Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“Attempt 95 successful.”

Tim stood ever so still, leaning forward to look at the small child suspended in the green glow of the tube. A hesitant smile crept across his face as he began typing vigorously and voicing commands to the computer system he had built so many months prior.

“Cells and proteins, stabilized.”

“Probability for long-term survival?” Tim asked, ignoring the unfurling doubt in his chest as his eyes remained fixed on the visualization of the data on the computer screen.

“One-Hundred Percent.”

Tim laughed triumphantly at that, stepping around the console and placing his hand on the glass with a grin. It was hard thinking something so small was Conner… Well, he knew he wasn’t exactly the same as Conner. But if he could have any part of him back, that would be enough.

As he studied the newborn’s face, itching to rush back over to the computer console to speed up the aging process, he paused. He was… so small and delicate. As he stared at the slopes of the child’s nose and forehead, his brain stopped in its tracks for a split second.

He knew logically that this clone wouldn’t look like Kon just yet, he was developmentally, still in early infancy, but something about him looked so unfamiliar and so… unique. Like he was a whole new person.

Tim clenched his hand against the glass into a fist and allowed his forehead to thump against the tube. He bit his lip as his entire body drew inward, like he was trying to make himself as small as possible. His breath hitched as he finally reeled back his head and let it fall into his hands.

“What have I…?” He didn’t understand how it took him so long to realize it. And worst of all, he didn’t until he had already gone a step too far. He had succeeded, not in cloning, but in creating a unique life, a child.

His brow softened and his hands felt clammy as he stumbled his way back over to the console. Would it be more humane to euthanize him? He was just a baby… he wasn’t supposed to be here. He didn’t ask for any of this, and he probably couldn’t even comprehend his own ceasing to exist.

But every time he looked at the little boy’s face, something grabbed at his heart. He couldn’t bring himself to do it, and he couldn’t tell anyone else about this. The creeping sense of guilt and anxiety that had been looming over him the past year finally clawed its way into his mind. He had kept this whole thing a secret for a reason, and he knew it.

Kon would… he would have hated Tim for doing this. Cassie would hate Tim for doing this if she found out… and if the two ever actually managed a conversation that was longer than a simple acknowledgement of the other’s presence. The Titans would never forgive him. He knew that’s what he deserved, he was no better than Lex Luthor. Sure he didn’t want to mind control his clone, but he still cloned someone in the first place.

He should have stopped himself when he even thought of stabilizing the clone with human DNA… that’s exactly why Kon was the way he was. Why didn’t he think that it would make this… child, a unique human being with his own thoughts and feelings?

Tim ignored the hot shame clawing its way up his back as his brain worked a mile a minute to form some kind of plan. First of all, he had to destroy this lab and all the data he collected. It wasn’t right for him to have done any of this, and it would make him irredeemable if he let it fall into the hands of Luthor or some other villain wanting to tarnish Kon’s memory.

Perhaps he could give up the baby for adoption, find someone like the Kents to take care of him… that thought scared him more than he was ready to admit. A part of him selfishly couldn’t bear losing this piece of Kon. He knew the baby wasn’t him but… it would be like losing any of the Kents. They were Kon’s family in a way, and losing one of them would be like losing some part of Kon that he had been clinging onto.

He wasn’t sure if his mind could handle that.
The next plan would be to take care of the kid back at Wayne Manor, but he knew almost instantly that idea was stupid. First of all, he would have to explain the whole thing to Bruce. It’s not like Tim had ever really… explained it to Bruce but Bruce knew he wasn’t exactly a normal boy. It’s not like he could have knocked a girl up or anything.

Any other explanation would be quite quickly figured out as lies by Bruce, and then he would have to explain what he had done. Which he absolutely was not ready to do. Tim already knew he didn’t live up to Dick or Jason’s legacy in so many ways. This would just put the nail in the coffin, Bruce might even fire him as Robin.

The final option, and what Tim had been dreading he would have to do this whole time was to disappear and take care of the newborn on his own. It’s not like he could be on the Titans, patrol as Robin, finish school *and* take care of a baby on his own. Involving other people was out of the picture so he would have to… give everything up.

The thought horrified him, and by this point he was curled up into a ball under the console. Tim leaned his head against the cold metal wall of the console, avoiding getting his feet tangled in the wires as he shifted.

He couldn’t be Robin anymore, he couldn’t be a Titan anymore, and he couldn’t live with Bruce anymore. Tim knew deep down that the only option was to disappear in a way no one would find him. He had to make everyone think he was dead so they wouldn’t come looking for him.

Tim sighed, and heaved himself up from under the console after what felt like hours of dissociating as he stared at the adjacent wall. He needed to focus and come up with a solid plan. Tim had been down here long enough, and the Titans would get suspicious if he lingered much more.

He drifted off towards the glass again, resting his hand over the small form of the newborn. “I’ll be back tomorrow… you’re going to be okay. I’m- I’m sorry.” Tim managed to choke out, resisting the tears that pricked at the corners of his eyes as he whipped around, his cape fluttering behind him as he made his way towards the door.

Tim’s fingers felt sweaty and uncoordinated as he initiated all 5 heavy duty locks on the door. Which… now felt like too little. There was something there to protect now, not just the secret of his own instability to hide.
He would do everything to protect this child. It was his responsibility and his alone. All he needed was a plan.

—

Tim had quit the Titans by the end of the week, citing that things in Gotham were getting too chaotic to leave for even just one weekend. Everyone was pretty angry, and he knew it was shitty, especially since Vic had only woken up a few hours prior.

But he did what had to be done. Rose could be mad at him all she wanted, he knew she could handle herself. Plus, Tim had felt a little relieved to get away from her, it wasn’t like he hadn’t noticed her flirting with him over the past week. The thought of it made his stomach churn. He hadn’t been able to focus on… anything like that since Kon died.

It would be easy to never see the Titans again, especially since he had destroyed anything non-essential in the lab and moved the newborn to a lead-encased warehouse he was renting in the countryside. He had planned to keep the baby in Titans Tower until he had to leave, but with Vic back… he couldn’t risk him finding the boy.

When he returned to the manor, Bruce had of course questioned his decision. He didn’t hide his disappointment very well, which Tim forced himself to ignore. The longer he spent around Bruce, the more he knew he wasn’t going to be able to get away with faking his death to Bruce. Unless he had some magic involved, nothing but a body would convince him.

So he inevitably decided on Bruce being the only one who would know. Not the whole story, anyway.

Knowing Bruce, and knowing Dick, Tim knew that the latter would figure it out somehow, even if Bruce didn’t tell him the truth. Which, Tim wasn’t entirely sure he wouldn’t. So, he built his final message with that in mind as he packed his bags.

—

Bruce Wayne had gotten a call from his eldest son a half an hour ago. Dick had been sobbing over the phone, and the only thing he could manage to say was to look up Tim, something about him being in the news. Then Dick had hung up.

He was standing in the Batman suit, minus the cowl when he read the headline.

“Billionaire Son, Tim Drake Confirmed To Be Body Fished Out of Gotham Harbor”

Bruce had stood there, clenching his fist, before his mind could calm down. Eventually when it did, he started asking questions, why had the news picked up the story before he himself had gotten a call?

Eventually, he did, from a very apologetic Gotham P.D officer. Bruce got a call from Commissioner Gordan just a few minutes later.

His next question, the one he didn’t want to have to think about, was interrupted by a notification on the Batcomputer. An audio file had made itself available. Before Bruce had time to question anything, it began playing.
It was Tim’s voice.

“By now you have heard the news that I am dead, rest assured, I am alive.” That was an immediate relief.

Tim’s voice stuttered ever so slightly as his voice continued over the speakers, “But you probably won’t ever see me again.”

Oh.

“I’m not in trouble, but I had something to take care of. I have to do this on my own. I’d ask that you try not to find me, but I doubt you will respect my wishes. What I do ask is that you don’t tell anyone where I really am if you do find me, and that you don’t tell anyone that I’m actually alive. Well- I’m sure you’ll tell Dick and Alfred whether I want you to or not, so I’ve already accepted the possibility that they’ll be aware.” Tim’s voice grew ragged, as if he was about to cry when he began speaking again. “I’m sorry for doing this to all of you, I know it’s horrible but I have to do this. I hope you understand and… I know Batman needs a Robin. I can’t- I can’t be that anymore. I urge you to find someone new. I can’t… I won’t let myself be the reason Batman never has a Robin ever again.”

There was a long pause before Tim spoke again, it was in reality only a few seconds, but to Bruce it felt like an eternity.

“Again, I’m sorry. I understand that by doing this I am… failing you. So I believe it would be best for you, and the rest of the family, to forget about me. I know you won’t listen to me but… please don’t try and find me.”

The audio file ended there. As Bruce scrambled to replay it to decode some sort of secret message hidden inside, he found that the audio file had deleted itself.

That was how Bruce realized that Tim wasn’t being held hostage by one of Gotham’s many rogues, forced to make that message. But that Tim himself had planted it there, and now that Bruce had heard it, he had no leads.
Tim was gone.

But Tim had also been right, Bruce wasn’t going to listen to him. He was going to find Tim, and he was going to tell Dick and Alfred.

—

Tim let out a yawn as he mentally double checked ( more accurately, this was the eleventh time he had gone over this ) the last things he needed to do before he left, even though he was already driving a beat up Ford Focus miles away from the warehouse that he had cleared out thoroughly. There was no point in running away if he didn’t destroy every last speck of evidence of the baby’s existence.

The baby, who Tim was still getting used to calling by the name he had picked out on his forged birth certificate, was strapped into a car seat in the back and was sleeping soundly. Which Tim knew wouldn’t last for long, especially not on a ten hour road trip where he would have to stop every few hours to feed the kid formula from the cooler in the trunk.

He surprisingly, hadn’t thought about it much, even when he was forging documents and finding unrecognizable bodies in the morgue that he could change the dental records to his own, but he wasn’t exactly prepared to leave everything behind.

If he wasn’t so tired, he would be an anxious mess, but every time his brain wandered in that direction, he looked in the rearview at the small bundle sleeping in the backseat, and all those thoughts went away.

Tim might only be seventeen years old, but he had been to space. He had seen his future self. He had found out Batman’s identity before he had even started middle school. His documents said he was twenty-two, he was sure he acted respectable enough to pass for that, even if he looked a little young.

He was sure he could handle this.

—

Tim had five mental breakdowns before he arrived at his apartment that foggy morning.

Chapter Text

Completely upending his life and taking care of a living, breathing, child was harder than Tim thought it would be.

Of course he knew, that when he said it out loud it sounded crazy. But Tim could do crazy, he had done crazy. It was still hard for him to wrap his head around the fact that as Robin, he had literally time traveled and gone to space.

But that was all over now, and life was… surprisingly mundane, but equally as stressful, if not more.

One of his neighbors had already come to complain to him about Conan’s crying 3 times, and it had only been less than a week since he moved in. Whenever the kid wasn’t sleeping, he seemed to make it his mission to make Tim’s life a living hell.

Tim hadn’t been exactly as prepared for taking care of a baby as he thought. It’s not like he ever pictured this for himself. In fact, the idea of it was the subject of some of his worst dysphoria nightmares when he was younger.

But this was different. Conan wasn’t his baby, that was just what it said on paper. He wasn’t really Kon’s baby either now that he thought about it. It wasn’t like Clark was Kon’s Dad, more like… a weird relative. Lex claimed parenthood over Kon before he… but that was a manipulation tactic more than anything based in reality.

Either way, Conan was more connected to Kon if anyone. Which is why Tim felt somewhat obligated to give the kid something similar to Conner, even if with every passing day he grew to regret that decision, with how it made his heart hurt.

Tim was lounging on the couch, exhaling sighs of relief as it had then been officially five minutes, which meant that Conan was really asleep. That would give Tim a few hours at least. He really wanted to use those hours just to watch TV or stalk Batman forums ( which he really shouldn’t have been doing, it kept making him miss Gotham ) but he knew what he really needed to do was go shopping.

Mainly groceries. He had reserved this one week as free-time before he started at his cybersecurity job the next week, hoping to go get furniture, clothes, and groceries but he had actually ended up just spending sleep deprived nights on his computer and resorting to takeout and Doordash.

He should go shopping now, groceries were a must. He could get clothes and furniture later ( even if the apartment did feel overwhelmingly empty and depressing ) but even if he wasn’t going out every night and fighting crime, he should at least keep up his healthy eating habits. Even if he wasn’t Conan’s actual dad, he could at least set a good example.

As he got up, preparing to get ready, he remembered. Conan. He couldn’t leave the kid alone! Even his parents had the decency to have hired help watch him when he was small. He hadn’t even considered what he was going to do for childcare next week since he had been so focused on getting the apartment sorted out.

Tim let out a hefty sigh and lugged himself over to one of the bags on the floor, fishing out the baby carrier he had bought the week prior. He had debated buying it in the first place, but was glad he did. He ripped the packaging off and threw it on, taking a few minutes to figure out how the damn thing worked before he took on the arduous task of having to ever so carefully transfer Conan from the crib to the carrier, without waking him.

Of course, Tim failed at this task just after he actually got the kid into the carrier. Tim gritted his teeth, supporting Conan’s head with the palm of his hand as the boy bursted into tears.

Nothing was wrong, he changed Conan’s diaper and fed him just before putting him to sleep, and yet he still felt the need to sob. Tim pinched the bridge of his nose with his free hand, internally scolding himself about not taking Conan out of the tube to do tummy time.

He could get groceries with one hand, no problem. Tim quickly scooped up bag and tossed it onto his shoulder as he swept out the door, shushing Conan with every step.

Tim could feel the frustration running through every vein in his body, but decidedly ignored it as he got into the elevator.

Conan squirmed in the carrier, somehow crying even louder than Tim thought such a small thing could manage. His ears rung with each pitch of Conan’s sobs as he tried his best to soothe the boy.

“Hey- it’s going to be okay. Come on calm down we’re going out into public-“ Tim said through gritted teeth as the elevator doors opened with a creak.

Eventually, he tuned Conan out completely, mindlessly rubbing circles against Conan’s temple with his thumb as he walked in the crisp early morning air. When he began to approach the bus stop, he kept his head down, hoping to avoid the ire of the stranger who seemed to be walking tiredly from the bus stop towards the direction Tim came from.

“Oh my goodness, poor thing-“ The stranger chuckled, stopping in front of Tim to cast a sympathetic look between Conan and Tim himself.

Tim dug his heels into the pavement and stiffened awkwardly, tuning back into the sounds of the world around him. He wasn’t one to normally keep his guard down, no Gothamites were, but he had quickly learned that the cities in the Midwest were quite different. As long as you steered clear of certain streets, you were fine for the most part.

“Oh shit- sorry man. I didn’t mean to startle you. I just really like kids- Not like that but um like I used to babysit when I was a teenager y’know?” The man chuckled, scratching the wispy hairs on his chin and awkwardly avoiding Tim’s gaze whenever his voice cracked.

Coincidentally, Conan seemed to calm down a little, his cries slowly fizzling out into a big yawn. Tim clutched the back of Conan’s head a little protectively as he chuckled awkwardly in response, finally looking up at the stranger.

“No- I get it it’s fine-“ He said, finally clearing his brain up enough to get a solid read on the guy in front of him. He seemed pretty short, shorter than Tim even. 5’0” if he had to guess. His hair was in a clean buzzcut, and despite looking at least 3 years old than Tim, he had acne littering his face. He was wearing a black dress shirt with some sort of restaurant logo embroidered into the breast pocket and a pair of black slacks that didn’t look like they fit him too well.

The guy didn’t seem dangerous that’s for sure. He didn’t look to have any concealed weapons, the only thing even close was the window breaker dangling from the carabiner hanging off his right belt loop. Tim would reckon to guess that the guy had never had to use it before though. Plus, it was hard imagining a man with such soft brown eyes could be capable of hurting a little kid.

Even if he tried, Tim never left the house without at least one weapon and a can of pepper spray on him. He was sure he could take just about anyone in hand to hand combat, but Bruce always told him it was less suspicious if he kept to the usual self defense tools.

“Oh hey actually- aren’t you the guy who just moved in on my floor?” The stranger snapped his fingers and smirked. “So, this kid is the one Mrs. Hernandez is always banging on your door about?”

“Oh- Yeah I am. Sorry about Conan he’s- fussy.” Tim apologized sheepishly, giving Conan a very stern look afterwards

His neighbor cackled. “Not a problem! Mrs. Hernandez just likes to complain, no one else has a problem with it trust me, we get it. I’m Noah by the way. Sorry for not welcoming you or anything when you first moved in, I’ve been pretty busy with work.”

Tim watched Noah like a hawk as he made faces at Conan, even though his anxiety around the guy has already pretty much dissipated. He wasn’t exactly sure why he was so on edge, but he guessed that it would go away as he got used to a non-Gotham level of criminal activity.

“It’s okay- I didn’t expect anyone to give me a welcome basket or anything. Especially since Conan has been keeping everyone on our floor up- god I didn’t realize how thin the walls were- but anyways I’m uh- Jack” He said, ignoring the strange feeling that came along with introducing himself as anything other than Tim or Robin.

“I’m surprised no one has, us Midwesterns are pretty welcoming. Sometimes too much. Your accent sounds familiar- where’d you and little Con move from?” Noah asked, half distracted by Conan near the end of his sentence.

Tim ignored the sinking feeling that hearing the nickname gave him and carried on, trying not to show it on his face. “Oh it’s kind of small- close to Gotham though.”

Noah made a visibly concerned face at that and recovered quickly with a joke. “That why you moved? Can’t imagine being in a 100 mile radius of the Joker is good for a kid’s development.”

Tim let himself genuinely laugh at that. Conan whined in response to it and Tim gave him an apologetic look. “Yeah that’s a part of it for sure. You wouldn’t believe what kind of psychopaths we got over there… to be entirely honest I don’t know how many people outside of Gotham are even aware of most of them.”

“I’d say I know more than most people around here, but that’s just ‘cause I’m kinda a nerd about superheroes and junk. But anyways, it’s just you and little Con right? Don’t have a partner hiding in your apartment or anything?”

“I’m alone, Conan’s mother… passed away.” He managed, involuntarily choking out the words a little near the end.

Tim had rehearsed his story so many times in his head, but he wasn’t exactly expecting on anyone bothering to talk to him, especially so soon. So when he took a deep breath and said it, he was surprised at himself for how real it sounded. Hiding his secret identity from even his closest friends for years would give you acting chops he supposed.

Noah’s eyebrows lowered and his gaze softened, but he still kept a firm smile as he looked at Tim. “That’s- I’m sorry man. Must of been pretty recent, Con is still so little. If you ever need anything let me know, I can help out with groceries or childcare if you need it. I’m just next door so it’s really not a big deal.”

He hesitated for a moment in response, looking down at Conan for a moment, who was cooing happily and trailing some bird flying overhead with his eyes.

“Know any cheap childcare places near the apartment? I’m… Having a hard time finding people I can trust.” Tim finally said.

“Not anywhere near here no… sorry. I could babysit for you if you work during the day if you want me to. Don’t need a lot of money or anything, my job pays me pretty good, just sucks.”

Tim thought about it for a moment. He wouldn’t want it to be longterm, what if he couldn’t trust this guy after all? He’d probably have to move. But just a few weeks until he finds something more permanent, that would work.

“Yeah, just for a few weeks until I find something would be great. I don’t start work until Monday. Pretty standard nine to five deal.”

“Cool! Just give me a buzz when you need me, I’m in apartment 205. But I got to be getting back, the cats will claw my eyes out if I don’t feed them on time.” Noah chuckled, giving a small wave to Tim as he started walking on past.

“See you around, Noah. Thanks again.” Tim called back, and by the time his words carried, his neighbor was already at the end of the block.

As Tim finally made his way to the bus stop, his bus had arrived. Trying to suppress a small smile, Tim climbed on and swiped his metro card past the reader as he found a seat at the very back of the bus.

The rest of the bus ride was relatively pleasant, Conan was quiet, and eventually fell asleep. Tim hadn’t felt so peaceful in quite a long time.

—

He couldn’t do this.

Tim knew that wasn’t true but it really felt that way, being the subject of a million stares in the grocery store as he juggled trying to soothe the screaming baby strapped to his chest as well as calculating the amount of money he could afford to spend on everything.

The shopping trip was already barely productive, his brain shutting down just before he could figure out if something fit his budget when Conan’s screaming hit a peak again.

He thought that he would be used to being stared at by now, but all things considered not many people really knew his status back when he was Tim Drake. Most people’s eyes skipped over him, and as Robin he kept to the shadows on purpose.

What made it even worse was that this was a small corner store, which meant even the owner was giving him a stink eye. That was when he gave up. In a blur, he went to the counter with the items he had already picked out, paid, and got out of there. It ended up just being a small bag of white rice, chicken breast and frozen stir fry mix. He had been hoping to get some seasonings and condiments, but clearly Conan had other plans.

For whatever reason, he just couldn’t handle it today. The screaming was beginning to make him feel nauseous as he stumbled over to a bench. Robotically, he took Conan’s bottle from his bag and tried to feed him, but he stubbornly angled his head away, his screeching briefly subsiding as he firmly shut his mouth.

Tim was sick of this. He didn’t want to be doing this anymore, he wanted to go back to Gotham and tell everyone he was on a secret mission, and find some nice family to give Conan to.

But he knew that would be worse. He could never show his face around the Titans or his friends ever again. They would hate him, and he would hate himself more.

In a way, he had been wanting to get away from the Titans ever since Kon died. Ironically enough the only thing keeping him there was the cloning. That thought made him feel especially horrible about himself. Was he really so pathetic that loosing one friend is what broke him? Or was he already doomed from the moment he starting trailing Batman and Robin with his camera all those years ago.

Eventually, Tim tuned it all out, and stared blankly ahead as Conan cried and squirmed against him.

—

“Anita can you get your mom and dad to shut it?” Kon groaned, his hands firmly pressed up against his ears as his face contorted into a grimace.

“What does it look like I’m doing?” Anita sighed, rocking her dad in her arms and whispering things to him that Tim couldn’t quite make out.

“Conner if you’re just going to complain you know you can leave, right?” Cissie snapped as she lowered Anita’s mom into her crib and poked her in the stomach. The baby girl’s crying fit slowly faded into a high-pitched giggle, that continued into more as Cissie made some faces at her.

Tim still wasn’t sure exactly how to process the fact that Anita’s parents had been aged down into babies after being brought back to life, but he was sure he could manage it. Honestly he had seen weirder.

“Great idea Cissie! C’mon Rob, let’s get outta here.” Kon shot the other girl a shit-eating grin and placed his hands firmly on Tim’s shoulders.

“We probably shouldn’t be distracting them anyways.” Tim agreed, following Kon’s lead and earning an exasperated glare from Cissie.

“Mon… we could have got them to help us.” Anita bemoaned, as she made an attempt to burp her father with a slightly disgusted look on her face.

“Tim might be helpful, but Conner would distract him, so it would cancel out.” Cissie explained, shooting Kon an annoyed look.

Tim lowered his head, wishing he still wore his sunglasses so he could more easily hide the flush building on his cheeks. He always hated how easy to read he was to Cissie.

Kon threw an arm around his shoulder and the two waltzed out of the house, the both of them ignoring the disparaging comments Cissie was making within earshot, that she definitely knew the both of them could hear.

“Y’know, I wouldn’t choose to do it, but I think I’d be pretty good with kids actually.” Kon bragged as they skipped down the porch stairs.

“I don’t know about that, Mr. Super-hearing.” Tim snarked, breaking off from Kon’s hold on him once he felt his face begin to get too hot.

Kon huffed, and quirked an eyebrow at Tim, beginning to float just above ground a little. “Yeah like you’d be dad of the year.”

“Never said I would be, they were overestimating me.”

The other boy slowly transitioned to lounging on his side in the air while Tim dropped down to sit on the front steps. “Even the Boy Wonder looses his composure when it comes to a child screaming, huh? Don’t get too relatable now or you might loose your mysterious charm.”

“Mysterious charm? I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Tim responded coyly, resting his chin in the palm of his hand.

“You know what you’re doing! Don’t lie to me!

“In all seriousness I just don’t think kids can get on the same level as me, they’d be boring to talk to.” Tim waved his hand dismissively and Kon scoffed at him.

“Yeah because most kids weren’t child prodigy freaks like you.”

“I know.” He grinned, seeing Kon’s playful lunge at him coming from a mile away. He moved to the side just a little and watched Kon as he harmlessly crashed into the stair behind Tim.

“You think you’re so smart-!” Kon grumbled, tackling him down to the ground, which Tim allowed him to do so.

“Well, you said I was.”

They continued like that for what simultaneously, felt like forever and nothing to Tim, until Anita came out to kick them off her lawn.

—

When Tim snapped out of it, Conan was sniffling, having tired himself out. Tim wasn’t sure how long it had been, but the frost on his chicken breast and bagged stir fry was beginning to turn into condensation.

He shook his head and sat up, walking in complete silence to the bus stop as he internally beat himself up over zoning out for so long.

He had done that a lot since Kon died. Cost him a few scars and days out of commission when he had zoned out during a fight, but Bruce was able to snap him out of the habit. Most of his injuries came from when he zoned out fighting with the Titans.

Tim supposed he fell back into the habit since Bruce wasn’t around anymore. Or more accurately, Tim wasn’t around anymore.

Before he knew it, he had taken the bus back to his neighborhood and was taking the elevator up to his apartment. When he fussed with his keys and jiggled the doorknob a few times to get into the apartment, his eyes slid over to the clock.

It had only been two hours, which was about thirty more minutes than he had planned to be out, and he couldn’t tell if that was because of the conversation with Noah, or if he was really out of it for that long.

Conan had stirred again when Tim took him out of the carrier, and he instinctively tried the bottle with him again, and this time it worked.

Tim heaved a sigh of relief, and once Conan was done eating, he set the kid down in his crib and fell back onto the couch. It was only 8am. He could do something to take his mind off things, but all he wanted to do was sleep.

And so he did.

Chapter Text

Tim’s first day at his job was nothing special, he was confident in his abilities, in terms of actual cybersecurity work and making people believe he was actually old enough to work there. He just looked young that was all.

But he hadn’t exactly expected to feel anxious all day either. His mind couldn’t stop trailing back to Noah taking care of Conan. He knew Noah was supposed to call him if something bad happened, but Tim couldn’t stop himself from worrying that Noah had somehow sneaked past his natural sense of suspicion and was somehow going to hurt Conan.

He knew he was over thinking things, but it didn’t stop him from counting the minutes until his shift ended either way.

When Tim got home, he wasn’t expecting to walk in on Noah doing tummy time with Conan ( and for there to be no crying on Conan’s behalf. ) Tummy time as in, Conan was laying on the carpet, managing to lift his head, and Noah was laying on the floor next to him, watching him with a wide smile.

His neighbor perked up at the sound of Tim coming in and grinned. “Oh hey! Guess I lost track of time.” Then Noah frowned and turned away from Tim for a moment.

“I’m glad you asked for my help man, and I’m sure you were busy but- I’m surprised that the kid isn’t able to hold his own head up yet. Did you not have someone to help him with that while you were dealing with- y’know.” Noah asked gently, turning back to look at Tim halfway through his questioning.

Tim wasn’t exactly sure how to answer that. The truth would be no, but the truth was also more complicated than that. Wasn’t like you could spend too much time with a baby who spent all his time sleeping, suspended in green liquid. But the best lies were wrapped in a layer of truth, and more lies by omission than anything else.

“I never left him alone-“ Well, that part was a lie. “But I was pretty busy. I don’t really- my parents passed away a while ago. And my… girlfriend didn’t really have a family I could go to.” He managed to say, setting his apartment key on the command hook he placed by the door as he kicked off his shoes.

“Yeah man, I get it. Just try to get him caught up more now that you have time. I gotta go sleep before I have to go into work, I’ll see you tomorrow. Don’t worry about paying me until next week, get yourself settled in first.” Noah had got himself up off the floor, and gave Tim an affectionate punch to the shoulder as he passed Tim and headed out the door.

“Thanks- see you tomorrow.” Tim mumbled, setting down his work bag by the door before he went over to sit with Conan. Seeing the kid in such a happy state, not crying and looking up at him with his big blue eyes… Tim had to admit that he was a little weak to it.

He hadn’t really noticed it when Conan was asleep in the tube, but with the eyes as a part of the equation, the kid reminded him more and more of Kon. Tim thought it would make him sad, and sometimes it did, a little but then, it made him feel content. In a way he… honestly really hadn’t since Kon died.

Conan spluttered as he grew tired of lifting his head, and Tim couldn’t resist scooping him up into his arms. The boy giggled and reached his hands up to tug at Tim’s hair, which he had unintentionally let grow out to rest just to the tops of his collar bones.

“Hey-!” Tim complained, his head jerked to the side as Conan clasped onto a chunk of it. He looked down at the infant with a frown. That was definitely more strength than a normal baby should have.

To Tim’s knowledge, Kryptonians didn’t develop their powers until around puberty. From the background he did on Clark, he found that out. Kon wasn’t even factored into the equation since he had already gone through puberty by the time he became conscious.

He didn’t think that would be any different with Conan. He thought he’d have to worry about it later. Tim swatted the thought of doing more tests on the kid away as he went to sit down on the couch and made some faces at Conan, who giggled in response.

“What am I going to do with you…” Tim sighed, keeping his hair firmly out of reach from the kid. He had always thought it to be a bit dumb to talk to people or creatures who couldn’t understand you, but that was before he created Conan. Plus, he had read somewhere that its actually good for babies to listen to you speak, so there wasn’t exactly harm in doing it.

“You’re going to be a challenge you know that Connie?” He said with a small grin. He hadn’t meant to call Conan by a nickname but… it oddly fit. And it was a nickname other than Con. “You better not break Noah’s finger or anything while I’m at work tomorrow, you got that?”

Conan giggled and spluttered as Tim looked up around the room with a frown. “God I’m such a horrible fake dad. Noah is going to think I’m neglecting you or something. I can’t believe I don’t even have any toys for you-“ Tim huffed and rested Conan to sit in the crook of his arm as he made his way over to his computer.

“Just another thing to add to my shopping agenda this weekend… we should just spend the whole day out don’t you think? I think I’ll be sick of chicken, rice and frozen stir fry by Thursday. You’ll need more formula by the weekend too…” Tim groaned and leaned back in his office chair, maneuvering Conan to rest flat against his chest as he stared up at the ceiling.

“I wish I had more time to prepare myself before… ugh.” Tim sat up, using his free hand to pinch the bridge of his nose as he glared down at the floor. “Guess Bruce felt the same when he adopted Dick and Jason. Sort of, you’re a lot littler than Dick was.” Tim chuckled, propping Conan up in his lap.

“Should I be telling you about Bruce, even?” He wondered outloud and shook his head. “You’re not going to remember any of this anyways, so, it’s probably fine.”

“But anyways… that’s different because Bruce is- actually a dad. I’m not, really your dad outside of paperwork. Just… taking care of you.” Tim paused, realizing how dumb that sounded. “Well- you won’t really get that until you’re older probably. I don’t want to keep it from you forever, I think it would be… worse if you didn’t know. Sorry I kind of saddled you with Kon’s exact problem.” He managed to crack a half smile, and when Conan looked up at him with those big blue eyes, Tim let his thumb and his pointer finger press into the corners of his eyes as they began stinging with forming tears.

His back heaved as they began to flow faster than he expected. He was a pretty silent crier most of the time. With the exception of then, when his mom died, and when Kon died. Thinking about Kon and his mother made his sobs rack up even more. He couldn’t even look at Conan then, and what made it worse was that he was the only one crying.

Ugly sobs escaped him as bile rose in his throat. He let his hand fall from his face as he embraced Conan closer to his chest, both arms delicately cradling the small boy.

“F-fuck I’n sorry- you shouldn’t even… I… d-deserve this but you don’t. It’s a-all my fault and I just wish… I-I wish Kon was still here…” Tim whimpered, allowing himself to wallow a little bit before a sharp rush of pain to his scalp shocked him out of it.

“H-hey!” Tim coughed, pulling his head, and by proxy, his hair away from Conan as the little boy giggled, holding a few strands of hair in his tiny hand. “I thought you were behind! You’re not supposed to be grabbing things yet-“ He grumbled with a small sniffle as his tears began to disperse.

“Okay okay… I know I was being dramatic. Thanks for reminding me, Connie.” Tim managed a small smile as he stood up and went over to place Connie in his crib. “Now, can you at least try to sleep while I make myself dinner?”

He was pretty sure the kid wasn’t going to listen to him. But he was pretty used to people like that.

—

Bruce Wayne hadn’t found a single lead on Tim in a week and a half, and he was beginning to grow frustrated, and a tiny bit proud. Dick had made a big deal about letting Tim live with whatever stupid choice he made, and to focus on patrolling for a while, but Bruce couldn’t bring himself to do that.

He also knew that eventually Dick would come around eventually.

They had held Tim’s funeral two nights after he “died.” He was supposed to have a separate funeral as Robin as well, but most people Bruce would have wanted to show up for that had come to Tim’s funeral in their civilian identities anyway, so he scrapped the idea.

Dick couldn’t bring himself to show up, and Starfire left the funeral early to go and find him when she realized he wasn’t there. All Bruce could hope was that Dick didn’t let the truth slip, but he had enough faith in the boy that he wouldn’t. Dick just needed time.

Bruce meanwhile, was spending most of his time not dealing with the ramifications of Tim’s “death” and patrolling into trying to piece together where Tim was, and why he disappeared.

His best theory at the moment was that Tim did something he wasn’t proud of, or he was going to do something that he wasn’t proud of. Bruce worried about the possibility of Tim pursuing some sort of revenge, but he wasn’t sure what for, and with Tim’s attitude as of late he didn’t think he would do something like that.

Tim clearly had been doing worse than he let on since Kon died, but he wasn’t particularly the type of worse to do something like that. Bruce had been keeping track of the Joker, Kiteman and any other rogues that Tim may make his target, but it had been business as usual for them.

Perhaps Tim hadn’t made his move yet, but still, something was off about the revenge theory, even though it ticked most of the boxes. Tim’s disappearance was too clean, too calculated. There was definitely more going on than Bruce had initially suspected.

And he was going to figure that out as long as it would take. Tim was right, he needed a Robin. But he also needed Tim.

—

Tim’s first week at work passed by without much fanfare. He had grown comfortable with Noah taking care of Connie in the time between Monday and Friday, but he had a new concern on the horizon.

He was horrifically lonely.

Its not like talking to his co-workers, Noah and Connie wasn’t nice, but he missed hanging out with his friends back home so deeply that every conversation he had reminded him of what he was missing.

He had been missing that bond for a little over a year by that point. Tim had drifted a bit from Anita, Cissie and Greta ever since Young Justice disbanded, but he straight up hadn’t seen them since Kon’s funeral. He had spoken to Bart and Cassie a handful of times since Kon died, but it was all… emotionally taxing. Never like it was before. Tim worried he might not be capable of having normal friends again. If you could consider his bond with other superheroes “normal.”

Tim tried keeping this alienation from seeping into his conversations, but of course, Noah was able to pick up on it. He felt like he couldn’t hide anything from that guy.

Well, besides from the whole clone baby, fake identity, past as Robin thing.

Tim was kicking off his shoes at the door and hanging up his keys like always when he saw Noah standing right in front of him, holding a sleeping Connie in his arms and giving Tim a quizzical look.

“Have you really not made friends with any of your co-workers?” Noah asked bluntly, mindlessly playing with a tiny black curl on Connie’s head that had recently grown long enough to wrap a it around a finger.

“What happened to ‘Hey Jack! How was your day at work!’” Tim snorted, trying to dodge the question as he pushed past Noah and made his way towards the couch, letting his work bag slide off his shoulder and onto the floor.

“Don’t try to change the subject!” Busted.

Tim let out a heavy sigh and lazily fell into a slouch. “Not really, I don’t click with any of them. But, before you say anything, I was planning on finding a gym to go to and meeting people there. I just need to find a long-term babysitter for Connie.”

“Connie?” Noah asked with a tilt of his head.

“Oh uh- I usually only call him that when it’s just us.”

“That’s adorable man.”

“Shut up.”

“Anyways-!” Noah held up his finger and knitted his thick eyebrows together. “That’s way too long from now. And do I have the invite for you!”

“Huh?” Tim sat up a little straighter.

“Me and my friends are going out drinking since I have the day off work tonight, why don’t you tag along?” Noah proposed as he tucked Conan into his crib gently, as to not wake him.

Tim rolled his eyes. “Whose going to watch Connie if we’re both gone?”

“A guy I know.” Noah said, realizing that wasn’t sufficient enough information when Tim gave him a look. “By a guy I know, I mean my sister.”

“You have a sister?”

“Yes. But I’m not letting you distract me into changing the subject.” He cleared his throat and sat down on the couch next to Tim. “She’s trustworthy I promise. She’s an elementary school teacher and she owes me a favor.”

“Suppose I did take you up on this, I would have to meet her first, and we couldn’t stay out too late. I don’t want Connie sleeping over at some stranger’s house.”

“Deal!” Noah grinned. “How about we go meet her now?”

Tim shook his head and leaned forward to look at Noah seriously. “Hold up, before we do that I need you to tell me about your friends and where we’re going. I don’t want to fifth wheel your friend group or anything.”

Noah’s mouth formed into a straight line as he thought for a moment. “Well it’s- Okay when I say this don’t get weird about it. I assume you’re chill but sometimes you never know.” He took a deep breath before he spoke again. “Our favorite spot is this lesbian bar- since most of my friends are lesbians. And I used to go there when I thought I was a lesbian before I transitioned, I just kind of never stopped going.”

Tim shrugged in response. “Okay? Would they want me there though? I’m a-“ He hesitated a moment. Him being a totally cisgender dude was another one of his lies he had gone over in his head a million times. His testosterone was all from less than legal sources and well hidden in his apartment, and he didn’t plan to visit the doctor at all outside of checkups for Connie. After he got top surgery, he made sure to get his scars to heal as best as possible to avoid any narrowing down of his identity if someone saw him shirtless as Robin, but it had only been a year or so since then, in between Young Justice disbanding and him joining the Teen Titans. There was some progress made in that year, but his scars were still semi-visible.

All of that though, he could hide from other people. He hid it from just about everyone until he became Robin and Bruce ended up finding about him going on patrol in a binder and making him switch to a sports bra. That conversation had been incredibly awkward.

What was harder to hide than he thought was lying to another trans man about who he was. Since usually, in the rare circumstance that he did talk to somebody like him, he got the opportunity to share a part of himself that he had never even formally told his best friend about.

But, Tim managed to swallow his hesitance, reminding himself that this is one of those things he had to give up in exchange for keeping his and Connie’s cover. And that, at the end of the day, was more important than anything else. “Well I’m a cis man- I mean I’m-“

When Tim paused again, this time for a different reason, Noah gave him a slightly pained look, which forced his brain into skipping over the minor crisis of coming out and to just do it. “I’m bisexual but- I’ve never been with a guy before so I don’t really know if I’d fit in.” Tim finally managed to finish.

“You’re bi? Huh. Guess I was too focused on the single dad angle to even think about that.” Noah said absentmindedly before shaking his head and looking Tim in the eye again. “Look Jack, that doesn’t matter! I mean I was inviting you before even though I assumed you were straight, and I wouldn’t have done that if I didn’t think my friends would be chill with you.”

Tim took a deep breath and smiled a little. “Okay, I guess I’ll tag along. Only if your sister seems responsible enough to watch Connie.”

“She won’t disappoint on that! She wants to have kids at some point anyways, so it will be good practice for her.”

He only had a minor crisis wondering what he was even agreeing to for a moment, before he scooped up Connie and his baby bag and then they were off.

—

Noah wasn’t kidding when he said his sister was responsible. And if she was anything like Noah, Tim would have nothing to worry about. It was also nice to hear that her boyfriend could give them all rides home in his Minivan if none of them wanted to designated drive.

Tim had a car, and he wasn’t too keen on drinking all that much, but they had taken the bus down to the bar, chatting the whole way along and making Tim feel increasingly more excited.

They entered the little brick hole-in-the wall together, the colorful mix of neon signs basking them in a smorgasbord of clashing colors in a way Tim could never imagine a bar having in Gotham. Noah waved excitedly to a group of three people sitting together in their own little corner of the curved bar. Tim dragged a little bit behind Noah’s excited speedwalk towards his spot, which had obviously been his spot since he first started coming here, since it had been left wide open.

Tim ducked his head and sheepishly slipped himself on the end, next to a person with long purple braids wearing a pair of tiny, round sunglasses and sipping on some sort of fruity drink. After the group had exchanged familiar greetings with Noah, they all turned their head towards Tim expectantly as he gestured at him.

“That’s Jack! He’s a little quiet at first but it contributes to the whole mysterious single dad vibe he has going on.” Noah introduced, shooting Tim a humorous grin that he rolled his eyes at in response.

“Nice to meet you Jack, I’m Jamie. He/Him.” The short haired brunette in the car farthest from Tim gave him a nod and then gestured to the girl with finger waves and a pink dress sitting next to him. “That’s my girlfriend, Lottie, she uses She/Her.”

“Heyy, glad to have some more people hanging out here. This bar gets a little boring when it’s the same 20 or so people and confused straight girls wandering in.” She snorted.

“And I’m Rue, I don’t really care what pronouns you use but They/Them is my favorite.” The person in the braids next to him chimed in, flashing him a closed mouth smile.

Before Tim could say anything, the tall woman bartending walked on over to their group and looked between Noah and Tim skeptically. “Noah, your friend has to hand over some I.D, guy looks 19, tops.” She grumbled, giving Noah a glare that seemed to be communicating more than Tim was privy to.

“Aw come on Shirley- he literally has a kid.” Noah protested playfully.

“I’m unaware of any universal laws that say you can’t have a kid under 21, please enlighten me.” She mused back sarcastically, before turning her attention back to Tim as he grabbed his false I.D from his wallet and slid it over to her.

Shirley picked it up skeptically, flipping it over a few times before shrugging and handing it back. “If that’s a fake, I can’t tell. So, what’dyou want, kid?”

“Uh- just a beer is fine. Whatever you got.” Tim asked politely, trying not to let on that he’d never actually ordered alcohol before. Closest he got was buying alcohol with his fake Alvin Draper I.D for parties at school or with Young Justice.

He ignored the further skeptical look Shirley gave him as he looked back to the others to say something. He guessed Noah had some kind of regular order or something, since Shirley had already slid him a can of something.

“Nice to meet you all- and thanks Lottie. Glad I’m not intruding here or anything.” Tim chuckled awkwardly, looking down at the pre-opened bottle of beer Shirley passed him seconds prior.

“Not at all man, this place is open for everyone. That’s kind of the whole gimmick.” Jamie chuckled, taking a drink from his identical, but half empty bottle of beer.

“Plus I’ve been wanting to talk to you for a while anyways, Noah is so bad at making new friends, this is exciting!” Rue lightly taps their hand against Tim’s shoulder and ignores the glare Noah is giving them.

“Me being the one whose bad at making new friends? Jack’s the one whose shitty at it. I talked to him first.” Noah corrected sternly.

Tim knitted his brows together. “I’m not bad at it I just-! Was waiting until Connie had a longterm babysitter that’s all.” He argued back.

“Oh my god, Connie is such a cute name! Noah just calls him Con. Is Connie his full name?” Lottie asked, swirling around the cocktail she was loosely holding between ringed fingers.

Oddly enough, Tim felt his mood lift when Connie was brought up, and found it hard to hide in his smile. “No, his name is Conan, but I started calling him Connie a week or so ago. Not sure why I just-“ He didn’t know how to finish what he was saying, so he cut himself off with a chuckle and swig of his beer.

“Heh, Noah was so right about you getting adorable when talking about Conan. Did you pick out his name yourself?” Rue asked, smugly making sure to look directly at Tim’s face as it grew a little red.

“Yeah- I did. I was pretty at a loss for names for a bit though-“

“What made you pick Conan? You like the detective or something” Jamie asked, messing with his side-swept hair.

The question took Tim a little aback, and he couldn’t help himself from looking away and frowning a bit. He needed to get back into practice of controlling his expressions, he probably killed the mood. “Oh it’s- it was just something sort of similar to K- his mom’s name.” Tim corrected himself mid-sentence, cursing himself internally for how dumb of a slip up that could have been.

Noah was the first to say anything after that, everyone else just gave him a sympathetic look and took of a sip of their drinks in thought. “Either way it’s a super cute name. Maybe my sister should go to you for naming advice when she finally has a kid of her own.”

Tim chuckled and forced a smile. “You might be overestimating me a bit, I think Conan was a fluke if anything.”

“Not to change the subject or anything, but that’s a Gotham accent right?” Rue jumped in again.

“Oh! Uh- yeah. I’m not from Gotham proper but- close enough.”

“Shit… have you seen- like- Batman before?” Jamie’s mouth hung open, his beer bottle frozen in place just in front of his lips as his eyes turned to focus on Tim.

“Yeah.” Tim answered instantly, not even thinking about it. A lot of Gothamites hadn’t seen Batman in person before since Bruce mainly kept to the shadows at night, when most sane people were hiding inside, but it wasn’t that suspicious if Tim had seen him before. Just got to make it believable. “When I was younger I- broke curfew and saw him beat up robbers or something. It was a while ago.”

“Is it true that he really doesn’t have superpowers? Noah says he doesn’t but I’m convinced he has to have like- minor invulnerability or super-strength or something.” Rue leaned forward towards Tim as he tried to ignore the clamminess of his palm around the glass of his beer bottle.

This was a pretty normal line of questioning, and one he had prepared for but… he felt a little queasy at the thought of Bruce. The image of his disappointed face appearing in his mind whenever somebody brought him up. He swallowed the bile rising in his throat down and forced another smile. “Gotham’s just as split as you are- I’m not really sure personally.”

Luckily, Tim was freed from answering questions when the rest of the group devolved into an argument about whether Batman had superpowers or not, which Tim mostly tuned out, but heard some bits and pieces from as his mind spiraled.

“—If he had powers he’d probably advertise it, why would someone without them let people think of him as a powerless man if it wasn’t a little true.” He heard Lottie chime in as his eyes focused in on the bottle in front of him. They weren’t exactly focused- more like that’s how it looked like on the outside, but to Tim it was more like staring into nothing, into the space between everything into the nothingness of the universe.

Bruce would be so disappointed in him. He should have said something different in the audio file, he never should have vocally assumed Bruce would come looking for him. He didn’t care that much about Tim, and if he did he would come find Tim and learn not to care- to be disappointed by him.

“Babe- he literally fights a killer alligator who could bite him in half-“ Jamie’s voice broke through the ringing in Tim’s ears for a brief moment, and then it was back to the darkness growing before him.

Would Tim ever be free of everything before? Would he someday forget it all and live a peaceful life, maybe with these people, or some people like them? Or would he remember it all, and be completely alone and unable to tell anyone. The latter option reminded him far to much of his long nights in the tower, going up and down from his bedroom to the lab where he made his biggest mistake.

“Jack? Hey Jack?” Noah’s voice broke through the void and pulled Tim back into reality, looking a little more disoriented than he intended to. But he still felt it more than he looked it, like the world was spinning and he had to pretend it wasn’t.

“Huh? Yeah?”

“You good man?” Jamie asked with narrowed eyes and a raised eyebrow, which had a very infected looking piercing on it.

“Yeah I’m good… what were you talking about? Sorry I was- listening into Shirley’s conversation with um- that couple over there.” Tim came up with a quick lie on the spot, which everyone seemed to believe.

“Okay so- is the reptile who lives in the Gotham sewers a crocodile or an alligator. This is very important. And it better be crocodile, because I know I’m right.” Rue asked, giving Tim a look that said ‘even if I’m wrong tell them I’m right, please?’

The answer was really neither, but Jack wasn’t supposed to know that. “Uhh… he’s Killer Croc. He’s a crocodile?” Tim weighed in, earning enthusiastic cheers from Rue and Noah in response, who exchanged double high-fives.

Tim stayed on the outskirts of their conversations for- an indeterminate amount of time, but enough time that he had gone through at least 3 beers. Most people his height would be feeling drunk right about now, but he had trained his tolerance when he became Robin. But just in case, he pretended to be a bit tipsy to play the role, and to make his aloofness seem like a drunk thing and not a ‘we need to ask this guy if he’s depressed’ thing.

“What? Jack’s bi?” Rue asked, looking between Noah and Tim. That caught Tim’s attention, and now he was wondering what the context of their conversation even was.

“Shit- sorry Jack. I didn’t ask if you were okay with me telling people-“ Noah frowned, ducking his head and giving Tim an apologetic look.

“It’s ‘lright.” Tim said, he hadn’t made himself slur his words that time. When had he made it through his sixth beer?

“Heh, knew he was queer somehow. Just thought he was closeted or something.” Rue grinned proudly, giving Tim another affectionate tap on the shoulder.

Tim kew it was dumb before he said it, and that he shouldn’t give away so much information, but his mouth moved without his mind’s permission. “I am actually. Y’guys are the first to know. Well- I think my brother maybe knows… but I’ve never told him or anything.”

“Hm. Thank you for trusting us with this. Is your family not supportive?” Lottie asked softly, looking straight at Tim with her sharp dark brown eyes. They were almost cat-like. She reminded him a bit of Selina… He needed to stop thinking about that sort of stuff.

“You have a brother?” Noah asked with a quirked brow.

“Uhh… sorta. Not biologically anyhow- but they’re- they would be ‘pportive I think.” Tim slurred and narrowed his eyes on the wall next to Jamie’s head.

“Damn you never got to tell your parents before they passed?” Noah asked with a frown.

“Oh-“ His intoxicated mind caught up with the fact that he hadn’t told Noah about Bruce. He shouldn’t have said he had a brother, this made things annoying. “Yeah- it’s fine though, haven’t really- wanted to date ina’while anyway.”

“I mean your kid is like, what, 4 months old? Most people don’t move on very fast after the parent of their child dies. Not wanting to date doesn’t invalidate your bisexuality or anything.” Jamie added cautiously, in a bit of a less rough tone than Tim was getting used to him speaking in.

“Not to dump this on you, but, my girlfriend passed away from an overdose a couple of years back. Not the same but, I get how you feel. I didn’t start dating again until this year.” Rue reassured him, rubbing circles in Tim’s hunched over back with their hand.

“Yeah! We’re all here for you if you need anything man. I know plenty of single people whenever you do feel ready to date again.” Noah added with a kind smile.

Tim felt the truth crawling to the tip of his tongue. That it had been more than they thought. Almost a year and a half. And it wasn’t a girl, or someone he was dating. That it was Kon, and… he wasn’t dumb. He knew he had liked Kon, he had known that for a while. It was when he figured out he was bi in the first place but… he hadn’t quite realized that he…

He cut that train of thought of with a change in subject. “Eh, I should’be focusing on Connie anyways.”

Jamie chuckled. “You’re making all us proud with that. You seem like a good dad y’know? My dad always chose dating over me.” He shook his head at the thought and smiled a little more when Lottie took his hand.

“If y’say so…” Tim forced his mouth shut before he could say anything more incriminating.

“Speaking of, I should be calling my sister’s boyfriend to pick me and Jack up. He said he was going shopping tomorrow. You all have rides?” Noah stood up and looked between his friends.

“We’ll be fine. My cocktail is non-alcoholic. I’ll drop Rue off before me and Jamie go home.” Lottie assured Noah and extended her hand to grip his forearm and then pat it with a smile as Nosh pulled away.

Noah sauntered on over to Tim as they walked to the door together. Noah held out a hand as if to stabilize Tim( but he walked just fine. That was were the tolerance and training mainly kicked in. He just never learned how to think clearly when drunk… he assumed Bruce could do it but, now that he was thinking about it that was probably biologically impossible. Another thing he could never live up to, if it was really a skill that Bruce actually had.

As Noah’s sister’s boyfriend pulled up to the curb after about ten minutes of the two waiting in silence, Noah helped Tim into the back seat of the car while he suddenly felt a wave of embarrassment and guilt wash over him.

“Sorry I was killin’ the mood the whole time… bet y’friends hate me now.” Tim chuckled a little, avoiding Noah’s gaze.

“No man, it’s okay. Nobody hates you or anything, we shouldn’t have brought it up. Sorry if you felt pressured to drink or anything- I should have asked if you were okay with bars.”

“S’fine. Usually I don’t get- like this. Im’sorry.”

“You don’t have to apologize Jack.” Noah said seriously, finally catching Tim’s gaze. “You don’t have to be okay. It’s normal not to be right now. You know if you ever need some resources for some cheap therapists or ones that accept state insurance- I can try and find someone for you.”

Tim paused at that offer, but eventually turned it down, like he had before when Cassie had said something similar to him. Right now, he was turning it down because there was no way anything would help if he couldn’t be totally honest. Which he couldn’t risk. And before… even though it was someone who worked with the superhero community at large and even did night sessions, but he didn’t want to waste any of the time he could have spent in the lab. How stupid he had been.

He wouldn’t exactly go back and change it now though. He didn’t think it would have helped anyways. He was half convinced that he was always going to monumentally fuck up sooner rather than later. He had just gotten it out of the way. It was probably for the best that it happened before he had let Bruce start seeing him too much more like family. Or let Young Justice back into his life.

“S’lright. Therapy never worked out for me. I’ll manage.” Tim mumbled as they pulled up to Noah’s sister’s house.

“If you say so… but keep what I said in mind.” Noah disappeared inside for a minute and came back out with Connie snuggled up in his car seat. Noah strapped Connie in the back next to Tim, while Noah moved up front to the passenger’s seat.

Tim leaned back and looked over at Connie with a small smile as Noah began talking again. “I’ll stay over night at your place and sleep on the couch until the morning. I don’t think you’re exactly sober enough to be taking care of a baby right now.” Noah explained.

Tim hummed in response as he drifted off into though, letting himself get lost in the tranquility of Connie’s sleep. He only wished he felt that way then.

Then, all he felt like was a shameful mess.

Chapter Text

Tim Drake turned eighteen years old that day. But Jack Alvin was twenty-two, so nobody knew that, and he couldn’t tell anyone about it.

His seventeenth birthday would have gone entirely uncelebrated if not for Alfred, Bruce, Dick, Steph, Cass and Barbra throwing something together for him.

Tim’s sixteenth birthday was spent with Young Justice, where they all went to the arcade together. But his fifteenth birthday was the first he celebrated with someone else. He didn’t really like thinking about his fifteenth birthday anymore.

Before all that, most of his birthdays were spent by himself, waiting for a letter or phone call from his parents and eating a slice of cake while he watched TV or looked through his pictures of Batman and Robin.

The thought of getting himself something nice, maybe a camera, had came and went already. He had to budget his money pretty tightly, and he didn’t have the extra funds for something like that when he had to worry about getting formula and diapers for Connie.

He had already blew through most of his extra spending money last month when he went out shopping for toys for Connie with Rue. Who knew how expensive toys that would be abandoned in a few months could get?

Plus, it wasn’t like he really deserved to get anything nice for himself. Tim’s birthday present for himself this year was trying to beat himself up about everything a little less than he normally did. Which hadn’t exactly been working out. Normally when he felt bad about himself he went to go see his friends or go out on patrol if it was late enough. Before he was Robin he would work on developing his pictures of Batman and connecting the dots from Bruce Wayne to the identities of other superheroes.

Tim didn’t exactly have any distractions or hobbies anymore. Not ones that filled the void he had been letting fester for months, anyway. He went to the gym everyday, for some reason feeling the need to stay in shape even when he didn’t really have a reason for it anymore. He worked, took care of Connie and talked with Noah and the others sometimes. Yet, he still felt like he wasn’t doing enough, that he was letting himself sit with his thoughts for too long.

At the same time the microwave heating up his leftover takeout from the night before beeped, his phone rang as well. Tim sighed, grabbing the container out of the microwave and ignoring the hot sting against his finger tips as he tucked his flip phone into the crook of his neck and answered the call.

“This is Jack Alvin, who’s calling?” He asked while grabbing a pair of chopsticks from his silverware drawer and making his way on over to the side of the road table and mismatched chairs he had gotten a month prior.

“It’s Noah, sorry to call you out of the blue but can I ask you a favor?” His neighbor’s voice scratched through the cellphone a little rushed, as if he was in the middle of something.

“Oh uh- sure what is it?” Tim took a big bite of noodles as he prepared to listen to the long-winded explanation he was sure Noah was going to go on.

“So- I kind of agreed to help Jamie and Lottie move their stuff into their new apartment but I forgot I promised Mrs. Hernandez I would watch her kids today. I think Jamie and Lottie might be able to handle the move on their own but big projects always end with them getting into arguments about it- so I wanted to go to help out and make sure things stayed on track but I also can’t cancel on Mrs. Hernandez last minute… so I was wondering if you could go help them out? You could just drop Connie off in my apartment- I know it’s a lot to ask but Rue has their job interview today and-“

Tim had by then finished chewing and decided to cut Noah off. “Yeah I can do that- you’ve already helped me so much so it wouldn’t be a big deal. I just need to finish eating lunch. Am I just unloading a U-Haul or should I bring my car to transfer boxes between apartments?”

Noah took a deep breath and Tim could tell he was speaking through a grin, even without being able to see him. “Thanks, man! What are friends for, right? But it’s just unloading- you can just drop off Connie here whenever you’re done eatin- shit. Mrs. Hernandez is here- I have to go. Talk to you later?”

“Sure, I’ll be over there in a minute.” After that, his phone beeped and he tucked it back into his pocket. Didn’t hurt to not rush his lunch though, he wasn’t exactly keen on running into Mrs. Hernandez in the hallway.

—

Tim had felt a bit nervous dropping off Connie at Noah’s apartment when he heard the screaming from behind the door, but when he was assured it would be fine, he decided to just go with it.

Since Lottie and Jamie’s new apartment was on the other side of the city, Tim drove over. He hadn’t exactly hung out much with Jamie and Lottie, and when he did it was with the whole group. He and Rue had become closer than he expected, and they had hung out a few times, but mostly avoided any difficult topics. Tim mostly avoided hanging out with Lottie and Jamie one on one because they seemed like the type of people who could get him talking more than he intended to.

When he got out of the car, Jamie and Lottie were standing behind the opened back of a U-Haul, speaking to one another in stern hushed voices that Tim couldn’t quite make out. Once he was close enough to be able to hear anything, both of them shut up and turned towards him.

Jamie raised an eyebrow at him, and Lottie was wearing a smile that didn’t quite reach her eyes. The two exchanged looks with each other before Lottie spoke up. “Jack, I wasn’t expecting to see you here, is Noah with you?”

Tim shook his head and awkwardly fidgeted with his car keys. “Did Noah not call you-? Sorry he couldn’t make it. He forgot he promised to watch Mrs. Hernandez’ grandkids today so he asked if I could help out in his place. Is that alright..?”

“It’s all good, you really didn’t have to come though, me and Lottie have it-“ Jamie started before Lottie shot him a glare.

“We could use all the help we can get!” Lottie gestured Tim over and began explaining exactly where everything went. If Tim wasn’t so used to memorizing Bruce’s various plans and contingencies he probably wouldn’t have remembered it all, but Lottie was lucky enough to enlist his help.

Jamie let out a long sigh, scratching his chin and fiddling with the hem of his white tank top when Lottie finished. “I thought we were going to have the couch facing the window and the TV in the bedroom, you always tell me how you want people us to have people over without getting distracted by the TV.”

“Well, I changed my mind.” Lottie shot back, placing a hand firmly on her hip.

Tim really regretted accepting the favor now. From what he had seen hanging out with the couple, they were always really comfortable around each other, and never seemed to have any negative tension between them. So he hadn’t exactly taken Noah seriously when he brought up their… well, whatever that was. Tim wasn’t quite sure he was close enough with either of them to interfere, but he dreaded letting this continue any longer and ruining his mood further.

“Hey- why don’t we just get everything in the right rooms and then figure out the layout and placement of the TV last?” Tim offered with an awkward chuckle, earning a look from both Lottie and Jamie that he couldn’t quite decipher, so he just went ahead and grabbed the purple loveseat from the trailer when he heard Jamie and Lottie vocalize some sort of agreement.

Tim grunted as he found his grip on the loveseat, beginning to carry it up towards the building as Jamie and Lottie caught up to him carrying several boxes each.

“You good carrying that all by yourself?” Jamie asked with a skeptical look as he held open the doors for Tim and Lottie.

“Oh- yeah I’m all good. This is lighter than I thought actually-“

“Hm. I guess you’re stronger than you look.” Lottie observed as they ascended one flight of stairs and began walking down the hallway to the new apartment. Tim tried not to think about how much muscle definition he had lost since giving up being Robin.

Jamie trudged ahead some to get the door open in time for Tim to squeeze the love seat through, directing him towards the bedroom to put it up against the end of the mattress-less bed, which Tim was thankful for already being there.

Lottie went off to deposit her boxes in the kitchen while Tim caught his breath and Jamie’s intrigue. “You work out or something?”

“Uh, I guess so. It’s just a hobby though.” Tim said as Jamie set down his boxes on top of the love seat.

“Must be hard to keep up with having a kid and everything that’s been going on.” Jamie hummed as he walked out back towards the trailer, Tim and now Lottie, trailing closely behind.

“Eh, I don’t have much else to do besides taking care of Connie and working.” He answered, only realizing how pathetic it sounded after he said it.

Lottie pounced onto the conversation as they made their way down the stairs. “No hobbies or anything, besides that?”

“Guess I used to do photography, but I-“ Tim pressed his lips into a firm line and furrowed his brow. He honestly wasn’t sure how much he should let himself say. It wasn’t like telling them that he used to take pictures would lead into them figuring out who he was, but he was a little worried that if he started sharing some, he’d end up blabbing more than he intended like the first time he met the couple, where he brought up Dick.

Jamie gave him a puzzled look as they reached the trailer, Tim going for the fancy looking coffee table as he forced himself to finish his train of thought. “Left my camera behind when I moved out for the first time and just never picked it back up.”

Lottie grumbled slightly as she loaded a heavier box onto her stack, which seemed to be holding books of some kind, while Jamie went for a few slightly wilted looking potted plants. “Maybe you should try taking pictures again.” Jamie suggested in a tone of voice that made it sound like he knew something Tim didn’t, which slightly annoyed him.

“Cameras are pretty expensive-“ Tim started, only for Lottie to cut him off, and look at him in the same strange way Jamie’s tone of voice sounded.

“When’s your birthday? We could all chip in and get you something decent. Nothing super fancy, of course.” Lottie offered as they made their way back up the stairs and into the apartment.

As Jamie helped Tim line up the coffee table in front of the living room window, which basked the room in the soft glow of the afternoon sun, Tim paused and considered the question. He had ended up putting down his birthdate as the same day Bruce officially adopted him, rather than his actual birthday. Despite how peeved their knowing looks and wise tone of voice made him, a part of him… wanted these people to know about him. Who he really was, if only to replicate a semblance of what he had lost by leaving everyone behind.

But who was he without Robin? In the grand scheme of things, what was a birthday if not an arbitrary date that didn’t really matter. For a little bit, he thought maybe that it mattered. But now, perhaps it was best if he left it behind. He liked Jamie and Lottie, they were nice people who had his back even if they didn’t know him all that well. But it wouldn’t be the same, and he could never allow it to be even close.

“I don’t really celebrate my birthday, so don’t worry about it.” Tim smiled blankly as he went back outside to haul some more things inside.

—

“What do you mean your birthday’s not important?” Kon scoffed. He was doing that thing Tim hated, where he would levitate when he was angry with him just to look even taller than he already was in comparison to Tim. He assumed Kon thought it made him seem more intimidating, but it usually just ended up ticking him off.

“What do you think I mean, genius?” Tim rolled his eyes, even though Kon couldn’t see him doing it.

They were quiet for a moment, the only sounds in the base being the sound of keys clacking beneath Tim’s fingertips and the sound of Red Tornado’s voice on the phone with someone in the next room over. Tim guessed he couldn’t make out any of the words because Red Tornado knew he would be listening, and kept his voice quieter on purpose.

“Do you always have to be so serious all of the time? What did you even do last year, write reports for Batman and- brood or whatever you do in your free time?”

“I actually went skateboarding last year.” Tim replied curtly, not looking up from his computer screen.

“Well- then why don’t you do that again this year instead of holing yourself up in here writing a report?” Kon asked, as if Tim’s choice of birthday plans this year was something sacrilegious.

Tim finally looked at Kon, watching as his eyebrow twitched ever so lightly and how his earring glistened from the light coming from his computer screen. He looked away not long after. “If I didn’t have a report to do, I would.” He replied as if the answer was obvious.

“And what exactly happens if you get this report in- I don’t know 2 hours late?” Kon asked, the pitch of his voice growing higher at the end of his question as if he was up to something. Tim stopped what he was doing and turned to face Kon, giving him a distinct frown and quirk of his eyebrow in response.

“Not much but I-“ Before Tim could finish his sentence, he only caught a flash of Kon’s grin as suddenly, he was scooped up in the other boy’s arms and they were out the door. Usually Tim could anticipate Kon’s actions to be able to avoid him, even when he was utilizing his super speed, ( it helped that he was slower than Bart ) but something must have distracted Tim this time.

He wasn’t exactly happy about it, stiffening in Kon’s arms and grumbling something under his breath like ‘Did he really have to bridal carry me?’ Tim glared up at Kon, feeling relatively safe with the other boy’s tactile telekinesis despite how high up they were. When Tim looked down again, he had to admit that he was just a little bit anxious about it, but he tried to ignore it.

“What are you doing?” Tim hissed, looking back at Kon partially to avoid looking at the ground below which was slowly becoming covered by a sea of fluffy clouds which were basked in shades of dark blue, pink and purple as the sun set behind them.

“You said not much would happen if you got your report in late, so I’m taking you to get cake. There’s this French bakery in Metropolis I saved from Intergang a while back, so I pretty much have free desserts for life there.” Kon explained nonchalantly, keeping his eyes fixed on the ground below as if scanning where they were.

“You cut me off before I finished! You know Batman is going to make me cover extra reports next week for getting this one in late, and I have a Geometry test next week, so if I fail it, this is your fault.” Tim spat back, narrowing his eyes on Kon’s face and slowly felt his frustration dissipate the longer he looked at the flying boy. As he felt his cheeks began to heat up and the sensation of Kon’s fingers pressed against the kevlar of his suit, he looked away before the other boy could notice.

“Well if you had been more clear-“ Kon started, sounding slightly irritated and shook his head. “Either way! Batman shouldn’t be punishing you for having fun on your birthday, I know the guy is dedicated but is cake against his rules or whatever? Seems a bit overkill.” He blew a loose strand of curly hair out of his face as they began to touchdown in an alleyway where they wouldn’t be spotted by as many people, which Tim appreciated.

Tim felt a knot uncurl from his stomach as he quickly pushed away and planted both of his feet on the ground. Instinctively going to fix his hair before realizing the wind hadn’t affected it thanks to Kon’s TTK. “Batman doesn’t know it’s my birthday.” He muttered.

Kon gave him a look. He wasn’t sure what kind of look it was, and grew increasingly unsure as Kon grabbed his shoulders and looked straight at him. “Dude. Do you even celebrate your birthday, like ever? With other people?” He asked seriously, searching the white lenses of Tim’s domino mask for an answer.

Tim averted Kon’s gaze, his mouth coming up dry of words whenever he looked the Kryptonian directly in the eyes. His face flushed a little as he struggled out an answer, managing to keep enough of his composure that it wouldn’t be noticeable. “Not really.” He didn’t want to elaborate much, after it all it might give Kon too many clues relating to his secret identity.

“Well! This year we’re going to change that Wonder Boy!” Kon smiled at him, letting go of Tim’s shoulders and giving him a pat on the shoulder as he led the way out of the alley, to which Tim cautiously followed. It’s not like he had anywhere else to go.

“I’m generally referred to as ‘Boy Wonder’ not ‘Wonder Boy.’ Mix up two word phrases often?” Tim teased with some snark, earning a hard bump in the shoulder as he caught up to Kon.

“Nah. I was right the first time, don’t get it twisted.” Kon rolled his eyes behind his sunglasses, stopping at a storefront and grabbing Tim’s hand to lead them inside.

Tim couldn’t feel Kon’s hand, they were both wearing gloves. But he liked to imagine that he could feel Kon’s soft, warm palm in his calloused and scarred one.

“Wonder Boy here has a birthday today, wouldn’t happen to have any fresh slices of cake, would you?” Kon flashed the lady at the counter his trademark Superboy grin, causing the woman to blush slightly and nod.

“Anything for you, Superboy! What kind would he like? We have everything displayed in the glass here. On the house of course…” The lady chuckled nervously, her gaze entirely fixed on Kon, not straying towards Tim once.

Oddly enough, Tim related a little bit, even if he didn’t want to admit it.

“Ooh this one looks so good- what do you think Rob?” Kon asked, looking up from the glass to tilt his head at Tim.

Tim who had not at all been looking at the selection of cake flavors until about a second ago, decided quickly, his eyes locking on the slice Kon had been talking about. “That one.” He said, pointing at it.

“You heard the man, one slice of blueberry red velvet cheesecake!” Kon nodded at the woman behind the counter hurriedly opened the back of the display case, preparing a small box and serving up a slice and carefully setting it inside before she secured it shut.

“Thank you again Superboy for um- saving my mom’s bakery.” The lady blushed as she handed the box over.

“No problemo! Anything for a beautiful girl like you.” Kon flashed her another grin as he snatched the box up out of her hands and shoved it towards Tim. He delicately took hold of the small cardboard box and held back a small smile.

As they left the bakery, Tim knew Kon was going to pick him up again. Normally if he saw this sort of thing coming, he would have dodged out of the way and told Kon he would have found his own way home, or at least demanded to be picked up in a more dignified way, but he let it happen. Kon placed an arm under Tim’s knees, and another under his upper back, extending his TTK around Tim before they shot up into the sky in silence.

Tim held the box of cake close to his chest, his head angled straightforward, but his eyes completely fixed onto Kon’s face as he scanned the ground below them. They could have been flying for minutes for all Tim knew, but it felt like no time had passed at all when they touched down in a secluded park, just in front of a bench.

He quickly jumped out of Kon’s arms when he relinquished the hold of his TTK, sitting down on the bench next to Kon.

“I thought you were going to drop me off back at the cave.” Tim thought out loud, giving Kon a quizzical look.

“What? So you could eat your birthday cake on your own like a schoolgirl who just got rejected? No way. You’re too cool for that.”

“Superboy thinks I’m cool? High praise.” Tim snorted, rolling his eyes as he opened his box of cake.

“Yea- wait. Are you making fun of me?” Kon scrunched up his nose as he turned to face Tim, who just shrugged in response. “Oh shit. Sorry I forgot to grab a fork I can fly back real quick and-“

“Don’t worry about it.” Tim answered simply, digging out a small bag from his utility belt and taking out a fork from it.

“What the hell? You just- keep that in there? Like when you are beating up criminals in Gotham? You just have a fork in your utility belt?” Kon asked in an exasperated tone while Tim smirked at him.

“You never know when a flying weirdo is going to kidnap you and take you out to get cake.”

“Okay first of all I am not a ‘weirdo.’ And I did not kidnap you. You’re so dramatic, Rob.” Kon scoffed while Tim laughed, his bite of cake nearly falling out of his mouth.

“Second of all, don’t hog that to yourself! I know it’s your birthday or whatever but my super-heroics got you that slice for free, so I at least get one bite.” The other boy said matter of factly as he snatched the box of cake and Tim’s fork from his hands.

Tim let him of course. If he really wanted to keep it away from him he would have at least tried, super-strength or not.

“Whatever you want, kid.”

“I know you only call me that to make yourself sound way older than you are, I know we’re like- the same age, at least physically. How old are you turning this year anyways?” Kon asked while he was chewing, and passed the box of cake and fork back to Tim.

Tim knew he probably shouldn’t tell the other boy. Narrowing it down that much could help anybody figure out who he was. But Kon wasn’t like that. He wouldn’t weaponize any information Tim gave him for something like that. If Kon really wanted to, he could use his X-Ray vision to see under Tim’s mask, but he didn’t. Even if the fact that Tim didn’t tell him his real name frustrated Kon.

“It’s my fifteenth birthday.” Tim mumbled, it was quiet, maybe too quiet for a normal person to make out, but he knew Kon would be able to.

“So much for calling me kid, ey?” Kon chuckled, bumping Tim in the shoulder as he had another bite of cake, letting Kon take the box and fork back even though he said he’d only have one bite.

Tim just watched Kon, mostly engaging in their banter on autopilot. By this point he knew, he wasn’t dense to his own emotions just because he preferred not to share them with others. He knew he felt… differently about Kon than he did about everyone else. Similar to how he felt about Steph, even if he didn’t want to unpack what that meant right now.

Right now, he just wanted to enjoy his birthday. Maybe celebrating it with others wasn’t so bad after all.

—

When they finished getting everything into the apartment, Lottie and Jamie were giving him a weird look. Tim guessed it was probably because while the couple had taken a few breaks, Tim hadn’t sat down until the entire U-Haul was unloaded and the pair insisted that he take a seat and drink some water before he headed out. Tim sort of expected they would insist though, he was finally getting used to the midwestern goodbyes that Dick was always complaining about whenever he would spend time with Clark.

He wasn’t exactly fond of his co-workers trying to talk to him as he was getting ready to go out the door though. Usually when he brought up Connie they would lay off. Even though Noah stayed up to half an hour after Tim got back from work. But Tim wasn’t sure if that was a cultural thing or if Noah really did enjoy taking care of Connie that much. Which Tim had always found odd considering that when he asked, Noah was always vehemently against the idea of having kids of his own. But Tim guessed that probably had something to do with Noah’s dysphoria and lack of ever wanting to get into a relationship. Not too dissimilar from Tim, besides the fact that Tim was usually exhausted taking care of a kid all day whereas it seemed to rejuvenate Noah.

As if she could read his thoughts, Lottie spoke up after a long sip of water. “Sorry if we’re keeping you from little Conan, but I’m sure he’d appreciate his dad better when he’s well rested.”

“And I’m sure Noah can handle things, dude loves taking care of kids so much I wouldn’t be surprised if he made a career change sometime soon.” Jamie chuckled, leaning back against the corner of the couch, his arm wrapped around Lottie’s waist, who was sitting up on the armrest of the couch with her legs crossed.

“It’s all good, I was a little thirsty anyways.” Tim forced a smile and took a long drink of water. “If Noah does go into childcare full time, I hope they let Connie in where ever he works, that guy is a lifesaver.”

“I’m sure, I couldn’t imagine being a single parent at your age. Honestly I think even with Jamie to help me out it would just put too much stress on our relationship.” Lottie said with a sigh, giving Jamie an appreciative smile as he gave her a comforting pat on the thigh.

“And I don’t really like kids. So we’ve never planned on having any. I’ve hung out at Noah’s apartment enough times while he’s babysitting to know I could never be a dad.” Jamie visibly shivered and gave Tim a sympathetic look.

“It’s… not all bad. It sucks sometimes but it’s my responsibility, all I can try to do is be as present as possible.”

“Oh?” Lottie asked, even though from the look in her eyes Tim was sure she had already guessed the answer to her prying. Once again, he came up with the same dilemma. Unlike with his birthday however, he didn’t have any contradictory documents, and he had sort of already drunkenly trauma-dumped to the two of them on the first night they met. So he thought maybe, he could share a little bit, as long as he kept it vague and himself somewhat guarded.

“Uh, my parents weren’t exactly the most present before they passed. I turned out okay but I don’t want to risk anything with Connie. He… deserves better.” Even though Tim didn’t exactly see himself as Connie’s dad, he was filling in the role. So he couldn’t help but compare how he took care of Connie to how his parents took care of him.

“I’m glad Connie has a better dad than you had… and better than what a lot of people had. A lot of people would have given their child to the state in a situation like yours, but I’m glad you didn’t.” Lottie smiled softly, and a little more genuinely than he thought she ever had towards him. He couldn’t help but notice the way Jamie squeezed her hand reassuringly.

“Lottie’s parents couldn’t take care of her when she was a kid. She has a relationship with them both now but… she didn’t end up with the best caretakers growing up.” Jamie explained, looking at Lottie the whole time.

Tim closed his eyes and thought back to that first night in the lab with Connie, panicking about what he should do. He felt a stab of guilt at the memory of the several times in his first month taking care of Connie where he briefly considered doing exactly what Lottie’s parents had done. He wondered if he had, somehow, ended up with a non-clone non-super-powered baby if he would have given him up. That’s what Steph had done after all. He didn’t at all blame her for doing so either. Tim only wished the government cared more for kids like Steph’s, and kids like Lottie.

He felt a hot, creeping sense of shame for hiding his exact circumstances from Jamie and Lottie. He had to, but if they knew the truth they probably wouldn’t be so sympathetic. Connie wasn’t exactly… normal. He was innocent, and yet he also represented the worst thing Tim had ever done. None of that was Connie’s fault, it was Tim’s. Tim couldn’t tell the full truth, but in a way he felt almost obligated to be a little more honest. Lottie and Jamie were too good of people to be hanging out with Tim without knowing that he wasn’t who they thought he was.

“I… I thought about it. I decided not to of course, and I’m glad I didn’t but I well… I didn’t want to have a kid in the first place. I don’t really like talking about it but I… had a life and plans before Connie. I miss it… a lot. But at the end of the day, Connie didn’t do anything wrong. It’s not right to punish him for my own mistakes” Tim took a deep breath when he finished, keeping his eyes firmly averted from Lottie and Jamie’s gazes.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the two shift their expressions. For a moment, Tim thought he had really messed up, especially when Jamie sat up and scooted closer to him on the couch. But then…

“Hey man, can I give you a hug?” Jamie asked softly.

“I- uh, sure.” Tim exhaled, stiffening as Jamie’s large arms wrapped around his back. He could feel Jamie’s hair brush up against his jaw, and his face fit into the curve of Tim’s neck.

“Whatever happened, it isn’t your fault. I’m sorry you… I’m not good at this kind of thing but just know that the world should have been kind enough to you that you could have kept on living whatever life you were, and helped you be a good dad to Connie at the same time.” Jamie managed to say, clearly struggling through the words. Lottie came up behind Jamie and smiled at Tim.

For some reason, the corners of Tim’s eyes stung when Lottie began speaking too. “You may not have had people in Gotham who were willing to support you, but you do here. I’m sorry if anyone made you feel like this was all your fault. Even if it really was, that doesn’t mean you have to do everything on your own.”

What she said that made Tim cry the most was how wrong she was. He did have people in Gotham who were willing to support him, and he left it all behind because he was too much of a coward to tell anyone how he fucked up. More terrifying than that… was the idea of telling everyone the emotions that had led him into doing what he had done.

Tim shut his eyes tightly as sobs racked through his entire body, his face growing red with shame as his tears fell down onto Jamie’s shoulder. It hurt even more when he felt Lottie wrap her arms around the both of them. He was conning these kind people, making them sympathize with him when it was the opposite of what he deserved from them.

That’s when he began crying loudly. Hysterically in a way that he never would have, or should have allowed himself to. Everything was swirling around inside him all at once. Part of it was that their words actually meant something to him, but an even bigger, more overbearing part of it was that he didn’t deserve any of it. And he couldn’t tell them that, or it would be all over again.

Tim couldn’t do that again. He couldn’t leave his friends behind again. He couldn’t run away again. He couldn’t uproot his life again. He couldn’t hurt anyone again, but if his new friends ever found out the truth about him he would break that promise. He was already breaking his promise every second that his friends back home mourned him, just because Tim had been too scared to tell them what he had done. To scared to tell them that he needed them.

They sat like that for a while, Tim wasn’t sure how long, but he knew it was long enough to be incredibly embarrassing. As Jamie and Lottie pulled away from him, he was a sniffling mess even if he wasn’t crying anymore. He kept his head down, making an attempt to hide his face from them even though they had already seen him in a far more vulnerable state than he had ever intended them too.

“It seems like you needed that.” Lottie observed with a kind smile as she returned to her place by Jamie’s side.

“Yeah man, if you ever need to talk about things with someone. You should, it isn’t healthy to bottle things up like this.” Jamie added, rubbing the small of Lottie’s back.

They didn’t understand. But there’s no way they possibly could. And Tim had made it that way.

“I’m sorry I- I really shouldn’t have. I don’t know you all that well and-“

“Really. It’s alright.” Lottie corrected sternly.

“Even if you don’t feel up to talking about things right away, you’re way too stressed.” Jamie sighed, ignoring the look from Lottie that said ‘be gentler.’ “What Lottie brought up earlier today about doing photography again? You should. Even if you just buy yourself a shitty digital camera, you should. Trust me.” Jamie then looked at Lottie and smiled.

“Just because you feel like you have done something wrong doesn’t mean you shouldn’t take care of yourself. If you don’t celebrate your own birthday you could at least treat yourself for once.” Lottie urged, trying to catch his gaze, and failing to do so.

They weren’t exactly wrong. Tim could… think about it at least. But he didn’t have the energy to argue or say anything of substance, so he just nodded meekly.

“Speaking of-“ Jamie started, leaning forward slightly. “You might be able to get away with not celebrating your birthday, but Noah will absolutely riot if you don’t have a party for the little guy. So you better start planning that when the time comes around.” He grinned at Tim.

The change of subject made Tim feel a little bit better, most of his overwhelming self-loathing replaced with a distinct sense of embarrassment. It wasn’t that different, but it was a small improvement.

“Wasn’t planning on missing it-“ Tim managed to say, giving the couple a weak smile.

“How old is he now? It’s never too early to start preparing.” Lottie asked.

“He’s four months now, but he’ll be five months old on the twenty-second.” Tim explained, much more clearly than he expected himself to be capable of in that moment.

“So, February twenty-second is his birthday then?” Lottie clarified, to which Tim nodded.

“Ugh, you know how spoiled your kid is going to be on that day?” Jamie grumbled teasingly. “Noah will make it his mission to pull out all the stops for it you know.”

Tim laughed and sniffled a little bit as he felt the puffiness around his eyes shrink some. “If Noah buys out the whole toy store, how am I going to be able to get a gift that isn’t a duplicate?”

“Perhaps you could document his first birthday. It’s a bit of a long term investment gift, but I’m sure he’ll appreciate it when he’s older. However, you should definitely also get him a toy.” Lottie advised.

“That… actually sounds like a plan.” Tim agreed, his brain finally coming around to the idea of the digital camera. Tim had always wished his parents took more pictures of him. The real him. But he supposed you couldn’t document what you never really saw.

“Oh crap Lottie, look at the time.” Jamie said in a hushed voice that he probably assumed Tim couldn’t hear.

“Ah, I’m sorry to rush you on your way but… our landlord is supposed to be coming in to meet with us and talk over some things.” Lottie sighed apologetically as Tim got himself up from his seat.

“That’s alright- I should be relieving Noah of Connie soon anyways.” Tim began for the door and paused, not turning around. “Thanks for… listening to me and uh, yeah.”

He didn’t listen to their goodbyes as he walked out the door and down to his car.

It had been a long day, and Tim wasn’t all that sure if it was a good one or not. He felt like he had fucked up, like he had said too much and lied to them. But for some reason, he also felt a little better. That was the power of Jamie and Lottie he supposed.

On the drive home, all he could think about was the digital camera, and how he could remind Connie how special he was on his birthday, even when he didn’t remember it anymore.

Chapter Text

“I miss my film camera…” Tim mumbled, frowning as the small screen of the camera displayed the fact that his memory card was full and the battery needed to be charged. Tim heaved himself up off the couch and went over to his computer to upload the photos to the folder on his computer, which was beginning to get so big that he would have to transfer it onto several USB drives to save up space. After backing up the photos and formatting his card, Tim popped the battery out and left it in to charge, leaning back in his office chair to look at Connie as he played with magnet shapes.

Tim always worried the kid was going to break one of them with how hard he gripped and pulled them. Luckily for Tim, he was almost ninety-nine percent sure that Connie was enough parts Kryptonian that like Kon, nothing but Kryponite would hurt him. Hell, the kid hadn’t even gotten sick once that Tim was aware of at least. Saved on the doctors appointments, which Tim had been dreading taking Connie to, worried about them somehow finding out about his real origin.

In a bind, Tim was pretty sure he could handle most by himself considering the fact he created Connie and had monitored his health for three months straight, save anything super serious. But again, Kryptonian. Even though logically he knew this, Tim couldn’t help but almost having a heart-attack any time the boy did something that could have gotten a normal baby hurt.

Tim sat up quickly as Connie put one of the magnetic wooden shapes into his mouth, quickly being taken out by his stern hand. “Don’t put these in your mouth.” Tim warned. “You could get- ah. There I go again. Honestly it’s probably fine.” He sighed, opting for picking up Connie instead.

He nearly gagged smelling the boy and reluctantly went to go change his diaper. As he went over to throw away his soiled one, he realized the trash was full. After Tim cleaned up Connie, he went to go set him back in his crib temporarily. “Look, I have to go take out the trash. Be good, if you make any trouble the baby monitor will snitch on you.” Tim reminded, even though he was certain Connie didn’t understand a word of what he said.

With how finicky Tim’s childcare situation was, especially ever since the kid started displaying minor uses of his powers that he could really only play off to someone who trusted him, like Noah, Tim had opted for a baby monitor on days Noah was sick or unavailable. Usually, Tim would end up dropping Connie at Noah’s sister, Maria’s house, especially since Connie was far to little to be left alone that long. But for circumstances where Tim just had to make a quick run out of the apartment to take out the trash or run down the block to the corner store for something, he had modified the baby monitor to be Bat-levels of good. With the best camera on the market, and a long range transmission. Which, Tim planned to utilize when Connie was old enough that he could be reasonably left alone for longer periods of time in emergencies.

Unfortunately, the best camera on the market didn’t exactly display well on his flip-phone. Just his laptop. So Tim had also ended up installing a computer system that would give him instant alerts on his phone based on the camera footage and sounds. Most parents probably wouldn’t trust its reliability, but Tim wasn’t most parents. He wasn’t even Connie’s parent at all really, and he had built it himself. It might not have been Oracle levels of good, but she was one of a kind, so his modifications were still really good.

Tim finally was out the door, trash bag in hand, deciding to take the stairs this time around, just to be extra speedy as he went out towards the alleyway next to the apartment to throw it in one of the dumpsters. It was late at night, just about when Noah would be heading out for work. Normally he would be at the bus stop already, but there he was.

And he wasn’t alone. Tim carefully set down the trash bag and pinned his back to the wall, making sure to stick in the darkest parts of the alleyway. He wasn’t wearing his Robin boots, so he had to be extra careful to keep his small steps quiet. Which was important, since Noah had his hands up and was being held at knife point.

His assailant was a little bigger than Tim, and a lot bigger than Noah. Now that he had crept close enough, Tim could overhear their conversation while he slowly got into position.

“Just give me your wallet, and be quiet about it. If you scream I will slit your fucking throat.” The mugger demanded through his teeth as if this was the fifth time he said it.

“Du-dude I’m serious! I left my wallet in my apartment-“ Noah insisted, his voice breaking as if he was on the verge of tears. His body was visibly shaking.

“If you’re really telling the truth you know I can’t let you-“ That’s when Tim had gotten close enough to take the guy down. From the shadows, Tim leaped forward, grabbing the man’s wrist with both hands and twisting hard, ignoring the very overly dramatic cry of pain that he let out. Tim exploited the weakness to rip the knife out of the assailant’s hand, tossing it to the ground and flipping the mugger. The man grunted as his back hit the gravely floor of the alleyway hard, which probably scraped some skin.

Tim quickly got on top of him, pinning the attacker to the ground long enough for Tim to get a precise, open strike to his attacker’s throat, knocking him unconscious. He took a deep breath and cautiously stood up, keeping his eyes fixed on the knocked out attacker, who he probably shouldn’t be worried about. The guy would be out cold for a while, but Tim had fought enough crazies who were too difficult to knock unconscious, or would fake being so just to jump up and put Tim in a chokehold.

“What. The. Fuck. Jack.” Noah punctuated, his hands having finally fallen to his sides as he stared bug-eyed at Tim. “Is he- he’s just unconscious right?”

“Uh, yeah. He’s fine.” Tim replied casually, stretching his arms above his head and yawning, only in that very moment, realizing how crazy he probably looked. Bruce had always lectured him about displaying only a slightly above average skill in public when necessary, but clearly his instincts had taken over. Clearly constantly taking worrying over an infant had… messed with them. Usually he thought more clearly in a situation like this.

“Did you break his wrist?” Noah asked hesitantly, still very clearly freaked out by Tim’s fuck up.

Tim stiffened and coughed awkwardly, scratching the back of his neck. “It might be sprained at worst. He was just being-“ He trailed off and shook his head, remembering that he needed to act as normal as possible. “Sorry. That was probably really scary um, are you okay?”

“Yeah I’m fine. It’s not the first time I’ve been mugged I’m just… confused? I’m not really sure what just happened.” Noah titled his head and raised an eyebrow at Tim, but his body still remained entirely still as if frozen.

“Remember how I said I grew up just outside of Gotham-?” Tim started, continuing when Noah nodded at him. “Well I, went to school there y’know. I took the bus. My- father made me take a lot of martial arts to defend myself.” He wasn’t sure how good of an idea it was to be referring to Bruce when telling Noah about his dad, but it’s not like Noah would ever meet either of them. Jack was dead and Bruce either hadn’t found him yet, or was respecting his wishes. For all Noah knew, his dad could be some weird combination of the two. Friends didn’t usually ask specifics when it came to their friends dead parents.

“Shit. I knew Gothamites were- but- you know what? Nevermind. Let’s just um- you were taking out the trash I’m guessing? Go do that and then let’s go inside, I’m going to call off work. I’d be late anyways- and José is on tonight, he can bartend in a bind.”

They were silent for a moment, and Noah looked down at the unconscious body. “Should we- I don’t want to call the cops but like do we have to?”

“Don’t worry about it, just call the non-emergency line. Or we could just leave him here, I mean he’ll probably be too scared to come back after this.”

Noah nodded and didn’t say anything else.

“You sure you’re okay?” Tim asked hesitantly as he threw his trash bag into the dumpster.

“Yeah man I’m good.” Noah grinned, still looking a bit shaken as the two of them walked in towards the door. “I mean I have been mugged a few times but- still a little, adrenaline rushed y’know? Guess it would have been more routine for you back in Gotham? I assume Batman and Robin didn’t come save you a lot since they only patrol at night, right?”

“Huntress saved me once, but usually I avoid bad streets or defend myself.” He replied, trying his best to be vague. As they made their way to the elevator he had to admit that sometimes it was sort of fun to know more than everyone else about something like this, even if he couldn’t go into all the details he wanted to. Which was part of the reason why he really missed his old friends.

“Oh yeah… I forgot she was a thing. She pretty?” Noah asked as the elevator began lifting them up to their floor.

“Didn’t get a good enough look at her. But if I had to rank Gotham vigilantes I’d probably say Spoiler’s the prettiest.” Steph would call him a dork for saying that, but it’s not like she even knew where he was. Tim tried to ignore the creeping guilt that came along with remembering that he had lied to her.

“Oooh that’s a real deep cut. You see I can’t have these conversations with anyone else, most people have no clue who that is. You know any other obscure heroes or just ones that live in Gotham?” Noah asked as they stepped out of the elevator, lingering in front of Tim’s door to chat.

“I’d say I know more than the average guy at least.” Which was definitely a lie. The average guy definitely wasn’t aware of the entire Justice League’s secret identities.

“Hmmm, well then, whose your favorite? Can’t be the big three or anyone from Gotham. Mine’s Cyborg.”

This conversation was fun, but Tim couldn’t help but feel like he had been punched in the gut when Noah brought up Cyborg. After all, he had quit right after the guy woke up. Tim didn’t expect Cyborg to particularly care all that much for him, but he knew Dick had instilled higher expectations in him, and he’d failed them.

“I’d say Nightwing.” Tim answered simply. He didn’t really have to think about it much. If his civilian identity was asked in from of one of his other friends, he probably would have just said them to boost their ego. But as much as he loved his friends, on a purely heroic level, Dick had always impressed him. There was a reason he was Superman’s favorite, and the only one of the Robins to surpass Batman.

“Huh, I guess I didn’t really expect you to say that. He’s the guy who took over the Titans for a while after Robin, right?” Noah asked.

Tim always forgot that most people didn’t really see the first Robin and Nightwing as the same person. “Yeah, he works out of Blüdhaven when he’s not on a team. He’s… I don’t know. Sometimes I wish Batman was more like him.”

“I mean, it takes a real optimist to want to help a place like Blüdhaven… I don’t know how people can even live there. Guess the people don’t deserve it though, I just don’t even know how you’d go about fixing it.”

“I think Nightwing feels the same way. Probably.” Tim answered simply, smiling at Noah. It felt… nice to talk about Dick. He hadn’t thought about him in a while, but maybe it would help to think a little about what he would do? Although, Dick would never fuck up and run away like Tim had, so it probably wouldn’t help.

“You like him a lot, huh. You got a superhero crush on him or just think he’s cool?”

Tim shifted awkwardly and shook his head. “No that would be-“ He didn’t want to say weird, it would be, but it’s not like he could explain that to Noah. “He’s just cool.”

“Hmm, any other superhero role models besides Nightwing then?” Noah smirked. “Don’t tell him I told you, but Jamie was totally obsessed with Wonder Woman for years.”

“Yeah, honestly I can see that. My- uh, friend liked Wonder Girl more. The younger one, not Troia.” Tim clarified.

“Ooh cool. I could never get into the whole vibe, wearing jeans while taking down aliens sounds horrible to me personally.”

Tim laughed out loud at that, thinking about how Cassie would react if she heard that. “Wonder Girl’s cool but if we’re talking superhero role models, I always thought- uh, I always thought Superboy was cool too.” Tim managed.

“Really? You into the whole leather jacket, punk rock sort of thing? Or is it the eyes? That whole superfamily has that, some people find it mesmerizing. I always found them kind of creepy, too blue. Y’know that I love Con but the kid kinda has that same thing going on. Although definitely cuter when its a little kid.” Noah exaggerated a fake shiver and chuckled.

Tim internally screamed. He knew Noah would never connect the dots unless Tim let anything slip, but the fact he was so close without realizing it made his stomach churn as he tried to think of something to say, his face only ending up flushed from the stress of it all. “Superboy’s eyes are way bluer. He’s an alien.” Was all Tim could manage, sounding a little more defensive than he intended.

“Wooah dude, not dissing Con or anything, like I said, the kid is way cuter. Anyways you’re dodging my question, what’s appealing about him? I’ve always thought he seemed like a bit of a jerk, you know with all those videos online of flirting with girls he saved and stuff.” Noah paused and then looked a little guilty. “Ah- I guess I shouldn’t be saying all that. Not nice to speak ill of the dead, he did save a ton of lives and all.”

Tim closed his eyes tightly, clenching his fist. It had been long enough that most days, Tim didn’t think about it, and when he did, he didn’t cry about it anymore. Usually it felt like their were no more tears to shed anymore, but after the day at Lottie and Jamie’s, he thought maybe he just didn’t want to acknowledge it until he broke.

He opened his eyes quickly when the image of Kon’s corpse flashed in his brain. He hadn’t seen Kon right after and he didn’t find out until later but… he hadn’t believed it was real until he begged Bruce to show him. Tim didn’t like thinking about the state of it, and he refused to focus on the specifics of the mangling of it. It always made him wake up nauseous whenever he dreamt about it.

“Yeah um… I’m sure he was a better guy than you think. I really admired him.”

Noticing the downcast mood, Noah smiled and took a step back. “Thanks for chatting with me Jack, and uh, kind of saving my life? First one made me feel better and second one made me not die so- I’m going to call work and clean my apartment with the extra time I got. See you later!”

Tim waved goodbye back and turned to face his apartment door, ignoring the way his hand shook against the doorknob as he went to unlock it and head back inside. Once he was in, he decided to take a shower. Something just… everything felt right but also wrong. He needed to stand under some ice cold water for a bit.

He slowly stepped out of his clothes, discarding them in a pile on the floor as he went into the small corner shower of his bathroom, turning the water all the way to cold and bracing himself for the sharp sting of it against his scalp.

—

Tim let out an inaudible grunt as he was thrown back onto the ground, quickly recovered, trying to think of a new angle to get the fake knife out of Bruce’s hands. The night before, or rather- that morning he had stayed up late for patrol, completed his report just after an then had stayed up until school started to study for his Chemistry test that after noon, which he had done worse on than he would have liked to.

Now it was evening, and he was training on disarming knives with Bruce, and his exhaustion was bleeding through more than usual. Which he guessed was because he hadn’t exactly gotten good sleep the other night either. After analyzing his options, Tim engaged again, going for a kick in the knee before he went to grabbing Bruce’s hand with both of his own. He tried and failed to twist Bruce’s arm, and was thrown to the side, landing strategically as to cushion his fall.

“That’s enough for today. You’re clearly not at your best.” Bruce huffed, placing the fake down along with the other props they had been training with for the past few weeks. He turned his back to Tim and stalked out of the Batcave.

Tim sighed, pushing himself up off the ground and critically analyzing all his mistakes in his head. He felt like all his months of martial arts training had gone out the window from just two nights of sleep deprivation. It wasn’t usual for him, and of course Alfred had noticed.

“Is everything alright, Master Timothy?” He asked, approaching the boy at his side with his hands clasped behind his back.

“Yeah just- I’m just out of it I guess.” Tim responded honestly, rolling his shoulder and stretching his arms behind his back.

“I know Master Bruce doesn’t always show it, but he does care for you.” Alfred said out of the blue, causing Tim to raise a brow at him.

“That’s not what this is about.” Tim insisted. “Batman needed a Robin, but what is that worth if I can’t even manage to disarm someone?”

“Perhaps you would be more successful if you got some rest before your next training session.”

“What’s the point if I can’t preform well even at my lowest? What happens if I have to stay up two nights in a row to track someone and can’t take them down right away?” Tim grumbled in frustration, ignoring the tender pain he felt in his chest. He had definitely been wearing his binder too long, but he was planning on heading home soon anyways, so just a while longer wasn’t a big deal. Probably.

“Didn’t you say yourself that Batman needs a Robin, Master Timothy? Perhaps sometimes, Robin needs a Batman.” Alfred responded simply, looking down at Tim without moving his head.

“I-“ He cut himself off and pressed his lips into a firm line. “I shouldn’t rely too heavily on Bruce. What if he was busy or injured?”

“Perhaps then you could contact Master Dick. I frankly don’t know how Master Bruce lasted so long without an extended network of support like you have at your disposal. It would be wise to utilize it. Perhaps try your exercises with someone other than Master Bruce for a change?” Alfred hummed his suggestion, ever so slightly raising one of his grayed brows at Tim.

Tim brought his hand up to his chin and thought about it. It wasn’t necessarily a bad idea, someone like Steph would be on a more similar level to him than Bruce or Cassandra.

He shut his eyes and nodded stiffly. “I’ll consider it. And I’ll try and get more sleep next time. I won’t let you down.” Tim determined and began walking towards the exit of the Batcave, pausing momentarily as he heard Alfred say something quietly.

“I don’t think you need to be worried about that, Master Timothy.”

Tim smiled a little as he stepped into the elevator.

—

The next week Tim was patrolling with Bruce, he had actually ended up taking Alfred’s advice to heart more than he intended. At least when it came to getting more rest. The idea about training with Steph was genuinely a good idea, if a little distracting. But that was better for his training anyways, to learn how to fight without any distractions and give it his all even against someone he liked.

He was still a little worried that he hadn’t gotten down the move, even though Steph had landed on her ass enough times that she stopped wanting to train with him halfway through the week. Tim slept well ( for his standards at least ) that night and felt more observant than ever.

It stayed pretty quiet for a while, but that never lasted long in Gotham. Eventually, Tim and Bruce spotted something, a mother crying, her shoulders trembling as she looked at her assailant, holding a knife to her small child’s throat. The little girl’s eyes watered as she stared bug-eyed at her mother, completely frozen as her attacker barked commands.

Bruce and Tim exchanged a look and a series of gestures. Knowing exactly what to do, Tim dropped from his perch on the rooftop, landing silently behind the attacker, slinking in the shadows. Batman on the other hand dropped right in front of the attacker, momentarily distracting the man while Tim acted from behind, grabbing the assailant’s wrist and twisting hard. On instinct, he let go of the little girl.

Batman ushered her to her mother quickly while Tim managed to successfully and swiftly pry the knife from the man’s hand, tossing it harmlessly on the ground behind him as he placed a well aimed kick right at the man’s temple, knocking him straight onto the concrete before Batman’s feet.

While Bruce took care of the rest, tying up the attacker, Tim spoke to the family from the fire escape where he would soon ascend from. “Make sure to get home safe.” He said in an assertive voice, slightly deeper than he actually spoke.

The mother squeezed her daughter tightly, not saying a word, only giving Tim a look that made his heart ache with longing for his own mother once again. Even if she was never so affectionate with him. But the gratitude shining through nearly made Tim smile as Batman grappled to the roof of the building. Stealing a final look at the mother and daughter’s embrace, Tim leaped up after Batman.

Even the attacker looked in a better state than his type typically looked before Tim had taken up the responsibility of becoming Robin. Despite it sometimes feeling like Bruce still didn’t see anything from him besides a ghost, at least it was making a difference in the lives of the people of Gotham. That was all that mattered. Maybe he hadn’t been so crazy as to agree to become Robin after all, like he had feared in so many sleepless nights since he had finished mastering his martial arts.

Life wasn’t so bad this way. Especially when people looked at him with that glint in their eyes, like Robin was someone they could rely on. Someone who was worthy.

—

That was when Tim realized what he had been missing. He missed being Robin, he missed the look in people’s eyes when they finally felt safe, when they realized that they were no longer in danger. Tim had always planned to stop being Robin at some point. Probably stop being a vigilante all together. But that was before his dad and Kon died. Heck, even before then he had at some point realized he wanted to do this for as long as he could, even if that meant he wouldn’t be Robin forever. He could move on from the role like Dick had, or switch his ways of helping out as his physical ability changed like Babs.

He had to admit that the way Noah had looked at him after he instinctively leaped in to save him and the rush he felt as he let his body take over filled that missing piece he had been fretting over since he stopped being Robin. Tim would always be missing his friends and family back home, but maybe… putting on a mask again would make him feel just a little bit closer to what he had left behind. He had found himself thinking before that he had to give all of it up, what he did was so unforgivable that it would be best if the world forgot him.

But maybe, that was just an excuse for him to be a coward. What if the right thing to do was keep protecting people, even if he wasn’t a hero anymore. None of the people on the streets of Gotham particularly cared about the flaws their saviors had, all they cared about was not succumbing to fear gas or their loved ones being killed by the Joker on one of his sprees. Tim hadn’t particularly noticed much crime here, it was honestly so little that he was surprised at the lack of it, but he presumed that was just because Gotham was an outlier.

Even so, he had noticed a few things, and he had gathered that in particular the law enforcement in the area wasn’t exactly helpful. They could be even worse than Blüdhaven’s for all he knew. It couldn’t hurt to at least try. He would have to limit his patrols and extend the range of his baby monitor for one. And he would definitely have to keep his presence pretty subtle as to not alert the Justice League or any other hero teams looking to scout or make sure he wasn’t a threat.

Tim rolled his shoulders as he let the water rinse off his body wash and shampoo, pattering cool droplets against his skin until the soapy water circled the drain at his feet. He turned the water off and pushed the curtain aside, carefully stepping out onto his bath mat and settling himself in front of the mirror.

He turned his jaw to the side and bit his lip in thought, tracing the long scars littering his torso in the mirror. If he was serious about this… which he was pretty sure he was if he was going to tolerate living here for the foreseeable future, he was really going to need to up his training at the gym. Or at least eat a little better.

Tim groaned and leaned over the sink, ringing out his hair and tossing a towel over his shoulders as he considered the tediousness of the logistics. But deep down he knew it would all be worth it. He just needed to prepare.