Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

He fell. 

Tim could remember the sensation of the air billowing up through his hair, as if desperately trying to fight the gravity that pulled him to the earth. The sky had been washed dark by the pollution of the city lights, so all that he could see was the great expanse of darkness above him as his body careened down the levels between that rooftop and the ground below. 

His chest ached from the force of the air being knocked out of him.

Darkness. 

He knew how long it took him to fall. He knew the time he had left between the loss of his balance and the embrace of the pavement. Only a few seconds left. The windows smeared past him, only a blur as his mass reached its maximum velocity downwards, downwards, downwards. That wind through his hair and past his ears drowned out everything else. 

Falling. 

Falling. 

Falling. 

“Con-”

The ground was close now. Too close now. The scent of rain-washed pavement and exhaust as the gust of wind stole away his last defiant breath, and with that breath, his final words. A prayer really from the mouth of a desperate sinner still not quite believing that a God would come save them. The scents of the city he had been raised in ran together on that treacherous wind, smothering him with the irony that it would be the city he would die in too. 

“Red Robin! Report! Red-”

It was painless at least. Death. Dying. He scraped that bare trace of mercy from the bottom of the barrel just before the end. To search his whole life for that numbness, an escape from the oversaturated noise and color and sensation of the place in the world he occupied, and to find it in the arms of the one he knew held it the entire time. It wasn’t as scary as he might’ve thought, in the end. It just felt as though he should have reached out to her sooner.

It was quiet. 

Until it wasn’t. 

Until his eyes snapped open again. 

And he wasn’t crumpled on the damp cement, limbs askew, head busted open and brains spilling out and seeping into the sewer system. He was standing. No, crouched. In a fighting stance, muscles taut already knowing before he did. His chest was heaving from some kind of exertion. Sweat trickled down his neck and face. And he wasn’t in Gotham. Though this place had the same, sickly green, florescent pallor. He wasn’t even outside. Instead he was in what looked like a home office, a tasteful one, upper middle class, with plush carpets and paintings that weren’t just prints, but originals. It reminded him of his mother’s office at the Manor, except in blue rather than Janet Drake’s unforgiving white. Except…the color was still dripping. Not even blue, as though the paint still needed to dry. 

It was dripping red. 

Red. Across the walls, sliding down to that thick carpet. A stain that would never come out. He knew how that color stained everything it touched. 

Sweat slid down his cheeks, slipping into the part of his lips. It wasn’t salty. The tang of iron sank in between his teeth and onto his tongue. 

It wasn’t sweat.  

Blood. 

His stomach lurched. His hand jumped to cover his mouth, forcing himself to swallow the vomit back down, leaving a bitter taste behind on his tongue. But that was better than the metallic one. Or, at least, he thought it would be.

His fingers were slick and sticky. He knew before he even pulled his hand away and allowed his eyes to take the sight in. 

Red. 

Smeared, thick, red, coating his hand like a second skin. 

And perhaps a little too late, he realized that his other hand was clutching onto something. Thick and corse, curling around and tickling his fingers almost like…hair. And his knuckles brushed against the surface beneath it that was still warm. But he couldn’t look down. Not if he was right. And he was. He knew he was. Because he always was right when he didn’t want to be.

But he couldn’t let go either, fingers trapped like a vice. 

Fuck. 

What in the hell was going on? 

He took a quavering breath, steeling himself, hoping that he might be wrong for once, and pulled his arm up into view of his eye line. Two brown eyes met his, wide with horror, staring without seeing, set into a skull that had lost connection with its original skeleton. A head without a body. A human head, gripped in his hand like he was going fucking bowling or something, blood still draining from the yawning, ragged wound at the neck where it was supposed to connect to the shoulders, as though the flesh had been torn through like a sheet of printer paper. 

Blood. There was so much blood. It was still dripping. Fresh in the air. A life freshly cut down. 

By his hand. His hand. There was no one else there. Just him, and the disbelieving face he didn’t have a name to go to, which almost made it worse. 

It took every ounce of will he had not to throw the head down onto the floor and lose the unknown contents of his stomach. This had been a person. A person…he’d killed someone. The blood was on him. All over the floor. The walls. Hell, there was blood on the ceiling. 

His hands. 

His face. 

Fuck. Fuck. 

His ribs were too tight around his heart and lungs. It hurt. Like both his heart and lungs were trying to gnaw through bone and run from him. And he couldn’t breathe. He couldn’t breathe. Suffocating. It was like he was breathing through a blanket in sealed room. Nothing he took in was enough for very long. And there was less and less to breathe in as time passed. And he was getting dizzy. And each breath was more frantic than the last. 

No. No. No. No. No. 

Was this what a heart attack felt like? Dying? It wasn’t like his meltdowns either, where he pulled at his hair and beat at his skin. No, it was a panic attack. He was having a panic attack. That was new. He didn’t like new things. He liked plans. And numbers. And data.

Knowing what it was didn’t help him breath any easier. It almost made it worse. Knowing what it was but not being able to stop it. 

It hurt. 

With now quivering hands, vacant of whatever steadiness they’d possessed before he’d come back into awareness of himself, set the severed head down onto the ground carefully. Finding the rest of the poor soul was not that difficult. 

Breathe. 

He had to breathe. Panicking any further wouldn’t help him or whoever the body belonged to. 

Breathe. Think. Come on. Come on. 

He needed to find some distance. Focus now. Panic later. And he would panic, once he figured out what in the actual hell was happening to him. 

The decapitated body was dressed in a silk dressing gown and pajama pants, feet bare. It was situated on its front, so the attack would have come from behind. A surprise attack. Given the state of dress and placement, that made the most sense. But the method of execution?

His eyes found a mid-length blade that had been seemingly discarded a short distance away, about the length of knife someone might used to gut a deer after a hunt, and it was covered in blood. But not enough blood if he used the knife to behead someone. It would have taken several strokes of the blade to fully decapitate an adult man. Not to mention there was no serration on the blade, but the seams on both the separated head and neck were ragged. 

Tim straightened up. His knees were all but liquid beneath him, but he managed to get over to the desk, wiping his hands on his pant legs, trying to find an envelope, a note, something with a named and address. But he didn’t want to touch too much with his bloodstained fingertips, lest his prints be traced back. 

Why hadn’t he worn gloves? 

Better yet, why had he murdered someone? That would be great to find out. Was he on a killing spree? Was this the first? The last? Why? Who else? Those were other great questions. None of which he had any answers to. 

Why hadn’t someone stopped him? Why hadn’t they told him to wear gloves.

Tim shook the thought from his head. 

“Come on, come on.” He whispered, his voice sounded rough, as if it had been covered in cobwebs. 

He stopped, spotting a letter head in the small wastebasket beneath the desk. 

Dr. Samuel Engle. Researcher for the CDC. No home address, but that wasn’t what made Tim’s   heart stop in its tracks. The date was listed above the unfinished script. 

September 8th. 

No. That couldn’t be right. And the year wasn’t right either. He couldn’t have lost…ten months. Ten months. Give or take how current the letter had been. 

Nearly a year. 

Ten months. Around 280 days that he couldn’t recall. 

What had happened in between that darkness and this room?

“Hellhound: Status.”

Tim jumped, his eyes darting around, but the crackling voice was in his ear. 

A communications earpiece. 

So, he was working for someone. Not good. He didn’t like not knowing who he was working with, let alone for. And if someone was dead on the orders of someone else, he liked it infinitely less so. 

“Repeat. Hellhound: Status.”

Tim slid out from behind the desk to glance out the window on the nearby wall. Second story. Clean drop onto the lawn. Straight shot to the road. Looked rural. Dusk, so it would be dark in a matter of minutes, which could be good and bad. Dark would hide him, but it would also hide key markers that might orient him better. 

“Communications?”

“Going through. He should be hearing us.” Another voice. Higher, feminine. 

A party line. Fun. 

Tim pulled his sleeves over his hands. But stopped, as his eyes caught glimpse of his reflection in the glass. His hair…it was nearly to his shoulders. Still, it wasn’t matted, dirty, or split at the ends. It was well groomed, silky and healthier than he’d ever seen it, braided neatly back from his face, interlaced with a dark green ribbon. A strand of silver wound through his hair on one side. His skin was smooth, free of scars from crime fighting and puberty. Most noticeably among the missing were the two hooked scars that had been carved into his jaw around when he’d first started as Robin. No dark circles beneath his eyes. 

The skin and the nerves in his body buzzed like static on a dead channel, demanding he fix what had been changed, to put it back. But he couldn’t. It had been there the whole time, but seeing it made it even harder to breathe than it already was. He wanted it gone. He needed it gone. He resisted the urge to dig hid nails into the flesh, to bleed himself dry just to get some part of himself back, even if it was the scars of another traumatic event. 

Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. 

He wrung his hands out, bouncing up and down on his toes, trying to soften the edge of the coiling anxious feeling burning beneath his fingertips and deep in his gut. He couldn’t afford to let his focus stray, but his brain couldn’t concentrate with that heavy presence gripping around his throat. 

“Brain dead dog.” The first scoffed. “Probably short-circuited again, lost his tongue. Send in clean-up. Witnesses have been neutralized. I’ll grab the asset.”

Witnesses. More victims. More blood. 

Had he killed them as well? How much blood was on his hands in that night alone? 

“The Bird Watcher is with the clean-up crew, he’ll get Cerberus sedated.”

He wrenched up the window. 

“I’m curious to see how the Bird does with his latest augmentation. Apparently the first lesson didn’t stick.”

“You should be glad it was only the Bird that got that punishment.”

Someone was coming for him. He needed to run and he needed to hide. He needed to have a meltdown. And then he needed to call someone to pick him up because shit was clearly fucked and he was very, very confused. Clearly, not in a state to be driving anything, though that might have to happen depending on his circumstances.

“I didn’t sign up to babysit the Demon’s chew toy. I don’t see how the kid getting a little play should put my ass on the line.” The deeper of the voices said. “That was what the Bird was supposed to be for. Now the Demon’s gone and made our lives more difficult to prove some kind of point.”

The Demon. 

Tim’s blood ran cold. An image of a cruel smile. Icy fingers on the nape of his neck.

“The Bird can still do his job. He just can’t take on any new clients now.”

Go. He needed to go, get the hell out of there. Call for backup or a ride or something.

The Bats probably didn’t even notice you were gone. 

Well, that was entirely unhelpful. 

And he didn’t have time for the negative internal dialogue. That would have to wait for the panic he was scheduled to have after he miraculously pulled off this daring escape. Sure, logistically, escaping from a two story building wasn’t hard, but he still wasn’t sure which direction to run once he hit the ground. With his luck, he would run right into the hands of the fuckers he was trying to get away from. 

Again, whoever that was. 

Not to mention, the…well, the murder. It was a CDC doctor. That was bound to up the priority a little bit from an investigation standpoint. And Tim’s DNA was bound to be everywhere because he hadn’t worn gloves.

Lucid Tim would never have forgotten gloves when executing a murder. 

They had mentioned a clean-up. Maybe they’d still clean up after him once he’d escaped. That would be nice. Though he wasn’t betting on the generosity of people who worked with him in the aim of killing people, so…there was that. Like a 20/80 percent chance probably. 

But, escaping first. 

The door knob rattled. 

At least Tim had been smart enough to lock the door, even if not being smart enough to wear gloves. 

“The door’s locked,” The scoffing voice said. “Little bastard is really making me work for this. I wouldn’t be surprised if he still had something left up there that does this shit on purpose.”

“Pick the lock, broken hinges are going to be a bitch to pick up.”

“Yeah, yeah, I know. My knees have been getting bad lately anyway.”

Tim slid out the window, hands gripping the ledge with his sleeves, letting himself drop down to the grass below.

His body, if not his voice, seemed to be in good condition. Probably better than he’d left it if he was honest. His muscles seemed primed to receive the impact without too much strain on the rest of him. It seemed that his training had not gone rusty in the last ten months. So, he’d not been chained up for ten months at any rate, but if his mind had been gone, how had his body maintained the peak of its performance? Who had kept up the training? 

Escaping. He was escaping. 

“Fuck.”

“What is it?”

Tim dove around the corner out of the line of sight of the window, keeping himself low and still, barely daring to breathe. 

“The Hellhound is gone.”

The voice came from above him and in his ear. 

“What do you mean gone?”

“I mean, the dog finally managed it. He broke his lead for real this time.”

“Shit! Just find him and get him back. I’m not dying for the Demon’s pet monster.”

“Neither am I.”

Panic later. Panic later. Just fucking run. 

And so he did. Like there was fire beneath the soles of the boots that he couldn’t remember lacing. The frostbitten lawn crackled under his steps, each footfall sounding like a mine going off in the silence of the dwindling light. But he kept running, his eyes fixed on the road just ahead of him. 

His eyes clicked toward an address marker on the mailbox at the end of the driveway. 

7538. 

The sun was going down in front of him, that was West. So the road went North to South. His back was to the East. 

Okay. He was oriented at the very least. 

It was the very least. He was still very lost. 

The CDC was headquartered in Georgia, but that didn’t necessarily mean that was where the employees lived. If he was in Georgia, then the climate change crisis had taken a dramatic turn for the worst while he was out of the office. He was freezing his tits off and he didn’t even have any…well, he hadn’t when he’d fallen off of that building ten months ago, unless that had changed too, probably not, but it was still cold as fuck and he clearly hadn’t been properly dressed for it by whomever it was that had dressed him, which he wasn’t thinking about because it wasn’t the point, but it was still unsettling and he couldn’t shake the feeling of violation from his skin, even though he didn’t know for sure what had happened, or if anything had happened at all. 

No, he was choosing the direction he was going to run. North, West, or South. 

“Where are you running to in such a hurry, puppy?”

Ignore it.

A sharp whistle sliced over the comm device. 

“How does the Bird Man do it? Come here, you little shit.”

South looked promising. He could hear the slight rumble of what could be a freeway in that direction. Not much, but better than he had in any other direction. 

“This is the thanks I get for keeping your blood-thirsty ass alive for a year, eh? Since you’re ungrateful it seems, I’ll be sure to square up what you owe for all the trouble you’ve caused me.” The voice continued; a door slammed shut behind him. “You’ve put me in a piss-poor mood tonight, pup, so it ain’t gonna be like making sweet love on a wedding night, when I drag you back here. I’m going to break you. A dog only learns its place by being put in it, and figuring out what happens when they step out of line. That’s something the Demon seems to have gotten too soft to teach you. But I’ll gladly make up for his coddling.”

Tim saw the telltale outline of a bike overturned in the grass near the driveway, probably belonged to one of the other people that had been in that house, a child perhaps. His chest tightened at that thought. The thought of a dead child. Perhaps one that he had taken the life from. And yet, that life had given him a bone. A way out. 

The road seemed level enough, a slight downward trajectory, but that would only help him. He just needed a head start. Besides, he’d skated worse terrains on a board before, a certain skate scene in Okinawa that he’d stumbled up during a business trip to Japan came to mind, so biking it wouldn’t be that different, right? That had been an interesting trip for certain, but he’d only ended up with a broken arm, which wasn’t bad considering how lethal the course had been. A country road would hardly be a challenge. 

He veered toward the bike, snatching it up without missing a beat and sprinted down the drive, throwing his leg over the bike and pushing himself down the road

And he was gone. 

The cold didn’t feel as sharp with the growing distance between the house growing with every turn of the pedals. It was grounding, somehow slowing the rush of his pulse. The need for balance and control kept him focused and steady. And the further from that house he got, the freer his breathing became, the air crisp in his lungs. 

He dug the comm out of his ear, tossing it to the side. 

If there was a tracker on him, it likely wouldn’t be in the comm- it would be embedded, if Tim knew Ra’s at all, which he did- but he wasn’t going to risk his life on that. Even with an embedded tracker, it was still wise to put in the distance. It wouldn’t matter if they knew where he was, so long as he was always far enough away to make it hard for them. Besides, the voices in his ear had not exactly been the best getaway soundtrack. 

Tim kept on the road, Farmhill, he learned at an intersection. He dragged his foot against the blacktop, stopping for a moment to consider his options. It was already nearly completely dark. What he saw of the wildlife up to that point put him somewhere in the Midwest. 

God, he hoped he wasn’t in Ohio. His day had been shitty enough without being in Ohio. 

There wasn’t much he could do except to start hiking. 

It was slow progress, inclines forcing him to walk and save his legs the trouble of the particularly steep ones, and the rumble of vehicles sent him ducking down into ditches amongst the litter and brush from the wildlife and human infestation. There was sometimes a collection of stagnant water which would make the cold even more biting than it already was. 

He was going to wait until he reached the freeway to try and get a ride. A semi would probably get him a further distance than a tired mother bringing their child home from an away game, and he wasn’t going to inconvenience someone who was just trying to get home to bed. Hopefully, with any luck, he’d be able to use a phone with whomever decided to pick him up, maybe call for a pick-up: ‘Hey, it’s Tim, I know I’ve been gone for nearly a year, but I’m alive, surprise. The League of Assassins is after me again, could you come get me? Also I just murdered someone, potentially a few people, hope that doesn’t put a strain on our relationship. Okay, bye!’ 

That would go over well. 

But, he’d need to find a ride before he worried about that. Now that he thought of it, finding a ride would be hard covered in blood. 

That was how he found himself in a gas station bathroom, washing the red stained water down the drain, and pulling on a pair sweats and a tee shirt, both too big for him that he found in the yellow donation bin near the road. They smelled…not great, but they were the best option he had without having to dig for too long, and it got him out of what he’d been wearing, which, while being black were a red flag for someone who was thinking about helping a stranger. 

It looked like lightweight tactical gear. Very League chic. All black garments complete with an array of knives at his belt and strapped at various parts of his body. And a pair of black combat boots, that he would help himself to, since he was going to be walking quite a bit it seemed. It was the least Ra’s could give him after stealing a year from his life. Keeping him from his family.

He used the facilities and washed his hands again, not really getting the feeling of griminess from his skin with the cheap, unscented soap. Looking up, met the eyes of his reflection. 

For how healthy his body was, his eyes…they looked dead. And they weren’t the right color. He didn’t really study his face often, but he knew his eyes were blue. That didn’t really change. But the ones in the mirror weren’t his mother’s stormy blue eyes. No, those eyes were green. And just a little too bright to appear natural. They didn’t look like his, but they did look like someone else’s eyes. 

Jason. 

And his had been blue too, before his dip in the Pit. 

Jason had also lost time after his death and resurrection after being in the Pit. 

That would explain the missing scars, and the fact that Tim should have been majorly deformed if he was walking around at all. It all fit. And it was a lot to digest, on top of what he was already avoiding digesting. He hadn’t even swallowed the murder, forget digesting it. 

Shit. 

He braced his hands on the grimy sink. 

Panic later.  

Fuck, he was scared. There was no prettier word for it. He was just fucking scared, in the raw way a child got scared of the dark. Like he was so deep in the water he couldn’t figure out which way was up and he was running out of energy and air. What he wouldn’t give to have someone there to take his weight, hold him upright. Hold him in general. God, he wanted to cry, but that could devolve quickly and leave him vulnerable. He wanted someone…his dad, Dick, Jason, Cass, someone to hold him and let him feel safe again, safe enough to cry and panic and fucking process everything that had just happened. 

But he didn’t have that. All he had was himself and some smelly sweatpants. That was going to have to suffice for the time being.  

He had to keep moving. 

Tim settled on taking one knife with him and tossing the rest of the clothes and weapons in the trash can (careful to keep the knives sheathed lest some poor minimum wage worker got stabbed while trying to take the trash out at the end of their shift). He didn’t want that to show up in the news and have to add that to the pile of guilt he had yet to process. 

The clerk at the counter was very helpful in pointing him toward the highway (he had been going in the right direction after all), and via a complimentary roadmap, Tim was relieved to find out that he was in Indiana, not Ohio, though going through Ohio would be one of the fastest ways back to Gotham. He thanked them, slipping a granola bar from a display on the counter into the pocket of his stolen sweatpants, and started off in the direction he’d been pointed. 

He was somehow colder than before, but it was nice to be out of the League clothes. He’d felt like a doll that had been the plaything of a child in those clothes, stripped of his ability to choose, even what he wore, and made to puppet out a game that he hadn’t known he was going to play. Even though his skin didn’t hold any blemishes, it felt scarred nonetheless, just from not knowing whose hands had touched it and how they had handled him when he couldn’t think for himself. He would kill for a shower to go with the new clothes, maybe then he could scrub off the guilt and fear like a layer of skin from off of him. 

He would bike some, but there were too many hills and too many of them were steep inclines…somehow, he wasn’t sure how that was possible, but his geography skills were his least polished of the academic subjects. Sue him. But eventually, he got to the highway. 

It was probably around nine o’ clock, so it wasn’t all that busy, but there was still a good amount of traffic. Getting someone to pick him up was easier than he’d expecting, which made him nervous, but not enough that he didn’t accept. He had a knife…he’d be fine. Probably. It had been a long day. 

“Where are ya headin’, kiddo?”

“Jersey.” Tim said, dropping the bike on the side of the road and clambering up into the semi, sagging back into the seat. “But however close you can get me is fine.”

“Not taking your bike?”

“Not mine.”

The man shrugged, pulling back onto the road.

“I’m heading to Pennsylvania, so I should be able to get you there, no problem. From there I’ll see if I don’t know one of the guys at the stop who’s heading that way. Get you the rest of the way.” The driver, an aging man with a full graying beard, said, pulling back onto the road. “You got a name, kid?”

“Tim.”

“Tim,” The driver tested the word, apparently deciding it tasted alright. “I’m Wesley. Good to meet you. What’s got you hitching a ride out here?”

“Found myself without money, just trying to get back home.”

“Hmm, I’m glad I picked you up then. Bumming rides is a dangerous business and you don’t look like much of a fighter.” Wesley commented light-heartedly. “There’s some people that’ll see a nice kid like you and you could end up in a bad way.”

“I do appreciate you doing this, sir.”

“Wes is fine, kid.” Wesley chortled. “I’ve got a soft spot for young kids like you living rough. Had a patch like that in my twenties. Would’ve been nice to have somewhere warm to rest for a bit. You know?”

“That’s a good mentality.” Tim said, forcing himself to remain ‘likable’, putting on that social mask that Jack and Janet had practically forged into him, and to not immediately dissociate while staring out the window. “I hate to ask more of you when you’re already helping me out, but do you have a phone I could borrow? I’d like to call my brother, let him know I’m okay.”

“Sure thing, kiddo. It’s a little busted up, but it does the job just fine.”

“Thank you.”

Tim took a dated flip-phone from Wesley and methodically pressed in the numbers that he had burned to memory. There were so many combinations that he could try. But, he wasn’t sure if he could mentally handle those. Bruce and his interrogations. Dick and his well-intentioned smothering. Steph…Steph…well, that was more selfish than practical. He wasn’t sure he would be able to talk without breaking down to the sound of her voice. 

So, there was really very few options.

The dial tone rang once, twice, three times. 

‘I’m busy. Leave a message if I know you, fuck off if I don’t.’

Tim inhaled deeply. He hadn’t really thought seriously about what he was going to say. Ten months was a long time. A lot could have happened. The multiverse could have been rewritten…again. 

“H-hey, Jay, I don’t know if anyone noticed, but I’ve been gone for a bit, not of my own accord this time.” He laughed awkwardly, hating the pang in his chest at just the thought of being forgotten. “Just…just wanted to check in. I figured you…you might want to know that I was…I don’t know. I’m hitching rides, so I should be back in Gotham by late tomorrow. Bye…I guess. I’ll see you when I’m back.”

An ache twisted in his stomach as he shut the phone. His fingers felt almost numb. 

“He not answering?” Wesley asked, polite enough not to look. “You’ve got anyone else that you could call?”

“Yeah, but I don’t think they’ll pick up to a strange number.”

He considered calling Steph again, but he knew her too well. She didn’t answer the door if no one was expected and she didn’t pick up strange numbers. Stephanie Brown was raised in Crime Alley, and as a girl, she had always known what could happen to her if she let down her guard. Even without first-hand experience- which very few had the luxury of avoiding- no one would let a woman forget what could happen to them. Parents. Teachers. Cops. Hell, even the offenders would say it after they were finished with their perversion of choice. That type of wariness didn’t just up and disappear once she’d moved out of the Alley, or once she’d trained with Batman. 

And Tim wouldn’t fault her for it. Never. 

But, God, it would be nice to hear her voice again. 

“Could just leave a few messages…” He murmured, his fingers ghosting over the keypad. 

“I guess.”

Jason had been the only one Tim had had any hope of getting a response from. And, well, that hadn’t worked. Clearly. 

Nobody had noticed the first time really, it had been eight months then, he wasn’t sure why he’d been expecting any kind of real response. Maybe because he was supposed to be dead. Perhaps he’d unconsciously assumed that Bruce would keep better track of his children’s corpses after the first time. He was calling from someone else’s phone, of course Jason, who was paranoid on his best days, wouldn’t answer it. Even if it could have been Tim…even if Tim would have picked up every call if it was Jason that was gone. Maybe he really was busy. In the middle of a job. Maybe-

The phone started buzzing in his hand. 

He looked down at the number. He picked it up. 

“Who is this?”

“Jay, it’s me.”

“Like hell.”

“Jason-“

“Stop!” Tim flinched. “Just…don’t…What do you want?” Jason snarled. “I can’t stop the Bat or any of them from looking. But ask anything else of me and you know I’ll do it, just leave the mind games to Thalia, she’s better at it.”

His voice sounded so…defeated. The pained last words of a wounded soldier to an enemy combatant. And Tim was the enemy.

But he couldn’t help his next words, “He looked for me?”

“Yeah. Still is. Never fucking stopped.”

“But you stopped.”

“Yeah…what the fuck am I saying? You already know. Jesus. I really am a gullible son of a bitch, aren’t I?”

Tim swallowed, looking out the window into the dark, the passing of the reflective strips on the side of the road. “No. You’re just a good person who wants to believe the best in people, but who’s been cheated so many times that you don’t trust your judgement any longer.” 

“Dear God, you really are Tim.” Jason groaned. “Your zombie version could not have said something so disgustingly sentimental and lame.”

“Zombie?”

“Yeah, your Pit version. Zombie Tim. All the biting wit and sarcasm, none of the compassion. Not my favorite version by far.”

Tim felt his lips curl into a smile. It felt odd. Not like the fighting stance, which had felt fresh and well maintained. This felt rusty. As though he hadn’t done so in a while. 

“So you do like my sappiness. Good to know. But what does that say about you?”

“I’d rather not say.” Jason said. “Where does your memory stop?”

“Falling.”

Jason hummed. “So, nothing in the last ten months. Got it. We’ll need to talk in person. There’s a lot you’ll probably need catching up on.”

“No fucking shit.”

“Where are you now?”

“Hitchhiking out of Indiana.”

“You trying to end up dead?”

Tim rolled his eyes. “Again? Not really. It’s not as though had another option, asshole. My friends weren’t exactly going to give me a ride after I ditched them.”

“Right, so you’ve got a tail?”

“Probably. Considering one of my friends wanted to rip me a new one for leaving.”

“What were you in the middle of a mission or something?”

“End of one…I…broke Dad’s rule. The…the, um, big one.”

“Technically more than that, kiddo, so welcome to the fucking club.” Jason snorted. “But if the old man gives you shit about it, we’ll have to have a nice conversation about a duffel bag and a half dozen decapitated heads. He should know pretty well how the Pit fucks people up.” 

Tim’s heart thrummed, nearly knocking the breath out of him.

“I don’t know what’s going on. I’ve lost like ten months.”

“Not the only one.” Jason murmured. “I…should probably catch you up to speed once I get to you.”

“Okay…” Tim flexed his fingers against his thigh. “My ride is getting me to Pennsylvania. And he offered to help me find a lift for the last leg.”

“I’ll meet you in Pennsylvania.” Jason said. “Find a place to lay low, a Waffle House or something, and call me. And don’t sit by a window. Back to a wall-“

“I know.”

“Watch the exits,” Jason continued, unhindered. “Should be only a couple hours for me. I don’t want you alone with the League on your tail for any longer than necessary.”

“Okay, got it.”

“Good…” Jason trailed off. “I love you, kid. Don’t die.”

“I-“ Tim was caught a little off guard. “I’ll try my best.”

“Do better.”

The call ended. 

Tim closed to the phone, passing it back over to Wesley. 

“Thank you.” He said again. 

“I take it you got through to your brother?”

Tim nodded. “Yeah. He was worried about me, but he’s coming to meet me in Pennsylvania, so I guess I won’t need that ride.”

“That’s good.” Wesley smiled, the lines on his face crinkling. “I’m actually spending the night at a motel in the area, if you wanted a place to wash up and rest, while you wait for your brother.”

Normally, Tim would decline. But something about waking up with blood on his hands made him yearn for a locked door. Somewhere out of sight. Off camera. If he was by himself, and he was, that was the best option though, to be public, visible, it was the safest place he could be. But, god, if a shower wasn’t tempting. Even a shitty shower, with bad water pressure, sounded like heaven. The gas station bathroom could only get him so clean. 

Maybe just for a shower. 

“I would like to wash up, if you’re really serious about the offer. But I’d feel better waiting somewhere public.” Tim said, trying his best to be polite. “It’s nothing against you, but my brother is paranoid about me getting murdered, so if I stayed with you he’d probably kill me himself.”

Wesley chuckled. “That’s a good brother right there. You’re a lucky kid for that.”

“I think you might be right.” Tim said softly, his mind churning with more questions than answers. How would Jason know the answers to his questions? What had he meant about him losing ten months as well? Why in the hell was he coming to get him?

“We could go out to eat and wait there.”

Tim shook himself out of his stupor. “You’ve already helped me enough as it is.”

“Nonsense. You seem like a good kid. I want to make sure you’re safe and well fed by the time your brother comes and gets you.” Wesley said firmly. “Think about what you’d like to eat while we’re driving and we’ll see if we can’t find something when we get there.”

“Okay…”

Tim shifted, hugging his arms around himself. He still hadn’t managed to get warm. 

“Shit, are you cold, son?” Wesley said, already reaching for the temperature control knobs. “Here. Take my jacket too. It may look like a piece of shit, but it’s kept me warm for damn near twenty years.”

Tim hesitantly reached over to grab the garment from Wesley. He wrapped it over his shoulders. It was warm. And that warmth gently pushed him down, telling him to close his eyes and rest. 

It was a quiet sort of sleep. Dreamless. Except for the faintest whispers prying at the edge of the nothingness, breaking through, until he could hear them clearly. 

‘Don’t fight me, Timothy.’

‘Let go!’

His eyes shot open. He snatched the wrist and yanked the hand away before he had a chance to take in his surroundings. The truck was stopped in a parking lot of some sort, bright florescent street lights lit up the interior, tinging everything a sickly green-ish shade. They’d arrived at the destination in Pennsylvania. Wesley, who looked rather unnerved by Tim’s skittishness, was trying to wake him up. It was okay. 

It was okay. 

Was it?

His heart didn’t seem to think so. It was still thrumming violently against his ribs, like a starving lion clawing at the bars of its cage, hungry for blood. 

“Are you alright, son?”

Wesley’s voice sounded far away, distorted by his roaring pulse in his ears.

Tim forced himself to take a shaky breath. 

“You mind letting go of my arm, Tim?”

Tim released his grip as if he’d been burned by the flesh beneath it. “Sorry…I’m sorry. I just…”

“You got startled. That’s all, nothing to apologize for, son.” Wesley said gently. “Come on, the motel is right across the street.” Tim went to hand the jacket back. “No, no, you keep it. I’m pretty weather hardy, I’ll be fine.”

Tim slipped his arms into the sleeves silently and clambered out of the truck onto the slushy ground of a carpool parking lot. It was even colder than it had been in Indiana, so he was internally grateful that Wesley had refused to take the coat back. The extra length and width of it being several sizes too big for him made it feel warmer, even if it wasn’t necessarily true.

He trudged through the muck, dampening the hem of his borrowed clothes, and following alongside Wesley, his breath fogging up the space in front of him. Cars drove at a snails pace on the damp road. Wesley reached out to guide him across the road when it cleared of cars, but pulled it back, beckoning him forward instead. The dirty muck splashed up onto his too-long pant-legs as he jogged to keep pace with Wesley’s longer strides. 

After a little bit of hassle with the reservation, and a weird look from the woman at the reception area, Wesley had the key to his room and an armful of threadbare towels. It was at that point that Tim was hit with the full realization of what a stupid idea this was. He was about to follow a complete stranger into their room. It was like asking to be kidnapped. Or murdered. Or both. 

He stopped for a moment.

Oh, well. 

He shrugged and walked in. 

There was a knife in his boot. And he’d been dipped in the Pit. If Wesley wanted to murder him, he felt bad for Wesley because even Tim didn’t know what he would do if provoked. He was too tired to try and care that far into the future. 

The room was small, beige, with faded carpet and a print of a painting of a duck on the wall above the queen sized bed. There was a dated television and a bedside table, complete with a remote and a Bible sitting atop it. A faded brown and orange comforter was stretched across the bed, so tight that someone could bounce a quarter off it. The smell of burnt hair and cheap laundry detergent hung in the air, but it wasn’t as unpleasant as Tim might’ve usually found it. Altogether it was a bit cramped and the sound of the heating vents would’ve driven Tim crazy if he’d been staying the night, but it was there and it was being shared with him, so, right then, it was the nicest room he’d ever stayed in.

“You want to go ahead and wash up, I’m going lay down for a bit. My back is killing me.” Wesley said, kicking off his boots and sitting down at the edge of the bed with a groan. “Don’t get old, son. It’s not what it’s cracked up to be.”

The way he was going, Tim would be so lucky as to get old. But he didn’t say that. He just offered up a small smile instead to show that he was listening and understood the intended humor. 

The bathroom was more like a closet than Tim was used to, but he supposed his expectations for hotel or motel bathrooms had been a little distorted by his upbringing. The shower head was also very low. Being 5’6 on a good day, it wasn’t a problem he usually had, so it was a novel experience to say the least. 

He shut and locked the door, lest he tempt Fate’s humor or potential love of the Hitchcock classic Psycho.  

And a shower was just what the doctor ordered. The water wasn’t as hot as he might’ve liked and the water pressure left much to be desired, but it was good enough to start washing the feeling of that night from his skin. He rolled his head back under the stream of water, closing his eyes. 

His muscles ached. His stomach hadn’t unknotted from the anxious tangle it had made of itself from the moment he’d come to. 

He’d killed someone. And he’d done it before, sure. With blowing up the League of Assassins, guilt he still grappled with. But something about not making that choice, not being in control, not having thought it through, with his own mind, and come to the difficult conclusion that there was no other choice but to do it. That was a blade that twisted deeper into his gut. He hated that he’d made that choice with the League, but it had been the only one that would’ve gotten himself and Tam out alive. Tam was alive because he’d made that choice. There was no benefit to assuage his guilt tonight, no salve to protect the wound. He didn’t get to defend his choice, lay out his thought process before a court of his id, ego, and super-ego to claim self-defense. This would just be open and gaping and festering in his side forever. 

Tim needed rationale. It was how he operated. He planned. He meditated. He made choices. Sometimes those choices weren’t pretty, and sometimes they weren’t unbiased, but they were his, and they were always founded on some form of logic and his morality. He owned them. Good, bad, and ugly. They were his choices.

That death wasn’t his choice. He knew nothing about the man. Just that he was now dead by Tim’s own hand. By hands that had been trained with the intention of protecting others.

He tugged his hands back through his hair, catching on the partial braids that had kept it out of his face. 

No. No. No. 

His fingers fumbled to untie the soaked strands. They kept slipping. Never fast enough to ease the bubbling of discomfort beneath his skin. Just another piece of him that hadn’t been his choice. And it was stupid…that such an inane thing like two braids in his hair were causing his distress. Out of everything. But it wasn’t his. Someone else’s hands had touched his hair, his body, him, and decided what to do with it. It was like he could still feel foreign fingertips pressing into his scalp, holding his head still. And he just wanted them gone, but he couldn’t get them out…

A strangled scream clawed it’s way out of his throat. His hands tore at his hair, as if that might make this feeling…this lack of control go away. He needed it to go away. It needed to go away. But it didn’t…and he…he couldn’t…

He looked down at his hands. Ragged strands of hair smeared specks of blood. 

Blood on his hands again. 

And it was as if everything he’d been holding back came crashing down on top of him. Burying him alive beneath it. 

His legs gave way. 

He shook his head, grabbing at his hair again. Ripping at it. But it would never hurt enough to pay back that debt of pain he’d put into the world. It would always need to hurt more. And more. It would need to match the weight on his chest. It needed to rip him apart, sew him back together, and tear him open again before it would ever feel even close enough to be recompense for his sins. 

A slow, sharp knock on the door, shattered his bubble of self-loathing, and turned his blood to ice. “Hey, Hellhound, you in there? Come on out, please.”

That voice…the voice from his comms. 

No. No, they couldn’t have caught up already. He needed more time…

His heart dropped. 

They were in the motel room. 

And Wesley was too. Wesley was out there. He was out there was brutal assassins. There was no way he stood even a fraction of a chance. 

“Come on, puppy, out we get. Unless you want the old man to die.” The voice sneered. “We’ve been put through a lot of trouble on your account, so don’t make this night messier then it has to be. Okay? Just come on out, and the old man lives…or I break down this door, and you get to watch as he’s drained of blood because you decided to be stubborn.”

“Give me a fucking minute.” Tim croaked, reaching up weakly to shut off the shower. “I’m coming, just…just don’t fucking hurt him. He’s got nothing to do with this.”

The voice just laughed. “You made him part of this. Really should think about the consequences of your actions before you go dragging people along to shield you from them. You’ve got ten seconds. Don’t think about trying anything.”

Tim forced himself to his feet, pulling on his sweatpants and unlocking the door. He hated the way the fabric clung to his still dripping skin, how the air chilled his skin. For a moment he considered grabbing the knife, but there were two of them, he couldn’t risk Wesley’s life like that, he had no clue how they were positioned, there was no guarantee that he would be fast enough to incapacitate the assassins before Wesley got hurt or killed. He didn’t like being so vulnerable, but it was the best choice he had.

He stepped out of the bathroom, coming face to face with a man with a ragged scar that split his face into two equal halves. But whomever had stitched the guy up was either blind or really didn’t like him. Judging from past experience Tim was guess it was the latter, and hoped it was the former so another person wouldn’t have had to have been subjected to looking at his smug face. 

“There he is.” 

“Hey.” Tim said flatly. “I’m here.”

“I see that.” The man smirked. “I knew you could be a good dog with the right motivation.”

He reached down to mess with Tim’s wet hair. 

Tim set his jaw, the feeling of the cold fingertips making him want to crawl out of his skin “What now? You got me.” 

“If it were up to me, I would kill you where you stand for desertion. But the Demon’s Head has a strange fondness for you.” His hand dropped beneath Tim’s chin, hovering just above the tender flesh of the neck. “So, I can’t do that. Maybe he’ll let me do the honors of restraining you when you get another reconditioning. But the Demon does take pleasure in taming your little tantrums himself, so I might just have to be satisfied in watching you be broken in again.”

The hand squeezed lightly, clearly trembling with the sadistic glee of knowing what it could do with just a little…more…pressure. 

Tim swallowed down the panic, keeping his face in the passive mask of non-reaction that he had learned long before he’d ever met Batman. “Sounds fun. Will there be a snack table? You’ve ruined my dinner plans see.”

Tim was pushed back against the wall, the hand around his throat pressing more threateningly against his airway. 

“All those times I’ve stitched up after your injuries, I should have devoted the thread to sewing that smart mouth of yours closed. Would have been a better investment.”

“Just say you want to kiss me, buddy.” Tim rasped, winking. “You wouldn’t be the first. Though my track record seems to state that I usually go for blondes.”

“Old habits die hard, huh, Hellhound?”

The hand pulled away, knotting up into his hair, tugging him forward toward the bedroom area. 

A tall woman with long dark hair stood stoically, with a sword held beneath the chin of one Wesley, who was backed up against the headrest, looking with wide eyes between the sword and Tim. It took all of Tim’s strength not to break the hold on him and try to make it the distance over to protect the person that had helped him. But he knew he couldn’t make it in time. And he couldn’t let someone else, another innocent person, die that night on his account. 

“Dame, we’ve got the dog, we’re leaving.”

Dame looked coolly between Tim and the man holding him. 

“You could have let him put on some clothes first, Lingo.” She said, sounding almost bored. “He looks like a drowned kitten. It’s almost cute, in a pathetic way.”

“Only you would say that.” Lingo snorted. 

She cocked her head to the side. “He took out the braids I did. I thought they suited him. Oh, well.” 

Lingo pushed Tim forward again. 

“He’s not another one of your little dress up dolls. Just get rid of the old man. We’re delayed enough as it is.”

“Fine.”

“No!” Tim screamed, tugging out of the hold on him, only to watch, as if in slow motion, the sword pull back and then slice through Wesley’s neck. Blood shot upward from the artery. The wound was nearly enough to decapitate the head from the shoulders. It was lethal. Wesley was already dead before Tim got to the bed, earning a mouthful of blood for his efforts. 

He was tackled to the carpet, the rough grains burning his skin, arm trapped beneath his torso, held there by weight pressed at the small of his back, effectively pinning him to the floor like a butterfly to a board. The hands gripped his head and jaw, forcing his mouth open and still as a stream of thick, dark blood dripped down from the bed, onto his cheek, and sliding into his mouth. 

“There you go.” Lingo chuckled above him. “Drink it up, pretty boy. You did this. So, taste the fruits of your labor right here. You like it?” 

Tim couldn’t move. The blood seeped onto his tongue, down his throat. And he couldn’t close his mouth. 

“That’s enough, Lingo. We need to get him back to the Bird, mellow him enough to get back to the base. It’s been enough of a hassle already.”

“He doesn’t need to be coddled, Dame. He’s a fucking liability. If the Demon insists on keeping him around to warm his fucking bed at night, so be it, but I’m not going to treat him as if he’s some fucking pedigree.” Lingo snarled. “If I’ve got to be stuck with the dog, I might as well make sure it doesn’t make another mess. Gotta make sure the puppy learns where it’s place is. And the consequences for overstepping its worth.”

Blood. He could smell it. The iron wouldn’t leave his lips. It pooled around his head. 

He’d done this. He’d done this. And someone else was dead.

Wesley was dead because of him. Because of him and…

Hands were touching his face. 

His skin burned against the carpet.

He couldn’t breathe. He couldn’t fucking breathe. 

He blinked back tears, but all he could see was green. 

A flood of green and it all stopped. 

You are my own Beloved Death.

Chapter Text

When he came back to himself, the world was tinged in a sickly green and he was wrist deep in the chest cavity of corpse, whose rib cage had been ripped in two, chest completely torn open. A still hot heart seared the skin of his palm as it sat heavy between his bloody fingers, the strings of tissue still clinging like cobwebs. He could see the intestines spilling out, strewn like party streamers around the body. There was no head attached to the body before him, it was across the room, rolled into a corner as if thrown there to think about what it had done. 

Blood was everywhere again. Up the walls. In the grains of the carpets.

But Tim wasn’t struck by horror. He didn’t feel much of anything at all. Not for the body he was massacring. Nor the one that lay two feet away in a similar state of dismemberment. 

No, he just felt cold…nothing. 

He fell back onto the heels of his feet. His pulse was slower than it should have been. Murder was supposed to get the blood pumping, right? Because that’s what this was…murder. It was murder and he didn’t care. He didn’t care and that would normally bother him. But it didn’t. He couldn’t even work up something close enough to guilt to pass for it. 

This was his doing. By his own hands. He’d torn two human beings apart. The sword lay beside Dame, which meant, he’d done this with his bare hands. He’d broken open a rib cage…he’d decapitated someone with his bare hands. He didn’t raise his heart rate. And he didn’t feel an ounce of the guilt he was supposed to. 

He’d felt panicked about coming to and having killed the doctor, but this felt…different. Somehow he knew that he’d made that choice to tear them apart. And it satisfied him, as if the pain had been paid back in full. Like eating a full meal after a day without food. The anxious static beneath his skin was gone. A calm in his body, a lack of tension that he wasn’t sure he’d ever felt in a long while, maybe ever.  

It was strange to be without something he’d carried most of his life, but not bad. More like, it was a feeling he could find himself getting used to. And he knew that was dangerous to think. That was the first step to being addicted. That it was a dangerous thing to be addicted to. But Tim couldn’t find a way to make himself feel concerned about it. 

He got to his feet, wiping his hands on his sweatpants. His back cracked as he straighten up and he rolled back his neck and shoulders, meeting similar results. Clearly he was getting old. He exhaled shortly before picking up the motel phone, dialing in a familiar number and waiting. 

One ring. Two rings. 

He tapped his foot. 

“Who is it?” Jason grunted. 

“Tim.” 

“I’m a half hour into Pennsylvania. Where are you?”

“Sunny Days Motel.” Tim replied evenly. “And I made a bit of a mess of things.”

“How much of a mess?”

Tim looked down at the floor, twisting the cord around his finger. “I ripped the heads off of two League operatives and disemboweled them.” 

The phone was so quiet, he almost checked to see if it had somehow come disconnected.

“Excuse me?”

“I killed two League operatives.” Tim repeated calmly. “They attempted to take me back to Ra’s, and they killed a civilian, so I killed them.”

“Are you alright, Timmy? What’s going on?”

“I’m fine.” Tim frowned. “And I just told you what happened.”

“You were all torn up about murder a couple hours ago, why the sudden switch up?” Jason asked. “I mean, I’ve never felt closer to you, kiddo, but it seems like quite the jump for Bruce’s mini-me to take.”

Tim cocked his head to the side. “I suppose three in a day is a bit excessive. I’m going to clean up a bit. Get rid of the fingerprints and shit.”

“Okay…” Jason tapered off. “What’s your room number?”

“Eight.”

“Great. Okay. I’ll knock twice on the door when I get there.”

“Okay.” Tim said, twirling the cord around his finger. “I also thought of a cool team-up name for us, for when we do missions and shit. It’s: Little Red Robin Hood. I figured you’d appreciate the literary homages and the double entendre and word play.”

“Nah, it’s good. I don’t suppose I have to tell you to be careful with the whole ‘clean up’, right?” Jason sighed heavily. “Don’t get caught…please. I don’t have the mental fortitude to break you out of police custody tonight.”

“I’m not planning on leaving the room.” Tim replied, looking down at his sweats that were now a patchy red color. “My clothes are pretty much drenched right now, so I’d have to be stupid to go outside. Also, on that note…I may need a change of clothes.”

“I brought my go-bag. But I’ll stop by a Walmart or something, grab you some pants because I doubt you would fit in my baby clothes, let alone the stuff I wear now.” 

“Rude. But fair.” Tim mused, leaning back against the wall. “I’ll see you in a bit.”

“See you in a bit, kiddo. Stay safe, alright?”

“Alright. Roads are slick in town. Don’t drive too fast.”

Jason was quiet again and Tim almost wondered if he’d been hung up on. “Sounds good.”

Tim set the phone back on the receiver and looked around, drawing a deep breath in. He certainly had made quite the mess. 

In his own life, messes were an amalgamation of his stress. His Nest and his apartment were always littered with empty cups and bowls, piles of old case files, dirty laundry strewn about on the floor and furniture. The spaces would never get clean unless someone else got tired of the mess first and did it for him, which made him feel guilty and anxious, not knowing where the person was putting the things they were ‘cleaning up’. And it wasn’t as though he liked his space messy, quite the opposite, but cleaning up took time that he didn’t have and if he started on clearing his desk, he’d have to organize his file cabinets and wash his dishes and a hundred other things just to get that one task done. It was…overwhelming. And if it did happen, it would never stay clean for long, so there was never a point. Or at least there never felt like one. It would just stress him out more than he already was, and his baseline was always too high as it was. 

But looking at the mess of blood and gore and guts strewn about. He didn’t feel any of that so familiar agitation. He just…started picking up. The bodies were put on the already bloody comforter and dragged into the bathroom, getting them out of the way into a more ‘cleanable’ location, free of so much fiber and fabric before their bodies released the contents of the bladder and bowels and made an even bigger mess that was harder to clean up. The heads joined the bodies, set in the sink, and any estranged organs were put in the tub where Wesley had been placed. The goal was not to make it look as it had before, that was just not going to happen, the goal was to scrub Tim’s existence from the room. Luckily he hadn’t spilled any blood himself, so it was a lot easier. 

He found some cleaning supplies under the sink and just wiped down every surface that he had even thought about brushing his hand against, pulled that hair from the drain (he did nearly throw up there), and threw the supplies into the trash bag from the bathroom. He folded up his shirt, setting it aside and placing the knife on top. The blade seemed to laugh at him fiendishly. 

Bet you wish you made a different choice, don’t you?

A quick check out the window spotted only one camera on the first level. There was probably one in the front office. He could probably scrub that without too much issue with some malware later on. Just burning the building down would be easier, it would destroy the prints and make the bodies harder to identify, but that would be very theatric and attention grabbing, and he wasn’t positive of the response time in this area, so it had a chance of getting put out before it destroyed what he intended it to. It would be cathartic to literally burn a symbolic bridge with the League, a giant ‘fuck you’ to the Demon’s Head, showing exactly what he thought of this whole charade. But it would also destroy someone’s livelihood, which was wrong, so he probably couldn’t do that. 

Shame. 

He shed his sweats neatly adding them to the pile of things to be discarded, and neatly wiped down his arms and legs, cleaning off the blood before putting his underwear back on.

There was little else to do after that except sit and watch Animal Planet until Jason arrived. The TV had a weird yellow-y green tint to it, which was annoying, but not completely killing the vibe. Tim was deeply immersed in an episode of Meerkat Manor when two sharp knocks clicked against the door. 

He hopped up to his feet, checking through the peephole before unlocking the door. 

“This is a mess.” Jason said, dressed in his civilian casual, peering in and raised a brow. His gaze turned to Tim, looking him up and down, his face locked in his usual mask of indifference. “You look like shit.”

“Thank you.” Tim replied, stepping aside so that Jason could walk in. 

“Not quite what I intended when I told you to lay low, kiddo.”

Tim huffed, shutting and bolting the door. “I didn’t exactly invite the League here for dinner.”

“So, you’re coming down again. That’s good.” Jason murmured, scratching his head, setting the grocery bag on one of the few bloodless sections of carpet. “Eyes are still glowing, which is actually very creepy from the outside, now that I’m an observer. I’d give it an hour or two before you crash.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Pit Rage,” Jason exhaled, looking around with a haunted grimace. “It’s a nasty itch to scratch. Once you feed the urge it only wants more the next time to satisfy it. But it’s like opening the wound further, more of the toxins sneak in. It becomes easier and easier to reach that snapping point.” He snapped his fingers to emphasize. “Your emotions are the trigger. Pit emphasizes the bad shit, makes you feel all the nastiness at a double dose. And after the first time, you remember how nice it felt after you gave in. I bet you feel really fucking chill right now, don’t you?” He pulled out a pair of new joggers and a rolled up hoodie toward Tim, who caught them out of the air. "So you don’t resist it as much the next time and the time after that. Pit gets a better and better foothold, until it’s more of you than you are. You’re angry, and impulsive, and violent.”

“What about hysterical strength?”

Jason frowned. “The Pit is more of a brain thing, it controls the capability for violence that is already there. You don’t get stronger, you just lose inhibition to hold back.”

“So, you couldn’t just rip someone’s head off?” Tim confirmed.

“Not that I’m aware of…” Jason’s eyes narrowed.

“Well, that’s a problem then.”

Jason looked at Tim, and down at the very bloody sweatpants he was wearing. “You ripped someone’s head off? Bare hands?”

Tim nodded, watching Jason’s face for the possible reaction, any intention to leave or call in for help. “I also broke open a rib cage and chest cavity. Pulled out a heart.”

“Huh…that’s…pretty weird.” Jason said slowly, taking a small step back, clearly still processing. “Don’t especially love the implications of that revelation, but we’ll cross that bridge later. We’ll…we’ll need to deal with the tracker too. It’ll be embedded in your back, around your shoulder blade. Harder for someone to get out without help.” 

“I’ve got a knife, if you need something sharp.” Tim said helpfully, walking over to grab it from on top of his joggers. “Just try not to slit my throat this time around.”

He twirled it around so the handle was facing Jason. 

“I give you permission to stab me.” He winked. “One time offer. Take it or leave it, Hood.” 

Tim raised his brows challengingly.

Jason huffed and snatched the knife from Tim’s hand, using the other to grab Tim’s shoulder and bodily spin him so his back was to Jason and the knife. The hand tightened slightly, holding him still. 

A brief spark of panic flitted through his system before it was caught and smothered by the gluttonous pillow of the Pit. 

“Little shit,” Jason muttered lowly, his fingers tracing over Tim’s shoulder blades, prodding at the skin gently. “Got it. This is gonna hurt a little, alright.”

“Just fucking do it.”

“Jesus, didn’t know you were so eager to be stabbed in the back again, Replacement.” 

Tim rolled his eyes, relaxing his shoulders. 

The cold tip of the blade sliced deftly through the layers of skin. He hissed, ticking his head to the side, but keeping still. Then again. And the knife dug in, rooting beneath the skin. Tim grit his teeth. 

“Any day now, Jay.”

“Don’t get your panties in a twist, Timbo. I’m using a knife not a scalpel, this ain’t exactly gonna be neurosurgery level precision here.”

Tim bit down a growl. “That much I can gather.”

“Easy there, kid, I’ve got it. And feeling pain is good, it means you’re coming down.”

Another painful, drawn out maneuver before Tim could feel something small and solid breaching the skin. Tim let out a stream of curse words under his breath. 

“And done.” Jason said, rustling around behind Tim for a moment. “Just got to patch you up real quick.” 

Following the application of some antiseptic and a bandage, Jason exhaled heavily.

“You get changed…” He looked around again and sighed heavily. “The bodies are in the bathroom, aren’t they?”

Tim pressed his lips together. “Yeah, just turn around, you’ll be fine.”

Jason murmured something under his breath, looking as though he was asking the bloodstained walls for strength. He turned around, facing the door. His posture was always so stiff, shoulders back, in a way that was almost too aggressive for a military stance. It was as if he was always already facing down an opponent, giving them one last chance to bow out by proving how uneven the match was, just on a physical level. Like the last thing he wanted was a fight, so he was trying to end it before it began. 

That wasn’t League posture. The League would never be so stiff. They were uniform, but they had a laxness to their stance, almost cocky, that would easily maneuver into a fighting stance in the blink of an eye. 

It wasn’t Batman. Batman used fear. Intimidation. But Jason, without the mask, was more gentle than he’d ever let on. He didn’t like to fight. Even in the mask. It was an outlet, sure, a sense of purpose and justice, but he didn’t relish it, unless it was some particularly perverted opponent. This stance was the opposite of intimidation, it was practically begging for peace. Like a tired veteran of a forgotten war, still on guard, unable to lay down arms just yet. 

The Pit changed a lot, but it couldn’t change that. Jason was at his core, a quiet soul, who wound up in loud situations, aching for some silence for once.

Tim felt his stomach twist, the first semblance of feeling that he’d gotten since he’d gone into a murderous haze and murdered two people. He shook his head, trying to clear away the feeling, and just focused on getting the clothes on. 

The joggers actually fit, which was a weird sensation for someone who still swam in any clothes that weren’t specifically tailored to his measurements. He’d seen the size. It would have been big on him eight months ago. His eyes hadn’t deceived him, he’d really gained some weight and some muscle in that time. It felt bulky on him, now that he’d confirmed it to be true, now that his mind had fixated on it. Like he’d been recreated by memory from someone who had imagined him to be better than he was. 

He pulled on the hoodie, which had the smell of Jason’s lavender fabric softener on it, swimming in the mass of fabric that was blessedly still big enough to hide in. 

“I’m good.” He said, pulling the hood up over his head. 

“Aw,” Jason said in a mockingly sweet tone, yanking the hood down further over Tim’s eyes. “He’s so cute.”

“I just murdered three people, want to make it a fourth, bud?” Tim asked. “We should finish cleaning up and go. There was a clean-up crew behind these two earlier tonight. I don’t know who’s tracking my location or how much- how much he is being updated. But I’d rather not risk it.”

“We leaving the bodies or no?”

“Bodies stay…” Tim pondered for a moment. “We can take the heads and a liver. It’ll connect in people’s minds to a serial killer. And it’ll look ritualistic with just enough missing pieces to make it intriguing. Why only two heads? Why only one liver? Did the killer run out of time? Was it intentional? Why take anything at all? Is it a trophy? Are they a cannibal? Was it a sexual motive? A crime of passion? A crime of opportunity? Or were these victims targeted? Why two men and one woman? So many avenues to investigate. And people will put pressure on the police, so every avenue must be taken seriously.”

Jason looked at him was a minute sense of awe. “Your mind is terrifying.”

“So I’ve been told.” Tim waved his hand dismissively. “I might call in a tip about an assassination cult run by an immortal demon later. That could be fun. We’ll see.”

Cleaning up was a quiet affair, packing heads and organ into plastic bags and taking trips to the Dumpster with the bloody bedding and stowing the body parts (put in more bags to prevent leakage) in the trunk of Jason’s car. The goal was making it look like a rushed clean-up job after an intentional triple murder. Which was easier than making it look like no murder had taken place, at least for their timetable it would be. If they had their usual resources, maybe they might’ve been able to swing it, but as it was, staging a crime scene was the best option. It helped that out of the family, they were the two who had the skill set best suited for the job. 

“Okay,” Jason huffed, sliding into the driver’s seat of his car. “I was in the middle of an Outlaws thing when you called, so we’ll stop back at our camping grounds for the night, then we go back to Gotham and get this shit sorted. Hopefully you’re a little less psychopathic by the time we see good ol’ father dearest.”  

Jason drummed his hands on the steering wheel. 

“Could we stop for food? I’m starving.” Tim asked, shifting around to get comfortable so he could finally sleep. 

“I would be too.” Jason muttered, starting up the car. “Fuck it, we’ll go through a drive-thru on the way. Don’t be too picky.”

“I could eat a literal clump of dirt right now. I am not going to be picky.”

“Holding you to that. Also holding you to a budget of whatever cash I am currently in possession of. Go over that, and you’re robbing the bank to pay for the rest.”

“Sounds good.”

“Right, your sense of morality is passed out in a ditch right now.” Jason checked behind the car and pulled out of the parking lot. “Shouldn’t joke about things of dubious legality around you for a bit.”

“Probably would be better off robbing a gas station, anyway for that kind of money,” Tim mused with a yawn. “Less security. Less people. And snacks.”

“And that is why.”

“Spoil sport. Batman wasn’t this uptight when you were on a Pit induced murder spree.”

“I didn’t have super strength and I wasn’t being hunted down by an immortal cult leader.” Jason said irritably, making a turn at a stop sign, following the markers toward the freeway. “And Batman is a fucking coward, so there’s that. Couldn’t cross his lines, even for me. And that fucking clown is still alive.”

“Technically that’s Superman’s fault,” Tim clarified, pulling his seatbelt on, safety first, even though a car wreck was pretty low on his list of concerns. “But you know, there were other opportunities.”

“What?”

“Batman almost beat the Joker to death after you died, but Superman stopped him. It was a weird time…diplomatic immunity was involved, it was a whole thing.” Tim said, watching the small town give way to forest lined entrance ramp. “Still, he did revive the Joker when Nightwing killed him.”

“Dick killed the Joker?”

“So did I…”

“You?”

“The Joker always manages to survive.” Tim said with a frown. “I’ve looked into the possibility of a deal with the devil, but Constantine said that it was very likely that the devil wouldn’t want to be associated with the Joker either. So, there’s that. Take it how you will.”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” Jason spluttered. “Circle back for a minute, kid, you killed the Joker.”

“It was a while ago, when you were still, you know-“ Tim clicked his tongue and slid a finger across his throat. “Long story short, I was kidnapped and brainwashed by the Joker, who then tried to get me to kill Batman, and I killed the Joker instead…sort of…” He sighed. “My aim was a little off. A little short of lethal. Could probably do it now, you know…if you wanted.”

Jason inhaled shakily, merging onto the empty lane and speeding up.

“You…you’re not in the right mental state to make that choice right now.” Jason said quietly, hitting cruise control. “I may hate the Joker, but…I like you too much to treat you like a mindless attack dog. But…thanks for the offer…”

Tim shrugged. “Whatever, wake me up when there’s food.”

“Will do. Rest up, kid.”

Tim settled in, tucking up his feet and hugging his arms around himself, letting the swaying of the vehicle and the serenade of the highway lull him to sleep. 

He was in a dark room, a green ambient glow was the only light that cast shadows around the cavernous space. The echo of water lapping against stone rippled throughout the space, jumping off of cold, damp walls. The air smelled of decay, the scent of something that had been left dead and unburied for far too long, a corpse of someone so reviled that they had been left to rot rather than even given the dignity of a shallow unmarked grave. The room seemed like a manifestation of death, just cold and dank and damp, a lonely, yawning darkness, knowing that you would never find another soul in the shadows, that you would only be able to turn to your own thoughts for company.

And he was clothed only in garment of thin scratchy fabric that did little to block out the cold. His skin rippled up from the damp chill. But he was always a little cold all the time, so it wasn’t a new feeling. Then again, if he were at home instead of in a cave, he would just grab another hoodie from a nearby chair or a blanket from off the floor. He doubted this cave had any such amenities.

But he wasn’t alone in the cave. He was being carried, cradled beneath the legs and arms, tenderly, like how someone might hold a small child who fell asleep in the car or their partner after they’d gotten married. There was an implied familiarity in the carry, but Tim did not feel any sense of that kind of familiarity in return. It was more a sense of foreboding, a familiarity that elicited a need for wariness. The hands were spindly, but the arms did not shake beneath his weight, and the fingers curled possessively into his skin. The person was tall. They smelled of jasmine and blood. 

He tried to turn his head, to look and see who it was that was walking him closer and closer to the green haze, but he found no strength left in him to do so. Not even the strength to lift a finger. His heart didn’t pound in fear. It beat sluggishly, dragging itself forward to the next beat. His breath didn’t hitch at the realization. He wasn’t breathing much at all. Just a rattling, shallow whisper that barely satiated the barest trace of what it was supposed to sustain. There was no churn of his stomach. No lump in his throat. Nothing. Just the last remnants of life stuttering like the gears of a wind up toy at the end of cycle. The only thing that he could feel, the only thing that seemed to show that he was in his body at all, that he was in distress, was a singular tear that slipped back into his hair, and nothing else.

“You needn’t be afraid, Detective, when I am finished you are finished, you will be restored beyond what you were before. Your mind and your talents will finally become unfettered. I will make you as perfect as I always have known you could become.”

No .

He didn’t want this. Not this. Not like this. 

The scene changed. He was in the cave still, but he was being held down on the floor, someone straddled across his abdomen, thrashing against a hold that pinned him by the wrists, with sharp fingernails pushing into his skin with the effort to keep him down. Every nerve ending was on fire, like thousands of daggers pushing through his bones and shattering them. Everything was painfully bright, painted in a violent shade of green, blinding and burning. It hurt, even with his eyes closed, the light and the pain didn’t stop. He could feel his heart this time, it felt bloated in his chest, beating so hard it made him loose his breath.

“You are mine. You belong to me, body, mind, and soul. You have no will but my will. My will! And I will repeat this exercise again and again until it finds purchase in that stubborn head of yours.” The figure above him snarled, the weight shifting back and releasing from his wrist. “Perhaps this will be the last time we are forced to do this…”

Tim tried to sit up.

The spindly fingers tangled in his hair and slammed his head down against the stone. Again and again. 

But he couldn’t speak. He couldn’t scream. He could only try to force the hands off of him. 

“It really does kill me to destroy such an exquisite mind, even temporarily, but it must be done…for you, Timothy, and for the betterment of the world. Those chains your master bound you to, morality, humanity, justice, they are only choking your potential to a slow death. You do no one any favors by suffocating yourself for the sake of that wretch…you will do great things, beautiful things and you may come to thank me for this eventually.” The figure said. “You will become my own beloved Death.”

His head was slammed down once more and-

Tim jolted upright in his seat. 

“Stop!”

His body catapulted forward, and was wrenched back painfully by the seatbelt across his chest as the car came to a screeching halt. Tim fumbled to get the belt off of him and open the door. His legs barely held his weight for a moment before they gave way and Tim fell to his hands and knees and threw up into the ditch on the side of the dark, quiet highway. 

It felt as though every part of him was shaking as he choked and coughed, violently retching, even when there was nothing left to expel. Every system seemed to want to get that churning sickness out of his body. But it was everywhere, behind his eyes, twisting in his gut, aching in his fingertips. It wouldn’t be purged so simply. No. It was determined, like a parasite, to stay where it was and leech the very soul from its vessel. 

No. No. No. No. No. 

But his arms gave way. 

It was like his first time micro dosing poison to build immunity. Bruce had miscalculated Tim’s weight, which hadn’t been entirely his fault, Tim had barely been eating at that point between school and galas and Robin and everything else. He’d dropped nearly fifteen pounds of weight he couldn’t afford to lose. Without that weight, his organs were already straining as it was, and combined with the mis-measured dosage, he had grown violently ill. He’d missed a week of school, only able to thrash around on the infirmary cot, sweating and moaning, and he had thrown up everything that wasn’t given via IV. Lost an additional three pounds.

Not exactly one of his fondest memories. 

“Tim!”

Shit. Jason was there. Right…he’d called Jason from the motel and they’d left. The motel where he’d ripped apart two fully grown humans with his bare hands. And had left with the heads and a liver in the trunk. 

His stomach lurched again. He gagged around nothing, his throat convulsing under the pressure of the disgust roiling inside of him. 

That would make three…at least three…people that he had torn to pieces in a night. 

You will become my own beloved Death. 

“Fuck.” Tim whispered hoarsely. “Fuck!”

He screamed at the ground, putting every ounce of frustration and pain and confusion as he could manage into the word, as if it might take the edge off of the pain of betraying himself, punching his fist into the asphalt again and again. But not even feeling his bones snap and his skin split was enough. It was never going to be enough. He kept hitting the ground over and over, hoping it might somehow make it better. 

“Tim, don’t.” Jason said, his voice stern, but wavering at the end. 

Tim looked up from the ground, his vision blurry, his entire body was shaking, shivering as though he were freezing. “I…” He tried to swallow the lump in his throat, hold back tears behind a quavering bottom lip and chattering teeth. “I-I can’t go back…I c-can’t…he’ll ha-hate me. I c-can’t…I won’t be able to take- take it, if…if he looks at me like that. Like he d-doesn’t know…me.”

“He won’t hate you.”

“He w-will.”

“He doesn’t hate me.”

Tim rolled over onto his back, looking up at the sky, the dampness on the road soaked through his hoodie. It was too cloudy. There were no stars to be seen. No moonlight. Just darkness. 

“I’m diff- different…I’ve always been some k-kind of oddity that no one knows what to d-do with. It makes sense, when I joined up Dick had just- had just lost a brother, B-bruce had just lost a s-son…I served a purpose, and I had a- had a family, so they didn’t really need t-to get that close, r-right? They were probably glad of it…I love them…both of them…s-so much, but I’ve always known it was n-never…that I would always love them more than- more than they loved me. Bruce has never g-gone easy on me. I think he’s harder on me…may-maybe because I’m not as compromising f-for him, I’m not…not as much of a weakness for him. 

“And like…he c-cares about me…I kn-know he does, but not like he cares about D-dick, or Cass, or…or you. You had killed d-dozens, you almost ki-killed me, but he still brought you into the fold. Damian has attempted to kill me m-more times than I can c-count, he cut my fucking line…and he got a million second chances. I…bow out of k-killing Captain Boomerang, the man who killed m-my dad, and…I’m treated like some- some kind of pet monster. You both actually attempted to t-take my life, physically, I s-stopped before that fucker was ever in- ever in any danger…I…I don’t understand why…what’s so wrong with me that no- no one can really love me? M-maybe it’s because he kn-knew…he always knew what I- what I would become. He’ll regret l-looking for me…because I actually d-did it this time…I murdered three- three people, m-maybe more, I…

He inhaled sharply. 

“I h-hate myself for it…and they were his rules…his rules first, before they were m-mine…how…how could he not h-hate me? Because I’m not y-you…even if it’s similar, I’m just not- just not his son,” The words come out like venom from between his teeth. “Not l-like you were…are. I c-can’t loose another…another father. Even if I’m not q-quite his son, he’s as close as- as I’ve ever gotten to a d-dad, a real…real one, and…I d-don’t think I c-could bare it if I’m- if I’m r-right, and he treats me l-like the exception t-to his mercy…” 

He laughed wryly, almost hysterically if he was honest, which he didn’t want to be. His ribs were sore. His body ached. He was so fucking tired. “I’m the exception to ev- everyone’s rules though, right, H-hood?”

“You are so fucked up, kid.” Jason said, huffing and laying down beside Tim on the road. 

“I kn-know,” Tim giggled. “I d-don’t think I’ve ever not been…been fucked up. The world would f-fall apart if I was ever complete…ly stable. It’s a w-wonder it’s taken Ra’s this l-long to realize how…how fucking close to snapping I always h-have b-been.” He sighed, smothering the bubbling laughter. “The Joker s-saw it. He couldn’t break you or…or D-dick, but knew this t-time, there was finally a Rob-bin that was already on the edge of m-madness. It didn’t take much time at…at all for me to-” Tim snapped his trembling fingers. “Just l-like that. They say y-you’re Bruce’s greatest regret…” He shook his head, squeezing his eyes shut. “But not t-to him. I think, f-for him, it’s me. I think he figured…out then that I had the potential t-to become everything he…he feared he w-would become. And I…I’ve fulfilled it now.”

That…that was it. That was his big fear, the monster that haunted his steps that whole night. It wasn’t Ra’s or the League or anything that had happened in those eight months. It was that gaping, all consuming fear that, after everything he’d been forced to endure, he’d become the thing Bruce feared he’d always become, and consequently he’d be on his own again. 

He screamed again, raggedly, savagely, letting it rip and tear and destroy him from the inside out.

There it is, sonny boy. Let it in. Let the madness in.

He shattered.

Tim couldn’t remember the last time he’d cried genuinely in front of someone, not as an act of manipulation. Tears were private. Meant for a closet or a bathroom stall. People took tears and traded you pity, which worked in a con. But the pity just made the shame worse if the tears were real. 

And maybe it was all of it. Not just the Pit. Or the death. Or the problems still yet to be solved. 

Maybe it was Bruce. And the truth. Maybe it was the life he stood to lose once Bruce learned of everything. Maybe he’d gotten comfortable in his place there. Maybe he’d become attached to those people. Maybe it would break him if they turned their backs on him. 

But they had the right to. But it hadn’t been his choice.

It was his fault for being so weak to madness. 

“What if I c-can’t come b-back from this? What if it cons-sumes me and I lose c-control?” Tim whispered, curling in on himself. “What if this was all for…for nothing and he can j-just get right back in…back in my h-head again?”

“C’mere,” Jason murmured, pulling Tim against him.

“N-no.” Tim pushed against his grip, feeling lightheaded from how quickly he was breathing. “L-let go. Let go. I c-can’t…I can’t…”

Jason cradled Tim tightly, pressing his face against Tim’s hair.

“I’ve got you.”

“I…I…can’t…” Tim wheezed, falling limp in Jason’s grasp, holding onto his arm as if it might anchor him there, keep him from being swept away in the torrent of chaos that he’d woken up to. “Please…don’t let me hurt you…”

“You could never hurt me, kid.” Jason whispered, sounding hoarse, his breath warm against Tim’s cold skin. “You’re my brother…my badass…dorky kid brother. You could never hurt me in a way that matters.” 

Tim hiccuped trying to catch his breath. 

Jason squeezed a little tighter, and Tim could feel his shoulders shaking silently. “I’m going to fix this. I swear to god, I’m going to fix this…”

It was strange, the assertion that Tim mattered enough to someone that they would swear on something holy for his sake. And it helped a little bit to meditate on that, focus on that thin thread of meaning. Just a little. Even if he knew it would just be a sweet nothing in the end. He would believe in it just for the moment because if he didn’t, if he remembered the words were always empty, he wouldn’t have the strength to keep going, to fix it himself later on. 

He would pretend that Jason meant those words, that he would truly make good on them and make all of Tim’s problems go away. False promises were the closest thing to comfort as he had ever known, so he would wrap himself in their thin blanket and let himself imagine the cold of reality couldn’t get him, just for a moment. 

Tim leaned a little closer into his brother, willing everything to be real, just for a moment, desperately clinging against the tides of his rationality. 

Chapter Text

Somehow, they got up off of the road and started driving again, but Tim couldn’t be certain of how or when it happened. In his head, they didn’t. They had just laid there, and Jason had held the scattering pieces of Timothy Drake in place forever. That would have been nice…if that empty stretch of road had been a bubble of infinity between the horror in the past and that which inevitably awaited him in the future. But it wasn’t. Time didn’t stop for many, and it certainly didn’t like Timothy Drake enough to stop for him. 

However, and whenever it was, they got up off the road, Jason quietly wrapped Tim’s bloody hand with the first aid kit in the glove compartment. The hiss of the antiseptic, the slight sting of it as it bubbled into the torn up skin was almost cathartic. It almost offset the guilt that churned in his gut at how tender and gentle Jason was being in cleaning up the mess Tim had made (again).

He could almost ignore that the smell of it was nauseating. 

And the they drove. 

And drove. 

The rumble of the road was too soothing. Lulling. The sway, the buzz of the engine. It was sickening.

Tim pulled out the old CD book from under the seat and put in some Vivaldi. It was enough to make the silence a little less loud. Vivaldi was soon traded out for Strauss. Tim preferred Vivaldi. But if he listened to the same tracks again, he would already know what was coming, that would leave some space to think. Or drift off. And he couldn’t let himself do that. He didn’t like the idea of falling asleep anymore. So…Strauss.

Jason’s eyes were always flicking over to the passenger’s seat, as though he was worried that Tim might just disappear between one glance and the next, or like he was going to explode or something with one wrong move. He wasn’t wrong…Tim too could sense that he was…off balance. 

He could feel that itch, that agitation beneath his skin. Every silent glance at him made that irritation grow. Roil like a venom tracing it’s way through his bloodstream, set for his heart. And he knew the antidote, the temporary cure that would stop it. 

Blood.

But the only blood around was the blood he could never, never spill. He wouldn’t. That would mean that he’d lost control that the thing inside of him had won. If he would abandon everything he’d ever believed in…he’d already betrayed himself too many times in a night as it was. His discomfort was deserved. 

He bit down on his lip, cutting into the tender flesh with his teeth, enough to draw blood. But that thing didn’t want his blood…it wanted the blood of everyone else, to bathe in it, fill a lake or an ocean with it. The thing would have him drain half the world of it and have what remained drown in it. 

You were right about one thing, Timothy, red truly is your color. 

Ra’s couldn’t track him. The tracker was gone, it was gone. Gone. Gone. He was gone…Ra’s couldn’t touch him, couldn’t control him. 

Control. 

How had that happened? How had Ra’s gained complete mental and physical compliance from him? And for so long?

What else had happened?

He knew what Ra’s had wanted with him the last time around. An heir. That could have been done fairly easily, likely within the span of a month, depending on how Ra’s had deigned it be carried out. So, if that was even what Ra’s had wanted, why keep Tim around for so long after? Perhaps to be sure the method of conception took. Maybe he really did desire Tim to work alongside him in the League, and had found an opportunity to make it happen. 

“How…” Tim’s voice was harsh and raw, it hurt to speak. “How did he do it? Get that level of control?”

“I dunno.” Jason said darkly, now keeping his eyes fixed firmly on the road ahead of him. 

“What’s your theory then?” Tim pressed. “I know you took me to the Pit. And you’ve implied that you know more about what happened in the last ten months. So, you’re the only person I can ask, save for Ra’s- and obviously Ra’s and I aren’t speaking at the moment. I need to know what you know…”

Jason’s jaw twitched. “What I know…fuck. I guess I should tell you, right? You deserve to know…”

He inhaled shakily. 

It was unnerving to see Jason so unsteady. He was the steadfast one. And Tim had seen more sides of him over the years apart from rage, but Jason was never vulnerable around him. Tim knew, from Dick, Bruce, and Alfred that Jason was the most emotional one in the family, but Jason was always careful not to let the younger members of the family see that. He probably felt like he needed to protect them from that. Even when Tim had grown up, Jason kept those vulnerable emotions locked away from his view. 

“Jay…”

Jason raised a hand, cutting Tim off. “Yeah. I know, I’m just…figuring out where to start.”

“Okay. What happened after I fell?”

“You were brain-dead on arrival to the Cave. B called a family meeting, so we could decide on what you would have wanted us to do…” Jason said softly. “It was…a mess. Everyone was shouting. Damian was at Steph’s throat for not watching your back. Conner punched a hole in the wall-”

“Conner, did he…”

Tim wasn’t even sure what he wanted to ask. He knew he’d called out partially, but he hadn’t had time as of late to consider whether it had been enough to beckon his friend, whether his friend would’ve come in time to see his practically dead corpse broken on the ground. 

“He took it hard. By the time you called for him, you were too close to the ground for him to make it there in time.” Jason said. “It wasn’t his fault, but he blamed himself anyway. He was sick with guilt over it.”

Tim swallowed thickly at the thought. “Just…keep going.”

He couldn’t think about that anymore. 

“Dick and B were close to blows again. Hell, Kate had to keep Cass from going after Damian for lashing out at Steph. Normally, you’d be the voice of reason, but..well…”

“I was dead?”

“By some legal definitions.” Jason let himself smile slightly, raising his brows in slight annoyance at the allowance. “But…it was like the breath was punched out of me, standing there. I was numb. I went down to see you, to…to talk, I don’t know, but when I got there, seeing you with all those wires and cords and machines…I wasn’t numb anymore. I had this feeling in my gut, an urge to fix it, to give into the impulsive thought I was denying myself from even thinking. I could get my little brother back, and something in me just jumpstarted, and once it did, I couldn’t stop myself.”

Tim twisted the strings of the hoodie around his fingers.

“I failed you as a brother so many times…maybe it was selfish, but I needed you to be alive so I could finish making things right. You’re supposed to outlive me, kid. And maybe…” Jason sniffed, brushing at his nose. “Maybe I couldn’t come to grips with burying you yet…I’ve buried everyone else in my life, but for whatever reason…this was the last straw.”

They all had to deal with death. It was a fact of life. Tim had come to terms a long time ago that he was very likely not going to die a peaceful death in his sleep at an old age. It wasn’t a pretty thing to think about, but it was the truth. He rarely thought about there being any particular response to his death, not that he didn’t know people cared about him, but he just didn’t think about it. Maybe it was harder to think about than his own demise…who would be standing over his grave. In his head, when his mind went unbidden to his death, he had to force the picture of his family and friends standing above his casket, but when he didn’t, he was in an unmarked grave, staring up at a clear view of the sky, in silence. No tears. No words or mourning. No one. Just him and Death and six feet of dirt. For him, knowing the care people had for him and feeling cared for were too different foreign languages that he was still struggling to understand. 

To hear it, out loud, so- on the scale his family worked along- bluntly, was jarring. 

“So, I took your dead weight and I took you to the Pit I knew about from one of my contacts. And he was already there. Him and about two dozen of his followers.” Jason said bitterly. “He told me that he wasn’t going to lift a finger against me, unless I took you one step further. I could leave, and you would die. I could try to fight them, which Ra’s knew I couldn’t do while keeping you safe. He offered me a deal: you would go into the Pit, but you would recover under his watch.” 

Jason’s knuckles went white with his tightened grip on the steering wheel. 

“And I would stay there, as insurance that Batman would never know what transpired until it was too late to reverse it, and would accept the punishment for trespassing on the property of the League and the Demon’s Head.”

The punishment for crossing the League was absolute. Death. And a painful one at that. 

“And you said yes…” Tim said, his voice soft, if only to hide the angry tremor in it. “Damn it, Jay.”

“It was a good enough trade for me,” Jason shrugged. “And I…I survived.”

“How long?”

“Eight months.”

“So, what have you been doing for the last two months? You knew where I was, why didn’t you tell anyone?”

“Yeah…” Jason said quietly. “About that…He, um, he wanted you to deal the punishment. The, um, execution. You would get more…merciless as the months passed. But you would never end up killing me. It pissed him off…”

“I bet.” Tim huffed. “But…the increase in volatility makes sense. I think…I think Ra’s put me in the Pit multiple times." And I will repeat this exercise again and again until it finds purchase in that stubborn head of yours. “Usually that creates tolerance, but maybe if there was only a short cooling off periods between, it took you years to gain control of that shit, so, multiple times in ten months, it could possibly be feeding off the Madness in a sort of loop of increasing nastiness.”

“That feedback theory would make sense.” Jason mused, his eyes flickering briefly, gnawing on the inside of his cheek. “You having flashbacks?” 

“Nightmares.” Tim replied, turning his gaze out the window into the blurred darkness. “Some audio hallucinations. Just the fun stuff.”

“Perfect,” Jason raised his brows and shook his head. “Anyway, I escaped. Wasn’t a week later that you showed up at my safe house, covered in blood, beaten to bits. And being a sentimental piece of shit, I let you in.”

Jason, for the second time that night, pulled over to the side of the road, putting the car into park. 

“Paid the price for that with a poison blade in my gut for that.” Jason said, peeling up his shirt, to reveal a jagged new scar just below his ribs. “Nearly did kill me that time. Hurt like a motherfucker.”

Tim’s eyes couldn’t look away from the raised skin. His stomach flipped, feeling a small burst of exhilaration, like one might feel on a rollercoaster. The aim was clear from the location of the wound: a drawn out death, but not so long a death that intervention had a chance to save the life the blade had been intended to take. A truly cruel way to execute someone. 

He snapped back into himself again, yanking his hand back that had been reaching out toward the damaged skin, when Jason pulled the shirt down again and fell back against his seat. 

“Sorry.” Tim whispered, suddenly feeling slightly nauseated again. “How did you survive that time?”

“You’re not the only one in the family with a Super-Friend,” Jason scoffed, pulling back onto the road. “Biz got to me in time to get me to an old Army doctor that I knew before I came back to Gotham. He knows about the League, has dealt with their methods before, so he was pretty quick to ID the poison and had an antidote on hand. Was pretty out of it for nearly a month after, and then I’ve been all but bound to bed up until last week. Which is why I haven’t gotten back to the Bats yet…to be honest, I probably shouldn’t be running around like this. Holding ones guts in ones hands and having them stitched back in is not something that one recovers from quickly…even someone like me.”

He winked knowingly. 

Super-Friend. The phrase caught in Tim’s mind. 

“Well, I’m glad I didn’t kill you,” Tim murmured distractedly, his fingers drumming on his thigh. “Can I borrow your phone? I’d like to call Conner and Steph, make sure they know I’m okay.”

Jason took a moment, silently mulling over the request. “Okay. Just those two. Don’t want to broadcast too far that you’re both alive and out of ‘zombie’ mode. Keep it short and don’t tell them where you are, okay? Steph’s number should be in there already.”

Tim nodded, gingerly taking the device from Jason’s outstretched hand. 

He found Steph’s contact first and pressed it; his heart was in his stomach. He could talk to her. He could hear her voice again. As much as he was unsure if he could handle it, he knew he needed to, for his own sake, for the guilt that sat behind his ribs. Moreover, she deserved to know, and to hear it from him. 

“Jesus, Jay-bird, it’s been like a year since I’ve heard from you, what the fuck is up my dude?” 

She sounded the same. That was a relief. It was like an anchor had been dropped in a storm. He felt himself catch on the hold of some bit of normalcy. Some things hadn’t changed. 

“Hey, Steph…” He whispered.

The line was silent again. 

“Tim,” She said breathlessly. “Oh, my God. You’re…How? Are you okay? Are you safe? Should I come get you? Where are you, I can be there-”

“I’m okay,” He smiled softly. “Physically, at least. I’ll tell you everything soon. I promise. I just needed to hear your voice…”

“I watched you die.” Steph said, her voice wobbling. 

“Aw, Stephie, you can’t get rid of me that easily.” He said teasingly through the lump in his throat.

Steph didn’t take the jesting bait. “I wasn’t fast enough to get to you when you fell. I couldn’t get to you…You’re safe, right?”

“I’m with Jason.” Tim said. “Say ‘Hi’, Jay.”

“Hi, Jay.” Jason parroted sarcastically.

“Jason…right,” Steph trailed off. “So, he did go to the League, then. We all suspected something similar, we just had no way to confirm what had happened without Jason to ask.” 

Tim hummed, the information he’d learned stopping behind his teeth. God, he wanted to spill his guts- probably a bad turn of phrase, even mentally, given the latest confession- to her, tell her everything. But that was a conversation to be had face to face, and one that she shouldn’t have to carry the burden of keeping secret. 

“I need you to look into something for me, before I get back.” Tim said. “I need everything you can find on a Dr. Samuel Engle. Worked for the CDC. He was murdered earlier tonight. I need to figure out what made him end up on Ra’s al Ghul’s list. Get O on it if you can, I’ve got a feeling that something bigger is going on.”

“Okay.” She said cautiously, clearly suspicious of what he wasn’t saying. “I love you, Tim. And I’ve missed you so much. Please…just…don’t die before I can see you again, got it?” 

“I love you too, Steph,” Tim replied. “And I will. You stay safe too. I’m gonna need you…”

“Damn right. I need you too, dumbass.”

Tim smiled. “Bye, Steph, see you soon.”

“You’d better.”

Hanging up felt like a gargantuan task, but he knew he had to talk to Conner as well before the night was over. 

He didn’t like the thought of his best friend having to live with the guilt of his death for any longer than he had to, and it had already been too long. But the anxious churning inside was different to what he’d felt when preparing to call Steph. He loved them both dearly, but he’d started to realize the difference in how he loved them only in the last couple of years, a difference he couldn’t really describe, he just knew that it was there. It was in how he could talk without thinking to Steph, it was easy, the back and forth, ebb and flow of natural banter. In how he would lose that ability to talk so easily around Conner, he would lose his train of thought, and would come up empty on words he’d known since he was three.

It was in how Tim’s finger hesitated over the dial pad for the barest second before dialing. It was in how he wasn’t sure what to say. 

But the number was like muscle memory beneath his fingertips, it typed out without the need for thinking. 

“Who is this?”

Tim forced himself to breathe. “Kon.”

“Tim?”

“Yeah.”

“I’m so sorry,” Conner rasped, inhaling brittlely.

Tim sighed. “It’s not your fault.”

“It is.”

“We could argue like this for the rest of time, but it doesn’t change the fact that you did the best you could. The circumstances just didn’t favor it. I wasn’t able to call you in enough time for it to be fair to expect you to have gotten there.” Tim said firmly. “That’s not on you. Blaming you would be saying that you didn’t do everything in your power to help me, which I know isn’t the case. So I don’t blame you, Conner. It’s not your fault.”

Conner’s breaths came in short, desperate gasps for air, stunted and sharp.

“I’m okay…” Tim whispered. “I promise. It’s not your fault.”

“I’m sorry…I’m sorry…”

Tim’s chest ached. “It’s okay.”

“I…I missed you so much.”

“I know…I’m sorry it took me so long.” He said, trying to keep his tone light, but his voice betraying him, trembling. 

“You’re really okay? You’re alive and safe?”

“Yeah.” It was technically the truth, as much truth as Tim could give right then. Nuance would just cause concern, and Tim was trying to keep Conner from worrying about him too much. “I’m okay. I’m with Jason.”

“So he did go to the League…” Conner murmured, echoing the sentiment that Steph had given, though with a different flavor of bitterness in his tone. “I didn’t want to believe it. The Pit is a nasty piece of work…You’re sure you’re okay?”

Tim almost smiled, hearing the protectiveness in his friend’s voice. “I’m alright.”

“Past experience tells me that you’re lying.”

“Really?”

“Yes, really. You’re a notorious liar. Especially when it comes to your own well-being.” Conner pointed out. “May I direct the jury to Item Number One: Timothy Drake’s Missing Spleen. This one is interesting because he refused to tell anyone that he lacked an organ until after he’d been stabbed by a rusty piece of metal. Not even directly after being stabbed, only when he was losing consciousness in the med-bay did he disclose this information.”

“That wasn’t really lying-”

“Lying by omission still counts, Timothy Jackson Drake-Wayne.”

“Full name, ouch.” Tim snorted. “If it helps, I think I have one again now- maybe more than one, I haven’t checked yet- so…”

Kon let out a rattled breath. “Please…just say the word and I’m right there with you. Let me help you. I can help you this time.”

“I…”

“Tim-“

“It’s complicated right now, Kon, and I need to do a little more detangling before I get more people I care about tied up in it.” Tim interjected. “I’m not losing you again. You or anyone else.”

“I’m not losing you again, either!” 

Tim, like he always ended up around Conner Kent, was lost for words. 

“I’m not- I can’t do that again, Tim.” Conner said, his voice splintering even more. “Please, if you need help, just let me help. Don’t make me lose you again. I- I’m not strong enough to handle that.”

“Conner…”

“Please.”

Tim squeezed his eyes shut. “I just called so that you would know I was okay. Don’t look for me. Don’t tell anyone else I called. Goodbye.”

He ended the call before he could hear anything Conner might’ve had to say in response. 

Wordlessly, he thrust the phone back toward Jason. 

He had wanted to call his step-mother, Dana, just so that she wouldn’t worry. She might not have worried. Depending on the day, she didn’t have the capacity to worry. But on a good day…she was as close to a mom as he had left. And he was her only visitor. He hated to think of her, alone in that facility for ten months, waiting every week, only for him to never show up. Maybe she worried. Maybe she resented him, thought he’d abandoned her.

But he couldn’t do it…he couldn’t talk to anyone else. Maybe it was better that he wasn’t around her. Maybe she would stay safe that way. He was an omen of death to parental figures apparently. His mom, his dad, Bruce. Dana was the only one left who hadn’t died…and he wasn’t sure if Bruce would want him to consider himself a son after this. 

“You okay, kid?” Jason asked, looking over at Tim with that aggravating knit of his brows. 

“Yes!” Tim snapped. “Why the fuck are you so fucking convinced that I’m going to fucking fall apart at any given moment?”

He was panting heavily. He was choking around a lump in his throat. He was frustrated. He was scared. He was angry. He was shaking. 

He wanted to be alone. He wanted to be held. 

He needed everything to stop. But it wouldn’t. 

It just kept going and going and going and going and going and going and going and going. It felt as though everything inside of him was reaching a boiling point at the exact same time and he was going critical about to explode and take out an entire city block. 

“I’ll take that as a ‘no’ then.” Jason said, sounding less than phased by the outburst. “Got it.”

“How are you so fucking calm? My life has gone to absolute shit! I’ve murdered God only knows how many people tonight. Last thing I knew, I was fucking dead!”

“You’re processing your emotions at two hundred percent right now, kid.” He continued gently. “After what happened tonight, I don’t blame you for being a bit…agitated. And I don’t take it personally. But if you bite off the head of the poor service worker at the drive-thru I’m about to take you through, I might have an issue. So, can you keep it contained for three to five minutes while we do that- you take out whatever you need to on me after- or am I going to have to hogtie you and put you in the trunk with the severed heads so I can get you a goddamn cheeseburger?”

Tim’s stomach growled right on cue. 

Like everything else, the guilt punched him in the stomach at full force, feeling like whiplash. 

“I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have yelled.” Tim whispered. “I just…it’s all…It’s so fucking loud. It’s anger and violence and revenge and hatred. It’s everything I’ve worked so goddamned hard not to become. And you made me like this. You forced me to live this way because you were too fucking selfish to just let me die in peace. And I hate it…I hate you for making me like this. But I hate hating you…”

Tim balled his hands up into fists as the car meandered to the exit toward distant lights of some civilization. 

“You know…according to some people, this is one of the only universes where I don’t end up villain. I’ve always known I’ve had the potential to do damage. B has always known, probably why he’s so hard on me…” Tim said miserably. “I’m a Pandora’s box of shit. I’ve kept it locked down for so long, and you went and gave it to the person that has been trying to open it up. And now he has smashed the box to bits…”

“I can get you a Happy Meal. Comes in a little box, you can put your homicidal tendencies in there for a bit, until we find a better container.” Jason said, his tone jesting, but somehow not dismissive. “Plus it comes with a little toy. Would that make it better?”

“A little bit.” 

Jason nudged him and winked. “I think we have room in the budget for a Oreo flurry too.”

Tim felt himself smile a little bit; he brushed at his eyes. “I could use some ice cream.”

“I knew it,” Jason grinned. “I am rocking this big brother thing. Up top.”

Tim rolled his eyes. “I will have you know that I am twenty- no, wait-” Oh, he’d missed his birthday. “Twenty-one years of age. This is only working because I’m in emotional distress.”

“Aw, give me some credit,” Jason said. “I’m nailing it. I picked you up in the middle of the night from a sketchy location and now I’m getting you fast food. Plus I knew your fidgety ass well enough to know that you need something to entertain your hands for the next hour and a half I have to be in a car with you, or else you’re going to end up taking apart my vehicle while we’re still driving. Enter: Happy Meal. How am I not absolutely smashing it out of the park? Come on, Timmy, you know I’m right~”

“No, you’re-“

“I’m amazing at this. Just admit it. That’s why you called me.”

“That’s not why I called you.” 

“I’m your heroic older brother whom you called to save the day.”

“I called you because you’re the only one who picks up strange numbers in this family. Who was I going to call? Dick? Bruce?”

“You make a point, but two things can be true at once, little friend.” Jason said, poking Tim’s cheek with an impish look on his face. “And I have a lot of skittish contacts, very few of them use the same number twice.”

“Just get me a hamburger, dude. I’ve had a long night.”

“Brat.”

“Ouch,” Tim said flatly, “That hurt. Almost as much as when you actually stabbed me.”

“You want a sappy hand written apology note?”

“Yes, please.”

They pulled into town, stopping behind a red light. “How about I just get you that hamburger, you little shit.”

They pulled into the 24-hour drive-thru a little further down the main stretch of road, ordering enough food for an army, plus Tim’s Happy Meal and Oreo flurry. Jason paid in cash and tossed the cardboard box into Tim’s lap. It looked like the latest collaboration with the Justice League. Maybe he’d get Wonder Woman. Tim opened it up. 

Ooh, apple slices. 

And…a Batman figure. Damn. Better than nothing, he supposed. 

Tim pulled out a fry from his box and yawned. “Thanks, Jay.”

“Yeah, sure.” Jason said, scarfing down one of his burgers in about two bites before even making it out of the parking lot. “What shitty toy did you get?”

“I got a Batman.” Tim twisted the arm of the figurine around. Jason had been right, having something for his hands to occupy themselves with had helped. 

“Good likeness,” Jason commented, swallowing his food and taking a swig from the large Coke he’d gotten for himself. “The scowl really translates well across mediums.”

For the rest of the car ride, Tim occupied himself with his food and his make-shift fidget toy. Jason made a couple of calls, none of them lasting more than two minutes in length. One was to what Tim assumed was a ‘skittish’ contact. A lot of ‘yes’ and ‘no’ and ‘or else’. One was to Artemis, his latest teammate in the Outsiders line-up. He gave her an ETA and told her that they were both uninjured, and to relay the information to ‘Biz’.

“Yes, that one. Though I take issue with the descriptor ‘adorable’. The sack of shit is old enough to drink and looks like a raccoon got suddenly put in a human body; all damp and sleep-deprived.” Jason snorted, looking Tim over with a semi-disgusted expression. “Yeah, but I usually use the word for puppies or babies. Just because he’s built like a sickly Victorian boy, doesn’t mean he is one, it just means he was malnourished as a child.”

Tim gave Jason a questioning look. 

“He’s going through a second puberty at the moment, his emotions are all out of wack, so don’t be afraid to knock him out if his eyes start glowing and he gets violent, got it? I don’t care if he looks like half-drowned puppy, beat his ass. Bye, Art.”

He hung up with a lengthy sigh, drumming his fingers on the wheel.

“Can you try to look a little less pathetic before we get there?” Jason grumbled. “Or else I’m really going to look like an asshole.”

Tim considered for a moment. “Okay, but you have to get rid of the heads and organ from the trunk.”

“Deal.” Jason said, taking another long, deep breath. “God, this has been a weird, fucking day.”

Tim snorted. “Tell me about it.”

The body parts were dumped down a steep incline off the side of the highway, only really visible if someone was driving slower than the speed limit, which likely wasn’t going to happen very often in that part of the country. The few cars they’d seen had sped around them at near ninety if Tim’s calculations were correct. They were probably more conspicuous going the speed limit. 

After disposing of the body parts, they’d filled up the gas tank and bought some basic groceries from the mini-mart inside (that Tim did not have to rob). Tim snuck a package of gummy worms in the basket and Jason pretended not to notice when he paid for them. 

They arrived down a long dirt road to a campsite that was clearly not very popular in the fall months. It was nearly two o’clock in the morning, the darkness seemed to swallow up the beams of the headlights. There was one trailer parked in the back, the lights on inside. A bulky shadow moved across the window.

“Honey, I’m home!” Jason called, upon opening the door. “Found a stray and decided to keep it.”

Tim followed behind, kicking off his shoes in the cramped entry. His fingers fumbled with the figurine in the pocket of the sweatshirt he’d been given.

A red-haired woman dressed in mismatched athleisure peered out from what was probably the bedroom area, her hair still nearly reaching her knees, even while pulled up. “Took you long enough.”

“Got a little bit sidetracked,” Jason said, stepping forward to give her a hug. “Forgive me?”

“We’ll see,” Artemis, because that had to be Artemis, said with a smirk, punching Jason’s arm, which made him wince. “And you must be Tim.”

Artemis side-stepped Jason, sticking her hand forward. “You are even more adorable in person. I don’t know what he was talking about, you are just precious.”

Jason gave Tim an accusatory look over Artemis’ shoulder. “He’s twenty-one, Art.” 

Tim smiled, shaking Artemis’ hand and mouthing ‘sorry’ to Jason, who didn’t seem to be believing it. “It’s nice to finally meet you.”

“I don’t know how you two aren’t actually related, the similarity is very striking.” She said, stepping back and looking him over. 

“God liked me too much to make me share genetics with him.” Tim replied. 

“See?” Artemis turned to Jason. “Adorable.”

Tim grinned saccharinely, tipping his head to the side. 

“Little shit.” Jason muttered under his breath. “Where’s Biz?”

“Working on his model airplane.” Artemis said. 

“Still? I thought he finished already.” 

Artemis raised her brows. “That was the rocket. He was talking about rigging it so he could launch it, but he was waiting for you to come back so you could brainstorm it together.”

Jason grinned. “I have some junk from the Cave that’s been sitting around for ages that will work perfect for that.”

“I knew you’d enjoy it,” She winked, patting him on the shoulder. “Have fun. I’ve got a line on our missing person.”

“Good. I have some shit I need to follow up on in Gotham after this, might need you to tie it up. I’ll help Biz, you holler when you get more.”

“Ay-ay, captain, or whatever you say.” 

“Tim, be good. No murder. Try to take a nap, actually.”

Tim raised a brow. “I’m twenty-one, Jay.”

“And yet, I still feel the need to say it,” Jason mused, walking backward toward the bedroom. “Save the homicidal rage for the bad guys, okay?”

“Something, something, half a dozen heads in a duffle bag.” Tim said as soon as Jason’s back was turned. 

Jason flipped him a middle finger. 

“Our body count is probably the same now, kiddo, don’t get smart about it.”

Tim was probably ahead, given the whole, blowing up the League of Assassins’ bases thing four years ago. But he wasn’t going to mention that. 

“Don’t listen to him,” Artemis said after he left, moving toward the small dining area. “He loves you so much it’s almost nauseating. It was all we could do to get him to stay in bed these last few weeks. When you called, he was already out the door before he even confirmed it was you…” She looked at the bedroom door with a sad sort of expression. “He’s made himself sick over the guilt about what happened. It was…scary, to see him in that place.”

Tim pressed his lips together, unsure of how to move from the place he was planted in.

“You can sit down, Tim.” She said, noticing his lack of movement and gesturing to the chair across from her. “Or lay down on the couch or something. You have to be tired.”

The suggestion of falling asleep made Tim’s skin crawl, as if the cold spindly fingers were digging into his skin, pressing him down. The shadowy figure was right in front of him when he blinked. He was exposed and vulnerable, his skin bare on a stone floor. It’s for his own good…his own good. Just cold green eyes to look at. Green eyes enveloped in shadow.

The shadow is clothed. He was laid bare. The shadow was above him. He was on his back. The shadow was in control. He was forcibly made to be submissive. 

The shadow and he were not of the same level. 

Tim was nauseous. And his head felt as though it had only been moments between him standing in the trailer and his skull being broken open on the cavern floor. His brain matter might as well have been oozing out of the cracks onto the floor behind him. 

“I don’t think I can sleep, so if you don’t mind my company…” He trailed off, rubbing the back of his head, a little more relieved than he should’ve logically been that it came away clean of organic material. “What are you working on?”

Tim slid into the chair across from Artemis. 

“Trying to find someone,” Artemis said, gnawing at her bottom lip, producing a laptop from somewhere beside her. “A missing doctor. Dr. Kennedy Wade. Born 1980. Unmarried. No kids. Graduated from Brown in 2005. A geneticist, works at Poppyfield Research Institute. She mainly deals in the hereditary probability of the meta gene. No criminal record. She did report a break-in two months before being reported missing, but claimed that nothing had been taken.”

“Who reported her missing?”

This was infinitely better than risking another nightmare. For him, at least. Less nice for their missing doctor

“That’s the interesting part,” She said, turning the screen around. “It was our old friend. Dr. Eve Watson.”

“Of CADMUS?”

Artemis nodded, flipping the screen back toward herself. “Apparently they were on a research team back in 2007, became close while creating one of the first lab grown cloned fetuses, a feat that lasted twelve weeks before expiring, formed from the genetic material of a recently deceased woman that had donated her body to science. Nothing else was ever mentioned about the study after, or the team. Dr. Wade next showed up two years later at the Poppyfield Research Institute. Her colleagues had none of the prestigious credentials or studies to their names, but she was low on the food chain, barely a mention of her on the entire website for the facility. But apparently, Wade and Watson kept in touch.”

Tim frowned. “I’ve heard of that facility. Or I’ve seen it somewhere.”

“You might have,” She said. “From when they were bought out by Warren Holdings in 2010, which, is a subsidiary of Lex Corps.”

Tim raised his brows. That was… “Interesting.”

“Very.” 

“So, she a geneticist who’s most famous work is with cloning, who works under the Lex Corps umbrella and is friends with the doctor who cloned Superman? That is…"

“A hell of a lot of coincidences?” Artemis huffed. “That’s what I thought when I started working the case."

“How did you get the case? Who did Watson report Wade’s disappearance to?”

“Who else? The JLA, who has Watson in protective custody after she was made the scapegoat for CADMUS and Superboy.”

“And the JLA gave it to you?”

“Sort of,” Artemis shrugged. “A little pressure in the right places work wonders. We needed a job that was mostly research so Jason wouldn’t explode from boredom and suppressed hyperactivity…and a member owed us a favor. Multiple favors, but this will do for now. Besides, it wasn’t high on the priority considering that the most Dr. Wade has done on the books is researching genetic mutations in rats since the cloning thing in 2007.”

Tim tapped his nails against the table. He wasn’t used to them being so grown out, and not chewed off. 

“Except for the fact that Luther has gotten into the cloning business before,” Tim mused, remembering the call he’d had with one such instance earlier. “And that break in that was reported…could have been an attempt, scouting, or perhaps they did steal something that she didn’t want getting out. In fact, most of the scientists involved in CADMUS weren’t recorded in the files, which was why Watson took so much heat. Could Wade have been involved with that as well? Perhaps just as a consultant? They were both under Lex Corps at the time, so, it’s not impossible.”

“That is a lot of questions, that I can’t answer right now. The internet is spotty, so looking into even one is going to take a while.” Artemis said through her teeth, jabbing at the ‘Enter’ key for further emphasis. “So, the best I’ve got right now is typing them into a little file.”

“So, based on what we have in there, what do we think? Abduction or hiding?”

“We?”

Tim crossed his arms, leaning back in his seat. “The case can be all yours if you really want it that bad. I’m just here to avoid being murdered or dragged back to a murderous cult.”

She snorted. “You two truly are siblings. On Ares.”

Tim rolled his eyes, pulling his legs up to his chest, resting his chin on his knee. “We don’t act that much alike. Combined, we’ve known each other for like three years, not counting when he was actively trying to kill me.”

Artemis smiled as if she knew something he didn’t. That was annoying. He didn’t like not knowing things. And he liked it even less when someone else knew the thing he didn’t know. 

His skin prickled. He itched at the back of his hand absently. 

“You are adorable. But Jace was right, not like a puppy, like a little raccoon.”

Tim made a face. “I don’t look like a raccoon.”

“No, you do,” Artemis insisted. “With the fluffy hair and grabby little hands with the under-eye circles.”

“I don’t have little hands.”

“They’re smaller than mine.”

“Maybe you just have big hands.”

“Maybe.” She crinkled her nose. “But then by comparison, your hands would still be little.”

“Anyway…” Tim huffed. “We can at least organize our thoughts. Put what we know together. Hypothesis another place. Possible connections or leads together. And possible lines of questioning, et cetera.”

“You want some tea?”

After he’d just woken up from a ten month dissociative state, murdered three (maybe more) people, and disposed of dismembered body parts on the side of the highway? 

“It’s just, that sounds like it’s going to take a bit of brain power and it’s still dark outside. I have some caffeinated stuff somewhere.”

Tim exhaled heavily. “I would fucking love some tea.”

A goddess. A literal saint in the flesh.

He started to stand, stretch out his tired limbs. A loud crash sounded from the other room. Tim fell back-

Chapter Text

Tim tried to sit up.

The spindly fingers tangled in his hair and slammed his head down against the stone. Again and again. 

But he couldn’t speak. He couldn’t scream. He could only try to force the hands off of him. 

“It really does kill me to destroy such an exquisite mind, but it must be done…for you, Timothy, and for the betterment of the world. Those chains your master bound you to, morality, humanity, justice, they are only choking your potential to a slow death. You do no one any favors by suffocating your abilities…you will do great things, beautiful things and you may come to thank me for this eventually.” The figure said. “You will become my own beloved Death.”

His head hit the ground one final time before he was pushed beneath the water. The liquid filled his nose and mouth, pushing like a living entity to swallow him whole from the inside out, filling into the gaping schism in the back of his head, burrowing between the crack and setting fire to his nerve endings. It was as if he was made entirely of pain. Like he was being dissolved in a corrosive acid. Just white, searing pain, eating away at him until there was nothing of him left. He couldn’t feel his arms or his legs, just mind-numbing pain. 

It always hurt. But the pain still felt new every time. It was like feeling the pain of hell, pain so agonizing that it could only be wrought in the absence of God, and it felt eternal in its complete engulfment of any sense of hope. It was a pain only meant to be felt once and felt forever.

The scream was burned from his throat as his body was eaten alive anew. 

“You belong to me,” That chilling voice above him said. “My will is your will. Your mind belongs to me. You do not fight me. You do not act against me. You are a weapon in my hand. You are mine. If you desire this cycle of pain to end, you will let go of this stubborn pride, and you will become the image of perfection in the hands of a merciful lord.”

Fingers like talons wrapped around his arms, pulling him up out of the water.  

He scrabbled desperately against the cold, sharp stone, the water still drowning him, even when it was no longer surrounding him, hacking and choking for air that he couldn’t find. He couldn’t see. His vision was washed out by a bright green light. 

“Alright,” The hands released him. “Bring it here.”

“No, no, please, I’m sorry, I’m sorry!” 

The voice was young. Too young. A child. 

Bright blue eyes.

His heart was beating too fast. He could feel it in his fingertips. He could hear it in his ears. His body was washed with nausea. And he itched…his skin, under his skin, a buzzing static that vibrated everywhere, ringing in his ears at a sharp, incessant tone. He wanted to rip his skin from off his bones, tear into the muscle, break into the sinew, just to get it out of him. 

The scream finally found it’s way out. And it wouldn’t stop. He couldn’t stop it. It was as if there was another animal inside of him that was just screaming and screaming. 

Something was pressed into his hand. 

“I can make it stop. Listen to me and I can help you make all that discomfort go away, Detective. You’ve just got to listen to me.” The voice whispered. “Take the life, and it’ll go away.”

No. No. That…that couldn’t be right. He couldn’t-

“My will is your will. Take the life. And you’ll feel so much better.”

“No…” He whispered, grit against a block of frustration, irritation that was so loud he could barely hear the words being spoken. “I can’t…”

The presence above him sighed, pulling the instrument from his hand. 

A blade sunk deep into his chest and twisted. He tasted blood on his lips. And he was pushed back into the water.

He was pulled up. 

The itch sank in. The buzzing. The nausea. It wouldn’t go away. He needed it to go away. He couldn’t think. He couldn’t focus.

The knife was pressed into his hand.

“My will is your will. Take the life.”

That wasn’t right. He couldn’t…couldn’t do that. 

“I can’t..”

His throat was cut. The water splashed beneath him. 

It hurt. It hurt. It hurt. 

He was pulled up.

It was in his head. Under his skin. Alive. Get it out. Make it stop!

The knife was pressed into his hand.

“My will is your will. Take the life.”

No. That…no…but…

“Please don’t-”

His head was smashed against the floor. He was in the water. 

It hurt. It hurt. It hurt. 

He was pulled up.

Please. Please. Please.

A knife was in his hand. 

“My will is your will. Take the life.”

Would it really go away?

 His hand tightened. 

“I’m sorry-”

His neck was snapped. He collapsed. And was shoved back into the water. 

Hurt. Hurt. Hurt. 

Up. 

Please…

“My will is your will. You will become my own beloved Death. Take the life.”

His hand clasped the blade- 

The buzzing was gone. The itch faded. His vision cleared.

A small body lay at his feet, in a velvet red pool. The chest cavity was slashed open, a jagged, gaping mouth where it wasn’t supposed to be, organs sluggishly squirming from the hole. A growing tide of blood swelling from the still warm corpse, rising over his bare toes.

His fingers dripped. The blade in his hand fell to the floor. 

What had he done?

His legs gave way. 

A hand fell onto his shoulder, digging into the chilled flesh. “Now don’t you feel better?”

He did .

He couldn’t look away from the child. The cold, blue eyes stared back at him in frozen horror at what he had done.

He felt better. He could do it again. He would, given the chance. He wanted to. 

And his stomach twisted up at the screams of the last vestiges of his shredded morality still clinging to the edges of his soul. 

“That is enough for today. Beautiful work, detective. Ornith, calm him.”  

His vision went hazy, and he fell forward-

Chapter Text

“Tim!”

Jason. 

Tim grabbed toward the voice, dropping something that clattered against the floor, his eyes blurry and blinded by green, landing in Jason’s arms, trying to find something to ground him again. His fingers closed tightly around the fabric, squeezing tight. He gasped for air, wheezing, but unable to control it. His head fell against Jason’s shoulder, his skin soaked with sweat, pinning his hair to his forehead. 

“It’s okay, kiddo, I’ve got you. I’ve got you.” 

“Can’t…can’t breathe.”

Jason’s hand rubbed slow circles around Tim’s back. “It’ll pass. It’ll pass, I promise, Baby Bird. I’ve got you.”

“It h-hurts…”

“I know.”

My will is your will. You will become my own beloved Death.  

What exactly had he been made into? What kind of monster had he been made to become?

He’d killed a child. Decapitated people with his bare hands. He’d poisoned Jason, stabbed him. He could swim in the blood he spilled. 

He shivered. 

What danger was Jason in, just by holding him there?

His chest felt as though he’d been hit by a bag of bricks at seventy miles an hour. He blinked rapidly, trying to find his bearings again. The brightness hurt. His vision was tinted again. He hated the sickly shade.


He was on the floor. He had been in the chair across from Artemis. He could see the chair. He was in the back of the trailer. Artemis…she was bleeding from a wound in her forehead. Had he…?

Tim felt another wave of tears, of frustration, well up in his eyes. “I h-hurt you…”

“It wasn’t your fault, Tim.” Artemis said, dabbing at the wound with a towel. “Clearly I’m getting rusty with just Jace to train with."

“Excuse you.”

“When I’m right? No thanks.”

“Jesus, you were dissociating, Tim, not on you.” Jason said. “Especially since we aren’t sure what all triggers it. Plus Artemis is a tough lady, you didn’t hurt her or her feelings too much, I promise.  Right, Art?”

“I think I got hit by a tank once, I’ll live.”

“See?”

Tim just wanted to shrivel up and have the floor to swallow him whole. 

“Clearly this isn’t helping,” Jason sighed. “Okay, you were making tea, right? Let’s have some fucking tea and get those emotions down to a healthier level. We’re going to drink tea, fucking breathe. That sound good, everybody?”

“Little Him am sad?” 

Jason turned toward his friend, who sounded like he was standing back by the bedroom. “Yeah, Biz, he’s having a panic attack. Some trauma shit.” 

“Little Him am sad because I am made big sound?”

“It was an accident, buddy,” Jason assured him. “Not your fault.”

It felt like he was saying it to more than Bizzaro. 

“Little Him am be better?”

“He’ll be alright.” Jason squeezed Tim tighter. The pressure was good. It kept the different shattered parts of him from scattering too far. “You’ll be okay, kiddo.”

Tim’s tears bled into Jason’s shirt.

“I’m losing my m-mind.” He whispered. “I’m l-losing my mind…”

That was what it came down to. 

He’d always convinced himself that if he could still think, he would survive. Being able to trust his mind had been a constant. His friends died or walked away, his family did the same, his world collapsed every other month, but he could always survive off of his ability to reason and think and stay in control. If he couldn’t rely on his mind, what was there? He’d created a fortress, a certainty, with the knowledge of the fallibility of the outside world, only to find out his castle crumbling from within. 

But that certainty was gone. He was as fallible as anything else. And he could no longer trust that he would survive.  

That anyone around him stood a chance of surviving. 

And the real truth was that if he lost his mind, he would get someone hurt, or he would hurt someone. People had always depended on his mind, had always said as much. They trusted his mind. If that was gone, he couldn’t be trusted. And he failed the people he loved because his mind, the thing they trusted him for, was compromised…he wouldn’t survive that. 

He was the smart Robin. That was who he was…had been. Even if it all went well, and no one got hurt, he would still be left with a gaping hole in his sense of self. Who was he if he wasn’t what he’d always been told was his most useful function? 

He couldn’t lose that…his usefulness. He couldn’t be useless. That was the point of him. He served a function. The others, they were chosen, they didn’t have to be anything, they chose to be, but they only had to be Bruce’s children. Tim…he’d forced his way in, his usefulness as a voice of reason, his mind, that was what gave him the role of Robin. Just Robin. Not son. He had no affiliation with Bruce Wayne in the beginning. The adoption was a sense of obligation, to protect the usefulness of the asset that Tim was, he couldn’t be Robin living with his uncle or great-aunt. Perhaps now there was some familiarity now, but in the end, if it came down to it, Tim was a co-worker for longer than he’d ever been Bruce’s son. And if they were all hanging off a ledge, and Tim no longer had that sense of reason, that mind, he knew that he wouldn’t be the one Bruce would pull up. He knew he wasn’t even a choice. At least Dick and Jason and Cass and Duke and Damian, they had practically always been Bruce’s kids, it would be a battle between them really. Perhaps Bruce would feel bad about it, he’d have some guilt, but it made the most sense, right? Tim had less emotional tether, and with nothing to give, he wouldn’t be a priority to keep alive. 

And he knew that. He had always known that his being loved had a hell of a lot more conditions than the others. Jason had nearly killed him once, Damian had tried too on multiple occasions, but Bruce’s love was never in doubt. When Tim even thought about letting the man who killed his father choose his own fate, that was too much, and that was after he’d essentially single-handedly brought the man back from the time-stream. 

He could barely be enough at his best, but he’d long since understood that his best was all people would ever accept from him. At his worst, he would be on his own. He would have to take care of himself, even when he couldn’t. Because who would waste their time? Especially now when he was so utterly…useless.

Jason would get tired of playing mother hen after a while, and he would leave. Or he would decide that Tim was too dangerous and put a bullet in his head as an act of mercy. 

“Don’t leave.” He breathed. “Don’t leave me…p-please.”

“I’m not leaving you, Timbo.” Jason said, hugging him a little tighter. “I’m not fucking leaving. Okay?”

Tim took a shuddering breath. It was a nice, comforting lie.

He was exhausted. But he couldn’t sleep. He couldn’t risk that…

“I’m so tired…”

“I know.” 

That was twice in a span of twelve hours since he’d come to, that he’d lost control to violent effect. He’d had two vivid flashbacks, one triggered by something as mundane as an object hitting the floor. After the first blackout, he’d lost his empathy for a couple hours, essentially becoming a sociopath. He’d thrown up after the first flashback. This would be his second panic attack in that span, or maybe just a continuation of the first. The only reason he hadn’t gone sociopathic, or felt that relief, was probably because he’d failed to draw significant blood. 

The thought of it itched at the corners of Tim’s mind, waiting for him to give in and relieve the irritation. 

But what made this flashback react so violently? The first one had been a total black out, triggered by the blood, no flashback. The first flashback had made him sick, but he hadn’t hurt Jason. Why? 

Again with the not knowing. He was uncomfortable with being in the dark. 

“Let’s get some air,” Jason said, loosening his grip for the first time in several minutes, but not fully letting go. “Some cold air is good for the lungs, and good for the brain. We can make some tea and just breathe in some good old fashioned fresh air. Sound good?”

It sounded better than nothing. Tim nodded. 

“Okay. I’m going to let go now, and get you in a chair before we make the tea. Is that alright?”

Tim nodded, barely registering the words. 

“I’m going to have to manhandle a little bit, so I’ll need something verbal, Tim.”

“V-verbal.” He parroted listlessly. 

“A sarcastic fuck even when completely out of it,” Jason snorted. “C’mon, kiddo, up we get.”

Jason slid his arms under Tim’s armpits, hoisting him up and dragging him forward to the chair he’d abruptly vacated, with very little help from Tim, who felt as though he had no legs with which to help transport him. He slumped back, feeling much like what he expected roadkill to have felt like after being flattened beneath the tires of two successive semi-trucks, one after the other. Rather like his guts had been squished out of him, or, just relatively dead. 

He deflated into his seat, watching vaguely as the others moved about their business, going to make the tea or going back to the bedroom. As much as she tried to hide it, Tim could see that Artemis was on guard. Her body language was stiff and she never turned her back on him, casting a subtle look in his direction every couple of seconds as though he might morph into a werewolf at any given moment, which, given his night, he might very well do so…it wouldn’t be that much of a shock given everything else he was learning. Being a werewolf would probably be comparatively not horrible.

But he couldn’t fault anyone for being on edge given his current state of mental fragility. Anything might set him off for all they new. He was a ticking time bomb, except no one knew how much time was on the counter or how much he could be jostled before taking out a city block. 

Tim could hear them speaking softly to one another. It wasn’t a language Tim knew, probably the Themysciran dialect of Bana-Mighdall if he had to venture a guess. Because Cassie had taught him a good bit of Themysciran when they were on the Titans together, and the small bits he picked up from Jason and Artemis sounded tonally similar, but not enough for him to understand without having it written out in front of him. Which was annoying, because he knew it was probably about him. 

He scratched at the back of his hand. 

Why couldn’t they just voice their concerns to his face? He probably had similar thoughts about his condition. About how dangerous he was. Volatile. Not exactly something one wanted to be in close quarters with. 

If he could crawl out of his own skin just to get away from himself, he would. 

A shadow crossed over his chair. Tim looked up at Bizarro’s gray face, that was cocked to the side like a confused puppy that was trying it’s best to understand something. 

“You am okay, Little Him?” 

“I’m f-fine.”

“Jason says you have bad dreams too.” Bizarro said after a beat. “You dream about bad man?”

Tim grit his teeth, looking away, but only have the wall to occupy his vision. “I just n-need a little space, okay?”

“You am upset.”

“I’m fine.”

He could feel the concern burning into the back of his neck. God, he needed to scream. For a couple minutes at least. Maybe break a few things. Punch something. Someone. A very particular someone. His chest was tied so fucking tight he felt about to burst at the seams. 

“Artemis am okay. You am safe now, Little Him-“

Tim snapped upright, getting out of his seat and practically breaking the door off it’s hinges as he left that cramped trailer.  

“Tim-“ He heard Jason shout after him, cut off by the slamming doors. 

It was stupid. He knew it was stupid. It was everything he had been mindful not to be as a child, as Robin, as a CEO. He’d been called wise, and mature, and a fucking old soul for so long, but those were just words for a child that knew that their emotions could never take up space outside of their body. So, he’d pressed it down. And down. For twenty-one years. He’d had to. To keep his parents around, to keep Batman level, to lead the Titans, to run the company. He’d piled it up and pushed it down. And now his skin had been stretched too thin, every bottled up emotion and memory he’d forced himself to engorge on, bloated him, and a cut became a laceration and everything was pouring out of him at once, blood and guts and bones, rushing to vacate the cramped space. From the moment he’d woken up in Jason’s car, after that initial rush on the side of the road, spilling his guts and drying his tear ducts, he’d tried to shove it all back in, patch it up again, but he was still bleeding through the poor stitch work. He couldn’t take it. He couldn’t…he just needed…something…He didn’t even know what he needed. 

A lobotomy probably. 

But the cold air did help. The wind against his cheeks reminded him of Gotham. Of home. 

He ached to be home. Just home. He didn’t need anyone to have missed him. He just needed the familiarity. The murky smell of the Cave and motor oil. The sounds of the showers running or an engine tuning up. To see two people sparring on the mats. To feel that chill in the air disappear when he went upstairs. To taste Alfred’s cookies again. He was scared, and he just wanted to go home. 

Tim stumbled to a stop, catching himself against the trunk of a tree that stood guard along the dusty drive. 

“Tim!”

Jason was still pretty far away. 

“Tim!” 

That was Artemis.

He pressed his hands over his ears, pulling himself around the tree to sit behind it, out of sight of the road. 

God, he was being stupid. Just on the outside looking in, like a ghost watching the zombified corpse of the person it had been before mindless stumbling around bumping into walls, helpless to actually guide and direct the body had once been under their own control. 

And he watched as it was starting to tear apart the lives of the people he cared about. Starting with Jason. He’d hurt someone Jason loved. Even if just a little, it was proof that he wasn’t something to keep around valuable items. It proved that he was dangerous and out of control. It wouldn’t be long before Jason would remember that Tim wasn’t the little brother he’d wanted to bring back, he was just some twisted amalgamation of the worst parts, the angriest, most destructive parts, and he would realize that Tim needed to be turned out, lest he tear down everything Jason had worked to hard to forge. 

Jason deserved better than that. After everything he’d been through, he deserved this little family he’d managed to find; he deserved as close to peace as he could ever be content to settle in. He deserved to be happy, and to not worry about the woes of a legal family that always had a fire to put out. This was just another disaster in a never-ending cascade, and Jason was roped back into playing firefighter at Tim’s call. 

He should’ve called Steph. Or Kon. Someone else. 

But he would probably be left feeling the same way in the end. He never quite figured out how to depend on people without feeling like the weight of him leaning on them was crushing them. None of them were. Not in his birth family. Not in his adoptive family. He was always doomed to be this way. He felt like Atlas shouldering the weight of the sky, to give even a portion of the weight to another would be cruel. 

His hand dropped from the sides of his head, nails tearing at the skin on the back of his hand, trying to dig out that presence beneath it that stole his thoughts and twisted them into something distorted and ugly. 

Scratch. Scratch. Scratch. 

It would always just come back. No matter what he fed it. Again and again. It would always lurk there, waiting to make him another monster. 

Scratch. Scratch. Scratch.  

He’d killed a kid. Maybe more than one kid. Just to make it stop. But even that wasn’t enough. Innocence wasn’t enough. Guilt wasn’t enough. Blood wasn’t enough. Nothing would be enough. All that death…it didn’t even make it go away. He wasn’t sure if he’d feel better if it had, but at least he’d feel safer. At least he wouldn’t have the potential to maul a busload of more preschoolers. 

Scratch. Scratch. Scratch.

Why couldn’t he just…die? Why couldn’t he die? He just wanted to be done. 

Scratch. Scratch. Scratch.

“Timmy! Come on, kiddo. Please.” Jason called from somewhere in the darkness.

Scratch. Scratch. Scratch.

“Tim! I know you’re freaking out, and that’s valid, but please just do it somewhere with a door. Or else I’m going to have to be like those cringey parents at Disney and make you a leash-kid. Which would be not fun for either of us, since you’re twenty-one, and I still have a sense of pride, but I’m willing to do it for your personal safety if I have to.”

“I thought we were trying to get him to come out.”

“Being up front and honest works with kids.”

“He’s an adult.”

“He’s emotionally stunted. And he’s got trust issues. He won’t fucking come out if I start singing Koombaya, Art.”

Okay, that was hurtful. But not entirely untrue. 

Scratch. Scratch. Scratch.

Agh!

The skin had torn beneath his fingernails, but the agitation remained. It burrowed deeper. Into the bone.

“You head back, Art, I’ve got this."

My own beloved Death. 

My own.

He slammed his head back against the tree. 

It was like those cold, spindly fingers were still grabbing hold of him, except it wasn’t just two hands, it was many more, digging into every piece of flesh, taking ownership wholly and completely, searing themselves into him, bone deep, lest he be able to pry loose their hold on him. Was that what possession felt like? Like something had crawled inside you, without any invitation, and was corrupting you from the inside out?

Ra’s al Ghul still had his hands on Tim. And no matter where he went, how far he ran, he’d never be able to break that hold. He could burn off a tattoo or a brand, or flay the skin from his body. He could burn a contract. He could pick the locks on a gate or on a set of cuffs. He could amputate a limb if the cuff had no lock. But he couldn’t get rid of this. 

This corruption of himself. His mind. His body. The alterations to his very being. 

Violation. 

He didn’t want it. 

Why couldn’t he just have died? Left dead. Buried and mourned. Like was natural. Like should happen when a tragedy takes someone. 

He slammed his head back again. The tree shook. 

“There you are, detective.”

Tim felt his muscles seize up. His eyes darted around in the dark. 

“You are usually much harder to find when we do this little dance. I see your edge dulls away from my iron.”

No. No. No. No. No. No. 

Not now. Not again. 

“Not real. Not real. Can’t…can’t be real.”

“A little tantrum is one thing, denying my existence is another entirely,” Ra’s said, his voice somehow in the confines of Tim’s skull and coming from every shadow. “Don’t make this difficult, Timothy. You are too clever not to understand what you are now. Too clever not to know that you are safer with me- that your so-called brother would be safer- with you under the reigns of someone who has the ability to contain you.”

“Get out of my head.”

“Your resistance is commendable, but it won’t be enough to fight what’s already taken root. Once more should be enough to finally be rid of this little…mishap.”

“No.”

He jerked his head back again. The pain splitting his skull with a heavy crack. 

“I never took you for being selfish, Detective. Are you really willing to risk so many lives for your stubbornness? For your pride? Come now, you are smarter than that.”

“Get out!”

“Tim!”

Hands. Real hands, grabbed him by the fabric of his sweater, yanking him out of his hiding place. 

No. No. No.  

“No! Let go! Let go! Jay!”

Tim scrabbled in the dark, trying to push the hands away from him. 

“I’m right here, kiddo.”

But he couldn’t hear it over the screaming of his blood in his ears. Over the chorus of his body, a mob protesting, demanding he get free. 

“No! Get off of me! I can’t- I can’t- Jay! Please!”

He thrust his head against his assailant, sweeping his leg around to knock them back to the ground from their crouched stance. But they kept holding on, pulling Tim down too.

“Tim, I’m here. I’m here. You’re okay. It’s just me.” Tim’s body was pulled tight, quieting the violent protest. “It’s just me. I’ve got you…”

Jason. His brother. Jason. Who smelled like cigarette smoke and motor oil and chamomile tea. Jason, who was safe. Safe. 

“I’ve got you, kiddo. It’s just me. You’re safe.”

Tim hated it. He hated that he felt so disjointed. So misaligned. But he let himself sink into the temporary illusion that he was being held together. Because the embrace didn’t feel like it was possessing him, it was just a salve on so many open wounds. 

After so long of doing it on his own, he just couldn’t seem to be able to put himself back together. 

“I c-can’t do this…I c-can’t do this…” The wind was even more biting as it brushed over the dampness on his cheeks.


“I’m right here. I’m gonna help you. You’re not doing this alone, I swear to God.” Jason panted, pressing. “You scared me half to death, kid.”

“He’s in m-my head…he’s…he’s in my head.”

“Well, he can fuck the hell off.” Jason sat them both up. “Come on, let’s get back.”

“I can’t.” Tim said quietly. “This is y-yours. Your family. And I’m only going t-to keep losing control, pro..bably with worse outc-comes, before we find a way to b-balance this out-t…I can’t make a mess of this, of your l-life. I can’t take another thing away f-from you.”

“You’re not messing with anything. And if you’re talking about Robin, that was yours, you earned that, you never took it from me.” Jason said. “That anger I had wasn’t directed at you, even if I took it out on you. And it was the same thing that is messing with your head now that made me lash out at all.”

He sighed. “This is on me. I know It’s not going to be fun, or easy, but I said it before: I’m going to fix this.”

“What if you c-can’t? What if the damage is d- is done? Are you going to be w-willing to be chained to me for the r-rest of your life? Would you be willing to p-put me down-”

“No.”

“You and I both know it m-might come to that.” Tim said thickly. “I ripped off two- three people’s heads barehanded in the l-last twelve hours alone. If I c-can’t control it, you’ll need to do it. I’m- I’m not going to be the m-monster.”

“You’re not a monster, kid.”

“J-jay…”

“We’ll fix it.”

“Would you f-force me to live as the th-thing I hate for the rest of…of my life?” Tim asked, staring ahead into the darkness. “I d-don’t think Dick would be a-able to. Bruce would n-never. Neither would S-steph, or Kon. I can’t ask that of Cass, D-duke, or Dami. Please…I t-think I called you because I knew you w-would pick up, but also…also because I h-hoped you’d be the one t-to be able to make the t-tough call. You’ve always had the m-most understanding about death and taking a life. You know that s-some things are too dangerous to live, that it is a m-mercy to them and t-to the world that you put them d-down quickly.”

“You’re not like those people, Tim-”

“I c-could be. I killed th-three people tonight. I’m j-just a person, and if this were anyone e-else, you’d agree-”

“But you’re not!” Jason snapped. “You aren’t anyone else. You’re my brother! You’re smart, you’re a sarcastic fuck, and get obsessed with weird shit. And you’re a good fucking person. I’m not fucking putting you down like a rabid animal.”

“Not even if I killed Arte-Artemis?”

“Tim…”

“What if I killed R-roy or Kyle-”

“Stop.”

Tim pulled himself away. “I could. I could with ease under the…the most mundane of circumstances. Y-you saw what happened in there. I h-hurt her because someone dropped something on the fl-floor.” 

“Artemis can take care of herself. Roy and Kyle are trained-”

“Could an untrained civilian?” Tim asked, swallowing thickly. “Could they stand a…a chance if I lost it in a f-fucking Costco? Jay, please. Just…you th-think I want to fucking die again? I d-don’t. I don’t. It scares the shit out of m-me. But I don’t want to become what he wanted me to be. D-don’t make me live with his v-voice in my head.”

“Jesus, kid…”

“Jay…please.”

Jason swore under his breath. “I just got you back, kid…”

“I know.”

“We’re going to fix this.” Jason said, his voice raspy. “But…if…if we can’t…I…shit.”

“Promise me.”

“I fucking promise, okay? But only, only, if we can’t figure this out. Happy?”

Tim tucking his hands into fists, resisting the urge to pick at the torn skin on the back of his hands, tingling with that ever present itch. “Not really. I don’t want to fu-fucking die.”

“Your therapist is going to be happy to hear that.” Jason muttered, hauling Tim up to his feet. “Let’s go drink some leaf water and take some deep breaths. Maybe turn on some meditation music. Chill the fuck out for a minute.”

Tim swept off the dirt and plant debris from his pants, breathing in the cool early morning air. He still wasn’t all there. Parts of him still felt cracked open, with others only tethered to him by a frail thread, threatening to float away forever if they came loose. But that bone deep feeling of perverse, violating unease still clung to him like a parasite, tearing away at him, gnawing through the tethers, trying to rid him of all semblances of his morality. 

He hoped to some benevolent deity that he was fixable. 

But he had a strong sense- an ache in his chest and a nausea in his stomach- that he wasn’t. That this was…already too deeply rooted. 

The thought of making Jason do it was almost worse than the idea of him dying, but he knew that Jason was the only one he could have a chance of reasoning with. Having someone outside the family wouldn’t work, it would just end up with vengeance and violence. At least Jason could explain, at least the others might listen. Though, he knew, distantly, that the request could very well sentence Jason to exile from some members of the family entirely. He worried that without him to mediate, the family had the potential to schism again, which would’t be good for Gotham or the superhero world at large. While he wasn’t the most beloved by any stretch, he had that use at least, a load bearing wall. They tended to be most valued when they were no longer there. 

Artemis and Bizarro were waiting outside as they approached the trailer. In the heat of the moment, Tim hadn’t realized how far he’d run, but walking it back with his adrenaline depleted he definitely did. 

“You okay, Tim?” Artemis asked, pressing a steaming to-go mug into his hands. It somehow didn’t sound so patronizing when she said it accompanied by one of Tim’s favorite things.

“Ish.”

“That’s fair.”

“Sorry…for running. It was dumb, I know. My logical thinking is k-kind of…fucked at the moment.” Tim said, looking down at his feet. “I’m trying.”

Artemis inhaled, quiet for a moment. “You’re in the right place then. We’re all fucked up and dumb around here.”

“Me am not dumb.”

“Except Biz.” Artemis said, the smile evident in her voice. “But, you’re not the only one here that’s got a few screws missing and some wires crossed. Thankfully, between the three of us, someone can usually fill in the gaps for the others. With you here, we might actually make one semi-well-adjusted human if we combine the bits we’ve still got intact.”

“Like Voltron.” Bizarro said. 

“Like that…I guess.” 

“It’s his fixation at the moment, but the metaphor works.” Jason added, squeezing Tim’s shoulder. “The point is, that we’re a hot mess already, but we make it work, so adding a little more crazy to the crackpot isn’t going to be an issue.”

“I…” Tim started. “Just, don’t feel bad about knocking me the fuck out if I…if I s-start losing my shit again. I give you permission.”

“Normally I would say only I’m allowed to violently render him unconscious, familial privileges, you know, but in this instance, yeah,” Jason raised his eyebrows a bit and exhaling, “Like I said on the phone, hit him if he starts glowing.”

“No glow stick Little Him.”

“Exactly.” Jason snapped his fingers. 

He gestured around to everyone present. “Okay, let’s go inside. We’re gonna leave for Gotham in the morning, so those who need to sleep should probably sleep. Biz, you’re on Tim-sitting until we leave at seven. Art, you and I should probably get a couple hours in. Tim, try to sleep, but if you can’t and need a project, you can look through the case file I made about you, should have everything in there, so you can jump off from there with research and formulating a plan. But, sleep is the better option, I just know you probably won’t choose that one.”

“I’ll take the file.”

Jason sighed, clearly resigned. “I don’t know why I try with you sometimes.”

“Because I’m adorable.” Tim said too tired to put effort into inflection or expression to indicate the jest. 

“Precious.” Jason said with equal tonelessness. “Awesome. Let’s get to it. And by ‘it’ I mean the sweet embrace of a couple hours sleep.”

They filed inside, Jason, noticeably trailing behind Tim, obviously not willing to risk another game of ‘Where’s Tim?’. Tim took a long swallow from the mug that Artemis had given him. It was good. Perfectly steeped and a drinkable temperature without being too hot or lukewarm. Alfred always put a little honey in his whenever he came over to work in the Cave, but Artemis wouldn’t know that. And it was more that nostalgia more than the lack of honey that made the drink a little bit bitter anyway. 

Artemis and Jason filed off to the back to catch a couple hours of sleep, while Tim slid back into the breakfast nook to start looking at the file Jason had told him about on the Outlaw’s laptop. While he began his investigation, Bizarro was making omelets at the kitchenette, humming a little song that Tim had a sneaking suspicion was the theme song to a certain TV show, given the added instrumental flourishes. 

Tim smiled slightly. 

The file decided to wipe it right off his face. 

November 10th: 

LOG: While staking out the Glitz Lounge to track a drug shipment from the Black Mask, Spoiler and Red Robin were caught in an altercation with affiliates of the Black Mask. Red Robin fell twelve stories after taking a bullet in defense of Spoiler, getting hit in the chest and losing balance. Spoiler was unable to reach her grappling gun and could not provide aid, pinned down by assailants. Batman was called in. Superboy arrived just after impact, eventually neutralizing the threat to Spoiler; he transported Red Robin to the medic bay. Red Robin declared ‘brain dead’ upon arrival with no chance of regaining consciousness. Batman and Robin transported Spoiler to the med bay shortly before midnight, concussion and superficial wounds. Alert sent to allies. (Entry: Black Bat. Nov. 11, 20xx; 3:43 AM EST)

November 11th:

LOG: Family meeting. Discussions about Red Robin’s condition. Still working on agreement as to how to move forward. Red Robin on dialysis until then. Sirens to cover evening patrol. (Entry: Black Bat. Nov. 11, 20xx; 2:28 PM EST)

November 12th:

LOG: Red Hood is AWOL. Believed to have taken Red Robin’s body. No contact made as of this report. Looking into the League of Assassins contacts per Batman’s request, waiting for response. Batman theorizes that Red Hood may attempt a resurrection using the Pit (Item: 334). Quiet night reported by Sirens, still tracking Black Mask drug shipments to downtown Gotham. (Entry: Oracle. Nov. 12, 20xx; 12:22 AM EST)

PRIVATE ENTRY: 

LOG: Detailing the Events of and after November 12th. 

November 12th:

• Called in a favor from post-League and took Red Robin overseas to Switzerland. 
• Landed near the Pit location in the Alps. 
• Took Red Robin off dialysis (about 60 min. to get to the Pit before full expiration) and entered the cave system. 
• Was met before the entrance by Ra’s al Ghul and a couple dozen assassins. Couldn’t fight through while protecting Red Robin and still make it to the Pit in time. 
• Was offered a deal: punishment for trespassing (execution) and Red Robin would be revived and recovered in the care of the League of Assassins. Took the deal. 
• Red Robin revived. 

Eight Months: 

• Taken to 'Eth Alth’eban. Held for eight months.

July:

• (7/19) Escaped by incapacitating a guard during a change in shift. Went to retrieve Red Robin. RR wasn’t there. Out on a mission for al Ghul? Had to leave without him
• Left Eth Alth’eban and got above ground. Hiked for two days before finding a village. 
• (7/21) Hitched a ride to the nearest city, found a port and got on a boat that let off in a port in Egypt. 
• (7/22) Got hold of a phone and called the favor again to a private airstrip near Cairo. Flew from Cairo to Paris. Secured a safe house. 
• (7/25) Red Robin tracked down safe house. Appeared to a have broken through brainwashing, seeking shelter after allegedly running from the League. RR used a poisoned knife and fled the scene. Bizarro came and provided airlift to Dr. Lee Macer. Poison was identified as a fast-acting Strychnine variant. Macer provided treatment with a charcoal infusion, anticonvulsants, and muscle relaxants, along with surgery to close the wounds. Remained in care for one month. 
• (8/28) Returned to the States. Hunkered down with the Outlaws in TN.
• (8/30) Was sent a message from Ra’s al Ghul. Warned from searching for Red Robin or disclosing information to the Bats. The penalty was deemed extreme enough to remain quiet. Continued passive search efforts. The Bats are in the dark. 
• (9/2) Pulled some unsolved cases from Dec.-Jul. that have potential connections to Red Robin. Believe al Ghul is using RR for assassination work-

 Tim sucked in a deep breath, rubbing at his eyes. 

“Is Little Him hungry? Bizarro made omelets.”

“I…” Tim’s stomach rumbled. Apparently he’d burned off his Happy Meal with all the…excitement. “Sure. Smells good.”

“Jason showed me. Him am good at cooking stuffs, but I can only make this.”

Bizarro slid the plate down beside the laptop, a clumsy omelette, with cheese and freshly diced tomatoes, no peppers, not perfect by the judgements of a cooking show, but all the better for it’s lack of perfection. And also it’s lack of peppers. He wasn’t one for most vegetables, but peppers had an innate ability to infect food with their flavor in a way that made everything taste like peppers, even if Tim picked them out. They were the devil’s vegetable, and he would stand by it. 

“Thank you.” 

“You’re welcome, Little Him.”

Bizarro hovered nearby, watching Tim hesitantly. The corner of Tim’s mouth twitched upward as he reached for the fork. 

Tim took a small bite from the corner. “It’s really good. Lots of flavor. Good job.”

Bizarro smiled brightly. “I am happy that you like it.”

“It’s my pleasure to partake in such culinary excellence.” 

Tim proceeded to eat the rest of his omelette, while he continued to pour over the files. There were news clippings, Reddit threads, and a couple JLA files linked in the original report Jason had sent him to. 

Where is Timothy Drake-Wayne? The Wayne Heir Remains Missing as Family Seeks Answers. (January 24th)

Timothy Drake-Wayne??? I saw this guy in a parked car in Amsterdam while on vacation. I swear they look the same. Am I crazy? (July 2nd)

The Assassination of Secretary Olav Lin: Leader of Markovian Democractic Faction, and Chair-Elect in the Markovian Representative Assembly, mysteriously dead, alongside eight others, in Dutch hotel at 48. (July 3rd)

Underlined in the file were the words: Advanced malware was detected on Lin’s personal computer, that would have routinely copied the information, including personal schedules and private affairs, and gained access to the webcam feature. Not traceable. Used a firewall to secure the laptop’s files from being retrieved. Attempts to go through a backdoor lead to League computers being infected, causing the Watchtower monitors to play Rick Astley’s ‘Never Gonna Give You Up’ on loop for approximately 12 hours before a full system reboot was deemed necessary. (RR?) 

Tim smiled to himself. That did sound like something he would do. Usually to a particularly annoying MLM scheme or a scammer. But it was very much in his wheelhouse. It made him feel strangely happy to know that Jason had clocked that, that he knew Tim well enough to pick out a pattern of behavior based around his individual sense of humor. 

“Hey, Biz?”

“Hmm?”

“Did Jay ever mention the eight months with the League? Before you rescued him?”

“Him do not say much about that.” Bizarro frowned. “But him have scary dreams. Wakes up breathing funny. That’s why Artemis shares bed with Jason, so him not be scared and make mess when he have scary dreams.”

Tim gnawed at his lip. He’d mentioning how Tim would come just short of a killing blow…that left a lot of room for the condition in terms of severity, and Jason didn’t have advanced healing any longer, since it had been so long since his last plunge, so with wounds like were inferred. For eight months in the League, that was a lot to withstand, even with time between to heal, even for Jason Todd. 

“Did he ever say anything about the Pit?”

“Him not like that place. Him…scared of it. Him told Artemis that him can not go back again when he had a scary dream once.” 

No, no, no! Please! No. Just let me die! Let me die! Stop! Tim!

Tim jolted, shaking his head. It wasn’t his voice. But he didn’t like that it was someone else screaming like that inside of his skull.  

He didn’t like that it was likely a memory. He knew the difference between his own worst imaginings and his bad memories. This was solidly a memory. 

‘Tim, please! Just do it! Just end it!’

Tim grit his teeth, bidding the memory to leave him be. He wasn’t in the condition to be haunted. But his ghosts weren’t ones to listen to his requests.

Tim clenched his fist, blood trickling from the open wound on the back of his hand, dripping onto the chair. 

The computer chimed with an incoming message, pulling Tim back. 

From: SpoilsXD

This you?

Attached were three files. One, was a grainy video surveillance still of two figures exiting a motel room with suspicious bundles. 

Another was a link to a Breaking News segment aired only fifteen minutes before. A woman dressed in red sat in front of a green screen, speaking in that newscaster cadence that always made Tim’s eye twitch.

“Authorities are tracking down leads on persons of interest in a gruesome triple homicide at the Sunny Days Motel in Hunters County, Pennsylvania. The persons of interest are believed to be…um,” The reporter frowned, shaking her head briefly. “Missing CEO of Wayne Enterprises, Timothy Drake-Wayne, and Jason Todd-Wayne, both adopted children of Gotham billionaire, Bruce Wayne. Caught on camera leaving the motel shortly before authorities were called to the scene. What connection they have to the case, or where Drake-Wayne has been up until this point, is unclear right now, but in the resolution of one case, it seems Timothy Drake-Wayne has gotten himself tangled up in another. Authorities hope to get some answers as soon as the brothers are brought in for questioning. Inside sources say the crime scene, discovered almost four hours ago after a concerned customer heard a commotion next door to them and called the front desk, was quote, “like something out of a horror film”, end quote. It’s said that the bodies were so torn up, that it was as if wild animals had gotten hold of them. While two.  a man and a woman, both in their mid-to-late thirties, still remain unidentified, one was quickly identified as a Mr. Wesley Ambrose of Redfield, Oklahoma, a long distance trucker stopping for rest at the motel after a long haul trip from Oklahoma to Pennsylvania. The employee who was working the front desk, who found the grisly scene, said that Ambrose was traveling with a ‘skinny, dark-haired, boy, who looked nervous’, it is now believed that ‘boy’ was indeed the missing twenty-one year old CEO who has been a missing person since November of last year. She was apparently concerned about the boy, which is why she was, quote, ‘less skeptical about the validity of the complaint’, end quote.”

The last was a memo from the Hunters County Police Department:

September 10, 20XX; 5:36 am EST: The two identified persons, Timothy Drake-Wayne (Male, 21 y.o, 5’7”) and Jason Todd-Wayne (Male, 26 y.o, 6’1”) from the video surveillance are the prime suspects. They are to be apprehended quickly as they are believed to be a public danger. Due to the nature of their status, this must be done quietly to avoid unnecessary press or public interference hindering the investigation. They are believed to be traveling South in a 2018 blue Toyota Camry and have been confirmed to have stopped at a drive-thru in Poling, West Virginia at around 3 o’clock this morning. Highway cams last picked them entering Virginia. 

Well, shit. That wasn’t good. 

Chapter Text

They were in the car an hour later, on the road again, with Artemis behind the wheel and the trailer in flames behind them. Tim was squished in the back seat beside Bizarro, his legs tucked up to his chest, furiously trying to map out a route that avoided a potential car chase. Not that he doubted the Outlaws ability to evade police in a high speed chase, but he’d had enough excitement without that added in. 

“I’m just saying, I’m 6’2”,” Jason complained irritably. “If they’re gonna put out a BOLO for me, at least get it right.”

“Most people aren’t going to be able to tell the difference of an inch.” Artemis retorted. “And if you’re pretending to be 6’2”, I’m six feet even.”

“I’m not pretending to be anything-“

“Take this exit, there are state troopers a mile up the road,” Tim called up, Steph having sent the warning to Jason’s phone a second earlier. “If we go straight into town, we should hit a cross street, go right there, left three blocks down, and then right again, we should hit the highway. Then it’s a straight shot back on an entrance ramp to the freeway.”

“Straight, right, two blocks, left, right, straight to the entrance ramp,” Artemis parroted, sliding over to exit the freeway. “Got it.”

The plan was to get back to Gotham, and get Tim into the relative protection of Batman and the rest of the Gotham heroes before Ra’s could get him. Their current set-up involved Steph sending updates to Tim via Jason’s phone, with his phone acting as a live tracker for the car, Steph could see their trajectory and track the movements of law enforcement in the area around them with one of Tim’s beta programs for the Batclan, which was originally meant to streamline the arrival of first responders to the scene of an accident or crime, but it also worked for avoiding the police as it turned out. It still had a few hiccups, but it was still in beta testing, and what a test this was. 

And Tim had to focus on the repairs he could make to his program, because if he didn’t think about that or the directions, he would think about the tension in Jason’s shoulders in front of him and he would read too much into the white knuckled grip Artemis had on the steering wheel. If he thought of that, he’d think of what his resurrection and freedom were costing the people in his orbit. It didn’t take much math to come to the conclusion that the price was too high. And if he thought of that…well, he’d be back in the place he’d been so many times, weighing his worth as a human life and that of his family, his friends, and the world. He never won that weigh-in. What scraps he brought to the table weren’t enough to offset the damage he trailed in behind him. 

He rested his head against the cool glass. The phone was quiet. Artemis pulled up to the traffic light, blinker on. There was nothing for him to do. 

The buzz against his head was almost numbing, soothing that itch in his skull, rocking the agitation out of it’s fuss, and lulling his heavy eyes shut. Just for a moment. Just needed to rest his eyes. That’s what he told himself. But even he didn’t like to listen to himself. 

He was woozy, his body buzzing and lethargic. He was laying down on something cold. 

‘You’re going to break the kid, Ra’s. All this meddling with the Pit. It will ruin whatever part of him that you’re so infatuated with, along with those parts you’re trying so hard to remake.’

The voice was familiar, it was gritty and masculine, and it wasn’t Ra’s. 

‘He’s resilient, old friend.’ Ra’s said with a huff. “I too used to believe in those silly ideologies he clings so desperately to. But like me, he’ll stop resisting the truth and come to accept it. And he will be beautiful.’ 

‘Maybe. Still looks like a child…even you have to admit that you and the kid make an odd couple.’

‘I did not allow you here to debate ethics.’ Ra’s tutted. ‘Not that you have ground to stand on, given your history, Mr. Wilson. I think we both recall a young Miss Markov, and your games with Richard don’t exactly paint you as innocent either. Though, if, all your own sins aside, you still question my intentions, my interest in Timothy is not so sordid a thing, it transcends such human ideas of morality.’

‘Why am I here?’

‘My beloved wife was killed by a man maddened by this Pit. It made me who I am.’

Tim felt a pressure in his gut. It felt like it should hurt, but it didn’t, and that distinct absence of pain was more terrifying. 

‘You want me to kill the other bird to kickstart the kid’s career in murder? That’s a no-go, I’m afraid.’

“No, my Detective is already quite adept at that, just a few stubborn wrinkles to iron out as it were,” Ra’s chuckled, a hand petted Tim’s hair back. ’See, I met with a rather mad individual in Gotham City. He told me something interesting about our young friend.’

‘That doesn’t answer my question.’

‘I don’t need your weaponry. I need your other skill sets to do something else for me, with compensation of course. I owe a debt of information to the individual in Gotham, however, they seem to be in a bit of a bind with the law. I found the information worthwhile, so send my gratitude.’

‘I see.' 

‘And hold onto something for me. It’s a kind of failsafe or a lure. I doubt it will be needed when I’m finished here, but I don’t like to tempt the margin for error.’

‘Hold onto your shit and let a lunatic out of prison. Sounds like fun. See you at the Immortal Evildoers Reunion in a couple-’ 

Tim banged his head against the glass as the car took a corner on two wheels.

“Jumpy much! That’s an ambulance siren, not a fucking police siren!”

“They all sound the same!”

“They don’t sound anything alike. Now we have to turn around.”

Tim clutched at the fabric over his racing heart, trying to keep his frantic breath from being too loud. 

“Everything okay back there, you two?” Jason called back, while Artemis made a dubiously legal U-turn. 

“Me am okay.” Bizarro replied. 

Tim tried to speak, but his voice was pressed back by his panicking lungs. It was like that night. The night he fell. He couldn’t call out for his friend. And thinking about that didn’t help anything. In fact, it made it pointedly worse. 

“Tim.”

“Fine.” He forced out, cringing at the sound of his own breathless voice. 

“Look what you did, Art,” Jason scolded, only letting the barest traces of jest into his patently dry delivery. “You knocked the wind out of the kid.”

“He just said he was fine,” Artemis retorted. “You’re okay, right, Tim?”

“Dandy.” He whispered.

“See?”

“He’s clearly not breathing properly back there. And I know for a damn fact he had asthma as a child-”

Tim inhaled deeply, if only to respond to that glaring piece of misinformation. “I don’t have asthma.”

“Than why did it say so on your medical shit.”

“Why were you looking at my medical shit?” Tim asked, still breathless.

“You had inhaled some straight Fear Toxin, I needed to know you weren’t allergic to the shit I had to use to sedate you.” Jason said flatly. “Your wheezing was certainly enough to convince me.”

Tim frowned, he’d thought that the Red Hood he’d seen swooping in to save him after his last Scarecrow kerfuffle, maybe two years ago, had been a hallucination. The care and gentleness had felt like torment leading up to something, like being lured onto a rug only to have it pulled out from under him, making it not too far removed from his usual Fear Toxin delusions. To be fair, they hadn’t been at a stage in the relationship where Tim had been expecting Jason to worry about him. It made him wonder, however, what else hadn’t been a hallucination. He was fairly sure about his mother, since she had been very dead and barely was around when he was alive, he doubted that she’d go through the trouble of coming back to torment him. Perhaps the hug had been real…though maybe the knives for fingers had been the toxin. 

“I made it up,” Tim admitted, shifting to make himself more comfortable, curled up in his seat. “To get out of the Pacer Test.”

“They still do that?”

Tim hummed in confirmation. “And that was a waste of time and energy to me, so I forged the medical documents. Got an inhaler and everything, so I could sit in the bleachers and work on my case files.”

“Good to know I could have gone harder on you during sparing.” Jason snorted. 

Tim frowned. “You were going easy on me?”

“Holding back a bit. It said it was exercise induced. I didn’t know how much was your limit. It’s not like I wanted to push you into an asthma attack while training. I’m not that horrible of a person.”

“Oh.”

“All this time…why haven’t you gone in and changed it, asshole?”

“I forgot it was there? I didn’t think it mattered,” Tim said defensively. “No one else really looks at that shit except Alfred, and he already knew that it wasn’t important.”

“I look at that shit.” Jason said, sounding the slightest bit hurt. “How else am I supposed to keep up with everyone? You all don’t exactly share. Like the fucking spleen? I don’t even think Bruce knows about that shit.”

“I-”

“It’s fine.” Jason sniffed, pressing his head back against the headrest. “Don’t read into it, kid. I just lack some social graces…another person would just ask, right? Or better yet, they would be close enough to already know.” 

Artemis looked over at Jason, her expression soft and slightly bemused. “We’ll work on your social skills when we’re not fleeing the law, Jace.”

“Leave it.”

“I’m not touching it.” She said, the bemusement no longer hidden. “Have you looked at Biz or my medical records too?”

“Jesus Christ.”

“Your love language is acts of service in the form of HIPPA violations.”

Jason turned, his profile indignant. “How do you know about fucking HIPPA, but you can’t tell sirens apart?”

“They sound the same!”

“What do they sound like where you’re from?”

“They don't.” Artemis rolled her eyes. “We didn’t need them where I was because we didn’t have sad little men that shoot up groceries stores running around.”

“That’s fair.” Tim commented.

“Yeah, men are shit on the whole, I don't disagree, but what about fires and injuries?”

“It is a community. If you are hurt, someone will carry you to be healed. If there is a fire, we all help put it out. And we are a warrior community, trouble doesn’t really last very long. We don’t have to call because someone is always there.”

“Sounds cramped.” Jason huffed. 

Artemis punched his arm. “You wish you could be surrounded by a bunch of strong women who could throw you around.”

Jason sighed, sliding down in his seat a bit, getting himself comfortable. “I’m not too selective on the man-woman thing. I just naturally gravitate more toward powerful women. I appreciate anyone that can throw me around.”

“Hmm.”

“I’m comfortable in my masculinity, Art, I like a little submission and degradation every now and again.”

Tim’s ears were burning. He’d actually rather be anywhere else in the world. In fact, he might’ve actually preferred disembowelment to listening to this. 

“Fucking liar.” Artemis snorted. “You have a praise kink if I’ve ever seen one. The submission bit is true though.”

“Oh, my God.” Tim whispered. 

“Maybe we don’t talk about that in front of the kids.”

“You started that, I’ll have you note, Jace. But I know that you know I’m right.” Artemis grinned, making the turn onto the back road that would get them to the entrance ramp. “And Tim is a twenty-one year old adult human. You were the one to make that point.”

“I’m his brother, he’s a kid or an adult when it’s convenient for me. Besides, a year ago, he was still being given the kid’s menu in restaurants.”

“It happened once.” Tim rolled his eyes. “My hair was wet from the downpour outside and I was standing next to your gorilla sized ass. And I’m pretty sure the server was nearsighted.”

“Excuses, excuses-”

Tim’s vision spun, his body wrenching against his seatbelt as something collided violently against the passengers side of the car, sending the vehicle spinning across the center line and off the road. He could hear Artemis swearing as she tried to right the car again, and between the cursing he could hear her screaming Jason’s name. But he didn’t have time to process that before they were hit again and that time there was nothing Artemis could do to keep the car from rolling over head over tail into the swampy ditch along the side of the road. 

His body hung loosely for a moment against his seatbelt, gravity threatening to tear him free and drop him to the ceiling that had been above his head not moments before.

“Biz…” Artemis groaned from somewhere in the dark. “Get them out-”

The next minute was a hail of bullets. 

Glass shattered. Metal groaned. His shoulder burned, catching the edge of a bullet before he could free himself and drop to the…well, the ceiling, keeping low as he slid up to the front to help Jason and Artemis. The passenger’s side was caved in, the airbags fully deploy, and Jason hung limply from his seat. Low light caught on the fragments of glass in Jason’s curls, and, with his eyes finally starting to adjust, Tim could blood dripping from the locks, a deep laceration opening up Jason’s cheek and brow. It would need stitches. But he couldn’t think about that. 

The gunfire stopped. 

“Biz, I need your help.” He rasped, ears ringing, not sure if he was whispering to be quiet or if he just couldn’t talk any louder. “You have to get Jason. The door’s got him pinned, I need…”

Tim trailed off. 

As the ringing died, there was something wrong with the the scene. The air smelled like a gunfight. But…also, something else. 

A crackle. Like…something burning. And the scent of something other than gun smoke on the air. Flesh. Not in abundance. But the presence was there, and Artemis and Jason weren’t burning, so…

He turned his head. 

Bizarro was sitting deathly still, hanging upside down with a hole in his chest that was still glowing an unnatural shade of blue, sickly rings of smoke swirling up from the wound. His eyes were rolled back in his head, his breath rattling like someone going into anaphylactic shock. 

Blue Kryptonite. Used to negate the effects of Red Kryptonite. But, it was also the most effective method of neutralizing a Kryptonian Bizarro, having similar effects to what the green had on the likes of Superman and Conner. Tim hadn’t seen it in person, only in passing research. To have it on hand would mean that whoever this was knew what they were dealing with, they had planned for it, which meant they knew exactly who they were after. None of which boded well for any of them. Not to mention the precision of the Kryptonite bullet’s trajectory spoke of a very good shot. 

Out of the quiet, through the shattered windows, a long low whistle. That followed by another slightly higher, a frequency that overwhelmed Tim’s ear drums.  

“Come on out, Hellhound. My patience for this little flight of fancy has grown thiner by the hour.”

Something about the voice, the lilting cadence, was like a frozen dagger in Tim’s gut. 

The same patterned whistle followed. 

Tim’s head felt cloudy, as if thinking was having to force its way to the front of his mind to be perceived. 

“Don’t you remember our song, Hound? How you would melt into it after your cleanses? Beautiful. One of my favorite songbirds that Master al Ghul has gifted to me to train. Such a stubborn will, but those are the most rewarding.” The voice continued, morphing into something colder and crueler, a voice that still found its way into his nightmares. “Come on out, sonny boy. Daddy’s got some work to do tonight. But I need your help to clean up this silly little mess we’ve made. Can’t have these party crashers steal all the fun from us, can we?”

Right, there was a bit of a mess wasn’t there? 

“You need to get rid of them.” The voice was changing again. “We can’t be seen like this, Timothy. We’d be ruined. Imagine if the press were to see this disaster?” Mom? “Clean it up, get rid of it before anyone can see what a mess you’ve made. A disgrace. I can’t believe I still call you my son.”

“I’m sorry.” He whispered, his hands working to free the debris from the disaster he’d created. 

“What the hell did you think you were doing!” Bruce snarled. 

“I’m sorry.”

“Sorry doesn’t fix this. Sorry doesn’t give me back the years I’ve wasted trying to train you when it’s clear that you can’t be. You are a waste of my time and energy and I should have seen that when you first started tormenting me.” Bruce continued. “It was a mistake to let you take up a mantle you were clearly too incompetent to hold. Clean this up and get out of my sight.”

Tim started working faster. Maybe if he cleaned up quickly, they would change their minds. He could be helpful. He could do this right. Get rid of the mess. Get rid of the mistake. Fix it. Fix it. Fix it. 

“Where have you been, Timothy? I’ve been worried sick!” Dana…his chest ached. “Come here, sweetheart.”

“I’ve gotta clean this up.” He whispered, looking up to see his step-mother standing over him, her curtain of blonde hair falling over her shoulder. “I made this mess…I’ve gotta…”

“Oh, sweet boy. Come here.” 

“I’m sorry.”

“I know. There you go, baby, just rest for-”

A gunshot shattered the sentence and sent Dana stumbling back, a bloom of red spreading across her chest. Except it wasn’t Dana…but it was…no, it was a man in a beige colored suit that was quickly turning red. And Tim was no longer in the car, he was halfway across the road heading toward the man and the bright headlights of a black van. His head snapped back toward where the shot had come from. Artemis standing haggardly on the side of the road, blood still dripping down her face, clutching a gaping wound in her side, Jason’s sidearm raised in the other. 

Tim stumbled back a step. 

“Timothy, come here.”

He felt stuck in place, hearing Ra’s al Ghul’s voice coming from the mouth of the stranger, feeling compelled to go forward. 

Another shot rang out. The man stumbled back. As he did the sleeves of his suit jacket rolled back to reveal two heavily scarred stumps where hands should have been.

“Tim.” Artemis huffed raggedly. “Don’t you dare get any closer to him.”

There was a bright flash of light from the van, the sharp peel of gunfire followed. Turning back, Artemis had dropped to the road, her face crumpled with pain. 

“Don’t make this difficult, Detective,” The man snarled, still using that chilling voice. “Come with me.”

He felt his feet stutter forward, as if compelled by something that wasn’t him in his brain, something that was trying to convince him that he wanted to go toward the stranger- who probably wasn’t a stranger- and away from Artemis and Jason and Bizarro who were trying to protect him. That thing was trying to tell him that it was the most logical choice in the world. That to do otherwise would be inane. 

“Come here. You’ve been on the run for so long, you must be exhausted. Come with me, and you can rest in peace.” It was Dana again…her voice, not her, but he still ached to go toward even a fraction of her. “You need to trust me, sweetheart.”

It was her…wasn’t it? But why was she there? Did it matter? 

“Tim! He’s fucking with your head! You’ve got to fight it.” Artemis shouted hoarsely. “Jason is hurt, he needs help…he needs you! Please!”

“Come on, kid, I’m right here. I promised I’d fix it, and I will, I just need you to come here.”

“Jay?”

“Yeah, it’s me, kiddo.” The voice assured him. The voice that was Jason…Jason who was standing in front of him. “It’s gonna be alright. I’ve got you, you just need to come to me.”

“Tim!”

He took a small step forward. 

“Attaboy,” Jason said, his voice carrying that feral grin that could’ve been trademarked by Jason Todd. “You scared the shit out of me for a second there, Baby Bird. Let’s get outta here, okay?”

“Jay?” Tim whispered again, his brain was flickering between two realities, not sure which he was supposed to belong to. 

“I’m right here.”

He took another step, looking back over his shoulder again. 

“Don’t look at her, look at me, kid. She’s just trying to trick you again, kid. You’ve gotta use that big brain of yours and just block it out.”

But Jason had been in the car with him…right? He couldn’t quite remember anymore. Jason was right there in front of him, so he couldn’t have been in the car too. That didn’t make sense. 

‘You will live forever, Timothy, at my side. And once this body expires, I will have another made for both you and I. And another. For eons to come. Your cells will shape empires and history books.’

His muscles jolted at the sudden intrusion of memory. 

‘I don’t want to live forever. I barely want to live for my predicted lifespan, Ra’s. Are you threatening me now?’

‘Once you taste the life I can give you, forever won’t be long enough.’ 

“What’s wrong, Tim? You look a little queasy.”

‘I was waiting until you had settled in until I showed you what I have been working on. It’s a…token of our new partnership. A love letter to our continued cooperation.’

‘Love letter?'

‘Figure of speech. But regardless of semantics it is a gift that reflects my sentiments. My intention to maintain you: mind, spirit, and body.’

Tim blinked rapidly, feeling suddenly dizzy. His head hurt. Too much was trying to vie for his attention and belief at once. 

“Tim, back away from him. Don’t listen to it. He’s manipulating you.” 

She sounded so sincere. But Jason…Dana…whomever it was, sounded so real. They couldn’t both be there at the same time though…right? 

‘You used me for scrap parts?’

‘I have built you a vessel more perfect than that poor attempt by Luthor.’ 

‘No…destroy it. Get rid of it.’

‘I labored over this, for your benefit.’ 

Tim faltered forward, his own words like a bullet through his chest. He couldn’t breathe. 

Fingers twirled around his wrist in a nearly bruising hold, pulling at his skin, beckoning him closer.

“Get away from him, or I swear on the gods that the next bullet is in your head, Vanilla Bean!”

“I’m not going to hurt you, Timothy. I only want what’s best for you.”

Ra’s again. 

“It’s going to be okay, sweetheart.”

Dana. 

“Just let me help, kid. I’ll fix this, I swear.”

Jason. 

“Let him go.”

“You know what to do, Timothy.” Ra’s. “My will is your will. You are my own beloved Death.”

No.

Tim’s vision flared bright green, and his awareness was pushed under, drowned until it lost consciousness. 

He was in a vast chamber, an array of large tanks filled with a toxic blue colored fluid lined the wall. Most were empty, some were small and held what looked to be human organs: a heart, lungs, a spleen. In three others there were what looked like partially completed shop window mannequins, one had an open chest cavity, with nothing inside, another had muscle strung over bone with no flesh and was missing both eyes and the entire jaw bone, and the last was mostly skeletal, with only the torso completed, cut open like the first, but only missing the intestines. They eerily floated in stasis, unmoving, uniformly staring through empty sockets at him in the sickly liquid. 

Tim took a step back, turning to face the largest of the tanks, set in a place of honor in the chamber. He moved closer, looking up at the face of the creature in the tank. It was that of a boy, if living would appear to be in their late teens, with a healthy flush to their skin that defied the blue tint of the water. It had a proud nose and sharp features that seemed to flout the youth it was supposed to portray. Dull, grey-blue eyes regarded him lifelessly. But it wasn’t a creature. It was himself. Or, a version of himself. But it was his face. A younger him. Him without all the scars and blemishes he knew he should have had. 

He pressed his hands to the glass, feeling overwhelmingly nauseous.

‘You weren’t supposed to see all this yet, Detective. I’m not quite finished. They haven’t been quite as successful as I might’ve hoped.’

Tim’s head whipped around, as Ra’s al Ghul swept out of the shadows to loom beside him. Too close. Two hands curled over his shoulders.

Rage flared up beneath his skin, searing his vision in acid washed green. 

‘What the hell did you do?’ Tim said, turning his gaze back to the tank and the limp puppet of a creature held inside it…because it wasn’t him…was it? It couldn’t be. 

‘I’ve made a path to eternity.’ Ra’s said simply.’You will live forever, Timothy, at my side. And once this body expires, I will have another made for both you and I. And another. For eons to come. Your cells will shape empires and history books.’

‘I don’t want to live forever. I barely want to live for my predicted lifespan, Ra’s. Are you threatening me now?’

‘Once you taste the life I can give you, forever won’t be long enough.’ Ra’s traced the outline of Tim’s shoulders. ‘I was waiting until you had settled in until I showed you what I have been working on. It’s a…token of our new partnership. A love letter to our continued cooperation. 

‘Love letter?’

‘Figure of speech. But regardless of semantics it is a gift that reflects my sentiments. My intention to maintain you: mind, spirit, and body.’

The anger was clogging his throat, so only one syllable was able to get through. ’How?’

‘I borrowed your DNA. Your hair, your eyes, your bones, your flesh. You would be rebuilt in the Pit every time. But eventually I managed to get enough to remake you to perfection.’

‘You used me for scrap parts?’ He watched the mirror image of himself float limply in the fluid.

It was him. A Ship of Theseus of him, at least. 

Ra’s leaned down into Tim’s space, beside his ear. ‘What better vessel for eternity than your own? I thought. What better vessel for myself than such a candidate as yourself?’

‘You used me for parts.’ Tim said lowly, ignoring that last bit, lest he lose what little control he had over his voice. ‘And I never asked for eternity. But even if I had, Luthor did it with a scrap of genetic material.’

It was clear that comparison soured Ra’s mood. The grip on Tim’s shoulder’s tightened.

‘I have spent years studying and testing, perfecting methods science has barely even thought of yet, and I built you a vessel more perfect than that poor attempt by Luthor.’ Ra’s scoffed. ‘Every muscle and bone and organ was grown from the originals and sewn together.’

‘No…’ Tim murmured, stepping back from the glass. ‘Destroy it. Get rid of it.’

‘I labored over this, for your benefit.’ 

‘I don’t care. I don’t want it-’

Ra’s spun him around, throwing his back against the tank hard enough to shake it. Tim’s head cracked against the glass. Something cracked. He wasn’t sure if it was his skull or the glass.

‘I didn’t grant this privilege to my own children, I don’t labor so hard for their eternity, yet you scorn it so quickly?’

‘And you?’ Tim asked coolly. ‘It seems unlikely that I’m to receive such a gift without you having some kind of benefit. Where’s your ride?

‘You have always been the blueprint,’ Ra’s replied. ‘The child you sired would have been my vessel, had Miss Cain not interfered. My ‘ride’ is currently being manufactured. With a generous donation from yourself.’

Tim looked up at him unwaveringly. ’You create life from my body, and you never once wondered whether I might be opposed? You’re a fucking sociopath-’ 

His head snapped to the side as the hand struck his cheek with bruising force. 

‘I brought you back to life. Your family would have left you for dead.’ Ra’s punctuated through his teeth. ‘I gave to you what I did not offer my own flesh and blood. And you scorn it like a spoiled child.’

‘Would you allow someone to have done the same to your body?’ Tim asked, wiping the blood from his lip with the back of his hand. ‘Or is this just more evidence that you truly do think of me as inferior to you? If you intend for me to spend eternity in your presence, I will not be your lesser, Ra’s al Ghul. I will be your equal, or you can spend your endless days and nights in solitude.’ 

‘I think you could become my equal in time.’

‘But you would debase me and dishonor my consent until then?’ Tim scoffed. ‘You are pathetic.’

‘Watch your tone, Detective.’ Ra’s murmured. ‘You are still a child compared to me.’

‘A child…you never saw me as that…have enough pride to come up with a better excuse, Ra’s. Don’t embarrass yourself or insult my intelligence like that.’ 

A smile sliced across Ra’s’ face, thin and sharp and deadly; it was like watching the maw of a predator open, just before it tore it’s prey to shreds. Tim raised a brow, curious to see whether or not that deadly smile might devour him. 

He practically purred. ‘That defiance that lacks self-preservation. You…challenge, even what you don’t understand. That is why you have always been my true counterpart. Why we keep coming back to one another time and again. I’ve fought against it, but it seems predestined that you should always come back to my side. Your soul is matched to mine. We compliment one another in ways that those that you called your family would fail to comprehend.’

Tim tipped his head to the side, still curious, if not apprehensive as to where this was going.

‘A dealer of fates must not be so coy with the truth of things, and should not bow to anything, not even the god that created it. You are not my lesser, Timothy Drake.’ That spindly hand trailed along his jaw. ‘You are my inevitable; my beloved Death.’

Tim gasped, his head slamming into the ground, an invisible force keeping him down. 

“-out of it!”

Ow. 

He laid there for a moment, quietly taking in his bearings. His eyes flicked upward, catching on blue. Electric blue eyes. Too blue to be natural or human. A face with golden brown skin, and inky black locks that caught the edges of the morning sun as it came up like a halo behind him. 

“If you wanted me that badly, you could’ve just asked.” Tim said, though it came out more as a groan than anything else. “I normally ask for dinner before I let people throw me around like that. Just saying. But I’ll let it pass this time.”

“What’s wrong with you?”

“I’ve been told I give a bad first impression,” He replied, wincing at the pain at the back of his head. “I’m abrasive. I come across as condescending. And I lack a lot of social graces.”

“You ripped a limb from a man’s body.”

That would make sense. The itching at the edges of his consciousness was absent. He felt satiated. Like the little thing living inside of him, a snake that rattled and roared with hunger, had just been fed a satisfying meal. 

“I did?” Tim attempted to crane his neck, finding that pressure made him unable to. “Oops…did it make a mess or something? Give me some peroxide and a rag, and I’ll get that all cleaned up for you. It must be unsightly given the look on your face, or I’m just so pretty that it makes you physically ill.”

“What is wrong with you?” Conner said quietly, appearing as though he’d been suddenly hurt. “What did he do to you?”

“Ra’s? It would probably be easier to list the things he didn’t do.” Tim let out a long breath. “And, not that this scenario hasn’t been in several dreams of mine, but it’s usually on a softer surface. This asphalt is killing my back, so would you mind letting me up. Please and thank you, or what not.”

Conner landed on the ground, but the pressure holding Tim down did not abate. 

“You’re not…right.” He murmured. “This isn’t you…” His voice faltering slightly. “Your eyes were blue…”

A very weak blue, his mother had always said. Only really noticeably blue in the sun, but in the perpetually overcast city of Gotham, his eyes were hardly ever blue. They were grey most of the time. And not in the striking way they might’ve been on a deeper complexion. On his ghastly pallor, they were just sort of dull, blended into his features. Not like Conner’s by any means.

“Conner, I’m fine, I swear I’m fine.”

“You…you just killed a man.” Conner said, still stubbornly in disbelief. “You killed him without trying, without thinking about it, and…you enjoyed it. The Tim I knew would never take a life like that…it would never give him pleasure.” He paused for a moment. “Those bodies in Pennsylvania…that was you too…wasn’t it?”

Tim cocked his head to the side. “If it helps, I threw up about three hours after I did that. The guilt, I guess. Seems like a bit of an overreaction now…”

Conner closed his eyes, pressing his lips into a line.

“I…I think I need to call in the Justice League…”

“Conner-“

“You’re sick, Tim. There’s something really fucking wrong. You need- I don’t know a doctor, or, like twelve- help, you need help. Because I…can’t fix you.” He looked away as though just that admission alone hurt. 

“Don’t you dare. You don’t know what the fuck you’re messing with Conner.” Tim said lowly. “You don’t know Ra’s al Ghul like I do. He will burn the Justice League to the ground without a hint of remorse…He will kill you, Conner.”

There was an urgency in his voice that felt wrong. He shouldn’t be worried about Conner. Conner was a fully capable hero. Half Kryptonian. More than that, he shouldn’t be feeling much of anything at all at this stage, let alone something close to…concern. The sensation seemed to be clawing its way forcefully out from that place that the Pit had numbed in the satiation of it’s bloodlust. He didn’t feel anything else. There was no remorse, no guilt, no…anything about what he’d done. He didn’t care…and yet. There was that…feeling.

It had to be that he was feeling cornered. That he’d been found out for what he’d done (not that he’d done the best job of hiding it). But that wasn’t right either. No…it was irritating, that was what it was, that he couldn’t understand his own reactions. 

“You need help, Tim.”

“You can help me by flying the fuck away.”

“And what? Leave you like- like this? Psychopathic, willing and capable to commit lethal violence? And if a cop pulls you over, or someone fucking cuts you off in traffic.”

“I’m sociopathic, Conner, at least diagnose me properly before trying to admit me. You’ve got super hearing but you can’t seem to hear for shit, can you?” Tim snapped. “If you take me to the JLA, it doesn’t just put me or you in danger, it’s everyone you might give a shit about. Do you really want to give Ra’s al Ghul the incentive to break into a place that houses more sensitive information than the fucking CIA?”

“You’re probably manipulating me…” Conner groaned. “You always knew how to make a lie sound convincing.”

“I also know how to make the truth convincing. Your brain was hand crafted to be intelligent, try to think.” 

“You sound too convincing which means you are definitely manipulating me.”

“Jesus Christ, I’m going to kill you, Conner Kent.”

“I have no doubt that you’ve already got at least eleven different ways to do that. Which is why you’re going to be put in a containment cell until we can call in somebody equipped to help you.” Connor said, in that aggravating superhero, business casual tone that made Tim want to hit a wall having it directed at him. “I-“

“Tim!” Jason’s voice interrupted. His voice sounded terrible even from the distance.

“You didn’t check to see if everyone was alright?” Tim scoffed, though his eyes flicked toward the sound of Jason’s call. He couldn’t see his brother yet. “They were in a car wreck- where is the car? Where am I?” 

He looked around. They weren’t in the place Tim remembered being last. There was a sign signaling the upcoming four way stop that he hadn’t seen. They must be further down the road. 

“We’re a half a mile from the wreck,” Conner said flatly. “And a quarter of a mile from the body you dropped.”

“Definitely deserved to be dragged a quarter of a mile…fucking creep.”

He looked back up at Conner, whose brows were furrowed again. “You knew that guy?”

“I…” Tim faltered. “I…don’t know.”

“You just said he deserved it. That he was a creep.”

“My memory from the last ten months is not exactly put together,” He replied coolly. “I’ve been catching up. But my body recognized him. It reacted like muscle memory to…” He caught himself before continuing. “…what he was doing. Why are you even here? I told you to stay away.”

“I kept an ear out-“

“So, you were spying on me-“

“I lost you for ten fucking months Tim!” Conner snarled. “Ten months. I lost you for ten fucking months. I couldn’t hear you. I can hear a bird chirping in Central Park from the middle of Kansas, but I couldn’t hear you. My best friend. I tried…for months after you ‘died’, just trying to find your heartbeat, but I…couldn’t. I couldn’t find you anymore. It’s sounds so different now… I mourned you, Timothy Drake. So, don’t act like it’s so fucking surprising that I might hear your voice and latch onto it…I can’t lose it again. I can’t lose…you again.”

Tim was sure he might’ve been stirred by that admission under normal conditions. But they weren’t operating under normal conditions. And he was rather ‘whelmed’ to say the least. No over or under about it. It was like a great historic speech being presented to the wrong audience at the wrong time. 

“And I asked you to stay where you were.” Tim said. “Have I not earned a modicum of trust from you-“

“That’s not it.”

“Wanted to play hero then?”

“No!”

“Or is your guilt overriding your common sense?” Tim glared at him. “I feel nothing right now, so maybe you’ll trust when I say, there was no way you would have gotten to me on time. None. I doubt Superman could’ve. And I’m not dead, clearly, so you can fucking take that guilt and throw it out because it’s useless to the both of us.”

Conner looked as though he’d been slapped across the face. But he didn’t get the chance to respond before a bullet whizzed through the air, bouncing off of him. 

“The fuck does a guy have to do to get some attention around here,” Jason said gruffly, limping over the slight incline in the road. “The guy driving the van gave me more than the fucking super-freak.”

He looked like shit. His usual leather jacket was gone, his long sleeved shirt was torn in various places, giving glimpses of torn and bloody skin as he shifted and moved. The arm that wasn’t leveling the gun at Conner was hung limp at his side, held at a painful looking angle, a dislocated shoulder probably. His hair was matted to his forehead with a mixture of sweat and blood, and one of his eyes was wrapped over hastily with some torn bit of formerly white cloth. 

But he was still moving…alive. That was good. 

Tim felt the pressure on him ease slightly, he could move a bit easier. 

“Jason…You shot me.” Conner said slowly. 

The gun fired again, the bullet bounced off of Conner and landed close to Tim’s head.

“I did. Twice. Very observant Sherlock. You’ll live.” Jason huffed, looking down at Tim. The hand held at his side flashed the numbers 2-3-2. “I doubt you even felt a sting. But it did what it was supposed to. Artemis?”

Tim barely rolled out of the way before a crater was formed in the road where he’d been laying. 

And just like that, Conner was face first in the asphalt, with a bloodied and bruised Artemis pinning him to the ground, slapping some heavy duty mag-lock restraints on Conner’s wrists behind his back before rolling off. Her legs immediately gave way, and Tim managed to get his footing in time to catch her and ease her to the ground. 

Maneuver 2-32. An Old Bat Classic. 

“You’re still alive.” Tim commented vaguely, watching Conner weakly trying to push himself up. “Kryptonite embedded in the cuffs…where’d you find that?”

“The creep in the ugly suit and his driver had quite the stash in the van used to ram us,” Artemis panted, pushing the hair that had torn free from her ponytail out of her face. “When Superboy here decided to intervene, he informed us that he might try to go to the JLA. So we improvised.”

“Got it.” Tim said, pushing himself up to his feet. “Bizarro?”

“Not great,” Jason said, his expression cold. “Art managed to dig out the bullet- Blue Kryptonite, though I suspect you already knew that- but he’s gonna be grounded for another couple of hours at least.”

“Care to fill me in on what happened,” Tim huffed, tipping his head as Conner let out a weak groan. “SB was intent on being sentimental, so I didn’t get many details.”

“Right, sociopath time, goody,” Jason exhaled, shaking his head, wincing at some kind of pain- probably from being rammed by a fucking van. “Um, okay, Art? Care to start us off?”

Artemis made a noise of acknowledgement through grit teeth. “Where did you leave off?”

“He was using voices: Ra’s, Dana, Jay…Joker.” He watched Jason for a reaction to that last name, he got one. “It was messing with my inhibition, some kind of hypnotism, a meta ability maybe. You’d shot him. And he said something to me as Ra’s, and I was pushed into a flashback, where I’m assuming I killed the fucker in the ugly ass suit.”

He gestured for Artemis to continue, but her face had settled into a thoughtful scowl. 

“Care to share with the class?” Tim prompted. 

“That man…he…his mouth was sewn shut.” She said quietly. “He was silent the whole time, it was creepy. He was just, staring at you…”

Tim blinked once. Then twice. His brain trying to compute what he’d just heard.

“So, you didn’t hear the whistling?”

“Whistling…I thought my ears were just ringing from the crash, but…yeah, I did hear a high pitched whistle when we were all on the road.” Artemis sucked her bottom lip back between her teeth. “That was him…shit.”

“So, we can operate on the assumption that he’s a meta working with Ra’s…or he was…” Tim continued on, keeping a stray eye on Conner’s weak and miserable form, still trapped in the car sized crater in the road. “Okay, what happened next?”

Artemis sighed. “Um…you sort of froze there for a couple seconds. And then you lunged at the guy. Knocked him down the road like some kind of skid marked roadkill. He started trying to run. I didn’t see much more, I went back to go help Biz and Jay. I got the bullet out of Biz, and pulled them both out of the car. Superboy showed up shortly after Jay regained consciousness, and he went after you, said something about it being ‘over his head’ and that this was something for the Justice League.”

“He said I tore off the guy’s arm.” Tim mentioned flippantly. 

Jason snorted. “Yeah, I saw that…gnarly stuff, kid.”

“Thank you.”

“Wasn’t really…that wasn’t a compliment.” 

“I figured.” Tim exhaled. “So…the driver is kaput, right?”

“That’s correct.”

“Is there a Part Two to this plan of yours?"

Artemis and Jason exchanged a look that gave Tim all the answer he needed.

Chapter Text

The plan as it turned out, was not a plan, but in fact, more dubiously moral improv which resulted in Conner Kent being squished between Tim and Bizarro in the backseat of the stolen League van, and Tim being sardined between Conner and the door. It was made all the more delightful (to be read sarcastically, for note) by the fact that the two Kryptonian clones were both suffering from varying degrees of Kryptonite poisoning, of varying degrees of intentionality. Bizarro still had a rather gaping hole in his chest, that perpetually smelled of burnt flesh, that was healing very, very slowly, and he was holding a box from the back of the van, which been emptied of it’s likely potentially deadly contents to be used in case the nausea from the Kryptonite ended up inducing vomiting. Conner was…very sweaty, his normal, healthy bronze tone was now desaturated and sickly, his head lulled back against the head rest, and every bump in the road jostled a weak groan. And Tim, after four hours, was beginning to gain back his sense of morality and emotional capacity, which was giving him a massive headache and jittery limbs like he was going through a nasty withdrawal, except the drug was brutal murder and dismembering. 

So, all that to say, they were doing great. 

“We’ll need to put the cuffs back on at the next rest stop,” Jason mumbled, his seat reclined almost into Tim’s lap, with a bag of frozen vegetables that they'd 'borrowed' from a small town grocery store resting on his face. “Should be another hour or so.”

Tim hummed vaguely in response, his mouth tasting like cotton. 

“How are you holding up?” Artemis asked from the driver’s seat, large sunglasses blocking her eyes from the early afternoon sun, her hair hastily half tied up, looking very much like she’d had a very exciting night in the drinking and now hungover sense, not in the almost got murdered and now concussed sense. 

Having a concussed person driving wasn’t the best option, but it was their only option, given that Jason’s face was practically completely swollen, and Tim had been a danger to society when they’d first started driving and he was now too shaky to safely operate a GameBoy let alone a metric ton of metal going upwards of 55 miles an hour at any given time. Ergo, Artemis had been put back in the driver’s seat of the busted up League van as they continued traveling toward Gotham. 

“I-I’m j-just…just per-perfect.” He managed through chattering teeth. 

“Hmm,” Artemis replied, clearly not convinced by that utterly unconvincing act. “Maybe we’ll find a Dunkin’ around here, maybe…how much cash do we have on us, Jace?”

Jason groaned, throwing an arm over his bag of mixed veggies as if that might take down the swelling faster. “Twenty-two, fifty.”

“We might have to get some cheap shit at the next gas station then,” Artemis mused. “God, I don’t want to think about math…my brain feels like sludge."

“I think we have a Rogue in Gotham that does lobotomies.” Jason muttered.

“Of course you do. And why does that sound almost appealing at the moment”

“Don’t get too excited, he’s in Arkham with a life sentence,” Jason snorted, and then groaned in pain. “Three of them actually. But…” He sighed heavily, gesturing vaguely. “Gotham’s overdue for a mass breakout of murderous freaks, so you probably won’t have to wait too long for an open appointment slot.” 

“Great,” Artemis raised her brows over her glasses, blowing a strand of flyaway out of her face. “How’re Thing One and Thing Two doing?”

“Also knows Dr. Seuss, but not sirens.”

“I will make you get out and walk.” Artemis hissed. 

“I’m just saying…” 

She pinched the bridge of her nose. “I think half of my maladies would be solved if you stopped ‘just saying’ things, Jace. Tim, the question?” 

“Al-alive, so f-far.” 

“See, no sass from him.”

“You love my sass,” Jason said, reaching blindly toward the temperature control knob. “And he’s not a fucking angel, trust me. Kid’s got an attitude. I wanted to kill him when I first met him, and he didn’t do much to lessen that feeling in person.”

“That was- that was attempt-attempted murder,” Tim chattered, hugging his arms around his chest, hoping that it might keep them still. It didn’t. “Y-you didn’t just-just think about i-it. Was…was a g-good try though.”

Artemis chuckled, reaching over to turn on the radio. 

“Nooo,” Jason moaned from under his mixed vegetables. “I already have a headache.”

“So do I,” She pointed out, “But if I have to listen to your mouth breathing for the next hundred miles I’m gonna be sent to Arkham myself.”

“My nose is broken,” Jason said huffily. “It’s not like I want to…makes my mouth dry.”

“Poor baby.” Artemis pushed out her bottom lip unsympathetically, but was quickly distracted by some early 2000s party anthem with a near illegal dose of auto-tune. “Ooh, I love this song…”

“Jesus…” Jason groaned. “I hope you’re not being serious…this song is the musical equivalent of braining someone with a hammer. How are you not bleeding out of your orifices from this?”

“It’s fun, Jace, which I assume is a musical concept you haven’t been acquainted with,” She said with a grin. “And maybe my orifices are just genetically superior to your orifices.”

“Look, if you’re talking about Phoebe, she speaks to the human experience, see you wouldn’t know about music that speaks to you because you’ve got your eardrums blown out by this…whatever…”

“The human experience isn’t all melancholy and emotional turmoil. It’s going out and having fun too.” She said, pointedly turning the music up a couple notches. “See you wouldn’t know that because you’re a social recluse."

“That volume was too loud to start with. And it’s called being an introvert, Art, and it’s clearly saved my hearing a lot of grief.”

She laughed, waving him off with a flippant hand gesture. “Tomato, to-mah-to. What say you on the subject, Tim?” 

“Don’t- no,” Jason pointed to her threateningly. “Don’t get him started. He’s obnoxious about his music taste.” 

Tim rolled his eyes. “I am- I am n-not.” 

Jason took the frozen vegetables off his face to crane his neck back over the headrest to give Tim the most incredulous look that shouldn’t have been able to have been made with the level of swelling and bruising.

“What was that lecture you gave me about the difference between the perception of lyricism between genres of music and the wider social recognition of artistry?”

“You-you said, you found it- found it interesting.”

That had been during an upswing around Tim’s eighteenth birthday before their lowest downswing, that had plateaued, and they’d been in since. But apparently not so low that Jason wouldn’t help him out with some Fear Toxin detoxing. He was starting to feel the slightest bit upended, as if he was being gaslit into thinking that he’d made up the downward swings in his head or something, and thus that he might’ve made up his relationships with his family as a whole. 

His head already hurt. He didn’t need more. 

“I did, but I was also paralyzed at the time, and other people aren’t as accustomed to your tangents as I am. That one was an hour long.” Jason put the bag back over his face. “Gotta micro-dose people first, kid. Don’t go all in on the comparison between the modern queer artist and Bruce Springsteen up front.”

“But if it c-comes up…”

“Info-dump with informed consent, Timmy.” 

“He does lectures?” Artemis, looked over her shoulder at Tim briefly and laughed. “That’s sort of cute.”

“He’s very serious about them. Feels like I’m gonna get an exam after that’s worth 30 percent of my grade.” Jason said. “He’s like an encyclopedia for music shit…god forbid you get a small detail wrong. Like the whole Nirvana thing-”

Jesus Christ. He was recovering from a bout of Pit Madness, he didn’t need to be defending himself to a man that was clearly trying to get a rise out of him. And yet…

“The drumming style…w-was disco-inspired, not…not funk, they’re very different.”

“See, he gets all worked up about it.” Tim could hear the annoying grin in Jason’s voice. 

“I’m gonna hit y-you.”

Jason flipping him off with his good hand. “Do you worst jitter-bug.”

“F-fuck you.”

They ended up having twenty-three dollars, and seventy six cents. Which meant that they got half a tank of gas (thank god they weren’t going through California), some, cheap, gritty gas station coffee, and there was enough leftover to leave a tip in the jar for the snacks that Artemis snuck into her pockets. Hopefully the employee wouldn’t get in trouble, they hadn’t eaten since the omelette the night before, and they couldn’t use a card, lest their transactions be tracked. Before leaving, Artemis pretended to pass out, while Tim hopped behind the counter and wiped the security cameras, resetting the system, which would give them two minutes to leave. 

Funnily enough, Artemis regained her balance and Tim ‘helped’ her (very quickly), back to the van, where she peeled away from the gas station at a speed that was only just slow enough not to be suspicious. 

Tim latched his seatbelt back into place, noticing that Jason had fitted the cuffs back on Conner’s wrists. A twinge of guilt twisted cruelly in his gut, seeing his friend in such a state of discomfort. The justification never felt like enough, that it was for everyone’s safety, including Conner’s. And he knew he might’ve truly broken some unwritten line or clause in their relationship, by even allowing it to happen.

And he couldn’t even say that he was sorry…because it would mean that he regretted it. But he would never regret saving someone he loved. No matter how much they might hate him for it. No matter how much he might hate himself for it. 

“What’s going on in that big brain of yours?” Conner whispered hoarsely, his head rolled back, eyes squeezed shut. “I can…feel you staring at me.”

Tim’s hands were still shaking, just a little less than before. He clenched them into fists, pulling them into his lap. “I didn’t want this to happen…”

“I know.”

“It’s not just that I don’t want to be locked up…again,” He let out a shaky breath. “But…I was being honest. Ra’s. He would come for me, he would know I was there. He wouldn’t just retrieve me either, he would slaughter everyone in his path to get to me. And aside from that, even if he did it peacefully…I can’t go back to him. He…he’s got some kind of hold on me, and I hurt people…killed people, under his control.” 

“Tim…”

“He kept putting me back into the Pit…taking parts of me…my body, and healing me in the Pit again. Using my body to build a…a successor to his body and a new vessel to move into once it fails him.” The words weren’t stopping, he wasn’t sure he could stop if he tried. “But all that in the Pit, served another purpose, it…it was to break me. Being killed violently, again and again, and being subjected to the side-effects of the Pit so many times in such a short span…it would shatter my resolve, my resistance. And he would test it every time, before he carved out another part of me…” He swallowed thickly, not able to mention the child…those lifeless, almost familiar, blue eyes. “He wanted me to kill Jason. Enough that he sent me to do it after Jay escaped. To break me of my final resistance, of my attachments.” 

“Tim…”

“And…the Joker…he’s involved somehow. Ra’s mentioned a ‘mad individual in Gotham’, the creep that I…dismembered…he used the Joker’s voice, once in there.” He paused, inhaling deeply, trying to keep the long suppressed memories at bay. He tried to ignore the catch of Jason’s breath when he mentioned that particular Rogue. “I think…I think that the Joker, what happened when I was a kid with him, might be at play. Like, maybe, whatever happened when I was fourteen…that programing…is still dormant in my head. Ra’s must’ve managed to learn about it and access it.”

“Tim.” Conner whispered more forcefully, and Tim finally heard him. His head snapped over to look at Conner, who is looking at him with a softer expression that Tim should have earned from his forcibly kidnapped friend. “You’re rambling again…”

“I…sorry.”

“Nah, I find it endearing…” Conner sighed. “You just…told me to…tell you when you were rambling.”

Oh. 

“Right…thanks.” Tim gnawed at the inside of his cheek.

Conner snorted weakly. “What are friends for?” 

He groaned again, gritting his teeth as the Kryptonite did its dirty work. 

“Jay…”

“He’s not getting the cuffs off.” Jason said flatly. “Not until Gotham. I’m not risking him trying to play hero here. Not with you, kid. Not when there’s too much to risk if he does.”

“Do you really think that Tim’s safer in Gotham than he would be with the entirety of the Justice League?” Conner questioned hoarsely. 

“Listen, if Wonder Woman and Superman could put their saving the world BS on pause to fully dedicate their time to guarding Timbo for as long as it took to fix his ass, maybe I’d consider, but the truth is that they can’t, can they? Ra’s isn’t the only threat in the world right now, and those threats aren’t going to let the strongest heroes in the world play guard duty for months on end. We don’t know how long it would take or if this shit can be reversed.” Jason replied. “The League will kill to get what they are after. And Ra’s has made it clear how far he’s willing to go to get to my little brother. He nearly burned Gotham to the ground last time around and I’m not so ignorant to think that he’s going to bow out just because the JLA has skin in the game. If anything, he’d just have more reason to not hold anything back…because we would just give him an excuse to cripple the fucking Justice League. And Hell knows that we don’t need that on top of everything else…”

Conner was quiet, whether from the nausea or from the response was anyone’s guess. 

He took in a rattling breath. “I just…can’t lose you again. I can’t…do that. It scares me how far I’d be willing to go into the realm of ignoring reason just to ensure that you stay alive. But even knowing that, even now, I can’t say that I’d choose logic…”

“Okay, cool it there, Jane Austen,” Jason snorted. “Save the declaration of love for when you’re not in a fevered delusional state. Preferably when I’m not in the same confined space with you.”

“Jason,” Tim said tiredly. “Don’t antagonize…please.”

Jason huffed. “I’m not antagonizing. I’m observing and setting necessary boundaries for my own personal sanity.”

“It was a little bit-“ Artemis started, only to be cut off by the radio announcer breaking through the static of the changing radio frequencies. 

“…of missing Wayne heir and Wayne Enterprises CEO, Timothy Drake, has taken an unforeseen turn…turned up in Pennsylvania last night…three mutilated bodies found in the motel room…the brothers are now officially suspects in the murders, considered by authorities to be a danger to the public…seen, you are advised not to approach, but to notify…”

Jason groaned, spinning the volume dial down to zero. 

“Perfect. Just…peachy. We’re officially wanted serial killers, Timmy.”

Tim couldn’t make himself respond. People would be looking for them. Information would be public…so, easily accessible. Bruce would know, the family would know, in all personas, that Tim was a killer. Authorities were already salivating at the mouth for such a high-profile case, the public would only make it harder for Tim to hide and easier than it already was for Ra’s to find him. Hell, the whistling man had found him in the middle of nowhere…it would be laughably easy to get to him in a prison or a jailhouse, especially one the would be broadcast loudly to the Average-ist of Joes. 

“Tim?”

“Fine.”

Jason laughed a little. “Didn’t even ask that question yet, bud.”

“Bud?”

“What? You not like it?” 

“It’s…fine. I’m fine. Just…thinking.” 

Jason flubbed his lips. “That’s dangerous.”

“Ra’s…he doesn’t care about me,” It sounded juvenile to say, like a child realizing their crush didn’t like them back, but it wasn’t like that at all, it was a hundred times more terrifying. “Not as a person. I’m just…a trophy of sorts, a play to his ego. He needs something to prove his intelligence, his power…he never wanted me as a successor. He didn’t even want the baby I would have given his sister…him…as a successor. That was just a tool to showcase his power, his ability to cheat death. And now that he has that vessel…what use am I except as proof of his power. To subjugate and overpower a person he deems to be as close to his equal…that is what he sees as the ultimate show, the ultimate trophy to remind him of his greatness. And he want me to be that proof to him…forever. He offered me eternity…something he wouldn’t offer his own blood because I’m worth more as a symbol to him than they are.”

The interior of the van was quiet, like the inhale before a scream. 

“He offered you eternity…” Jason said quietly. “Why do I get the sense that it wasn’t really an offer?”

“Because you have some critical thinking skills,” Tim snorted bitterly. “I think he realized what his attraction to me was finally. In the catacombs, he was going to have me killed after…after he got what he wanted from me. But when he was sourcing the material for his ‘mini-me’ all that time, he probably got a taste for the feeling he got with my forced dependency on him. The person who outsmarted him once before, eating from his hand…that’s one hell of a power trip.”

“The baby?” Conner whispered. “What baby?”

Tim winced. 

The details were in the Bat Computer files. Everyone in the family knew about Paris that cared to look through them. Even Damian, even though he had been restricted from accessing that particular one. Tim only knew the kid had snooped because the Demon’s usual heretical activity had lessened for a few days for no apparent reason, along with Damian trying to clumsily try to bring up data and facts on the subject. He knew the kid was trying, it was endearing that Damian was trying so hard to be understanding about everything once he’d learned the extent of what his grandfather had been trying to do. 

But, he’d never told the Titans, his oldest friends, about what happened. Maybe it was shame. Maybe it was guilt. Whatever the reason, either or both, Tim hadn’t wanted to tarnish the normalcy of that one circle in his life with that knowledge. After all, with Dick, Tim couldn’t hang out with his older brother for a long time without wondering if this new dedication to their brotherly bond was just out of guilt about what happened or not. He didn’t want uncertainty that with his friends. So…he hadn’t given the opportunity for that to happen. He left those details out. 

“When I was in Paris,” Tim started carefully, pushing that associated fear and emotion of the memories away from himself. Just a mission debrief. “After I had been with the League of Assassins and Ra’s al Ghul, during the Assassination Tournament, I refused to become the heir to the League for him. So…he decided that if I wouldn’t join him willingly…that he would raise my offspring in my stead for that role. My blood…and his…via his half-sister. I later learned that the position was less ‘heir’ and more ‘vessel for the soul of a psychotic maniac’, so I really dodged a bullet there.”

“Your offspring…” Conner trailed off. “As in…”

“The kid his half-sister would get impregnated with. My…kid. At least, genetically…my kid.” His hands had started jittering again. Fuck. “Thank god that Cass came when she did or we’d have another Damian on our hands, and one is enough.”

“Tim-“

“No,” Tim said sharply. “I’m…it was four years ago, and it didn’t even really happen anyway, so don’t start…pitying me. It was nothing…this…is more important and more than that it’s real and actually happened. This needs my focus.”

“What happened then was just as real as what’s happening now,” Conner pushed, clearly fighting off the symptoms to emphasize his words. “You could have told me…us…we wouldn’t have judged you. It wasn’t your fault. None of this is your fault.”

Yeah, that had gone so well for Dick the first time around. And Dick was well-liked, trusted, and respected by everyone. Tim…he wasn’t. He had his friends, but even they would admit that he was callous and off-putting to most who didn’t know him. And after the reveal of his contingency plans for if his team of supers went rogue, they never really had the same level of trust in him. Certainly not to the level Dick had from the entire superhero community at large, his friends would kill for him. If Dick, the human embodiment of perfection, hadn’t been taken seriously with something real…something that actually happened, what hope did Tim have with something that was stopped, something that only almost happened? 

“Well, now you know,” Tim said, feeling somehow more miserable than he had for the last eighteen hours. “Go tell all your friends. Not quite as salacious a story as a bastard child of a CEO, but, I’m sure a gossip rag might give you a couple bucks.”

“I’m being serious.”

Tim repressed a groan of frustration. “So am I. It’s barely even tabloid fodder…it’s nothing. Why are you so focused on it?”

“Did you really think it would matter to me?” Conner asked incredulously, having to take a labored breath to continue his berating. “That I would think of you differently?”

“That’s not why.”

Conner came back with the verbal equivalent of a gut punch, “If it really didn’t matter to you, you wouldn’t be trying to shut me down.”

Tim turned his body away, too aware that it was only just confirming the accusation. 

“You…you only do that when…something gets to you,” Conner insisted. “If it truly didn’t bother you, you…would explain why it didn’t. If it didn’t bother you, I would have…already known because you’re my best friend and…you tell me everything…everything except the things like this. These are the things…the missing spleens of our relationship…that you don’t talk about until it is the…the end of the line. And even then…you barely address it. I’ve known you my whole goddamn life, Tim…I know you better than anyone in the world. Don’t treat me like a stranger…”

“What do you want me to say?” Tim said, watching the lines of the road blur outside the window. “That it made me terrified of potentially having kids forever? That…that I can’t stop worrying about those blanks in my memory because…what if…what if my body was violated more than it already was when he took the pieces from me? Because he could’ve…if he built those bodies from me…since it was clearly easy to just…take things from me.”

Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Artemis gripping the wheel tighter. 

“That’s enough,” Jason said gruffly. “Clone Boy, take a fucking nap or something. You’re fucking with Timmy’s head as it is, and it’s already pretty fucked. And I have a fucking headache, and the frequency of your voice is especially grating, so mandatory quiet time for the kiddos in the back seat for the next hour or I swear to God I’m gonna add some duct tape to your abduction ensemble, got it?”

Conner was quiet, which seemed to be enough of an answer for Jason, who readjusted himself in his seat. 

“Wake me up when we hit Jersey.”

“Got it.” Artemis met Tim’s eyes in the rearview mirror. 

Tim looked away. The silent question was the same one that got asked aloud too many times. Are you okay?

No. No the fuck he wasn’t. Of course he wasn’t. His life was shit. And it just kept getting shittier against all odds, despite the fact that defied all logic for that to even be possible. But that wasn’t gonna change in the near future. Why ask? Why answer? They all knew anyway. 

About twenty minutes later, the two Kryptonians were asleep, and Jason was snoring in the front. 

Tim quietly reached over and unlatched the cuffs from Conner’s wrists, putting them back in the lead lined box on the floor by his feet. If Artemis noticed, she didn’t say anything.

He studied Conner at rest in the afternoon light that came in through the car window, the softness of his relaxed features. The breath rattled in Conner’s lungs, an effect of being exposed to the Kryptonite for so long, lips slightly parted. Those features that he’d tried ninety-nine times to replicate, to bring back. That face, that he’d nearly sold his soul, what was left of his morality to see light up again. He’d nearly used the Pit, an irony, a hypocrisy, that he could only wish was lost on him. That he would chastise his brother for using it for him, when he knew that there had been a point where he would have rather had the half-life of his best friend back rather than be without him for the rest of time. 

Thankfully, Dick had stopped him from following through, and in the present, in his current state of intermittent madness, he was more grateful for that intervention than he had been back then. And by some miracle…he got Conner back. It was more than he deserved.

It was a fact of all of Tim’s relationships, that the person on the other side of it would be too good for him. Steph, Cassie, Bart, Bernard, Conner. He supposed he’d always been a bit of a monster trying to play at being a hero, just barely holding back that darker impulse that haunted his alternate selves in every other plane of the multiverse. This was the only universe where he fought for good…but the truth of him, the connecting thread between every version of him, that was still tangled up in him, fighting him for control. Those shreds of light, of beauty, those people that he got to cling desperately to for salvation…he would ultimately damn them to pain and suffering and death. 

That was his curse. 

“Hey, Tim?” 

He blinked, severing the train of thought to look up at the only other person who was awake. 

“Hmm?”

“I…I need to tell you something…I was in front of Jason before, so I didn’t want to say it directly after,” Artemis spoke softly, glancing over at Jason briefly before continuing. “And, I figured that maybe you would want to know and decide what to do with the information.”

That little torrent of trepidation was starting to pick up in his gut. 

“What is it?”

“On the road, when that creepy guy had you under his control, I saw that switch flip. Like you were gone and this alternate version had taken your place,” She started, her fingers tapping against the wheel in a sporadic rhythm. “You turned on me and you were trying to kill me. Or get through me to get to Jason. Maybe you were told to kill all of us.… But, it was clear that I was going to have to fight for my life…you threw me a good ten feet into a tree, and went after Jace. You pulled him from the wreck by his throat, through broken glass and threw him to the ground, you had his head in your hands like you were about to snap his neck… I wouldn’t have gotten there in time to stop you, there was no way I could’ve. I called out his name, maybe hoping he might wake up, I don’t know. It was like you glitched a little bit. It was long enough that I got back and knocked you off, but…you just sort of stood there, looking at your hands, And then you attacked the creepy road guy instead…”

Tim swallowed. 

He almost killed again. He hurt Artemis. He hurt Jason. 

“I’m sorry.”

“I’m not mad, Tim,” Artemis huffed, flipping the turn signal to change lanes. “At least not at you. I’m more curious as to what made you hesitate. You clearly were after us in particular, it was targeted, intentional. You saw Jason’s face when you dragged him out…was it hearing his name, or…”

“I…” Tim could feel the tremor in his voice even if it couldn’t be heard. “He said that I would go to the brink of killing him, when we fought in the League. But I would never actually cross that line and finish the job. I’m clearly not scared of killing…” He scoffed, thinking back on the trail of bodies he’d left in his wake. “Maybe it was that block in my head again…” 

“Good to know…I guess.” 

Tim snorted bitterly. “Just use him as a human shield next time I lose it.”

She grinned. “I’m sure he’d appreciate that.”

They fell into silence again for a few beats. 

“I hope you aren’t fighting this fight to prove yourself to Batman again,” Artemis said out of the silence. “Because you killed some people…broke his arbitrary rules. You can let people protect you, Tim. Jace, he wants to protect you…You don’t have to lead the charge against the thing that wounded you while you’re still bleeding. Nobody would ask that of you. And no one would think less of you if you stood this one down.”

“I’ve barely fought anything,” Tim huffed. “I’ve either been in a black-out murder state, having a breakdown, or in a car for most of the last twenty-four hours.”

“Fair enough, but my point still stands. Don’t go after the murderous cult leader just because you want to atone to the Bat for the whole black out murder thing. If his rules are so set in stone that he would turn his back on a kid who had no choice…Look, sometimes you can’t please your personal gods…so don’t…die trying to earn back something you shouldn’t have lost in the first place.”

“You would know about personal gods?”

Her mouth quirked up in a wry smile. “Maybe a little.”

“I don’t think of Bruce like a god.” Tim sighed. “I just…absorbed his shortcomings and made them my own before I was old enough to understand what they were. I thought I could become him, by being like him…but…I never realized what that meant until it was too late. That it wasn’t just Batman…it was Bruce Wayne, the man, and all that he was. And when I grew older, when I started to see him as a man…I realized that I didn’t know who I was outside of him. Timothy Drake had been swallowed by the myth of the man that was Batman…and the cruel irony is that Timothy Drake conflicts with the very tenets of that myth, the foundational ideology. He’s a sinner in church, preaching from a pulpit a scripture he doesn’t even believe in any longer, perhaps he never believed it…but one that was still ingrained in him, one that still controlled his guilt and shame, and through that guilt and shame, still has a hold over him.”

“Wow,” Artemis snorted. “That was a lot to take in…you really are incredibly fucked up.”

“Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.” She shook her head. "Now, we are almost out of gas again and there is no money to pay for that shit, so…either we hold up a gas station for free petrol, or we hustle locals of the nearest town out of their money at pool.” 

Tim raised his brows. “Those are some ideas…for sure.”

“Any other suggestions, Einstein?”

“Nothing legal…” Tim mused, gnawing at his cheek again. “Or morally defensible.” He looked up. “How are your acting skills?”

She lowered her sunglasses in the mirror. “Go on.”

That was how they ended up, pulled outside a well populated bar and grill at five o’clock, rummaging through the back of the van, messing up Tim’s hair, and putting a mask on him that had been found in a gear bag. The goal was to get money for gas, and not get him recognized as a person of interest in a nationwide man-hunt. Tim had outlined the story they were playing, with some added suggestions from Artemis and the rest of the van, who were all starting to wake up from their much needed nap. It was hard not to be jealous of how well rested they looked considering he’d gotten maybe forty nonconsecutive minutes of sleep in the last twenty-four hours, but he doubted even if he’d gotten nine that he would be better for it.

“Why don’t I go?” Conner yawned. “Considering you’re wanted and all.”

“You’re too conspicuous.” Tim said, graciously.

“And I don’t fucking trust you.” Added Jason, who was still very swollen, but had insisted on being in the driver’s seat, helpfully. 

“Thank you, Jason.” Tim muttered. “You don’t exactly look like you’d be the victim of anything. You’re not as believable.”

“I could make it believable. Acting and whatnot.”

“You can’t act for shit,” Tim paused before adding. “No offense to you, but it’s true and we need this to work.”

“Him is strong…Him is not Meryl Streep.” Bizarro yawned. 

Jason laughed, a ragged version of what might’ve been a cackle, but something that sounded more like a death rattle. 

“I made Biz watch some classics with me,” Jason explained without prompting. “He’s now a big fan of Ms. Streep’s work. His favorite is Mama Mia…obviously.”

Tim rolled his eyes. “Obviously.”

“That’s the…um…”

“The singing one, set to ABBA music.” Tim helped out. “With the three DILFs and Karen from Mean Girls on an island.”

“Oh, right, with the hotel and the hot fiancé.”

Tim raised a brow, exchanging a look with Artemis, who appeared to be trying hard not let her face react to the statement. “Yeah…that one.”

“I think you look as good as you’re going to.” Artemis said, schooling her face. “Can you cry, maybe?”

“Yeah, just a sec.” He leaned his head back, blinking up at the ceiling of the van. 

Think sad. Dig into the emotional repression lost and found. 

Dead parents. Emotional neglect. Oh, cool, forced maturity, that’s a fun one. Lots of dead friends. Being forced to give up Robin to a child that tried to murder me eight or nine times…awesome. Having a dubiously consensual sleepover at the compound of an immortal cult leader who took advantage of the emotional vulnerability of having just lost another father figure. Almost being an unwilling sperm donor, that one wasn’t processed at all. And, what’s this? Having my childhood idol come back from the dead, just to beat me within an inch of my life. 

So much to choose from. 

It was hard for him to crack open the little glass boxes he’d sealed all those memories away it, to protect him from potential leaks that might happen at a bad time. He didn’t have the time in his life to be grounded at random by an epiphany about some long repressed trauma. The glass was thick and hardy. He made it that way intentionally. So, he could examine them without touching them. Look clinically. Those reminders of his humanity encased in proof of his lacking of such a thing. 

Pathetic really.

Oh, there were the tears. 

They welled up in his eyes and he lowered his head, blinking a few times to send them down his cheek. 

He shook his head and looked toward Artemis again, pulling up the face mask over his nose. “Better?”

“Uh…yeah. That’s good.” She said, a little more quiet than before. “C’mon, Tim, let’s get this pity party on the road.” 

Tim waved down Jason. “Drive down the block and find somewhere to park, I’ll call Conner when we’re finished.”

They hopped out of the back of the van into the chilled, grey parking lot and headed toward the bar and grill. The sky had since turned overcast somewhere in the day. Tim hoped it wasn’t some cruel bit of foreshadowing on the part of the universe. He didn’t need any more bouts of epic bad luck that could only be a narrative plot device. 

Tim heaved his arm across Artemis’ shoulders, leaning on her as he limped across the asphalt. It wasn’t hard to look tired and emotionally distressed, not after the day he’d been having- because it truly had just been the span of 24-hours, now that he thought about it- of so much death and terror and lack of sleep. He just overrode the firewall that his true face- the one that showed the pain on it- was hidden behind. There was quite a bit of protest, as there always was in his head when he lifted the protective screen, but it would relent. It always did. And, he’d be lying if he said it wasn’t a little bit of a relief to let his true feelings come to the surface. 

The bell above the door jingled as Artemis pushed through into the dim little bar and grill. It was rustic looking, vintage license plates and neon signs on the walls, and a few taxidermied trophies were mounted around the place, with a mountain lion above the bar itself. An old jukebox was playing a tinny version of some hit from the 50s, and despite the federal ban on smoking in restaurants, there was a distinct haze of cigarette smoke hanging in the air.   

“Does anyone have a phone?” Artemis rasped, loud enough to grab the attention of everyone without sounding like she was playing it up. “Please…we were on a roadtrip- heading home- and got carjacked. My little brother…he’s got a concussion or something I think…and our ride can only take us this far…” She looked around, both looking and sounding believably desperate. “…please…we…I…don’t know what to do…”

An older woman behind the bar set down the glass she was cleaning and came around to where they were standing. 

“Come and sit down, hon, I’ll get you some water and we’ll see if there’s not something we can do to help the two of you.” She said kindly, pointing them over to a booth near the bar. “I’m Nancy by the way. The owner here.”

“Missy.” Artemis said, her voice still shrill with premeditated panic. “And this is my little brother, TJ.”

“Alright, Missy, you both just sit down.” Nancy smiled warmly. “Where were the two of you traveling too?”

Artemis helped Tim down into the booth; Tim rested his head and arms on the table. “Home. Jersey. TJ was riding with me to head home from college for the fall break…we were gonna surprise our mom.” 

“Where do you go to school?” 

“University of Denver.” Artemis replied barely missing a beat. “Long way from home…”

“That was probably a hard decision.”

Artemis hummed, her hand suddenly patting the top of Tim’s. “It was…I was really, really homesick the first year.” Her voice was thick with a fraudulent emotion. “God…I shouldn’t be crying about that. But it’s just been…a rough day. I just want to go home.”

She was very good. Tim could have almost believed that she was a struggling college kid who was just trying to get home after going through a traumatic event. 

“Oh, honey…” Nancy murmured. “You’ve clearly been through something horrible…there’s no need to feel bad about shedding a few tears. You’re being very brave right now and we’re gonna help you out. Okay? Everything’s gonna be taken care of, don’t you worry about a thing.”

“Thank you…” Artemis whispered. “I just…I didn’t know where to go…thank you so much.”

“I’m gonna go get you those waters, and I’ll be right back, alright?”

Artemis must’ve nodded, because Tim could hear the footsteps retreating. 

The sound of conversation had started up again and Tim could feel the stares on him even without being able to see them. It was natural human instinct to be curious about the out of the ordinary. He tried to remember that, not let the feeling of being watched get to him. Instead, he tried to focus on looking as out of it and miserable as possible. 

Nancy came back with the waters. Artemis made conversation, making up family lore on the spot. Tim attempted to commit it to memory, in case he had to back her up on it. 

After ten minutes, Nancy had made the executive decision to round up donations from the customers, coming up with enough to buy two train tickets for the last leg of their trip to New Jersey. Artemis put on the water works, pulling Nancy into a hug, thanking her profusely and trying to give some of it back to her, saying how they didn’t need all of it, that it was too much to accept- to which Nancy firmly refused it, instead ordering them some burgers and fries and finding them a ride to the train station. 

Tim wasn’t sure how they would manage to stow their two Kryptonians and six foot human discreetly into luggage, but they could probably figure that out as it came. After all, they’d only been trying to get money, not a ride to a train station to legally board a train. 

It was almost too easy. Letting the din of the little bar and grill become a background static that lulled him to a state of drowsiness after a half hour of being in there and having his stomach full. Orders were called out. Someone yelled at the football game. The bell on the door chimed. The static was like the sound of a heating and cooling vent, you could almost forget that it was making a sound at all, that was…until it powered down. To dead silence. 

Tim felt his hair stand on end. 

He picked his head up and looked toward the door.

A woman, with a shaved head stood in the doorway, a large rifle held lazily in front of her. She wore an all too familiar uniform, the elegant black cloth of the League of Assassins. 

His eyes caught a man across the room reaching toward his side, presumably for his weapon, before he could even try to silently warn him, a shot rang out, and the man slumped forward onto the game of cards he’d been playing with the two others in the corner booth. 

The rest of the bar and grill ducked down behind the counters and under the tables, as though that would do any good. They probably thought this would be a run of the mill mass shooting, not that this woman was trained to kill so efficiently that she could have already snuffed out half the room had she chosen to do so. 

The woman smirked to herself, her gaze flickering around until it landed on the table Artemis and Tim sat at, the smirk widened into a grin. 

“Hey, puppy, we’ve been looking for you,” She said, her voice course and textured, locking the door casually behind her. “Your Keeper is on the line…he wants to talk to you…”

“Tell him to go fuck himself,” Tim replied, standing up from the booth, giving Artemis a look as if to say ‘don’t move just yet’. “And to very kindly scamper off to the dark corner of Hell he was spit out of.”

“Cute…but we’re on a deadline, Cerberus, so banter at your own discretion,” She said, dragging a glass vial from her belt and dropping it on the floor, grinding it under her boot for good measure. “That little vial contained several spores of what was called the Apocalypse virus…”

Tim stiffened. 

The woman chuckled. “I take it you remember it.”

“Vaguely.” Tim said lowly. “I remember taking it from your master and destroying it seven years ago. There’s a cure for it now.”

He lifted his brow in challenge. 

“Did you really think the Demon’s Head would be mad enough to put all of his eggs in one basket? Come now, you’re smarter than that.” She sneered mockingly. “Surely you must’ve known that we would have others hidden away.” Like Tim hadn’t been a fourteen year old kid- who had nearly died- when it happened the first time. “An old friend of the Demon took a job distributing another strain to the operatives over here over the last several months as a precautionary measure for your tendency to…cause trouble. And Ra’s al Ghul sent the order out to use it to aid in your…cooperation. You’ve already been inoculated so it won’t effect you. Or me. This is just a trial, so you understand what the League is willing to do should you continue your stubbornness.”

Tim swallowed thickly, his throat gone suddenly dry. 

“Dr. Engle…he was working on the antidote to this strain, wasn’t he? When I killed him? That’s why he had me kill him last night?”

“Very good, Detective.” 

Tim flinched at the mocking use of Ra’s favorite pet name.

“Come on, pup, your master is waiting.” The woman had a flip phone in her hand now, stretching it out toward him and waving it back and forth. “You have maybe five minutes before one of the weaker one’s start bleeding out the eyes. And my orders are to give you this phone…so, we can stay here as long as you’d like…it is my favorite part, so I don’t mind. I heard it’s painful though.”

He took the final few steps forward and snatched the phone from her hand. The screen was lit up with a number already typed out…he’d need only to press the ‘call’ button. It was purposeful. Making him take the action to call out to Ra’s. 

It made him nauseous. 

There wasn’t much he could do though…

He hit the button and pressed the phone to his ear. 

It didn’t even ring once. 

“Hello, Timothy.”

“Wow, eager much?” Tim said tonelessly. “What do you want?”

“No pleasantries?”

“People are fucking dying, Ra’s, what the fuck do you want in exchange for the cure to fix this mess?”

“Straight to business, how refreshing.” Ra’s said casually. “I think you know what I want, so why don’t you tell me.”

Tim’s skin crawled at the curl in Ra’s’ voice over the line. “It would be simpler to say that you just want to fuck me, Ra’s.”

Ra’s huffed with amusement. “I don’t need you for that, Timothy. I could satiate my carnal desires elsewhere. Besides, I would ruin you if I were to indulge any of those cravings on you. And I don’t want to do that…”

It was almost worse to hear that explanation. Especially given that there was no outright denial of such thoughts. 

“Ruin me? Like you haven’t done that already.” 

“You hardly know ruination, Timothy. I have pictured how to tear you apart perfectly, down to the last detail. How to break you so intimately that if you were to die, your very soul would be unrecognizable.” Ra’s murmured. “I’ve had the time between our times together to think of it. But I won’t…because having you knelt at my feet is even more pleasurable than destroying you.”

“What…why do you want me?” He asked quietly, trying not to sound like he felt. “You have your Mary Shelley monster, your vessel. You have what you wanted me for this whole time…why do you insist on keeping me by your side? Why do you want to force eternity onto me?”

“I could lose my children, my bloodline, and my empire, but they are not unique. They have a limit to their usefulness. I could create another just as easily. You, beloved Detective, are a prize for the ages. I would be remiss if I did not try to preserve such a mind and body for the rest of time.” Ra’s said. “After our bout in Gotham four years ago, I knew that you had surpassed everything that I would have gotten in another heir. I would not find something like you again…Perfection. But I knew you were stubborn…that you might be too stubborn to ever become that heir.”

“Just fix this, Ra’s. Fix them. Any of these people die, and I will make your life a living Hell. I swear to fucking God.”

Tim could hear the smile in the voice on the other end of the line. “The cure would not reach them in time to save those poor souls in that little bar, Timothy. But it might save the next wave.”

His grip on the phone tightened. 

“A corpse cannot pass on the virus. It dies with the body.”

“Fuck you.” 

“It would be a mercy, would it not?” Ra’s said, clearly pleased with himself. “Cutting the suffering of these people short. Saving the town from decimation. You know how poorly your country handles these types of things. Freedom…or something like that. Unless…you want another contagion like last time. You should know the pain you would sentence them to. And then their families. Friends. And on. And on. Spreading. Long before I would get that cure to anyone. Do you want that?”

“You would have me be either the Judge or the Executioner?” Tim said lowly. 

“Yes.” 

“Why not have your friend here do it?”

“Because this is your trolley problem, Detective.” Ra’s said simply. “I want you to choose who dies. There is blood on your hands no matter what, I just want to see how much.”

Tim felt himself look over at Artemis, who’s expression was set in stone. Unreadable. He wished she would show him something. Some kind of answer. He didn’t want to be the one to figure this out. For once. Just once. 

“No.”

“If you leave, the world will certainly die.”

“Let it die.”

“Millions of people.”

“I didn’t take you to be sentimental, Ra’s,” Tim said coldly. “If going with you means blood and staying free means blood, I’ll take my freedom. Do you really think I couldn’t figure out a way to cure this? I’m Timothy fucking Drake. I could make a fix to this with the A’s in my contacts alone.” He scoffed. “It would do you good to remember that I blew up your little play fort when I was a child. I held off an army on my own with just a bo staff as a child too. In all the other universes there are, I am the thing that people have learned to fear. Not you. Not Darkseid. Or even God. Me. Don’t mistake my code for weakness, Ra’s. It just means I get to find more creative ways to make you wish I didn’t have that code.”

The line was quiet for a moment.

“All very fine sentiments, Timothy. But you forget one thing…” Ra’s said finally, his voice tight between his teeth. “My will is your will. And you will always be, my Beloved Death.”

And oh. 

Oh.  

There it was. 

He was an idiot. 

“Conner!”

Chapter Text

“…being a supposed serial murderer…doesn’t look that impressive up close.”

The words were coming through a haze. Distant. Echoing. In and out. 

“…doing this to get that insanity plea…maybe this is like the Patty Hearst thing…”

Patty Hearst. 1974. Kidnapped and allegedly brainwashed into committing crimes. Later pardoned by the President. 

He’d read about that…somewhere…at some point…

Where was he? It was bright. He couldn’t quite focus. 

“…maybe he’s just an evil son of a bitch…are pathetic when they get caught…you saw what he did to those people…savage…”

It felt like he was floating just outside his body. He had no substance. Incorporeal. A ghost. 

“…Superboy hadn’t intervened, it would have been a massacre…”

Superboy? That caught his attention. Conner…his friend, Conner Kent. Superboy. 

He blinked. 

Grey room. Florescent light. Older woman. Younger man. Stern. Cold air. Hard backed chair. 

Tim, snap out of it!

His head split open. Bright white pain. Screams. He could hear screams as though they were right there with him, ripping into his ear drums, clawing at his brain. 

He looked down at his hands, cuffed to the stern steel table. Several fingernails were cracked, some were missing entirely, but all were crusted with blood. Looking down his arms, he wasn’t wearing his hoodie any longer, he was wearing a shirt and pants that weren’t his. There were long, jagged scratches, deep enough to draw blood down both of his forearms, like something had clawed at him over and over again. They looked…desperate. There were other superficial cuts, all cleaned up, but not bandaged…one was still dripping into his lap.

Those were accusatory wounds. Wounds that pointed their fingers to him. To the need someone had to defend themselves…against him. 

He was the monster…

No. No. No. 

He tugged his hands, not even sure what he was trying to do, cover his ears, curl up into a ball, protect himself. His wrists caught on the cuffs. 

The anxiety the was already building up, suddenly spiked at the feeling of being restrained. He couldn’t move. He couldn’t leave. He needed to get out. 

His chest tugged tight like the strings of a corset being pulled too firmly around his chest. He couldn’t get enough air. And it hurt to breathe. 

And the screams were still there. Like a banshee cry in his ears. An omen of his coming doom.  

Go away. Go away. Go away. 

He blinked rapidly. 

And he snapped away. Gone. The screams cut out just like that. He was floating again. Safe. 

Coward. But he was too far away to care much about that. 

“…seemed to react to that…you a fan, kid? Needed to kill to get his attention…you’ve got it now…”

No. Conner was his friend…not…

“Hey,” Conner said, throwing a wadded up paper ball at Tim’s head. “It’s been thirteen hours and twenty six minutes since you holed up in here, and I was chosen as the sacrificial lamb to drag you out into the sun.”

“You’re the one that’s dependent on the sun. Besides, the sun and I don’t agree with one another.” Tim replied, not looking up from his screen. “So your sacrifice is in vain.”

Conner huffed, striding over to lean against the desk obtrusively, crossing his arms, clearly not willing to let this go. “Well, then go apologize. I’m sure you of all people could manage to piss off a flaming ball of gas.”

“The sun started it. And you’re one to talk about a flaming ball of gas.” Tim retorted, rolling his eyes. “I’m going to make you fast before we ever go on a stake-out together again.”

“That was not my fault.”

Tim smirked to himself, but his victory was short lived, as he found his blue-light glasses plucked unceremoniously off of his face. “Conner-“

“How do I look? Dorky? Or like a sexy librarian?”

“Like an idiot,” Tim said without so much as a sidelong glance toward his friend, stretching out his hand like a teacher confiscating a cell phone. “Give them back.”

“Magic word?”

“Now.”

“My, my, my,” Conner tutted disapprovingly. “Clearly they don’t value courtesy or manners in Gotham.”

“We live by ‘fuck around and find out’ rules. I don’t owe a thief my courtesy. They’re lucky I don’t break their nose.”

“You would break your hand trying to break my nose.”

Tim finally looked at him pointedly, hand still outstretched. “Would you really like to tempt me into finding a creative work around for that?”

Conner grinned impishly, taking off the glasses and placing them crookedly on Tim’s face. “I would actually…but I won’t. Because my mission is to get you out into the sun. And Captain Cassie used the phrase ‘any means necessary’, so that means I’m allowed to do this !”

The noise Tim made was not one he would like to have put to the record…it was undignified, but he would challenge anyone to remain dignified when being thrown over someone’s shoulder like a child’s rag doll. He was held there as though he weighed nothing, which he might as well have to Conner. 

His returned glasses slid off of his face onto the floor. 

“Kon-El, I swear to God I’m gonna shove a piece of Kryptonite so far up your ass that you’ll taste that shit for weeks…”

“All I heard was ‘your ass’, so I’m gonna assume you’ve finally realized what a national treasure my ass really is, and not some extreme threat of bodily violation.” Conner said pleasantly kicking open the door and blinding Tim with the bright florescent light of the outside world. 

It took an effort not to hiss at the sudden brightness, but Tim was holding tight to his remaining pride. “I fucking hate you all.”

“No you don’t.”

“…no sane person would be able to do all of that…out of you mind to have that kind of strength…look at him, he couldn’t break a pencil…”

He was back in the room again…sort of. Not quite. 

Why that memory? 

His mind was just buzzing, static space, the voices coming in and out like a poorly tuned radio. It was light. Floaty. In and out. In and out. 

“…snap out of it, kid, come on…need to talk…can’t hide in that pretty little head of yours forever…”

The voices weren’t really nice sounding. He didn’t particularly want to talk to them, even if he could. Which he wasn’t sure he was able to. He didn’t like the feeling of being in his body. If his mind just floated away, he wasn’t sure if he would try to hold on to himself, or if he would just drift off without a fight.  

“…anyone in there? Is he comatose or something? Jesus…”

“…I’ll handle it…just let me try a few things…”

“…some coffee? I’ll get you something…”

Coffee? He’d kill for a cup of coffee…bad choice of hyperbole. His head hurt, the pain was far off, tucked away behind the curtain he’d put up between his body and his consciousness, but he knew that his brain always worked better after he’d fed his addiction. 

“That stuff is gonna kill you if you keep drinking it like that.” Dana said, sliding a piece of toast across the counter to him. “I heard that it’ll make your heart explode.”

“It won’t make my heart explode.”

“It could,” She said, grinning. “You’re certainly on track to figure out the capacity of human intake of caffeine that way you’re going. That’s your second pot and it’s not even nine o’clock yet…I don’t know why you even bother putting it in a mug.”

Tim looked at the half empty pot next to him with a vague interest. “You have a point. Drinking it out of the pot would save dishes.”

“That wasn’t the take-away I hoped you’d get there,” Dana rolled her eyes, grabbing a banana from the nearby fruit basket and starting to peel it from the bottom as was her habit. “Cut back, at least one cup a day…for my sanity at least. I feel like I’m being a bad guardian by letting you put so much of that stuff in your body.”

“I’ll try,” Tim’s mouth tugged upward as he brought his mug back to his lips. “For you.”

“Thanks,” She said, reaching across the counter to ruffle his hair fondly. “By the way, your dad and I are going to go out for dinner tonight. I ordered some food to be delivered from the Thai place you like, so please eat it. You’re still growing so you need to get something of nutritional value or you’re gonna stay this height forever. Not that I mind…I like being taller than you, but I think that parents are supposed to worry about things like that.”

Tim shook his head, it was strange having someone so…invested in him. He turned his attention back to his toast. “Thanks, Dana, I’ll eat.”

“Good boy.” She winked. “Love you, bud.”

“Love you too.”

Dana…he missed her so much…

She would wonder why he’d never visited her…now, maybe she would believe that he was a monster. That she’d helped raise a monster. 

He just wanted her there…with him. His mom never hugged him, she wasn’t maternal like that, and she wasn’t around enough to do so in the first place, but Dana was. Had been…before everything. Dana wasn’t his mom, he never saw her as his mom, she didn’t replace his mom and he didn’t want her to, but he wanted Dana to be there in that moment. He didn’t want Janet Drake, who would berate the police and bring in an army of lawyers behind her, all the while scolding him for getting into this mess in the first place, for being stupid enough to do this and moreover, that he’d been stupid enough to get caught. No, he wanted Dana Winters. To hug him. Pet his hair and tell him that they would figure it all out. That he didn’t have to ‘be so grown up’ for once. 

“…kid likes coffee and Superboy, I guess…what is he a teenage girl?”

“…just go, Sanders. I’ve got this…”

“…your call…I’ll see how we’re doing with the search for the brother…”

Jason. They were looking for Jason. But he hadn’t done anything wrong…he hadn’t…

“Jay…” He whispered, not even sure if his mouth was moving, if his voice was making a sound. “He…didn’t…he’s not a kill…er…didn’t…hurt any-anyone…”

“So he does talk.” The woman said with clear interest. “Go check on the search, bring me back a coffee. I’ll see if I can’t get this one to talk a little more.”

“Rodger that. Three creams, right?”

“Yes, no-“

“No sugar.” The man said with a practiced cadence. “I know. Don’t have too much fun without me.”

“We’ll see.”

A door opened. A door closed. And then there were two. 

Two, plus their reflection in the two-way mirror behind the detective that was sure to be hiding someone listening to every word. Dissecting every move he made. 

“So. Timothy Jackson Drake-Wayne. How did we get here?” The woman asked. “Last thing I heard about you was that you were missing. No leads. No trace. Then you turn up in Pennsylvania yesterday and leave behind three bodies, missing heads and some other parts. And today you show up in Kettering, Delaware and drop seven more bodies in a matter of three minutes with a butter knife and your bare hands.”

Seven. Seven people. His heart dropped. That brought him up to ten in one day. He rivaled some serial killers now. 

The woman coughed, clearing her throat. 

Distantly, Tim felt the blood drain from his face. The room was suddenly frigid. 

Right, the vial. The variant strain with no known cure, except in the studies of a now deceased CDC doctor. 

So, no…not just ten…the whole town of Kettering was in danger. 

He couldn’t afford to drift. At least, not until he could warn these people of the danger they didn’t even know they were in. They thought they had a serial killer, but they had something much worse and it would make a ghost town of the entire population. 

“The Apocalypse Virus,” Tim forced the words out through his dry and ragged throat, his entire body was convulsing like his soul was a contagion and it was trying to fight it off, he was shivering so much he might’ve fallen out of the chair were he not secured to the table. “A new strain…You need to keep it contained. Everyone in that restaurant…they are contaminated…please…”

The woman across from him- auburn hair, deep set eyes, strong nose- raised a brow. “That’s a somewhat unconventional attempt at distraction, but I’m not a dog chasing a stick here, Mr. Drake. You killed ten people and you’re going to tell me why and where exactly you’ve been for the last ten months.”

“No, please…” His teeth were chattering, he clamped down, but it was like biting down on a squirming animal, his body was fighting him every step of the way for control and it wouldn’t give into his determination so easily. “This…this whole town is…is already in…in danger. The…people that took me…they have bioweapons…released them…Those people in the bar were exposed…just…test for it…please. I killed those people today and in Pennsyl…sylvania, you have my confession, I’ll sign my-my name on what…ever, just ch-check for the virus in those people from the bar…I swear on what my l-life is worth that I’m not lying-ing, but you can check for your…for yourself…this thing is dangerous and it kills…quickly, there’s not much time…”

It was probably already too late. 

The woman frowned, the crease between her brows deepening. “You’ll confess?”

“Y-yes.” Tim said, trying to force his voice steady, but ultimately failing. “If this is recorded, I consent to this being put on the record. Just…please…this thing is a city killer. If I’m right…I hope I’m not right…”

The woman stood up. “Hmm…stay here. I’ll be right back with those papers.”

He didn’t have much of a choice. But he didn’t even think too much about that. About the sarcastic response he might’ve ordinarily given to such a statement.  

“Thank you…” Tim breathed, his head lulling back, vision already pulsing between clarity and blurriness again. “I’m so fucking sorry…can I…I know you hate me, but I need…need to call my dad…please.”

“I’ll bring a phone too.”

He shook his head, trying to stay clear, but he could feel himself dissociating again. The room falling out of focus, sounds garbled into a static soundscape of overlapping noise and nonsense. 

The woman could still be out there…he couldn’t remember what had happened after the call with Ra’s. If he’d killed her along with the others, or if she’d created some distance during the ensuing carnage. If she was still out there, that made a few more issues. On top of, you know, the murder charge and deadly virus. 

Artemis would know-

Wait, Artemis…she’d been in the bar too. That meant he could’ve…he might’ve…His stomach churned. Even if he hadn’t, she’d been one of the closest to the released virus, she would’ve definitely caught it. Maybe her body could fight it better than normal humans, she was like Wonder Woman, right? She could…she might…

If she died…it was his fault. His fault…

The door opened again.

How much time had passed? It had only felt like seconds…maybe it had been longer…

“…got a call from Kettering General Hospital…has died…consistent with the virus…”

He vaguely felt a small object being set on the table beside him. 

“…did you know…this was…need to be honest with me…Mr. Drake!”

Be honest with me…that was a phrase he’d heard more than enough times over his life. Everyone always assumed that he was lying. And to be fair, he did tell a lot of lies. But…no one ever said that phrase when he was actually lying. They only said that when he was telling the truth. People never liked the truth when he said it. They would repeat that phrase over and over until eventually he told the lie that they wanted to hear. 

“I don’t want to hear any more of this nonsense about you bothering Mr. Wayne. His son just died, he doesn’t need you grieving him any more than he already is.” His mother said briskly, moving through the foyer into the sitting room. “Imagine if it got out- even a rumor- that our son was pestering a grieving father? Bruce Wayne at that. It’s absolutely mortifying to even think about. We’ve been trusting you to be mature, to uphold the Drake family name and respect, when we leave for work, so tell me, be honest with me , where are you sneaking off to? I know you are. So, tell me, Timothy.”

“I am visiting Mr. Wayne.” Tim said, figuring it was better to tell the partial truth than to weave a more complex web of lies than was needed, that could get him tangled up later. 

She pinched the bridge of her nose. “No, you’re not. He doesn’t take visitors anymore, be honest with me or I’ll be forced to hire a live-in nanny to watch you, and I know that neither you nor I want to deal with that hassle.”

“I’m visiting Mr. Wayne. His other son, Richard encouraged me to visit. He said-“

“Grayson?” His mother snorted, settling down on the sofa tiredly, pulling out the drawer on the coffee table and taking out the worn cigarette box. She had quit smoking as soon as it had fallen out of fashion. Janet Drake only smoked in secret, when she was especially stressed. When Tim stressed her out. “The wild, caravan child? I haven’t seen that one in years, except in the odd tabloid. He’s in Bludhaven now, from what I’ve heard, how would you have even met him?”

“I…” Tim couldn’t quite explain that without explaining how he’d hitchhiked across the state of New Jersey…and that would put his mother in a state of cardiac arrest. 

“ Be honest with me , Timothy,” His mother sighed, flicking the lighter and inhaling a long drag from her cigarette. 

“I was out seeing a girl from school.” He said instead. That was a feasible enough lie to maintain, if he couldn’t tell the half truth. 

His mother hummed, clearly not happy, but she seemed to be satisfied with the answer. The lie. “A girl? Which one? Do I know her family?”

“She’s an exchange student.” Tim replied. “I didn’t want you to freak her out with a bunch of questions and dinner invites and stuff…I just wanted to see her without the pressure of impressing you and Dad.”

“I see…” She took another long drag from the cigarette.

Tim stood, frozen in the entry, waiting for his dismissal.  

“I’m disappointed in you. You could have been hurt or kidnapped and your father and I would have never known where you were.” His mother said, tapping the end of the cigarette into the ash tray. “We’re gone a lot, so it’s imperative that we know your schedule and that we can trust you to be safe when we’re not here. Okay?”

He bowed his head, “Yes, of course.” 

“However,” She continued, exhaling deeply. “It seems that you really care for this girl…so, even though I do not condone you lying and sneaking out, I won’t punish you for trying to respect her comfort. I do ask, though, that you make us aware of when you’re going out to meet her now that I do know…” She looked up at the ceiling. “But I won’t…push. When you deign that it is the appropriate time to meet this young lady, I will…try not to overwhelm her. I trust that you will introduce her should this relationship develop to that point.”  

He might’ve collapsed with relief. “Thank you.”

But she wasn’t listening, she was looking at her phone. “Hmm…looks like we have a business opportunity opening up in Hong Kong. We have to leave tonight.”

“Have a safe flight.”

“Be good,” She stood up, and patted his shoulder. “Update us. I’ll see you later.”

Tim motionlessly watched her sweep out of the sitting room, phone pressed to her ear as she talked hurriedly to someone on the other end in clipped Cantonese. He leaned back against the doorframe and sighed. 

“Yeah, see you later…” He sighed.

He hadn’t expected her to remember the dinner plans she’d promised him a year to the day ago when she’d cancelled their plans the last time. Not so much cancelled as forgot entirely, leaving Tim waiting in a restaurant alone for nearly three hours before she called to apologize. It had been humiliating to even believe that she would show up for that entire time. The look of pity on the host’s face as he asked for another fifteen minutes to order. 

She could remember clients and parties and their favorite wines, the ever charming Mrs. Drake. 

No, he didn’t expect her to remember the promises she made to him. 

He didn’t expect her to have that day hold any significance. 

Still, in the hours after, he refreshed his phone again and again. The only message he got that day was from his dentist’s office…wishing him a Happy Birthday-

“…serious…could be charged with terrorism…Mr. Drake…Timothy!”

Mom?

Tim blinked. 

His vision clearing for a moment. 

No, not Mom. The officer. He was in an interrogation room. Being interrogated. For multiple murders. And apparently biological terrorism. 

A little better than the dissociated memory. By only the barest trace. 

“Terrorism?” He croaked. His voice sounded thick and mucus-y.

“You knew about the release of the virus before the hospital did. How?”

“There was a woman there…she…worked with the group I’ve been with these last ten months.” Tim said slowly…thinking felt like pulling teeth without anesthesia. “Shaved head. Wore all black.”

“What group?”

Tim grimaced, partly from the effort it was taking to remain lucid, partly from having to come up with some believable lie. “Don’t know the name…ecoterrorists…want to cull the population for…to lessen the stress on the planet…or something…” 

It had been the goal of the last outbreak Ra’s had caused, so it would be plausible enough that it would be the goal of a fictitious radical ecological justice group.

“Why were you with this group?”

More…more questions, he just wanted to…to go away…

“I don’t know,” That was honest at least. “My brain’s been…scrambled…the last ten months are…fractured.”

“That’s very convenient,” She said dryly. He didn’t blame her, amnesia was a very convenient excuse for lacking information. “Why did you warn me?”

“People were gonna die.”

“You killed ten people already, what’s a few hundred more? Did you want to kill them by your own hand?”

Twelve actually, but they didn’t know that yet. 

Tim shook his head. His eyes felt like they were being pushed out of his skull. He was so fucking tired…

“I don’t think…you’ll believe me- because even I know it sounds like absolute bull- but…” He blinked rapidly trying to focus on the woman in front of him. “I don’t remember killing anyone…I know that I did…I know…I won’t deny that…I just…can’t remember doing it. How…Why…But right now, I don’t want anyone else to die because of me…” 

“You don’t remember…” She didn’t look especially impressed. 

Because it’s a fucking bonkers claim, Timothy. He wouldn’t take himself seriously either. 

“I-“ He stopped short, his vision flickering slightly toward the door. 

A shadow shifted on the wall outside the small rectangular pane of bulletproof glass slotted into the interrogation room door. 

The hair on the back of his neck stood on end. 

Wrong. Something was wrong. The skin on his neck and forearm itched. 

The shadow shifted again. Like a door opening and closing. 

“Mr. Drake. Could you focus here please?”

“Yeah…I…”

Like a hairpin trigger being set off, Tim was up from his chair. And before the detective could speak, he threw his body across the table, kicking the woman from her chair with the soles of his feet a half second before the glass of the two way mirror shattered and a knife embedded itself in the wall level to where the detective’s body would have intercepted it. 

His arms wrenched in their sockets still bound to the table as he landed on the other side, the skin of his wrists digging against the cuffs that gripped around them. The world blacked out for a second, the sudden movement jarring his still hazy systems. 

The room was still blurred and spinning when he caught the movement of a figure clad in black, climbing through the broken out mirror, stepping over a slumped, bloody body, the glint of a wickedly sharp blade catching the fluorescent light. He grabbed hold of the bar that held his cuffed to the table, hoisting himself up, foot lunging out again, connecting with the forearm of the welder, knocking it to the side by just enough that the detective could roll out of the way, her hand already reaching for the gun at her hip. 

It was the gun that knocked away the next blow, catching the edge of the blade with the barrel…but only barely. Tim knew the odds of blocking another hit from a League asset would be unlikely for someone who wasn’t trained for it. That she’d blocked one hit was impressive in and of itself.

He needed a weapon. He needed that knife. 

He didn’t think. There wasn’t the time for that. 

And if he did think, he wouldn’t have been able to override the logical part of his brain that would have told him he was insane for even thinking of attempting such a thing. 

But, again, he wasn’t thinking. He could not emphasize how little he was thinking. 

The chain link of the handcuffs snapped like splitting bone as Tim threw his body weight back and yanked his wrists apart. 

He fell back against the wall, barely even distantly aware of his throbbing joints or his blood trickling down his forearms as he wrung out his arms and slid back across the table, wrenching the blade from the wall. 

Three gunshots went off, deafening in the small space, but they were just a sound effect for all it did. The detective was backed against the wall, her eyes torn wide, her throat just a laughing, gaping, bloody hole. 

The assassin flicked the blood excess from their blade with a bored twitch of the wrist.

Their gaze, the only thing visible under the black garb, turned to Tim. 

“Don’t make this difficult, child.”

It was the woman, the League assassin, from the bar earlier. 

“I’m not going to roll over for you,” Tim said coolly, steadying his grip on the knife in his hand. “But you know that already. You didn’t have to kill her… or them.” He tipped his head toward the body hanging into the room. “It’s messy. I didn’t think your master encouraged such sloppiness.”

“You’ve changed many things about our Master,” The assassin said. “He is singularly focused on his objective…the methods, the…mess, as you call it, is hardly an afterthought. Elegance is second to effectiveness. If anything, you are making this mess, forcing the hand of the League of Assassins to use a heavier stick.”

“A thousand years couldn’t change him, but I did? Little ol’ me?” Tim scoffed. “I’d say I’m honored, but that would be a lie so boldfaced even I couldn’t say it without breaking character. I’m not going with you.”

“You will.”

“Why didn’t you take me at the bar?” Tim asked, flipping his dagger in his hand, trying to find his center with a weapon that was so out of his usual repertoire. “Why wait?”

“Your little white knight got in the way. If he tries again, he will not be so lucky.”

Strange. The freaky bird guy had an arsenal of anti-Kryptonian shit on hand. And Bizarro had taken enough of it to the chest to say that it worked. 

He raised a brow, tipping his head to the side in that haughty, cocksure way that made the execs he sat across from on the daily seethe. “Afraid of a Kryptonian? Not like the League at all.”

Perhaps taunting the woman with the fucking sword wasn’t smart, but he was running on fuck all sleep and half a dozen dissociative episodes, so his…filter for intelligent thought was on reserves and not at all helpful. 

Tim ducked under a swing, one that would have incapacitated his dominant arm had it landed, catching the return at the base of his dagger, pushing the woman back a step. 

“Playing defense, Cerberus? How unlike you.” There was a smirk in her voice. “After you tore apart the last three operatives, I’d assumed you’d give me a little challenge. Pity. I needed a work out.”

“I’ve killed three, and yet you still fancied your chances?” Tim snorted, his skin felt like it was burning and itching, that beast in his gut howled for blood. “You saw the bodies. Are you truly that delusional about your chances here? I’d run…at least the League is merciful and will only take your head.”

She lunged forward again. He parried and shifted his body toward the door. 

“You lack control of the forces at play in your own body.” She said in return, pushing into his space, all the blows aimed to be debilitating but not lethal. “You are a danger to everything you hold dear. As it is, even the madman in Gotham could pull yours strings and sic you on the citizens you hold dear. You’d be better off with your rightful master holding your leash.”

Tim knew she was toying with him. “That’s the thing though, isn’t it? He wouldn’t release the leash. Once he had it.” 

Another strike. Block. 

“Maybe not. But you wouldn’t hurt your little family, would you? Your friends? Those millions of people that could push the wrong buttons…release the monster?”

Swing.  

Tim backed toward the door. 

His eyes flicked over his opponent, trying to find an opening. Any opening. Even a small one. Even a minor one that wouldn’t take her down. Just something to weaken her. Enough of those openings- assuming his adrenaline and endurance didn’t fail him- might get him out of there without losing control of himself. 

He couldn’t lose control. Not again. He had no idea who was in the building. How many people. 

“I would rather be put down by my family than live at the feet of an immortal psychopath, funnily enough.” 

Tim lunged forward for the first time, slicing across her bicep. A superficial wound. But even that sampling of blood was making his pulse roar in his ears. The howl was a roar, a creature banging at the bars of his ribs for release. For more blood. As much blood as he could take. 

“Those people will die without that cure Timothy.”

“I already told your Master what I think about that.”

“You are really becoming a proper little monster, aren’t you?” 

Tim grit his teeth. 

There was no becoming anything. He’d always been a little bit monstrous. Something even Bruce feared. Sure, it ached somewhere deep in himself that he tried to forget existed, but he knew what he was. That little beast in his gut had always been there, without that supernatural intervention, the Pit hadn’t made that monster, it hadn’t made him a monster, it had just broken some of the locks that he’d painstakingly forged to keep that feral creature under control. Perhaps there was a better version of him that had been switched at birth for the vile changeling that walked the earth now, but the world got stuck with the monster and he would make it suffer without even trying. 

He needed to get away. If he was going to be serious about this, he needed space and time, and no bystanders. The words were a forced, surefire way to start-up to the system, the Pit rage, but there were other ways to boot up the program as seen in the motel room, and there was no way for Tim to control that state yet, so he couldn’t be too careful when it came to that little beast within him. He needed to be able to risk the Pit stepping in. He couldn’t fight a League assassin carefully. 

Time to go. 

Tim darted toward the broken out window, vaulting over the pane and into the observation room before darting toward the door, all the while trying to ignore the three fresh corpses. He flung open the door, taking the only millisecond he had to pick his direction. There was the front doors, but most of the people would be at the front of the building. There had to be a fire escape door somewhere. 

Guess and go, Robin. Guess and Go. Dick chided in his head. The echo of one of their few patrols as Batman and Robin. An attempt to get Tim to stop overthinking things, and slowing himself down.

His head was spinning, the hall was spinning, spots were floating across his vision as he dodged left down the long stretch of hallway. Between the spots and the spinning, he caught a glance of a fire alarm behind a panel of glass. 

Barely loosing his stride, he punched out the glass and wrenched the lever down, immediately setting loose the sirens in the station. Hopefully that would clear out a majority of the people to the front of the building while he and his little friend made their exit out the back. 

A hot burn of pain sliced into his shoulder from behind, but the adrenaline slowed his realization of that pain by a second or two as he followed the glowing red signs, that multiplied in his practically cross-eyed vision, toward the exit. The blade was probably poisoned, an assumption owed to the fact that his arm was quickly going numb and he was being chased by an assassin that was in a cult of assassins. 

He switched his dagger over to his left hand before he lost his grip. 

A man up ahead of him was hurrying out of one of the side rooms toward the exit. Tim shoved him back in unceremoniously. 

“Wait twenty seconds then go out the front if you want to live.” Tim practically snarled, the sudden rolling his already tumultuous stomach, his vision again blacking out briefly, kicking the door shut with his heel behind him and taking off running again. 

A final turn bringing him to the ‘Exit’ sign down another long stretch of hallway.

“Are you really going to make me chase you, puppy? It’s tedious.”

“Getting tired?” He threw the words over his shoulder just out of spite. “I thought the League had better endurance.”

He didn’t feel the pain of the second knife, but he did feel the impact that sent him off balance a couple of steps. The lack of feeling was nice as compared to the pain he probably could have been dealt by a League operative, but it also meant that the poison was moving fast, and he didn’t have very long before he was incapacitated entirely. 

Slamming his full weight into the door, he stumbled into the back parking lot of the police precinct. The poison and the Pit seared through his body, clashing between extreme feeling and deathly numbness. Rage and apathy. His eyes cutting between blazing green or utter darkness. His body was roaring and going comatose in unison. It was like whiplash within him and he was struggling to stay upright, and keep the churning bile in his stomach, as he came to a stop. 

He didn’t have much longer before he either lost control or lost consciousness, so the parking lot would have to do. 

The sky was still overcast. He wondered how much time he’d truly lost this go around. An hour. Two. More? It didn’t help him in the moment, but he couldn’t help it. His mind desperately searching for something to ground him in the chaos of his body, the chaos he’d become an incarnation of. 

Time to give in to one or the other. 

He exhaled…

Chapter Text

It wasn’t like before when the control was snatched from him, thrown from the vehicle entirely. No. This time it was like he willingly stepped back, and let the other side of him slide into the driver’s seat. And he could feel every movement, every swerve, every start and stop, the inertia of a high speed car. He could feel everything, and he could just as easily take back the wheel, but he didn’t want to. The adrenaline. The rush. It was a high that was dangerously addicting, but he couldn’t find it in himself to care. 

His body moved without inhibition. Swift and fluid. Almost reckless in the pursuit of blood. In chasing death. 

And he wanted those things. He wanted them so badly that he couldn’t remember how he could’ve not wanted them before. He could no longer recall why he had fought against the call of the beast twisted in his gut. 

There was no guilt. No morality. No shame. There was no humanity to guide him. Only that carnal, near Biblical, instinct that wanted blood on his tongue and torn flesh between his teeth. And the knowledge that the thing inside of him could give him that very thing.

He watched through a haze of green and vibrant red as the dagger in his hand turned on the fear in his opponent’s eyes. He watched as she started to realize the danger she was in. When she realized what monster was unleashed once he no longer had to hold himself, or that thing inside him, back. And he watch his hands carve at flesh and blood as though it were a craft, an art, a trade skill. Instead of what it was…which was bloody and cruel, intent on the most amount of pain and suffering he could draw from a single body. 

And any shots she got on him…well, they were in the background. The adrenaline covered for the pain entirely. 

Eventually he dropped the dagger entirely, finding an opening and kicking her legs out from beneath her, sending her to the ground. The Pit was practically singing, the jubilation ricocheting through his body. The woman was covered in her own blood, teeth broken and stained red, jaw knocked off center. Pathetic really. 

He watched his fingers reached forward, gripping the woman’s jaw between them. What must have been the cry of pain that followed just sounded like the clear chime of a bell to his ears. It raised the hair on his arms and neck like the perfect chord in a song ringing in the vast hall of a cathedral might have done. And his lips curled into a smile, teeth bared in a way that felt all too natural, showing the pleasure and satisfaction of another’s pain in a way he never would have dared allowed, but those overbearing shadows weren’t there to admonish him right then. Even if those shadows had been there, he couldn’t care less. 

“You’re going to die,” Tim said smoothly, playing with the dislocated jaw thoughtlessly. “We both know that no god will take the likes of us, so you’d better make peace with your devil instead. The best that you and I can beg for is a kinder damnation. Maybe if you’d been more inspiring, your Master might have offered you eternal life…but as it is, he won’t save you. And I won’t spare you.” He cocked his head to the side, scoffing a little. “Be sure to keep a seat warm for your Master though, because when I’m through, he’ll be joining you shortly.”

His other hand’s finger tapped her nose lightly.

“Bye, now.”

There was no other way to describe it…he tore the assassin apart. Bare handed, he fluidly unhinged and ripped her jaw loose from her skull, and dug his thumbs into her eye sockets, found a grip and pulled. It was like tearing crepe paper how easily the skin and sinew gave way between her neck and shoulders. That crackle of snapping bone the spray of vivid red blood in a clear and clean harmony. 

Tim could feel the Pit’s pleasure. The fulfillment. And that little devil in him was true to it’s promise that he would feel better too if he just gave in because Tim got a share of that pleasure, that satisfaction, like eating a full course meal. Contentment like he’d only really felt when he’d come out of his hazy Pit state over the course of the last day. But even that didn’t truly compare to the feeling of the moment. Feeling the splash of blood across his skin. Its warmth feeling as though it was settling into his bones, and that he’d been shivering before feeling that warmth. 

And it felt good. 

So, very good. 

So, he kept going. 

And going. 

Until his arms were completely stained red and all he could see and smell and taste was blood. 

“Tim…” A distant voice said, soft, but commanding nonetheless. 

His eyes flickered up. “Bruce.”

Through the haze of gluttonous, pleasure came a small scrap of dissenting panic at the sight of his mentor. His father. Bruce Wayne. In full Batman regalia. That helpless feeling of being caught at moment of weakness, under the disappointed gaze of that man he’d made his hero, that desperation to please rose up from his depths but couldn’t make much of a fight against the thing he’d allowed control. He was crouched in full view of his idol. The one who’d instilled all the rules he was currently breaking. 

“It’s time to go now.”

Tim peeled a piece of filleted skin off of his sleeve. “Are you going to try and lock me up? Throw me in Arkham?”

“I came to retrieve my son.” Bruce said, in that same aggravatingly calm voice. “And bring him home.”

“Really?” Tim scoffed, wiping at his mouth with the bloodied back of his hand. “Don’t you feel the least bit vindicated knowing that you were always right about me? It’s like you always knew that I would end up here, that you were raising a pet monster.”

“I…I take no satisfaction in seeing you like this, Tim. None.” Bruce said, taking a step closer, but freezing when Tim reflexively flinched back. “You- you’re sick right now. You’re sick and you need help.”

“Your help?” 

Bruce didn’t waver at the accusatory spit of words. “If not mine, then someone else’s.” 

“And if I refuse?”

“Hood.” Bruce said into his comm. “Bring in Superboy. I may need some help here. And get the MedBay prepped on the jet.”

The door Tim had ran out of burst open and several officers flooded out with guns raised. He could hear the rumble of revulsion ripple through the ranks as they caught sight of his latest work. That little beast inside of him was very pleased at their fear and disgust. 

“Too scared of your own son to do it yourself?” Tim cocked a brow and smirked. “Or too weak?”

“Too smart.” Bruce replied. “I won’t be baited into underestimating you, Tim.”

A flush of wind through Tim’s hair heralded the arrival of the bastard son of Krypton. 

“Shame,” Tim huffed. “Hello, Kon-El, come to join the party?”

“Tim.” Conner said waveringly. 

“Batman, this is a wanted fugitive. A murderer. He should go into federal custody immediately.” One officer from the front called out, his voice noticeably shaky, seeing heroes and villains in this part of the world must seem so overwhelming to these people. Tim couldn’t help but roll his eyes. “You do not have jurisdiction here, so we thank you for your efforts to contain Timothy Drake, but taking this man would put you in violation of the law.” 

Tim tipped his head to the side, staring Bruce down as a smile formed on his lips, and mouthing: Uh-oh.

Bruce didn’t look back at the police, he just kept his eyes fixed on Tim, though his jaw noticeably twitched. 

“What now? You do like your little rules, don’t you? And rule-breakers should be punished.” Tim said coyly. “So…tell me, Batman. Are you going to break your own rules today? Will your emotions cloud your judgement? Or will you follow the book?” He smiled and scrunched his nose slightly. “Are you willing to lose another child to your crusade and your doctrine?”

“Superboy, restrain him and take him back to the jet.”

“Interesting choice.” Tim scoffed. “But maybe Bane truly did permanently weaken your spine.”

He didn’t resist the hold that came from behind. The Pit was sluggish, having been fed so fully, and the adrenaline was wearing off. The same adrenaline that probably pumped that numbing agent through him faster than it otherwise would have. He almost hadn’t noticed that he could no longer feel much of the right side of his body.

Heavy metal cuffs clamped around his wrists. He felt the weight more than the cold or the sensation of the material against his skin. 

“I usually wait for the third date to let people tie me up, you know?” Tim said flippantly, blowing a stray hair from out of his eyes. “But I get the sense you’re a gentlemen, and I am feeling a little unsteady at the moment, so I’ll allow it this time.”

He craned his head backward looking up at Conner Kent, grinning broadly. 

Conner grimaced. 

Tim groaned. “You act like I killed your Mother, Kon-El. The world is better off with one less follower of Ra’s al Ghul in it.”

“Come on, let’s get you to the jet.” Conner said quietly, his voice wavering at the end as he hefted Tim into his arms like he was some trembling waif being pulled from the wreckage of a disaster. 

Behind them, Tim could hear the officer talking to Batman again. “You have no authority here. And you are acting in opposition of United States law and of the agreement made with the JLA.”

“I acknowledge that I am outside of the law and that you are doing your job to uphold it,” Bruce said with that trademark authority. “But this deals with things outside of your capability. I am acting in the best interest of the citizens of this town with my actions despite their falling outside of the law. Do your duty and I will do mine.”

Conner lifted Tim up into the air. Predictably, a hail of bullets followed after them. It made sense in its own idiotic way. This country always started a bulleted list of potential solutions with: shoot at it. Even if the ‘it’ in question, had impenetrable skin. 

He craned his neck around Conner’s arm with vague interest. 

Batman dropped a smoke bomb. The Batmobile screeched into the parking lot. Batman drove off to the tune of a roaring engine and gunfire. Tale as old as time really. The least surprising thing about the last day or so.

“Well…that was dramatic.”

“Shut up.” Conner said. 

Tim raised a brow. “Shut up?”

“Yes, shut up.”

“That’s not very nice.”

“Well, you’re not very nice at the moment,” Conner snapped. “So consider it matching energy.”

Tim pressed his lips together thoughtfully, huffing with slight amusement. “I didn’t think you had it in you, Kent. But again I didn’t think you’d turn your best friend over to the civilian police either…just full of surprises aren’t we?”

“I didn’t turn you over to the police, I knocked you out and restrained you outside before trying to help the people dying, something you would do if you were in your normal state.” Conner retorted. “The 911 caller identified you before you murdered them, so the police had you in the squad car before I was able to do anything.”

“A real friend would prioritize me.”

“You’re not my friend right now. And I’d like to avoid talking to you until you are you again because whatever this is just makes me irrationally annoyed and gives me the desire to knock that smug look off of your face,” Conner said. “And I don’t like having violent thoughts about my best friend, so I’d rather just avoid it.”

“Your loss, Superboy, I’m a delight to talk to.” Tim snorted. “In any version of myself.”

Conner didn’t respond and remained stubbornly silent for the rest of the flight until they landed in the clearing where the Bat Plane had been parked. The bay doors opened almost immediately and they were greeted by Bizarro. 

“Little Him am safe now?” Bizarro asked eagerly, concern furrowed in his large brow.

“Not quite.” Conner said grimly as he stepped into the loading bay. “Is the Med-Bay prepped?”

Bizarro nodded, pressing the button to close the doors again. “Jay am still with Art. Him am not wanting to talk.”

So, Artemis was still alive. She was Amazonian…or close enough in genetics to one. It made sense that she would resist succumbing to the virus at the rate of a normal human. That was…information. It didn’t bring him the relief it might’ve normally, but it was information, which was good in and of itself, the contents of the information was largely irrelevant to that.

“Got it.” Conner nodded.

“Good to see you again, Biz.” Tim said pleasantly as Conner carried him past. Taking a little bit of pleasure in the way Conner’s arms tensed with annoyance. If he could feel his hands, he might’ve wiggled his fingers in greeting. 

“Hello, Little Him." 

“The Bat is on his way. Monitor the comms until I get Tim settled and secured in the Med-Bay, yeah?” Conner added.

“I will do that.” Bizarro replied to Conner, but remaining stagnant, hesitant to move. 

“Biz?” 

“Little Him…he is sick too? Him am not looking sick…just…bloody.”

“Sort of. It’s the sickness that Jason had…has. The…um…Pit. It made Tim’s mind really sick, so he’s not behaving in a…safe manner. For himself or others.” Conner said carefully. “He needs help…”

“I feel fine.” Tim chimed in. “Just so everyone is clear. The blood is an artistic choice.”

“Don’t talk to him until…I don’t know, his head is on right again, or something.” Conner told Bizarro. 

“I’ve had no complaints about my head before, Kon-El. Perhaps you’re jealous you’ve never had the pleasure of that.” 

“Shut up.”

“Get better, Little Him.” Bizarro said with a trace of confusion on his face.

Tim winked and clicked his tongue. “Will do, Biz.” 

Conner carried him further onto the jet to the Medbay, a small sterile grey room with two secured hospital beds and a compact counter area with a sink and some cupboards. One was already occupied, but was cordoned off by a sealed divider that was implemented in case of outbreaks and contagions…such as the one it’s occupant was currently battling. Artemis was on oxygen, and it appeared as though she was sleeping or put under to slow the spread of the disease through her body. Outside of the divider in a small commandeered folding chair sat a familiar man in a leather jacket and tactical gear, a Red Helmet on the floor beside the heavy combat boots. Jason curled over, arms braced against his thighs, head dropped, almost as if he were praying. Maybe he was. Maybe Tim’s situation had pushed Jason into picking up religion again. 

That would be a true miracle for the Vatican to investigate. 

As much as there was temptation to make a prodding comment about that idea, Tim was otherwise occupied quickly by something else. The room smelled like rubbing alcohol. It made sense. It was a Medbay. But it was a smell that Tim never could get himself to grow used to. It just reminded him of being a child in a waiting room or that cold metal table he’d been strapped to for what felt like days…a mad man torturing him to equal madness, but insisting that the instruments of that torture remained clean. Clean and sterile. It would be no good if Tim died from infection before the process was done. So, it had to be clean. Clean. Fresh needles every time, pumping his blood with what felt like fire. Clean. Clean. Clean. Bathed him in bleach. Scrubbed his skin raw with rubbing alcohol. Fresh needles. Disinfected skin. Clean. It had all burned his nostrils. The chemical burns had lasted longer than the bruising from the repeated stabbing of the veins in his arm. 

His heart thumped traitorously. He wasn’t supposed to feel fear in this state, right? Or was it one of the things that was heightened by the Pit? He couldn’t remember. He didn’t want to be in this room any longer. 

“Wouldn’t it be better to put me in a holding cell?” Tim questioned as Conner laid him on his stomach.

“You have knives in your back, Tim,” Conner said frigidly. “A holding cell is our second stop.”

It seemed their brief exchange brought Jason out of whatever trance, prayer, or sleep he had been in before their arrival. 

“You got the kid?” 

God, his voice sounded rough. Like his smoking habit had finally caught up to him all at once and turned his usual lazy drawl into a dry rasp. 

“Yeah.”

“His eyes. The Pit…did he…” Jason rubbed his face tiredly. “Is anyone else hurt or…you know…”

“The League asset.” Conner replied. 

Jason hummed. 

“Another one died from their injuries. And the other survivors are in quarantine, but it doesn’t look good.” He wrung his hands, looking visibly shaken, a far cry from the confident Red Hood Tim was normally treated to. “Thank you…for stepping in. For…saving those people today. For bringing him back.”

“Of course.”

Jason pushed himself to his feet, his movements labored and heavy. “The knives had a sedation agent on them, yeah?”

“Looks like it,” Conner said, shifting slightly as Jason sidled up beside him next to the cot. “But Ra’s wants him alive, so it likely isn’t anything that won’t cycle through his system naturally. We’ll need stitches for the wounds, they don’t really look too deep anyway, but otherwise I think a constant monitoring of his vitals should be all that’s really needed.”

“Wait until he regains his empathy again?” Jason scoffed mirthlessly. 

“Something like that.”

“How far has progress been made on synthesizing a cure for this strain?” Tim asked, straining his eyes to look at the both of them. “Since that should be your main priority at the moment, considering you have an infected person on the ship. Unless you forgot how extremely contagious this thing is. She can’t be taken back to Gotham. That’s pretty much asking to spread the virus across the entire Eastern seaboard by the weekend. Unless you wanted more of a mess to clean up than we’ve already got?”

Jason rolled his eyes, reaching over Tim. “That’s next on the docket. Don’t worry, we’ll need your little sociopathic brain on this, so the knives have got to go first.”

“Cool.” 

Tim felt the first one being pulled out of his shoulder, though felt was a strong word for the lack of sensation he felt. Just the pressure of the hand bracing against his back. Then the slick sound of it being dragged out. 

“Stitch that up. The kit should be by the sink over there.” Jason said to Conner as he moved on to the second knife. “I might keep these…they’re good knives.”

Great…more needles. 

Tim’s stomach churned anxiously. That was annoying. If the Pit was going to take his empathy and humanity, it might as well take his other shit too. The anger. The fear. Have the trauma responses while you’re at it. But it thrived on those fears and negatives, they made it stronger, harder to uproot. 

“It’ll heal up on it’s own pretty quickly,” Tim said, his voice managing to remain flat and devoid of the very stubborn anxiety. “Just cover it for now, it’ll be fine in an hour or two.”

Jason nodded in apparent response to whatever Conner had silently asked. 

The other knife was out. 

“We’ll get this shirt off of you so we can clean up everything.” Jason said, opening the drawer of the side table and pulling out some wickedly sharp scissors to slice the back of Tim’s shirt off. “The police give you this shirt or something? It’s a good color on you.”

“You can have it if you like it so much.” Tim muttered.

“That almost sounded nice, Timmy,” Jason snorted. “Seems like you’re coming back to us.”

“Really taking advantage of the fact that I can’t move, right now, aren’t you?”

Jason responded but Tim barely heard it over the smell of antiseptic being applied to his wounds. He exhaled, gritting his teeth trying not to breathe in again, but the particles still burned his nostrils anyway, as if in spite of him. 

The bandages couldn’t have been applied fast enough for Tim’s taste. 

Conner was tasked with chauffeuring Tim’s numb body to and fro, while Jason got him up to speed. 

“Art warned Superboy about the contagion after you were taken care of,” Jason said as they walked. “The hospital that the surviving civilians were sent to is now under strict quarantine lockdown, thanks to the early warning, the CDC has taken charge of the contagion. Apparently their foremost expert on this particular strain was getting close to a viable inoculation, but he was found dead earlier today, his research is pretty much toast. I assume you’re already aware of that though.”

“Dr. Engle.” Tim supplied evenly. “Yeah, Ra’s had me kill him.” A thrill of pleasure twirled at the memory of the severed head clutched in his fingers, dripping down his arm. “A bit of a failsafe in case I ended up breaking out of the brainwashing. Making sure that he could have something- a promise- to lure me back to his side with.” He scoffed. “His mistake was pushing his luck, assuming that I would fall for something so simple as the Trolley Problem.”

“What do you mean?” 

“He offered me the cure if I went with him, but there was a catch, as there always is.” Tim explained. “The cure wouldn’t arrive in time for the people in the diner. So, he gave me choices. Go with his lackey, and the people in the diner would die of the virus anyway, but still have time to infect others before the cure came. Kill everyone in the diner and stop the spread there. Or leave entirely and millions would die. He assumed I would take the path of least suffering, that I would willingly kill a dozen to save a million. But he forgot that I actually have friends that would help me and that if I couldn’t save the people in the bar anyway, then I sure as hell wasn’t going back to him. Especially since his lackey gave away a dangerous piece of information that pretty much ensured that I could figure out a cure to this on my own without going back to warming his bed. I’m inoculated against the virus, one of the few in the world at the moment, so a blood sample would be a good place to start to expedite the whole vaccine endeavor.”

“You’re sure you’re inoculated?” Jason asked.

“Yes. I would have already shown signs otherwise if that weren’t true.”

“Okay, good. We’ll start in the lab then.”

“I do get why you would try to murder me now,” Tim said off-handedly. “Especially with your borderline obsessive compulsive disorder. An obsessive thought aided by a malevolent supernatural force? Perfect melting pot right there.”

“You think I have OCD?”

Tim snorted. “I know you have OCD. I once went to a psychologist and told her all of the things you did a certain week, pretending that it was me, and she said she’s never seen a more clear cut case of the disorder in her life.”

“There you have it, I guess.” Jason shrugged, shaking his head. “Want to diagnose Clone Boy over here?”

“Don’t.” Conner said, the first time he’d spoken in a long while. 

“He’s got Daddy Issues for starters,” Tim said anyway. “Anger issues. Abandonment issues. A bit of God Complex if I’m really digging. Also a somehow simultaneous inferiority complex that leads you to act irrationally when things go wrong or you make mistakes, because your biggest fear in life is to be told that you’re truly an impostor and that you are as worthless as you-“

“Stop.” Jason cut him off firmly. 

“Feel.” Tim finished. “I take it that was enough of a diagnosis for the both of you. But to answer that question on your search history from two years ago, yes, you definitely have ADHD.”

“When does he go back to normal?” Conner asked. “I was kind of dying the last time I was present for this.”

“I’m not apologizing for that.” Jason said. 

“I wouldn’t ask you to.” Conner replied in kind. “Just context. So? How long are we looking at?”

“Depends. We could knock him out, that seems to expedite the process.”

Conner looked down at Tim. “It’s tempting for sure.”

Tim rolled his eyes. 

“I know, right? I never imagined he could be more of an asshole, but this experience has made me appreciate the amount of douce-bagger-y that gets caught in his filter.” Jason said, a little bitterly. 

“Thank you.” Tim said pleasantly. “It took you long enough.”

“But it seems to be longer each time he goes ‘psychopath’, so based on the last couple of rounds, I’d say we have another three to four hours of this utterly delightful variation.” Jason said grimly. 

He didn’t feel all that different. Not anything that he was inherently worse for. Just less tightly wound. Lighter. It wasn’t as though he’d woken up in a different body. He was himself…just…without all of the things that made being himself so utterly miserable. And that couldn’t be a bad thing. Right? Were they both truly upset that he didn’t hate being in his own brain and body? Every time he came back to this state, he could remember why his body itched for it. This…this was the freedom he’d unknowingly craved his entire life. He didn’t have all those little voices agitating his thoughts: his parents, Bruce, his friends, the world. All wondering why he did something like that. Analyzing every movement he made. Every thought. Every word that fell from his lips. Everything. Before. During. After. He was constantly bombarded with enough inner commentary from voices that weren’t even his own, and for a time they were shut up. 

Only the cruelest person would knowingly ask another to remain in that hell. 

That irritation- that embryo of anger- started simmering beneath his skin. Like an itch under a cast. That saturation of green in his vision growing. 

Make them feel that hell. That voice in his head, the voice of the monster, goaded. 

And he wanted to. He knew all the ways he could tear into them without even lifting a finger. But that stubborn little child had already made its way back and was hanging on his pant leg begging him not to…they won’t love us if you do that. They need to love us. And try as he might, he couldn’t shake that little pest off of him. 

He instead contented himself to stare into space, ignoring the little begging child in his mind in favor of malicious compliance to their demands. It thrived off of attention. It needed attention. And he was going to give it none of that. He would ignore it. Give it nothing to protest or cry over. 

Starve it out. The Pit practically crooned. It is weakness. You must not give it what it wants.

He stayed passive and silent as his blood was taken. As his arm was cleaned with that same pungent alcohol. Another needle. And he couldn’t lift his head to see if it was truly just taking blood or giving him something else. 

“Is that human flesh…in his hair?” Conner asked at one point during the draw. 

“Yes.” Jason answered, in a casual tone that would’ve been unnerving to anyone that didn’t know what he did for a living. 

“He needs a decontamination shower and scrub down or something. This isn’t sanitary.”

“He’ll live. His immune system is better than it’s been in nearly a decade, a little blood isn’t gonna kill him right now.” 

That was fair enough. He had a spleen for the first time in a while. 

They were running the tests on the blood in the background, trying to find a backdoor into this Apocalypse virus solution. Maybe reverse engineer the cure. Tim doubted it would be that simple, but it would be nice if he was on a cot in the holding cell instead of the uncomfortable gurney that had been hastily set up in the lab. 

“You’ll want to get whatever Oracle found on Engle in the last day or so,” Tim directed from his pathetic throne. “Find out who he was in contact with about this. Send the diagnostics from the sample to the CDC and people listed in Batman’s contingency plan for another epidemic. It should be labeled as: Code Locust.”

“A plague.” Jason huffed, shaking his head. “A bit on the nose for a covert file name. Why not one of the other ones? River of Blood would be cool.”

“River of Blood is already dedicated to something else.”

“Of course it is. B always liked his metaphors to be heavy handed.” Jason said. “So, we send your blood info to the plague doctors and get Barbie’s research. Awesome.”

By the time Tim was transferred into the holding cell, his teeth were starting to chatter again and phantom insects were running across his numb skin. If he could feel more than the static pain of sensation coming back to his extremities, he could get out of the cell if he wanted. But he couldn’t…and he wasn’t sure he wanted to. Not when his body wanted to claw off his skin, not when his gut roiled with agitation, electricity buzzing and building and bouncing around inside of him with no outlet. Sweats and chills wracked his body simultaneously. Both overheated and freezing at the same time. He wanted to tear out his eardrums or rip out the buzzing rows of cold, florescent lights. They were obscenely loud and grating. Like the scratch of a knife across a porcelain dinner plate again and again and again. 

But he couldn’t move, let alone wreak any level of destruction. Clearly the paralytic was meant to keep him compliant for a long journey back to the Demon’s side. He didn’t like thinking about being so vulnerable. So, he just laid there…staring at the ceiling, while his brain was blitzing in sensory overload, trying to abandon ship, get his insides out of his body. And his gut churned, threatening to join the mutiny. What he wouldn’t give to just tear off his skin, give his brain what it wanted, just to stop feeling everything again. 

He couldn’t even do the thing that would fix it. He couldn’t give the beast blood. Or pain. 

And he wanted to. He’d bleed someone dry just to make it all stop. He didn’t even care who or whether they deserved it. So, maybe he might be able to at least rest, even if he knew he couldn’t sleep. And that should’ve scared him. But he couldn’t hear his conscience loudly enough over the clanging of emergency bells in his brain to even begin to care about the implications of that.

Something knocked against the glass. 

“How’s the detox coming along, kid?” Jason asked, his voice muffled by the thick panel of glass between them. 

“F-fine.” Tim said between clattering teeth. 

He wasn’t. But that was hardly the point.

“Not gonna throw up or anything?”

“‘m fine, J-jay.” 

“You want me to help get some of that blood off of you?” Jason said.

Having a potential body in the room with him would only make his agitation worse. Since he hadn’t had the blood removed in his apathetic state, the hungry beast was jealous and protective of it. It was desperate for those scraps, those leftovers as the hunger pangs of the detox period set in. 

Still, his better judgement was coming back, even if his feeling was not. 

“I-I don’t…don’t quite h-have my mind y-yet.” He said. “I can’t promise that…that I’ll be-behave well.”

“As if you ever in your life have behaved yourself. Besides,” Jason amended. “I’ve seen you in worse states.”

“Not m-much worse.” Tim scoffed. “I-I’m rather…rather path-pathetic at the m-moment.”

The door hissed open. He couldn’t see what Jason brought with him to clean up with. 

“Don’t…don’t use the…the, um, rubbing alcohol…p-please.”

“No?”

Tim hummed a negative response. “It…reminds me of…of something that I…I don’t like t-to remember when I’m already f-feeling shitty.”

“Okay. I wasn’t planning on it anyway, but that’s good to know for future reference.”

“Obviously, u-use it if you…if you need to, I can d-deal with it, but-“

“I got it, kid. I’ll use my discretion. Bruce may not trust it, but I hope you will.” 

That last part had a bitter tinge to it. 

“I trust y-you,” Tim said. “Is Bruce b-back yet?’’

Jason hummed an affirmative response, finally coming into Tim’s limited visual range. “He got here after you were locked up. We’ve been getting him up to date on what’s been done so far.”

“Artemis…is she…?”

“She’s been moved to the stasis chamber. B’s gonna consult with Auntie Di about how to proceed with treatment while we head back to Gotham,” Jason explained wearily, crouching down beside the cot. “But, as of now, she’s stable. And I’m cleared of infection…in case you were wondering.”

“I d-didn’t want t-to imply that you weren’t taking proper…proper safety precautions.” Tim said with a slight laugh. “I am…g-glad to hear that you’re n-not infected…from exp-experience it f-fucking sucks ass.”

“Dodged a bullet then I guess.” Jason chuckled, squeezing out a wet rag into a bucket or bowl just out of Tim’s vision. “World did too. God forbid I deprive the world of this handsome mug again.” 

“G-god forbid.” Tim snorted, exhaling shakily as Jason started to scrub the dried blood off of his arm. “I wonder-“

The Pit snarled. Tim grit his teeth, swallowing it down into a less feral, frustrated groan. 

Jason raised a brow. “You good there, kid?”

“P-peachy.” 

“Sure you are.”

“You…you asked.”

“And you’re a lying liar who habitually lies.” Jason said, gesturing pointedly with his rag. “Like hell I believe a word coming out of your mouth.”

“Sh-shut up.”

“I feel like we’ve done this bit before.”

“God, I h-hate you.” Tim grumbled.

Jason exhaled through his nose, shaking his head, his expression strangely warm. “Just proving my point here, Pinocchio.” 

“F-fuck you.”

Jason smothered Tim’s face with the washcloth, scrubbing the blood off and muffling any protests Tim might’ve made. 

“What’s that? I can’t quite hear you there, Timmers.” Jason said. “You love me and I’m your favorite? Aw, shucks…I’m getting emotional here.”

Tim glared up at him. 

Kill it. Kill it. Kill it. The Pit chanted from his stomach. 

What the actual fuck? Tim’s head replied. If I was going to kill Jason for being an idiot, he’d be dead already. 

The Pit didn’t like his attitude apparently, his gut cramped and his stomach lurched, sending bile up his throat. Need blood. Want blood. Don’t you want to feel steady again?

Tim’s eyes widened in panic. He couldn’t move. He was going to choke. 

Luckily, Jason was perceptive, even when he was acting like an idiot. 

“Oh, shit.” Jason threw the cloth aside, grabbing Tim bodily and heaving him onto his side. “It’s okay, kid. It’s okay…better out then in as my mom would always say.”

Tim threw up over the side of the cot, the chunks of the meal he’d eaten at the bar and grill coming back for a second appearance, splattering on the tiles beneath him. His mouth burned with the stomach acid, his teeth covered in a bitter casing. And he couldn’t help but think he was imagining the greenish tinge of the body fluid on the floor. Maybe it was the haze of the Pit still clouding his eyes. 

It took a few seconds that felt like minutes for the convulsions to pass. All the while Jason was petting a hand through his hair, keeping the overgrown strands out of his face. The feeling of the calloused fingers dragging against his scalp, the gentle tug through his now sweaty locks, was embarrassingly grounding. If he could’ve moved he might’ve leaned into it. Perhaps it was good he couldn’t, at least he could be spared of that potential teasing fodder. 

He coughed as the last of it blew over, his body chilled and damp from the perspiration. 

“All done, kiddo?”

Tim managed a rough noise that resembled affirmation from his throat. 

“Good…that’s good,” Jason repeated to himself. “You shouldn’t scare me like that…I’m getting old, my heart’s gonna give out or some shit.” 

Not if we rip you open and take it first. 

Tim didn’t reply. He couldn’t. Not yet…the shakiness of his voice might be attributed to withdrawal, but he couldn’t trust that Jason would miss the dampness of it this time around.

“Tim?”

“I’m…working on it…” He whispered. “‘m cold…and tired…and I just want it to stop…I don’t…I don’t want to h-hurt anyone…not like I did t-today.” He coughed raggedly as his stomach tried to bring up more, but there was nothing left. “Y-you know that…right?”

Jason’s fingers went back to methodically combing through his hair again, pulling Tim’s comparatively dwarfed and presently frail form back against his chest, his living warmth. Real. Alive. “Yeah, I know, kid.”

It felt like deja vu, the present and that moment on the side of the road interweaving together in a nauseating reprise of Tim’s weakness, shivering and being held close to his older brother as his mind and body were shivering. He was sure Jason was commentating internally about the literary value of such a callback, were this to be a book. Except this moment had one key difference. One big…shameful difference. If this truly were a book, it would be called structural irony or something…if Tim remembered his brief tenor as a student. The character didn’t know or understand the full scale of their situation. 

“B-but I do at the same…same t-time.” Tim continued, closing his eyes. “I…desire it. I need…to h-hurt someone. I want to hurt you…r-right now.”

Yes…just under the ribs that were so easily broken under his hands. He could practically hear the pulse of Jason’s heart thrumming in his ears. So alive and pumping with blood…

No. 

The confession was received in silence. But Jason didn’t immediately jump away in fear or disgust. Not that Tim was in the condition to act on anything anyway, but the reaction might’ve been appropriate.

What’s the difference between the blood of two sinners? He’s no more innocent than that League woman. Why should his blood be spared from us? Blood is blood and we should spill it.

I can’t.

His throat is right there. Your body my be weakened, but you still have your teeth. You could tear it open so easily. Get to that rush of blood.

…

If you are so good at spilling it, why shouldn’t you have it? 

Tim squeezed his eyes shut. Shut up.

“There’s this schism. M-my logic is still yelling all the right…the right things at me, but my gut…the emotional, f-feelings and shit, it’s getting louder and l-louder. I k-know in my head that it’s not…not good. That I shouldn’t w-want those things,” He swallowed thickly, the bile stinging the same on the way back down. “I’m l-losing myself, J-jay. I can’t…the P-pit…it’s over-overwhelming me and I c-can barely h-hear myself any…anymore.”

Tears slipped down his cheeks, striking the tiles with a clear and crisp tone in the empty soundscape. 

Somehow the admission didn’t make him feel any better. It might’ve felt worse. But he knew that if what he’d said hadn’t made Jason bolt, the next words to pass his lips would…

“I need to go to Arkham,” Tim said with forced steadiness through his tightened jaw, his eyes opened, looking down at the puddle of tears and vomit on the floor beneath him. “I need to talk to the Joker.”

Chapter Text

“The Joker broke out two months ago,” Bruce said, his cowl off and hanging behind him, leaving that hardened scowl in full view. “He’s not in Arkham. And he’s not shown up on my usual alerts. Even if I agreed this is necessary, I can’t locate him.”

“I figured as much,” Tim met Bruce’s gaze firmly. “Ra’s hired out Deathstroke to let him out and deliver the virus to the operatives in the States. But I’ll find him.”

The plane was heading back home to Gotham, Bruce and Tim were alone on the bridge, which, like most things designed with Bruce’s interior decorating preferences, was very dark, cavernous, and foreboding, the only color really coming from the buttons, that had to be brightly colored for safety purposes, but even that Bruce had argued that he would be the one flying it, so he could just use labels (Alfred had overridden that argument quickly). He called it classy and minimalistic. Dick called it a lack of imagination and no eye for harmony in design. Tim was inclined to agree, but he never voiced that aloud. It was almost polar opposite to his mother’s decorative style, which had been very sterile and white, and unforgiving of many sins that a child might commit while in the process of growing up, like juice spills, bloodstains, or tracked in dirt. The black felt more understanding, so he wasn’t going to complain.

Bruce was stood at the wide front windshield, hovering over the computer’s control board for the craft. Tim was sat in a secured in a fancy motorized wheelchair, his limbs still not usable yet for anything more than vague, low-level gesturing, which was all he really needed honestly. But for some reason or another that didn’t instill the same amount of confidence in his traveling companion, mentor, or occasional world-saving, super-powered partner in crime. 

Go figure. 

Begrudgingly Jason had let Tim do this alone, after much argument, though he didn’t doubt that his older brother was still listening in somehow from the med-bay where he and Bizarro were keeping watch over Artemis as she lay in stasis. Or that his friend with super hearing was using his talents for eavesdropping while puttering about the ship trying not to lose his mind with boredom.

“I don’t like this.”

And Tim did? No. Fuck no. But sometimes getting answers meant digging through the muck. Or in the case of the Joker, the toxic chemical sewage that you could somehow only find in Gotham. 

“It’s not up to you, though,” Tim said firmly. “You think I want to go see the lunatic that fucked up my brain enough for this shit to happen? The guy that hurt Jay? Fuck no. But as it stands, he’s the only one that’s not Ra’s al Ghul that understands how to rewire my brain enough to play house with the League of Assassins for ten months.”

“How are you so sure that he has the answers here, Tim?”

Tim swallowed, forcing himself into the hallows of his mind to find the proof for his reasoning that he’d already unconsciously known.

“You remember when it happened, when he took me back then, how he changed me, how I was for the months after?”

He’d always been a deathly sort of pale, the kind of sickly pallor that seemed a moment from death, but after those nights with the Joker his skin had never quite regained the little color it’d had. Those scars that had been carved into his jaw, his supposed new initials disappeared as well. But even with that evidence erased, he remembered it more clearly than he remembered his own mother sometimes. 

The Joker and an un-rehabilitated Harley Quinn waltzing around the floor to a hectic warped classical music record that had been stuck on the same passage for nearly ten minutes. His muscles ached from the electricity that pulsed through his body in arhythmic intervals, and his nostrils were burned by the smell of the bleach they’d used on his skin…of the antiseptic that Harley had put on the two jagged, open wounds on his face that he ripped open every time the electricity hit and he screamed (‘we don’t want ya gettin’ an infection or nothin’ kiddo’). 

That moment where his mind snapped had never allowed to be seen. He couldn’t remember it, and the moments beyond it until he woke up at Wayne Manor- because his parents were out of town again- were fuzzy, he’d relied on retellings from Dick and Bruce. They’d confiscated the footage of his torture before law enforcement arrived, and it only existed in a physical copy on a hard drive somewhere Tim had never been able to find, if it hadn’t been destroyed by then. He’d been instructed to shoot Batman. He’d shot Joker instead, just short of lethal, and Batman had had to pull Dick off of the Joker after the fact to keep him from killing the man when the bullet had failed. And that was all he really knew of his conditioning after his memory stopped, just bits and pieces he’d gathered over the years. 

But that conditioning had been thorough…deeply set. He’d had blackouts for months after that incident where he’d wake up with the mirror smashed in and his throat raw. In one memorable occasion, he’d come back to himself with his face stretched in a grin, cheeks aching, blood spilling down his arms, and Alfred standing above him with a horrified and deeply mournful expression, holding a long shard of bloodied glass in his hand. 

“Of course I remember.” Bruce said softly. 

“We both know that I never really recovered from that…at least not all the way. I had scars and the skin and my mind…” Tim paused, catching up with his mind. “It blocked most of that pain out to keep the rest of me safe, to allow me to move on and get better, but that memory, that…conditioning, it’s still there, it didn’t go away.”

“And you believe Ra’s exploited that conditioning?”

“I know he did. Just like I know he orchestrated the breakout of the Joker. There was correspondence between them somehow…if we can find that then…”

He drifted off. 

“What’s your plan for if he tries to control you again?” Bruce asked, lifting his head once more from where he was hunched over the controls. “At least tell me you have one.”

Well…okay, he did. Sort of. Maybe not. 

“I don’t-“

“Tim…”

“Yet. I don’t have one yet.” Tim finished. “But I still have to track him down, that gives me time to come up with one.”

Bruce’s hands curled into fists atop the desk; he exhaled shakily. “I’m gonna need better than that if you expect me to let this happen.”

Let…as if Bruce had had any say in what he’d done for a long time. He’d had such little oversight even before Bruce that it was a wonder he’d turned out as well as he had. Not to say he’d turned out ideally, but it definitely wasn’t as bad as it could have been. He’d grown up in the upper echelons of Gotham society…he knew what worse looked like, and he, surprisingly enough, wasn’t that. God only knew he probably should have been…honestly, his life might’ve taken a net positive direction if he had been too focused on sex, drugs, and hoarding wealth to get noble ideas like fighting crime or saving the local crime-fighting vigilante from themself. 

“Well, pardon me, I forgot that you had a well thought out plan of action stuck up your ass that will get me, and therefore all of you, out of this shitstorm that you were burning to share with the group, so go ahead, Bruce, do go forth wow me with your impressive and completely foolproof plan.” Tim said saccharinely, his body buzzing beneath his skin, itching to do more than just make a snide comment. “Because if you, or anyone else for that matter, actually had one of those, I’d be the fucking first one to jump on that, but I’m gonna go out on a really rickety limb here and say…no, you don’t have one. I’m the only one that’s even got part of a plan because even when I’m batshit on supernatural bathwater, everyone just assumes I have a magically perfect plan to fix it just…ready to go.”

He was out of breath by the end of that. Because of course he was. Stupid fucking sedative. 

“And I’m twenty-one. I’ve long since been emancipated from your house and your rules, Bruce. I’m asking for your help…not your permission.”

“Tim…” Bruce said in that aggravatingly commanding ‘you’re getting too emotional’ voice. 

“What?” 

Clearly his tone hadn’t reassured Bruce that he was in a stable emotional state, judging by the slight deepening of the usual chiseled furrow of his brow. 

“Your eyes are reacting again. You need to calm yourself down.”

You need to shove that holier than thou attitude back up your ass where the rest of your shit is stored. 

“I’m fine.” Tim said instead through grit teeth. 

“Clearly.” Bruce said flatly.

Tim bit down on the inside of his cheek, tasting blood on his tongue and swallowing it down with the venomous retort. 

Come on. 

One, two, three…

It wasn’t getting any better. He wasn’t any calmer. And he’d probably need an exorcist to settle him down.

Well, he’d tried. 

“I’m fine and I’m going to do this. So, either help me figure out how, or don’t give me your opinion.” He clapped his hands together, albeit not as forcefully as he might’ve intended. “Let’s get to it. I’d like to fix my brain before I start hallucinating from the sleep deprivation and not Pit madness.”

Bruce was silent, fingers flexed now and hovering above the keyboard. 

Tim’s hair was standing on end and his skin was itching so much it burned. His gut clenched like a fist preparing for a fight. 

If he wants silence, we could take his tongue and-

“Bruce…” Tim said tightly. “When have I ever asked anything from you? And I won’t again. After all this, I’ll kindly fuck off and never bother you again, but I need-“

“I should do it.” That gravelly voice wedged its way in between Tim’s sentence and his crescendoing sensations, stopping both in their tracks. 

Tim couldn’t quite process the words right away through the cacophony of madness that was his head at the moment. “What?”

“This is ultimately my responsibility,” Bruce said evenly. “I allowed him to hurt too many of the people I care about…to hurt you both. And neither one of you should be put in the place to look the man in the face again, especially that man. He toys with the stitching on old wounds like it’s a loose thread on a sweater and he would enjoy unraveling the whole thing. I will confront him about this…all you need to do is provide me the answers you need to get from him.”

That caught him off guard. Even the Pit seemed to quiet in pure shock. 

No, it wasn’t Bruce’s fault. It was Tim’s. He’d gotten caught in the first place. He’d failed to escaped. He’d been broken…if Dick, or Jason, or even Dami- No, he couldn’t think of his little brother in his place. Damian was a kid and Tim wouldn’t blame him for breaking under that torment, for being caught, so…but it was different. Tim was different. He was the exception in every circumstance. 

“B-”

“No,” He continued forcefully. “I am not letting you go up against him in this state. I don’t trust him with you when your mind is at it’s best, and I nearly lost you when you were at your best.”

“That was nearly seven years ago, B.”

As if time made sins lessen. As if his distance from that child he’d been made it somehow less horrific. Made it somehow less of a moral burden on the shoulders of the man he’d thought would ensure he never endured such things. 

“I can’t with good conscience send any of my children toward him, no matter how well I believe they might fare. That leaves one option. The Joker is obsessed with Batman. For better or worse, he’s got an infatuation, and he will want that interaction with Batman, the chance to interact with the object of his obsession. That’s what everything he does is for from what I can tell. Our best option…our only option is Batman. Is me…”

It was quiet. The kind that rang in the ears. The deafeningly loud kind of quiet that agitated and worked at the nerves until they frayed and snapped.

The snap came with the buzz of a phone somewhere on the bridge.

“We’re ten minutes out of Gotham.” Bruce said, tucking the phone that had materialized in his hand away back into the void from whence it came. “Agent A is calling everyone to the Cave. They’re all aware of your return, but have been made clear to leave further questioning until a later time. We’ll give a brief update before beginning our targeted search of Gotham for the Joker. Tim, you will be going to Dr. Thompkins for a physical check-up and to run the usual tests”

He’d been expecting that. It would be a pain, an annoyance, but a clean bill of health would get everyone off his back and allow him to work more freely. Besides, he could use the breath of fresh air that was being in a room that his admittedly suffocating family was not. And Dr. Thompkins was a very neutral presence. Perhaps it would calm the agitation under his skin to be around someone less…emotive. 

“Wonder Woman will be arriving later this evening to assess Artemis with Dr. Thompkins, she knows about you being in my custody, but she had agreed to wait to notify the League, and let me take the lead with you, while the League puts it’s resources and efforts toward containing the outbreak. Once the Joker is located, we’ll attempt to get our intel and figure out our plan of action moving forward.” He turned that patented Batman gaze to Tim. “Superboy, will be in Gotham, which means, if he intends to stay there and assist my son, he follows my lead, plays by my rules, and does nothing, especially if it has anything to do with you or the rest of my family, without my consent. Are we clear?”

He said that last bit with the clear inflection of speaking to the listening ears on the ship.

Bruce exhaled heavily. 

“Is there anything else I should know before we land?”

That was a very dangerous and very open question. It was a question Bruce should have known would make Tim suspicious given how many times it was drilled into Tim’s head that he should not answer such questions with any amount of truth, especially if asked by authority. It was a trap question, meant to get the other end of it either tangled in a lie or to unwittingly reveal a truth they hadn’t intended to. 

It was a question they weren’t supposed to answer, but they were pushed to ask victims on the scene of a crime. For the same reasons they were taught to avoid answering. It gave a lot of room for a lot of information. And it kept the victim talking, which, in cases of injury, was important while they awaited emergency services. 

Bruce was asking him… 

Tim grit his teeth and looked at the floor. He was weak to Bruce. Something to be pitied. Like an injured rabbit or a crying child. And how could he not? Tim was weak…weak to the thing he once was most valued for. And to think he used to almost long for pity. For any semblance of a damn to be given about him. But the way they all looked at him was worse than their negligence to remember he existed. 

People that weren’t useful, that were weak, were to be pitied or were to be discarded. At least that’s what his parents had always implied, even if they were too careful of their image to say those words aloud. 

So he had to be useful. He had to be good. He had to be needed.

Even if being useful hurt more than being pitied. Even if it meant being discarded later. At least it wouldn’t be right then. At least he could have one last moment of being needed before being cast aside. 

He had to give into this. Or else he’d give into the other thing that was begging for him to let go.

“Bruce.” He said, taking a breath to push down the Pit that was still squirming to get through the cracks in him. 

“Yes, Tim.” Bruce replied, turning toward him fully. “What is it?”

“What have they told you about me? About the last ten months?”

Tim knew that Jason was probably cursing him out from wherever he was listening on the ship, that over the silent radio waves he was telling Tim to stop before he made a mistake. But all he could make anymore were mistakes. Murder. Pain. Suffering. People were dead. People were going to die. And he had no more right choices, just ones that would hurt him later rather than in the moment or ones that would hurt a little less. They weren’t good. But they were closest to good that he could get. 

“Jason told me how you came to arrive there. About the use of the Pit and that your mind was compromised by Ra’s al Ghul. That you served him in that state. And that your mind is not fully in your control yet, which puts you in a state of mania that leads you to act off of fear and anger.” Bruce said simply, as though he were just reading off golf scores and golf was neither his favorite nor his least favorite sport. “That is all we had time to discuss prior to this moment, so, if you would like to fill in any details, I would welcome it.”

His heart stuttered in his chest. For once both his heart and his parasite in agreement. They needed to tell Bruce everything. The truth would hurt Bruce in a way that Tim with a blade or his fists never could, not even when he could lift either. And if he didn’t he would be letting his mentor down. That ache he would feel as he held it back, the disappointment he would face when it came to light, it would eat him alive. He’d been born with a guilty conscience that gnawed on his insides until he set it free. 

It would hurt Tim either way. He’d get that crushing look from Bruce either way, the one that Tim could always see regret in no matter if it was truly there or not, regret for ever trying to take Tim in, for ever believing that Tim was worth the efforts it would take to try and keep him bound to his humanity. So, it would be useless to try and fight the inevitable. 

But that little kid in him was still screaming, flinching for the blow, just unsure from what side it was going to come. 

He would have to give into something. Himself or the Pit. And if he gave into the Pit…well, that was just proving Bruce right in his eternal distrust of Timothy Drake.

“Ra’s won’t stop this time around. He knows what he wants from me now, and he’s not going to back off again.” Tim said quietly, forcing himself to keep his gaze and his voice steadfast, to not wither in the presence of his mentor. “I’ve killed a child. And the doctor working on this newest strain. And who knows how many others. Some in service of Ra’s, some not. He’s used my body to build cloned bodies returning me to the Pit after each harvest of organs and tissue. I’m unsure if any of the cloned bodies are viable or not. Ra;s might say that he’s the only one that can handle me now; that there is no fixing me. That might be true, it might not. He might even hold the cure for this strain of virus over your head. Think what you want about me, but I need you to know so you can help me fix this mess and not be distracted.”

Bruce didn’t speak for a moment.

Tim set his jaw, not daring to blink or look away from Bruce, lest he miss some subtle movement some hint of what the man was thinking, some warning before he spoke so that the words wouldn’t deal as much of a blow. 

“A child?”

Blue eyes. Wide, round blue eyes. Faded, sightless blue eyes. 

Tim nodded stiffly, unable to grant his tongue the footing to speak. 

Silence again. 

“Well…?” Tim said, staring Bruce down expectantly. “What’s your verdict? Am I still worthy of your aid? I may not be pure enough to be your son or protege, but, hey, you’ve helped worse people. And I think you still owe me for bringing your back to the present.”

“I need time.” He said quietly, turning to take a seat at the control panel, not giving Tim another look. “Give me…time…”

“Okay…” Tim whispered, his stomach tightening into a knot. 

It hurt. It hurt. 

Hurt it. Hurt it. Hurt it.

Make it scream.  

He dug his fingernails into his palm, but it didn’t sooth like it had before in the car with Jason. The clamor didn’t die down even a fraction. It seemed to be learning as time progressed, as Tim was sentient enough to fight it. Like a virus that started becoming immune to a vaccine, the Pit was starting to figure out how Tim was fighting it, and how it could get around those barricades. It was becoming harder and harder not to lose his grip. He could physically feel the strain on his body as his grip on reality, on his own mind, was quickly slipping from his grasp more firmly. 

The control board beeped, the computerized windshield display flips to the incoming call screen. 

Tim’s eyes snapped up. 

“Oracle, talk to me.” Bruce said gruffly. “What are the projections for the spread of this variant?”

The translucent image of Barbara Gordon, one that had seen better days, filled a corner of the windshield. 

“Not good, but you already know that.” She quipped grimly, pushing her glasses up her nose. “Without the antidote, we’re looking at most of the East Coast by the end of the week being affected. All hospitals have been put on notice to look out for new cases, which will make it easier to trace the spread, but that’s about the only good news I have.”

“Go on.” Bruce grunted. 

She exhaled sharply. “The vaccine we have has been slowing the virus down in patients in Kettering, where the contagion started. But only by a few hours, a narrow margin. And the death toll is up to twenty-two, with about triple the cases coming in from close contacts of the original victims of the viral attack, showing up in neighboring counties in the last couple of hours. The only survivor of the initial dose of the virus is Artemis, but you reported her to be kept on stasis. So, this thing has 96-ish percent mortality rate so far. Everyone with reported symptoms are quickly deteriorating in condition, thankfully the CDC was able to step in and support the hospital staff with protective gear, with the allocated emergency donation from the Wayne Foundation’s Pandemic Relief Fund, so only two doctors have contracted the virus thus far, both under quarantine in their respective hospitals.”

“Anything else?”

“Talia is in the States. She arrived yesterday on a private charter flight into New York in the early morning. Nothing else is known yet, but my sources are keeping their ears open.” Barbara said, gnawing at her lip as she clicked through something on her end’s computer. “Thanks to Little Red’s heads up, I was able to find an early draft of Dr. Engle’s research when remotely accessing his personal laptop before the release of the virus, there was a nasty virus of the computer variety that made most everything on there toast, and Rickrolled mine when I first accessed it, but I sent what little I could salvage to his colleagues at the CDC.”

“Thank you, Oracle.” Bruce said with a stiff nod. “We’ll be landing at the Cave shortly.”

“Roger that.”

She lingered on the screen. 

“Yes?” Bruce asked. “Would you like to ask some-“

“Little Red, he’s okay, right? Spoils says she’s under a vow of silence not to disclose anything and I can’t reach Jace,” She interrupted. “Please…we- I’ve been worried about him. My hair has been falling out in legitimate clumps from stress. Just let me know that he’s alright.”

Bruce was silent again. 

“You can’t freeze me out, Mr. Dark Knight. That shit doesn’t work with me. I’m asking you out of respect, don’t make me do something less ethical to find my answer,” Barbara warned. “That kid is as good as my little brother. You know that. So, is he okay?”

She punctuated the last syllables pointedly. 

“He needs some help. But he is physically okay.”

Barbara raised a brow, clearly not pleased with that answer. “I’ll be logging off here in a moment. Expect me at the Cave in an hour. Oracle out.”

“Perfect.” Bruce muttered. 

So, Talia al Ghul was on American soil, probably in Gotham by then. And that never foretold of anything good. An assassination tournament, a murderous ten year old, and an undead older brother were the most obvious examples, but there was no short supply, including his most recent Roman Holiday with the world’s worst family. Nothing with the al Ghul’s was ever good, and they always knew how to outdo their previous spectacle; ‘shock and awe’ was pretty much the motto on their family crest, unless it was just ‘Death? Double it and give it to the next person’. But their brand of interference and life-fuckery was even worse right then considering they were the original creators of the shit-show Tim was presently living in. 

“When we arrive, you are not to leave the Cave alone, are we understood?” Bruce said. “I don’t know what Ra’s al Ghul is playing at by sending Thalia here, but I’m not joining his game if I can help it.”

“Of course.” Tim said, swallowing the lump in his throat. “I- uh…I’m sorry for bringing all this on you. For getting the family mixed up in this…”

Bruce clenched his fist again, his shoulders tensed. 

“I’m sorry…”

“Tim…”

“I’m trying to fix it. But I’m fucking scared as hell, okay? I’m scared and I…” Tim took a shaky breath. He didn’t want to cry, dammit. He wasn’t going to cry. Bruce would think he was trying to manipulate the situation and he couldn’t deal with more suspicion on top of what already sat heavy in the air between them. “And I could do it alone…I have, I could manage, but all I can hear in my head are the worst parts of myself at maximum volume. It’s so fucking loud. It’s anger and violence and revenge and hatred. It’s everything I’ve worked so goddamned hard not to become. I just want my dad to tell me that I’m gonna be okay because it’s hard and I’m tired…I’m so fucking tired, B.”  

Bruce turned. 

Tim expected cold. He expected emotionless. He expected disappointment. Distrust. Disgust. Everything that a person might feel when talking to a killer. To someone that had murdered a child and innocent people and had torn apart human beings with their bear hands. And he might’ve deserved it…he didn’t choose this for himself, but he would understand that not everyone would exactly label him innocent, especially not a hero who’s entire schtick was the sanctity of human life. 

But none of that was there. Instead there was a heavy quality to Bruce’s expression, his features pulled down by the weight of more than time and gravity. One of someone who was hiding a physical pain. The tightness in his jaw. The press of his mouth. He looked aged. More than his hero work had ever made him.

“Bruce…” Tim whispered, hating the way his bottom lip wavered. “Please…”

He hated how small he still felt under the gaze of the Batman. 

“I lost you.” Bruce said gruffly. “I lost you, Tim. I…lost my child.”

Tim looked away, clenching his jaw tight. He wasn’t the child Bruce was ready to bury anymore. The Pit had chewed up everything good about Timothy Drake and had left him with the worst parts in perfect condition, while everything else was shredded on the floor of his psyche. And it was like he couldn’t even recall what the good parts had looked like, so he couldn’t even pretend to play at being fine and normal and ‘right’. No matter how much he wanted to be ‘right’ again, to be himself again. He couldn’t remember what that had been. 

“You don’t…you don’t have to want me back.” Tim swallowed thickly. “But, maybe, whatever love you had for me from before could allow you to give me the comfort of just one lie.”

“I’m not…” Bruce sighed. “I’m not going to push you away, Tim. I’ve been given a second chance with my son. I am upset at the means used to bring me this second chance, the cost to you that it came at, but never that I have been given more time with my son. Okay? I need you to understand that.”

Tim turned his head back slowly, carefully. 

Bruce stepped forward, kneeling down in front of Tim’s chair, looking up at him with an achingly gentle expression. 

“What Jason did…was out of grief, misplaced though the actions were, he was not thinking as clearly as he might, and I…am upset with the initial choice he made, but I understand his choice. I’ve made that peace.” His expression darkened slightly. “What upsets me is that Ra’s al Ghul took advantage of that grief, that he used a tragedy for my family to take my children from me again. That he took my son, decided that the fundamental good in you didn’t fit his image. It angers me that he would force you to be something and act in ways so at odds with who you are…that he hurt you in such a way. It upsets me that he would hurt you in a way that would make you think you were undeserving of the affection I have for you. That is what upsets me. Not you…”

“I scare you though…” Tim said softly. “I always have.”

“No more than any of my children scare me.” Bruce said, his lips quirking up fondly. 

“No. You fear for them. I scare you. There’s a difference.”

“Meaning?”

Tim breathed deeply, finally meeting Bruce’s eyes. “Meaning that you let a lot of sins fly when it comes to your kids, B. Duffle bags full of severed heads and attempted fratricide. But never mine. After Captain Boomerang you never trusted me again. Not in the way you did before; not in the way you still trust the rest of them. You were afraid that I would get a taste for it, what I could do if I did. You never had that fear with anyone else. You feared how their actions my hurt them physically or mentally. You were scared of me.” He huffed wryly. “Maybe you were right to be afraid…”

“I’m not afraid of you, Tim.”

“Bruce…”

“I’m not- I…” Bruce sighed. “I worry about you more than the others. I will admit. But it’s not because I think you’re destined for evil. It’s because I see too much of myself in you; I worry that you might make my mistakes, or that you might fall prey to my weaknesses. It’s because I’m weak that I worry for you. That I fear for you. Perhaps why I am scared for you…why I inadvertently pull away. I worry every day that my influence in your life has been a detriment. And when you act too much like me, then…yes, it scares me. It’s clear that my fear has become your burden…for that…I’m sorry.”

Tim frowned. “You’re…sorry…”

Tim tried for another deep breath, he was fully intending on replying, honestly he was, but the initial breath didn’t get past his throat before his body rejected it. He suddenly found himself gasping for air, fighting panicking lungs, a rabid heart, and a body that didn’t want to breathe any longer. His chest ached, burning for relief, but Tim couldn’t find it in the air around him. 

Panic attack. Another one. 

He’d been having a lot of those recently. Like his body doing its best to reject a poorly matched organ transplant. Instead of an organ, it was a primordial miracle drug from hell, and Tim was whiplashed between overdose and withdrawal. 

Except this wasn’t what usually triggered it. It was usually the grand finale of a violent come down. 

But this was supposed to be good. This was a moment he longed for. Bruce admitting his mistakes. Apologizing sincerely. Assuring him of his unconditional love. Expressing anger on his behalf, not at his expense. It was good. So why was he losing it?

You are being ungrateful, Detective. All the good doctor’s hard work, and this is how you react? I want you to thank her for her labor and sacrifices to make this gift. 

Was he that fucked up that his brain just couldn’t physically handle emotional intimacy?

You are being stubborn. And not in the way I’ve come to enjoy from you. This is petulance. Childishness. It’s unbecoming on you, Timothy. 

He knew the answer. 

I think once more should do it, unless you want to convince me as to why I shouldn’t arrange for that? Do you think you could do that? Could you convince me that you have truly learned what I’ve taught you? That you don’t need another cleansing in the Pit?

But he didn’t want to think about it. 

And he didn’t have to. 

The sting of something sour in his mouth shocked him back to his body. He blinked rapidly, spitting out what turned out to be some kind of candy onto the floor. 

“There we go, better?” Bruce asked calmly. “You were having a panic attack and were beginning to spiral the sour candy-"

“Yeah, sour candy snapped me out of it. I read the study.” Tim coughed, wiping his mouth against his shoulder. “You carry that around with you?”

Bruce nodded, standing up and closing a pocket on his tool belt. “We’re in high stress situations. Good to be prepared.”

“Right…”

Bruce nodded stiffly, stepping away and sweeping toward the control board once more.

There we go…that wasn’t so hard, was it? This is much better. You look as though you were hand-crafted to kneel at my feet…

He shook his head as if it might dislodge the fractured voice of memory from his mind. 

Kindly get out of my head.

No.

Jesus, he was a mess. 

“Tim, I just…I need to know one more thing before we land and get to work.”

Tim raised his head again. 

“How many times?”

The subject was obvious enough, but Tim’s silence gave indication for a need for clarification. 

“Ra’s. How many times did he use the Pit on you?”

“I don’t know.” Tim replied honestly. “I’d guess maybe half a dozen, but I don’t remember. I don’t remember a lot of the last ten months. Just enough to feel like a cadaver picked apart by over-eager medical students.” 

“Hmm,” Bruce murmured.

Tim wet his lips, or at least tried to, his mouth felt like sandpaper. “But…um…Jay. You should talk to him. I…think…there’s some things that happened during those months that he’s not saying. Some things that hurt him…that scared him more than he’s letting on.”

The muscles in Bruce’s arms tightened, his shoulders. 

“I see.” 

“Promise me. Promise that you’ll talk to him…that you’ll make sure he’s okay.” Tim pressed. “None of this, of me coming back will mean shit if we lose him in the process, so you have to promise. He won’t open up to me…not when I’m like this. But…he might with you…please…”

“I will.” 

Tim nodded his head. “Thanks…”

“Of course. Thank you for telling me that.” Bruce said, his fingers coasting over the control panel, eventually hitting a button that projected his next words over the intercom system. “We’re beginning decent and are coming in for a landing. Everyone secure themselves properly.”

Deep breaths. Tim tried to coach himself internally to little avail. 

He was nearly home again. For the first time in ten months, he would be setting foot into the place that raised him. He would be seeing his family. Alfred, Dick, Cass, Steph, Duke, Damian, Kate, Babs, hell, even Ace and Titus and the various other animals that Damian might have collected in the time he was gone. 

A lot could have changed in ten months. Damian was in the middle of puberty, he could have grown in that time. His voice might’ve dropped even more. Maybe he was taller than Tim now…they were coasting around the same height before all of this. God, Damian would never let that go if he had finally surpassed Tim in height. 

But that wasn’t what was troubling his nerves, sitting anxiously in his gut. No…

It was this nagging feeling that, things would be different, changed, yes, but more-so, that he would be too far gone to return to the way things had been. Strained as they often were, that was his family. He loved them. And the worst way to love something was to come back to it and find it changed to a shape that you no longer fit into anymore, weathered by time so that space that had been for you was no longer visible anymore. 

He wasn’t sure what he would do if this time he couldn’t manage to wedge himself into that space in their family again. 

Tim sunk back into his chair, almost wishing it might absorb him before he had to find out. 

Another thing lingered alongside that feeling. One almost worse. His mind couldn’t help but flicker back to the words said by that League asset. 

You are a danger to everything you hold dear.

Or the words Ra’s had said over the phone. 

No matter how noble or cunning or brilliant you try to be, your strings are tied to me now.

And that command that moved him to murder. 

My will is your will. You will become my beloved Death.

Even if he did fit back into the fold, how long would it take before he tore them apart? Whether physically or from within. 

As the Bat Plane coasted toward the landing strip, Tim could almost hear the chitter of laughter echoing off the bridge walls and ceiling, as though it was coming from just behind him. 

It was sleep deprivation. It had to be. It had been probably coming up on just over 36 hours without good sleep. It would be early for sleep deprivation induced hallucinations, but perhaps the overall chaos of the last day or so would push up the usual clock. 

He shook his head.

The laughing didn’t stop. 

Well, shit.

Chapter Text

There was no ‘Welcome Home’ banner hanging up when Tim exited the ship. No shouts of jubilation. No balloons. He didn’t expect anything, so there was little let down at such a luke-warm reception. His return was not a celebratory occasion. It was an arrival that heralded another disaster, one that called to arms because he brought death and horror behind him and they would be arriving shortly after him. A messenger returning with a declaration of war. 

Tim stood, albeit with the help of a set of crutches, and Conner at his side like an over-invested guard dog, in the Cave, face to face his family, fully, for the first time in ten months. Granted, to him, it felt like a couple of days, but he could read the passage of time in their expressions, the weight of the months, too hard to truly ignore. The length of Dick’s hair. The extra inch of height from Damian. The new cochlear implants around Cass’ ears. The gain in muscle mass on Duke. The new scar on Steph’s cheek that was already faded.

“He’s bigger.” Damian said after a long period of silence.

“Dami…” Dick warned tiredly. 

Tim felt Conner’s hand fall onto his shoulder, squeezing slightly. 

“No, he’s definitely gotten bigger, like in the shoulders and thighs,” Duke interjected, miming on himself with his hands. “I didn’t think that was possible. Miracles never cease. Now I don’t have to tell everyone that you had polio as a child anymore.”

“You had polio?” Steph asked, looking at him accusatorially. 

“I thought that was eradicated in the mid-20th century…” Damian muttered to himself, pulling out his phone and typing something in.

“What was that one again?” Dick looked over Damian’s shoulder. “I always get typhoid and polio mixed up when people mention old-timey maladies.” 

“You’re crowding me again,” Damian said with a warning tone similar to the one Dick had given him a moment earlier. “And give me a minute, I’m looking…”

Tim, a little taken aback by the admission, looked at Duke incredulously. “You’ve told people I had polio as a child?”

Conner huffed with a level of amusement that earned an elbow jab to the side. Not that it did much physically, superhuman biology and invulnerability and all that bullshit, but the messaging seemed to be clear enough.

“Yeah,” Duke reiterated, raising a brow as if asking if there was some kind of issue with such a statement. “And that it was a fucking miracle that you are still able to walk. You’re still very feeble, but you’ve got a tenacious and un-killable spirit. It’s Oscar bait for the sympathies of the average civilian. And nobody thinks you’d run around in spandex after dark…you’re welcome.”

Meanwhile, beside him, Dick exclaimed with sudden remembrance, “Shit, really? I must’ve been thinking of dysentery or something.”

“That’s the poop one!” Steph said helpfully, perhaps a little too enthusiastically. “I heard Harrison Ford was suffering from dysentery on the set of Indiana Jones which was why he shot the guy in the one scene in the market. He had this whole complex whip choreo, but he just had to shit so bad that he did that instead.”

“I was the one that told her that.” Tim muttered to himself. 

“You never told me that.” Conner grumbled. “I thought we were friends.”

“Makes sense,” Cass said, signing the translations as she went, a little tool she’d developed to aid in the uptake of learning the language for the rest of the family back in the day. It had gone along with her text-to-voice application at first, but had gradually shifted to accompanying her voice as she got more confident in her speaking abilities. Damian was a natural, of course, which was beyond irritating. Tim was still a little slow and clunky. But overall, they were all now fluent in American Sign Language. “I am also more concise with my takedowns when I have to take a shit.”

“You were asleep when we got to that part of the movie.” Tim replied to Conner. “This is why I don’t invite you to my yearly Lord of the Rings marathons and invite Steph instead.”

“Is that what happened with the guy last week?” Dick asked. 

“Those movies are like nine hours long, Tim. No sane person stays awake through all of that.”

“No, I had a movie night planned with Harper and I was late.”

“Nine hours, that’s cute.” Tim snorted. “I only watch the extended editions, so it’s twelve hours. I though Kryptonians were supposed to be the stronger species.”

“Ah, that explains it.” Dick nodded. “How is Harper by the way? I haven’t heard from her or Cullen in a little bit.”

“That is half a day…half a day for three movies…that is legitimately an insane thing to do willingly.”

“Did she pass that interview she was talking about?” Steph asked, leaning over to watch Cass’ hands better. “I know she was looking into that fancy tech school in New York, but she hadn’t gone through the first round of interviews when I last talked to her.”

Tim snorted. “Steph’s done it four times already, Kon. Maybe you’re just weak.”

“Maybe you both need to be given a factory reset.”

“She’s good. She passed the first round, so she’s been working to save up for the trip for in person interviews. If all is good, she’ll start in the spring semester.” Cass said. “The school is paying for her faire and everything, but she wants to take Cullen and make it a little vacation before she leaves for the year.”

“Come on, my most endearing traits are not my generic, default settings.” Tim smirked. “I would not be nearly as charming if I was at my factory settings.”

Conner didn’t have a response to that comment. 

Dick nodded. “Cullen’s a freshman at GU now, right?” 

“Yeah. He’ll be staying around here when she’s at school because Bruce couldn’t help himself from adding to his collection.” Cass said, noticeably rolling her eyes at the statement

“Any bets on the headline when Vikki Vale finds this out?” Duke snorted, shaking his head.

“‘Past Half, Going for the Dozen?’” Dick suggested.

Steph chimed in with, “‘Lucky Number Seven? Wayne Tries His Odds With Latest Adoption.’”

“‘Serial Adopter: Humanitarian or Strange Addiction?’” Duke threw out. 

Tim shook his head fondly. “‘The House of Wayne: The Prince of Gotham Adds Another Heir’”

The conversation tapered short, like the giddiness of a drunken night fading into the clarity of sobriety. All the now lucid eyes turned back to him, as if suddenly remembering him and the elephant he’d pulled in behind him while they were having a good time, and then seeing and smelling the massive pile of shit that elephant had dropped onto their nice rug. 

“Hi…” He said lamely. “I’m alive~”

The weak jazz hands didn’t seem to improve the general mood. Well, he’d tried. 

“Yeah, we got that much already,” Duke said with a wry smile, taking a step forward. “I’d like to ask a lot of questions, most of which begin with ‘what the fuck…’, but Mr. the Batman has barred all questions until…some unspecified time in the future. So, I guess all there is to say is:” Conner moved his arm as Duke grabbed onto Tim and dragged him into a hug, burying his face in Tim’s shoulder. “Shit’s pretty fucked, but damn, it’s good to see you again.”

Okay, Tim wasn’t the best person to attempt physical affection with. Maybe it was his upbringing and old ladies were always hugging and pinching him for the first ten years of his life without his say in the matter. Maybe it was his mother only hugging him for photo ops. But even with Steph and Bernard it had been weird, and he’d been dating and intimate with them; neither of them had really expected anything from him in that regard, yet he still felt a little guilty since he knew they were both very naturally affectionate people. It always felt unnatural to Tim to hold someone or touch them, or to be touched. 

That fact didn’t erase the starving part of him the yearned to be held. The contrary parts existed in tandem. 

Tim hesitantly lifted his arms to wrap them around Duke, almost not quite sure how to anymore. He wasn’t sure if he could manage holding onto anything without breaking it, let alone something as precious to him as his younger brother. 

“I’m fucking glad you’re alive,” Duke whispered. “My suit has been doing some weird shit, and Damian was trying to fix it, but he’s just making it worse and I can’t get him to stop trying. He kept saying that ‘If Drake could manage to design it, it shouldn’t be that complicated’…that was two months ago. I’ve had to wear the prototype…just…please, like I know you just came back from the dead, but I’m trying to finish my project, my patience is running as thin as my will to live, and I am quite literally going to lose it if Damian takes it apart one more time, so fix it, please…”

Tim hated how even in the moment of reunion his head was drifting, pulled away by different winds, rough gales of reality and stomach flipping anxiety. What if…What if…What if…No matter how much he wanted to just…be…just exist for a moment in time and not feel ripped away by the past or the future. He wanted to be there, hugging his little (not-so-little) brother again. But his mind wouldn’t stop. 

He was there. But he was also in a motel room covered in blood a day ago. He was there. But he was also knelt at the feet of the Demon’s head in a possible future. He was there. But he was also tearing his brother apart ten seconds from where he sat in time. 

“I’m so sorry,” Tim laughed quietly, reaching over to grab at Conner’s fingertips. “No one deserves that. I’ll see what I can do, pending a clean bill of health from Dr. Thompkins.”

Conner hooked two fingers around Tim’s hand.

“I love you…so much.” Duke said, pulling away and patting Tim’s shoulder, noticeably gentler then he normally would have. “I am so, so fucking glad you’re not dead. Like…so fucking glad. And not just because you can finally fix all my shit again.” 

Tim smiled warmly. “But partially that.”

Duke snorted incredulously with a cheeky smile, stepping back. “You make me sound so shallow.”

“I would never mean to imply that.”

“I thought not. But for real,” His expression softened. “I missed you, dude. Don’t fucking do anything like that again.”

Tim shot two finger guns. “Wasn’t planning on it.”

Duke returned the finger guns. “Good.”

“Wait, you started fall semester didn’t you?” Tim’s brain managed to remember the little throwaway mention of projects. “How was that? Are you liking it? Please tell me you didn’t schedule any 8 AM classes-“

Duke turned the finger upward to shush him. 

“Hey, there’s a hold on questions. It goes both ways. You don’t get to know shit about my life experiences until we get this-“ Duke gestured vaguely to Tim’s whole person. “-figured out. Call it motivation.”

“I think I have enough motivation to fix ‘this’, but I appreciate it…I guess.”

Duke winked. “No problem. Happy to help.”

Steph was quick to tackle him once Duke was out of the line of fire, her arms locking around him like one of those snap on bracelets, if the bracelets were made of titanium and went tight enough to cut off blood flow. But Tim couldn’t feel the physical discomfort of her grip on him, the bruising hold she had. It still felt strange to be held. As it had with Duke, but Steph’s embrace was more familiar, something he’d been able to grow neutral too, just because she had been the first one to try it without ulterior motives attached back when they were both teenagers and the one who’d hugged him the most. It didn’t take as long for him to feel as though he was allowed to accept it, or to dismiss the invasive thoughts of his qualifications for such warmth and comfort. 

“Hey, Steph,” He said softly, carefully bringing his free hand up to rub her back because he knew that she was comforted by that sort of thing. “It’s good to see you, babe.”

“You are bigger,” Steph rested her head on his shoulder. “It’s weird. I’m used to hugging an uncooked noodle.”

“It’s weird for me too.”

She squeezed him a little tighter. “I missed you, dude.” 

“I missed you too,” Tim murmured. “That scar on your face, where-“

“Undercover work with one of the Two Face’s crews.” Steph said dismissively, with that cocksure smile she always had, like she had invariable proof that she was right on the money every time. “Don’t worry, you should see the other guy. Cass beat all their asses and we got the info to stop some weapons smuggling. Plus, I look pretty badass now. It can be a pain to cover up for civilian shit sometimes, but, hey, what can you do?”

“Sorry I wasn’t there.”

“Sorry I couldn’t get to you that night.”

They were both quiet for a moment. 

Tim closed his eyes, just breathing in the scent of Stephanie Brown for the first time in way too long. It smelled like her favorite perfume, a light floral scent that reminded Tim of a classy tea, and her staple lavender shampoo. Altogether it was a scent that was reassuring. Safe. Like the idea of home that is always talked about, the place where burdens feel lighter and the locks hold fast on the doors. He’d never had a place like that. But if it could be a person, he always felt unfettered with her, safe beyond what his reality happened to be. 

“I swear to god if Ra’s al Ghul even looks at you again, I’m taking his eyes.” Steph said finally. “Like, right out of his head. Just pluck ‘em out. Maybe use a spoon.”

“That is an image.”

“Don’t doubt me on this, Timothy Drake. I will not be fucked with when it comes to you.” 

“You’re like my scary guard dog then?”

“The scariest guard dog. I will make that immortal fucker piss himself before he ever lays a hand on you again.”

“Have I ever told you how terrifying you are lately?”

“Awww,” Steph cooed. “Thank you. I mean it though. The ‘no-killing’ thing leaves a lot of room for terror and I intend to terrorize that geriatric piece of shit to the fullest.”

“I appreciate it, Steph.”

She let go, stepping back and looking him over carefully, her hands still holding his shoulders. “You should. I’ve had to go without you for ten months, which was very rude of you, to be honest.”

“It was rude. I apologize.”

“Good.”

Any other apologies were cut short by Bruce finally exiting the ship, following Jason down the ramp into the Cave. Tim looked over his shoulder, accidentally making eye contact with Jason, whose gaze was red rimmed under stiff brows. He felt Conner’s fingers tighten around his own slightly. 

“You okay?” Conner asked under his breath. 

“Fine.” Tim replied like a liar. 

He could only pray his advice for Bruce to talk to Jason hadn’t backfired so spectacularly, but given his last ten months, he couldn’t really rely on his good intentions or the good will of the closest deity taking calls. 

Steph looked between them briefly, her brows furrowed before she backed away a little further. “What’s going on? I heard Artemis is on stasis, that’s good- relative to the shitstorm we’re weathering- why does Jay look so fucked?”

“I’m not sure.” Tim murmured, watching Jason cross the floor of the Cave and disappear into the shower room. 

Bruce stopped at the computer, immediately sitting down and throwing himself into work again. It was uncomfortable to see the evidence of just how similar Bruce was to Tim. He knew it…he’d grappled with it for years, the disconcerting feeling of not remembering who he had been before Bruce and the capes. But seeing it with that understanding, seeing just how much Tim had become like Bruce Wayne was uncomfortable to say the least. 

The distancing. The distracting. The avoidance. The burying.

“Everyone suit up, we’ve got a lot of ground to cover tonight. Patrol as usual, but we’re looking for the Joker, which is the priority. If he’s found, don’t approach alone, call me.” Bruce said, his tone more clipped than usual. “I expect everyone out of here in ten. Your reunion with your brother will have to wait until after patrol is finished. Oracle is running point on the outbreak response, Agent A will be running comms and coordinating as necessary. Understood?”

There was a chorus of ‘Yes, sir’s from the lineup of Tim’s siblings. They all glanced at Tim regretfully, as they all broke out of the trance that his return had cast across the family, and started toward their separate corners to mask up for the coming night.

“I think Dr. Thompkins is waiting upstairs,” Steph said to Conner. “Help him up there would you? I’m going to check on Jay.”

Conner nodded. “Okay.”

“Thanks, Steph.” 

“Hmm.” She hummed in response, working her bottom lip between her teeth. “Be careful with him, Baby Boy Scout, or your ass is mine, got it? Keep him from doing stupid shit. Make sure he doesn’t break himself. I’m very biased and I don’t care, so if this slightly less skinny little shit gets hurt I will blame you and make your life miserable until kingdom come.” 

Steph smiled saccharinely. “Got it?”

“You’d be lucky to have my ass, Twilight Sparkle. But that aside, I have some questions,” Conner raised his brows. “Like, how long is this lasting? Like for today? Or until next week?“

“Good question. I don’t know. Until I say.”

“And how do you quantify ‘hurt’? Like if he stubs his toe am I on the line, or is it more like grievous bodily harm?”

“Also up to me to decide.”

“Cool. That sounds perfectly reasonable.” Conner said with an amused snort. “And not at all rigged against me. Pleasure doing business with you.”

“Don’t fuck up, Kent.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it, ma’am.” Conner winked, laying on that Kansas charm and drawl thick. 

Tim rolled his eyes. “Kill me again, please.”

“I can’t do that, Timothy, sorry.” Conner ran his tongue over his teeth, smirking, clearly very pleased with himself. “The lady said ‘no’ and I am a gentleman, with manners, and I gave my word, so I can’t walk that back now, can I? Ma always says to be extra courteous and to always help a lady out if she needs it.”

“Hear that, Tim? I’m a ‘lady’.” Steph grinned. 

“Indeed,” Tim shook his head, a small smile forming despite his best efforts. “Who am I to argue with such sound logic from the both of you? My notoriously logical friends.” 

“Exactly. You truly are the brains of this family.” Steph said fondly, ruffling his hair. 

He let her do it, not even pretending to try and bat her hand away. Instead he just suppressed the warm smile on his face, “Alright, alright, m’lady. I look like enough of a mess as it is without your help.”

“Just completing the look.” She said smugly, adding an extra ruffle for good measure. “Okay…now I’m finished. Go see the doctor, bird boy.”

“Ay, ay, captain.”

“I’ve already threatened you once, Baby Boy Scout, don’t make me follow through.” Steph turned on Conner, putting a hand on his shoulder and patting it heavily before walking past him toward where Jason had disappeared into the shower room. 

“Sooo…” Conner said looking down at him. “Do you want to be carried piggy-back or bridal? The choice is yours, but I want to get upstairs sometime today…”

Tim closed his eyes, taking a long deep breath. “I’m not going to dignify that with a response.”

Conner made a face. “Your dignity has been out of the conversation for so long it’s been considered dead in absentia. But I’m offering you a choice, or I’m making an executive decision.”

“When exactly did my dignity leave the conversation, Conner Kent?”

“I honestly can’t remember when you did have any dignity. But that doesn’t matter because your time is up, and I get to choose.”

“You didn’t give me a time requirement-“ Tim spluttered as Conner scooped him up into a bridal carry, letting the crutches fall onto the floor. 

The noise got the attention of the other Bats who had started to go about their work to get ready for that night’s patrol. Dick stopped in the middle of testing his eskrima sticks, looking over his shoulder at them, he smirked, winking at Tim knowingly, as if he knew something that Tim didn’t. 

Tim’s face turned hot. 

“Put me down.” He hissed. “Now, Kon, or I swear to God I will find a way to break your nose.”

Conner tutted, ignoring his demand and heading toward the lift. “Such violence, I thought you loved me. I thought you were my best friend.”

“I can walk just fine, you don’t have to carry me.”

“Oh, but I want to now because this is incredibly entertaining for me.” Conner said pleasantly. “Also, we can consider it pay back for the whole ‘kidnapping me and poisoning me with Kryptonite’ debacle this morning.”

Tim frowned. 

That didn’t seem right. 

“That was this morning?”

“Yup. Believe me, I would remember. And I do…quite vividly.”

If that was this morning then…

“That means I’ve went Pit Mad about five-ish times in twenty-four hours.” Tim muttered, forgetting his earlier discontent as that information fully set in. “Those can’t be good stats.”

Conner whistled, hitting the elevator button with his elbow. “It’s impressive if nothing else. A little terrifying, but I already have a healthy fear of you, so I’m pretty much built up a tolerance to your scariness.”

“That’s good,” Tim tugged at his fingernail with his teeth as they stepped into the lift out of the Cave. “Considering you’re the only one sans Bizarro that is operational enough to incapacitate me should I go for an even half dozen.”

He said that last part without even trying to sweeten the bitterness on his tongue. There was really no point any longer. 

Their whole vigilante justice was based around being comfortable with a rather high level of uncertainty. But Bruce could always be counted on to have a solution in his files that would give them some solid ground to stand on. But Tim was a liability now in a family who’s sole mission in life was to either neutralize liabilities or plan to a near neurotic degree for even possible liabilities. This wasn’t in the plan. Bruce didn’t have a plan for this. And Tim knew it. Jason knew it. They all knew it. And not having a plan, Batman not having a plan, well, that put everyone in a state of uncertainty that even a team of vigilantes wasn’t comfortable with. 

Tim didn’t have to see it or hear it to know that it was there, that he was bringing this lack of stability into their already unsound lives. He could feel the tension even though no one would say it…least of all in front of him. How nervous it made them. 

He hated that he was the cause. The problem. That thing that needed to be solved. 

That he had come back from the dead and started bulldozing right through their lives. 

Lives that had gone on without him. New implants. New scars. Growth. Hair and muscles and height. They didn’t stop for the dead. 

Shit. 

No, he wasn’t…he wasn’t going to go there. He couldn’t go there. He couldn’t go up and touch that vulnerable and sensitive beast that cowered injured in the corner of his mind. 

It was what people did when someone died, they moved on. Forward. Life went on. 

Unless you were Timothy Drake. Then you searched to the ends of the earth, allied with a Demon, and got kicked out of a building. Or alternatively nearly went insane trying to clone your best friends close to a hundred times.

Or unless you were Jason Todd…then you tried to dunk your dying brother in a primordial resurrection pool. 

Maybe living past loss is just what more emotionally healthy people do…and we all know that you don’t meet that standard. 

Jason probably didn’t either. 

At least misery has some company. He thought scathingly. 

The elevator doors closed. The machinery whirred and the elevator lurched a little before dragging them steadily upward toward the manor. 

Tim’s thoughts turned toward Jason and his expression as he departed the ship. And Tim knew Jason didn’t show his emotions that openly in front of anyone, especially not the younger kids. He may pretend like he didn’t care about it, or it was a bit, a funny running gag, but he took his role as an older brother more seriously than he would ever let on. And he wouldn’t ever let the kids see him get scared or sad or panicked. So, the fact that he was showing it so openly meant he probably physically couldn’t hide it or play it off, which was worrying to say the very least. 

While Tim had encouraged the increase in emotive behaviors, generally in the speaking and putting words to feelings sense, from his family, he didn’t like the implications of that expression he’d seen on Jason. 

“Kon?”

“Yeah?”

“I asked something of Jason.” He started carefully. 

“I wasn’t listening in on you, if that’s what you’re wondering.”

“No, I’m not. I just-“ Tim stuttered to a stop. “I think it might’ve been too much. But he’s the only one I really think can do this particular thing.”

“What are you trying to ask?”

“When…” He inhaled. “If it comes to that, and Jason has to follow through with the request. Don’t try to stop him. You’ll want to, but…you can’t.”

“You sound like you’ve asked Jason to commit murder or something.” Conner said, clearly trying to lighten the mood a little. “You haven’t have you?”

“It’s only an emergency measure.”

“Tim-”

“If I get bad and he can’t k- take my life, I need you to help him or I need you to do it. But if I get too dangerous-“

“This isn’t a discussion we’re having, Tim. I’m not going to kill you.”

“Even if it would save the world? Even if I were to kill or hurt everyone you cared about? Everyone I cared about? Would you subject me to that?”

“Yes? No? I don’t know…I…shit, Tim.” Conner groaned. “You can’t ask that of me. I can’t…”

“I need your word, Kon, please.”

“Tim-“ Conner stopped himself; Tim could feel the traitorous thump of Conner’s heart, that shaking breath, against his side. “You’re asking me to either kill you…or stand aside and watch you die, again. You can’t…it’s not fair to ask that of me…”

“I know…”

“You know, but you’ll still ask me…” Conner huffed mirthlessly. “That’s…that’s pretty fucked up, even for you, Tim.”

“I wouldn’t ask if I had anyone else I could trust to carry it out-“

“No, it’s not fair, and you don’t get it! You don’t-“ Conner’s hands tightened around Tim slightly, not enough to hurt him, never enough to hurt him. His hands always seemed to treat Tim as though he were some delicate thing of historical significance that might crumble under anything other than the lightest touch, even if Tim knew it was just his friend being exceedingly careful with his super strength. “I watched you die. I saw you hit the ground. And I saw the blood and the bones as they broke against the pavement. Up close. I was right there. I could hear your body break, every snap of bone, with more clarity than anyone else. And I was too late to stop it, but I see it every time I even try to sleep. My nightmares are just me watching you fall and I can’t move, or if I can, I’m not…I’m not fast enough to get to you. So you don’t get to act like you know, Timothy Drake. You don’t.” 

The elevator came to a stop and the door opened into the grandfather clock entry to Wayne Manor. 

“I just don’t want to hurt anyone else…” Tim whispered, and if Kon weren’t superhuman perhaps it would’ve been too soft for him to hear. 

Kon pretended to be human. He didn’t respond. 

Tim pretended he wasn’t human. He ignored the pain in his chest. 

“Ah, if it isn’t the man of the hour,” A voice called from the first floor study, accompanied moments later by the bespectacled and generally welcome face of Dr. Leslie Thompkins. “Looking worse for wear, but better than I was expecting all things considered.” 

She was dressed in her usual attire from her work at the clinic, her laminated name badge still hanging from the pocket of her pristine, pressed lab coat. “You are supposed to be dead, kiddo. What’s up with that?”

Tim smiled wearily. “Spooky magic shit.”

“I thought that might be it.” Leslie nodded knowingly, taking a look over Conner for a moment. “Well, I’m set up in the study, He-Man, set that bundle of joy onto the sofa if you would.”

The study was hardly used anymore, hadn’t been since Bruce had been confined to the ground floor after his incident with Bane. Now it was mainly just a room for show, ceiling high bookshelves with family photos and knickknacks from Bruce’s spelunking across the world, something that a guest could walk into when being shown around the house and think they were being shown something of personal value. It looked used, a book laying open with the page marked on the coffee table as though having only just been set aside to greet the company, but everyone who resided long term in the manor would know that the invisible reader never got past page eighty-four in the last seven years. Only Alfred’s meticulous dusting schedule kept the space from looking as unused as it was. 

“Leslie, this is Conner,” Tim said as he was carried past her into the study and deposited onto the overstuffed couch. “Conner, this is our indispensable, Dr. Leslie Thompkins, she keeps us stitched up and in fighting shape.”

“Though not without a lot of effort to the contrary on their parts.” Leslie chided from the doorway. 

“I don’t doubt that at all. It’s nice to finally meet you, Doctor.” Conner says warmly, sticking out the arm, now unfettered by Tim’s body, in a show of his trademark Southern charm. “It’s about time I met the person that keeps my favorite family in commission. The world owes you a couple dozen medals by now, I’d reckon.”

“I’d say this family owes me a lot more than some medals, but even then I might be underestimating my contributions.” Leslie laughed dryly, sidling up the the armchair that was beside the couch and sitting down, pulling a small notebook and a pen from her coat pocket. “So, kiddo, what should I know about?”

There was probably more wrong with him than right at the moment, but he supposed he should limit to the most pressing matters. Though, he doubted that he really wanted to expound on those either. Most of his issues were rather…fresh. But if he didn’t mention something at the very least, Leslie would likely report his lack of cooperation to the Bat and the Butler, and Tim would be benched anyway, regardless of what his actual injuries entailed. 

Well, shit. 

“Um, are we wanting it chronological, alphabetical, or-“

“In order of severity would be helpful.”

Tim nodded, his attempt at a humorous detour stopped at its inception. It had been worth a try. 

“Of course,” He said mildly, wetting his lips, keenly aware of Conner keeping vigil at the door. “Um…I suppose the violent dissociative episodes would be the most pressing issue at present."

“Tell me about these episodes, what characterizes them?” Leslie asked, her tone as ever even and professional as always. 

“They usually follow an emotional high,” Tim started. “Sometimes they involve a flashback to my time with the League, but not always. They’re generally preceded by distorted vision-“

“Distorted how?”

“Green.” He said succinctly. “A green haze. Sometimes I don’t even notice it until after. Might be part of the whole ‘spooky, magic shit’ we were discussing earlier.”

Leslie jotted down something onto the page. “I’ll keep that in mind. But in the meantime, go on.”

It almost felt relaxing to just step back and look at everything with a clinical eye, to not be so emotionally entrenched in it for once. He could pull away and diagnose someone else, read off symptoms with equal enthusiasm to reading from an instruction manual. Emotional distance. He was good at that. That was the Batman method after all. Don’t get too involved, even when it’s you. Especially when it’s you. Which was great advice for a vigilante, poor advice for an impressionable child. 

“Um…okay, vision, flashbacks…” He listed, gnawing at the inside of his cheek. “The dissociation always leads to some level of violence. Usually murder, but not always. I’m not usually cognizant of what happened during a dissociative episode. Only once I was generally aware, but it was…it was like I was passively watching it.”

Leslie nodded. “Okay.”

“Then it’s sociopath Tim.” He raised his brows with a humorless scoff. “I just don’t care…about anything. Like I’m completely satisfied…but once it’s over I deal with withdrawal-like symptoms. I’m nauseous, shaky, unfocused, anxious, cold sweats, some vomiting. Jason described it like processing your emotions at two hundred percent.” 

Tim shook his head.

“And not always…the uncaring, lack of emotion thing…there were some times where I came back without that, straight into the withdrawal.”

The motel. The trailer. The man on the road. The bar. The assassin. 

In two instances the trigger phrase had been used. The one Tim heard in his head woven through his scattered memories like a bloodied thread. 

My will is your will. You will become my own Beloved death.

But both times had been different. Tim felt overwhelming distress after the incident at the bar. But not when he’d taken out the man on the road.

The motel, the crash, and killing the League assassin, those had been the times he’d returned without empathy. Without guilt. 

But when he’d accidentally attacked Artemis, or when he’d slain the victims at the bar, he had come to almost more hyper-anxious and skittish than the phases after the other killings. 

The only difference between them really was that Tim didn’t truly care that the assassins at the motel, or the man in the road, to the League asset that he’d torn apart were dead. He did feel a persistent clench of guilt over Artemis, and that agony over the people at the bar only really left after he’d killed the assassin, and only then really because of the relief the kill had given him from the Pit’s ever present howling.

The difference was that he’d wanted some of them dead, and others not. 

It angers me that he would force you to be something and act in ways so at odds with who you are.

Who he was…

“I’ve also had what I believe are flashbacks, but they might just be PTSD nightmares from my time in the League whenever I sleep.”

“So, I take it you haven’t been sleeping lately.” Leslie’s brows narrowed slightly, a crinkle of concern barely visible between them. 

“No more than maybe forty some odd minutes non-consecutively. And not for twenty-four-ish hours, which isn’t my worst record by far, but…” Tim admitted. 

“Its probably not making your triggers from stress and emotional highs any better.” Leslie mused aloud. “So, you probably know I’m going to ask you to get some sleep. But I am not a completely unreasonable person, so I’ll give you something to hopefully both get you to sleep and minimize the nightmares. How does that sound?”

“Fine, I guess, but there’s a lot of work that needs to be done and I should help. It’s my mess and I-“

“Nope, no, we’re not doing that,” Leslie cut him off mid-sentence with a tone clear that she wasn’t going to hear arguments. Tim’s mouth snapped shut. “You are sleep deprived and you will be less help the longer you stay awake. I’m prescribing you nine hours at the very least.”

“Nine?”

“I’m trying to be fair, I honestly believe that you need twelve, you’re clearly exhausted.” She said sternly. “Don’t push me. I care about you, but I will sedate you if need be, kiddo.”

Tim bit back an argument. It was no use. He knew he had no ground to stand on in this particular argument. Which was annoying. 

“Where’s this magic drug then, Doc?”

“I’ll get it to you within the hour,” Leslie said standing up, proceeding to snap her fingers at Conner. “Brunette He-Man, transport this one to his room, and make sure he’s there and laying down until I get back. Timothy, I’m informing your father about the prescription, so he will know that you are to remain in bed.”

“Leslie-“ He started to

“Doctor.” She chided, looking over the top of her glasses. “Go to bed, Tim, you’ve had too much excitement in the last couple days. Let your friends and family take care of you.”

But I’m not the one that gets taken care of. He wanted to snap back, but he held his tongue. I’m the one that carves myself into a crutch to support them. 

Nobody took care of him. He didn’t need to be taken care of. He didn’t need to waste people’s time when they could be doing something else. Saving the world. Cracking a case. Going to a business meeting in Shanghai. 

He didn’t need to burden them with more than he already had.

They shouldn’t have to waste their time splitting duties between watching him and tracking down a killer clown and an immortal assassin cult leader. If they had to choose, Tim would rather they clean up his mess rather than clean him up. At least then the mess would be cleaned up faster and he could sulk in his shame unobserved, slink off quietly when he was able to. 

Like he’d confessed to Bruce earlier that day, he needed their help with the situation. That was a fact. An unfortunate one, and one he didn’t particularly like, but it was a fact nonetheless. But the factuality of that didn’t mean he was going to take any more help from them than was absolutely necessary. 

“I can walk on my own.” Tim said grudgingly rising from the couch, stubbornly ignoring his swimming vision. 

“No you don’t,” Conner said, an invisible hand already grabbing onto Tim’s collar like a mother cat would scruff a disobedient kitten. 

Leslie looked between the two of them for a moment, humming slightly. “It looks like you’re handling this well on your own, He-Man. I’ll be back shortly.”

With that, Dr. Leslie Thompkins swept briskly out of the study and out of sight.

Tim turned and glared at Conner pointedly for using TTK on him. “That’s cheating.” 

Conner raised a brow. “No, it’s keeping you from breaking more than just your brain, Robin.”

“That was low.”

“I could go lower, believe me.”

“That,” Tim huffed. “Would be an obscene violation.” 

“I’ve been praised for my obscene violations before now, so trust me when I say, sweetheart, that this is not that."

Tim’s face burned at the casually mocking ‘sweetheart’ said with such sticky sweetness that Conner might as well have been saying ‘bless your heart’ between the lines. 

“Your mind is a gutter, Kent.”

“Thank you.” Conner said pressing his tongue into his cheek and smirking. “Now, let’s get you to bed.”

The entire way to Tim’s room on the third floor, Conner, with gleeful sadism, carried him up the stairs with his TTK. So to the outside viewer, Tim’s disgruntled person was floating just above the ground, like a very pissed off corporeal spirit that was haunting the house with great chagrin, while a strangely delighted man followed after seemingly excited about this turn of events. Thankfully there were no witnesses, save the security cameras, which Tim knew he could wipe very easily, should his family have been too busy to make a hard copy for their own personal blackmail collection (something all of the children affiliated with Bruce Wayne did as a concerning hobby at one point or another). 

“I hate you.” Tim grumbled into his pillow as he was tossed unceremoniously into his bed. 

“C’mon now,” Conner said easily, rolling Tim onto his back again. “Don’t want you to suffocate in your pillow.”

“If you loved me you’d let me.”

Conner hummed mildly, stepping over to the window to pull open the curtains, letting the rich, golden tones of the setting sun into the dusty space. “I think we’ve long since established that if loving you means letting you go and get yourself killed, Tim, then I can’t possibly love you. I like you too much for that and I’m a selfish piece of shit.” 

“Well, can this selfish piece of shit possibly get me a glass of water, if he’s so intent on keeping me alive against my will?” Tim asked, voice dripping with sarcasm. 

“Only if you stay put and don’t try anything stupid.”

“Define stupid.”

“Stay put.” Conner said succinctly, eyeing him accusingly. “Or I swear to god I will lay on top of you to make you.”

“Promises, promises.” Tim yawned, shifting to get more comfortable, catching Conner’s vague tint of blush before he turned to leave the room. “Make sure to add extra ice!”

He slumped down in his bed, trying to cure the already creeping boredom and the adjoining  whirring of his mind by watching the shadows on his bedroom wall. The branches of the tree that brushed up alongside the house bumped against his window, waved to him on the wall. It was a familiar sight, from all his time on bed rest over the years, comforting in a way, the way it always remained the same, that he could come home and those branches would still wave to him, welcome him back. It meant a lot of things. But mainly those branches meant safety. The safest he’s ever felt was when he was in this house. Lonely, sure. But safe in a way Drake Manor had never felt for him. 

Tim pulled the covers up over his shoulders, hugging them to his chest. 

God damn he was so tired. So…so tired. 

And the bed was warm. Comfortable. Safe. 

It made it hard for him to justify staying awake to his body that desperately wanted to just finally go to sleep. 

He breathed in the scent of the laundry detergent Alfred always used. A crisp, clean, lightly floral smell. 

Another yawn came. 

His eyelids were heavy, lured toward sleep by the comfort of familiarity. 

‘Are you feeling comfortable, Detective?’

Tim’s eyes snapped open, flicking around the room for the source of that voice. It didn’t take long for him to see the inhumanly tall, skeletal figure leaned against his wall, deep set green eyes practically glowing poisonous in the dying light. 

‘Surprised to see me? Surely you didn’t think these feeble walls could hold you from me.’ Ra’s chuckled, striding forward, shadow casting over Tim’s bed. ‘It’s only been curtesy that I don’t enter this place. Respect for your mentor. But you are worth more than that to me, Timothy.’

It wasn’t real. This wasn’t…but it…it wasn’t a flashback. This was his room, in clear detail. 

Tim pushed himself up against the headboard, his limbs still heavy and slow to respond. ‘Get out.’

Ra’s chuckled, as if he was amused by the words of a young child. ‘I don’t think I will.’

‘You lost, Ra’s,’ Tim snarled. He couldn’t meet those eyes, so he stared instead at the streak of white in Ra’s hair. ’I’m not playing house with you any longer, so just take your delusions and leave me be.’ 

‘Now, Detective, why would I ever do that?” Ra’s was standing over him fully now, looming at his full height, a predatory smile pulling back his lips to show the sharp glint of his teeth. ‘Your family is incapacitated. I can take what I want from this house and they can do very little to stop me, unless they want to risk bleeding out. And we both know that they wouldn’t risk their lives for you the way you would them, isn’t that right?’

Those spindly fingers slipped under Tim’s chin, gripping him so that Tim had no option of looking away from the nightmare above him. 

‘Don’t touch me.’

That just seemed to further amuse Ra’s. ‘I hardly think you’re in a place to be making demands, Timothy.’

‘You have what you want.’ Tim said through his teeth. 'A new vessel. Leave what’s left of me to what’s left of the peace I can find.’ 

‘No, no, no, Timothy, you seem to be a little bit lost,’ Ra’s tutted, his thumb brushing across Tim’s lips in a mockery of affection. ‘The vessel was merely a…curtesy to you.’

‘A curtesy? Excuse me if I find that a little hard to believe.’

‘Believe what you’d like. But it was only so you wouldn’t have to transfer to a strange body once this one wears thin.’ Ra’s leaned down, his face hovering just an inch away from Tim’s. ‘It was a vessel for you. It is not alive. It was not grown to house any soul but yours. The child on the other hand…’

Tim felt his stomach drop. ’Child?’

No…she hadn’t been successful. He would have known. He checked. He’d monitored since long after it was possible. Unless…

‘The clone grown the old fashioned way, in a living womb. Much more time consuming, but the results are much more predictable.” Ra’s placed his knee over Tim’s hips, the mattress sinking under the new weight as he straddled Tim’s waist, above him like some kind of night hag. ‘I’ve longed to hand my empire off to a worthy successor, but in my centuries, all of my prospects have fallen short. Even you, the equal of my own mind. This child will be what you could not become. An heir. A perfect genetic combination of you and I that will grow up to build upon my work. They will be you and I, raised free from the pollutions that permanently cloud your mind from it’s full potential. They will become you as you should have been, my wretched grandson as he was meant to become.’ 

The grip on Tim’s chin became tighter, possessively bruising, pushing his head back painfully against he headboard and forcing it to the side so that his neck was fully exposed. Tim swallowed down a slight whimper of pain. 

‘And you will bear witness to it. At my side. Eternally. And you will watch as my heir, your heir, burns away every last vestige of what you hold dear. Until you have nothing left…but me. And after a couple decades you will watch as I empty that heir, our blood, of it’s soul and take up residence in that body as a new vessel.’

Ra’s lowered his face until the strands of hair prickled against Tim’s cheek and burning breath scorched the hinge of his jaw. ‘You…had so many chances to avoid this fate. But, even as I’d hoped you’d move past your stubborn will, that I might force you past it, you persisted. You just had to kill that whimpering wretch of a ‘brother’, take his life to gain freedom from yourself. I tried to help you, to open your mind to guide your hand, but you are no more than a relic of your wasted potential, valuable to me in it’s own way, but too imperfect for what I’d intended it used for. And I was forced to move past my plans for you…’

‘Well, keep moving, old man.’

‘You’ve lost some vigilance, dear Detective.’ The other hand trailed down his cheek. “You’ve become soft. Perhaps that is my fault…”

‘Get off of me.’ Tim said in his best approximation of authority. 

‘Is that fear I sense, Detective? Is this bringing back some fond memories for you?’ Ra’s asked in a cruelly sympathetic tone. ‘You already know I don’t need you like that anymore…’ 

Tim could feel his heart pounding out of his control. His breath refused to level and calm the way he’d been trained to make it behave. ’Get off.’

Ra’s’ eyes flashed dangerously. ’Beg for it.’

‘No.’

Instead of a snarl, Ra’s smile grew, his hand pulling away from Tim’s cheek to pull a knife from his robes. He pressed the tip of the knife to Tim’s ribs. ’That defiance…oh, how I’ve missed you, Detective. My own beloved Death .’

The knife plunged into Tim’s chest-

“Tim, you’re okay, you’re safe, you’re at the Manor.”

Tim’s vision was blindingly, painfully green. He couldn’t see anything else. 

He shoved the tangle of blankets off of him, tumbling to the floor as his legs still betrayed him. 

“Tim, you’re safe. You’re at the Manor. It was a nightmare. You’re safe.”

The words kept repeating, but they never felt any more true with each repetition. 

“He was here, he was here, he was-“ Tim heaved, his body short-circuiting on itself. 

Nothing came up.

“No, no he wasn’t. That was a nightmare. It wasn’t real.”

No. That wasn’t right. He’d seen it. He’d heard that voice. Felt that hand on his face, that weight overtop of him. That knife in his chest. 

His fingers scrabbled against his chest, feeling nothing but fabric. No blood. No gaping wound.

Nothing. 

But he could still feel the throbbing where it should have been. The pain from the nerve endings firing desperately. 

It had been real. As real as anything. Ra’s had been there. In his room. Not in those places he saw when his mind flashed back to his scattered and jagged past. 

“He was here. He was-“ Tim tried to breathe. He knew he sounded pathetic, hysterical, everything he was trained not to be. He needed to get control again. “I…felt it…”

“I believe you.”

Conner. The voice finally registered.

Tim dug his fingers into the thick rug that was at his bedside, an addition made necessary by all the tumbles a not quite fully healed Robin had taken onto the hardwood floor in years past. God, he was so much older, and yet he didn’t feel that far from that child he’d been. Only the ache of time that he carried in his bones, but he still hadn’t grown past the clumsiness of youth, the way he always kept making those mistakes. 

“He was on top of me.” He swallowed; it was painful. “I could feel the weight…it wasn’t a flashback or a memory…it was here. This room…I-“ Tim grappled out blindly into the overwhelming light for something to hold onto, something to ground him again. “I can’t see, Kon…please…”

He felt small again. Weak again. Like all the life he’d lived had done nothing for him, had not gained him any strength, any endurance, anything…it had been for nothing if he could still feel so utterly helpless, so incredibly pathetic.

Two arms wrapped around him, tightly, but not constrictively. 

“I’ve got you, Robin.” Conner murmured, pressing his face into Tim’s hair. “I’ve got you.”

The relief could almost drown out the overwhelming voice chiding him from his gut: He pities you. You should make him regret that. 

Let me have this comfort. 

When have you ever deserved that, Timothy?

Chapter Text

“Well, well, well, I thought you were in dire straits, but clearly not.” 

Tim blinked, the hazy light of a new day cast over his room, illuminating the figure leaned against his doorframe, still dressed in patrol gear. 

“Dami…” Tim groaned, pushing himself up onto his elbows.

Damian, clearly taking the singular word as invitation, stepped further into the room. “Had some fun while I was out scouring the city for the solution to your little problem?”

Tim frowned, rubbing at his eyes. “Fun?” 

He was in bed. He didn’t really remember getting in bed. Or much of anything after…waking up and promptly collapsing on the floor in a nightmare induced moment of hysteria. Clearly he’d been sleeping, and sleeping very well, better than average for him (a very low bar, but still), considering it was probably close to seven in the morning. 

“Am I just imagining the half-naked Kryptonian then?” Damian scoffed. “Or maybe fully naked. I, thankfully, am unable to tell.”

Tim’s ears burned red as he looked over to his right, desperately hoping for once that Damian was just being a little shit. It turned out Damian was being a little shit, but he was also telling the truth and Conner Kent was dead to the world sleeping soundly in Tim’s bed, hugging one of his pillows, completely separated from the shirt Tim had known him to be wearing when he’d had his little breakdown earlier.

“It’s not what it looks like.” Tim said abruptly, like every teen in a teen movie getting caught by their parents sneaking someone in ever, except for the difference that Tim knew what it looked like, but he had no idea what was going on. 

“Sure.” Damian said, picking up a familiar tee-shirt from the floor with two fingers and a disgusted expression. “You are a horrible liar, Drake.”

Tim sat up fully, pushing his legs over the side of the bed. “I am not lying. Nothing happened. And even if it did, I don’t have to justify it to you of all people.”

Damian raised a judgmental brow. “Okay?”

If he had been insufferable as a child, Damian Wayne was even more so as a teenager. His voice was utterly grating. 

Tim glared at him, setting his jaw. He’s back not even a single day, and Damian’s already pushing Tim’s very limited control of the primordial madness that resided in him at the moment. He honestly should have seen that coming. The grey light was quickly turning into a sickly pale green. 

Damian frowned noticeably. 

“Oi, Kent.” Tim snapped, reaching across the bed and shoving Conner’s shoulder a little, trying not to think about the fact that it was bare skin. 

He’d seen Conner shirtless and even entirely naked enough times in changing rooms and just existing in close proximity for nearly seven years. Hell, Conner would walk around Titan’s Tower butt-ass naked if he thought he could get away with it, scarring several members of the Justice League that had come for a visit on one memorable occasion, which put the ‘no nudity’ rule into written law afterwards. All that to say, Tim shouldn’t be thinking about it too much. But he was, for some stupid reason that he couldn’t comprehend. 

It was just skin. 

But it wasn’t just that it was skin. 

“What?” Conner mumbled, looking over his shoulder with sleep still in his eyes, mussed up curls falling into his face. “You okay?”

“Yeah, fine,” Tim said. “Tell Damian that his mind is in the gutter and we didn’t do anything together.”

“Your mind is in the gutter, Dams,” Conner said groggily. “Nothing like that happened. Unless you truly think so little of me that you believe I would have sex with anyone while they were in emotional distress. In which case, I’m hurt you would have such a-“ He yawned. “Low opinion of me.”

“See? Now, get out of my room.”

“Fine, Drake,” Damian said with a haughty breath, the frown still etched into his features. “I was just coming to inform you that Richard is barely suppressing his urges to smother you and will likely be coming to bombard you with affection and questions in a short while. It would probably be best if this set up changed.” He looked between them with an expression of mild disgust. “He would likely care a lot more about it than I do.”

Tim waved him off, now thoroughly irritated, the peace and relaxation that sleep had provided now vanished. “Cool, awesome, leave please.” 

“Fine.” Damian said, stalking toward the door again. “I’m glad you’re alive, or whatever. Please be wearing a shirt when you leave, Kent.” 

He tossed the shirt across the room to Conner, who caught it with one hand without getting up. 

“Thanks, Dams, I’ll keep it in mind.”

“It’s Damian.” He said curtly and shut the door. 

Conner rolled over onto his side to face Tim, his eyes still half-lidded with sleep. “Sleep well?”

Tim exhaled, scrubbing his face roughly before pulling himself all the way out of bed and stalking toward the adjoined bathroom. “I slept fine.”

Looking in the mirror above the vanity, Tim could tell he looked even more rough than he had in the motel room what felt like ages ago. He pulled back the collar of his shirt. The fading scars of his knife wounds probably weren’t helping him get an overall healthy glow. Noticeably changed was a lock of hair on the side of his face, now a sickly green-ish, black tint covering a strike of white in his otherwise dark hair. Another side-effect of the Pit, he’d reckon. Now he was twinning with Jason even more. His younger self might’ve been thrilled, but he couldn’t find anything but a roll of his stomach at the stark reminder of his time with the Demon’s Head. 

He rolled his shoulders back, they didn’t hurt as much as they should’ve for a wound so fresh. 

Monsters are notoriously hard to kill. 

Tim braced his hands against the counter, staring instead at the bowl of the sink. He could still see the long strands as they fell aside his face into his peripheral. 

“Nothing did happen, right, Kon?” He asked, his voice a little more ragged than before. 

A pair of scissors sat on the counter in his line of sight. He’d used this bathroom many times to give himself a trim up rather than going out to the barber. Alfred would always make some fleeting comment about cleaning up more hair from him than from Damian’s menagerie combined. But he’d always be sure to tell Tim that he’d done well with the cut. 

“No,” Conner said from the bedroom, the sound of covers shifting in unison with his voice. “It was the only way I could convince you to try and go back to sleep after Dr. Thompkins came by with the meds. I was just there to protect you from monsters. Nothing else happened. Promise.” A pause and a groan. “And I just sleep better in less clothing, you know that.”

“Yeah…right.” Tim murmured. 

He gnawed at his lip, pushing his hair back only for it to fall into view again.

“You wanna talk about last night?” 

“We didn’t sleep together or anything, aside from just sharing a bed, so what’s there to talk about?” 

Conner exhaled softly. “You were convinced Ra’s had been there, that he’d been on top of you and that he stabbed you. Do you really think there’s nothing to unpack there?”

“It was just another fucking dream in a series of them.” Tim replied, pulling the drawers of the bathroom counter open in search of some bobby pins, an elastic, or one of Steph’s stray claw clips. “It’s fine…”

“If you’re sure…”

“I am. You should…you should probably go out the window if Dick’s really coming up…”

“Dick’s not a Puritan, Tim,” Conner huffed dryly. “I doubt he’ll have a problem with me just…sleeping in the same bed, or being in the same room. He’s known me for years…”

“I know, but…” Tim exhaled, a throbbing pain starting up behind his eyes. “He’ll want to talk and-”

“I can go.”

Tim looked up again, Conner was closer, leaned against the doorframe, now fully clothed again. Those blue eyes fixed on him once more, unreasonably soft. More gentle than Tim would ever think of deserving. 

“You…um…”

Conner raised a brow. “I…?”

“Thank you,” Tim decided, pulling his eyes away again. “For all your help so far. For last night.”

“Of course. What else are friends for?”

Friends. The word stuck in Tim’s mind for a moment, 

“I wish I could be a less…abrasive, more cooperative patient, but-”

“It’s fine. That’s what I signed up for.”

“I doubt you knew you were signing up for all of this when you decided to be my…” He swallowed. The Pit was clearly messing with his brain more than he’d originally thought. “My friend.”

“For better or for worse.”

“I’m pretty sure those are marriage vows.”

Conner hummed. “Same difference, right?”

Right…

“You should probably take me to court for all this…for it not being clear about it in the contract.” Tim huffed. “Could probably make bank.”

“Nah, I think I’m fine.” Conner sighed. “Though the thought of relieving your account of a couple million you won’t miss is intriguing.”

Tim snorted, his eyes lingering on the pair of scissors on the counter. 

“I’d better go then, I can hear some footsteps coming.” Conner reached out into Tim’s line of sight, pausing for a moment before patting him on the shoulder. “I’ll go see if Alfred can’t help me scrounge up some breakfast for us while I’m out. Unless…maybe you want me to get you something else. Some snacks. Make a grocery run?”

The corners of Tim’s lips tugged upwards slightly. “There’s an envelope on the top drawer of the dresser, grab some cash and get me a coffee, yeah?”

“Do you really think I don’t have the funds for coffee?” Conner said, feigning hurt from across the room where he was already heading for the dresser. 

“In Gotham?” Tim asked amusedly. “No. I don’t. And, besides that, I know for a fact you don’t carry cash on you. Or much of anything because you designed your costume to be a second skin.”

“Its a favor to the world, Timothy.”

“Sure.” Tim rolled his eyes. “You remember my order?”

There was a clicking sound as the window was unlatched. “I have it saved in my phone, that I do in fact carry on me, contrary to popular-”

A knock on the door snapped both of their heads toward the sound. 

Shit. 

“Hey, Tim?”

It was Dick. 

“Dami said you were up so I wanted to see you.”

That little fucker. 

“Naked. Give me a second.” He called back quicky, leaving the bathroom and shooing Conner out the window with his hand like one might do with a roosting pigeon. Once Conner was clear, Tim pulled the window closed and pulled his shirt partially off so as to soundproof the lie he’d just told. “Alright, I’m good. Come in!”

Tim was putting his arm back into the sleeve of his shirt when Dick finally walked in. 

Dick was out of uniform and in his civilian attire of the carefree persona of Richard Grayson. His hair was freshly dampened by the shower, which meant that patrol had definitely gone longer than usual if he was only recently cleaning up. It was clear that Dick was tired, his eyes were darkened by circles in a way that was usually lightened by his general demeanor, and, while he was shaved for the morning, he’d nicked a spot on his jaw, something the careful hand of a rested Dick Grayson wasn’t likely to do. 

All that together…Tim wasn’t feeling optimistic that Dick would be delivering the news that, not only did they find the Joker, but they knew how to fix Tim, and the solution was copious amounts of coffee. Such an ideal reality was not one that favored Timothy Drake. He had the blood of Jack Drake in him, and that blood wasn’t really all that popular with the Lady Luck (see: Drake, Janet (deceased), Winters, Dana (institutionalized), Drake, Jack (deceased), and Drake-Wayne, Timothy (royally fucked)). Anyone near him was prone to suffer for it alongside him (see also: Brown, Stephanie (formerly deceased), Kent, Conner (formerly deceased), Wayne, Bruce (formerly assumed deceased/lost in time)), and from the looks of Dick Grayson that morning, the suffering was already under way. 

“Good morning.” Tim said, though he wasn’t really sure the ‘good’ part was all that accurate. 

“Morning.” Dick replied. 

That was a much more accurate greeting. 

“You wanted to see me?” Tim asked, moving back toward the bathroom, not really even sure what he was going to do there…brush his teeth? 

That’s what people did in the morning. Normal people. 

He grabbed his toothbrush, he’d only used it the one time before it sat on his counter for ten months, when he’d stayed the day at the Manor before that stakeout to work on some Batman related things with a case Bruce had been stewing over. Normally he would go back to his own place to clean up before patrol, but when the hours ticked by, it had just become easier to stay there. Alfred had found him a toothbrush and toothpaste to use. He’d brushed his teeth before going down to meet Steph in the Cave to go over their game-plan.

‘Did you buy snacks?’ Steph had asked. 

‘I did. Your cheese puffs, milady. And your Monster Energy.”

‘They should get me to sponsor this shit.’

‘Conflict of interest, superheroes don’t take sponsorships,’ Tim had replied, checking his grappling gun for the third time. Operational. ‘Or I would have gotten a deal from somewhere for all the coffee I drink.’

The memory came unbidden. It had been a routine stakeout. A stakeout, not an infiltration. Just watching the club for the shipment drop-off. It hadn’t been supposed to go so very wrong…

He’d so easily forgotten his place with Lady Luck. 

“You look a little bit better,” Dick said, sidling up to the doorway of the bathroom. “At least, you’re getting around better.”

Tim shrugged, robotically reaching for the toothpaste, flipping up the lever on the faucet to start it running. “Yeah, the, um, numbing agent I got in my system wore off.” 

“Never fun.”

“Paralyzed from the neck down,” Tim snorted. “Yeah, not fun.”

“Well, I’m glad you’re better, relatively speaking,” Dick said, before adding softly “And I’m glad you’re home.”

Tim started brushing his teeth, maybe to avoid the conversation laced with deadly sincerity that he wasn’t all that ready to face just yet. 

“I missed you, Tim.”

There it was…

Steph had said it. Duke had said it too. But somehow it felt different coming from Richard Grayson. 

It was hard to hear sincerity from Dick. Maybe Tim still wasn’t over being fired from Robin in favor of a then murderous spawn. Perhaps it was that knowledge that when he’d gone to Dick about his theory, he’d trusted his brother would at least hear him out, only to have that assumption shattered on impact. Or that he’d thought Dick, of all people, would’ve known better than to send an emotionally distressed, seventeen year old out alone. 

He’d trust Dick to patch him up, to have his back in a fight, but he still couldn’t bring himself to trust his heart to his eldest brother. And even though they were on better terms, Tim had never felt the same safety he knew others did with Dick when it came to emotional wounds. 

That was the part of it that ate at him the most. Knowing how loved Dick could make people feel, but not being able to trust that he could accept it for himself without fear that this might be the time it gets broken. 

“I know we aren’t as close as we used to be and I…” Dick sighed. “I know I have a good share of the blame in that. But I never stopped loving you, Tim. You’re my little brother and I mourned losing you like I mourned losing Jason or Steph…Bruce. Distance doesn’t make that loss any easier to bare, it just gives you a shit ton of regret with nowhere to put it.” 

Tim knew he was nearing the time it would take to finish brushing his teeth, his mouth felt gross and foamy. 

He spat out the toothpaste, immediately cupping some water into his mouth to swish out the residue. 

His hair tickled his cheeks again. 

“All that to say, I need you to know that I love you, Tim. I love you. And it’s not from pity or shame or because you died, or anything else, it’s because you’re my little brother, same as Jay and Duke and Damian. And I just do…” Dick finished quietly. “I missed you…”

Tim spat out the water, unable to reply with anything more than a shaky breath at first. 

“Is Aunt Diana here yet?”

“She arrived while I was out on patrol,” Dick replied, clearly a little crestfallen at the non-response, but hiding it as well as he could. “She and B were conferencing with Les when I came in. I didn’t stay to talk or listen.”

“She’s supposed to help with Artemis,” Tim murmured. “I was hoping maybe they’d…I don’t know. Jason is he…?”

Alright? Safe? Running rage-bent across the city? Drowned in the shower? 

He wasn’t sure what to ask, giving it to Dick to fill in the question and answer. 

“I haven’t seen him,” Dick said, his voice lowered. “And he hasn’t answered any calls, but that doesn’t really mean anything…he doesn’t answer my calls normally anyway.”

Tim nodded.

His eyes caught on the scissors once more. 

“Do you remember that time that I went undercover at a club a couple years ago? It was with the big trafficking ring bust we were working on with Jay, the one we couldn’t bring Damian or Duke on?”

“Yeah,” Dick said hesitantly. “I remember it.”

“I went in as a struggling uni student, a woman working to pay off loans. Steph and I went to go recover information. Cass was in Hong Kong and I was the only one that could pass as a woman. The guy we were casing took a fancy to my character.” Tim explained "It was nothing I hadn’t expected, he didn’t get anywhere that was too alarming, but the guy was fixated on the hair I had on…kept on playing with it, touching my neck, pushing it over my shoulder. I couldn’t stand it, and I couldn’t stand having anyone else wear it, so I…burned the wig. Just thinking about it touching my neck again was like letting that creep touch me again on purpose…like I was letting that interaction happen again.”

His hair had grown over ten months. It had been in the Pit. It had held the sweat and blood from kills he couldn’t even recall. It had grown and hands that he hadn’t known had washed it, brushed it, braided it out of his face before he went to take another life. It had a film over it, a filth, a build-up of the pain and trauma. It was heavy with memory he wasn’t able to recall, but it mocked him every time he felt it on his neck or in his face.

It made his insides itch with discomfort, trying to escape his skin every time he felt it or saw it in the mirror. 

He needed it off. Gone. Sooner rather than later. 

And, while Conner would probably not ask too many questions, something about asking him to do that felt wrong. He didn’t want Conner to touch his hair. Not while it was like this. Not while it still held onto all this…wrongness. 

But Dick could.

It was more like a patch job. He could trust Dick with a patch job, right? It would be more like hacking off a dying limb. It felt less intimate to have Dick do the job. More…distant. He could think about it less if Dick did it. 

“I need you to cut my hair.” He said into the silence before tacking on a lame, “Please”, to the end of it. “I need someone to cut it for me. I can’t…”

“Yeah, I can do that for you.” Dick seemed to hear that unspoken part again. He seemed to understand what Tim wasn’t saying, what that little anecdote had been for. It was nice to not have to explain it…he wasn’t sure he could… “Alf has some good clippers in his suite, the ones he uses for Dami and Bruce. I’m going to go grab them. Two minutes. I’ll be right back.”

Tim nodded again numbly.  

He slowly, stiltedly lowered himself to the floor, to the nice, blue plush bath mat Alf had picked out for him when Tim had first taken up residence more permanently in the former guest room. It was a little worn with tread and age, but still soft. He petted the fabric with his fingertips, hoping the sensation would distract from the feeling of ‘nope’ that was becoming overwhelming every time he thought about his hair or his skin, or the way his hair was touching his skin. 

But he was home, or at least, in a place that he’d called home at one point. 

It annoyed him that he was so utterly focused on this slight thing, on his hair of all the (many) issues he currently had. But he couldn’t get his brain to stop hitching on it. His brain always did that. At the height of a stressful issue Tim would have to stop and find that buzzing noise, or scour his house for that one particular coffee mug that he needed to have for some unknown reason. He’d once deep cleaned his fridge in the middle of a months long emotionally draining serial killing investigation because there was a weird smell and he couldn’t eat his food until he got rid of it, and Bruce wasn’t allowing him to go out until he ate something. This was just another thing…another buzzing sound. A trademark of his high stress events. 

The Pit made it worse, like it did with everything else. Amplifying. 

“I’m back.” Dick announced before he was too close. He was making his footfalls purposefully audible; they both knew he could be silent should he choose. 

Tim startled anyway. His hands were shaking when Dick was across the room. It wasn’t fear from being startled…well, not all fear. Maybe they’d been shaking before then, but he hadn’t noticed. It was that hitch in his brain. His hands wanting to get the hair off by any means, even if it meant ripping it out. They shook with rage and desperation when he refused them.  

“Alright, let’s get that hair off of you, yeah?” Dick said slowly as he appeared in the doorway, like coaxing a small child out of danger without alerting them to it. 

So, he looked as bad as he felt, good. Great. A new fucking day, same fucking problems. 

“I’m going to get behind you, okay?”

Tim nodded. 

“Can you say it?”

Tim finally looked up at Dick, just seeing the knit of his brows over uncorrupted blue eyes made his stomach lurch. “Yeah, sure, just…get it over with.”

“Okay.”

Soft. Dick was being so…soft with him. It ached. Part of Tim just wanted to accept it, to lean into it. But he knew that he couldn’t trust it. He couldn’t fully accept it without something in him ruining it by telling him to be on guard for the switch-up.  

“How short do you want it?”

“I don’t care,” Tim replied flatly as Dick sat on the edge of the tub behind him. “I just want it out of my face and off my neck.”

“I can do that.” Dick said, clicking what was probably the guard into place on the clippers. “Jay let’s me do his hair when I crash at his sometimes. It’s easier than trying to force him to go get it done, or, God forbid, make an appointment.”

Tim huffed, the thought of Jason on the phone making an appointment amusing enough to stir something from him. 

“Alright, I think I’ve got it figured out, you want a towel around your neck or something?”

“Sure, I guess.”

Just get it off. Get it off. Stop tiptoeing around and just get it off. 

A towel was laid across Tim’s shoulders. 

The clippers buzzed as Dick flicked them on.

“Here we go.”

Then began the quiet, somber affair of cutting Tim’s hair. Dick only murmured instructions as needed like, ‘tilt your head forward a bit’, or gave him warnings before he moved his hands anywhere, but other than those words and the buzzing clippers, the whole thing took place in silence. 

Tim watched as the clumps fell into his lap. It was almost bittersweet. He wanted it gone, but the fact that the remnants of his last ten months could just being cut away so easily, and that he couldn’t cut away other parts so easily, that presence in his gut for instance, that was even still rumbling there, reminding him of its continued presence, it left an acrid taste behind it. 

Alone with his thoughts, Tim briefly wondered if Barbara had managed to delete that footage from the interrogation yet. It was easy to forget on top of everything else, that he was currently a fugitive of the United States as well as the League of Assassins, wanted for many near impossible murders and a biological domestic terrorist attack. Clearly, if he was going to be wanted for a crime for the first time as a civilian, he had to go big. Honestly the video of him fighting a literal assassin might gain him public favor, but it would be almost harder to explain how Timothy Drake-Wayne learned how to do all of that when he supposedly was rather weak and frail, either from the rumored polio as a child, or else from being shot through the spine while giving a speech four years ago. 

He was glad he hadn’t had access to any internet yet, or else his spiral might’ve been a lot more dramatic. That would’ve been a sight. He was on a Top Ten contending spiral. If there was a worse somewhere in the multiverse, he didn’t want to meet it. 

“I think we’ve got it…pretty much…” Dick made one more swipe with the clippers. “Good. There.”

Tim brushed the hair off of his thighs. “Thanks.”

“Not a problem. Happy to help.” Dick said pleasantly. “I…don’t really get the chance to help you very much. You’ve always been pretty self-sufficient. It’s nice to be able to.” 

I really haven’t been. 

He was just taught to never be a burden or a waste of time. If it was at all possible for him to do it alone, he would, even if it cost him his last breath, which it almost had on some occasions. He had allies if he needed them, but he would rarely let himself need them. The battle with Ra’s four years ago being one notable exception to his rule. At least he was better than Batman in that regard, if only by the barest margin. 

And, he had asked for help before from Dick, which was part of their whole issue at present.  

Tell him. Make him hurt. 

The voice snarled. 

And it would hurt Dick. The kind-hearted man who put those in his heart above all else. Knowing he’d failed to notice such a thing in someone so close to him would devastate him. 

Everyone except you…

The Pit carried on. 

No, it wasn’t intentional. Tim was just a good actor. He’d been taught by everyone in his formative life to put on a show of strength, especially when he had none. He was too good at his role by now. It wasn’t anyone’s fault that they fell for a performance they didn’t know was going on. 

It didn’t make it ache any less. 

It was like he wanted them to see through his charade for once. To notice the act. 

It just hurt over and over again that they didn’t. 

That was insanity, wasn’t it? To expect different? 

God, he wanted some to finally call him out for it all. 

“You need anything else?” Dick asked, standing up and brushing off his legs. 

“You know, for someone who’s whole schtick is being the attentive, caring one, you sure are oblivious to the most obvious things in this family.” 

The words were off his tongue before he could taste the poison in his throat or catch the glint of green in the handles on the vanity drawers. 

“What?” Dick was clearly forcing his voice to remain neutral. 

“Your ignorance is negligence and it’s becoming cruel,” Tim continued, unable to make himself stop. “It was endearing at the start, but it’s a poison, the fissure on which this entire family breaks.”

“Where is this coming from?”

“You!” Tim snapped. “You pretend to be the salvation, but you are the crack in the foundation that causes every single collapse. You are selfish and a coward, you run away when things get too hard and I’m tired of pretending like you’re the best of us when you wouldn’t even crack the top five. 

“Since Day One, I have moulded myself to fill every crack in this family, keep Bruce from snapping, fill the void left by a dead kid, keep Azrael from fucking murdering people, play nice with people who tried to literally murder me, run Bruce’s company. I was fourteen! I was a fucking kid and I couldn’t even properly mourn the death of my parents for fuck’s sake. It’s always up to me to keep us and, in turn, this entire city from losing all the years of progress made, I have never gotten to truly ‘get some space’ or ‘find myself’ because when I do, this whole place goes to shit and I’m sick of it.

“I can’t keep pretending like I don’t know what the crack in the dam is when I have to fill that gap every single fucking time. You, you who wouldn’t believe me. You, would replaced me with the kid who tried to kill me. You, who refused to go back and so readily foisted the responsibility of managing an adult man, your own father’s, grief onto a child you barely knew, whom you knew your father would never accept. You…who should have known what that would do to someone.”

Tim scoffed, his vision now fully tainted a putrid green. “Any time you pretend to care for me all I hear are pretty, but ultimately shallow and meaningless words because you lack the backbone or the history to mean them.”

Dick just stood there, his face a mask, but a practiced one, forced into place so that no one else could read what was going on beneath it. 

“Are you done?” He asked coolly, tilting his head slightly, his eyes flitting over Tim for the briefest second. “Or is there more you’ve been aching to get off your chest? Don’t let me stop you…”

Tim rolled his eyes, rising to his feet. “I knew you were a masochist with a savior complex, but I do love seeing the proof of it.”

“You’re not yourself right now,” Dick said evenly, glancing toward the door. “Bruce said that you might be more brash and less considerate, but I have to say, I wasn’t expecting this. You’re really hurting my feelings here, Timmy.”

He’s mocking you. 

The Pit was displeased. 

He was being childish. This would do no good to anyone said in this way. 

But why shouldn’t he? Everyone else was allowed their outbursts, why must he be the only one that had to remain poised and calm? Dick had admonished him for such things before. And now he was blaming it solely on the Pit, as though Tim himself couldn’t possibly be the source of this anger, that it must be the invention, the literary license of the ancient magic working through his veins. 

He could be angry. He should be allowed his anger. To feel it, express it. To have it recognized as his own. 

“There you go again,” Tim huffed. “I’ve kept everything down for ages, but it is all mine. This is my anger. My frustration. And you still trivialize it when I dare to speak it out loud for once…everything I said is mine.”

He looked Dick in the eye. “The hero community worships the ground you walk on, yet I don’t get so much as a thank you for bringing Batman back by myself because no one would believe me. I was the one that did that. He would still be lost in time if you all had your way. It’s no wonder every other version of me ends up opposite of you and the Justice League. I have to prove myself correct as many times as you have to ask forgiveness for your errors. And yet, who do they believe?

Tim laughed out loud, it was sharp, manic…familiar. 

“You were what drove me into the arms of Ra’s al Ghul. And you would drive me to insanity, into Arkham, have me question my own mind, strain it until it broke before you ever stopped to wonder if maybe…just maybe, I had it right. Like every single other fucking time before. Hubris…you are Richard Grayson.

The laughing continued, it felt like hands around his neck were squeezing it out.

“It’s like you wanted this…like you knew…” It hurt. He could taste blood in his mouth as the cackling shredded his throat. “You’re worse than Damian or Jason ever were. At least they never pretended to care when they didn’t…”

Dick’s mouth twitched. “This is you, yeah? So sure that you’re right about me?”

“Does that upset you?”

“It’s not anything I haven’t told myself off and on over the last two decades,” Dick said, shifting his weight between his feet. “I’m a fraud. A coward. An imposter. Selfish. That I should’ve listened to you about Bruce. That I should have gone after you that night. That it’s my fault you had to go to Ra’s. You’re right…I won’t pretend that it’s untrue, or that my mistakes haven’t been costly to you. But you’re wrong about one thing, Timbo.”

Dick’s lips quirked upward. “I do care for you. And I won’t stand for anyone, even you, telling me what I do or don’t feel for my family, for my little brother. Which is why I’m really sorry about this.”

Tim was ready for the lunge at him before Dick even shifted his weight backward to leap at him. He knew his family better than they probably knew him. He knew how they fought. And he knew how Dick Grayson behaved before a fight. Sizing up the odds. Plotting a potential escape route. And enough quips and tricks to distract even the most seasoned Gotham rogues. 

He sidestepped, jamming his foot into Dick’s instep, and his elbow toward the solar plexus. 

Dick managed to move with the strike, avoiding a more damaging blow. 

Close quarters weren’t great for fighting, but Tim’s blood was roaring for it, and the Pit was egging him on, demanding pain and fill to it’s hunger. His vision was narrowed, blinded by green, focused on the thing with a pulse that he could break open and drain empty. 

Tim stepped forward, shoving his bodyweight into Dick, pushing him forcefully into the shower wall. 

“Tim, you need to stop this.” Dick huffed, dropping down and jamming his elbow into Tim’s stomach. 

Tim doubled over, gritting his teeth. “You were the one that lunged at me.”

“I’m trying to help you.”

He’s trying to get rid of you.

Tim lashed out, throwing his shoulder into Dick’s ribs at full force. He could feel as well as hear them crack beneath the blow. 

He could hear the grunt of pain. 

It was delicious. 

The pit of his stomach furled with pleasure like dropping down the first hill of a rollercoaster. 

More. You can take more. You should take more. 

“Ach…” Dick hissed, kicking Tim back a couple steps, his arm moved to guard his most definitely broken ribs. “Tim, please, I’m not trying to hurt you. Just…stop for a minute-“

More. More. More. 

“No…you’re never trying to hurt me, are you?” Tim laughed scathingly. “Nobody ever tries to hurt me, and yet…here we are, again. You don’t try to hurt me because you never think about long enough to consider that I could possibly be collateral. That I could get…caught in the blast.”