Work Text:
Tim Drake understands loneliness.
It isn't a hard thing to do when he lives (practically) alone in a big, empty manor. The halls echo with his quiet footsteps and shaky breaths-- never quite calm, no matter how he looks on the surface-- and the walls loom over him like cruel, uncaring gods.
Tim Drake understands loneliness. He also understands constants.
Death and taxes, his parents joke, the only universal constants. He laughs along when he doesn't get it and then does research when they leave-- another trip, always another trip.
Taxes sound miserable, but death-- Tim learns about the different ways people die, the different stages of decomposition. It is as disgusting as it is fascinating.
It is also easily derailed.
Because Dick Grayson is Robin, which means Bruce Wayne is Batman. Tim can't let that go, can't drop the idea that Batman is just right next door. That Robin is the same boy who's parents he watched die, who gave him a hug like he cared even though they were complete strangers.
It isn't hard to get his hands on a camera, to learn their patrol routes and follow them around while they fight criminals and investigate crime scenes. There's a grace to it he doesn't really understand, the way they move is synchronized and smooth like a well-oiled machine. They work well together.
And, then, Robin dies.
Tim is there when it happens. He watches them get separated in a fight, watches Robin get sent over the edge of the roof and crack his skull open on the ground. The blood pools around him like a halo and Tim--
He knows this.
He stumbles forward-- the criminals are still on the roof, focused on Batman, or he's sure he'd be dead right alongside Robin-- and presses his hand to the wound. You're supposed to keep the blood in, he read somewhere, but it keeps seeping between his fingers and soaking into the knees of his pants.
He knows Robin is dead.
But Robin gets up.
He blinks for a moment, disoriented, while Tim stares. There's blood on his hands, on his pants, on the back of Robin's head--
"What are you doing here?" Robin asks, frowning. "You need to get out-- you could get hurt." He doesn't see all the blood in the dark, but Tim chokes out some kind of affirmative and runs before he can adjust to the lack of light and ask questions.
Tim Drake is a scientist at heart.
After scrubbing the blood from his hands at home, he decides he needs to test things. So he digs out a notebook and pen, writing down the events of the night.
(If the handwriting is shaky and illegible, it's just because he hasn't slept for a while. Nothing else.)
Was it him? Did he do this? Or was he just mistaken? Maybe Robin had been alive the whole time and just woke up when Tim was checking on him. Or, perhaps, it was Robin himself who did something.
He spends the next weekend searching along the sides of the road for roadkill, notebook in hand and pen tucked firmly behind his ear. Maybe this is how his parents feel when they go out on digs, like there's something to discover that's just out of reach. He's a Drake, though, and he'll find what he’s looking for just like his parents always do.
The first animal he comes across is a squirrel a few feet from his driveway. Tim kneels down by it and makes notes. It hasn't been dead long and doesn't look too physically injured.
When Robin was hurt, Tim had been touching him before he woke up. He doesn't want to touch the dead squirrel, but-- science is science.
Tim presses his hands against the squirrel's little body, shivering while he sits out in the cold, Gotham weather, and nothing happens. He records it and then tries again. Still nothing.
One last time, what had he been thinking when it happened?
He tries again, but he thinks about how scared he had been when Robin fell from the roof. He thinks about the way the blood felt on his hands and the smell of the dark alley and--
the squirrel is gone.
He sees it dart out into the manicured lawn of his house and just stares for a moment. It had been him. Robin-- Dick Grayson-- had been dead, and Tim had brought him back. Tim scrambles for his notebook again, recording the results and then looks back at the squirrel.
Robin had died and Tim had saved him.
He's been so distracted by his experiments that he hasn't been going out to follow Batman and Robin. What if something had happened and Tim wasn't there to fix them? He needs to be out there with them. He needs to be ready.
Tim runs back into his house. He knows their patrol routes already, knows what days and times they usually go out. He can do this. It isn't any different than following them around with a camera and taking pictures, except--
Except, he has to be more careful now. There's a no meta rule in Gotham and this certainly makes him a meta.
Tim is smart, though. His parents tell him every time they come home to see his report cards, his school and teachers and guidance counselors tell him all the time. Tim's already skipped two grades and nobody's caught him following Batman and Robin yet. He can do this.
Tim Drake knows loneliness in a way most young children don't, but he also knows death, and he has no qualms about chasing it off with his own two hands. He'll keep Batman and Robin safe.