resurrection thing. He’d been incredibly caustic, almost got declared a hostile witness, and gave a completely bullshit testimony on the discrimination he’d faced because of his nature despite appearing human. That was fun. To his left, Damian towers over him, likely blocking everyone behind him. He’d refused to be used as a reference book despite memorising all relevant case law. Jon, beside him, had found the entire thing hilarious.

“Can a man be expected to obey the social contract when society broke it first?” Ariana begins confidently in her closing speech. A decade too young to stand in a case so important, bolstered by the temerity of youth and her faith in a just world. “Go to school, work hard, and your grades will reflect your effort. With enough effort, you can attain the highest seat of power in this nation no matter your background. This is the contract we all sign every day we are law-abiding citizens. To know that our institutions will shelter us. To exist in the surety that our judicial system will sort criminals from innocent. To have faith that our officers of the law will faithfully discharge their responsibilities. It is meant to be a fair contract.”

She is radiant under the scrutiny of hundreds in the courtroom and billions more watching from TVs and their devices. The most televised case in history. It’s already the most-watched online event in the world. Twitter, Facebook, and Google have dedicated channels on their platforms to watch it live without ads.

Whatever the result, Ariana’s stardom is guaranteed. And to think, he’d met her on a project where he had been the slacker and she did most of the work.

“Waylon Jones was seven the first time the police shot at him. Police reports and newspapers will confirm that they fired first. Witnesses have repeated this ad nauseam. Whatever the circumstance, Waylon Jones never attacked first. This pattern of behaviour is an established fact. That he has never harmed children lost in his sewers is a fact. That he has never assaulted the homeless demographic, the most vulnerable of us, is another fact. I ask you to keep this in mind as my opponents make their baseless arguments that Gotham’s institutions were not responsible for his actions. It occurred to me last night how the defence was going to argue that Waylon chose to be a villain. Kept making that choice. Let me show you graphically how little chance he had to be anything else.”

Ariana takes her time as she sets aside her suit jacket for an older, shabbier one. Forces the murmuring audience to wait as she puts on a black knit cap. A shift in her body posture and she’s almost an entirely different person.

“You’ve been looking at me for over a year now. You probably know what my face looks like better than I do. A jacket and a cheap cap and now I look like someone different. If I ran, I could get away without anyone recognising me. I could go into a store and buy food. I could visit a bank and the teller wouldn’t glance at me for a second. Mr Jones was never so privileged. Where could he go, the day after the cops shot at him at seven, that would serve him a meal? Let him go to school? Hire him for a job? On the basis of his appearance alone, he was ostracised and has fought a war for survival since he was seven. A seven-year-old boy was never given an opportunity to be anything other than a monster.”

She takes the moment then to remove her cap and jacket, to become a distinguished lawyer once more. 

“Despite this, he chose to retreat from society. Unable to live amongst his fellows, he chose the life of a hermit. Others would make the choice not to respect his wishes. Over half of all incidents began when civilians chose to enter his territory. More than enough video evidence shows that he gave them multiple opportunities to turn around. Under Castle Doctrine, the initial aggressor does not have a duty to retreat. By the Vigilante Hideout Act of ’95, the sewers he inhabited are considered a castle. By the laws of our state that allowed our greatest heroes to operate, Batman and Robin, Spoiler and Nightwing, Waylon Jones is the harmed party.

“Notice as well that the number of incidents he was involved with went to zero once the police reforms went through. Many of those same officers kicked off the force for their illegal practices were instigators in the supposed “rampages” Killer Croc was known for. Mr Jones has committed crimes but others have committed worse crimes, with fewer excuses, and walked away free. Both Poison Ivy and Harley Quinn walk our streets freely, and so long as they cause no problems, the unofficial policy of the city has been to leave them in peace. We are not asking that Mr Jones walk free, we are asking that he be allowed a chance to atone through work.”

The room is silent for the longest moment since this case began. Tim doesn’t know who says something first, but the court is soon in chaos. People in support. People against it. The Justice League making terrible jokes he can barely hear.

In the backdrop of it all is Waylon Jones with an utterly befuddled expression. 

Tim wants to see this set as a precedent. He wants a way for this country to stop creating its own villains and when it inevitably does, he wants a way for them to be helped.

*

*

*

Waylon Jones is given a new lease on life and each day he doesn’t hurt anyone is another day in which he proves Tim’s long-standing belief that most villains are made. Nurture, never nature. With Jones in place, Ariana expands her organisation, searching out cases for villains and rogues who were never given a chance.

They go after Harley Quinn next. She’s barely been considered an anti-hero for years now, but she also wants to start practising again. That one isn’t smooth sailing, but anyone who can make Killer Croc out to be misunderstood can make Gotham’s darling prankster look like a saint. Killer Croc was a far harder image to rehabilitate than Harleen Quinzell who is both pretty and has a tragic backstory, or Pamela Isley who is just hot enough that the law doesn’t matter and no prison can reliably contain. They soon get Kite-Man’s standing decade-long charge down to two years of house arrest. It isn’t just Gotham. Soon, she’s fielding requests from out of state.

Because he believes in fairness, Tim gives Ives total control of his biotech holdings and tells him to go wild.

“Just don’t make your own villains. No mad science. Boring, repeatable, and documented science.”

“Do I look like you?” Ives asked petulantly.

“No, because I get bitches.”

“Fuck you!”

Tim keeps going. He can’t stand still and fall to the inevitability of chaos and boredom. Jason’s work with the Martha Wayne Foundation for Queer Youths gets a sudden and entirely uncharacteristic champion in Chick-fil-A after Tim threatens to release the vile deeds of the owners. They’d capitulated immediately, not realising that Tim was going to do it anyway and buy them out of their own company in a year or two.

Jason sent him a decapitated head as a thank you.

Bernard had given it a disinterested look at it and put it in their bin for human body parts because Gotham’s waste management can handle that???

He opens the Jack Drake Fund to help people affected by drug use find housing and employment. It’s a bit of petty revenge but also a bit of good. The best revenge is living a good life and this is what makes Tim happy these days.

Try as he might, though, he can’t always get away from his more chaotic urges. He starts his own mercenary group called Janet’s Delivery Company and sets them to dealing with strike-breakers and companies holding villages hostage for their resources.

“Please don’t accidentally make corporate warfare a literal thing,” Bernard begs him, working through Tim’s social media apology for some inane thing or other he’s said in his life that people think will ruin him or noticeably affect him.

“Have you ever heard of the East India Company? I’m just late to the party.”

“Why couldn’t I fall in love with someone normal?”

“I don’t know. Still trying to figure out how I’ve kept you for five whole years.”

He’s twenty-eight, in a happy relationship, and doing some good in the world. Were he to go back in time a decade and tell his younger self, he’d be met with laughter. Two decades back and child Tim probably would have killed him for taking so long to make them happy.

Bernard rolls his eyes and plants a kiss between his brows.

“Definitely not for your bedroom talk.”

“But I don’t—oh, I see what you did there. Fuck you too.”

Another kiss has him forgiving Bernard.

*

*

Sometimes, Tim returns home to the Wayne family graveyard. Rarely, but today is one such day he feels the yearning to go there.

There are three empty graves in the old plot. Dozens of Waynes buried over the centuries, resting beside their loved ones till the universe ends. Dozens of headstones and three curiously empty graves. 

Nothing remained of Batman, not the smallest particle of ash to mark the place he fell. A sacrifice so grand that nothing could match it. Across time and space, all that remains of him is the shadow out of the corner of your eyes, the reflection in the mirror you doubt, that comforting hand on your shoulder at your worst. An idea foundational to the universe. The man fixing things from the shadow.

Three empty graves but only two of them still walk. Damian and Jason. Assassin and killer. Surgeon and crime lord.

It isn’t the trade Tim would have made but it is the one he learnt to live with.

Tim says nothing as he stares at his dad’s gravestone. Bruce Wayne. Just knowing he was loved was enough for him.

“I've got it from here.”

It gives him the confidence to make a call. He waits as it rings, terrified that it won’t go through.

“Hey Steph,” he says in a breathy exhale, surprise his call was answered.

“What the hell do you want?” Steph asks.

“Are we still fighting?”

“Yes. Obviously.”

“Can we stop fighting?”

“No. Never.”

“Alright. So 3am coffee tomorrow?”

“Not even the doughnuts from the bakery next to your place will bribe me.”

“I’ll get the honey-glazed ones. I mean, obviously, you can tell me how terrible they are while you tell me how stupid I am.”

“Exactly. Oh, you should probably duck.”

Tim ducks.

The shuriken thankfully doesn’t hit anything important. It just steals a few hairs from his head. He rolls his eyes. Even at their worst, she won’t let him get hurt. Not seriously. Fraught as their relationship has been recently, it’s still Tim-and-Steph.

“Tim, why is there a shuriken in our trash?” Bernard asks when he returns.

“Um, I don’t have any excuses.”

“We have metal recycling.”

“You can’t recycle shuriken.”

“Tim, dear, we live in Gotham. They’ll recycle nukes if you box them correctly.”

“Speaking of nukes, wanna meet up with Steph.”

“Not particularly but alright.”

“It’s at three in the morning.”

“Fuck you and your utter disdain for sleep.”

Still, Bernard accompanies him to Bat Burger at three in the morning. Steph has her hair short, something that stops him in his tracks long enough for Steph to cross the distance between them.

The slap is expected. Bernard catching the second one is completely bewildering.

“I’m not putting up with the unhealthy way your family copes with any sort of interaction. This is not happening in this relationship.”

“I knew I liked you for a reason,” Steph says with a smile.

“Me too.”

The hug, though, is what he didn’t dare hope for. Steph fits within his arms near perfect, two jigsaw pieces moulded by friction till they fit together.

“I missed you too,” Tim says desperately, “and I love you.”

“Shut up, I love me too. And maybe sometimes you when I’m not infuriated with your bullshit.”

“I’ve got less bullshit than usual. Apparently, therapy and dealing with your problems helps.”

“Are you happy now?”

How does one quantify happiness? Is it by the absence of loss and painful events? If so, Tim’s life is a gaping hole made by parents who only sometimes loved him and a father who died and friends who loved him so much they gave their lives and a forever boyfriend who wasn’t forever. Or is it defined by what comes after that tragedy and loss?

“I think I’m getting there.”

Maybe it isn’t all fixed. Dick hasn’t stopped being angry in two years. He really did take after Bruce, even in the most annoying ways possible. Cass has him blocked, the constant stream of emojis he’s come to appreciate over the years an unpleasant absence.

“Cass will figure out how to live with who you are one day. Just give her some time.”

Tim has time in spades. Time enough to learn to live again and pick up the pieces of himself he thought were lost. Time enough to make something of who he was and become something unrecognisable but beautiful because he changed.

Time enough to live.

*

*

*

The next two years pass like molasses, made worse by just how little things seem to change. Cass still isn’t talking to him and Nightwing is aggressively pretending they don’t exist even as he’s sworn in as Mayor of Bludhaven. Nightwing, not Dick Grayson. Another strange and weird precedent set in the world.

Tim isn’t sure he likes it, but he no longer has a right to complain. Jason is much the same, though his obsession with decapitating people has slowed, only half as many getting sent out from the norm. Damian’s added only three more kills, three more villains who couldn’t be held or rehabilitated. It isn’t what Tim would want for him, but he balances it with every life he saves on the surgery table.

Alfred, to his endless delight, is going strong. Eighty-three years old and his wit has only sharpened. Tim suspects Death is afraid of the chaos they’ll cause if anything ever happens to him.

The world is changing. Mostly for the better. Heroes keep saving them from one Crisis after another, one supervillain before the next. But the cities of New Jersey, Gotham and Metropolis, have had the sharpest drops in villain activity because strong institutions and kind systems trump spandex every day of the week. They’re case studies for just how little nature has to do with making villains. One day, it will be their example that is implemented across the world to stop villains from rising.

It feels like Batman’s war is over. The good guys have won. Perhaps he wouldn’t approve of the roles they have all played in this war, the terrible things they have done, but this is the future they’ve made with their hands and their labours.

Tim returns chooses to return to the place that birthed him but did not make him who he is today.

Drake mansion has been shuttered for sixteen long years now. A relic of a person Tim has long since grown out of. The home of someone he never became. From here, Tim should have ruled the world. Instead, he’s left it in darkness and done some good. Likely the best decision he’s ever made.

He feels like a thief in the night even though this is his ancestral home, the land of the Drakes passed down in a line unbroken for nine generations. The tiny outhouse where the servants had lived had been the first house a Drake called home; a fact it feels his parents never remembered. The comparatively humble beginnings after fleeing France.

It was built well, built sturdy, and the repairs over the years had only strengthened it. Dust covers the surfaces, but he smells no mould. Decades from now, it will likely stand unharmed.

In the attic, past mounds of dust and ancient spiderwebs, hidden beneath men’s clothes that fit neither Tim nor Jack, lay a box that drove Tim forward as a child and bought him comfort as a teen. Contained within are photos of his parents in their youth before Tim was born, taken by a man who Tim will never meet.

“I never did figure out who took these.”

Bernard’s hand on his shoulder is comforting. He is so divorced from the ideas of Tim’s youth that he will only ever bring comfort. Has only brought comfort in the seven years they’ve been together. It’s his longest relationship so far. A strange thought.

“You? Tim Drake? Could not figure something out?”

“I don’t think I wanted to know. Too hard to handle the idea of why he was gone, too afraid to return. A few suspicions I never wanted to explore.”

“You don’t look like Jack.”

Tim laughs, appreciating how bluntly Bernard had made that accusation. Not a hint of subtlety to him whatsoever.

“No, no, Jack was my sperm donor. I defiled his grave and ran that test during one of my benders. It’s more that I could never find a trace of this man in the real world. No images at all. Blank spaces where his name should have been in my parents’ diaries. He’s this ghost who took these pictures. My parents needed a child to claim the Drake seat in the Court. And if he loved the way my parents did, the way I do, there isn’t anything he wouldn’t have done to make them happy. Even giving his life so I could exist. A dream, a spell, a wish for a son. A price that needed to be paid. A price I think he paid.” He shakes his head bitterly. “Sometimes, it feels like I had three fathers. Jack was the father I had. Bruce was the father I chose. And him, he was the father I could have had. Whoever he was, his departure calcified whatever kindness was in my parents. It destroyed them. Left them so damaged that all they could do was damage me in turn. Funny how the monkey’s paw curls.”

Bernard squeezes his shoulder, fingers digging into Tim’s flesh. It will leave a bruise which Tim will forgive. They’ve never hurt each other intentionally.

“It’s not an excuse. It might be a reason, but it isn’t a justification. They still chose who they were. I don’t care what they told themselves, but they hurt their son and there is no explanation in the world that I will accept. I love you, Tim Wayne, and they were fools not to love you as well.”

“They did, though, that’s the worst part. When they knew how to love me, they were still fragile. My father especially. He loved so much that it became this cruel thing. In me, he saw the loves he’d lost and he took it out on me. And then he’d see me and remember I was his son to love. My mother was… she was so much. I thought she would live forever. I’ve never seen anyone so ruthless. She killed her family because they made fun of her dreams and ignored me for seven years because I wasn’t of any importance to her. It was quite a feat how efficiently she excluded me from her mind.” Tim smiles at Bernard’s horror. What an innocent soul. “Then one day she looked at me and saw her son, and that was enough. She loved me from then on. She thought I was brilliant, and she wanted me to shine so brightly that I would blind everyone. If Janet Drake was going to have a son, he would stand above the world.”

“That’s fucked.”

“Completely,” Tim agrees, gently sorting through the photos. “I still love them. I love them so much that it still chokes me. I love them more than I hated them. I loved the idea of them and I loved their very real flaws. This one’s my favourite.”

It is the last photo of the box, buried deep away from the light.

It was still early days in the pregnancy. Tim just a small bump. Jack with his arms around his wife, caught mid-laugh. Janet with one hand on her stomach, the other hiding her giggles. Young and in love, the brightest snapshot of their happiness.

Despite that, it doesn’t burn as brightly as the picture of the three of them at the dig site, Tim in his father’s arms, Janet brilliant under the scorching sunlight. A blinding moment that still strikes Tim at odd moments, gives him motivation when he needs it most. A mother and father who loved their son. It was rarely true, but those few short years warm him like nothing else. 

It is still how Tim chooses to remember them. These people that he never knew but wished were the parents he had. He will cast aside the cruelty of Jack and Janet, and choose instead to love a father and mother for those two short years they had together.

Hiding beneath the box is a ring. Three interlocked bands of silver, matched only by the bands of gold and platinum his mother and father wore respectively that rest on a necklace around Tim’s neck. He’s collected them, one after another, but this was the first. The silver ring that belonged to his nameless and faceless parent, the truest mystery of his life. 

He was never present in Tim’s life, but he left a tidal wave of devastation in his wake. He was as much of a parent as Jack or Janet ever were. Which is to say not at all except for all the times he was.

But just as Tim is willing to remember only the idea of a father and mother who love him, so too is he willing to extend his love to this man that brought joy and left desolation in his wake. Tim likes to imagine that he was funny, perhaps someone possessed of dry wit, and a certain arrogance. Someone gentle to temper the mercurial moods of his mother and the harshness of his father.

Someone who maybe gave his life so that Tim could live.

It is a worthy legacy in his mind. Tim kneels, holding that ring which is the hope and love for a son he would never see. A son who has grown into a man smiling at his boyfriend, finally happy with his lot in life.

“One day, I’m going to convert this place into an orphanage,” he declares. “It’ll be filled with kids laughing and destroying all the expensive vases. The tax burden on private orphanages is suspiciously high so I’ll need every cent I can find. You mind marrying me for tax purposes?”

Bernard laughs then, a bright and clear sound that has Tim tilting his head in confusion. It isn’t a mocking laugh. Not even incredulous. Just, joyful

“This is awkward.”

Bernard reaches into his pocket and pulls something out. Then he kneels as well, opening his palm for Tim to see.

Held in his small hand is Bruce’s wedding band. Tim bursts out crying. How could he not?

“I want to get married because I love you.”

Tim wipes at his eyes furiously as Bernard takes his hand in his own. Delicately threads Bruce’s ring on his finger and does the same with the ring Tim planned on giving him. A mismatched pair they make.

“You drive me mad and I keep running back to you. You cry when you think I can’t see and I only think you’re strong. You hide away but you never run from me. I won’t promise to be forever. I can’t promise you that. I can’t promise we won’t fight and argue and scream at each other. I won’t promise not to be terrified when you start acting like a villain. But can I promise to love you anyway. It’s a choice I make and one that brings me joy. Will you marry me?”

How absurd, Tim thinks, to stand in the room that changed his life with the man he loves, being proposed to right after his own proposal. How strange his life has been that despite the pain and cruelty he has survived, he has found happiness right at the end. How beautiful, he realises, to know this is real and to be glad for it.

It has been two decades since his mother died and he finally feels free. The chains that sought to drag him to the endless abyss have shattered, burnt away by hope and love and faith. He’s made friends and mourned them as well. He’s won great victories and survived terrible losses. He's lived a life incomparable.

And for all that, the sun still rises and it still sets. The setting sun embraces him in this room full of memories, one day turning into the next. It reminds him of Kon, of Bruce, of Jack and of Janet. He can’t escape their presence any more than he can escape the inevitability of tomorrow, but he can accept it and find peace. Tim doesn’t know what challenges tomorrow will bring. He can’t know. But he will face them head-on, and he will do it with a smile on his face.

“Yes, I’ll marry you. Of course, yes.”

He will do it because his name is Timothy Jackson Drake-Wayne, his nation is where his loved ones are, and he never needed a lord to guide him.

Fin