Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

There was nothing more that Tim wanted more than to burn the fucking place straight to the ground.

But he couldn’t. He had a time limit and a clear aim. He already spent too long sorting things over with local Bruce and the Justice League.

With these thoughts, he silently walked down the base of this world’s Court of Owls, observing. Searching. Looking for someone special.

A hooded figure found him instead. The alarm rings, calling forward all the creeppers of the place.

Tim smirks as magic crackles under his fingers.

Well. He tried to not intervene. Not his fault the idiots didn’t know any better.

***

Tim had fucked his timing. Now the others will notice.

It didn’t matter, though. This was more important.

The place came silent, adorned by a blood bath massacre. Not a living soul here anymore. Perhaps, he had miscalculated. Perhaps, the one he came for was on a mission. He would have to find him, then.

A tiny step at the entrance. The walk was silent. The person did not breathe, that heart did not beat. But that perfect protection did not matter for the magic that told Tim about anything that would breach the place, so Tim stood up and went to meet someone whose fate he would hopefully change.

Crawling in the shadows, there he was, tiny golden eyes nervously taking in the bloodshed, yet the shaking body still treading to the epicenter of the disaster.

The boy looks about nine years old, tired and scared. If it was a mission, it was his first one, and Tim could tell from over here that it wasn’t the success the owls asked of him. That Dick Grayson, any Dick Grayson, wasn’t one to give up his humanity that easily. The boy was preparing to be punished and tortured, preferring that to performing his duty as a heartless killing machine.

The little talon froze in his steps. It looked like he finally noticed the gauntly looking man.

Tim couldn’t stop staring at the boy. Pale, thin, basically pocket-sized. With features on the young face so familiar that it tore his chest apart.

God, he missed his Dick.

“I… I came back. I failed,” stuttered the little voice.

Oh. That’s right. The boy did not know much about the Court system. He probably assumed Tim was his superior.

That thought tasted like bile.

Tim shook his head and beckoned the kid, slowly. “Hey there, little guy. Can you come closer?”

Even with the effort of the people around him, Tim still struggled with people things, so he could only hope that he appeared kind and gentle, like his Dick once did, all those years ago.

Little Dick was shaking badly, looking at the older’s skin.

Oh. Tim probably should have dealt with the blood on him. Too late now.

Tim was surprised when the kid, uncertainly, still came to him, his golden eyes big as sockets. Tim tried to smile, “Hi there.”

The kid did not talk.

Tim was at a loss. He was failing at this, whatever this contact was, badly. Although he may have had an idea. There was a thing all Grayson’s loved. Tim hoped it would work.

“Can I touch you?”

There was no response. But no protests either.

Taking this as a ‘yes’, Tim gentle wrapped his bony hands over the kid. Bitten down fingers gently petting familiar raven hair.

Firstly, the boy was rigid in his arms. But rather soon, the body relaxed. Then started shaking again, yet differently from before. Tim felt the coat on his shoulder getting soaked through.

“Shh,” tried Tim awkwardly. “It’s okay. I won’t hurt you. It’s gonna be okay.”

Tim gathered the tiny body and stood up, walking confidently out of the god forsaken shit hole. The kid didn’t even stir, his clawed hands in a death grip on Tm’s lapels.

Outside breathed winter air, and the boy trembled. Tim shushed him and covered them both with a heating spell.

The walk took some time, but Tim didn’t dare to teleport in the foreign universe with a traumatised kid on his hands. Slowly, the boy calmed down, even if remained quiet and withdrawn, clutching desperately at the only adult that wasn’t cruel to him ever since his painful transformation. Tim wished he could have prevented this from the start, but he was only human. Doing what he did now was already pushing the laws of the universe and tempers of many of the heroes’ league.

But he couldn’t do nothing. Just this once, he chose to be selfish.

Finally, they were here.

Noting that the moving stopped, the kid peeked out only to hide his face back in the comfort of the coat’s darkness.

“Hey,” gently called Tim, not understanding what was wrong.

“Is this going to be my new Court?” rasped the kid with his first words to him.

Tim darted a quick look at the ancient and spooky looking Wayne Mansion. Yeah, he could see where such assumption could come from. He hurried to reassure, “No, you are going to stay here, but it’s going to be okay. Nobody will ever hurt you anymore. There are good people there. I swear.”

“Will I be a tool for them then?”

“No! Never!” he said too heatedly, the kid shrinking at the loud words. Tim had a thought that he might have been even worse at the kid talking thing than his Bruce, which was a rather impressive achievement, to be honest. He fidgeted uncomfortably until he slowly lowered them both on the little welcome rug in front of the door. He said then, gentler, “Never.”

The wind was roaring outside his bubble of warmth, snow evaporating before it could fall on the boy. Tim still remembered how his Dick had hated being cold.

“It’s going to be okay,” tries Tim again. “There is a man here, he is a good man and a doctor. He is kind, and he helps people. He will love you.”

“I’m not people, I’m a monster. Why are you helping me? Monsters should stay dead so they don’t hurt anybody.” a wet whisper on Tim’s chest made Tim want to go back and murder the court all over again, this time – slowly. It all reminded too much of his past. Damn all the Graysons for their stupid, selfless heart.

Tim took a calming breath that Jason taught him. “I’m helping you because I know for a fact that you are a person, a really good one that does deserve happiness, and will have it. It will be okay.”

Tim felt like a broken tape, repeating these words over and over again, but he really did lose all his silver tongue skills in the ages he lived with the only company of stupid magic books.

The door opened with a creek, startling the talon.

“Hello. Are you young Dick I was told about?”

Tim raised his eyes to this world’s Bruce. He was younger than any version of the man he knew, or at least looked younger. He didn’t play nor playboy Brucie, nor stone-ass Batman act. He was just Bruce, a pleasant man that followed his family footsteps in serving humanity with skills in surgery, and frequently visited his retired parents, who were enjoying stress-free life somewhere on Bahamas.

Perhaps it wasn’t fair of Tim to ask this man to take in a hurt and changed orphan, but Bruce still said yes, and Tim was sure that he will do everything he could to make the boy feel safe.

As if to prove that, Bruce also lowered himself to the ground, but didn’t touch the boy without permission, gently talking to the kid about everything and nothing. The trees that were in the garden. The breakfast his Alfred was cooking. The birds he saw the day before.

Tim’s legs went numb from sitting on the hard ground with a weight on them, but, bit by bit, Dick uncured from his nest on Tim’s chest, observing Bruce with a fragile hope.

When Bruce offered his hand, the boy took it, the boy’s eyes watering when the big man didn't recoil from his disgusting, inhuman yellow eyes. Quite the opposite. The gaze on him was loving. Kind.

The boy cried yet again, hiding now in Bruce’s wide and safe chest.

Tim discreetly gave out a sigh of relief.

He had already told this Bruce all he could, remembering the early days of his Dick. He had told then  the long list of thing, like: “the boy doesn't take cold well, but it will go away eventually, though he will eat ice cream straight away, you just have to melt it first and then it's okay. And he likes hugs and touching, but he can be afraid to let you touch him at first, because of all of... All bad. He was made to be dangerous, but he's too kind, so he will be very scared to hurt you or that court will come after you because you helped him, so he will try to run and hide, don't let him, but don't pressure him. You can do...”

Tim dropped his eyes to the snow, squeezing his stinging eyes shut.

It was time for him to go.

“Will you stay with me here?” it wasn’t even a whisper, more like a gust of wind.

It hurt.

“I'm sorry,” Tim choked. “I can't stay.”

“You are not my Dick,” he didn’t say. “You are not my brother, but I do wish you well. I wish you all the best.”

***

The portal sparkled and died, leaving a bloodied and tired Tim in the centre of the familiar world’s batcave.

Familial, but not his own.

Hanging his head low, he walked briefly, ignoring his younger self of this world that, obviously, had noticed his absence and had been waiting for his return, teenage hands grasping the new camera that this world’s Jason had presented him not even a week ago.

“Are…” started this world’s teenage Tim.

“I know I shouldn’t have,” said the older one. “But I just… I needed. To do that.”

The young one's face looked sad. “It’s okay. I just wanted to ask you if you’re all right.”

The mage hummed. “No. Not really.”

“Thought as much.”

“I’ll go have a bath.”

Younger Tim raised his eyebrows in surprise. The mage knew it was because he typically was adamant to not get anywhere near the water, so the younger one clicked in that was unusual.

Older Tim didn’t care.

He didn’t care about anything now.

Chapter Text

Tim ran a bath as hot as he could and flopped in, like a frog that went in a boiling pot.

Resurfacing, he sat with his knees pressed to his torso, fingers pressed to his itching eyes. He wanted to cry but his tear ducks felt as if they had dried out.

It was foolish, what he did back there. Sure, he saved a kid. A Dick Grayson. Yet at the same time he could have collapsed entire multiverse for his efforts. But he couldn’t. As soon as he saw that little, alone kid in the files, he’d known he couldn’t just walk away.

His current life was nice. Way better than centuries spent in solitude. These bats were nice. They cared for him, they worried.

But they weren’t his family.

He was a stranger in this world.

An immortal cuckoo that got accepted in the nest.

He sighed, lowering himself in Wayne’s big ass bath.

He wasn’t a fan of the baths anymore because they reminded him of his Dick. Of the way the talon would dunk him in one, believing it would cheer Tim up. And after a good portion of confusion, it did. But after his death, it became just a bitter reminder.

Tim closed his eyes, remembering the day his world puff up in flames. The fight with aliens was intense. Tim himself got caught up by them, tortured with no sleep, bound to a glowing piece of a meteorite, saved at the last second by his Dick from their mother ship.

Only to get out and find out that they had lost, and they were the only bats, the only people, the only anyone they had ever known alive on the planet.

They had tried to look for survivors, it only proved futile. Soon, it started to get cold, they had to make shelter.

With the weather getting colder and colder by month, they found out that the meteorite changed him, leaving him unable to age or die.

They also realised that Dick’s talon blood was slowly freezing up, making it a question of time when the older one would simply not wake up one day.

And the day had come, when Tim had no choice but to create a sort of burial chamber for his brother that had saved him so many times and was there for him when it mattered most.

He’d wept then.

He wept more when after spending his eternity to learn magic he realised that he was unable to find the place where he left his brother. Not by memory, not by any magic.

Tim opened his eyes.

He wept now, falling to pieces, agonising over things that were forever unfairly taken away from him.

Chapter Text

“Home sweet shithole!” declared Jason as he kicked open the door. He had a first-hand info that neither Bruce nor Alfred were home, so he could allow his inner hooligan to get out and have some fun.

The mansion was quiet with the family out for the party with the Kents, so, theoretically, only the bat he needed was supposed to be left here. He searched the place and found almost what he wanted.

“Hey, Timbo,” said Jason to the dark TV room that held in its soft sofa jaws a teen with the face lighted only by the blues of the laptop screen.

“Have you seen the hobo you?”

Tim Drake ignored him.

“Hey, TimTam, I’ll go and trash your room real quick, k? And steal all your flash-drivers and hide them all around the Gotham with such ridiculous clues that they would make both the Riddler and Cluemaster weep.”

Again – nothing.

Coming a bit closer, Jason huffed in mock annoyance. He now saw the headphones plucked in his sibling’s ears.

“Rude, you asshole,” said Jason and went upstairs. He had been searching for a Tim, but not this Tim.

The Tim-head-merged-with-the-screen was his Tim. A menace with short, recently cut, hair and a complexion that no longer resembled a sickly Victorian child (Alfred was responsible for the first change, Jason – for the second; Dick’d just thrown a puppy at the gadget baby and called it a day).

But Red Hood didn’t need Red Robin now. Jason needed the other Tim, the not-his Tim, but by now kinda-probably-his as well.

“Hey, hobo asshole, I know you’re here! Get your ass over here before I use the heavy weapon!” yelled Jason as he hunted for the undead magician.

Nobody needed to know that the heavy weapon, Arsenal’s sweet but merciless daughter, wasn’t with him now. What Jason needed now was to drag the long-haired depressed asshole out of the fucking mansion to some sweet fresh fucking air. And shove a Lian at him while he was at it.

Roy just needed a nanny and a distraction for the girl. That’s it. It’s not like Jason cared or anything that the asshole was too down even by bat’s fucked-up standards lately (he could hear his self-consciousness laughing at his weak attempts to deflect and admit caring about his stupid family and idiots surrounding them).

When the house was turned over and he hadn’t found even demo brat’s stupid animals, Jason turned back to the Tim number uno, who was still entrapped with his laptop.

Unceremoniously, Jason flipped the lights on and yanked Tim’s headphones away. “The fuck are you doing there, Tim-Tam?”

The nerd hissed at the lights before muttering absentmindedly, “Again, not my name,” and then proceeding to type and scroll something on the laptop, as if Jason wasn’t there, towering over the kid.

Jason felt a vein in his head about to pop.

In one fluid motion he got himself behind Tim’s back and peeked at the screen. His face soured.

“Tim-Tam? Please tell me it’s not another one crazy plan.”

Tim’s hands stilled over the keyboard.

Jason loudly smacked his own face before yelling, outraged. “REALLY? Did life teach you nothing, Tim-pan?”

Instead of a reply, Tim shoved his elbow to Jason’s torso, while still staring at the screen.

Jason dodged, but did take a step away. “What’s that supposed to mean? Tim-Tam? Hello? Should I call Bruce? Or does this silent treatment mean that’s it too late for that now, and we need the big guns, a.k.a. the Justice League?”

Tim finally left the device alone and groaned in frustration. “If I tell you what I’m doing, would you please fuck off and let me work in peace?”

Jason readily folded his arms on his chest and declared. “That depends.”

Tim groaned again. “But if I don’t, you’ll keep bugging me until I snap?”

“Yes,” confirmed Jason with a shit-eating grin.

Tim resigned. “I found a weird signal.”

“Weird how? Creepy weird or ‘the universe shall fall’ weird?”

“Not sure.”

“Hmmm. Promising.”

“It doesn’t look like something from our universe,” said Tim slowly, uncertain in his words. “Nor from our time.”

Before the kid buried back in the screen, Jason coughed and theatrically cleared his throat. “Speaking about the weird shit from other worlds. Where’s the local Gendalf?” Jason tried to ask that casually, but failed.

Sue him, he worried for the undead idiot. The guy had already made way too many questionable decisions to just leave him be when he decided to drop out of orbit.

“He’s out,” answered Tim shortly.

Taciturn. Alright.

“How is he?” asked Jason, prodding.

Tim twiddled his fingers with Bruce’s stolen sweater. “Had been greater.”

Jason instantly recognised that guilty look that Tim usually had when he was defending Bruce from Alfred, so Jason smacked his face second time this evening and asked “What did he do?”

“Not much,” came a timid reply.

“Not much?”

“Mhm,” nodded Tim. “Just. Went to a different universe. Saved a baby Dick. Probably traumatised an innocent Bruce. No biggie.”

Jason gaped, and then laughed with his whole belly. “God, I love that madman.”

“Ha-ha,” said Tim sarcastically, even as the tips of his lips trembled upwards. “He shouldn’t have done that. You travelled the worlds, you should know that…”

“That it’s dangerous to interfere, and bad, and yada-yada. I know,” said Jason, then added more seriously. “But I can’t be sad that one baby Dick Grayson didn’t die a horrible death, sorry. The Golden boy can be a pain in the ass, but he is the Golden boy that every Universe must have.”

“He wasn’t threatened to die. He was saved from being forever enslaved by the Court of Owls,” corrected him Tim.

“More points to me having little to be upset about. Add with the world’s still standing, I don’t really see the issue with our guy having a bit of fun.”

Tim bit his lip, taking his time before saying, “He’s not well.”

“I guessed as much the moment he willingly chose to crawl out of the fucking coffin.”

“No. I mean. He’s worse.”

Jason didn’t have anything to say to that.

“You saw that too?” carefully asked Tim.

“More like I don’t see him,” grumbled Jason unhappily.

“Yeah, that checks out.”

Jason frowned. He had spent quite a lot of effort, trying to rehabilitate the undead mage. He even took pride in the progress that was made by his cooking skills with a healthy dose of bullying.

Thinking that the topic was done, Tim went back to his science project.

But Jason hummed, an idea forming in his head. His gaze flicked upstairs, to the magician’s room, then to Tim’s computer.

 “I know it’s far-fetched… But can that weird signal of yours be connected to the older you’s world?”

“The one he destroyed?” arched his eyebrow Tim.

“You did say it wasn’t from current time.”

“I think so, I’m not sure,” said Tim, yet frowned, clearly giving Jason’s wild theory a chance.

“So,” said Jason nervously, suddenly realising how crazy the idea sounded, “What do you think?”

“Well,” started Tim. “There's a friendly Ra's al Ghul somewhere over there in the universe, so everything is possible. I’ll try to connect to this signal. It wouldn’t hurt to check it anyway.”

Jason grinned. He had a good feeling about this, for some reason. If there was someone to perform batshit crazy and slightly disturbing efficient experiments, it would be the gadget baby of the family.