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In the background of it all, the TV blares a senseless show. Tim’s not really listening to it as he lounges on the couch, his laptop settled down on his stomach. He’s sifting through files for work- both his nightly activities and his WE responsibilities. It’s been slow lately, so he doesn’t have much stuff to do. He’s mostly just going back and double checking everything over. The case he’s working on is a shared one between him and the other Titans- something about a continuous crook sneaking around. Since Tim’s still stuck in Gotham until next week, because of a series of work meetings he can’t miss, he’s been doing the paperwork part for it.
On the counter over in his kitchen, his phone rings. He’d left it over there when he’d gotten up for his bag of chips, which now sits on the floor beside him. There’s no doubt that it’s probably just Jason asking him if they’re still on for dinner before they go out on patrol.
Ever since… ever since Dick… and his whole Ric thing, the two had gotten closer. They’re the only two they really have left, what with Damian dropping off the grid every once in a while. The last time Tim saw Dick and Damian had been over that whole Robin War fiasco. Bruce had been without memories, but now that he’s back in the game, it seems that Dick isn’t.
Tim lets out a sigh he doesn’t really mean to and wonders if he should bother getting up for his phone. The clock on his computer says it’s still relatively early- only around three p.m. He’ll wait until around four at the very most to get up and text. He’s comfortable as he is right now.
At least, he is, until he hears a sharp knock at his door.
He has the mind to just ignore it- it won’t be Jason, since Jason hardly cares to use the door on a good day, let alone knock. He’s not expecting anyone either, so there’s no telling who could be at the door. It’s only when the knocks continue to persist, getting choppier as they go, that he decides to get up, just to give himself some peace and quiet.
The door swings open possibly faster than he’d meant to, the scowl on his face just presenting a horrible-- first impression? He doesn’t recognize the two… kids, there's no way they’re any older than Damian is. At most, they’re only older by a handful of years, since they’re both about Tim’s height. They’re both looking at Tim with the same lost, upset expression.
The taller of the two, and possibly the older, is a girl with olive skin and short, choppy hair. She’s dressed in a costume of sorts. The only part of it that Tim recognizes is the mask in her hands- six magenta slits sparkling against the dull, light purple, metallic hue of the rest of it. Her eyes are dark, red rimmed and puffy. She looks unbelievably exhausted. Her companion, shorter and with longer hair, blazing green eyes and a warrior-like getup. He looks uncomfortable to be standing beside her, his hands wrapped in dirty bandages. They both, actually, look out of place among the proper halls of Tim’s apartment building.
“This was the only place I could think of to go,” the girl says, voice thick. “We-”
Despite himself, Tim gestures for them to come inside.
Something in his gut is swirling and choking. He knows that something is wrong, something terrible. He doesn’t recognize the two before him, but they’re battered and bruised and look like they’ve gone through the ringer a handful of times. Besides, Tim knows that they must know who he is- that they know he’s Red Robin. They wouldn’t be here if they didn’t.
He has them sit on the couch as he beelines to the kitchen, mechanically putting a kettle full of water on the stove. He pulls out three mugs, filling one with pre-made coffee from the pot and setting aside two packets of hot chocolate for the kids. While waiting for the water to heat, he reaches for his phone.
Jason: im coming over at 5 w/ food. ur paying me back this time
Part of him wants to laugh at the second half of the text, but instead, he gets to typing out, Get here earlier. We have company. I don’t know who they are.
The kettle starts to screech. Past the counters, Tim can see the boy jump, bewildered, from where he’d been staring at the TV in confusion. The girl mutters to him in soft tones, too quiet for TIm to pick up on. She sets a hand on the boy’s knee, returning his attention to her. It’s an odd show, seeing the boy’s brows crease as he stares at a good lot of the things in Tim’s apartment as if they’re new to him. Tim pushes it away and pours water into the mugs, ripping open the hot chocolate powder packets and pouring them in. He doesn’t mix them, just drops a spoon into each one. Carefully, he brings them out into the living room and sets them on the coffee table, once he gets coasters down.
“They’re hot,” he warns, when the boy reaches over to grab at it. Tim retreats back into the kitchen for his coffee and his phone, making sure to have Jason’s contact open in case of emergency. “I- I should ask you guys your names.”
The girl keeps her head bowed, but the boy beside her just turns his gaze to the side, avoiding eye contact. “We’re friends of Damian,” the girl says, after a beat. “I’m Maya Ducard and this is Suren Darga.”
And-
Tim knows both of those names. The last names at least. Maya Ducard, he assumes, has some relation to Morgan Ducard. The mask reflects Nobody, after all. When Ducard died, Tim had mostly forced all thought of him and his alter ego out of his mind. There was no need to dwell on the man any longer, but now it seems that he had a daughter that took up the name. Darga rings more distant bells- a name he’d heard in passing from Damian or Bruce once or twice.
But the fact that they’re friends of Damian sets off more red flags than anything else. The two don’t look like threats, they look tired and beat and upset. But, if they’re looking for Damian, then why would they come to Tim of all people? Surely Bruce is somewhere in Gotham. Even if Damian is off the grid, still.
Why?
“I don’t know where he is,” Tim says. “So, if you’re looking for him, I think talking to Batman would yield more results. Actually, I don’t think he knows where Damian is either.”
Maya curls in on herself, her arms wrapping around her like she’s cold. She shouldn’t be, the weather outside is actually kind of nice and Tim’s apartment is normally kept warm. “We aren’t looking for Damian,” she says. “We were just- we were just with him- Before-”
That really bad feeling in Tim’s gut gets bigger- big enough that it feels like it’s trying to swallow him whole. His phone buzzes beneath his thigh, and Tim can only hope that it’s Jason promising him that he’s on his way. He watches as Suren goes to grab at his mug again, taking this spoon and swirling his cocoa with wide eyes. Like Maya’s, his eyes are red, but he looks more off-center than anything.
“It’s my fault,” Suren says, with soft conviction. He brings the mug to his lips, almost suspiciously, and takes a sip.
“It’s your dad’s fault,” Maya snaps back.
“I said the wrong name.”
“You wouldn’t have known,” she replies, something like loathing spilling into her voice. “You knew him for a handful of- of what? Days?”
“It’s my fault,” Suren repeats.
Tim finds himself gripping the mug in his hands tightly, no matter how much the heat bites at his hands. He can name the something, now, as apprehension. He isn’t sure he wants to know what they’re talking about, if he wants to know what the problem is that requires a fault to be pinned on someone.
“What’s all this have to do with Damian?” he finds himself asking. The TV behind him is loud and distracting, so he reaches over for the remote to mute it, instead of turning it off. He breathes hard through his nose and asks, “What happened?”
Again, it’s Maya who speaks, after grabbing her own mug and taking an experimental sip. “We’d just gotten done stopping Suren from destroying the world, or whatever it was that he was doing. Well, Damian stopped him. Talked him out of doing it. Batman was there- so was Damian’s mom?” She stops, to keep her voice from shaking. “She’s kind of fucked up.”
“No kidding,” Tim can’t stop himself from saying.
“She- She wanted to interrogate Suren, but Damian didn’t want to let her- He wasn’t convinced that she wouldn’t take advantage of Suren and use him. But, when we left, we ran into Suren’s dad’s warriors and stuff.” She waves her hands over the details, like she doesn’t really understand what had happened either. “Eventually it was Suren’s dad. He was trying to do something, but- I don’t- I don’t know what. I know he called it the Spirit Battery. They were supposed to do it if the apocalypse hadn’t happened- and it didn’t.”
Suren opens his mouth to explain further, but Maya doesn’t let him as she swallows what looks like a sob.
Tim thinks he knows what comes next, but he asks anyway, “What happened?”
“He- He said the discharge would kill him,” Maya says. “He told us to leave. He told us he was going to try shorting it out.”
Instead of repeating what happened, Tim finds his voice quivering with something like rage. “Where’s Damian?” he asks, desperate.
Maya stares down at her hands.
Tim forces himself up, not caring when his mug slams into the ground and shatters, coffee spilling everywhere. “Where’s my little brother?!” he cries. Some part of him understands how unfair this is, asking a teenager to answer him. He knows it himself, it’s got to be near impossible to get the words out, especially when Tim already knows what they’ll be. “Where is he?”
He knows what they’ll be, but he doesn’t want to hear it.
Suren looks at Maya, realizing she won’t say it. His gaze shifts back to Tim, looking impossibly lost. “We tried to get him back,” he says. “I called the wrong name.”
“Please,” Tim pleads. “Just tell me.”
Maya lets out a sob, and even though Tim’s only known her for less than an hour, it sounds uncharacteristic of her. “He’s dead,” she finally spits out. “We called the wrong name and by the time I realized it, it was too late to bring him back.”
Yeah. Tim knew what they were going to be, but absolutely nothing prepares him for the punch it brings. He feels like he’s just gotten thrown into the ground by bane, or like Scarecrow just pumped a metric ton of fear gas into him and Bruce just delivered the antidote. Either way, his entire person feels destroyed- by two simple words that shake him to the core.
Part of him wants to start raging, to start tearing at things and shattering others. Damian just came back to them. They just got him back, after the Heretic and Leviathan. They just dealt with the Court of Owls too, just stopped Damian from becoming their Gray Son.
And now- and now he’s dead. He’s dead again, for the second time in his thirteen years of life.
Oh God.
His knees start shaking, so to prevent himself from falling, he plops back down heavily in his chair. He brings up his legs, tucking them close to his body. For some reason, the one thing he whispers happens to be, what did you call him, instead of anything else. He wants to know if it hurt him. Did Damian die alone again? Did he lay there for a little bit before he died, riding the pain like he’d done when the Heretic tried his hand at killing him? Or, this time, did it go quickly?
“We should’ve called for Robin,” Maya happens to say. “We should’ve called for the Son of Batman, not the son of al Ghul.”
Suren looks guilty, before he says, “I thought that your lineage meant more than anything else.”
So had Damian, once upon a time.
“He’s a hero,” Maya continues. “He’s saved the world time and time again- he’s saved me time and time again. And- and to think. I wanted to kill him.”
“He was nice to me,” Suren says, in disbelief. “He was the first person to tell me that I deserve to be loved.”
Finally, Tim musters up the courage to ask, “How?”
Maya looks up. “How- how what?”
“How did he die?” Tim asks. He blinks away the tears building in his eyes, trying to breathe.
“The discharge from the Spirit Battery,” Suren says, like it’s something everyone should understand. Maya shoves his shoulder, something that’d look playful if they both weren’t so upset.
“It was like electricity. He disrupted the current of the spirits, sent them towards him instead. It- it overloaded his body or something.” She lets her face fall into her hands as she swallows another sob, muttering out an, I don’t know, I don’t know. “I think he might’ve been in pain,” she near whispers, before adding on in a whine, “he didn’t deserve to die.”
Tim finds himself getting up, moving over to the teenager’s sides across from him. He wraps an arm around Maya and pulls her close, allowing her to tuck her head into the crook of his neck. Sobs wrack her body. It gets hard for Tim not to break down too. When he goes to pull Suren into the embrace, he flinches away, so Tim settles by putting a hand on the kid’s knee and rubbing circles on it with his thumb.
“I’m sorry,” Maya cries.
“There’s nothing to be sorry about,” Tim replies. “I’ll bet he’s just happy that you two didn’t get killed along with him.”
In the background of it all, the TV blares a senseless show.