Chapter Text
Tim had been in Europe for a few weeks when it happened.
It took him five days to get out of Gotham, and several more to try to decide where to start.
A nine-hour flight left him in Madrid, Spain. A kidnapped girl was his starting point to continue his training, or rather, it was the only way he could let out all his anger.
He wasn't there for that, but trouble seemed to follow him wherever he went.
He was only in Paris for twenty minutes, and there is an armed robbery a block away from his hotel. Three people die before he arrives, four more fall before they can escape. A car follows him and shoot at him, Tim had never been so grateful for his bike.
The suit was still a weight he was not used to. But that's why he had chosen it. That suit allowed him to cross lines that Bruce or Dick would not approve. That suit allowed him to get away from them, away from the character they had taken from his hands. That suit was not part of the bats.
That suit was stained, so no one could question it for its decisions.
But everywhere there are exceptions to the rule.
***
He was a distraction. It would only distract him from what was important, make him forget his quest.
But when Conner came down from the sky - as if he were a god - Tim couldn't stop his heart from racing.
Tim is on his bike, chasing a possible clue to Bruce's whereabouts. Kon flies by his side with Kripto.
"You weren't picking up" is the first thing Kon says to him. If Tim wasn't in his Red Robin suit - and if he wasn't chasing a chance to bring Bruce back - he would have smiled.
"I didn't know it was you."
"I turned off my caller I.D. blocking.
"I was busy. I am busy."
That's all Tim responds to before speeding up, knowing he still can't escape Superboy's accusing eyes. The Titans...Dick must have told him everything by now. Filling his head with the idea that he is crazy and needs urgent help. Tim is not crazy, he is the only sane one at that moment, the only one who is not truly mowed down by the pain of losing one of the world's greatest heroes.
Bruce left a hole in his chest that Tim knows he can't fill with anything. But he also knows that his mentor wouldn't be proud to see him get carried away with feelings when he still had a whole mission ahead of him.
Once he held him in his arms Tim would let his feelings flow. Until then, as long as he wore the Red Robin mask, he couldn't afford to take his eyes off the road and follow all the little clues.
Kon asks who they are chasing, but Tim doesn't bother to answer. So Superboy orders Krypto to stop the car and catch the criminal.
The clue leads him nowhere. It is a lost night. Hours that Tim could have spent investigating or traveling to some country that would be useful to him. He wants to scream and hit something, or maybe someone.
"You'll think of something, Rob"
Rob.
That name hurts him.
"I won't give up on him like I give up on you." His words are hard and cold. They are not meant to hurt, just to be cuttingly sincere. But if Tim had had Superboy's bionic ear, he would have been able to hear how his best friend's heart (it was still right to think of him that way?) stopped in surprise for a millisecond
***
He still has several hours of darkness, so he agrees to help Kon with his search for one of Luthor's bases.
"I already excavated one of his old labs underneath Paris anyway" He answer when Superboy thanks him.
"Can you take that cowl off while we're down here?"
"Why?"
"Because you're not a cowl kinda guy. You never have been. Maybe I'll get used to it some day, but right now it's freaking me out. You're wearing Jason Todd's uniform. The "bad" Robin."
Tim wants to remind him that Jason was his friend for a while, his safe harbor in a troubled city, until he stabbed him in the chest and left him to die, but then compare him to Dick and underestimate him.
Why does it seem that Dick is the root of most of his current problems?
He's about to open his mouth, but he remembers that he never told Kon about his friendship with Jason (or the time they ended up making out on a roof). There are a million things he never told him, things so dark and frightening that not everyone could hear without vomiting. Tim knew Conner well enough to know he couldn't resist.
"That uniform is all leather. It looks like it weighs a ton. What happened to plan old "classic" Robin?
"I'm not Robin anymore. "Tim responds after a few minutes. "Not ultil Bruce is back.
"Wait a second. This is all a punishment, isn't it? Taking on the identity of Red Robin-The failed Robin. Isolating yourself. I know what guild can do to you.
This is not guilt.
Tim wants to yell in his face that he shut up, because Kon doesn't know shit about what he's talking about. Yeah, Kon died, and now he was back. But Jason was dead too, and Tim trusted him. And Jason just kept betraying him over and over again.
But Kon is not Jason. Kon hasn't tried to kill him.
Tim takes off his hood, which seems to please Superboy.
They get to the door of the lab, and it would have taken Tim just a few seconds to force the security and open it. After all, it's not the first time he's done it. He's been there before.
But Superboy doesn't give him the chance to do it. He smashes open the door as if it were nothing.
The lab is still the same as the last time, broken and ruined, only dirtier.
"Looks like Luthor hasn't been here in a while."
"No. It looks like he hans't been here since I was here."
Tim had heard about Superboy's return before he started his journey. Deep down he was grateful that he didn't have to face him, he wasn't ready to face one of his mistakes. I didn't want to see the look on Kon's face. The shame and disgust.
"What were you doing here?"
"I took his equipment"
"What? It looks cloning teach, Tim"
Tim turns his back on him. He doesn't want Kon to see his face. He doesn't want her to see his tears.
Kon's death had changed everything. It had turned him into another Robin, into a person. Would Kon like this new Tim?
"It was" the tears keep falling, and Tim curses that he took off his hood. Batman would be so disappointed in him for showing feelings. "It's so much easier to hide this when I'm wearing a cowl"
"Hide what?"
"You're right. This costume is heavy."
"Then let it go, Tim. Let it all go. Tell me what's going on with you"
Tim looks at his best friend for a few seconds, letting him see his weakness.
"Steph died. My ex-boyfriend died. My best friend died. Dick was making my life miserable and Damian was trying to kill me." He closes his eyes for a few seconds, letting grief and memories come back to him." And I couldn't accept it. I couldn't lose you too...So I tried to clone you. But I failed. Like I failed everyone else."
When the confession leaves his mouth he feels as if some of the weight on his shoulders has finally lifted.
His legs began to fail and Tim needed to sit on the floor to keep from falling.
"Tim even if it'd worked, it wouldn't have been me."
"I know it wouldn't be you, Conner, but...but it wouldn't be something."
"Man, between everything you've gone through, I picked a really suck-ass year to be gone, didn't I?"
"The worst...I am so screwed up right now."
Conner sat next to them, but keeping distance between them. Tim wanted to beg him to come closer, to let him touch him. I needed to know that he was real, that not everything had been a hallucination because of the lack of sleep and the large amounts of caffeine.
But he don't need to tell him anything, after all, Kon was his best friend. He knew him almost as well as Tim knew himself (that almost was the important thing here). As if reading his mind, Conner approached him until his shoulders touched, just enough to feel the body heat that his best friend always seemed to exude from every pore of his body.
"So we're both on impossible missions that everyone else is going to say we're crazy for doing.
"Bruce is alive," Tim said after a few minutes.
"I belive you."
And that was all he needed. It gave him the strength to keep going.
"Thanks, Conner."
***
Conner's support is all he need. He returned to his hotel room and prepared to continue his search. The clues were getting him nowhere, traveling from country to country with virtually nothing to show for it.
Keep focus. Watching. He repeats himself. Bruce is somewhere and he is counting on you. I won't let him down, I won't let him disappear.
But then his hotel room explodes.