Chapter Text
When Tim was just three, his parents had taken him to the circus. It was the first time they'd been home in nearly a year, and they wanted to spend time with him before they took off on their next trip.
So.
The circus.
It had been wonderful. His mom held his hand almost the entire time, and his dad had even carried him once or twice when they got sick of how much slower he walked in comparison to them.
The best part, by far, had been meeting the Flying Graysons— a family of acrobats, two parents and their son, who had seemed as excited to meet Tim as Tim was to meet them. The son— Dick, he had introduced himself. Tim's mom had grimaced but not commented— held Tim in his lap for a picture, surrounded by both of their parents and grinning like this was the best thing to happen to him all day.
Tim had been bouncing on the bench, hands flapping down by his sides.
(His mom had pulled him back down to sit. "The people behind us can't see over you," she told him, voice scolding. "Sit still, please.")
The show had been just as amazing as Tim had expected after meeting the people behind it. His knees bounced, his hands flapped, and he felt the need to wiggle his entire body out of sheer excitement. All the way up until the Graysons fell.
Their bodies had hit the ground with a sickening snap, leaving Tim feeling completely frozen in place. There was dead silence from the crowd— only saved from being entirely silent by the horrified scream of one Dick Grayson— for only a few seconds before they all started to gasp and point and scream. Nobody had noticed when Bruce Wayne disappeared from the crowd and Batman appeared, pulling Dick away from his parents and talking to the police.
"Oh," Tim's mom had cried, hands over her mouth.
His dad had only stared, lips pursed, until Tim's mom's hands suddenly slapped over Tim's eyes.
"You didn't see anything, did you?" she asked, guiding him out to the parking lot.
"No," he lied.
Tim had a nightmare that night. His own parents up on the high-wire and falling, falling, falling to the ground below with their own snap when they hit the ground. It's no longer Dick Grayson standing above them and screaming, it's Tim.
"Why didn't he wake them up?" Tim asked his parents after they let him crawl into bed with them.
"It doesn't work like that," his mom sighed, running a hand through his hair. Her nails were just this side of too long, and it hurt when she tried to scratch soothingly at his scalp. "They were hurt too bad, Timothy. They couldn't wake up."
"Why not?"
"It just doesn't work that way, sport," his dad's heavy hand thumped heavily on Tim's shoulder. "What's dead is dead, son, and there's not coming back from that."
Tim, at the time, had been more confused than anything. He wasn't stupid, he knew how dying worked. But Tim also knew that dead didn't always mean dead. It didn't always stick.
He'd learned it a week prior, when one of the neighborhood strays had mauled a bird. Tim had found it— neck snapped and bloody— on the penthouse's roof. He had never seen a dead thing before this, didn't even really know what dead was until one of the old ladies in the same building had been up on the roof with him, watering her plants, and tutted at the sight of the bird.
"A shame," she said.
"What is?"
She looked at him, lips pursed. "Well," she started sharply, "the poor thing is dead, isn't it? Aren't you sad?"
"I don't know what dead means," Tim told her.
"Your parents ought to do a better job teaching you, then."
He let the conversation end there and turned his attention back to the bird. There was no use telling her his parents weren't home to teach him anything. His nanny taught him a lot, but not about whatever dead meant.
His hand reached out to poke at it, jolting back when the creature twitched. Its feathers ruffled, and its head twisted back into place. The blood still coated its wings, but it didn't seem to care all that much about that. Tim watched as it preened and bounced in place before flying off into the distance.
This is what led Tim to where he is now.
Because Jason Todd is dead— has been for over six months— but his grave is empty.
This had been Tim's last resort. His last chance to reel Batman back from the edge. It was risky— revealing himself like this, letting Batman know there was a meta in the city he specifically chased metas away from— but it was riskier to let things go on as they are.
Tim has film rolls and journals full of pictures and notes and news articles— all of them detailing the exact same thing.
Batman, his fist smashing into a man's face as the blood arcs away and paints the alleyway.
Batman, standing over the bloodied and beaten body of a woman while two children hide in an alley across the street in fear.
Batman, more violent than most of his rogues ever were.
Where is Bruce Wayne? an article pleads. Where is Batman?
Both heroes gone in the span of a single day.
Only Tim knows that they're the same person, with the same reason for falling off the edge. Tim, and one other person.
He blows hot breath into his muddied hands and stares off into the distance. This wasn't something he had wanted to do, but— what other choice does he have? Nobody knows what he knows. Nobody else can fix this. Nobody else is trying.
So, Tim rocks up onto his feet, shaking his arms out and making his way back out of the graveyard. Maybe somebody else will come by and notice the vandalized grave of Jason Todd. He doesn't hold out hope, though— nobody noticed when the body was taken the first time, either.