Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Tim’s not sure what exactly he’d expected to come of tonight's patrol, but this certainly isn’t it.

This consists of the Bat’s comm frequency being hacked for the first time since Tim rebuilt the whole system several years ago, back when he started as Robin. Which isn’t a thing that he is anymore. But y’know. He’s not bitter or anything. 

Okay, he’s a little bitter. But admittedly he’s a lot less bitter than he used to be, because at this point he just isn’t invested enough. He’s lost the energy to be angry and upset all the time. He’s decided it’s kind of like getting bored of a TV show and missing a few seasons: maybe you used to really like those characters, that plot line, but with time you become disconnected and can’t bring yourself to be interested anymore.

In the back of his mind, though, he knows that’s not it. He knows that he’s empty inside, that it should scare him how little he cares anymore, how little he cares about making it out of any given situation and through any given night. He feels flat. He feels like his entire life of losses and pain has finally come down and crushed him flat, and it’s only a matter of time before his 2D corpse decomposes into something somebody can put through the paper shredder. 

Tim has always been a people pleaser, always eager to help and impress and be useful, searching for love, for validation, and isn’t that what everyone is looking for? Doesn’t every person just want to be loved? Isn’t that the point of life? 

So why does it sound so laughable when it’s coming from Tim?

Well. Probably because everyone in his life has made it very clear that they don’t want him around, albeit some more subtly than others. At least Damian tells it like it is; he comes after Tim directly, with scathing words and the petulant arrogance of a child with a superiority complex that his parents only encourage. Because Talia and Ra’s absolutely encouraged it, knowing them (and Tim does, not that the Bats need to know that), and neither Bruce nor Dick have done anything to stop it. So yeah, the brat is a total prick who thinks he’s entitled to the world just because of his name, but at least he’s honest. 

They others just dance around him like they’re playing fucking Minesweeper. They all send him their cases, transfer their business, ask him to find them intel, and then disappear with an awkward text or less. Oddly enough, Jason is the only one who ever comes to see him in person. Jason at least tries, which he appreciates. Sometimes he just kind of shows up on Tim’s balcony, asking for intel that Tim knows he can find by himself, but Tim always gives it to him and then shuts his mouth because he knows that’s what he’s expected to do. Of course it is. What else did they keep him around for, if not to be their little encyclopedia? He’d served every other purpose he’d had already. Dick replaced him as both Robin and his little brother, Jason still calls him Replacement himself and has just barely gotten over trying to kill him, Damian is practically still trying to kill him and lets him know how unwanted he is every single day whether they see each other or not, and even after Tim went through everything to bring Bruce back, nothing changed with him or any of them. That’s probably when his last vestiges of hope finally snaked down the drain and the realization that he’s nothing to them really set in. These days it’s been confirmed for him so many times that he’s moved past accepting that and into the realm of not caring about it. He knows they don’t care about him, don’t want him in the family, only keep him around to use his brain. Well, at least he can keep up this hero shit for a while and save a few people who can have a better life. At least while he waits for something to come along and kill him.

He hasn’t really been back to the manor since he dropped off Bruce. It had kind of been his final test, even though he really should’ve been long past needing confirmation: if he brought Bruce home, pulled their family back together, proved himself as fully and completely as he possibly could, and still nothing changed, that was the end. And it was. Effectively, Tim had dropped off the map for almost as long as Bruce had, and he very well could’ve been dead for all they knew, but when he walked back in through those painfully familiar doors, nobody even batted an eye at his presence. They cried, yes, cried and hugged and apologized, but not to him. To Bruce, to each other, to Alfred. But not to the one who had gone through hell and worse to fix them all. Not to Tim. So that was the end, and he was gone within the hour, before everyone had even stopped crying over all the things they actually cared about. He slipped back through the doors and hasn’t been back since.

Well, that’s not entirely true; one time he stopped by to visit Alfred, but even being near the manor had made his skin crawl so badly that he was out within five minutes. Since then, they’ve just been getting lunch together in town once or twice a month instead, which was Alfred’s idea. Tim appreciates it more than he could ever know. Alfred is just about the only thing even keeping Tim around at this point. Alfred probably cares, if only because he’s invested now.

He misses the Bats sometimes. He does. And it’s still true that Tim would do anything to save one of them; he’d proved that when he was the only one who’d believed in Bruce. But they don’t miss him, and he’s learned to be okay with that, despite the sickly betrayal always itching under his skin. Really, it’s his fault for letting his guard down, for allowing himself to believe that anyone would keep him around on purpose. Sometimes Dick pretends, gives him that wide smile plagued with the guilt in his eyes that Tim has always been able to read so easily, but he knows Dick’s only doing it to make himself feel better about all the shit he’s done. Like trying to convince him he was insane, for example. Threatening to have him committed to Arkham with the criminals they had put away together, once upon a time. Not believing in him, replacing him with Damian without a second thought or a single word, throwing him to the curb like he’s yesterday’s trash. It doesn’t matter, though. Tim doesn’t care. He doesn’t. He’s just waiting for his borrowed time to run out. 

But tonight… Tonight might not be borrowed time. Because tonight their comms are being hacked for the first time ever, and for an instant Tim feels dread drain into his stomach at the thought of the disappointment in Bruce’s eyes because he didn’t building the system better, because he put the rest of them in danger, but then a distant voice crackles to life on the other side and he realizes that this isn’t a hack; it’s a backdoor he installed himself. And it makes that dread curl into his organs for another reason.

“Red Robin…come in…” Comes a familiar, panting voice from the other side, and Tim freezes. He can hear the other Bats chattering in the background, confused and concerned, but he can’t afford to be listening to them right now because he knows this voice, croaky and dense and slightly electronic, and knows what it means when it’s coming through the Bat’s comms like this.

Without thinking, he shushes the Bats sharply, and Bruce and Jason stop talking while Dick and Damian don’t, their annoying chattering filling his ears and his brain and every fucking crevice of where his body used to be and it’s disgusting. 

“Look at this, Red Robin,” Damian sneers. “It seems that your pathetic communicators are a threat to our identities. Of course only a worthless wannabe hero like you would make such a stupid mistake.”

The others don’t even say anything, don’t protest or tell him what’s acceptable and what’s not. Tim just hears the ragged breathing at the distant end of the line — the ragged breathing that Damian is preventing him from smoothing out. Damian is stopping him from saving a life just for the sake of telling him he’s worthless. 

Maybe he really is that worthless to him — to them. But he has a job to do and he can’t do it with the kid’s petulant commentary.

Suddenly furious and grateful to finally be feeling something solid, Tim lets himself fall into his anger. “Shut the fuck up!” He snarls, vicious and resounding, for once completely abandoning the need to be an invisible shadow, and the comm drops into stunned silence a second later. Tim doesn’t care. The anger bleeds from his chest and roils in his stomach, being saved for when he’ll undoubtedly need it later, but now his heart fills with ice and concern. He touches his fingers lightly to the device in his ear, and the thought of what the Bats will say in a moment doesn’t even cross his mind. This is too important. “Pru?” He says gently, but loudly enough to be heard over most background noise. He ignores a confused grunt from someone because they seem to cut themselves off halfway through. He receives no answer and purses his lips, teeth clenching hard. “Pru, answer me. Is that you?”

“...Red?”

Relief clenches in his throat, and he can’t help the little sigh he heaves in reply with his next words. “Hey, yeah, it’s me. Where are you?” She breathlessly gives him a set of coordinates, and then repeats them, making more sure that she has them right than that he does, even though they both know neither would ever make that mistake. Tim instantly inputs them into his wrist computer, which zeroes in on a location in Egypt. It’s pretty close to an airport, and to one of his hacked League of Assassins transporters; he’ll be fastest on foot or stealing a car once he gets there, but he’ll take his bike from where he is now to his nearest equally-hacked Zeta entrance. The Justice League has honestly never been very good at recognizing when their systems are compromised. Ra’s is better, but nobody is as good as Tim. He may be worthless to the Bats, but he’s nothing if not prepared; he has hacked transporters and safe houses the world over. He jumps down to street level, already calling his bike to him. “I’m on my way,” he tells Pru, still ignoring the growing restless mumblings of the Bats; he doesn’t care. He won’t let go of the only person who still cares if he lives or dies. He won’t . “Hang on, soldier.”

Tim mounts his bike and is off in two seconds flat, ignoring the Bat’s startled shouts of what are you doing? and wait, come back! and you need backup! 

As if Tim believes they would give him that.

. . .

He finds her seven minutes later, out past the city limits of Sharm El-Sheikh. Out in the desert.

It’s not the same one, it’s not, but it’s more than enough to bring back memories that burn into his ribs, memories of Owens and Z lying lifeless in the blood-painted sand, of the gut-wrenching pain in his torso, of the horrible wheezing sound that came from Pru’s mouth in place of words. But it’s in the past. He doesn’t need to think about that right now; he has more important things to worry about.

He’s in an old Jeep with no roof or doors, just the skeleton of a well-loved machine, and here, gunning this old engine and flying at a hundred and ten miles an hour across the desert, kicking up sand and dust and his emotions, he feels… good. Well, not good, but free. More free than he has since he came back to Gotham with a living Bruce. His cowl, cape, cross-belt and comm unit are discarded on the floor between the seats, and if he doesn’t think too hard, it almost feels like he’s not connected to the Bats at all. Damn. If he survives to adulthood, maybe he’ll move away to Europe or Africa. Start a new life. Meet people who care. If they exist, that is. His only evidence for them is in possibly mortal danger right now.

He zeroes in on Pru’s location and presses the gas pedal down to the floor. It doesn’t change the pace of the Jeep — it’s already pushing top speed — but it makes him feel like he’s trying harder to get there. He left Gotham six minutes and thirty seconds ago — that’s more than enough time for Pru to be dead. The thought sends a shock of ice through his chest and he forces it away just as quickly, reignites the fire in his veins because he won’t let that happen. He’ll make it in time. He’ll make it.

And he does. When he arrives at what looks like a cluster of rock formations, he slams on the break and jumps out of the car before it even stops moving, bolting around the side of the rocks and shouting a series of random words as loudly as he can. Tim’s not stupid; he knows that all his screaming with alert any dangerous people in the area, and in fact, he’s banking on that. He needs those people away from Pru, needs their attention on him, but he knows that calling her name could draw the kind of attention that turns her into a hostage, and that’s not really what he’s looking for. 

When he rounds a corner, he’s met with a few dozen ninja, and he sighs heavily while pulling out his bo staff. He’d expected this, honestly. This was why he’d left his cowl in the car; these guys already know who he is, what he looks like. They know his name, his face, the way he fights, and the cowl won’t help him now. He’s stripped down, by his own volition, to nothing but the red and black body armor of his suit, a bo staff, and a utility belt. Tim is free to fight this battle his way, for once, even have fun doing it if he wants. The thought washes over him and a small, wicked smile pulls at his lips. 

Tim cracks his neck to the side, more for effect than anything, and jams one end of his staff into the ground, leaping up and using the weapon as a pole-vault to launch himself forward and kick the first ninja in the face with both feet. He hears the crunch of the man’s nose under his mask and shifts, dropping his feet from the ninja’s face to his shoulders and pushing him the rest of the way to the ground. He doesn’t get back up. Tim steps off the unconscious body and sets his feet in the sand, shoulder width apart in an L, twirling his staff in one hand. He feels a light breeze flit through his hair and over his chest and face, sand grinding under his boots, and suddenly he wants them off, wants to feel the sand sift between his toes, but he knows better than that; he’ll take them off when he wins. 

Tim twists around a swipe from a katana and brings his staff down on the hands holding it, slamming it back into the ninja’s jaw after he lets go. Tim is admittedly tempted to pick up the fallen sword — Desmond The Sword Guy had trained him well when he was working with the Assassins — but he’s always liked the bo staff better, and he doesn’t want to kill anyone today. Maybe someday he could casually bait Damian into sparring with him; he’d love to kick the brat’s ass with his own weapon. If he ever sees him again.

Okay, where did that come from?

But— alright, wait… wait. What if Tim just… doesn’t go back? He couldn’t stay in Egypt, the Bats might have already tracked his comm by now just so they could come force him to solve all their cases for them, but he could disable the tracker now and get the hell out of town. He could… he could leave. Never have to deal with Damian’s cruelty or Jason’s indifference or Bruce’s disappointment or Dick’s distrust. He would never have to bear the weight of his pain, the loss of his parents, of Conner, Bart, Steph… he could be done with it. 

But… no. It’s cowardly to run, and the Bats will come after him. He won’t make it far against all of them, no matter how good he is. Besides, he unfortunately owes his life to them, at least until something else takes it. He has to go back. 

Tim jolts out of his thoughts in a panic when he swings his staff and it doesn’t connect, thinking he’s made a careless mistake, but when he looks around he realizes all of the ninja are scattered on the sandy ground around him, unconscious. A lot of them have broken noses, arms, collarbones. Ribs, too, probably. He hopes he didn’t cause too much internal bleeding.

Shaking his head as if that might clear his thoughts, Tim starts running again, sprinting around the rocks and yelling random words like a total lunatic, and he ends up almost right in front of his car again. Really, he sounds ridiculous, just shouting about shit he sees around him or anything that comes to mind: “Sand! Water! Jeep! Hat! Canadian goose! Executive! Desert! Bilbo Baggins!” Yeah, he looks insane, but it’s not like there’s anybody here to see him, and it’s not like he’d care if there was; all he needs is for Pru to recognize his voice, not make sense of what he’s saying.

A strangled, electronic sound comes from two rocks ahead of him, right across from his Jeep: “Tim.” 

There.

Tim dashes in the voice’s direction, kicking up sand behind him, electing to ignore for now how he missed something so obvious beside his vehicle, and he finds himself grinding to a stop outside of a cave between two of the rock formations. There, sitting at the back of the crevice, is Pru, a bit bruised and bloody, and with both of her legs twisted at odd angles. Tim winces and shudders hard at the sight, but is at her side in an instant, crouching in front of her with his hands hovering over her grotesque limbs. He winces again — it’s just such an unnerving sight — but pulls himself together just as quickly and looks up at her face.

Her brows are pulled downward in pain, her jaw is locked tight with her teeth clenched together, and there’s a single tear track running over her face — just one. Tim holds back a sigh; sometimes she’s too tough for her own good. She gives a strained laugh and looks at the cave ceiling to breathe carefully, clutching her hands to her thighs. “Hey, Timmy,” she hisses, and the slight electronic buzz of her fake vocal cords is more pronounced than usual, her throat tight with pain. “Nice ride.”

Tim rolls his eyes and scoffs, not yet willing to disturb her legs. “Thanks. I stole it.”

She laughs again, though it was barked enough that he knew it was concealing a sob. Tim can’t keep his eyes from narrowing slightly with a kind of suspicious sympathy. He’s seen Pru in a lot of pain a lot of times since he’s known her, and it’s uncommon for her to try to hide it when she’s really hurting because when she is, it means something is wrong wrong. She groans quietly, which honestly calms his nerves a little bit. “I really fucked up this time, huh?”

Tim gives her a small smile, but it’s genuine, and he realizes how different it feels from the smiles he’s been placating Dick with all this time. “You say that like you don’t fuck up every other time.”

She barks another laugh, and it’s genuine, too, and Tim feels his smile growing. “Hold on, make that us who fuck up every time. You don’t get to duck out on this one.” Her eyes are looking into his, and he feels a pang of nervousness as he looks back, but behind them it’s just… her. Just Pru. No judgement, no disappointment, no stepping on eggshells. She isn’t asking him for anything, to do anything, she’s just here, being his friend. 

His friend who is an incredibly lethal assassin and also injured at the moment. Right.

Still, he grins, beginning to carefully assess her left leg from the thigh down. He needs to keep her talking, because shit, no matter how gentle he tries to be, this is gonna hurt like a bitch. “When did I become a part of fucking up every time? I wasn’t even here. Still sounds like a you fucking up situation to me.”

She grunts uncomfortably when Tim prods at her knee and tilts her bald head back to rest against the rock, staring up at the ceiling. “You’re damn lucky you’re cute, Red.” She sighs theatrically, though it hitches for an instant, and sucks her teeth. “The pretty boys always get away with talking shit.” She’s holding up well, honestly, considering the fact that her left tibia is clearly snapped in at least three places, and the fact that Tim had to do a lot of poking to figure that out.

“Who’re you calling a pretty boy?” Tim says, flipping his hair like a model and batting his long eyelashes. 

Pru laughs again and coughs, and Tim is just moving on to her right leg when her pupils suddenly narrow to pinpricks and her face pales. For a half a second, she tries to get words out, but they must be too loud because her artificial vocal cords don’t create the sound. She goes to shove him, then, but the distance he manages to stumble to the right isn’t enough, and it’s too late. Tim has let his guard slip, left himself exposed to the opening of the cave like a total rookie, not tied up the ninja or contained them somehow, and as he feels a blade enter his back, split his skin and slide cleanly between his ribs, he’s a little sad that his only thought is oh.

And then pain.

Pain, pain, more pain than he’s ever experienced in his whole life of pain and suffering, because when the ninja goes to remove the blade from his back, it doesn’t work. It’s stuck. Pru is yelling something. It’s stuck because the ninja has managed to slide it perfectly between Tim’s ribs, and he can see the tip of the blade sticking out of his torso in the front, coated dark red and steaming slightly in the cold desert wind. He watches the steam curl around the sword, drift a few inches into the air before dissipating. It’s fascinating. The ninja tries to pull the blade out again, and it slides an inch and bites into bone and Tim screams , crumpling to his knees involuntarily, and the ninja gives one more tug and the sword comes out with a stilted wet sliding sound just as Pru gets a hold on her gun and puts a bullet in his head. 

Tim remembers the story of Excalibur, a sword that you had to be worthy of wielding in order to pull out of a stone. Is there anything more fitting than Tim being the stone? The never talked about, never remembered, constantly stepped on stone of Tim Drake. He wants to laugh, but finds that he can’t. 

The ninja and his steaming red sword are dead behind him, and he presses his hands into the sand to try to keep himself on his knees and not on the ground. Pru is still sitting beside the wall, her face twisted in pain as she leans as far forward as she can, still yelling something Tim can’t really hear. He’s bleeding out. Again. On the desert floor, again, alongside his crazy assassin friend Pru, again. It’s all happening again. And this time, he almost wants to roll over and let it happen. This time he has no goal to fight for, nothing to push him forward towards survival, nothing except for Pru, sitting there in pain because she can’t move to him, can’t get back to town by herself. Tim realizes that he’s the one with the working legs right now; he has to get Pru back. He has to save her, because there’s no way in hell he's letting go of the only person he’s never lost, even if it means losing his life in the process.

“Pru,” he grunts, voice thin and croaky, like the last dregs of an oxygen tank. He needs her right now, but not for comfort; right now he needs her to be a soldier, an assassin. He needs her to focus on getting them out, and that means getting Tim on his feet, because he’s worthless and can’t do it himself. Of course. 

“Tim!” She calls, careful to keep her voice in audible range although it’s equally strained. “Tim, listen to me. I need you to take two pressure patches from your belt and apply them to your injuries. Now.”

Tim’s mind responds to the sharpness of the command and he drags himself upright, chest rolling painfully, and he leans back on the wall as he blindly digs around in his belt for first aid supplies. He finds them, drops a few random bandaids and medications on the desert floor and ignores it, peeling off the backs of the patches and fixing them over the horrible wounds on his chest. He can still feel the writhing blade slithering in and out of his body, scraping past his skin and bones like nails on a chalkboard. He ties the arms of his suit down around his waist like one would a wetsuit, and because he’s obviously about to fucking die, he knows he can’t sit down now or he won’t get back up. Blood is dripping steadily from the tied sleeve of his suit. It’s everywhere, actually, absolutely fucking everywhere, coagulating instantly when it hits the sand in little grain-covered droplets. He remembers building a sandcastle with Dick, once, the only time he’s ever built one because Dick had insisted, and he remembers what the dry sand looked like when it was suddenly covered in water from a bucket, like it was underneath a plate of darkness that could be lifted if you tried hard enough. It’s the same now, except now it’s red and darker and steaming, and there’s a dead man behind hima. The pain in his chest is making his head swim, curling inwards like burned tree bark. It hurts because of the wound. It hurts because he’s dying. It hurts because he misses his big brother who replaced him so easily.

“Tim,” Pru says, and it’s not an affirmation or a question, she’s just trying to tell him what needs to happen, but he already knows. His head nods loosely, lolling as he forces his eyes not to roll back with it. Her face is twisted in pain, he can see that, but so is his, and they’re about to go through hell no matter what happens. If she passes out he won’t be able to carry her deadweight. He’s not even sure he’s going to be able to carry her as is, but he’s got to try.

“Tim,” she says again, and he looks over at her, holding his eyes as steady as he can. She nods harshly. “Listen. You need to walk to your car, get your comm, and call your Bats.”

Tim heaves a breathless, choked gag when he tries to speak, but he swallows it and tries again, tasting hot metal on his lips. “No,” he manages to retch out, and his chest hates him for even breathing, so talking is just some fun additional hell. He shakes his head, hoping for the growing throbbing there to distract him from the pain in his ribs. “No… c-can’t… they won’t… won’t help, Pru, can’t… get here… used a tran-... transporter…”

“Shit,” she hisses, but the situation has been made clear. Tim’s got the pressure patches, but there’s only so much they can do, and he’s fading fast; if they’re going to get to the car, they need to go now, and Pru knows that. He fixes her with a deadly, determined glare, does his best to let anger and adrenaline take over and fuel his broken body. She purses her lips and nods once, reaches her arms up for him to grab, and he does, turns his back to her and yanks her arms over his shoulders. Pru chokes on a scream, her vocal cords cutting it off halfway through, and Tim wheezes and retches again like a drowning man, and neither of them apologize because they can’t afford to and they already know.

Tim hoists her up by her arms onto his wounded back and tries not to wince at her horrible groan, strangling his own grunts and gags and screams, and shuffles forward one step, pushing his foot through the sand. It’s agony. It’s worse than agony. He’s pretty sure he’s supposed to be long dead by now, from this wound alone but from a million other things, too. The ninja must’ve stabbed him at such an angle that he avoided his lung, even though he probably should’ve punctured it, because Tim doesn’t hear any whistling and he can still (sort of) breathe, which is a damn miracle, if this situation can be called one. He pushes his other foot forward, left beside right, shuffling and shifting through the loose desert sand. He knows it takes a lot of work to walk through the sand instead of over it, but it has to be easier than lifting his feet at this point, and that’s all he’s looking for.

He hears Pru in his ear, choking out encouragement and orders, and the child soldier in him clings to the sound, wraps himself around it and feels it in his veins and in his muscles. Left foot. Right foot. Left foot. Right foot. He doesn’t allow himself to pause; if he does, he might not keep going. It’s only about ten yards to the Jeep, but that distance stretches out before him, a line of fate that hasn’t yet been cut. 

Left foot. Right foot.

Left foot. Right foot. He’s made it out of one cave. But he doesn’t need to make it all the way to the other Cave; he just needs to make it back to Gotham. Pru’s right, this isn’t something he can handle by himself. He doesn’t know how to set her legs when they’re broken this bad, doesn’t know how to splint or cast something like this either, and Pru can’t go to a regular hospital because there’s no doubt she’ll be arrested. Tim is the only person who can take her to the Cave to get the medical treatment she needs. He’s useful. He’s needed. He’s going to save his friend, and then he’ll be done. It’ll be over, he will have helped someone he cares about, will have not run away, will have seen this thing through to the very end and get to just rest and be done. Thank god.

Both of them have stopped grinding their teeth and stifling pain, allowing their wounded cries to ring out in the empty desert where nobody will care if they die. Not that anybody will care when Tim dies anyway, but that’s okay. That’s okay. He’ll save Pru. He’ll save her. He will.

Left foot. Right foot. Left foot. Right foot.

He stumbles slightly and Pru gasps, but he forces balance into his legs and wobbles back to solid footing. Forward. Go forward. His head drops and he rolls his eyes up as far as they can go, staring forward, forward, forward at the Jeep and his only hope of saving Pru.

Left. Right. Left. Right. Left. Right.

Tim makes it to the passenger side, body trembling as agony radiates down every nerve. Blood has long since started leaking out of the pressure patches — that started almost immediately after he applied them — and he leaves a perfect red handprint when he nearly trips and catches himself on the bare frame of the car with a sound like a dying animal. Uh, well. That’s what he basically is, but y’know. He turns around and tries his best to lower himself to set Pru down in the passenger seat. It doesn’t really work, but at least she’s hanging over it.

From her tentative position being half-carried half-dragged behind him, Pru throws out a blind hand and fumbles for purchase on the old canvas seats of the car, heaving a strangled wail as she forces her arms down and pulls herself the rest of the way inside. Tim almost collapses with the sudden disappearance of her weight, but she catches him with one arm, shoves him back to his feet. “Get in,” she growls, and Tim does as he’s told, holding himself up on the hood of the car to drag his way around to the driver’s side. He’s just about past screaming at this point; his eyes are clouding over, glassy and barely seeing, and his feet won’t stop shuffling forward even though he no longer needs them to. His chest feels like it’s being crushed by something; a collapsing warehouse, maybe, or a crowbar. He shudders hard and sees the blood pooling against his stomach where it meets his suit. There’s too much volume. His fingers are starting to go cold; he’s on the clock. He’s on the clock and he has to save Pru. 

The aching haze in his skull thins a bit with adrenaline, just enough for him to shove his offline comm back in his ear, turn the ignition and force the gas pedal down. He swerves the car around and they both clench their teeth from the jolt and ignore it, and Tim guns the engine again and floors it back towards the transporter. 

He doesn’t remember the rest of the drive. All he knows is that he remembers seeing the large black dumpster that hides the transporter entrance and remembers driving into it, ramming it out of the way, and the shock of pain that comes from that. He remembers grabbing Pru’s left wrist, but not her right one, and then suddenly they’re both in the entrance and he’s wheezing out his authorization code, and there’s a flash of bright light before he’s shrouded in darkness. Just before his hearing cuts out, he picks up the crackly feedback sound of something being removed from inside his ear, and he hears a little click and a series of tinny, startled voices before a louder one, just next to his head, speaks. 

“You have to help us,” the buzzing voice says. “He’s dying.”

Oh, he thinks, and everything falls away.

Chapter Text

Damian’s not sure what he expected to come of tonight’s patrol, but this certainly isn’t it.

Drake, the absolute imbecile, had apparently dropped off the face of the earth, because nothing they’re trying is being able to locate him.

This is just like Drake, to pull something this careless without thinking of the consequences it might have for the rest of them. To run off like a coward when he was supposed to be a hero, not that he even remotely is one.

Except he is, and Damian can’t stand it. 

Drake is everything Damian is not. He’s a merely decent combatant — nothing compared to Damian, of course — but it’s the other things he does that Damian can’t wrap his head around. There isn’t supposed to be anything else other than combat, but here Drake is with all these other ‘skills’ and he doesn’t even care. He’s a genius brain, a competent speaker, a humble and compassionate soul. Things that shouldn’t — that don’t — even matter , and yet Damian is expected to just magically pick them up and integrate them into his psyche because apparently real life shouldn’t be like Al-Ghul life. Not that that sentence actually means anything. On a totally separate note, Grayson is an ignoramus. 

Damian isn’t jealous of Drake. Why would he be? He’s far superior to him in nearly every way, after all. He’s already proved himself a more capable Robin, a stronger resolve, and a less pathetic life. Damian has worked for everything he has; all his skills took blood to earn, his own or someone else’s. Drake, on the other hand, was born with his assets already neatly arranged around him on a silver platter. He was born with a gifted mind and a personality that everyone seems to love. He was chosen by Batman without even doing anything. Hell, he has that entire separate mansion beside Wayne Manor that is apparently part of his inheritance, if Damian’s research is correct, which it is. 

Even Damian can’t possibly deny that his brain is a valuable asset, but surely there are other, equally or more intelligent people who aren’t quite so insufferable. Even the sight of Drake, the thought, infuriates him. And worse, recently Drake has stopped fighting back against Damian’s taunts, which just takes any possible amount of fun out of their unfortunate forced relationship. Not that Damian in any way wanted that relationship; Drake wasn’t his brother, no matter what inane hearsay Grayson kept spewing. 

So why does he have to be looking for somebody he doesn’t even care about? Why does he have to be running all around the city searching for an imbecile who took off and abandoned his duty of his own accord?

Why does something freeze in his chest and drop into his stomach when he hears those breathless electronic words through his comm unit?

“You have to help us… he’s dying.” The voice cuts out with something like a grunt. The frozen mass in his stomach rolls around as he processes the words, but he can’t focus on whoever the buzzing voice is; Father is calling him and the others suddenly, barking orders to converge on a location he’s pinged on their wrist computers. Damian fumbles for his gauntlet and jabs his finger at the screen — it tells him that the ping is for Red Robin’s comm tracker. 

“Tt. Pathetic,” he says aloud, but it doesn’t sound all that convincing. Batman is off like a shot in front of him and Robin follows immediately, swinging faster than he ever has between buildings as four different lit-up points converge on the location. Why is he trying to go so fast? He doesn’t care about Drake. In fact, it would be better for him if he just stopped here and let him die. That’s… that’s what he’s always wanted. Right?

Something twists in his gut at the thought and he barely stops himself from crying out in confused pain. Why is his body rebelling against him now? What, just because Drake may… may not survive? That would be the ideal outcome. The best-case scenario.

The thing twists again, and this time he hides his cry behind a grunt of exertion. He doesn’t recognize this feeling, but he’s pretty sure it’s some illogical emotional response. Grayson and Father would be upset if Drake died, after all, and preventing them from feeling that would certainly honor his family. That must be what has him reacting this way. 

When he and Father reach the ping and drop down, he’s shocked to see not one but two familiar faces. The first is Drake, although he’s hardly recognizable like this, with his unmasked face deathly pale and ashen, bare-chested with the sleeves of his suit knotted around his waist, and a slipping, red pressure patch clinging like wet fabric to the skin between his ribs. Have… have his ribs always been this pronounced? He looks almost emaciated, like a neglected dog. It’s… awful.

And then there’s the woman.

He’s never seen her face in person, no, but he’s seen a picture — a picture attached to a file in his grandfather’s office. Grandfather keeps detailed records of all of his assassins, and this one in particular is one he holds in very high esteem, or at least he had back when Damian had lived with his mother. The assassin’s legs seem shattered, sticking out at awkward angles, so Damian is satisfied that she’d be unable to attack the rest of them, but Drake is a sitting duck inside her stabbing range. 

“Assassin!” Damian shouts, lunging for the woman with a knife already drawn, but he’s surprised when Grayson appears out of thin air and disarms him with a chop, catches him around the middle, holds him back. Holds him back? This harlot could easily attack Drake! Not that Damian cares, but Grayson surely does. He’s only trying to honor him. Doesn’t he see that?

“Who are you?” Grayson barks, pushing Damian behind him and striding forward. Before he can reach Drake, though, Todd lands on the ground between then. Nobody reacts — not in this line of work — but Grayson stops. 

“She said he’s dying, asshole, we got bigger shit to worry about.” Todd turns on his heel and drops to a crouch beside Drake, ignoring the way Grayson stiffens as he carefully prods his fingers around the wound. He curses and both remaining boys flinch, and Grayson rushes forward immediately. Damian is trying to follow when he’s once again caught with an arm around the middle, this time by his father, who is probably wise to be wary. Todd spares a brief glance at the assassin, two fingers pressed under Drake’s chin. “Report,” he snaps, as if she would do that.

Shockingly, though, she immediately starts talking. “Stabbed with a katana in an underhand motion from behind. I assume it was intended to be a killing blow but I pushed him far enough to the left -- er, to my left, his right -- that I don’t think it touched his heart. Just— look, I know you guys don’t want to deal with this, but you have to help him.”

Grayson startles backwards as if struck, though Todd doesn’t flinch, and Damian finds himself gaping in his father’s suddenly iron hold. He schools his features as quickly as he can. Grayson’s mouth opens and closes like a fish, searching for something to say, but Todd cuts him off with a small, surprised jolt. “Red?” He mutters, and in an instant all four of the Bats are crowded around Drake as he struggles to force his eyes open, his limbs twitching with effort and pain. Todd rests a hand on the side of Drake’s face — though his own is unreadable behind his helmet — and shakes his head. “Shh, shh. Lie still, Timmers. We’re gonna get you help.”

But Drake just drags in a pained, hitching breath and shakes his head right back. “Help… her,” he wheezes, and Damian feels his eyes blow wide without his permission at the dangerous weakness of his voice. “P-Please… let… let her into… Cave…”

“We will, Tim,” Todd says, without even consulting Father. Todd suddenly pulls his hand back and hits the release on his helmet, yanking it off and dropping it carelessly on the ground, and his domino right after. For the first time ever, nobody protests. Todd leans forward and puts himself firmly in Drake’s line of vision, hand going back to cup his face. “Everything’s gonna be okay. I need you to hang on, Babybird, can you do that for me? Just hang on.” 

Drake is struggling to keep his eyes open as Todd brings assessing his wound, and Damian realizes with a start that Grayson and Father are both just frozen, crouching there dumbly and silently. Frozen? Batman doesn’t freeze. He’s Batman. And his original Robin doesn’t freeze, either. He glances back at Drake, trying to ignore the sudden thought that maybe something is more… more wrong than he thought. Damian blinks and looks back at Grayson and Father, but still they’re unmoving, so in a burst of confusing, clenching fear Damian shoves a hand at his own comm. “Oracle, we… we need an immediate med evac .”

“Batwing is already on the way, ETA two minutes. I’ve alerted Alfred to prepare the medbay.” Her voice is terse and sharp. It seems to shake Batman and Nightwing out of their daze, and they snap into action, but when Grayson moves to help keep Drake awake, Todd shakes his head, something vicious teetering precariously on his features. Damian identifies the hurt that flashes in Grayson’s eyes, but the man nods soberly and turns his attention to the assassin instead. Damian stumbles over to Todd, who has laid Drake flat on his back and is rapidly preparing new pressure patches as he talks nonstop to their — that is, to Todd’s , not Damian’s — brother. Drake isn’t his brother. This doesn’t matter. 

But for some reason he finds that he can’t quite get his voice to come out when he shuffles to a halt beside Todd. Todd doesn’t look up, but he makes a gesture for Damian to crouch beside him, so he does, close enough to Drake’s head to see the blue tint to his lips, the unnatural monochrome of his bloodless complexion. As much as Damian has always hated it, he’s seen Drake’s face many, many times in his life, and… and this doesn’t look like him. This looks like a wax figure or a fossilized skeleton or a mannequin. It looks like a corpse, and Damian isn’t sure why that thought makes him want to throw up. But then the eyes of the corpse roll wide open again, struggling to pull themselves down lest they disappear back into Drake’s skull, and Todd tells Damian to keep him talking and then suddenly pulls off one of the pressure patches, and Drake convulses and gags and blood starts gushing from his wound and slithering down his chin and dripping noisily into a puddle of dirty water on the street, and it’s the worst sound Damian has ever heard. Todd had told him to keep Drake talking, but Drake beats him to it, his dark red mouth falling open with a broken wheeze as his dull blue eyes meet Damian’s. His fingers twitch, and before Damian can think about it he’s reaching forward, grasping Drake’s trembling hand in his own and scooting closer to his waxy face. 

Damian can’t bring himself to speak, staring at the horribly translucent skin and the blank stare slowly filling up his eyes, and Damian knows — Damian knows that when that blankness becomes opaque, Drake’s time is up. He… he doesn’t… 

“...Dami…” breathes a strangled voice, so quiet he barely hears it, but his eyes widen and he leans closer to the plastic mannequin skin. He tries to speak — he tries, he does, and he… really wants to speak, but he can’t. And Drake does it for him again, does something Damian can’t, and he should be infuriated but he isn’t. “I’m s-sorry for… not being y’r… big brother.” 

Damian freezes. Just like Batman. 

What?

Drake tilts his head back a bit and swallows, but blood still trickles out of the corner of his mouth. “Should’a tried… tried harder to b-be there… for you, and I…” He pauses again, heaves a horribly wet cough and fights to keep his eyes open, gags out a groan, and two tears streak down his cheeks and drop onto the cold street just the same as his blood. Damian’s frozen heart and brain expect them to stop, but— but they don’t, they just keep streaming down his face. There’s a glint in his clouding eyes that almost looks like… relief.

Damian wishes he could’ve never seen it.

Drake just lets it happen. He seems to be relieved that this is happening.

Oh, god.

Drake isn’t done. He’s letting this happen, but in the midst of this, he’s giving his last words, one of the most sacred things a person has, to Damian. To the person he hates more than anyone? The person who replaced him as Robin, who insults his every moment, who tried to kill him and prove he was inferior, which— which he is. “Dami, I… ’m sorry, I-I’m so sorry… Tried… tried so hard… all this time… and all I d-did was… was hurt people. H-hurt you. ’M sorry.”

Damian can’t move, can’t breathe. Something is gnawing at his intestines, crackling through his bones and breathing air into his blood. Drake had always wanted to be brothers? Drake wishes they got along? Drake is sorry that he didn’t try harder, that he hurt people, that he’s not good enough? 

Why does it bother him that Drake thinks that? Isn’t that what he wants Drake to think? Isn’t it? Isn’t it? Isn’t it?

Is it?

Oh, god.

“...Drake,” Damian finally mumbles, but Drake isn’t looking at him anymore, staring into the increasing blankness. Damian seizes with panic, afraid that he’s gone, that Drake is gone and Damian didn’t say anything, let him slip through his fingers because he was too frozen to help, but then Drake blinks slowly, lifting his gaze back to Damian. 

“Tim…” Comes a whispered voice from over Damian’s shoulder, and he realizes that Todd is still here. 

Drake doesn’t seem to notice. His dimming eyes are staring straight up at the stormy Gotham sky, darkened with night and pollution. There are no stars — there never are. His tears and blood are still pelting the pavement, even though his wounds have been covered. 

Damian can’t do this.

Luckily, it seems like he doesn’t have to, because in a snap somebody is pulling him to his feet and into a strong chest, and Todd is in front of him, lifting Drake into his arms, and Drake wails but his voice cuts off half a second later because he’s already screamed himself hoarse. He must be in agony — that wound is far too centralized to have hit nothing vital. Todd mutters something to the broken body and goes running off, and Damian is about to chase after him but there’s still a hand on his chest that holds him firm, and he notices with detachment that the Batwing has somehow appeared beside them without him noticing. Todd is running Drake inside, and Father is rushing after them, which means the person holding him must be Grayson. Damian is confused. His head feels cloudy like the sky and like Drake’s eyes and he doesn’t know what happens now. 

Grayson — it is Grayson — lowers him gently to the ground, because apparently at some point Damian’s knees gave out. He whispers something to him that he doesn’t really catch, something about coming right back, and runs away up the ramp of the plane. Damian scrambles and reaches for him, but something locks around his collar and holds him back. He whips around, ready to duck, and is met with the pale face of the assassin. He’d completely forgotten about her. Why is he so scrambled?

But he knows, doesn’t he?

“Kid,” huffs a slightly strained, buzzing voice, and it pulls Damian a little closer to his own body. “Hey, it’s okay. He’s just getting a gurney. It’s okay.”

Damian flinches because it’s not, nothing has ever been less okay than it is right now. But he doesn’t say that, just clenches his teeth as Grayson returns with the promised gurney and carefully transfers her into it before raising it and offering Damian his hand. His eyes are blue shattered glass, cracked like nothing he’s ever seen in his older brother before, and he takes his hand and allows himself to be pulled along and up the ramp of the plane like a small child. 

When the ground flattens out again inside the Batwing, he doesn’t notice in time to change the angle of his feet, and he very nearly trips, but Grayson gives him a strong tug upwards. “Steady,” the man says quietly, and Damian is struck for the first time by how young he is. 

He hears a choked gagging sound, and Todd’s voice, different than he’s used to.

“Blood pressure is dropping, I need help!”

Grayson is the one who’s always telling him that a kid shouldn’t have to go through everything Damian did, but is it not true that Grayson experienced similar traumas? Is it not true that he, too, didn’t get the chance to grow up? Loving parents taken from him at a young age, living in the danger and pressure of being a child vigilante, setting an example as the first Robin and first partner, being stripped of Robin, losing his younger brother and his best friend and his second father, taking on a child and a mantle he never wanted. It’s too much for a lifetime… Richard Grayson is only 23 years old. Who knows how close to the end of his lifetime he is? 

Metal is shaking amidst hoarse halted gasping. “Shit, shit, he’s seizing, blood pressure is too low, Dick, I need you here now!”

Todd never got to grow up, either; he missed those years, quite literally. A child on the street stealing to survive because of a mother who spends all their money on drugs, placed into an uncertain new life, into the line of fire, tortured and beaten and blasted to a fiery death at the age of 14, only to awaken at 17 full of uncontrollable rage and confusion. Jason Todd is 21. He’s lived and died and lived again, been buried and abandoned by his family. Has dragged himself all this way back to them, albeit tentatively. He stands with too much to lose for his comfort; he wants to not hurt anymore.

“Hey, no, no! No, no, Jay, I’m losing him!”

“Fuck no, not like this— c’mon kiddo, don’t do this. Don’t you fucking do this, Babybird…”

And Drake… Damian doesn’t know. He’d thought that everything had been handed to him on a silver platter, but now, collapsed to his knees on the metal floor of the plane, watching with detachment as Todd performs frantic chest compressions and Grayson readies a defibrillator, Damian can’t stop himself from thinking. He’s thinking of the look on Drake’s face when they’d first met, of openness and welcome, and of the look on Drake’s face when Damian had stabbed a knife into his side, of confusion and fear. He’s thinking of the Drake manor, dark and empty beside their own except for the occasional times he looks out the window and catches Drake, who doesn’t live nearby, kneeling there on the front steps. He’s thinking of Drake’s eyes when Damian had become Robin, full of betrayal and anger, of how he’d said Grayson hadn’t even told him ahead of time, and of how these days his eyes are bloodshot and dark every time they’re visible. He's thinking of the time when Drake was gone, how they didn’t look for him, how they had thought he was insane right up until the moment when he successfully walked back into the house with Father in tow and left and never came back. He’s thinking of how he has no idea what happened to Drake’s parents or what his early life was like, has no idea what Drake is like at all because he’s never given him a single chance. He’s thinking of Drake just minutes ago, lying on the hard, cracked pavement of a Gotham back street, and that haunting spark of relief on his translucent face for the fact that he’s dying. He’s thinking of what Drake had said.

I’m sorry I wasn’t your big brother.

I should’ve been there for you.

I tried so hard, but all I’ve ever done is hurt people.

Timothy Drake is 17. A child.

Damian feels every structure in his body crumble to ash, shatter into a thousand sharp, scattered pieces, and a guttural sob escapes his throat before he knows it’s trying to. He can’t help it. He can’t help the next one, either, or the next, or the next, or the next, and he can’t help the way his body automatically curls into a tight ball on the floor, pulling and pushing frantically at the pain radiating in his chest, the pain he doesn’t understand and barely recognizes, but he does know it.

Grief.

He’s crying. His mother and grandfather would have his head. But… but he isn’t with them, is he? And real life shouldn’t be like Al-Ghul life. So he’s sobbing, actually, wailing, breath coming in short gasps, and his entire body trembles with the hot tears that streak down his cheeks. He’s clutching at and curling around the pain he never wanted to feel again, but here he is, feeling it for Drake, his enemy, his weak and worthless predecessor, the boy he hates more than anything in the world. Why is he feeling grief for someone like that?

But in the back of his mind, Damian knows why. In the back of his mind, he knows that those things aren’t true. Damian doesn’t hate Drake. Sure, Drake is a stubborn ass who sucks at communicating with Bats, but he’s also one of them, and Damian doesn’t hate him. He doesn’t hate him and he doesn’t want him to die because he’s thinking about what Drake just said and he’s realizing that he has his own regrets, too. 

He watches blankly as Grayson and Todd prepare to administer a second shock, because the first didn’t work, because Drake is dying. He’s dying. 

Damian is thinking about what Drake just said and he’s realizing that he’s sorry he wasn’t Drake’s little brother, too.

Grayson yells clear! and Drake’s body convulses with the shock, but the incessant, unending whine of the heart rate monitor doesn’t change. Drake is dying. Medically, Drake is already dead.

Damian is thinking about what Drake just said and he’s realizing that he should’ve been there more, too. He’s realizing that Drake isn’t his enemy or an opponent to be bested to prove himself. He’s realizing that real life shouldn’t be like Al-Ghul life.

Todd and Grayson are yelling at Drake — at Drake’s body — pleading with him to come back, to fight, even as they prepare a third shock. Damian knows that after two shocks, chances of resuscitation drastically decrease. Drake is dying. Damian feels like his skin has been replaced with paper and his guts have been overtaken by vines.

Damian is thinking about what Drake just said, and he’s realizing that he wants to be Drake’s brother. He’s realizing that he wants to hear his voice in his ear, watch him fly with those ridiculous red wings, notice the nuances in how he fights. More importantly, he’s realizing that he wants to play pranks with him, lean against his shoulder during movie night, ask him what he thinks of a new recipe he’s trying. He wants his older brother to help him grow up, and he wants to help as a younger brother, too.

He wants to fix this. But he can’t, because Timothy Drake is bleeding out on a gurney right in front of him, his heart stilling as Damian can do nothing but sit and watch. 

He doesn’t hear the next shout of clear! over the blood rushing in his ears, but he absolutely does hear the instant when the horrible drawl of the heart rate monitor changes into slow, weak beeps. He hears Grayson’s wet, hysterical sigh of relief, and the quiet shuffling sound of him leaning down to wrap Drake in a desperate hug despite the awkward position. He hears Todd’s quiet, steadying breaths, so unlike the bloodthirsty, rage-filled man that Damian had first met, and he hears his footsteps as he moves around the gurney to reset the iv. 

Damian hears all this, and all he can do is pray to a god he doesn’t believe in that he gets a second chance.

Chapter Text

Jason isn’t sure how or when everything went so wrong, but he’s pretty sure it’s at least 80% Dick’s fault.

Dick is the one who fucked up Tim. Well, okay, Jason trying to kill him all those times definitely didn’t help, but he’s been getting better, okay? At the very least, Jason is the only one who ever goes and checks on Tim. Granted he does it under the guise of needing information from him, but it’s always information that he could easily get himself, and he’s always kinda hoped that Tim sees through that and knows that Jason actually fucking cares.

Look, he’s not great with emotions, okay?

But Jason likes Tim. As in he would probably be friends with him even if they weren’t related. Or legally related, anyway. The point is, Tim is a good kid, and he doesn’t deserve all the shit he’s had to go through in life. And he sure as hell doesn’t deserve to have what little he actually has getting ripped away from him. 

But Dick took it upon himself to do that to him, didn’t he? And no matter how much Jason tries to talk (punch) some sense into him, Dick won’t accept the fact that he had hurt Tim. He just won’t. He acts like Tim is impossible to damage, like that facade of strength and logic and happiness is in any way convincing. It’s not, by the way — the cracks at the edges are so easy to read if you just look at him for two seconds, but Dick has decided he’s not even worth going to see in person. His little brother that he cares so much about, huh? You mean the same one who’s been completely deteriorating right in front of him and he hasn’t batted an eye? The one from whom he took everything? That one?

That one is here now, lying in a hospital bed in the Batcave’s medbay, and Jason can’t say he looks very fucking cared about. He’s pale and ashen, deathly still, of course, but there are other things, too, older things that could’ve been stopped a year ago and weren’t. For one thing, he almost weighs less than Damian does, even though he’s still a head or more taller. His ribs poke out from his sides, showing starkly through translucent skin, tinged a sickly pink with what remains of the bloodstains from his wound. His entire body is— is covered with scars, more than Jason has himself, maybe even as many as Bruce. Except Tim is less than half Bruce’s age, and Jason knows these weren’t all here last time he saw the kid shirtless— shrieking and giggling as he ran away from the lapping waves of the ocean again and again… Jason misses that. Misses him. What the hell really happened between then and now, in the time the kid was gone? Well, he found Bruce, obviously, and Jason knows the whole thing had fucked him up, but clearly Jason is still missing something because no human with this many scars and old injuries stands a good chance of being alive. 

And then there’s the girl. Tim seems to know her, and she seems to know him, and she also seems to know a lot more than she’s letting on. Oddly enough, Damian also seems to know more than he’s letting on, which is bizarre because there’s a zero percent chance that he would hide information for the sake of protecting Tim. So naturally Jason assumes that they’re gonna need that information soon if they want Tim to, like, live and shit. 

But Damian seems… upset. More upset than Jason has even seen him — more upset than Dick has ever seen him, he’s pretty sure. The kid cried, for fuck’s sake. Likely had a panic attack, actually, which, if you had asked Jason four hours ago, he would’ve said was impossible. Like, he would’ve fought you on it. But there the kid is, huddled into a tight, stiff ball and staring blankly ahead at Tim’s bony hand from the seat beside Jason’s. Jason understands Damian better than anyone. Sure, Dick gets along with him better -- hell, he practically raised the kid -- but Jason understands him. Jason understands his confusion, really, his confusion with why he’s always being asked to be something he’s not. He understands the look in Damian’s eye when he’s obviously wracking his brain to try to figure out what he’s doing wrong in a situation, understands the frustrated clench of his knuckles when the explanation doesn’t line up with what he knows about himself and his world. 

Jason understands because he’s been there, especially with this fucking family. Bruce and Dick are so buried in their obsessively dramatic vigilantism that they never bother to take a fucking step back and wonder if their family members might possibly be people who have human emotions. Maybe they know those emotions, maybe they’ve felt them, but they’ve never considered for a second that other people might feel them, too, and might have normal ass responses. The notion of anyone responding to an emotion with anything other than brooding silence or a cheesy quip is unthinkable to them.

And y’know? Jason’s pretty fucking sick of it. Because he’s looking at this kid beside him right now and he’s so sickeningly sure that nobody has ever told him that he doesn’t have to react like they do. Nobody has taught him what to do right now— and not right now as in when he’s scared for a severely injured brother, right now as in when he’s feeling emotions in general. Dick can be all touchy-feely or whatever, but when it comes to real shit, he retreats into himself, and yet the guy has no idea how to process that. That’s probably why he and Bruce decided to interrogate the assassin, although Jason can't imagine they're making much progress; they wanted something concrete they could do, since punching things obviously won’t make Tim better. Not that that’s ever stopped them before .

Yeah, this family is so fucked up.

Whatever. This is probably gonna go poorly, but if they’re gonna keep teaching the kid bullshit, maybe Jason can suck it up and try to be a good brother, for once. And if this isn’t the perfect time to start. Christ.

He valiantly holds back a sigh, not wanting Damian to feel like Jason doesn’t want to listen to him. Well, okay, Jason probably actually doesn’t want to listen to him, because in all likelihood the little brat is about to say something about how Tim deserves this and Jason doesn’t really trust himself not to lose his shit over that right now. But he’s committed to this, so… “Talk to me, kid.”

Damian’s head flicks towards him, but his eyes don’t look away from Tim’s hand, which is a very odd combination of motions that Jason doesn’t really understand the purpose of. The silence stretches on for something like three full minutes before Jason finally lets that sigh pass his lips and leans his elbows on his knees, fiddling with the peeling skin on one of his fingernails. He’ll go for the direct approach. “Damian,” he tries again, firmer this time. “You okay?”

This time the kid whips his entire upper body around to glare at Jason, except it comes out as more of a wide-eyed blink. “Of course I am.” His voice cracks in the middle and gets quieter and shakier from there, and wow, Bruce might need to add acting lessons to Robin’s training, cuz that shit was tough.

Jason can’t help but scoff, no matter how unhelpful that is to his cause. He looks straight ahead at the sterile white bandages across Tim’s scarred chest. “Sure sounds like it.”

“I am.”

“Well, fuck, you sure as hell shouldn’t be.”

Damian seems to startle a bit at that, and it confirms Jason’s suspicions that this poor demon literally doesn’t even know it’s an option to not be okay. Of course he doesn’t -- he lives with Bruce, who avoids emotions like the plague, and Dick, who pretends the only emotions that exist are happy ones. “Wh—…” the kid mutters, but cuts himself off and looks back at Tim’s hand. The knuckles protrude far past where they should. They look like they would shatter if he threw a punch.

Jason nods slowly and grunts another sigh, heavy gaze unmoving. Maybe that is a more common combination of motions than he’d thought. Huh. “Christ. I wish those two would just get over themselves and go to fucking therapy.” He swallows hard at the thought; he needed to do the same, really. Maybe if they weren’t all so buried in their own brooding and self-pity, Tim would at least be allowed to die knowing someone loved him. 

A horror-filled whisper floats into his brain. “What?”

For the first time he glances over, confused. Damian’s face is utterly stricken, brittle and pale like a book with a broken binding, and just as easy to read. Even so, why is he… oh.

Jason bites his lip and immediately tries to hide that he does. He breathes a bitter laugh through his nose. “I say that out loud?” He doesn’t need to ask; Damian’s face says it loud and clear. Sometimes that kinda thing happens to him, where he can’t keep a thought in his head. He’d like to blame it on the Pit, but it’s honestly probably just him. 

Slowly, Damian begins piecing his brave face back together, but he can’t rip the terror from his eyes. “...You believe that he will… will die?” He says, and though it’s clear he’s trying his best to keep feigning indifference, his voice comes out broken and quiet. 

The fuck do you care? Jason’s brain hisses, but he shakes the thought away. Even he’s not that much of an asshole — Dick is the one in charge of guilt tripping, anyway. Jason sighs and drags a hand down his face. He decides against fighting the rolling burn in his eyes; therapy and all that, right? Let it out. The building blurriness spills over, silently tracing wet paths down his cheeks. He can see Damian’s shock in the corner of his vision, but he can’t say he really cares, because his eyes have migrated and are locked onto Tim’s face, and god, he’s so young. 

He’s so young. He’s so young, so small and gentle and quiet, and Jason would trade places with him right now in a heartbeat but he knows that would never happen because Jason’s not like Tim and Jason wouldn’t have ended up injured in order to help one person. None of them are like Tim. Tim is selfless and perceptive and empathetic in a way that none of the rest of them are — Tim is alive in a way that none of the rest of them are. He understands the world. Not all of it, of course not, but he doesn’t claim to. He just claims to want to learn as much about it as he can. He experiences life like a person, not just like a Bat, and he thinks about things, wonders, ponders, stays curious. And none of it is for some ulterior motive. He wants so badly to be alive — alive beyond just living. 

And here he is, dying in a hospital bed, watched by two of the many people who have tried to take that aliveness away from him. 

It’s not poetic. Jason hates it.

He swallows hard and shakes his head; Damian is still staring, still waiting for him to answer his question. You believe that he will die? “I don’t know, Damian.” He sniffs and clears his throat. “I really don’t know.”

The child blinks at him owlishly, and his face has adopted a green tinge. He looks like he might say something when the door of the room suddenly slams open louder than Alfred would allow and they both jolt, on their feet with weapons ready in an instant. 

And in rolls the assassin, very much conscious and furious and way faster in a wheelchair than anybody should be, especially considering her basically full lower-body cast. Dick and Bruce make it to the doorway a second later and stop, though Jason isn’t sure why. He doesn’t really have time to think about it because the woman is in front of him and Damian with a scowl to rival Batman’s on her face. She looks them both up and down and scoffs before wheeling around to the other side of the hospital bed. Damian goes to leap at her, of course, and Jason snags his wrist. She knows Tim, he wants to say, but the kid has already gone still. 

All four Bats are just standing there staring at her, motionless. It’s awkward. She doesn’t seem to notice. Her eyes soften and narrow, eyebrows drawn, as she takes in Tim’s gaunt, slack face, and she reaches out and pats his cheek firmly, twice. Damian is about to leap again — and Jason isn’t going to stop him — when a hissed groan stutters out from the center of the room. The Bats all freeze. The assassin smiles.

“’Bout damn time,” she says, and her voice is neither quiet nor soft, though it’s not harsh either. It’s… joky? Light, almost, which just… seems kinda tactless, to be honest.

But Tim — and it really is Tim making sound, somehow — groans again, a bit more solid but equally pained and quiet. “Wh… th’ fuck…” He breathes, and Jason hears the small but rapid backwards shuffle of Dick’s feet. “Th’t w’sn’t…” he grinds out a third groan, tries to lift a hand to his chest, gives up when he can’t. His eyes are still closed, but he mutters, “Pru?” and Bruce jolts, too, although more as if struck.

“In the incredibly sexy flesh,” says the assassin — Pru, apparently, and Jason connects the name with the one he heard over the comms during patrol with some level of understanding — and she gives a lopsided smirk. Her voice is almost… electronic. Hmm.

“Th’ fuck you do…?” Tim grunts, but his head lolls very slightly towards her. Jason has no idea how he’s awake in any capacity right now. His voice is hoarse and whispered, thick with pain. “’S don’ feel like sparring pains…” 

Pru laughs slightly, which… just— what the hell is happening? “I didn’t do shit this time.” Tim tries again to move and his forehead instantly creases and his legs twitch slightly on the bed, and Pru raises an eyebrow as the smile straightens out on her face. “Easy, mate. Got a hole in ya.”

Bruce glares and Damian tenses as if to grab at a knife, and Jason is just debating whether or not to grab him again when Tim makes another sound, like a hum, and it sounds almost like a laugh, but it’s strangled and painful. Tim’s nose wrinkles. “Bullet?”

Jason can’t help but notice the way Bruce’s eyes narrow and the way Dick’s eyes widen from the doorway, and he has to say he understands, because-- because Tim has never sounded so casual about anything in his life. Look, Jason likes guns a lot more than the next guy, but even he doesn’t like the sheer nonchalance in Tim’s tone when he asks if there’s a literal bullet hole in his chest. Dick’s dinner-plate eyes are darting all around Tim’s body, as if searching for some kind of justification. They’re catching noticeably on the scars.

Pru breathes a scoff and shakes her head. “You can do better’n that.” Tim’s head moves an inch and he immediately gasps, fingers curling into fists and bare toes clenching as he tries desperately to keep his back from arching off the bed in pain. Dick takes a half-step forward, hand outstretched with worry, but he stops himself when Pru winces and grips the rail of the bed. “Steady on, soldier,” She says, lips pursing slightly in hardened sympathy, and shit, Jason doesn’t like that at all . And he really doesn’t like how much it seems to calm Tim down. “Count your breaths.”

Tim settles slowly, doing as he’s told, and his breathing evens out as he goes. Finally, his body is relaxed back down and he allows a small, relieved sigh. “’S a sword,” he says, and Jason raises his eyebrows in confusion, watching as Damian’s fall low over his eyes for the same reason and hearing the assassin hum for, once again, the same reason. Tim catches it, somehow. “Sword wound,” he clarifies. 

And again, Pru laughs. “Ah. Right as always, Detective.”

Tim grumbles, and for the first time his eyes flutter. Dick inches forward again, as does Damian, for some reason, but they both stay mostly where they are, held to the spot by the sheer strangeness of the moment. “Y’r boss sucks…”

Her eyebrow quirks, but Jason can see the slight darkness that creeps in the shadows behind her features. “Not my boss.” Tim just scoffs in reply, smiling lightly, and Pru rolls her eyes. “Just go the fuck to sleep, Tim.” The kid’s lashes flutter again and then still, falling heavily over his eyes. In the silence, Jason listens as the ragged, pained wheezing evens out slightly, finally smoothing into something resembling breathing. It grates on his ears, but Tim is asleep. There’s a pause where everyone releases the breaths that have been going toxic in their chests.

And then all hell breaks loose.

Chapter Text

All of a sudden everything is moving. Bruce is between the wheelchair and the bed in an instant, and Jason and Dick are shafted with the job of catching and subduing the furious projectile that is a twelve-year-old demon. Who also has a knife. He very much has a knife, and Jason finds this out when it slices a clean gash through his leather jacket and thinly along the side of his forearm — no lasting damage, but still, Jesus. The kid won’t stop thrashing, for some reason, even after Jason has disarmed him and Dick is holding him firmly in a harmless-but-inescapable headlock, his eyes full of blinding range and his teeth clenched and bared like a fucking rabid dog. It’s kinda scary, actually, but nothing compared to the cold intimidation of the Batman’s stare.

“How do you know his name?” Batman -- not Bruce, this isn’t Bruce -- says slowly, dark eyes boring into the girl in front of him, and shockingly, she manages to just glare back defiantly. Suddenly, Jason likes her; at the very least, she’s got guts beyond sanity, and that’s the kinda person he tends to get along with. 

Then her lip curls with hatred, though, and Jason feels a snapping cold bite at his skin -- he has a feeling this is going to get ugly. “Cuz he told me,” she grinds out, and her voice buzzes more prominently than before. 

Batman’s left hand twitches, though in all likelihood Pru doesn’t know that that’s a sure tell that he’s confused and concerned. “He told you.” His voice sounds flat, but Jason knows he believes her, no matter how much he’ll pretend not to, and it’s really freaking the guy out. 

She doesn’t nod, just blinks slowly, like she’s unimpressed with his line of reasoning, even though she really shouldn’t be able to read what it is. “Hmph. I knew Tim was a better detective than you, but I didn’t expect that I would be, too. I know all your names, Bruce .”

The Bats all muscle through their own jolts of shock as Batman’s eyes narrow. “Who are you?”

And her eyes narrow, too. “It’s Prudence,” She says, lips still curled. “What, don’t tell me he’s never talked about me?”

“Of course not, harlot,” Damian spits viciously, still wriggling in Dick’s iron arms. Dick himself is, at this point, just looking on with worry. He has that look on his face that he gets when something is more wrong than he’s letting on, as if that’s what they need right now. Damian wrenches his body to one side; it does nothing, of course, but his teeth stay bared in a fierce growl. “We do not conspire with the League of Assassins.” 

Jason startles, as do Dick and Bruce, though to varying (totally imperceptible, because they’re Bats) degrees. Pru looks at the demon like he’s a total moron, which… yeah, okay, it’s pretty funny. Jason wants to laugh. It would be super inappropriate to laugh. Jason now wants to laugh more. He doesn’t. “The… League of Assassins?” Dick breathes fearfully, holding Damian closer. Jason rolls his eyes. The guy can be so dramatic.

Pru turns the Moron Look on Dick, and it grows angrier and darker. “The League of Assassins…?!”  She breathes back, mocking Dick’s telenovela tone. Jason really wants to laugh. Her eyes roll and narrow back to normal with a dismissing shrug of her shoulders. “You’s  a brainy lot, huh? Looks to me like you conspire with them plenty, based on your munchkin there.” She nods to Damian, who fights harder.

“I’m not one of them!”

“And I can’t even tell you how much I don’t fucking care,” she replies, then whistles lowly as her eyes roll and flash at the same time. “Christ, you lot are worse than him.” Her eyes flicker to Tim before they settle on the wall above him and she shakes her head. “Doesn’t matter. They’re gone, anyway.”

And that makes Jason stop.

“...Gone?” Dick mutters, thinking hard and pulling off his domino. Everyone else automatically follows suit, even Bruce.

Now Pru looks confused. “Jesus, the fuck is wrong with you lot? Thought you were meant to be detectives. Shouldn’t you know this shit already?”

“Know what?” Dick says, suddenly dropping Damian, who lands on his feet, and striding purposefully forward to stand beside Bruce, who hasn’t shrunk back. Pru doesn’t shrink back, either. “What don’t we know?”

Her eyes narrow and dart between every Bat in the room, Tim included, and then narrow further. “Is this some kind of joke?”

And Jason focuses on her face and realizes that she’s genuinely confused. She… she actually doesn’t understand why they’re acting like this. But why? They’re not really acting out of the ordinary. But maybe… maybe they aren’t the ones who acted out of the ordinary. “Wait a minute,” Jason says suddenly, cutting off whatever dumbass thing Dick is about to say. He moves around Bruce and Dick and the assassin shifts her glare to him; he almost thinks her stare looks a little less hateful than they did a second ago. Jason’s eyes narrow suspiciously, though he tries his best to keep them from looking antagonizing. “How exactly do you know Tim?” Bruce shoots him a glare even though the girl clearly already knows the kid’s name. Whatever.

Pru’s eyes narrow similarly. Jason doesn’t blame her. “We worked together,” she grumbles reluctantly, folding her arms with a half-pissed half-bored look on her face, but he has a feeling  she knows something is very amiss. Jason does, too; the problem is that neither of them know what it is. 

“When? Where?” He asks urgently, uncaring of the little hum of surprise from Bruce.

The hatred in her eyes seems to lift a little more, replaced by concentration. She’s working with him, here. “Europe, two years ago.” Jason’s forehead creases fractionally, and she must take that as a disconnect, because she grunts electronically and specifies. “I met him in Prague. I wanna say it was March. Why?”

“March…?” Dick mumbles, horror filling his tone and his back going rigid. And Jason knows why.

Of course. March. Fuck, of course, of course, of course, god fucking dammit! 

Jason feels his fingers itch for the trigger of a gun and he clenches his fists to still them. March. Of course. March of two years ago was when Tim left — when Tim was kicked out, because he’s pretty sure that’s what actually fucking happened. He had that last huge fight with Dick in late February, but Jason barely knows what it was about, just that there was a note left on the coffee machine in Jason’s apartment a few days later that had him derailed for the entire week. He remembers the sound the paper had made when it trembled in his hand, remembers the odd sick feeling that had come over him when he realized that the handwriting was Tim’s, but that the note barely held any sliver of him. The script was the same, the same janky-ass all-caps that the kid always wrote in, but the rest was totally wrong — no rolled corners or crinkled edges of the paper, no stupid doodles in the margins to illustrate his point, no classically bizarre and unnecessarily specific verbiage or tangents to be read along the way — no Tim . Because Tim was gone.

Jason,

Don’t let them try to stop me. I’m counting on you.

                                                        TD

And Jason heard nothing from him until he showed back up in Gotham just over a year later, bringing with him Bruce Wayne and a pitch darkness behind his eyes. 

But if this assassin had seen him in March of that same year — in Prague, no less — then maybe she knows what the fuck happened to put that darkness there. Before Jason can stop kicking himself for not making the connection sooner, Bruce’s voice snaps him back into the moment. 

“What happened in March?” He asks Dick obliviously, because he’s a fucking blockhead who never picks up on when other people are feeling feelings. His brows are crinkled over his eyes. “Why did you go to Prague?”

Dick hums and flicks his eyes casually to the wall opposite Tim’s face. Jason can feel his own anger being shoved back by the sheer rage radiating off of the assassin. Holy shit, she’s terrifying — he has a passing thought that she would get along well with Kori.

“We— uh, Tim went to Prague,” Dick says, his voice carefully even. Jason fights off his urge to punch him in favor of staring at the scars covering his little brother’s chest, the scars that seem a little too freshly-healed. What happened in March? Shit. Jason has no idea. None of them do. Dick looks at his hands. “March was when— when he left.”

Bruce’s brows draw together and he opens his mouth, but he’s cut off before any words come out. “When he left? You mean when you told him to fuck off?” Pru snarls, and somehow the scariest person in the room is now the 130-pound girl with two broken legs. She yanks at the wheels of her chair and nearly runs over Dick’s foot, stopping right in front of him with murder in her eyes. Her buzzing voice is low and dangerous. “Don’t pretend like you don’t know what you did, asshole. He was fifteen years old.” She’s clenching the armrests of her chair with white knuckles, and Jason recognizes the action as her doing everything in her power to avoid throwing a punch.

Dick looks like she had thrown it anyway, though, face screwed up and arms wrapped defensively around his stomach. He’s nervous, Jason realizes — he doesn’t like that she’s bringing this up. Dick never talks about what happened between him and Tim — he just sweeps it under the rug and decides it’s too hard for him to deal with because of whatever new excuse he’s come up with this week. Jason knows that he’s really just afraid of how Tim will react if he tries to talk to him, but Dick has to know by now that even trying to talk to him would’ve meant so much to Tim in the beginning and it still might, that he doesn’t process emotions the way Dick does and has a tendency to point blame inward until he snaps and loses his shit, and it takes a lot to get him to that point. That last fight with Dick, though — from what Jason knew, the kid had been well past that the whole time. 

Dick shifts on his feet, still looking at his hands and firmly away from Tim. “I didn’t think—”

“No, you didn’t think,” Pru snaps, and he shuts up. She’s absolutely seething ; Jason doesn’t know if he’s ever seen anyone quite so pissed off, including the Lazarus-Pit version of himself. She shoves her wheels again from the other direction, putting herself firmly back where she’d been before, and she somehow seems just as intimidating even though she’s farther away. Dick flinches and she doesn’t, her voice rock solid and frigid. “He was a kid and he decided the best course of action was to put himself on another continent alone rather than try and talk to you again. And y’know what? He was fucking right.” She grinds her teeth together and her jaw flexes, the first sign that she’s even more pissed than she’s letting on. Dick is still looking at his hands, but Jason can see the frustration in his face. 

“What—” Bruce starts quietly, brows pinched, “What is she talking about?” He directs the question to the room, but it’s clear that it’s meant for Dick.

The man is silent for a moment. Pru says nothing, just glares daggers at him. Jason has no idea why Damian is doing — the kid is behind him — but he has a feeling he doesn’t want to see, whatever that means. And Jason feels like the air in the room is about to tear itself apart. “I… look, Tim took off,” Dick said, face closed off and gaze leveled at Bruce’s forehead, but not his eyes. He swallowed and shook his head. “He was so sure you were alive, B. And he— I mean, obviously you were, but you should’ve seen him, he— he was just spiraling, and I had to focus all my time on Damian a-and I decided Tim would be fine because he’s so independent, y’know? He took off.” For an instant, his eyes meet Batman’s, except these aren’t Batman’s eyes; they’re Bruce’s. And his confusion is slowly being filtered and mixed with suspicion, a tiny, tiny layer of dread humming underneath it all. 

Pru looks like she really wants to throw that punch, but instead she laughs, a cold, hollow sound, and shakes her head slowly, eyes locked onto Dick’s even though he doesn’t look over. “You decided he would be fine.” She gestures sharply at Tim and Dick flinches. “Does he look fine? He’s a fucking kid and you took everything from him and when I met him I was on orders to fucking blow him up. I was on orders to kill this child. He could’ve died that night and you never would have known. You know that?” 

Jason feels those words slam through his chest. He could’ve died that night and you never would have known. They rattle in his lungs and constrict his throat and blur his eyes because they’re true . Tim… Tim was gone, disappeared without telling anyone, for a year and they never even looked for him. They never even looked . He could’ve been buried in a cheap casket in an unmarked grave with nobody there at his funeral, dead for a mission that nobody else believed in and shoved away by the people who were supposed to take care of him and fifteen years old. Tim could’ve died and they never would have known because they had all decided that Tim, sweet, gentle, brilliant Tim is the one who is independent, who is fine, who can take care of himself . Like… like he’s some kind of second-rate family member, the one you go to when you have an ugly thought or a stuck case or a bad day that you need to take out on someone. 

Jason feels like he’s just been punched in the throat. That’s exactly how they treat Tim…

Oh, god.

Oh, god.

This can’t happen. It can’t… it can’t be this bad-- but it is, isn’t it? This is what they’ve done to him, to their brother who they’ve broken by their own hands. To their brother who probably doesn’t feel like their brother at all. Oh, god.

Dick’s face has gone pale, blood draining away, and his eyes look shinier than usual even as he stares at the ground. Apparently Pru is dissatisfied with his lack of response because her fists clench tighter around the armrests and the next time she speaks, her voice has dropped even lower into a murmured whisper of concentrated hatred. “I said did you fucking know that?”

“N-no,” Dick stutters, eyes wide and pupils tiny. Bruce’s pupils are just as small, but it almost seems like any anger Dick had is transferring to Bruce, because the man’s face is reddening with every passing moment. “I--” Dick chokes and cuts himself off with a sob. “I didn’t… you’re… h-he would’ve called me. He would’ve called for help.”

For the first time, genuine bafflement shows on the assassin’s face alongside the snapping bitterness. “Why the hell would he have done that?” She asks, and the raw confusion in her tone hits Jason just as hard as the words; she actually doesn’t understand why Tim would’ve called for help. Dick’s eyes have been ripped from the floor and he’s suddenly staring at her, mouth slightly agape. She sets her jaw again. “He wouldn’t call for help that he doesn’t actually expect to get.” Dick flinches hard and doesn’t even try to hide it, his arms squeezing tighter around his abdomen. Pru breaks her stare for a second to glance at Tim; her face betrays nothing until she looks back at Dick and her features once again fill with fury. “Besides, if there’s anything I know about this kid, it’s that he loves to help and hates to be helped. He tried to shake us off his tail for days -- even when he knew we were his only chance -- just because he didn’t trust any help . ” She bares her teeth slightly, eyes narrowing. “I wonder where he got that idea?”

The ensuing silence is heavy and dense, and Jason doesn’t like how much space it gives him to think. Because-- because she’s right. Dick is the one who’s feeling guilty right now, and fuck, he better be, but in reality this isn’t only Dick’s fault. They’ve been letting Tim down for years. Christ, Jason tried to kill him -- he almost succeeded . He beat him nearly to death in the kid’s own headquarters just because he thought it might make him feel better about a death that had nothing to do with Tim at all. Jason had been the kid’s childhood hero and had done his level best to murder him in cold blood. For a long time Jason thought of him as nothing more than a replacement who didn’t deserve to try to fill Jason’s shoes because he’d never be able to do it, even though the kid has long since surpassed him as Robin at least. Jason only ever goes to him for information, albeit really to check in, or for a sparring partner, and he’s still by far the one who saw him most often, and the only one who ever sees him as Tim Drake.

And the others… Christ. Where should he start? Tim had adored Dick. He idolized him all his life, both as Dick Grayson, the first person who ever gave him a proper hug -- fuck -- and as the original Robin, the figure that gave him hope that he could do real good in the world. Dick had been a great mentor figure for Tim, and a great brother, too. And he replaced Tim with a psychopath who had tried to kill him without a second thought, without telling him ahead of time, without even really offering an explanation. He made him think he was crazy, used his friends to get to him, refused to believe in him despite everything they’d been through. And even after Tim came back, even after he proved himself right, nothing changed. Dick didn’t apologize, didn’t welcome him home, didn’t even acknowledge that he had been gone for a year. Dick only ever really talked to him these days to pick his brain, not that Dick seemed to notice that. Dick threw Tim away for a newer model at the first opportunity; it wasn’t a stretch for Tim to start to assume that Dick had only originally used him as a stand-in for Jason. It was a cycle of guilt trips and pain and Tim was in the dead center even though he wasn’t the one who made it.

Damian had tried to kill Tim even more frequently than Jason had, which is a ridiculous concept to rationalize. He took Tim’s mantle and his brother and he gloated about it, called him worthless and weak and pathetic, and Tim just sat there and took it as long as he could because he was convinced that the kid just wanted to be accepted. Damian didn’t care. He cut Tim’s grapple line. He attacked him upon meeting. He refused to follow his orders in the field and Tim would get consequently injured trying to protect him anyway. He was cruel with his actions and crueler with his words, and none of them had ever done anything about it, always justified it with cries of he’s learning and his childhood was hard, as if Tim’s wasn’t and he had no idea what it was like to not have real people around.

And Bruce.

Bruce had treated Tim like shit from the beginning. He pushed him away from his heart but still let him go out and fight crime on the streets. He saw a partner, not a son, and refused to see him as a son until after Tim’s dad had been murdered in front of him. He sent a child back to an empty house every night for years, and didn’t even question why Tim was so thin and why he was uncomfortable with touch and why he knew how to do so many things he shouldn’t have been old enough to do. Even if Bruce saw those things, he didn’t question them because in his selfish, selfish mind the less he knew about Tim -- the less attached he got -- the better. That way he wouldn’t have to be as sad when he got the new Robin killed. The kid grew up all by himself in a massive, empty house, faster than anybody should. Which left a lonely little boy with three absent parent figures and touch starvation and a severe anxiety disorder. And Bruce left that disorder untreated, and he rationalized it by saying that Tim wasn’t his son so it wasn’t up to him , as if that had ever mattered before. When Tim finally was his son, there was so much damage already done that the kid couldn’t accept the help he needed. And when Tim had been the only one to believe in Bruce, the only one to believe he was alive -- when he had disappeared for a year and had saved his life had come back different, Bruce didn’t notice. He didn’t notice. He didn’t see the pain and the darkness lurking there; he just saw that Tim didn’t come to the Manor often anymore and decided not to question it. 

Bruce made Tim think he’s nothing but a tool to be used and discarded, and fuck, based on their family’s track record, the kid is right to think that. That’s how they treat him. That’s how they treat him.

“Why,” Bruce begins, voice soft and terrifying, “would Tim expect to not get help from here?”

Dick doesn’t say anything, and Jason is just about to start yelling when he hears another quiet voice from behind him. “Because we forced him out,” Damian whispers, staring blankly at Tim’s pale, delicate hand where it lies limp on the medical bed in front of him.

They all turn to him, watching. “...Dami?” Dick mumbles after a moment. Oh, now he talks. 

Damian shakes his head slowly, eyes trapped in place. “We… we forced him out. We refused to believe him, no matter what he said, even though he was right. Grayson, you… talked about putting him in Arkham because you thought he had gone out of his mind with grief.” Dick’s shoulders tighten and he takes in a small, sharp breath as Bruce’s gaze darts to him for an instant. Damian’s stare is empty, like he’s not really here right now. “He had lost--... he had lost everyone and we… and I took away the one thing he had left and I boasted of it.” His teeth are beginning to clench.

“Dami--” 

“He was alone,” Damian whispers, seeming to not hear Dick at all. “His friends were dead, his father was gone, we abandoned him… we n-never tried to find him… He would’ve been completely alone, except for… except for…” Finally, he looks up, haunted eyes locking onto Pru’s. He looks like he’s seen a ghost, face utterly stricken as his entire form trembles slightly. “...Except for you,” he finally breathes, before letting his chin drop to his chest. Jason’s never seen someone so full of hubris look so completely defeated. He pauses, breathes shakily a few times, doesn’t blink. Jason thinks he’s shut up when he finally says it. “We forced him so far out that he decided the League of Assassins would help him before we would.”

Jason blinks.

And blinks.

And blinks.

Oh. Shit.

His ears are ringing, stomach clenching. He can feel his heartbeat in his skull, stronger than the pulse he sees on the heart rate monitor, more consistent, because his little brother is dying and Jason’s not. His little brother is dying because they gave him so many reasons not to trust them. He went into that Zeta tube without backup, Jason’s mind supplies. Of course. Because he didn’t think we would give it to him anyway.

Jason wants to throw up.

Jason wants to go on a killing spree.

Jason wants to rip his own bones out of his skin. 

Jason wants to break down into a thousand pieces and scream and cry for as long as he possibly can.

But his body won’t let him do those things. He just blinks.

Oh, shit. 

Dick’s voice filters into the shocked silence at some point, strained and rough with pain. “Dami, are you--”

“Don’t you dare ask me if I’m okay,” Damian growls suddenly, and when his face whips towards them Jason can’t even read what emotion is seizing every inch of the kid’s body. What he can see are steady streams of tears flowing down his face, the blotchy red tint to his cheeks and ears, the lower lip bitten to keep it from quivering. Dick leans back without stepping away; there are tears balancing on the edges of his eyes, too. Damian is glaring wildly. “Drake is dying, Drake is— he’s dying, he’s— don’t ask me if I’m okay! Drake was run through with a sword and we have— we have no idea where he was just now, and— and we have no idea where he was back then, and I forced him away back then, and I took everything from him, Grayson, he’s in so much pain, and I— I…” The kid finally collapses to his knees. Nobody catches him; they’re staring. He doubles over, pressing his palms into his eyes, and a rattling sob escapes his chest, trembling in the air like a bubble ready to burst. And it does, because a tiny, wobbling voice finally manages to piece together a sentence. “...What if I don’t get to tell him I’m sorry…?”

Jason has never seen Dick in more pain than he’s in right now, tears rolling down his face and chest twitching with sharp breaths, but his older brother nonetheless shuffles forward and gingerly sits down on the floor beside the youngest, rubbing soothing circles into his back. “He’s gonna be okay,” Dick whispers. Everyone hears him. Jason can’t tell if that was his goal or not. “He’s gonna be okay, and when he wakes up, we can all tell him we’re sorry. We… we can all start working to make this right.” He looks up at their father, shattered blue eyes boring into cracked green. “We have to make this right,” he mumbles.

He’s right; they do. Except that Jason isn’t even sure this is something that can be made right at this point. The Bats have burned their bridge with Tim without even realizing it because they’d thought it was so sturdy that nothing could break it. And before, they’d been right: nothing could break it— nothing except the people who built it.

They have to make this right.

Bruce is quiet for a moment, and Jason just prays that he’s not about to turn on his heel and leave, because he can’t think of a worse option at this point. But then Bruce inhales shakily and two tears streak quickly down his face, almost like they were never there, but fuck , there they are. There he is. And he cares. Bruce nods slowly, a choked hum in his throat, and purses his lips. 

He exhales carefully through his nose. “Tell me everything that happened while I was gone. Please.”

Chapter Text

“Tim had already lost so much, Bruce,” Dick starts. Defensiveness and guilt are waging a war in his chest right now, but he’s pretty sure that neither of those things are going to be at all helpful in the coming minutes. How is he going to explain this? There’s so much of it that he can’t explain, like why he didn’t even hear Tim out when he said Bruce was alive, why he didn’t talk to him before giving Robin to Damian, why he had dismissed him so easily. He hates it. Dick hates it, hates himself more than he ever has before, and in this family that’s saying a lot. Just— how did it get so bad? How did he fail Tim so deeply that the kid had more luck with the League of Assasins than with his own brother? 

But the question wasn’t how, was it? Dick knew how; he was there, and he saw the total devastation in his little brother’s face every step of the way and he chose each and every time to ignore it, to push him away because he ‘could take care of himself’. The real question should’ve been why. Why has he been assuming everything was okay? Why hasn’t he tried harder to bring Tim home? Why did he decide that just because Tim can take care of himself, that means he should, that he has to? Tim has taken care of himself his entire life; doesn’t he deserve to have someone else take care of him for a change? 

Why had Dick done nothing as his little brother fell to pieces in front of him? Why had Dick taken a hammer to what little was left intact?

He doesn’t regret making Damian Robin. That was something that needed to happen if they were going to keep the boy safe, to work on rehabilitating him from basically his entire childhood. But hell, he didn’t need to do it like that.  

When they learned about Damian, Tim had been so excited. He’d always wanted a younger sibling, someone to whom he would pass everything down, to whom he would teach everything he knew, for whom he would leave a legacy. He had even ranted eagerly to Dick about one day passing on the Robin mantle and building something of his own, about being the one who finally got to pass the torch the way he wanted to, who would get to celebrate it with the new Robin when it happened, who would become a mentor and a brother and a friend. And then they had met, and Tim, bright, grinning Tim, had stretched out his hand and Damian had instantly tried to kill him in response. Every time Tim tried to extend an olive branch, Damian yanked it from his hands and snapped it in half and stabbed him with it.

And then Dick had found the moment when Tim was at his absolute most vulnerable to rip the last of his life away from him. Tim had the first and only chance of any of them to pass Robin on freely and Dick had done it without asking him. Tim had a brilliant mind and Dick had shredded its credibility among their friends and family. Tim had a big brother and Dick had turned his back right when it mattered most to open his arms. 

Dick did all that to Tim, and he can never take it back, no matter how much his heart is shattering with realization after realization. All he can do is try his damndest to start making things right.

And that starts here. 

“He just— he had lost everyone,” Dick says. His throat hurts from holding back tears. The four of them — that is, Dick, Jason, Damian and Bruce — have moved out of the medbay and into the main part of the cave for some privacy, leaving Tim with Alfred, the assassin, and two cups of tea. They had all been plenty distressed to leave their brother with, y’know, a killer, but oddly enough Alfred was the one to insist upon it, saying that she had just as much right to be rattled about this whole thing as they did. He did promise to stay in the room, though, and she didn’t seem to mind, so finally they all begrudgingly filed out and now here they are, positioned in a kind of loose semi-circle because there are basically no chairs in the Batcave and they all have to sit on the floor or stand or lean on the console. It’s awkward. They don’t really have a right to feel awkward right now. Dick presses on.

“Conner and Bart had just died and Stephanie had faked her death not long before, and his father, obviously, and then you, and he just… didn’t have a lot left.”

“But he had you all,” Bruce says sincerely, eyebrow raised in confusion. They agreed earlier that they were gonna do their level best to keep this civil and grudge-free; they’re all shaken up right now and none of them want to say something they might later regret. Mandatory calmness it is. 

Dick bites his lip. “He…” He takes a deep breath. He can’t run away from this anymore. “No, he didn’t. He really didn’t. None of us were holding up well, and— it was a lot. After you…”

Bruce’s eyes are soft. “I know, Dick.”

Dick nods and swallows hard. He glances between his present brothers: Jason has his arms crossed and is watching his boots toe absently at nothing, and Damian is sitting cross-legged on the floor, resting his head in one hand and staring blankly ahead. Dick still knows that they’re listening, knows that they seem him glancing over. “Jay, Dami, feel free to… I guess to say anything from your point of view. During this.” They say nothing, but they know. He nods and swallows again and folds his arms, shoulders tense and fingers tapping on his bicep. Here goes.

“Tim already didn’t take your… death well,” Dick says to Bruce, looking steadily at the floor. He forces himself to keep going. “And he had lost so many people. So when he came to me and said that you were alive, I… I didn’t believe him. I thought he was grieving, and he was in shock, and his brain was telling him things he wanted to be true. So… so I told him he was wrong.” Jason shoots him a look and he nods, knowing he has to make the amendment. That doesn’t stop it from hurting. “No. I told him he was crazy. I told Timothy Drake that he was crazy. A-And… I…” He takes another deep, rattling breath. For the first time, he catches Damian looking at him, but his eyes are blank, haunted. In a way, Dick is kind of proud that he cares this much (or at all) about Tim’s state, but it’s just… not enough. none of them have done enough for Tim, and Tim has gone above and beyond for each of them. Dick chokes on a small sob and tries to pull himself together. “I told him we should take him to Arkham,” he whispers, chest hollow. In a corner of his vision he sees Bruce’s eyes widen, and Jason’s do, too, and it suddenly occurs to Dick that Jason might not have known that. He’s gonna be pissed later, but… for now, they’ll stay civil. It’s mandated, after all.

“Arkham?” Bruce repeats, voice pitchy with disbelief, and Dick does his best not to flinch. “You… he didn’t go, did he?”

“No,” Dick clarifies quickly. But it’s not like that makes it any better that he suggested putting his brother into that hell hole with the likes of the Rogues Gallery. He sniffles to keep himself from crying. “No. He didn’t. He got mad and ran off, so I called up a bunch of his friends and had them try to talk to him, but… apparently they all told him he was crazy, too. Even Steph.” He rubs at the back of his neck. “Cassie Sandsmark said she found him at your grave,” he says quietly, and Bruce purses his lips into a line that wobbles just a little bit, just enough for a Bat to see it. They’re all Bats here. They’re missing a member. It hurts.

Bruce sighs. “What happened after that?” He looks about as drained as Dick has ever seen him, which is really saying something. 

Dick risks a glance at Damian, and the boy doesn’t meet his eyes, but suddenly he’s speaking before Dick even realizes it. “I happened after that,” he mumbles, and the attention shifts solemnly to him. He’s still staring blankly at the ground. “I— Drake came down to the Cave for patrol that night and… and…” He stops, and Dick is surprised to see tears roll down his cheeks and plink onto the floor. 

“Son?” Bruce says gently when several moments pass in silence.

Damian exhales; it’s broken and rushed. “I was wearing his suit,” he suddenly blurts, although his voice is raspy and near-silent, choked with emotion. “He came downstairs and I was wearing his suit and Grayson was wearing the Batman suit and I… I told him he was an intruder, that he had no place in the Cave and that he was worthless and— and… I… how— how could I do that?” He cracks, a single loud sob flying from his chest before he clamps his hands over his mouth and squeezes his eyes closed. Surprisingly, before Dick processes what this is, Jason kneels down next to him, eye to eye, and gently starts rubbing the boy’s back. In an instant Damian whirls around and buries his face in his brother’s shoulder and clutches his arms desperately around his neck, and Jason just hugs back and mumbles reassurances quietly and nods at Dick to keep going. Neither of them acknowledge the wetness in the other’s eyes, either. 

Bruce looks horrified — genuinely horrified, not just the incredibly subtle Bat-version of feelings. His face displays wild swathes of raw emotion for the first time that Dick has seen: regret and anger and deep, sinking sorrow. Dick can understand that. Bruce looks at him, hiding nothing. “So— wait, so you just…”

The tears spill over and run hot and fast down his face. “Just took it away,” he says, nodding miserably. “Didn’t even tell him. And then I made some stupid speech about us being equals, so he couldn’t be my Robin, as if that made any difference.” Damian seems to be trembling, and Dick knows why, but at least that’s something he can make right. 

He walks over and crouches down, and Bruce follows, strangely, but he isn’t complaining. They haven’t all been this close in a long time. He lays his hand on Damian’s shoulder and gently turns him away from Jason to look at Dick, gently clasping his hands when they’re facing each other. His eyes are full of guilt, but none of this is his fault. Sure, he could’ve been a hell of a lot nicer to Tim this whole time, but he had nothing to do with Dick’s decision about Robin or how he had decided to deliver it. “But Dami, I need you to listen to me right now,” he says, and Damian sniffles and nods, not meeting his eyes. “I do not regret giving you Robin,” Dick says clearly, and Damian’s head snaps up to stare at him in shock. Dick tries to give him a smile. “I will never regret you being Robin or the time we spent working as a duo. Never. This is not your fault. Okay?” He waits until his little brother thinks it over for a moment, though he clearly still needs to process. Dick sighs. “What I do regret is the way I went about it,” he clarifies, and although he’s still holding Damian’s hands in his, he’s now talking to the whole group, huddled close together in a little ball on the floor of the Batcave, crying. Imagine that. “I regret that I didn’t tell him beforehand, it was cruel to put him on the spot like that, but mostly I… I took something from him that was really important.” He looks back at Damian, holds his gaze gently for a moment before letting his eyes drop again as more tears fall to the stone floor. “Tim was so excited when we found out about you, Dami,” he starts quietly, and— and he knows that he owes it to Damian to look him in the eye, to tell him this and reassure him that it wasn’t his fault, because he would definitely convince himself that it was otherwise. He forces himself to look, to take in the utter shock on his little brother’s face, to press on no matter how much this hurt. “He had… he had always wanted a younger sibling. You know? He wanted someone he could teach everything he knows to. And he… used to talk to me a lot about what would happen when it came time to pass Robin on to you.” Damian’s expression reels, though he barely moves, likely frozen in place. Press on, press on; go. Dick swallows and sets his jaw. “He was actually the one to bring up passing on Robin in the first place. He wanted to be able to celebrate it, because the— because Jason and I didn’t get to, and it really hurt us that we didn’t. Like, he wanted to look you in the eye and give you Robin with his hands and his blessing, y’know, especially after all he had— had been through. With that. He didn’t want you to feel like he felt, I think. That wasn’t anyone’s fault, either,” he adds pointedly, because he knows that Jason still feels bad about the Pit Madness. His brother hunches in on himself a bit, but Dick really isn’t trying to guilt-trip him — he’s just trying to explain, and with a nod Jason confirms that he gets that. Dick is grateful. “He just… he was so excited that he was gonna get to give it to you himself, Dami. And I took that away from him.”

The tears on Damian’s cheeks have gone cold and his face has drained of color. His eyes are so haunted; he’s so young. Dick hates everything bad that has ever happened to this poor kid. “Drake… wanted to give Robin to me himself?” He whispers, icy horror lacing his tone. “But… but I put him through hell, Richard. I didn’t— he hates me!”

Jason grunts. His eyes are still wet. “No, he doesn’t, D,” he says, and Dick has to admit he’s surprised, but he’s not about to complain. This needs to happen. It needs to happen and keep happening, this vulnerability, this showing emotion and talking things through, because things need to change . They need to be better, for Tim and for the family. Jason runs a hand through Damian’s hair, and the boy allows it, and Dick feels a real smile forming on his lips for the first time since they lost track of Tim on patrol. “He doesn’t hate you, buddy. Timmy doesn’t have it in him to hate anyone, least of all his family.” He pauses to chuckle, and it’s not even bitter. “Even if sometimes he maybe should. I’m a good example of that, but he chose to forgive me and even reach out and help me back into the family. That’s just the kind of person he is. And he deserves way better than how we’ve all treated him, yeah, but he doesn’t hate you, Damian. Promise.”

Damian sniffles and nods slowly before turning back to hug Jason tightly again. The man looks a bit startled, but his arms slowly come up to wrap around his little brother’s back, too, still occasionally stroking his hair. Bruce gives a tired smile and tilts his head to Jason, who flushes slightly and looks away but nods. “What next, Dick?” He asks gently.

Dick sighs. “I don’t know. He stormed out and I let him go — thought he would need to cool off. But then he didn’t come back. Alfred found his bed empty the next morning. We looked around the city, but he was gone, and we… we didn’t go looking. I-I don’t… I don’t even know why. I don’t know why I did any of it, Bruce, why I didn’t just sit down with him and hear him out, why I didn’t go after him and try to bring him home… Tim’s proven himself as a detective again and again and I still didn’t believe in him. I didn’t give him my trust even though he’s earned it so many times over. He deserved at least that much. And then the next time I heard from him it was when he was walking back into the manor with you. A-and then he was gone two seconds later and I didn’t go after him then, either. For a year. A fucking year, Bruce.” He swipes at his eyes with a bitter laugh. “Big brother of the year two years running, huh?”

“We all have a lot of work to do, Dick,” Bruce says softly, laying one hand on his eldest son’s shoulder. Dick can’t bring himself to meet his eyes. “You’re not alone in that. But we owe it to Tim to try.”

“I know, I just… I feel terrible. I don’t even know where to start.”

Jason sighs and adjusts his hold on Damian so that he can see more clearly. “Dick, you’re my brother and I respect the hell out of you, so I’m gonna tell you something right now that you really need to hear even though it’s probably gonna suck.” Dick is startled, but that sounds reasonable enough for a Jason suggestion, so he steels himself and nods nervously. Jason’s gaze is level, his voice firm but sincere. “It doesn’t matter how you feel; it’s not about you. Trying to make it right can’t be something you do to make yourself feel better about fucking up. It doesn’t absolve you — or any of us — of blame, it doesn’t erase the pain we’ve put him through, and it sure as hell doesn’t make him obligated to forgive and forget. If we do everything we can to make things right and Tim turns right back around and tells us to fuck off, that’s his prerogative. Look, I’m trying to say that actions have consequences, and the actions were ours, so right now the consequences are a kid named Tim. It doesn’t matter if you hand him the world on a fuckin’ plate; he decides how this goes because he’s the one who suffered for it. We owe it to him to apologize and try to make it right and mean it, but he doesn’t owe us shit , and I need you to respect that.”

And all Dick can do is sit there and blink, because… fuck. Jason is right. When did he get so thoughtful?

But he’s right. He’s right. This isn’t about Dick’s guilt or any of their guilt; this is about understanding and apologizing for the damage they’ve done to Tim. They’ll do everything they can to fix it, too, to help him, but again, Jason is right: forgiveness isn’t up to them. For all they know, the family’s relationship with their second-youngest could be broken beyond repair. The thought makes more tears track down Dick’s cheeks, thinking about how much he’s hurt his little brother. It’s unacceptable, and Dick knows that regardless of whether or not Tim forgives him, it’s gonna be a long journey to forgive himself. But that’s not Tim’s job or his problem, and it’s not what matters right now. 

“You’re right, Jay,” Dick says quietly, decisively. He feels it in his bones. Jason nods in response and suddenly pulls his phone from his pocket, frowning. Dick hums and Jason hums back.

“Text from Alfie,” Jason says, tilting his phone flat for the huddle to see. “It’s just a link, but the ID matches the general registration for our security cameras.” 

“Why is Pennyworth sending you texts when he could just walk over?”

“Doesn’t want to leave Timbo alone, probably,” Jason replies. He taps on the link and sure enough, it pulls up a live feed from one of the security cameras in the medbay. It shows Tim’s gaunt form still lying in the bed, but one arm has moved to rest protectively across his lower chest, covering his wound. The assassin has her wheelchair rolled right up alongside the bedrail, and Alfred is standing with his excellent posture in one corner. Tim’s eyelids are fluttering like he’s about to wake up again — which just doesn’t make any goddamn sense, because he should be physically incapable of doing that considering the combination of trauma and sedatives. The only way this should be possible is if he… if he somehow had a resistance built up to this sedative. And he doesn’t. Or, at least, Batman never built that resistance in them, so… why does Tim have it?

But Alfred looks up at the camera for a moment, making direct eye contact with all of them on the other side of the video and he nods before he turns to the assassin. He knows they’ve got the feed open, because of course he does. Jeez. “Miss Wood,” he says, and he must be referring to the assassin because she’s all that’s here, “I’ll be stepping out for a moment, if that’s alright with you. I need to take stock of our supplies and medicines for treating Master Tim; I’ll only be in the next room. Do call if you need anything.”

She gives him an awkward, wan smile. “Thank you, Mr. Pennyworth. I’ll keep an eye on him.” Alfred nods and strides out of the room, although according to another text to Jason, he stays in the next one over with the same security feed rolling just to be safe. 

The assassin’s shoulders slump the second he’s gone and she heaves a tired sigh. She raises an eyebrow and leans forward enough to poke a finger at Tim’s cheek. “Hey, pretty boy,” she says, and Dick can’t help but narrow his eyes; he feels like he’s watching something private. “You in there?” Tim’s brow creases and he groans, but his eyes stay closed. The girl’s eyes roll. “Hey. Butch. Up and at ’em.”

Tim’s brows furrow and his eyes finally blink open. Dick makes a move to stand, to go check on his brother, but Bruce stops him with a hand on his shoulder, tells him to just watch for a second. Jason nods approvingly. 

Tim seems to scowl slightly. “’S that… make you Sundance?” He rasps, eyes squeezing shut again in pain. Dick feels concern prick at his heart, but the girl does nothing, just smiles a bit and keeps talking.

“’Course. Who’s the crackshot?”

Tim makes a pfft sound. “Y’r no crackshot. Got an… automatic.”

“An automatic that I still have to aim. And my shots hit! You could have a laser sight and miss by a mile.”

“F-Fine… rrg…” Tim grumbles around the pained snag in his throat, and Dick has to admit he’s stunned. Where the hell would Tim have used guns? Wait, but… if Damian is right, and she really is from the League of Assassins…

Where had Tim gone for all that time?

Oh, no.

His thoughts are cut off when Tim sighs and winces from the movement of his chest. “You r-really… really hafta bring me… here?” He glances around the room with a scowl. “Woulda been fine… on m’ own.”

“Oh, you woulda?” The girl deadpans. Her arms fold across her chest. “Cuz it kinda looked to me like you were, y’know, bleeding out and unconscious, and I sure as shit wasn’t gonna be able to carry you anywhere.”

Dick expects Tim to wince, to apologize reflexively at her tone the way he’s seen him do it so many times with Bruce and Jason and himself, but instead he just scoffs a laugh. “We’ve… mmph… we’ve d’ne more with… less-s.”

She huffs, but her eyes look light. “At least we both had working legs that time.” In the next instant her face falls, and she looks away for a few seconds, worrying at her lip. “...I miss them.”

The Bats share a look somewhere between confusion and concern. Miss them? Miss who? Surely Tim couldn’t have gained and lost even more people while he was away?

But Tim apparently understands. His eyes look heavy. “I kn… know. Me too. They w’r… ngh… th-they w’r good people.”

Pru scoffs, still subdued. “They were killers, but okay.”

“They were good people,” Tim repeats firmly, working to force the aching tremor from his voice. He’s weak, so weak and barely even awake, but fiercely present, coherent and thoughtful as his brilliant mind always is. Dick’s eyes are wide, his own mind gone blank. He can’t even see what his family looks like; all of his attention has zeroed in on the device in Jason’s hands.

Pru looks over at him, one eyebrow raised. “Don’t think your Bats would love to hear you say that.” Dick’s eyes widen further, but Tim gives his best imitation of a shrug considering the intense pain he must be in -- which he's somehow just muscling through.

“Y-Yeah. ’S okay. They… were prob’ly gonna kick… kick me out after all this, anyway,” he mumbles. “W’sn’t ever… y’know… nev’r really part of the… f-family, so ’s no reason for them to… um. T-To keep me around.” 

Dick feels what’s left of his heart crush into dust — it burns wildfires across his ribs and fills his lungs with icy water at the same time. 

Dick did this. He made his little brother feel this way. He did this.

“But you still played by their rules. You haven’t killed anyone,” Pru says defensively, then she shrugs and her voice changes to something different, but Dick can’t explain in what way. “Not even when they deserved it.”

“I think… leaving and going c-crazy was… was enough. ’S n-no use for… me here. ’S okay,” he says again -- easily, like it’s the most logical thing in the world -- then shakes his head and appears to refocus, leaving Dick and his horrified shock in the dust of his heart. “Owens and Z… w’r g-good people; you know that… ’s well ’s I do…” His voice is still raspy and thick with pain, and some distant part of Dick’s brain still has no idea how the hell he's awake, much less coherent. By this point, Dick would be forcing him to go back to sleep; Pru is just letting him be. He doesn’t know what he thinks of it. 

“You weren’t always their biggest fan, mate.”

“H-Hey, you tried… t’ kill me, ’member?” They share a morbid but genuine smile. He tilts his head back against the pillow to see her easier, slurring his words around labored breaths. “’Course I w’sn’t. But th-things change, s-so…” His face turns more serious and he looks at the ceiling, trying to force more strength into his voice despite the fact that it’s clearly hurting him. “’S isn’t all so… so bl’ck-’nd-white. And f’r once I don’t… don’t mean that sparing lives ma-makes… makes you... good; I mean that…  O-Owens and Z weren’t bad people just… because they k-killed. They w’r following…  orders they had no... way to… no way to escape from. D-Didn’t make them good… but ’s not like there’s nothing in… between. ’Sides, I can think… of plenty of shit worse than death.”

Dick feels like he just got gut-punched. Pru grins. “Tea with the Master ?”

Tim gives a tiny, fake shudder and grins back. “I am not c-calling… him that. You said-- said yourself… ngh… he’s not your b-boss, so he’s s-sure as hell not mine.”

“I heard he said that you’d be dead before you entered the country if you ever tried to come back…”

“Ah, shit. There go… my v-vacation plans,” he replies with a grin. It turns slowly into a rueful smile. “’M likely already dead as it is.”

Dick feels Jason and Bruce go rigid beside him, although Damian seems confused. “What does that mean?” The scowling boy whispers, as if Tim could hear him if he spoke too loud, but the walls are soundproof and Damian has never been one for lowering his voice, particularly not out of courtesy to others. And honestly, Dick can’t answer his question, and he isn’t sure why he’s gone so tense himself. Maybe he recognizes Tim’s tone, or his thin smile, or the clench of his knuckles, but whatever it is, it screams at him something that they’ve all known and said forever:

Tim is their best detective.

But what does that have to do with anything? Why can’t he stop thinking it? Why does it unnerve him so much right now? 

On the screen, Pru is raising an eyebrow at him and scoffing. “I know you better than that, pretty boy. Can’t think of a damn thing that could kill your batshit crazy ass.”

“I as-assure you I am… highly killable.”

“I’ve seen a lot of wacky shit that says otherwise.”

Tim rolls his eyes. “Fine, s-so Ra’s has… a hard time killing me.” He pauses for a breath. Dick finds he can’t take one himself. The water in his lungs has frozen solid and the burning fires have reduced his ribcage to ash. Ra’s? Ra’s Al Ghul has a hard time killing Tim? Why is Tim on, like, a first name basis with him? Yeah, they said Tim knows a member of the League of Assassins, but the Demon's Head himself? Dick feels Damian stiffen and flinch, something he has essentially never seen him do in his life, and Dick presses an arm closer to the boy to remind him of his presence. “But I th-think… think my body could kill me, easy.” He chuckles. “’S a really lame way to go… when you’ve done all the sh-shit I’ve… I’ve done.”

Pru sobers instantly, sitting up straight and gripping the bed rail tightly. “What are you on about?”

Dick can’t see Tim very clearly from this angle, but it looks like something changes in his posture, in the way he's holding himself like a wounded animal waiting for death. Tim’s skin is pale, paler than that of any living person he’s ever seen. A rattling breath hangs between them; Tim looks… like a kid. Like a scrawny little kid nervous to tell his mother about a bad grade on a test. But Tim Drake has never received a bad grade on a test, and there had been nothing that he was ever able to tell his mother about.

“’S infected,” he rasps, so quiet that Dick can barely hear him. But he does hear him, and if he just said what Dick thinks he said… 

Dick’s heart stutters. That can’t happen. It can’t.  It doesn't make any sense. Tim was always a hearty, sturdy child, and Dick can't remember the last time he had a wound that got infected, even if they had to clean and stitch it in the field. Why would this be any different? Was the blade poisoned? Infection shouldn't set in this quickly, should it?

Pru looks angry more than startled, something of a feral glint sparking in her eye. “How the hell would it be infected? These people go overkill on everything -- there’s no way their medical work is that shit.”

Tim coughs and it’s ragged and clipped, like something is stopping it in his lungs. He almost looks like he’s trembling as he shakes his head weakly — he’s so weak, why is he so weak — and gives her another shaky smile. “Ch-check the IV.”

Immediately Pru twists in her chair to study the fluids being pumped into Tim’s veins. She reads the bag for a moment, the time and the date and the contents list, and suddenly her face goes whiter than Tim’s, paler and emptier than death. She whispers something so quiet Dick can’t hear it, but he can see the raw horror biting into her face and dissolving her flesh off her bones. 

“What? What’s wrong?” Damian mutters distantly, eyes fixed one the screen, and it sounds like he’s trying to make it sound like one of his demands but is falling short by a mile. He doesn’t look up when he says, “Father, what’s wrong?” but the shake in his voice is growing more noticeable. Bruce shakes his head blankly, his lips fixed in a pinched line.

“Tim,” Pru says slowly, anxiety filling her tone for the first time, “why--… why doesn’t this…” Her head suddenly snaps up, eyes wide and terrified and furious. “You didn’t tell them.” It isn’t a question.

Tim shakes his head as much as he appears to be able to. “C... couldn’t do it… wasn’t… supposed to… to matter…”

Pru’s fists shake, rattling the bed rail. “You… you masochistic fucking…” She nearly screams in frustration but seals her lips around it, clenches her jaw, leans towards him slowly. “I hope hiding from them was worth it, Tim,” she says coldly. 

Tim looks at her for a long moment, face honest and serious and understanding, before he nods once. Pru bites her lip before it curls into a vicious snarl and looks away, nodding bitterly in reply. Her eyes almost look wet.

“S-sorry…” Tim whispers.

Pru sighs and her head drops forward, but the fight doesn’t leave her body, still tense and ready to strike. “This conversation isn’t over,” she says. She turns her eyes to the door and Dick sees the absolute burning rage that fills them. “But you’re not the only one who should be sorry. Steady on, soldier.” She adds the last part and it almost seems to give Tim a tiny boost of energy. “Tim Drake doesn’t die in a hospital bed.” She shouts for Alfred and the door flies open, and the video feed cuts out.

For a moment, the four Bats are immobilized in their huddle on the floor of the cave before Dick finally lifts his haunted gaze and meets Damian’s eyes. He’s crying. Tears are rolling down his cheeks like a waterfall, fast and violent, but Dick can feel the raw determination rolling off him furiously. The boy forces himself to his feet, jaw clenched, and nods once. “Tim Drake doesn’t die in a hospital bed,” he grinds out, and he turns on his heel and runs to the medbay.

In half a second, the others are up and after him, all feeling that same hard, consuming determination. Tim Drake will not die in a hospital bed.

Chapter Text

Prudence has a tendency to be pissed off, like, the vast majority of the time. It’s because of a wide variety of reasons — gas prices, single-use plastics, wicker chairs — but right now it’s because of what is probably the most common reason in her repertoire: rampant incompetence. And this fucking Bat cult absolutely fits the bill.

The most annoying part is that they clearly think they’re the most competent people on the face of the earth, which, in itself, is a belief that shows how incompetent they are at structuring their egos. Those egos are huge and frustrating and honestly, Pru isn’t really sexually attracted to one group of people in particular, but fuck, she wishes she was gayer. Look, she’s just saying — a woman would never pull this shit. Court adjourned. 

This shit is a lot of things, right now, and all of them are completely ridiculous, Tim included. Yeah, Tim is her friend and everything — a close friend, even, a partner — but he’s definitely not off the hook for being a total moron and failing to tell his not-family that he’s missing, y’know, an entire internal organ. Like, the whole thing. It’s missing. Not there. And there’s relevant medical information tied to that fact. But no, Tim would never just talk to these people about things even when he clearly has to . Pru was the one who had to tell the butler (which is such a draconian and antiquated thing to have, what the hell is this household) that he was down an organ, that his wound was likely infected, that he was in a lot more danger than they’d realized. She was also the one who had to sit there and watch as the rest of the Bats piled into the room and as the color drained from each of their faces and they all babbled incoherently about what do you mean he has no spleen, why the hell does he have no spleen, why didn’t we know that he has no spleen, because apparently Tim hadn’t told even just one of them that he has no fucking spleen. Real detective, huh?

But at the same time, Pru understands. What she heard a few minutes ago — I hope hiding from them was worth it. / It was. — has sealed that. She’d known before that Tim was convinced they didn’t care about him, but the fact that even now he doesn’t regret keeping quiet about his health is heavy on her mind. And she knows it wasn’t some kind of guilt-tripping complex that prevented him from telling them because Tim has experienced enough of those that he refuses to have one himself. No, the reason he didn’t say anything, the reason he’s kept quiet and hidden for so long, is because he still loves these people. He told her that. He still loves these people dearly, fiercely, but they don’t love him, and he couldn’t keep getting his hopes up and being let down every time he saw them. But the way he’d said it back then when he told her — I don’t know if I can survive another heartbreak, Pru — was devastating. And she knows everything that Tim has felt through all this, because for a while there, she was his absolute only constant in life. So Pru understands his haunted silence, his dogged refusal to go to the Manor, his frustration at his inability to leave entirely no matter how much he knows it’s the healthy thing to do. She doesn’t have to like it, but she understands why it’s all there: the kid just desperately doesn’t want to be hurt again by the only people who are supposed to keep him safe.

And she has to give him some credit; he’s at least figuring out the fact that emotions are inevitable and good, and that letting them come as they are is the best and only real option. Pru’s mom, who was honestly cooler than Pru herself could ever hope to be, always said that there’s a cycle of three things that influence the human psyche: thoughts, emotions, and behaviors. And she said that you can’t tell yourself not to think of something, because then you’ll only think of it more, and she said that you can’t tell yourself not to feel an emotion, because then you’ll only end up wallowing in it and bottling everything up. She said that you can’t change what you think and you can’t change what you feel, so the only thing you can change is what you do about it. And that sounds inspirational and all, but what her mom was really telling her was that just because Pru is mad, she doesn’t have the right to go take it out on someone. Oh, she has the right to feel mad — she can be fuming and screaming and cursing a sailor under the table all she wants in her head — but that shit stays in her head where it was created, because her behaviors are under her control.

Tim is learning that. When she first met him, he was about a tenth of the way there, which, clearly, was still way further along than these other psychos. But the point is he’s learned and grown and Pru would estimate that he’s maybe around halfway to believing that you don’t have to be an emotionally guarded jackass in order to be a part of the vigilante life. Two-thirds, even. Maybe. She had hated fractions in middle school.

Yeah, he’s learning slowly and it’s taking a lot of time and tough love to convince him that he doesn’t have to be explicitly useful to be a worthwhile human, but holy fuck, Pru can see where he gets it from, because this is the most repressed freakshow she’s ever had the displeasure of meeting.

Let that sink in for a second. Prudence Wood, a (former) member of the League of Assassins, is fully confident that the Bats are the most emotionally repressed people she’s ever been around. Ra’s and Talia always talked about normal-ass human emotions as weakness this and weakness that — and then they would kill people just to prove their point, people who were literally on their side and working for them. And these Bats are still more incompetent with feelings. Fucking Christ.

How the hell did Pru become the sane one?

The Bats told her that she has to wait outside while they basically track down the right Super Antibiotics so that Tim doesn’t die of sepsis, but the guy is a damn good detective and he was definitely right about that wound being infected so Pru’s not actually sure how close they’re cutting this. From the time when his wound was cleaned and wrapped to now was only about eight hours, but for someone as unlucky and as poorly immunized as Tim, that’s more than enough time to create days or weeks of repercussions. He passed out the second the butler came back into the room, which she’d honestly expected because she knows the only reason he was even awake in the first place was because of the survival training he’d gone through with the League. And when she says survival training, she means hair-trigger panic response. Ra’s had found a way to exploit Tim’s trauma-born panic disorder to give him more time whenever he might be on the edge of death; if his body starts failing, his panic response is basically programmed to kick in with spades of adrenaline and wake him up — give him one last chance to get up and out. It was the only instance of Ra’s programming that Tim had actually allowed to take root. He’d figured it would be useful and he was unlikely to be able to teach it to himself, and it had in fact proved helpful when they’d both been horribly injured out in the desert. That is — the first time they’d both been horribly injured out in the desert. The spleen-larynx time. That time. Jesus Christ.

Pru was stupid to assume that he woke up earlier becuase he was less injured than she’d thought rather than because of the panic response. That kind of good luck — the kind where your gruesome ninja stab wound isn’t quite as deadly as you thought it would be — never happens to the likes of Tim Drake. Or those of Prudence Wood, for that matter. The biggest downside to working with Tim and placing herself firmly on his side of the fence is the shitty luck that clings to him like wet fabric. Pru hadn’t been a superstitious person until she’d met Tim, but damn it if she wasn't now, because there is no way that much bad shit can possibly happen to one person without some kind of higher power being involved.

Her attention shifts when the oldest boy — Tim said his name is Dick, which is funny because Pru is immature and willing to admit it — finally steps out of the medbay, his eyes empty and his shoulders slumped like the weight of the world is forcing them down. Good . Pru allows her features to go coldly even. Tim may be a bonehead, but Pru owes him her life a few times over, and even if she didn’t, she’s nothing if not loyal to her friends. Sure, she ditched Ra’s and the League, but it’s not like they were her friends — actually, they got her two best friends killed, so there’s that.

The oldest boy has actual tears in his eyes, so Pru rolls hers and decides to throw him a bone. “How’s he doing?” She says flatly.

“He’s—” Dick says before he can stop himself, then manages a pause and a sigh. He’s looking at her like he’s assessing a threat. “...Alive,” he finally says.

No thanks to you, Pru thinks bitterly. Whatever. She’ll play along for now. She hums noncommittally and shrugs. “Better than the alternative.”

The boy (man? She can’t really tell) flinches and bites down on his lower lip because apparently he can’t verbally express things and has to do it with high-school theatrics. “Prudence, what…” He’s clearly struggling to ask a question. She knows what he’s going to say, but she’s not about to help him out. Call her petty, sure, but she’s pretty proud of herself for not semi-reflexively murdering these Bats for what they’ve done. If not death, they at least need some fucking counseling. She raises an unimpressed eyebrow and Dick looks away for the briefest instant, but she sees it. He’s embarrassed to ask. He should be. “What happened?” He finally says, voice quiet and fearful. “What happened while he was gone?”

Yep, there it is. She scoffs, unblinking with her cold stare. “Good of you to ask now.” 

Dick flinches again and pauses, looks over his shoulder towards Tim’s bed, and exhales quietly as a few tears streak down his face. He turns back and looks her in the eye. “I know,” he says, voice shaky. “I know we— I know I fucked up. But I’m trying to own up to it, to— to make things right. And I can’t start unless I know what happened. Please.”

Pru rolls her eyes again. She has a feeling she’ll be doing that a lot today. Whatever. She was gonna tell him anyway, she didn’t need the speech; the thought of the guilt she’s gonna put on his face is more than enough to make her talk. “Fine,” she says flatly, “but I’m gonna need you all to hear it cuz I’m only gonna say it once.”

Dick nods quickly, as if worried she’ll change her mind if he hesitates. “Thank you,” he breathes, and his voice is so relieved and dramatic that Pru is kind of ready to stab herself. She settles for another scoff. He turns on his heel and scrambles back into the medbay, presumably to collect the remaining Bats — hopefully he at least leaves the butler to keep an eye on Tim. 

A thought hits her and she raises her eyebrows at herself before letting them fall and pulling her phone out of the side pocket of the wheelchair. She opens the photos app — around all of the crazy encryption Tim put in — and taps her way into the videos album. Pru takes a lot of videos, even if they’re not really of anything, in the same way that she knows Tim takes pictures. She just likes to have them, little memories and stories to go back and watch whenever she wants; it’s like having a piece of frozen time. She has about six different encrypted backups of these because she absolutely couldn’t stand to lose them. Scrolling back about two years takes her to the origin of the Assassins Three’s tenure with Tim Drake, although the first video she finds is one of Owens cleaning his sniper rifle because they’re about to go kill the kid. Still, that was the beginning, and she doesn’t deny it — it’s funny now, anyway. The videos basically detail their entire relationship, becoming closer and closer together in time as they all grow to be good friends and there starts being more stuff worth filming. After Owens and Z die, there’s a few weeks’ gap in the timeline where she doesn’t take any, and then they gradually pick back up, starting with a clip of a closed door with Tim singing in the shower behind it. She’d filmed it because it made her laugh, and that was basically all she needed. These are precious to her, and she’s hardly ever shared them with anyone, but sitting here now, she knows that she’s about to show them to basically the entire Bat-clan or whatever they call themselves. Not to be cruel, necessarily, but mostly just to see how they react to the Tim they see in the videos compared to the Tim they know today. Actually, she’s pretty convinced they don’t really know him at all, and that’s why she wants them to see these. She wants them to see the reality of the kid they’ve hurt so much, wants them to see how lighthearted he is when he’s not trapped under their uncaring feet. Alright, so maybe she’s doing it to be a little cruel, but what the hell. They’ve earned it.

As she’s scrolling back to the start of the Tim videos she hears a single, quiet shuffling sound, and glances up to see the entire group of bats (Flock? Colony? School?) standing in front of her, still and stolid, but Pru knows Tim and she knows where to look for signs that a Bat is nervous, and holy shit, these guys are nervous. 

She blinks slowly, unimpressed and indifferent, and raises an eyebrow as she leans her elbows on the armrests of her chair. “You want the happy shit first or the sad shit first?” She grumbles, holding eye contact fiercely with Bruce Wayne, which is super weird but she isn’t about to let that show.

Bruce startles almost imperceptibly and glances around at the boys — none of them fully meet his eyes, and he interprets that in a way that makes him sigh and say, “Happy first, I think.” 

Pru kind of really wants to call him a coward, but she doesn’t, just shrugs and motions for them to gather around her chair as she locks the wheels. Tentatively, they do, the small one and Dick on either side while the big one and Bruce stand behind looking over her shoulders. Damian and Jason, her brain supplies, and she can’t say she really cares, except that Damian is the heir of Al-Ghul and also way too young to be a part of this crusade. But that’s not what she’s here for, so she ignores the thought, instead pulling up the first clip, the same one of Owens cleaning his rifle. “Don’t talk during the videos,” she says, and surprisingly, they all nod and maintain their stony silence. She focuses on the screen, pushing away the frantic thoughts about where she is and who she’s with and the fact that her friend is dying, and presses play.

. . . 

A man sits flat on the floor of a dingy office, his legs stretched out around various pieces of finely-milled metal and machinery that he’s cleaning very carefully with a set of tools and some kind of solution. He has shaggy brown hair and a devil-may-care grin, shoulders covered with a worn canvas jacket and lifted with a trademark laidback tilt. He’s whistling to himself when he glances up and notices the camera, throwing it a wink and blowing it a kiss. A snort comes from behind the camera, and the man grins, looking just above the lens on the phone.

“Ready to go bird hunting?” He says, miming a gun tracking a clay pigeon in the air. He pretends to cock the weapon and makes a little pew sound, grinning wider.

“You’ve said that a million times,” says the femenine voice of the camera operator.

“Yeah, and it’s still funny,” the man points out, reaching to swap the piece of metal in his hand for another. 

“I am not sure if it was even funny the first time,” says a deeper tone from some other corner of the room.

“You guys just don’t understand true comedic genius,” says the brown-haired man, not looking up from the piece he’s cleaning but nonetheless sticking his tongue out in the direction of the deeper voice.

“Whatever,” says the camera operator. “Z, what’s the game plan, here?” 

“Turn that off so I can tell you,” says the voice from the corner, and the camera operator huffs before the video stops.

. . . 

“What was that?” The big one — Jason — says a moment after it ends.

Pru shrugs. “That was me and my partners gearing up to kill Tim about two years ago.”

“What?!” Dick crows, but the little one cuts in before he gets to the rest of his speech.

“She is an assassin! We must take her down!”

Pru can’t help the light laugh she gives. “Shit, kid, you don’t really sound like the Demon’s grandson talking like that.”

Damian stiffens and clenches his jaw. “I’m not one of them,” mumbles, but his eyes are uncertain.

“Again, I really don’t care,” Pru sighs heavily. She gestures between herself and Damian. “You used to be one of them, I used to be one of them, neither of us are anymore. Weird how people change and the past doesn’t matter for shit, huh?” She looks sharply into his startled eyes and fights off a sigh of acquiescence, deciding to do her sort-of good deed for the day. “Unless you’re living in it. Hard to change when you’re dwelling on old shit. Far as I know, the League can’t dictate what I do in the future if I’m not in it, and that’s all I care about. Might do you good to learn that. Anyway,” she says, shifting confidently away from the kid’s completely shocked stare without a second thought, “we were on orders to track down a Tim Drake at his hotel room after he landed in Prague. I’m behind the camera and my partners — Owens and Z — are there and there.” She points to each of them respectively. At the mention of their names, the Bats exchange odd glances, and Pru raises an eyebrow but otherwise ignores it. 

“Under whose orders?” Bruce says after a moment.

“Ra’s… ’s,” she says, trying to figure out for the millionth time how to phrase that as she pulls up the next video. 

Bruce blinks, though, and the boys either stiffen or drop their mouths open or widen their eyes. “...Ra’s al Ghul?” Bruce says after a moment, and Pru is pretty sure that Batman isn’t supposed to have that tilt to his voice. 

“You know another one?” She scoffs. Bruce’s eye twitches. It is incredibly satisfying. 

“Wait, but… uh, yeah, we know you work for him, but why would he want Tim to…” Dick tries, but doesn’t get very far before he can’t seem to push words out anymore.

Pru throws him another bone, damn him, because he really seems to be missing some synapses or something. Or he’s just in denial. She laughs bitterly. “I don’t work for him. I never worked for Ra’s; I don’t work for anybody. Not really into the whole authority figure thing. First I worked with Z, later I worked with Tim. Tim knows Ra’s, I know Ra’s, who doesn’t?”

“What do you mean Tim knows Ra’s?” Bruce says sharply, and holy shit, haven’t they worked this out by now? 

“This is insane,” Pru huffs, shaking her head. She levels Bruce with an open glare. “Do you really need me to connect these baby-ass puzzle pieces for you, Mr. Greatest Detective?” Bruce’s eye twitches again, and Dick and Damian both curl in on themselves a little in some kind of defensive confusion. So satisfying. She huffs again and speaks evenly and slowly, like the jackass she is. This is great. “We’ve established that I worked with the League, under Ra’s. We’ve established that my partners and I once tried to kill Tim on the orders of Ra’s. We’ve established that now, I work with and/or under Tim. So where the fuck did you think he found me in the first place?”

There’s a very, very long pause. Pru isn’t uncomfortable. She’s really in her element, actually; pissing people off is kind of her home base. Finally, Bruce nods gingerly, face pale. “...Ra’s,” he concedes. Damian is blinking owlishly, staring back towards the medbay.

“Ding ding ding,” Pru mutters. These people are ridiculous.

“What happened when you tried to kill him?” Jason asks. He seems more alright than the others; at least less chokingly uptight. Pru almost likes him. 

“We tracked him down and then Z asked Ra’s if we should kill him. And Ra’s said you can try.” The Bats all stiffen, minus Jason, who looks like he’s thinking hard. She shrugs. “So we shot a rocket launcher into his hotel room.”

“What?!”

“Relax,” she huffs calmly at them. “He was out the window before the blast even went off. And then he appeared out of nowhere and beat the shit out of us until we escaped with a flashbang. I mean, I know now that he wouldn’t have killed us, but I had no way to know that then. He’s one crazy son of a bitch, I’ll give him that. Never seen him take a hit sitting down. I have no idea where he learned that shit.”

“I mean… here,” Dick says slowly.

“Nah.” Pru waves her hand dismissively. “Not this. Trust me, all League assassins are trained to know how you lot fight, and that isn’t it. Red fights with moves that don’t exist, I swear. Usually only takes the punches that he wants to take, usually wins before he starts the fight. The guy multitasks like he’s got nine brains and twelve arms.”

“But Drake is not…” the Demon’s heir mutters, coughs awkwardly, tries again. “Drake is… not our strongest fighter.”

“Maybe not,” Pru says, “but he is your most creative one, and that earns him a hell of a lot of wiggle room. And anyway…” She gives the kid a sideways look with a tweak of her head. “He’s a lot stronger than you probably think he is. And I would know; he’s broken my nose about eleven times. He doesn’t always pull his punches.” She shakes her head, noting that the Bats have begun relaxing slightly. Hm. She needs to get back to it, then. “So yeah, he knows Ra’s.” They tense right back up. Excellent. “There’s a story there. But I’ll tell it in a minute; you said you wanted the happy shit first, and that’s not it. Here.” She motions for them to gather closer around the phone, swiping to the next video, making sure the timestamp is visible long enough for them to see that this one is from about a week after the first. Pru presses play.

. . . 

A boy in a green t-shirt trudges along amid a background of grounded airplanes, floppy strings of black hair falling in his eyes and brushing well over his ears. He looks like if he rolls his eyes much more, they’ll stay rolled. 

“This is ridiculous,” the boy grumbles. “I don’t need your help.”

“Well the Master requested yours, Timothy Drake,” Z says in his deep voice.

Tim scoffs. “Who are you, my little brother? Just use my name like normal.” He shakes his head, which he holds a little higher. “You’re insane if you think Ra’s needs me for anything.”

“We do not know what use he has for you, Detective, but he has ordered we assist you in every possible way.”

Tim pauses, eyes flashing with genuine surprise for the briefest instant before settling back to indifference. “I’m not your Detective,” he snaps, fighting to keep anything but sarcastic anger from his voice. “I’m not him.”

“Fine, fine, whatever, can we talk about something fun?” Groans Owens from Tim’s other side. He gestures to the camera. “C’mon, Pru’s vlogging. Give us the juicy details about our new boss, boss.”

“Hold up, I’m your boss?” Tim says, eyebrows drawn. “That’s what Ra’s is up to?”

“Z said we’re here to assist you in every possible way, didn’t he? Sounds like employees to me. Now start your vlog!”

“I’m not Casey Neistat and I’m not your boss. If I really can’t get rid of you then I’m working with you, not above you. I’m really sick of teams having to act like their leader is above the law.”

Owens grins. “So we’re a team , huh?”

“No, we’re— look, I was just making an inside joke.”

“To whom?” Z asks.

Tim blinks. “Um. Myself.”

Owens grins wider. “Sounds like you’re in dire need of a team, there, boss.”

Tim sighs in exasperation, but there’s the very edge of a smile tugging at the corner of his lips. “Whatever. When can I break Pru’s nose again?” Pru grumbles curses from behind the camera as Owens bursts out laughing. Z gives a small smile before the video stops.

. . . 

Pru allows herself a moment of sorrow as she stares at the happy faces frozen on the screen. Just a moment. Wallowing has never really been her thing — she’s kind of always up and out, moving on, next thing, full steam ahead. If Tim dies, she’s basically got nothing. Not that she ever had much before. At one point in her life, not too long ago, she had three people that she cared about, that were important to her and worth her ride-or-die loyalty. Today, she’s in danger of losing the last one left — and it would be her fault. But Prudence doesn’t wallow, and she’s not an overly righteous or guilt-ridden person; this line of work will do that to you, but you also don’t go into it unless you’re a little off to begin with. She would move on, move forward, because that’s all she knows. Move on.

“So…” Dick mutters blearily after a moment. “Ra’s… personally assigned, like, bodyguards for Tim?”

Pru snorts. “Not bodyguards— extra hands. Or antidepressants, I guess.”

“What does that mean?” Jason says. His eyebrows are drawn tightly, his forehead creased with weariness.

“It means he was right that he didn’t need our help — at least not to fight.” She blows out her lips and shakes her head, laughing quietly to herself. “But he sure as shit needed us for his sanity.”

“Drake is not mentally compromised…” 

Pru actually laughs out loud. “Oh, kid, you’re funny…” 

Damian looks like he went to get on an elevator on the top floor of a building and the door opened to reveal a horse inside. That’s an incredibly specific metaphor for an incredibly specific facial expression that Pru has seen many, many times. He also kind of looks like he might cry. Pru still doesn’t really care; she’s a little too far past pissed for that.

She laughs again, eyes full of bitter mirth. These guys really thought Tim was in good mental health, huh? How oblivious can they be? “Tim was on a damn crusade. He was gonna find your Batman or die trying, except he refused to die until he found you,” she says, eyes boring into Bruce. “After, though? He was perfectly happy to die if it meant you and your Bats got to ‘finally be happy and together’ or some shit. He didn’t care what happened to him along the way as long as he brought you back. But the problem with Tim is this funny thing—” She scowls firmly but forces an obviously fake smile. “He’s been trained his whole life to care about everyone except himself. Why would he? As far as he can tell, nobody else cares about him.”

“We… but… we care about Tim,” Dick says, trying to force creeping doubt away from his voice. “Of course we care about Tim.”

Pru smiles thinly. “Well, you have a pretty shit way of showing it, considering he genuinely has no idea.”

Dick blinks. More tears drop down his cheeks. He looks miserable. They’re devastated, the lot of them, faces pinched and shoulders shaking. Pru is glad.

“You’re right,” Jason finally says, and the rest of them look at him carefully. Pru raises an eyebrow and he swallows, nodding and meeting her eyes. “You’re right. We’ve all treated him like shit for years, and there’s nothing we can do to reverse that.” Her eyebrow raises higher; he doesn’t look away. “All we can do is change going forward. So… please. Just… help us.”

Pru considers him for a long moment, and he still doesn’t look away. Finally, she allows one corner of her lip to quirk upwards. “At least one of you’s got balls.” The remaining Bats’s eyes go comically wide, and Jason looks mildly surprised for a second before he snorts quietly. Pru nods. “Alright, then. Next one.” She swipes to the next video, also from a few weeks after the last.

“Can I ask… why are you showing us these?” Bruce mumbles before she can start it.

Pru shrugs. “I’ll tell you the story, too. But I think these give you a better sense of Tim , not just of what happened to him.” She doesn’t wait for a reply, just goes to press play, but before she does she finds herself getting in one last muttered comment: “He’s what needs to be more important to you, anyway.”

Chapter Text

The view from the camera is nothing but a smudge of muted browns and greys swimming unintelligibly around the screen, occasionally illuminated by bursts of orange light. There are sounds, though: the crackling of the microphone against the wind and rapid movement, the harsh breathing of whoever is holding the phone, the boom of explosions casting the orange light, the solid thunk of fists and weapons meeting flesh, the pounding of boots on stone, and a few voices yelling and whooping with only mild hysteria.

The breathing behind the camera turns into a barking laugh and the pounding boots screech to a stop; the image on the screen clears as the motion of the runner’s arms stills. The video moves around a brick wall to focus on a figure in a red-and-black suit — Tim. He slams his bo staff into the ground and swings around it, kicking a man in the face in the process and downing two more. 

“Here we see the Red Robin in its natural habitat,” says the camera operator in a terrible British accent. A hand pokes out from behind the camera and tracks Tim’s smooth motion with a finger; his bo staff connects firmly with a shoulder and another man goes down. “This behavior seen here is common to the species — it is known as ‘Donatello-ing’ in expert circles.”

“You’re a disgrace to my people,” says a more feminine tone in an actual British accent. “Give me back my phone!”

The image smudges again as the person with the phone holds it up and out of reach. “Shut up, this is science in action!”

“We are never again going to let you watch Mythbusters,” says a deeper voice as Z’s bulky form dashes forward into the frame. He reaches a grunt near Tim and sweeps the guy’s leg out from under him, getting in a knock-out punch to the head before he hits the ground. 

Prudence follows after Z but goes straight for Tim, and even though it looks like he doesn’t even see her, he crouches enough to let Pru jump and roll sideways across his back. In the next second he forces his body up; Pru launches off him as she continues to roll, and combined they manage to place her in the air at the perfect angle to grab a nearby grunt and use her momentum to flip him into one of his friends despite her considerable size disadvantage. It works, sort of, because she flips the guy but ends up taking out his friend more with her own impact than with the grunt’s.

Tim takes out another grunt before the guy can lob a knife at Pru. The kid is far faster than he looks, faster than anybody looks because nobody should really be this fast; the frames of the video make it so that you can hardly see him move on the screen. He's in front of Pru in an instant, reaching out a hand to haul her up, and she takes it with a grin. He nods and says something to her that the camera is too far away to hear, and then they turn and stand back-to-back, each watching the other’s blindspot as they work their way through a hoard of overly-trained street rats.

“The Red Robin has been known to form symbiotic relationships with another elusive species: the Bald-Headed Prudence, a genus easily recognized by its distinctive nose, which is broken literally 100% of the time. Notice the cooperative techniques between these two species -- they are both very territorial creatures and often engage outsiders who infringe on their feeding grounds.” The camera begins zooming in haphazardly on the fight, but Owens remains firmly behind the brick wall.

Tim crouches and twirls his staff above his head; it connects solidly with a grunt’s temple and he lets the falling weight drag his staff towards the ground, giving himself a boost for when he launches up off his weapon like a pole-vault and lands feet-first on a man’s shoulders. He jumps from grunt to grunt, shoulders to shoulders, standing just long enough to dig his instep into their carotid pressure points and leaping away before they fall. He yells something indistinguishable.

“Ah, the mating call of the Red Robin. Truly beautiful -- nature at its purest,” Owens gushes.

“I said you’re a little bitch!” Tim yells, much louder this time.

“The Red Robin is also known for being a total asshole,” Owens says in the same calm, not-British voice, though it, too, is much louder this time. “Honestly, what a dickweed.”

Tim takes out three more men in a flash. “Baby-ass Stormtrooper-man hiding behind a brick wall like a little bitch!” He shouts. Pru whoops and cheers in agreement. Tim is grinning, for once, laughing briefly between kicks. 

“Huff, puff and blow his house down,” Z calls out, giving a relaxed smile as he gut-punches a guy. 

Pru puts a bullet in some dude’s foot. “The Wall-Hiding Owens is also a rare creature,” she yells, and Tim laughs more freely as he twists out of the way of a grunt swinging a metal baseball bat at his head. Tim punts the guy directly into Z’s spinning roundhouse kick and then tosses the bat to Pru, who catches it and grins wolfishly. She starts swinging for ribs and kneecaps, and for hands clutching weapons that are very easily removed with the help of a good whack. “This species often runs away from fights like a little bitch because it uses a sniper rifle and can’t do jack shit at close range.”

Owens gasps, scandalized. “David Attenborough would never attack someone like this!” 

“The Turtlenecked Zeddmore is also an unusual species,” Tim shouts, ignoring Owens as he disarms one of the last-standing grunts. “It is known for its saint-like patience when babysitting groups of absolute fucking walnuts.”

The last grunt goes down and the four walnuts look at each other for a moment before they all burst out laughing, cackles and giggling shrieks filling the night sky of whatever cobblestone city this is. The camera comes out from behind the wall and moves towards where Pru, Z and Tim are beginning to zip-tie the thugs; the laughter continues right up until the video cuts off.

. . . 

The illusion is shattered with the end of the clip, and even though Pru had known it was coming, it never gets any easier to wake up from a dream. Still, this video brings her more joy than it does pain, and so she watches it and smiles and remembers.

“What the hell did I just watch?” Bruce asks after several silent moments. 

Pru hums. “Impromptu fight with a Greek drug cartel in Belgium.”

“There… aren’t any Greek drug cartels in Belgium,” Bruce replies slowly.

“Maybe not in your intel,” She says. Bruce just blinks at her.

“He’s laughing.” Pru looks over and sees raw pain in Dick’s eyes. 

Wait, wait. Okay. Pru really doesn’t like how surprised he sounds. Had Tim just, like, not laughed when he was with these freaks and none of them thought that was weird at all? Tim laughs like a moron, loud and boisterous and doubled over, and he does it all the fucking time. It’s a little less frequent when he’s Red Robin, sure, but he still laughs. He’s seventeen, for fuck’s sake, of course he laughs; it’s just about the only thing he does. Fucking with people and laughing about it is his favorite pastime besides throwing bread at birds and breaking Pru’s nose.

She doesn’t feel sorry for him; ditching Tim was his call and his loss. He made his bed and she’ll be damned if she doesn’t let him lie in it no matter how shitty it is. Dick shakes his head in disbelief, a tiny piece of light glimmering in his eyes. “He’s… he’s laughing.”

Pru scoffs. “Jesus Christ. You lot fucked him up more than I thought, huh?” She looks up at Dick, at the darkness overtaking the moment of light in his eyes. 

“I… guess I did,” Dick mutters. He looks up at her very suddenly. “But you-- he laughs with you?”

Pru pulls a face. “Yeah. Sometimes people do that. It’s usually a sign of, like, being relaxed. Or of feeling safe.” Dick’s eyes flicker away. Pru’s don’t. 

Another moment passes in strange silence. “Well,” Jason finally murmurs, using the cadence one would usually employ for the phrase fuck it. “You’re right that Tim didn’t learn that shit here. I’ve never even seen half of those moves.”

Oh, good, he caught it. Maybe Pru can make a weird sort-of ally out of this one yet. She shakes her head even though she’s agreeing. “I think he comes up with a lot of it himself. I’ve seen him have ideas for new moves at, like, 3:00 am, and then spend a few hours working through the logistics of it on a training mat. He just puts his head down and gets it done; it was always weird to me, but I’m a procrastinator, so. To each their own.”

“He… creates his own moves?” Damian mumbles, eyebrows furrowed. Do all children look like cartoon characters with their tiny faces and huge eyes, or is it just this one?

“He’s not a fan of being predictable,” Pru scoffs, thinking of that time that she had walked into their barracks and had found Tim hanging upside-down by his feet from the handguard of a sword that he’d stabbed into the ceiling. He’s a weird fucking kid, okay?

“...Right,” Damian mutters after a moment of staring with his giant anime-ass eyes. 

“Okay, but weren’t you all supposed to be, like… assassins?” Jason asks as he stares at the last, frozen frame of the clip. 

Dick’s head snaps up to his brother like he’s just now realizing exactly what that means. “But… but Tim wasn’t…” He shifts his pinprick pupils over to her. “He… he wasn’t. Right…?”

She manages not to roll her eyes again. “Tim wasn’t an assassin , if that’s what you’re asking, no.” Dick relaxes immediately, and really Pru wishes he wouldn’t, because he absolutely hasn’t earned it, and he especially hasn’t earned the right to judge Tim for what he did and didn’t do during his time with the League. 

Her eyes narrow, but Jason speaks before she can open her big mouth and say something dumb, and honestly she’s grateful that he does. “But none of you are killing in that video. Not Tim, but not you two, either.” Dick frowns and studies the still frame closer, as if that’ll somehow help him see the video again, and his eyes widen fractionally.

Pru ignores him and nods. “We were under orders to do basically whatever the Good Detective said, so when he told us not to kill anybody, that was that.”

Dick blinks, Damian blinks, Jason blinks, Bruce blinks. “He enforced that?” Dick mutters.

Pru looks at him like he has three heads, and to be honest, he might as well. These guys are the ones who made Tim hate the idea of killing; why are they so shocked that he, y’know, hates the idea of killing? “Of course? He gave us the whole speech and everything. What, you don’t trust him?”

Dick’s face falls slightly, but he doesn’t take the bait. “What speech?” 

“The I’ve lost a ton of people and I don’t want anyone else to lose a ton of people so don’t be offing fools speech.”

Dick blinks again, very slowly. He kind of looks like he might cry again, or maybe turn and put his fist through a wall. “Oh.”

Pru rolls her eyes confidently now. “Yeah. Oh.”

The silence resonates for a moment too long, and Pru allows it without question. The more awkward these people feel, the better. Finally she sighs in exasperation and starts pulling up the next video. “Oh, here, you guys’ll like this one. It’s really fun.” She hears Jason mutter a tiny uh oh as she presses play.

- - - 

A freckled face is pressed very close to the camera, brown eyes narrowed and tongue poking out past pursed lips. The frame shakes slightly as the phone is set down, front camera rolling and facing forward. The face -- it’s Owens -- nods and pulls away from the screen. He brushes his hands off on his pants and backs up, revealing the three other musketeers sitting in what looks like old-fashioned army barracks -- like the wooden ones from the 40s. They’re smaller, though, just four cots and four trunks, and one small wood-burning stove against the wall at the far end of the room. Owens walks backwards, winking at the camera, and drops roughly into a crouch and then to sitting on the floor, joining the others on the hardwood. Pru has one leg stretched out in front of her and the other bent to rest her elbow on her knee -- she’s holding a beer loosely in the same hand. Z is sitting on the edge of his cot, leaning his forearms on his thighs and examining the calluses on his palms, a cloudy glass of red liquid standing by his foot. Tim is leaning against one of the trunks, an easy smile on his face as he tilts his head to look at a skillet or something on top of the stove. They’re relaxed — the only sounds are their voices, the crackling of the stove, and the wind against the exterior walls.

“Is that boiling yet?” Tim mutters, nodding to the skillet as Pru opens a trunk and pulls out another beer to pass to Owens. 

Pru snorts. “I can’t believe you’re so against drinking.”

“He’s underage,” Z reminds her, but he’s smiling, voice light and teasing.

Tim huffs good-naturedly. “I’m not so against it, I just think it tastes like shit.” He nods when Owens cracks open his bottle. “The two of you are out here drinking fermented bread water, you know that?” He grins and gestures at Z. “And he’s just fucking ridiculous.”

Z picks up his glass and takes a sip -- loudly. Slurping and entirely too long. The others laugh slightly and Z pulls his drink away from his lips. “And what have I done that’s so ridiculous?”

“You’re drinking red wine ,” Owens says, blinking like it’s the most obvious thing in the world, and Tim snorts, arms wrapping around his stomach as he stifles actual giggles. Owens lobs an exaggerated gesture over at the stove. “We’re literally using a frying pan to boil water because we don’t even have a pot or a tea kettle and you’re so fancy that you’re drinking red wine.”

Z swirls the liquid around, lifting his pinkie finger off the glass and raising it up high. “It’s an acquired taste.”

“Oh my god,” Pru groans, tossing an arm over her eyes. Tim’s giggles are getting louder. She rolls her eyes and shakes her head, shifting her focus to Owens. “Didn't I tell you not to take my shit anymore?” She says, nodding towards her phone where it’s propped on something a few feet away.

Owens stands and sidles over to the stove, not bothering to hide his grin. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.” He glances into the skillet and then makes a grabby hand gesture at Tim, who tosses him a t-shirt he pulls from the trunk behind him. “And anyway, those don’t sound like terms I’d agree to.”

“The terms were touch my shit and say goodbye to your kneecaps, asshole.”

“Worth it.” He wraps the shirt around the handle of the skillet and lifts it from the heat, carries it over to one of the cots where three mugs are sitting, starts to pour the hot water into them one at a time.

Pru points a finger-gun at his knee and mouths pew before taking another drink. “What’s the video for this time, anyway? Prove that nobody’s cheating at poker?”

“We definitely shouldn’t play poker two nights in a row,” Tim says, accepting the steaming mug that Owens hands him with a grateful nod. “What’s the bet this time?”

Pru grins. “Bullets?” She takes her mug from Owens, too.

Z shakes his head. “Tylenol.”

“Oh, fuck off,” Tim huffs as the others groan in protest. 

Owens nods, settling back down with his mug; Z keeps to his wine. “I think I’d rather cut off my balls than put my Tylenol on the line. Let’s do it.”

“I kind of hate it when you speak,” Pru grumbles. She glances around and huffs. “Alright, payout is Tylenol. What’s the bet?”

Owens blows out his lips, thinking hard, before his eyes suddenly light up. Tim raises an eyebrow at him. “Childhood traumas,” Owens says proudly, and Tim’s eyebrow lifts higher. Owens nods. “We bet on whose are the worst.”

There’s a moment of silence before all of them burst out laughing, and immediately they all start pointing fingers at each other and clamoring about who had the shittiest early life. “No, no, no, okay,” Owens says finally. “Z first, Z first.”

Z nods and they all shut up, listening intently. “I was orphaned at age 5 and taken in by the Master at 6. My father shot my mother and then died in a shootout right after. In between I scurried around and stole bread and coins on the streets of Cape Town. I had no friends or family, so I slept in alleyways and parks. The Master found me nearly starved to death. He taught me how to fight, of course, made me a child assassin, which I now realize was likely ill-advised, but it is my life at this point. I believe I suffered twelve broken bones within my first year in the League, and from then until I turned eighteen, uh… actually, I lost count. But despite the League training and all the… drawbacks… that come with it, I believe I have no chance of winning this bet, my friends.” He raises his glass slightly and takes another sip. “Prudence?”

Pru grins and shakes her head. “I don’t have the win, either. Grew up a street rat in South London with a junkie mum and a dad who couldn’t tell the difference between a woman and a punching bag. That included girls, by the way -- got a broken rib that never set quite right, so there’s still a weird dent in my side. I usually only ate when it was provided by the school — I was a third form dropout, which is way earlier than it’s legal to leave school. When I was nine my dad OD'd on-- uh, heroin, I think? And my mum died of ovarian cancer two years later. Lived in a homeless group in the tube tunnels for a little while -- that was pretty fun, felt like a Ninja Turtle. Got in with a robbery crew when I was thirteen, right, and I was good at that shit.” Tim scoffs disbelievingly and she reaches over to flick his forehead. “I was! I was the distraction at first but eventually I graduated to a player and it was a pretty sick gig. I got arrested a few times and beat up a bunch in prison, but that’s a given. In and out of juvie and prison from about thirteen to seventeen. Always got back into the game when I got released, though. And then through that robbery crew I got into running with some arms dealers and learning to shoot, moved around a bunch, and then got involved with the League when I was eighteen.” She likewise raises her mug, although she also raises her beer, one in each hand. “Not the win. Owens.”

“Yeah,” Owens says, grinning. “I’ll take this L, but I’ll go down swinging. I had a normal suburban home life. Top that horror show, assholes!” He crows, and the others protest loudly, laughing and booing. Owens waves a hand to shut them up. “Nah, nah, I did. My parents got divorced, but we got through it. But then -- get this -- then my dad remarried to the actual evil stepmother from Cinderella. She told me I had to join the army to become more of a man because she was convinced I was gay. Don’t get me wrong -- I am gay -- but no matter how many times I explained that to her she said the troops could beat it out of me. So I enlisted at 18 and found myself a damn good boyfriend while deployed.” He grins, sighs and takes a drink. “I was gonna marry that man, y’know? And he got blown up. Humvee right in front of mine. And I might’ve punched a general who made a joke about gays not deserving to live anyway. So I got a cool dishonorable discharge and got picked up by the League right before I turned 19.” He raises his bottle and drains the last of it with a shrug. “All that and I’m still holding this L.” He grins and looks over. “Boss?” He asks, taking the new beer that Pru hands him.

Tim groans and huffs, but his face is light. “Fine, fine, whatever. My parents stuck around for a few weeks after I was born and then they’d disappear for weeks or months at a time -- globetrotters or whatever. Whenever they did come back, they’d basically just spend the whole time telling me off for not measuring up to our name, whatever that means. There was a part-time nanny until I was three, and then after her the housekeeper would come once a week and bring groceries, but other than that I basically sat in that empty house for nine years. I think I’m still vitamin D deficient, honestly.” He grins and they grin back, despite the words coming from his mouth. “I got myself into all the Bat bullshit when I was nine. Figured out who they were and tailed them with a camera for, like, two years -- the hero thing was the shit to a lonely kid, I guess. When the Robin before me died Batman went crazy, so I basically went in and forced him to take me on for the job. I never wanted to... well. I wasn’t really cut out for it. But I wasn’t gonna tell anyone their secret, so I was the only option. So I spent about three years going out every night with an R on my chest and my parents never noticed. And every night I went back to sleep in that empty house. And then the second Robin came back to life -- I think he tried to kill me three times? Maybe four. Almost did it, too, cut it pretty damn close. My mom died from this weird voodoo poisoning and my dad was in a coma for a while from that, and then later he was murdered by one of Gotham’s Rogues in front of me. And later my two best friends got killed doing hero shit and I had to figure out how to handle that, and then the current Robin came in and decided that I was his mortal enemy. He tried to kill me, uh… three times? I lose track pretty quickly at this point. Who knows. He basically spends all of his time reminding me I’m worthless to the family, which is super nice of him. And then we thought Batman died, but I realized he got stuck in the timestream, so-- so I tried to tell them, but the first Robin didn’t believe me. Tried to have me committed, told all my friends I was crazy, et cetera. And then he took Robin and gave it to the kid. And obviously there’s, like, severe PTSD and tons of self-esteem and mental health issues, but that’s kind of par for the course for abandoned children. I may or may not be salty about my dead parents. You guys were there for the rest.” He looks up and gives Z a gleeful grin. “And you’re right, I’m underage. Sixteen. Which means I’ve still got two years to rack up more ammo. Now, take this L.”

The others burst out laughing again, and Tim laughs with them, the pain of his life casting not even a hint of a shadow on his face as he clutches at his abdomen, giggling hard enough to hurt and nearly spilling his tea before he can manage to set it down. 

“Holy fuck,” Owens says, “Your life is like a movie, dude, this shit is ridiculous. Worse than Z drinking wine right now.”

Tim heaves a scandalized gasp. Z shakes his head and sips loudly from his glass again. “So we agree that Tim wins?”

Nobody objects, so Tim grins and holds his hand out expectantly. The others grumble extensively, but nonetheless open their trunks and pull out their Tylenol ration for the week -- fresh delivered that same day. Tim whoops and shoves them all into his trunk. “No dehydration headaches for me, bitches! The desert can eat an entire ass.” He exchanges the Tylenol for a deck of playing cards inside the trunk before he closes it, tossing the pack to Z.

“How is your mental health now, my friend?” Z asks, catching the cards and removing them from their carton to shuffle. His tone is light, casual and free of pressure. Just an honest question of caring for a friend.

Tim smiles appreciatively. “Better here, if you can believe it.”

Z raises his glass for a moment. “Well, assassins are known for their self-care,” he says, and the others snort loudly.

“Yeah, you would know. Drinking wine in the barracks is the ultimate self-care,” Owens jibes, and Z raises his glass again, higher this time. 

Pru hmphs and gestures at Owens with her beer. “I think removing your kneecaps would be the ultimate self-care.”

“No,” Tim says, grinning at her and wrapping both hands around his mug to warm them. “The ultimate self-care is taking everyone’s Tylenol so that it hurts like a bitch when you remove Owens’s kneecaps.”

“I can get behind that,” Pru says, like it’s a minor business transaction. 

“Z, I’m being attaaaaacked,” Owens whines absent-mindedly, cracking his back as he speaks.

“What?” Z says, voice clear and coherent and obviously sober. “I cannot hear you, I’m so wine-drunk my ear canals have collapsed.”

Owens hums. “That doesn’t sound very self-caring.”

Pru rolls her eyes and leans over to grab her phone; the image shakes as she reaches for it, trying to snag it without having to get up, and misses twice. She huffs and slowly scoots closer. “So that’s a tally mark under win for Tim. Put more water on to boil, we need to make sure Z stops destroying his ears and liver.” Z passes her the cards and she nods, fanning them out to count them. “Red, gin rummy or spades?”

“Go Fish,” Tim says, and the last sound before Pru finally manages to cut off the video is that of Owens and Z protesting fervently.

- - - 

The Bats around Pru are quiet, for once, gone still with an emotion that she can’t sense because she isn’t looking at them. Instead, her eyes are locked on that last image of the group and her arm stretching out to end the clip.

All of them had gone through too much shit in life to take those nights for granted. They were… happy. Happy times, she’ll call them, because she has no other way to describe the blanket of contentment brought about from being in those wooden barracks with good company, sitting around an old iron stove and drinking beer and tea boiled in a skillet, laughing and telling stories and playing cards like little kids at a bonfire. It was the closest to being a camp counselor she’d ever get -- the closest she’d ever get to having that classic unsupervised summer with her best friends, full of mosquito bites and bicycles and acoustic guitars. Sure, maybe that’s a vision from a movie, but it doesn’t hurt to dream, right? It didn’t hurt to dream. Not back then.

“So you know,” Bruce finally says, quiet enough to keep the stillness intact. Pru doesn’t really understand the statement, so she glances over and sees the emptiness in his eyes, the slackness of his face. He’s old, she realizes. Old and tired. “You know what he’s been through.”

Pru nods slowly. “...I do,” She murmurs, trying to tamp down her defensiveness. Is she not supposed to know? Is Tim gonna have to deal with their disappointment again?

Bruce looks so incredibly sad suddenly that it almost makes her choke on her breath. “You… know him better than we do.”

Oh.

Dick stiffens and opens his mouth to protest, but falters, face going stricken as he seems to think it over. Damian is looking at him, eyes blank, and when he speaks his voice is barely above a whisper. “Is that all… true?” Dick presses a hand into his eyes, but Damian just shifts his attention to his father and takes a half-step forward. “That Drake… his parents abandoned him?”

Bruce sniffs, though out of sorrow, anger or gruffness Pru doesn’t know. He doesn’t look at his child. “They… left him alone quite a bit, yes.”

“That’s some understatement horseshit and you know it,” Jason suddenly snarls, and Damian’s head whips around to him, eyes almost hopeful. Bruce blinks and one of his eyebrows pinches, and he levels his second-oldest with a look that’s a little too challenging for Pru’s liking. Dick doesn’t even look up.

“His parents were dead by the time you stopped trying to kill him, Jason,” Bruce says; his voice is harboring something dark and creeping and it kind of makes Pru want to shoot him in the throat. “You didn’t see what they put him through.”

Jason scoffs, hurt turning to anger across his face. “That’s a low fucking blow, old man. I know damn well what they put him through; fuck, I’m the only one that ever even talks to the kid. I know I’ve hurt him and I’ve been trying to make it right. What have you been doing besides pretending everything is fine?” He tightens his jaw, steadying his fists where they’re clenched by his sides. Bruce looks startled, for once, but Jason doesn’t seem to care. He stalks right into Bruce’s space, matching his height and bravado without a second glance. “You knew exactly how they were treating him and you still let him go back to that house every night all by himself just because you were scared to let another kid into your house. You let them keep hurting him again and again because you wouldn’t take responsibility as his father. And I don’t care that he ‘already had a father’ because you knew what his father was like and you didn’t care. ” He jabs a finger at Bruce’s chest, glaring fiercely right into the man’s thunderous eyes. “You made him think you didn’t want him. You were such a fucking coward that you didn’t even bother to show him how a parent is supposed to treat their kid and now he still thinks there was nothing wrong with the way he was brought up. You know that, Bruce?” The man’s glare falters for the briefest moment, but it’s more than enough for all of them to see it. Jason does, too, and his eyes widen for an instant before he sighs heavily, a good portion of the fight bleeding out of his tense frame as he takes a step back, his chin falling to his chest. He goes silent, and for nearly a full minute, he stays that way.

Slowly, Dick reaches out and places a hand on Jason’s shoulder after he’s had enough of the stillness. The other man doesn’t fight it. “Jay? Dick asks quietly.

Jason lifts his head gingerly, looks up at Bruce again, and Pru notices with a start that there are actual tears in his eyes, balancing on red-rimmed lids. Bruce blanches at the sight, reaching his hand a few inches towards his son automatically. Jason shakes his head. “He has no idea, Bruce,” He grinds out through teeth clenched in frustration, his tone still angry despite his slumped posture. He’s not just angry at Bruce, Pru realizes; this goes back much further than him. “He’s been verbally and emotionally abused since the second he was born and he has no fucking idea. He thinks that’s normal. And we haven’t shown him any different.” He blinks back the tears and shakes his head, taking a moment to purse his lips and look away -- a moment to collect himself. 

“They never even… they were never home?” Damian asks, sounding very much his age.

Dick doesn’t look over, but he shakes his head. “He celebrated his birthday for the first time when he turned twelve. It took us two days to convince him that birthday parties aren’t just something they do on TV.”

Damian’s eyes fill with an emotion resembling either rage or sorrow -- Pru honestly can't tell -- but his face stays calm. “Oh.”

Pru can’t really take this anymore. “That I didn’t know. Just… look, guys,” She sighs, deciding to give an inch and hope they don’t take a mile; she’s still pretty fucking mad. “It isn’t too late.” Four heads whip around in her direction, and she sighs again at the surge of hope in their faces. They might be about to take this mile. Whatever. There’s not really any going back now. “Tim loves you all to the ends of the earth. He really does. The reason he’s been avoiding you for so long is exactly because he loves you. You guys have hurt him, badly -- and you know that now, which is definitely a step in the right direction. But he’s been avoiding you because he can’t stand to be hurt anymore by the people he loves. Word for word, what he said to me was I don’t know if I can survive another heartbreak. That’s why he’s avoiding you.” Her voice slips into colder territory, and she lets it go gladly. “And honestly, more power to him for that; if you ask me, he’s making the healthier choice by staying away. If you want him back, you’re gonna have to do a hell of a lot better. You’re gonna have to admit you all have a fucking problem with this no emotions bullshit. You’re gonna have to talk to each other like normal-ass people.” She gives Bruce a scathing look, and he takes it with something resembling shame. Good. “I’m sure you think pushing people away is protecting them or some shit, but in this line of work, you can’t afford to do that because any one of you could literally fucking die any night of the week. Do you understand that?” She can’t walk towards him, so she leans forward as threateningly as possible. She glances around between the four of them, face pinched and furious. “How many times have you told your family you love them? How many times have you said it and meant it and shown it? What happens if one of you doesn’t make it home, huh? It almost happened tonight!” She crows, gesturing wildly towards the medbay. “It might still happen! Is it so worth saving your tough guy image if Tim dies not knowing you loved him?” Frustrated tears are welling up in her eyes, and to make a point about vulnerability or whatever, she lets them fall, shaking her head viciously even as her voice quiets. “You can’t let it come to this, do you understand? You can’t always just pretend everything is fine right up until something terrible happens and suddenly you’re all standing around here realizing the damage you’ve done to your family and realizing that it’s too late to make it right. You can’t allow yourself to be emotional only when everything is going to hell. Tell your people you love them. Mean it and show it. Before your time is up.”

They’re silent again for a long while, and Pru stares fiercely back at all of the things flitting across their faces, shock and horror and anger and grief. But fuck, they needed to hear that shit, and she’s damn glad she said it. If not for their sake, then for Tim’s.

Damian suddenly turns and flings himself at Dick, who receives him with a startled oof . “Dami?” The man mutters, confused.

“I love you, Richard,” the boy mumbles quickly, burying his face into Dick’s stomach. "Please do not die."

Dick’s eyes widen and he blinks slowly before gingerly kneeling and wrapping his arms around Damian in turn. “I love you, too,” he says. "And I won't." His voice is choked up but the words are easy, flowing past his lips like he’s been wanting to say them forever. Pru is half glad and half wants to punch him. These people are so fucking dramatic and it’s making their lives harder for literally no reason. They might still be convincing as middle school girls. 

Dick glances up after several moments and pouts with all the anger of a newborn puppy. He lifts one arm and pokes at Jason, who sighs heavily and envelops Bruce in a hug, too. The man goes rigid, but Jason doesn’t let go, and Bruce relaxes into it and returns the embrace a moment later. “Looks like we finally found the right therapist,” Jason mutters, and Bruce snorts a laugh, but Pru can see his shoulders trembling ever so slightly as he squeezes his arms around his son. 

Yeah, definitely the most repressed people she’s ever met. Look, Pru ran with a group of mercenary arms dealers once upon a time, and even those guys knew the importance of being vulnerable. Hell, they had holidays off (off from illegal work) to spend with their loved ones, and someone always invited Pru to join their family traditions since she didn’t have anyone. Christ. 

Pru pulls up another video. She should really probably stop at this point, but honestly, she’s enjoying watching them, and she still wants them to see how Tim was during his time away. She’s busy ignoring the shuffling and noise as more hugs are exchanged -- until Dick stops her to give her one, too. In the interest of practicing what she preaches, she allows it and doesn’t stab him even a little bit, but it’s still kind of weird considering she’s not exactly these guys’ family. He pulls away and shrugs, grinning, and his smile is shockingly bright and full of life and she’s pretty sure this is the first time she’s ever really seen it. Huh.

“You guys want a happy video, for once?” She mumbles, and none of them say anything but they all gather back around her chair. Of course, just because it’s a happy video for them doesn’t mean it’s a happy video for her. She ignores the twisting of her stomach and presses play.

- - - 

The camera seems to be angled from the passenger seat of a Jeep as it meanders across some desert at night. Behind the wheel, Z is smiling; he glances at the camera and seems to roll his eyes. There is noise in the background, a lot of noise, and the camera pans around to the backseat of the car, where Owens and Tim have reconfigured their seatbelts to be able to move as freely as possible. Tim is grinning. His head is thrown back and his eyes are crinkled, and loud, raucous cackles are leaping past his teeth, shining in the air.

“Are you gonna sing or not?” Asks Pru, the everpresent voice behind the camera.

“We’re singing, we’re singing, keep your shirt on,” says Owens, forcefully tamping down his own loud laughter. 

Tim’s mouth drops open in semi-fake surprise, but a smile is still pulling at his lips. “Oh, fuck, we are?” He says. “Since when do you take orders from her?”

The man grins and leans back against the window. “Since she started taking a video. Now if I don’t sing she’ll have hard proof that I’m an asshole.”

Three separate, dramatic scoffs fill the chassis. “We have long since gathered ‘hard proof’ of that, my friend,” says Z from behind the wheel.

“You give us a lot of material,” says the voice behind the camera. Tim is laughing again. It’s an old memory, a sound foreign to most, but not to the people in the car.

Owens grins wide. “Fine, fine, we all know I’m an asshole. But I’m a singing asshole.” He punches at Tim’s shoulder and the boy doesn’t even roll his eyes, just grins back, and the older man holds up his hands like an orchestra conductor.

“Pru, we get to pick the song, right?” Tim asks, and Pru must nod behind the camera because Tim chitters excitedly under his breath and gestures for Owens to come closer. He leans forward and Tim whispers something in his ear, and then they both lean back as the older man grins and nods. “Alright, ready?” Tim says after they’ve both very stoically steeled their faces.

“Something tells me I am not going to like this,” says Z, and a hand snakes out from behind the camera and swats at him.

“Go,” Pru says, and go they do, because Owens takes in a deep, theatrical breath, flings out his conductor hands, and begins humming a familiar intro.

Z stiffens. “Oh, no— ” he starts, eyes wide, but he’s too late, because the intro is complete and Tim comes shouting in with the lyrics, grinning and trying to keep the laughter from his voice even as he slings his hands all around uselessly and bobs with the beat that barely even exists.

“As I walk through the valley of the shadow of death

I take a look at my life and realize there’s not much left!”

Owens shifts to pounding the sort-of beat with his foot on the dented floor of the car so that he can join Tim in scream-singing the words.

“Cuz I’ve been blastin’ and laughin’ so long 

That even my mama thinks that my mind is gone

But I ain’t never crossed a man who didn’t deserve it!”

By the time they reach the first chorus, both of them are on their feet and jumping, rocking the car on its suspension as they balance semi-precariously out through the open sunroof. They’re shouting and laughing into the starry night of the desert, voices horribly out of tune and filled with mirth. Pru is also laughing in the background, although it’s clear she’s laughing at them, not with them, which they seem to be fine with. At one point, the camera pans over to Z, who looks like he’s poorly managing pain. He’s groaning and he briefly drops his forehead down onto the center of the steering wheel, honking the horn at the cold, empty expanse surrounding the warm completeness of the little Jeep. 

“Been spendin' most their lives

Livin' in the Gangsta's Paradise!

Been spendin' most their lives

Livin' in the Gangsta's Paradise!”

“This is the whitest thing that has ever happened,” Z grumbles, picking his head back up to miserably watch where he’s going, and this time Pru’s laugh is croaky and full like she wasn’t expecting it.

The two that are hanging out the sunroof finish the song and cheer extensively, gasping for breath between laughs and high fiving and wondering aloud when they’ll go platinum. Finally, they drop back down into their seats and sit very serenely, hands clasped daintily in their laps.

“And that was Gangsta’s Paradise, by our lord and savior, Coolio,” Tim says calmly, like he’s explaining the brushstrokes in a centuries-old painting at a stuffy museum. Owens snorts and Tim swats at him blindly until he can slap a hand over his mouth, smiling pleasantly at the camera.

Someone is just finishing a very matter-of-fact statement of “holy shit, that was hell,” when the video stops.

- - - 

“...What?” Bruce mutters under his breath when it ends, and Jason bursts out laughing.

“I demand to know what that was,” Damian says by way of agreement. Jason laughs harder.

“Like Carpool Karaoke, but not,” Dick explains.

“Oh my god…” Jason gasps, leaning over with his hands planted on his knees. “Why does Tim know all the words? Tim? Tim has never listened to rap in his life. There’s no way.”

Pru manages a thin smile and decides to let them take that happy moment she’d promised. After all, she only had a few more seconds before she had to tell them about what happened on the night this video was taken.

Chapter Text

Yeah, so Bruce has no idea what’s going on. That seems to be a running theme these days, though, especially when it comes to Tim.

Bruce’s second-youngest can be a tough nut to crack under the best of circumstances. He’s been trained since birth to be out of the way, to speak when spoken to, to be a child who’s seen and not heard, as if he weren’t a sweet, gentle, brilliant kid who deserves to be loved to the ends of the earth. Bruce knows that he had done wrong by Tim, before. Over the years he’s pushed the boy away (just another adult who should’ve been taking care of him refusing to be there), closed him off from his heart, treated him like a business partner, like an adult, like Jason’s death was something he had to make up for and he wasn’t good enough to do that.

Bruce did a lot wrong, but he’s always thought he would be able to fix it later. There was the fact that Bruce constantly forced the boy away, made him spend a million half-injured nights in that empty shell of a house, but he wasn’t Tim’s dad at the time and so he’d decided he shouldn’t try to fix it until later. And then there was the jagged divide with Damian early on in his tenure where Bruce hadn’t handled Tim’s feelings well, but he would give the kid time and space and then fix it later. And then he’d gotten stuck in the timestream and had left clues for Tim to find him, put all his faith in his third son and all the pressure on him, too, and he knew that, but once he came back he would fix it — later. And then when he did come back from the timestream Tim had seemed a little off, but then there had been all the reunion stuff happening so he would have to fix it later. 

But later never came, because Bruce had let it slip through his fingers. Had let Tim slip through his fingers like he was nothing, like fixing this was as difficult as holding steam in his hands. 

The reality he sees now is clear and grim: Tim is steam now, yes, but he wasn’t always that way. He only became steam because the people he loved had hurt him, pressurized him, burned him. So long ago he had been ice, utterly unflappable and rock solid in his resolve to just help as much as he possibly could and more, cool and quiet and collected, always. Tim was ice, but ice cracks. Ice melts in the heat of the sun and everybody can’t wait until it turns into water. Everybody can’t wait until ice turns into something it isn’t, until its entire crystalline structure falls apart and it turns into something people can splash around in carelessly. And Tim had been water. He had seen that people liked him better and valued him more as something other than what he was, so he changed, and melted, and let everyone take advantage of him for his soothing coolness and sharp mind because that was his purpose as far as he knew. And Tim was water — not quite the boy they’d met, not quite so strong-willed and solid, but more needed, more useful, better at keeping people alive. Tim was water, but water evaporates. Water evaporates under heat and under pressure, a desperate attempt to vent the tension in an enclosed space. And as water turns to steam it becomes looser, wilder, the molecules darting about erratically, careening off center like the thoughts in Tim’s brain, forced to stay locked away because nobody would believe them. And only now that Tim is steam does Bruce try to catch him, and suddenly but not suddenly at all, he’s gone. Bruce had never caught him back when he was ice, not even when he was water, and now he’s lost his chance to try. 

But the other problem is that Tim was never ice or water or steam because Tim is a person. Tim is a person and Bruce is suddenly thinking that it’s time they stop trying to puzzle out his brain and his life and his skills like he’s some kind of lab rat and instead start treating him like the goddamn person he is.

Tim is a person and a person is more than a metaphor. Bruce has never been good at saying things straight-out; obtuse metaphors, body language, assumptions and subtext have always been his preferred means of expressing affection and emotions in general. But Tim isn’t Bruce, and Tim deserves to have his own wants and needs met. And standing here in the cave, letting the events of the past ten or so hours hit him full-on, he’s thinking it’s time to be the father Tim actually needs — not the father that Bruce thinks he needs.

All of them — Bruce, Dick, Jason, Damian, and probably Prudence, too — had obviously picked up on the tension binding the assassin’s shoulder blades together. It had increased steadily over the course of that last video, pulling her entire body closer and closer inward like she was trying to be as small of a target as possible. And the video is over now, but she still hasn’t relaxed, and Bruce doesn’t know what’s hiding behind that happy scene in the Jeep, but if today has any sort of pattern to it, he has a feeling he’s not going to like finding out.

Jason is still laughing about Tim knowing the lyrics to the song from the video, which Bruce has never heard before and is honestly confused by, and Dick is smiling a little, just enough that Bruce feels like maybe things might be okay someday. Maybe.

“I can’t believe Tim has even heard that song,” Jason wheezes. He’s leaning over so far that his head is almost below his knees, which is definitely an exaggeration on Jason’s part, but according to Dick, Bats are nothing if not dramatic. Bruce doesn’t know why he thinks that, though. Bats are nothing if not calculated would be more accurate. Or nothing if not stealthy. Focused. Poised. Complex. Many things, but dramatic? Bruce doesn’t see the connection, and Bruce is the world’s greatest detective — he’s pretty good at seeing connections. Hmph. “What the hell was going on there?”

All of them immediately notice the way her shoulders flex a half-inch higher towards her ears, the slight paling of her knuckles around her phone. Tiny tics, tiny taps, tiny tells. A wealth of evidence to a Bat. Bruce flashes Dick a look — move in — and the man doesn’t acknowledge him but nonetheless shuffles forward, his hand outstretched slightly in offering. He’s playing his cards carefully here — Prudence is definitely the type of person to be offended by anything she perceives as pity or condescension, so Dick stays upright, doesn’t lower himself physically and still holds that respectful tautness in his features. At the same time, she’s young and upset and injured, all things that would normally constitute softening one’s demeanor a great deal. Instead, Dick makes an educated roll of the dice and quiets his voice instead of softening it, leaves his outstretched hand hanging hesitantly in midair — kind, compassionate, but not overly sympathetic. Bruce analyzes his movements with an approving nod. He’s trained Dick well.

“Prudence,” he says, not an order but not a question either, “what happened in that video?”

Prudence scoffs, shoulders hitching slightly. “I was gonna tell you anyway,” she replies, and her tone is flat but her voice is quiet, eyes still pointed at her phone gone dark in her hands. “You don’t need to put on a show here, man. I’m not a soap opera character, just talk to me like a fucking human. Drop the detective shit for once.”

Bruce blinks. Okay, so maybe he hasn’t trained Dick so well. Or maybe he hasn’t trained himself so well. Whatever the case, Prudence can definitely see through Dick, which is a feat in and of itself, and Dick clearly agrees with that assessment if the utterly bewildered look on his face is anything to go by. Jason has his lips pursed like he might be about to start laughing again. Bruce honestly wouldn’t be surprised.

Prudence doesn’t look up, just allows her shoulders to slump down heavily, but only a few inches. She appears to be holding herself together not through stubbornness or force of will, but rather by design. It seems that’s just how she operates.

“That night…” Prudence begins, voice still subdued. She sighs, swallows hard and tries again. “That night, the night in the video, we… miscalculated. Tim had finally locked in on a location that he thought would contain proof that Batman was alive. With the League’s resources, it only took a couple months to find.” Bruce hears Dick shift his weight to the left and can almost see the guilt radiating off him. He holds back a sigh; he’ll talk it though with him when this is a bit more settled. Prudence swallows again. “It was a cave out in the Arabian Desert. Northern Iraq. We flew out and then drove the rest of the way in that Jeep, and we got there and there was a Bat-symbol carved into the wall and Tim just sat there staring at it for an hour.” 

Of course. The cave symbol — Bruce remembers that one. It was one of the first stops he had experienced in his ricochet through the timestream. He had woken up on a musty dirt floor, confused and alone, and tried to take stock of whatever the hell had happened to him, but that backfired because he ended up having more questions than he started with, which was unbecoming of the world’s greatest detective. The most he had worked out by that point in his involuntary travels was that he didn't stay in one time and place for very long — if he wanted someone to find him, he needed to be able to place himself in their radar. So he’d drawn the symbol on the wall. If a civilian found it, they’d just think it was graffiti; if a Bat found it, it would be more than enough to warrant study. So yes, Bruce remembers. And he can’t say he loves the idea of his son being in the middle of that giant, empty desert with only three assassins at his back. His skull feels heavy — with emotions or new information, he can’t tell.

“I guess it was kind of all becoming real for him, that we were gonna do this and it was gonna work,” Prudence continues. “And then finally we’re going to leave, and— and Z says how do you feel, Timothy Drake? and then there was…” she pauses, inhaling slowly through her nose and shaking her head. “He called himself the Widower. An expert assassin. We didn’t even see him.” Her voice is clear but careful and almost silent, like she doesn’t want to break the bubble of her thoughts. “He stabbed Z in the chest. Ran him through, killed him instantly.” Bruce blinks. He’s known, based on their security-cam viewing party earlier, that this part of the story has been coming, but it’s still hard to hear. Harder now that he knows who these people were and how much his son cared about them. Damian is gripping Dick’s hand like a lifeline, which it probably is to him — unsurprisingly, his youngest doesn’t deal too well with the idea of being stabbed through the chest. Bruce shudders at the horrible memory and fiercely pushes it down, refocuses on Prudence. She’s still staring at the blank screen of her phone. “Tim jumped down and told us— told me and Owens to move, and I got a few inches away, but Owens wasn’t fast enough. He was… he was mostly decapitated. He was unconscious before he hit the ground and he’d bled out less than a minute later. The blade cut through my larynx on my end — missed the jugular by a millimeter. Tim fought the guy who attacked us for a second, managed to get a few hits in, and then got a knife in his stomach. The guy… he thanked us for our participation. And then he disappeared.” She shakes her head and briefly covers her mouth with her hand, not meeting their eyes. “...Tim… woke up somehow. I don’t remember it too clearly, and neither does he, but he got us up and walking, and we made it to the car and somehow climbed up to our hotel. I thought we were mostly safe after that, but then this girl Tam shows up out of nowhere. I guess she freaked, cuz when the League came for us, they brought her along, and then that became a whole thing. Anyway, they fixed me up with an electronic voice box and they removed Tim’s spleen because there was no saving it.” She sighs heavily. “That’s what happened that night.”

Bruce feels sick. A gut wound like that, the kind that would’ve pierced and ruptured an organ, would be excruciatingly painful, if not downright unbearable. By all laws of biology, Tim should’ve lost consciousness quickly and bled out there on the desert floor with nothing but the bodies of his friends by his side. Instead, his kid forced himself to walk — to walk while supporting another person — and to stay awake long enough to drive and climb a building. He went through the kind of pain that only comes from ripping the linings of your organs from the inside — and he’s still alive and fighting crime. That shouldn’t be possible. It shouldn’t… there’s no way that’s possible. Bruce himself would never have been able to do that, but his son , his baby, scrawny little Tim, made it happen. 

A stroke of random luck is the only reason Tim is still alive. But he never would’ve needed to rely on fate if someone had just helped him — if he hadn’t had to resort to Ra’s. Christ . Bruce tries to force his stomach to settle the nausea roiling inside, but he ends up clenching his teeth hard enough to crack instead. He feels an intense pull in his head to look over towards the medbay, as if that might somehow help Tim get better, as if it might make him wake up and make everything be okay. 

It isn’t. It’s so, so far from okay.

“Well,” Jason sighs. Bruce considers his second-oldest; the boy looks tired, that bone-deep kind of tired that bleeds into every corner of your body. “At least now we know how he lost his spleen.”

Prudence nods slowly. “And his friends,” she adds, voice mumbled, but it resonates and echoes in the empty air around them.

The Cave is silent save for the rustling of bats on the ceiling. Suddenly those bats feel useless — frivolous. Something to add to Bruce’s constant grieving for people that died thirty years ago. And those people are important, of course they’re important, but tonight has shown him that maybe there are other important things he’s been neglecting in favor of himself and his own grief and pain, and maybe those things he’s been neglecting are things that he doesn’t have to grieve for yet. Maybe he should start working on loving his people while they’re alive instead of mourning them once they’re dead. Maybe he should start working on that.

Prudence silently scrolls past a few videos before selecting another. Her finger hovers over the play button hesitantly, but with everyone once again crowded around her, she has little choice; all she does is murmur, “He knows a lot of songs.” None of them have a chance to comment before she starts the clip.

. . . 

Tim, shirtless and nursing a gauze bandage on his abdomen over his hip, is lying flat on his back on a wooden floor, a book open and balanced precariously in his hands as his arms stretch vertically above his face. The cover is orange and blue — The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros. He’s more than halfway through. He’s looking at the pages, but his eyes are unmoving, blank and distant, and his mouth is half-open — he’s mumbling something, that much becomes clear as the camera stealthily closes in. It settles on the edge of a piece of furniture or something and Prudence enters the frame, gingerly sitting on the floor beside Tim. The camera is just close enough to pick up the words he’s saying, now, and they’re surprising, honestly:

“—was raised underneath the shade of a Georgia pine,

And that's home, you know

Sweet tea, pecan pie, and homemade wine

Where the peaches grow…”

Pru’s frown is disbelieving. “Chicken Fried?” she says as she lowers herself, straining like her muscles are sore after a hard workout. Her voice is nearly entirely electronic, sounds almost like she’s speaking through a heavy modulator.

“Hm?” Tim mutters, mouth snapping shut as if he’s just now noticing her, but that’s impossible. Except that he says, “Oh, hey,” and laughs quietly, eyes finally flickering away from the book to meet hers. “It’s a good song, don’t judge.”

Prudence puts up placating hands. “Don’t get me wrong, it slaps. Just didn’t take you for a country guy.”

“The term is country boy.”

“Vine is dead, Tim. You’re gonna have to get over it at some point. Grieving for this long isn’t healthy.” 

Tim pulls a face, his tongue poking out of the corner of his mouth. “Since when have I been unhealthy?” He laughs for a moment, then trails off and blinks slowly, like a processor rebooting. He dog-ears his page and sets the book down beside his head, sighing heavily as he drops his arms across his eyes. “Never mind, don’t answer that.”

“So, I’m gonna answer that,” Pru says immediately, acting as if she hadn’t heard him despite, y’know, everything. She hums thoughtfully and puts a finger to her temple. Tim rolls his eyes, but says nothing. “Right, okay, so my answer. I have it,” Pru says after a few moments.

“Oh, do tell,” Tim says, sounding like he absolutely does not want her to tell.

“What is fucking always?”

Tim rolls his eyes, and his arms flop out and stretch wide from his shoulders. “You don’t have to answer in the form of a question.”

Pru seems to ignore that, opting instead to poke at his leg with her foot and lean back on her hands. He hums, and she tries to hum in reply, but it comes out as nothing but a crackling buzz. She grimaces and lets her weight fall heavier. “How are you holding up?”

Tim huffs quietly, but his eyes are empty, lips sinking into a small frown. “...I’m… emptier. Lighter,” he says after a long moment. “Barely, but I am.”

Pru nods solemnly. “Should be about 0.2 kilos.”

“You mean about six ounces.”

A small grin graces her face. “No, I don’t.”

One corner of his lip quirks up, just enough to see if you’re looking for it, but by the time he sighs, it’s flattened out again. “It’s not even that I’m actually lighter, really, it’s not like a spleen is a huge organ, it’s just… I dunno. It’s probably a placebo or something, just the thought that it isn’t there. It’s weird.”

“Sure,” she says, nodding and staring ahead at the wall. 

Tim tilts his head, not quite far enough to see her face but far enough for her to know he’s looking. “What about you? How are you holding up?”

She shrugs, but she’s biting her lip. “I’ll get there.” She stops, appears to swallow carefully around the metal in her throat. “I keep… expecting them to be here. Like, I’ll smell gunpowder and assume Owens is around the corner. Or I’ll hear a video playing and think, oh, Z is watching the Kardashians. It’s just… off. All of it.”

“I feel that.” Tim pauses, and his head tilts a little farther, just to where the blue of his eyes is visible to the camera. “Never thought I’d miss the Kardashians.”

Pru’s face twists into a grin despite herself. “We can always watch ’em ourselves, if you’re so desperate. Self-care, remember?”

“Self-care?” Tim repeats. He snorts and begins slowly getting up, careful to use his arms instead of his abs and to avoid pulling at his stitches. “Fuck the Kardashians, then. Red wine it is.” He makes it to his feet with a strained hiss and pauses. "Actually... yeah, fuck it, we need all the alcohol we can get," he huffs, and he stalks out of the frame.

“A Chardonnay, waiter!” Pru calls after him, nose lifted like a snooty old man.

“That’s a white wine,” Tim corrects from elsewhere. “Not self-caring at all. And you would hate it.”

Pru raises a thin eyebrow. “How would you know that?”

“I’m a detective, aren’t I?”

Pru just rolls her eyes as Tim walks back into the frame, holding two wide drinking glasses in one hand and a thick, dark bottle in another. She whistles lowly. “Thought you didn’t like to get fucked up.”

Tim snorts. “C’mon, my birthday’s tomorrow.” He sets the glasses down in front of her to glance at his watch and grins. “Today, technically. It’s 1:00 AM.” 

“You turn seventeen so you jump from herbal tea to Jim Beam?”

“I’m a big kid now, let me live.” 

Pru just huffs. Tim opens the mostly-full bottle and tilts it towards her questioningly, only to widen his eyes when Pru grabs her glass and holds four fingers up to the side of it. “What, you drink this shit like it’s water?” 

“You don’t?” She says, a goofy grin spreading across her face.

His eyes narrow. Hers roll, and she folds away one of her fingers, leaving just three on her glass. They stare at each other for a moment, and then Tim groans and pours the dark liquid to match the height of her fingers, and does the same for himself before setting the bottle down. “I can’t believe I’m getting into a dick-measuring contest with you right now.”

That startles a genuine laugh out of her, which she tries to cover up after the fact with a loud snort. Tim grins wide enough that it’s clear it didn’t work. He raises his glass and she clinks hers against it, each of them taking a slow drink.

“So,” Pru says, settling her glass on her knee.

Tim raises an eyebrow suspiciously. “So.”

“Any wishes from the birthday boy?” She asks smugly.

His sigh is distinctly unimpressed. “For real?”

“Yep,” she replies, popping the last letter loudly enough that Tim instinctively blinks. “C’mon, what would you wish for? Anything you want.” 

He huffs, but then he stares down at the amber liquid in his hand, swirling it around absently. “Any wish?” 

“Mhmm.”

Tim sighs, his fingers going semi-slack on the rim of his glass. “I wish Jason had never died.”

Prudence doesn’t so much as blink, only hums pensively. “Your zombie brother?”

Tim nods, a tiny smile tweaking his lips for the briefest instant before darkness shrouds his face. He pauses, swallows hard, apparently in the process of gathering his words. “He…” The boy breaks off with a sigh and starts over. “I think that was when everything really went to hell, y’know?” He looks up at her, and she just gazes back patiently. He swallows again. “Dick was the perfect kid and the perfect Robin. Sure, he and Bruce had some fights towards the end, but that was part of the reason they even got Jason in the first place. And they were both great sons, great Robins, great students. Everything was great. And then Jason was killed, and it was horrible, and— and just… to do that to a child, it…” He shudders hard and shakes his head. “So he died and Bruce lost his shit, right, like, he went totally wack. If Jason hadn’t been killed, he never would’ve flipped out.

“And then when Damian came along, Talia brought him herself; Jason surviving wouldn’t have impacted Damian joining the family. So think about it as if Jason had never died, right? He and Dick and Bruce are still together, Bruce never falls apart, Batman never gets so violent, Jason never has to go through the Pit Madness, and in the end, Damian still joins the family, because Talia brings him anyway. All the events are the same, except everyone is better off. Nobody has to be in so much pain, y’know?”

Tim is looking into his glass almost dreamily, deep in thought. Pru raises an eyebrow. “What about you?”

Tim glances up curiously before he goes back to eyeing his drink. “What about me?”

“If you follow that timeline, assuming everything happens just the same otherwise, you never become Robin or join the Bat-clan or whatever.”

“Well, right.”

Pru blinks slowly. “And you’d just be okay with that?”

Tim looks at her, gaze searching and confused, and shrugs. “I mean, yeah? It’s definitely better than the current arrangement.”

“You don’t like being a Bat?”

Tim’s eyes widen. “No, no, I love being a Bat. It’s great. But it would’ve been better for the whole group if Jason had never died.”

“Why?” Pru asks, brows knitted together. “How would it be better for you?”

Tim rolls his eyes as if this should be incredibly obvious. “Not for me, for Bruce and his family.”

“Are you telling me you actively wish Jason hadn’t died, even though it would mean you’d still be stuck in that big empty house?”

Tim scowls; he actually looks a little offended. “Me getting out of that house isn’t worth Bruce’s son dying.”

Pru clenches her teeth, frustrated. “But aren’t you Bruce’s son, too?”

“I mean, legally, yeah, but that’s really just a formality. Custody agreements and sh—”

“Tim!” She finally snaps, and the boy looks at her with startled confusion. She rubs at her temple with her free hand. “Jesus Christ, shut up.” He blinks blankly, and Pru grumbles. “Fine. What do you think would’ve happened to you if you hadn’t become Robin.”

Tim seems to relax, then, and shrugs, nonchalant if somewhat confused. “Seems irrelevant.”

“Then humor me.”

Tim rolls his eyes again, voice steady and exasperated, but truthful. “Eh, I probably would’ve blown my brains out in the yard eventually. Less mess for my parents to clean up if it’s outside.”

Pru doesn’t freeze, doesn’t startle, just sighs and shakes her head. “Never stood a chance, did you?”

“Hm?” Tim says, and the video cuts out, apparently cropped after the fact.

. . .

Bruce is stuck. Everything inside him is whirling at a thousand miles an hour, yet he can’t connect his nerves together, can’t force the synapses to fire in his brain. The world beyond his pupils is blurred like overexposed streetlights, hazy and disorienting, impenetrable, and here he is trapped on the other side of the universe because absolutely everything is wrong. 

This is wrong . It’s so, so unbelievably wrong that Bruce isn’t even sure how they’ve gotten here. He swallows involuntarily around what feels like a grenade in his throat, mind racing faster than it ever has in all his years of detective work, searching back through years and years and hunting for evidence, clues, logical conclusions that he can make that tell him that this is wrong, that Tim is seeing this wrong—

He doesn’t find them. How can he fix this if he doesn’t find them? 

How can he fix this?

Tim doesn’t think he’s part of the family. He thinks he never passed partner status, thinks he might not have even made that. He doesn’t think— he doesn’t… Bruce bites down on a crackled, unfamiliar feeling on the back of his tongue, something heavy and sharp. A sob, he realizes, unable to remember the last time he was feeling this way, this complete and utter despair that feels so horribly never-ending, wrapped so tightly around his heart and lungs and stomach that it will torment him until the day he dies. 

Tim doesn’t believe he’s Bruce’s son.

How could he have failed that much as a father? As Tim’s father?

But he had. He had done it all throughout their relationship: keeping the boy at arm’s length, never showing praise or affection, never letting him see the attachment or the care, sending him home to an empty and abusive house, not hearing out his ideas or entertaining his comments, telling him he needed to work harder and do better, calling him by Jason’s name — he had done it all. He’d pushed and pushed and now he’s standing here wondering why Tim feels isolated, othered, made to be an outsider against his will and best efforts. 

Bruce had made him think that he wasn’t enough, and Tim had never stopped trying, but now he’s reached an impasse where there’s nothing more he can do. He brought Bruce back from the dead, and still Bruce acts like he needs to do better. Still he treats him like some kind of… Tim’s right, he treats him like a subordinate. Like an employee.

And yet Tim seems convinced that if he hadn’t met Bruce, hadn’t taken it upon himself at age twelve to save the life and sanity of a grown man, he would’ve shot himself in his front yard by now. And he’s convinced that would’ve been worth it. That Tim’s life would be worth a few easier years in the Wayne household. That his life is worth less than the rest of theirs. Bruce made his baby feel that way, and he never even knew, never bothered to find out. 

He could be sick. He feels sick, actually — and then suddenly he’s turning to the nearest garbage can and vomiting harshly, acid and bile stinging in his throat as his shoulders shudder with pain and startlement. He hasn’t thrown up in years; after all the things he’s seen, not much gets to him anymore.

This does. Oh, god, it does.

There’s a hand on his back, slender and familiar, gently guiding him to sit down in the Batcomputer’s chair a moment later. Dick’s normally tan face has gone absolutely white, and Bruce can’t say he blames him. He feels just about as solid as his oldest looks right now. Bruce reaches out and lays a hand on his son’s arm, and the boy latches onto it, clutching it with desperately curled fingers. 

When he regains his composure enough to look around, he notices Jason glaring at the floor like it insulted his mother, shoulders tense and fists trembling finely. He notices Damian still watching the phone’s screen even though it’s gone black, blinking slowly with unseeing eyes as something else happens in his mind. He notices Prudence clenching her jaw, apparently frustrated with something, but the list of possible valid reasons is far too long for Bruce to parse it out. 

The worst part is that there’s nothing to say. He did this and the others did this and they have to take responsibility. They’ve neglected Tim worse than his own parents did; they gave him hints of the love he so craved and deserved only to rip it away from him. And there’s nothing Bruce can say that will fix this, that will make this go away like it’s nothing, because the reality is that some things can’t be healed with words. Some things can’t be healed at all, and god, god, Bruce hopes more than anything that Tim’s relationship with the family isn’t one of those things.

A whooshing sound comes from across the Cave. Bruce looks up and freezes.

Tim is in the doorway to the medbay. 

His eyes are bright and wild with fever, chest heaving against his near-translucent skin as his pupils dart around the Cave. Bruce’s eyes widen in shock and concern — how the hell did he wake up? — but whatever the answer Tim is obviously here when he needs to be in bed. “Tim?” Dick asks warily from behind Bruce’s chair as he begins slowly approaching his brother. “What are you—”

There are weapons piled neatly on a rack a solid thirty yards from Tim, far enough that Bruce isn’t at all worried about him getting to them because he’s barely standing — except suddenly Tim is in front of the rack with a katana in each hand, cutting off Dick’s words abruptly with his movement and shifting his feet into a defensive stance that Bruce doesn’t recognize. Bruce — Batman — hadn’t even seen him move. How did he…

The boy twirls the blades expertly in his hands and leaps way farther forward than he should be physically able to when he isn’t injured. He makes two more zigzagging bounds as Bruce jerks to his feet and wracks his brain for even a hint as to what this fighting style is — but his thoughts are halted when Tim flips into a turn on a dime, zipping towards Jason in half an instant. Jason barely has enough time to gasp and drop into a roll before Tim is on him, slashing the katanas crosswise right through the spot where his big brother had just been. Bruce and Dick immediately rush him, trying to hold him back, but Tim is too fast and he’s gone before they can blink, lips pressed tightly as he vaults over them and makes another beeline for Jason. The blades are like extensions of his arms, just as natural to him as lifting his hands, but that should be impossible — Tim always loved working with a bo staff, so Bruce never gave him a ton of sword-based training, just enough to defend himself and fight back if needed. But this kind of prowess can only come from years of practice, decades, even. Tim is seventeen. What the hell?

Oh. The League. It has to have come from the League.

Shit.

Tim is just about to slice through Jason, who has scrambled back against the wall and looks decidedly concerned, when a rough, buzzing voice pierces the air. “Tim, stop!”

Tim whirls around, one sword raised defensively towards Jason and the other towards the new voice, breath rattling harshly out of his damaged chest. Jason stares at him, eyes wide and round as he also pants for air, although a lot less urgently and for a very different reason than Tim. 

Prudence’s chair wheels carefully into his field of view. She puts her hands up in front of her. “Tim, listen. Listen to my voice. You know me.”

Tim blinks rapidly as if trying to clear his vision, his jaw clenched tightly. “Trying… to hurt me…” he wheezes out, and though something in Bruce’s gut turns to ice, Prudence just shakes her head evenly, hands still poised to placate.

“Nobody is trying to hurt you. Where are you right now?”

Bruce doesn’t understand the question, but Tim is focused enough on her that he elects to keep his mouth tentatively shut for now. He signals to the rest of his boys to do the same and they nod with varying degrees of actual acceptance. Oddly enough, Damian is the one who looks downright furious, though Bruce apparently missed whatever steps he took to get there. Bruce makes a mental note to ask him about it later.

A shudder wracks Tim’s small frame and he makes a choked gagging sound, clutching at his chest and sagging slightly where he stands. It takes all the willpower Bruce has not to run forward and sweep his son up into his arms and carry him back to the medbay, but something tells him that really wouldn’t be a good idea right now. And he hates it. He hates this so goddamn much. His son is wounded and feverish and panicked, and he should be none of those things. He should be goofing off in class and playing video games with his brothers and complaining about his homework like any normal seventeen-year-old kid. But that isn’t the life Bruce has forced on him, is it?

“...Pru…?” The boy breathes, squinting at her like it aches to open his eyes. Honestly, it probably does. He takes a shambling step towards her and nearly collapses along the way, and Bruce has to look away for a moment to convince himself to stay still. “You… Y’r… alive…”

Prudence frowns almost imperceptibly, and Bruce frowns very aggressively because he has little control of his face right now with how much worry is busy terrorizing his mind.

“I’m alive,” Prudence agrees calmly, voice gentle but firm, leaving no room for argument. “Tim, where are you right now?”

Confusion flickers in Tim’s burning eyes. “Th… wha…” His gaze darts all around to take in his surroundings as he wobbles slightly and shuffles his feet to steady himself. It doesn’t work. “...Ra’s… where… Cradle…?”

Prudence stiffens, and Bruce likewise stiffens a moment later because her doing that can’t be a good sign. Prudence doesn’t look away, but her eyes seem to drain a bit, to go a little hollow. “We’re not there, Tim,” she says carefully. Something in her voice is off. “We got out. Do you remember?”

Tim stumbles again, barely catching himself this time, and stifles a whimper that makes Bruce want to scream and go punch the everloving crap out of everyone who’s ever hurt this boy. Tim must be in a world of pain if he’s letting people hear him like that; the kid hates people knowing he’s injured, and he has just as stupidly high of a pain tolerance as the rest of them. Across the Cave, Jason looks as absolutely furious as Bruce feels, and Dick just looks gutted. But Damian suddenly looks terrified, shoulders trembling and eyes blown wide . Bruce definitely has some questions to ask him later.

“N-no…” Tim says, voice coming out in a horror-filled whisper that freezes Bruce’s blood in his veins. The boy stumbles again and responds by leaning on one of his swords, allowing the other to clatter uselessly to the stone floor, a little too close to his bare feet for Bruce’s comfort. Tim rubs clumsily at the massive scar over his hip, unable to rip his haunted eyes away from the assassin. “They didn’t… th…” He swallows hard and his head lolls loosely on his shoulders even as he tries to look at her. “...Th’ Pit…?” 

“No, no Pit,” Prudence says quickly, but it’s too late. The air may as well have been sucked out of the room. 

Bruce feels panic sear through his nerves and burn his bones dry and he can’t possibly stop it, can’t possibly do anything but stand here frozen because… no. No. Not Tim. 

Not Tim. Anybody but Tim. Bruce wouldn’t wish the effects of the Lazarus Pit on anyone, but— but Tim… never. His brain… it’s his most valued asset and his greatest struggle, according to Tim himself, and knowing how deeply the pit affects the mind, there’s no telling exactly what it would do to him. The kid has an eidetic memory, and his brain monopolizes most of his energy by design. Every single thing Tim has ever seen, read, heard, touched — every single thing he’s ever experienced is stored in his brain like an endless archive. And past that, he’s also a clinical genius, a remarkably creative problem solver, clever strategist and on-the-fly tactician, even a thoughtful philosopher if you get him going. But whatever the instance, Tim can’t forget and can’t stop memorizing; he’s biologically incapable of not thinking. Whatever happened that wired his brain this way, it does not turn off.

Everyone else in their family has a rageful streak that comes out in various ways depending on the person  — gratuitous violence, the need for revenge, headshots with lead bullets or katanas, et cetera — but not Tim. Sure, Tim has other streaks, plenty of them negative, but rage doesn’t happen with him. He gets annoyed and frustrated like nobody else, he’s self-deprecating and feels guilty about a million different things all the time, he even gets pissed off and he gets furious and he yells at people, but Tim doesn’t do rage. Because rage is thoughtless, and Tim can never. stop. thinking. 

So for composed, gentle, brilliant Tim, the Lazarus Pit and the brainless, uncontrollable, raging madness that comes with it is a fate worse than hell.

But that didn’t happen. Prudence said that didn’t happen. Tim didn’t get put in the Pit, he didn’t get killed, he didn’t get resurrected. It didn’t happen.  

But Bruce can’t help but glance over and— and of course, he finds what he was afraid of finding. Jason has gone painfully rigid where he stands against the wall, eyes wide and blank and a little greener than they should be. His hands are clutching at his chest, scrabbling desperately for something to hold onto, for something to ground him. He looks terrified and furious and so, so young, and it breaks Bruce’s heart even more than it’s already broken. 

Damian is closest and he makes it there first, running straight into Jason’s side and tangling his fingers into the fabric of his shirt. Jason blinks with the impact, his stiff face crumbling into something more human. He looks down and startles at the sight of his little brother’s trembling form, and then Damian mumbles a soft I’m scared that seems a little too shaky to be fake. Jason’s eyes clear to blue. In an instant he’s on one knee at the child’s eye level, his hands placed carefully on small shoulders. Damian bites down on a quivering lip and whispers something too quietly for Bruce to hear, and Jason immediately wraps the boy in a hug and pulls him close just as Damian flings his arms around Jason’s neck and shoves his face into his shoulder. 

Bruce blinks. His eyes flick around just enough to notice Dick doing the same for a split second before he nods and refocuses on Tim. God, these boys… Bruce is unbelievably proud of them. He’ll have to tell them that later. And this time later will come. 

“You’re not there, Tim,” Prudence is saying, hands still held up peacefully, and Bruce tunes back in immediately. “You’re safe. We’re safe.”

Tim gags, a sound of sheer, animalistic pain escaping his chest. It grates in Bruce’s ears and his heart. “Wh… where…?” The boy mutters, blinking rapidly. His knees shake even as he forces himself to stay in a semi-fighting stance, ready to attack should the need arise. 

Instead of answering the question, Prudence wheels closer. “We’re safe,” she says again, and Bruce finds his stomach roiling once again with concern, but he can’t make himself move. “This is a false alarm.”

Bruce frowns, tucking that away for now. Tim’s sunken eyes flicker weakly up to meet hers, and it’s all Bruce can do not to cry from the look of utter agony on his boy’s face. “Panic…?” Tim whispers.

Prudence nods quickly, firmly. “Panic response mistrigger,” she says, as if that makes any sense, and Tim just blinks slowly before he sighs and suddenly lets his eyes roll back into his head as his body unceremoniously drops, sword falling to the floor alongside the boy’s small frame.

Before Bruce can do much as yelp, Dick is there, catching Tim carefully and cradling him to his chest. Dick is breathing hard and ragged despite a lack of exertion, eyes wild as they dart around the room. Prudence huffs a relieved breath and shakes her head, pressing a hand into her forehead. “He needs to go back to the medbay,” she says tiredly, but Dick is already on his feet, rushing forwards. Alfred is standing in the doorway, appearing slightly ruffled and immensely worried but otherwise unharmed as he turns and quickly guides Dick and his cargo inside. 

Bruce and Jason converge on where Prudence sits just as the door slides closed. “What was that?” Jason says, and Prudence opens her mouth, but the voice that escapes isn’t hers.

“Panic response.” The tone is airy and rasped and they all turn to see Damian slowly making his way towards them, wide-eyed and stumbling a little on his feet. He finally looks up and locks onto Prudence. “Ra’s reprogrammed him.”

The nausea in Bruce’s stomach returns tenfold at the mere idea. How the hell have none of them seen what Tim’s been going through, even just by accident? 

Prudence nods, but it isn’t as grim as Bruce had been expecting. “Right,” she says, and Damian pales, flinching slightly even as the girl gives him a look and continues. “Ra’s tried to reprogram him, but none of it stuck. His mind is so convoluted that it didn’t work. Tim’s brain is wired weirdly or something, so none of the traditional methods of reprogramming got through to him if he didn’t want them to. The only one he let take root was the panic response.”

Damian appears to have relaxed somewhat, so Bruce decides talking will be okay for now. “The what?”

Prudence looks at him tiredly. “He has an automatic panic response for when he’s in extreme danger, to give him one last burst of adrenaline. He let it take root cuz he figured it might be useful, and it has been. It woke him up in the desert that night Owens and Z died. It’s also probably why he woke up a few hours ago, and definitely why he woke up just now.”

“But why would…” Bruce stops and takes a short breath, unsure if he actually wants this answer even though he knows he needs to ask. He swallows. “Why would he panic right now?”

Prudence looks at him oddly, like his detective work isn’t really the world’s greatest. “Because this is the Batcave,” she says matter-of-factly. 

Bruce squeezes his eyes shut and tries to breathe. “Right,” he wheezes. 

Jason ignores him and turns to her. “Does Ra’s know the programming didn’t work?”

Prudence huffs. “He knows. Took him a whole, though — he only found out when Tim set off his plan to take down the League. Ra’s was, uh… not happy. About any of it.”

The air in the Batcave freezes. 

Bruce’s brain isn’t processing. It isn’t— it can’t… that doesn’t make any sense. That’s impossible. It can’t be. It can’t be, because— because they would know. They would have to know. Right?

“What do you mean?” A small voice says softly.

Prudence blinks. She looks like she… went somewhere for a second. Bruce watches from outside his body as she shakes her head and looks over at the little boy slowly shuffling forward to stand in front of her. “Sorry, I… what?” 

Damian makes it to her side and places a small hand on the armrest of her wheelchair, tapping his fingers up and down. For some reason, it doesn’t look awkward or afraid or threatening as Bruce would’ve expected — just absent-minded. Like he’s trying to calm himself down. He stares at his hand on the chair. “Y-You said… that Timothy took the League down.”

“...I did.”

The boy’s eyes flicker up and stare into hers. He looks… young. And it’s once again hitting Bruce that Damian really is just a child, a little boy who wants to know what happened. Sure, a week ago Bruce had thought (but not said) that despite Bruce and Dick’s efforts, Damian didn’t really care for Tim. But that was before he’d seen him down beside him on the street, on the plane as he flatlined, and now… well. Bruce is intimately familiar with what regret looks like. 

Bruce thinks of exactly what it would mean if the League has really been taken down. What it would mean for Jason and Damian, standing here frozen with the same look on their faces. Bruce has children, and so he has learned what it means to have hope. And he knows what hope looks like when it’s so closely guarded by years of being hurt over and over again, of being hurt as punishment for the act of having hope at all. 

Damian’s doe eyes blink slowly, wetness clinging to his eyelashes. “...And… and did he?”

Prudence stares at him, and so does Bruce, at this little kid who has been haunted by his past for his entire short life. And if Prudence is telling the truth, then Bruce is looking at a little kid, his son, who has no idea that Tim has actually bought him time — time to sleep heavily, time to make mistakes, time to grow up — because Ra’s is rebuilding his own life and doesn’t have time to destroy Damian’s. 

Prudence meets the kid’s eyes and nods, even and steady. “He did.” She tilts her head towards him for some reason, no longer distant and angry, as if she needs him to hear this. Damian’s eyes are huge, face completely slack with blankness. “You sure you want the whole story? I’m not supposed to tell you,” she says slowly. Damian nods and she sighs, clearly having expected that answer. “Listen very carefully.” She glances briefly around at Bruce and Jason before refocusing on the kid. “Ra’s contacted Tim with an offer once he arrived in Europe to start his search for Batman. He wanted him to be the new Demon’s heir. He wanted to use Tim for his brain and— and reprogram the rest of him for his own purposes.”

“But there’s no way Tim took that deal,” Jason says, frowning. “He’s here right now. And he’s not the kind of person who throws a gamble like that.”

Prudence shakes her head. “It wasn’t a gamble; of course he knew it was basically suicide going into it. But Ra’s had the resources Tim needed to save Batman, and he wasn’t gonna find that help anywhere else.” She looks like she wants to level a glare at Bruce, but she doesn’t. She keeps her eyes firmly on Damian. 

“What did he do with the resources?” Jason says quickly, kneels in front of the chair.

The girl nods an acknowledgement but doesn’t look away from Damian’s cracked green eyes. “Tim played along. He agreed to the deal and got himself inside the League’s home base, and he used the resources Ra’s gave him and got to work. Tim has an eidetic memory — photographic. He was given access to the League’s computers and he memorized every single part of the system he saw. He was being watched by a hundred eyes both online and in person and he slipped past all of them and remotely hacked every single League of Assassins computer in the world. I’ve never seen anything like it.” She exhales shakily, unable to keep a sort of lingering excitement out of her voice. Two tears trace down Damian’s cheeks — so unbelievably hopeful. “And he took it down. He took it all down, Damian.” Without hesitation she reaches out and rests her hand on the armrest right beside his. He doesn’t move, just stares, and Jason stares, and Bruce stares. “He stalled until he had everything he needed and then he fried the system. He destroyed the League from the inside and he fought his way back out. He took it down, Damian.” A small smile tugs at her lips. “It’ll take Ra’s years to build his network back up to what it was before. He won’t come after you. He won’t.”  

The air is frozen again, but this time it seems like it's rolling through Damian’s completely empty brain like a tumbleweed. Bruce can’t take his eyes off his youngest son, off the shake of his hands and the silent cascade of emotion. For an instant, the boy stands stock-still, and a moment later he shudders hard and he presses his palms into his eyes, slumping forward onto his knees and curling in on himself. The sobs come hot and fast, wrenching his whole body, and Bruce and Jason both move to wrap him in their arms at the same time. For once, they don’t fight over the conflict, leaving them in a hug pile around the boy who is suddenly safe for the first time in his life. And Bruce feels grateful for that, but he doesn’t feel better, doesn’t feel okay. 

He just feels the nausea in his stomach and the deep well of sadness in his chest, because for all the gratefulness in the world, there’s still a piece missing, and his son is still lying lifeless in that hospital bed.

Chapter Text

It’s been over an hour since Damian moved a muscle. 

By his count, it’s been a little under nine hours since Drake moved a muscle, either. 

That puts them at around twenty-one hours since the assassin had first contacted Drake over the back door in the comms, fifteen hours since they found out that the boy is missing a vital organ, and nine hours since his panic response was triggered by the act of being in his own home. 

And about eight and a half hours since Damian found out that he doesn’t have to twitch at every sound anymore, that he doesn’t have to hide knives in his pajamas and under his pillow, that he doesn’t have to plan escape routes out of his house. Eight and a half hours since Damian found out that, for the first time in his life, he’s safe. Thanks to Timothy Drake, the interloper, the pretender, the stand-in — thanks to him, Damian is safe.

Back in the Cave, that realization had somehow lifted the weight of the world off his shoulders and crushed him to dust at the same time. It’s not a feeling he’s used to, but then again, very few feelings are. In response, he’d just kind of let himself collapse and be cared for by his father and brother, now that he’s suddenly free to accept that kind of care because he can relax, breathe, rest, anything.

But Drake can’t. 

Damian knows — has known all this time — that he’s treated Drake with the utmost cruelty. He knows that his cruelty has gone unreprimanded in any way that matters, and largely unchecked on his part. It’s extended far and wide across Drake’s mind, scarring his psyche in a way that Damian had never bothered to care about because he couldn’t see it.

Which is like saying gravity doesn’t exist because he can’t see it. And then jumping off a building to test that. Damn it.

The invisible nature of damage doesn’t make it any less painful. That’s what he’s learned from the videos that the assassin showed them, and what he’s spent his time stewing over since he managed to trudge up the stairs and get himself into the shower. He’d been covered in blood, in— in Drake’s blood, and once the adrenaline and shock and terror and relief wore off, he was left with the feeling of it crawling all over his skin, wriggling into his brain through his ears and reminding him of all the things he could’ve done better.

It’s a long list.

The concept of psychological scars hadn’t even occurred to him until he’d moved to Gotham. In the League, personal inhibitions are not to be taken lightly; stepping out of line means forfeiting your life, and if you have any kind of psychological issue that makes you react outside of your control, you wind up very prone to stepping out of line. Damian remembers once waking up to a man — hardly a man in the eyes of the League, a simple foot soldier — screaming from somewhere down the hall. He’d assumed, naturally, that they were being attacked, so he’d readied himself for battle and left his quarters to engage, but the hallways had been empty. Damian had searched around for a bit, briefly encountered his mother who had also been woken, and returned to sleep.

The next day, there was an empty space in one of the training squads. It was filled with another faceless soldier in a moment, but Damian had seen it. And he’d thought nothing of it.

Four years later, he had been awoken in his room in the manor by a similar sound, and had gone to Grayson’s room to investigate. His brother had explained to him, then, what a night terror was, that it was scary but harmless, outside of one’s control. Damian had gone back to bed.

Another two months after that, he’d finally made the connection between the screaming he’d heard in the League and the screaming he’d heard in the manor. At least Grayson hadn’t been executed.

Since then, he’s learned that he, too, has plenty of psychological scars. Way too many for someone your age, Grayson had once told him. And he received help with them — Grayson poured himself into caring for Damian, gave him all the kindness in his heart despite everything, and eventually, a sharp, wounded little boy had grown into something resembling a person.

Drake also has plenty of psychological scars. But ever since Damian became Robin, everything he’s seen has told him that Drake’s scars are less important than his, less worthy of notice and action. That’s what everyone is always saying, right? 

You’re older, Tim, you have to take the high road.

Damian doesn’t know any better — you need to be more patient with him.

Look, he had a hard childhood, okay? Cut him some slack.

Cut Damian some slack? What, for all the times he tried to murder Drake even well after he knew it was wrong? For all the times he’s said things so reprehensible that Drake had chosen to move out of his own home? For all the times he’s taken glee in watching the light drain from Drake’s eyes?

And yes, Drake is older, but he’s still just a child. The boy barely even has his driver’s license; why is he expected to be the adult in the room? Why are his scars not too many for someone his age, too? Why is Damian, who is almost thirteen, allowed to act like a grumpy, destructive toddler? What’s so different between them, that Damian gets so much more room to make mistakes and learn and grow, even after two full years in the Robin suit? Why does Todd still get that extra room? Why does Grayson?

What’s different between them that has allowed Damian to stay by his father’s side while Drake is thrown away? How does he avoid having that happen to him ?

And isn’t that a selfish way to look at it? But that tends to be his lot in life.

Damian doesn’t understand. That seems to be the general undercurrent of the day: his brain is being stuffed full with new information, conflicting and unfamiliar emotions, realizations that he doesn’t have the tools to process, and it’s simply too much for him to think through right now. 

What he does understand is this: Damian’s psychological scars are not more important than Drake’s, because pain is not a contest and suffering is not a sport. In fact, it’s highly likely that Damian has personally worsened Drake’s mental state far beyond what is safe. But even before Damian had come along, Drake had clearly been struggling with things in his life — Damian just doesn’t know what those things are. And that’s bothering him a lot more than he cares to admit, because for once, it so clearly lays out how little he actually knows about Drake, about this person who is supposed to be his brother. Damian doesn’t know him beyond Red Robin and slashing insults, beyond the boy’s skill set and a very occasional line or two over the comms. 

Damian has no idea what Timothy Drake enjoys, what he wants, what he does, who he is. Damian doesn’t know because he’s never bothered to learn, never cared enough to ask so much as a single question about the boy’s life, never cared enough to look him in the eye and give him the time of day. And likewise, he’s never given Drake the chance to get to know him; every time the boy has tried to reach out, ask about his school or his art or his training, Damian has shut him down. Whether that be on the grounds of Drake’s supposed inferiority or because Damian simply assumes malice, it had always happened. And now he knows nothing. It’s not as if Drake has been perfect, either, and malice had certainly come through more than once — the Hit List incident comes most readily to mind. But Damian had tried to literally kill the boy on multiple occasions and walked away with no repercussions — Drake could be forgiven for his tension and wariness.

But they can’t exactly have a conversation about it right now, can they?

Damian’s back heaves a little bit, pressing firmly against tile as his breaths come shallow and quick, one after the other after the other. He doesn’t remember sitting down on the floor of the shower — actually, he doesn’t remember getting in the shower at all — but he’s here now, and tracing the pattern in the tile mosaic under his hands is comforting enough to keep him here. The water, cold and unforgiving, has been hitting him for so long that his body is shivering and his skin stinging, and still, the liquid runs tinted pink when it flows into the drain. 

He stares at the water for a long moment, then at his hands. The natural creases that stretch across his palms are vibrant and far more visible than normal — there’s dried blood etched into the tiny pathways. 

Drake’s blood on his hands. How fitting.

No matter how much he scratches and digs at his skin, he can’t remove the burning red lines. If anything, his scratching just makes them worse, just makes his hands shake more as he struggles to distance himself from the thoughts they trigger, the memories they clutch in bloodied fingers. 

But it isn’t the terror he remembers so clearly, the shock, the confusion, the gut-wrenching fear that’s keeping him here on the floor of the shower. He feels those things reverberating through his bones, twisting and painful just like they had been when he’d first seen Drake’s lifeless form on the pavement — but they’re not why his every breath feels like it’s being torn through him.

The real reason is the relief. It’s the relief that haunts him the most. Not his own relief, because beyond the fact that Drake is alive, there’s not a lot of that to be found. Rather, he can’t stop seeing the instant when death had seemed certain and Drake had responded with that relief. It had flashed across his face but stayed in his eyes, lingering knowingly as that blank stare had clouded his pupils, as the blood and tears had run down the side of his face and fallen onto the blacktop, as he had told Damian he was sorry in a shattered voice forced through a broken chest — exhausted, resigned, content. And horribly, horribly relieved.

I probably would’ve blown my brains out in the yard eventually. Less mess for my parents to clean up if it’s outside.

That’s what Drake had said in that last video. And Damian knows with absolute certainty that he’d meant it. 

Ignoring the tremors in his legs, Damian forces himself to his feet, somehow managing to not slip and fall as he stumbles out of the shower. He has to— he has to go. He has to move, run, fight, something, because there’s a million things rattling around in his chest — there’s a hole in Drake’s chest, there’s fluid in his lungs, he’s dying — and the pressure is too much, too painful for him to contain any longer, too strong for him to push down. He finds himself standing in front of his dresser and understands, knows he needs to get dressed because why else would his body drag him here? And he tugs on a pair of boxers and notices that they cling to his thighs because his skin is still wet — it hadn’t occurred to him to use a towel when he’d exited the shower, and now it looks like his legs have been replaced with blue fabric, stitched from it and stuffed with cotton like a doll to be stuck with pins. He yanks a T-shirt out of his drawer and balls it up roughly in one hand, scrubbing it across his skin. It dries him off well enough for him to change his boxers and shove himself into a pair of sweatpants and one of Grayson’s old hoodies. The thing dwarfs him, but it’s comfortable, if rather unpolished. 

Then again, Damian isn’t really feeling too polished right now, anyway.

He begins the walk to the grandfather clock. Step by step by step.

It’s the relief that haunts him not only because of its existence at all, but because of its raw depth. It had gone all the way through Drake’s eyes, bathed his waxy skin in a grateful glow from the inside, instinctively upturned the bloodied corners of his lips. Why would it be so strong, so complete and all-encompassing? 

Because Drake has been waiting for death for a very long time. Maybe not actively hunting for it, maybe not wishing for it, but waiting for it nonetheless, quiet and cautious and biding his time. That’s the only logical answer that Damian can find. 

It burns behind his eyes.

And that’s rich, isn’t it? That Drake’s death would upset Damian, the very person who’d tried to cause it so many times. Scare him, even. When did he grow a conscience?

Since he moved to Gotham, actually. Since he’d met the Bats — since he’d met Drake. 

Because the truth, no matter how much he doesn’t want to admit it, is that Damian has always thought of Drake as being infuriatingly perfect. He’s everything that Damian isn’t: the effective, respected leader, the brilliant and level-headed detective, the powerful yet invisible combatant, everything distilled to maximum concentration and balanced to the nanogram. Drake is perfect and it’s not fair, because Damian isn’t perfect even after everything he’s done to get there.

Of course Drake seems perfect, Damian is realizing. Because if there had ever been a moment where he hadn’t seemed it, hadn’t effectively embodied it, he would’ve been removed from the roster, exiled from the group and from the family. Drake gets one chance where the rest of them get dozens; to be perfect is his only option. Maybe if he could be perfect, someone would want him this time. Maybe they wouldn’t throw him away.

But perfection doesn’t exist, and Drake has been thrown away over and over and over again. Damian had once found joy in that. Now it just makes something black boil in his stomach.

He takes the stairs down to the cave one by one. Each step is a feat of willpower, a battle of heart and instinct. 

Drake is kind. It’s not that he can be kind — it’s that he is kind. Inherently and by default. Kind, compassionate, understanding, empathetic, forgiving, and all kinds of other things that Damian hadn’t been when he’d arrived here. Things he’s been learning. In a direct way with Grayson, sure, but also from Drake, by example and design. 

And Damian doesn’t like the idea that without Drake, he wouldn’t be who he is — but at the same time, hasn’t he always been jealous of those same traits? Hasn’t he always felt the burning need to pick them up in some way or another? Why not from Drake?

Although… well. Drake very well may have too many of those traits for his own good. He’s so focused on the wellbeing of others that his own is abandoned, so focused on being good and useful and perfect that everything else falls by the wayside. Everything revolves around that which is not Drake. Damian doesn’t know who Drake is, it’s true. But… but he wonders if Drake knows who Drake is. If he does, Damian hasn’t seen him assert that, certainly.

Another thing that Drake does is think for himself and form his own opinions about things (granted that those things aren’t Drake himself). Damian hadn’t given himself the chance to create his own ideas about his predecessor, had instead just blindly followed what his mother had taught him.

Not for the first time, he wishes he hadn’t. 

The stairwell opens up into the gaping cavity in the rock and Damian steps through the swooping stone arch into the Cave. His eyes immediately catch on the rack of weapons standing in a corner, neatly organized and tucked away as if nobody had ever touched it, and in some odd corner of his mind, he wishes that Pennyworth hadn’t tidied the mess. In this state, it’s… it’s so easy for Damian to simply put the panic response out of his mind. It looks like nothing happened here. Like Drake hadn’t suddenly and accidentally revealed himself to be damaged beyond what any of them had thought. That is— beyond what any of them had bothered to know. Even as Damian rips his gaze away and keeps walking, he refuses to push from his mind the image of Drake, blue-lipped and trembling, barely kept on his feet by a sword-turned-crutch. 

Damian can’t tell if he’s a masochist for thinking he deserves to see that blank, haunted look in Drake’s eyes until the day he dies. 

Unsurprisingly, Damian finds himself at the door to the medbay. He doesn’t remember the walk from the shower to here, not truly, but it doesn’t matter now. He’s here and he can feel the cool rush of air that hits his face when the door slides open automatically, and the same thing from the following door, and then he’s standing on a threshold and staring across a stark white bed to meet the eyes of the assassin. She doesn’t blink, merely nods her bald head at a folding chair that’s been set up across from her on the opposite side of the cot. Damian swallows.

He moves for it. Settles himself on the hard surface of the seat with his fingers clenched around the edges. He stares at his whitening knuckles, hiding his eyes like a cowering child. All of a sudden he feels… young. The assassin is staring so sharply that she must be boring holes into the top of his head - he can feel it. He can feel how small he is, how tight his fingers are curled, how heavy his skull is on his neck. He can feel a lot of things. He can feel a lot of things, but the only one that seems to mean anything is the ache in his chest that burrowed inside his ribcage hours ago, crawled in from the dirty Gotham back-alley asphalt where Drake’s clouded, relieved eyes stared at an empty sky.

Damian shivers. The assassin notices. 

He expects her to sigh heavily or roll her eyes or something of the like, but she doesn’t. She just hums, and the searing feeling of her eyes on him disappears. When she speaks, her voice is unfamiliar, if only because it’s hushed, soft like she’s tapped into some place in her head that she doesn’t normally go. “What do you wanna know, kid?”

Damian blinks at her. He opens his mouth to ask her what she means, but what comes out instead is a mumbled phrase and he tries to snap it off, tries to shut his teeth around it, tries to stuff it back inside his lungs, not that any of those tries succeed. “What is he like?”

Once the words are out of his mouth, he doesn’t even think to curse himself or his lack of self-control — he’s too busy wanting an answer. Whatever emotion it is that crosses the assassin’s face, it certainly isn’t surprise. Damian can’t muster the energy or focus to think about that right now.

The assassin chews on the corner of her lip — an absent-minded habit of hers, it looks like — and lets her eyes drift around. In the pause, Damian notes that the barely-restrained rage has seeped from her face; there’s no more cold hatred to be contained inside a cage of bone and sinew, no more murderous intent bound and writhing in a web of veins. For whatever reason, the assassin has decided that Damian won’t receive her anger. 

He feels like he should be annoyed by that, but somehow, he can only feel grateful. 

“He likes gummy worms, but not gummy bears.”

Damian’s eyes flick up a few inches, instinctively trying to catch the gaze of the assassin, but she’s staring down at the cot, at the limp white hand lying in front of her, the knuckles scabbed over and the fingers thin and spindly like spider legs. The other lies in front of Damian, equally arachnid, calloused from years of writing with a pen and fighting with a staff. The assassin huffs a soft laugh and swallows shallowly. “Sorry, that’s— I don’t know why that’s the first thing that comes to mind. But it is, so.” She dips her head slightly, but doesn’t seem to be preparing to speak again. Damian inhales slowly, quietly, but finally just nods and turns his eyes to Drake’s waxen face. The boy’s eyelids are translucent, Damian notes — he can see the edge of a pale blue ring underneath each one, made more vibrant by the pallor of the skin. 

He hears the assassin swallow from where she sits across from him, right here and yet so far away. “Um.” She chews on the side of her lip again, her eyes never leaving that spidery hand. “He loves science fiction. He could prattle on about Star Wars for hours because he’s mental about the production design, but you know, he actually prefers Star Trek, and his favorite movie is a tie between Ex Machina and the original Robocop. And he— he refuses to watch movies unless all the lights are off. He won’t do it. And—” The assassin tales a quick breath in and doesn’t let it out. “And he chews things, like he chews the ends of pencils and things, his fingernails, you know. Does it all the time, too, not just when he’s nervous. I think he does it when he’s bored.”

She pauses again, and another expression crosses her face that Damian finds himself unable to read. Not for the first time, Damian wonders when people are supposed to learn to read emotions, wonders if that’s something else he missed in his early childhood along with hugs and picture books and family dinner. Actually, now that he thinks about it… Father said that Drake’s parents left him alone. Left him trapped in a big empty house for years and years, all alone. Right?

Then Drake probably missed hugs and picture books and family dinner, too. He probably missed those things and thousands more that even Mother — that is, even Talia al Ghul — wouldn’t have denied Damian — the little moments of contact during training, the wishes of good night before he went to bed, the small cake left at his door every year on his birthday. All things Drake never would have been given, because there was nobody there to give them.

Damn it.

Damian glances up and finds the assassin looking at him with her head tilted slightly, as if waiting for him to finish having his realizations before speaking, not that she could’ve known what he was thinking. Regardless, in an odd way, he appreciates it. He gives her a slight nod and she once again bites on the corner of her lip as her eyes drift back towards the pale spider on the cot. 

“He loves fish. Like, loves them. It’s kind of stupid, actually. The kid will sit and stare at a tiny fish bowl for hours if you let him, and he’ll grin like an idiot the whole time. We— uh, those two guys from the videos and I, we took him to a full aquarium once just to see what he would do, and he damn near cried, I swear. We had shit to do that day, too, and none of it got done. Know why? Cuz Tim was too busy babbling about fuckin’ parrotfish or something. He looked like a little kid on Christmas.” A smile warms her face for an instant — just a flicker of a thing, gone as soon as it comes, but it makes Damian’s shoulders feel a little lighter anyway. “He’s always wanted to go scuba diving. I mean, he’s been before, but only ever as a Bat. He wants to go for fun — as Tim. You know?” 

She doesn’t look up, but Damian nods anyway. She swallows again, harder this time.

“He also— he loves Calvin and Hobbes. The comic strip, I mean. He has all the books, like the collections of it, he has them all. And he wants to get a dog. A big one from a shelter, he said, a big mutt. Someone who needs a home. I think he’s projecting there, if you ask me. Um. Y’know, he sings about what he’s doing when he’s nervous. He’s— he likes music as much as the next guy, but I mean he’ll start narrating his life when he’s nervous, but singing it. For real music, he has literally no criteria. Doesn’t sort by genre or artist or anything — he just shoves everything he’s ever liked into one playlist and that’s it. And he likes video games, not that he has a ton of time to play them. He still has his DSLite from when he was five or six — he’s got an absolutely nasty team in his copy of Pokémon: Pearl, I’m not gonna lie. And he likes hiking. And climbing trees and shit. He loves nature — that was originally why he started taking pictures, apparently. Oh, and photography, obviously, he loves photography. And rain. He likes it when it rains in summer and spring. He said he used to like racing the raindrops when they roll down the window, but I’m about 99% sure he still does it these days. And… and he’s—”

Her words, coming at a near-frantic clip a moment ago, stutter to a stop. Damian is confused, still processing the pile of odd information she’s just given him, but he’s aware enough to notice that her gaze has shifted from Drake’s hand to his face. Damian doesn’t want to look, but he finds his eyes crawling up the thin body on their own, past the white skin stretched over a bony chest, crisscrossed by thick bandages that are only a shade paler, past the rounded, knobby shoulders, past the hollowed neck and the familiar scar lanced across it. His eyes one on the still, still face of the boy he replaced with glee, the boy he tried to kill, the boy whose mere existence was enough to make Damian hate him. The boy who called him brother . The boy who called him brother, and yet here Damian sits, learning about that boy from a stranger. 

“...He’s funny.”

Damian looks up, startled. “What?” He says, or he means to say, but it comes out as barely a whisper, crushed and crumbling.

The assassin shakes her head. “Tim’s funny. He’s— I don’t think people know that. He’s funny. He can string together banter like nobody else — he’s witty, too, but everyone knows that — and he’s got this big, big laugh, y’know? Like a… like… I dunno. Like a big, proper laugh from your belly, his laugh. Especially with— with Owens. They were the best of mates, the two of them, and they just spent hours and hours cracking jokes back and forth, trying to out-joke each other. But he does it with everyone, not just Owens. He’s good at bringing morale up on jobs, even — he makes it lighthearted no matter what it is, diffuses a lot of the tension. He makes things… fun. And fun is pretty hard to come by in our line of work.”

Damian blinks. Fun? Banter? Lighthearted? These are probably some of the last words he would’ve ever associated with Drake. The boy is just so… so…

Nothing. He’s nothing. Because Damian has no idea who he is and has never tried to learn. But maybe he’s learned some things here and now. Maybe even enough to… well.

Brother, huh?

In some ways, Damian supposes, he and the assassin are playing the same role, albeit working in opposite directions. This assassin was on al Ghul orders to kill Drake and instead worked to join him, while Damian was on Bat orders to join Drake and instead worked to kill him. 

What remains to be seen, at least for Damian, is who is playing the role of the villain, one of them or both of them or neither of them. He doesn’t know. 

He doesn’t know, but for some reason, he finds himself hoping that it’s neither of them. 

Damian stares down at the boy’s empty face and suddenly has to bite his lower lip to keep it from trembling. He has a sneaking suspicion that maybe Drake wasn’t the only one he wronged when he refused to build a relationship. Maybe he’s done himself a great injustice, too. 

What if he doesn’t get to correct it? What if this is how it ends? If time runs out and Drake’s hourglass breaks, how much will be lost that Damian never got to know?

Damian wants to know. He wants to get to know Drake and ask him all these questions himself — see his face light up at an aquarium and hear him sing about what he’s doing and meet the dog for whom Drake wants to provide the good home that he never got for himself. Damian wants… he wants another chance. He wants a brother. 

He looks up. The assassin is looking back at him, and when their eyes meet, hers seem to harden into something stronger, more determined than before. It feels like looking into a mirror. “Do you think he’ll make it?” Damian asks quietly, though his head is held high.

She considers him for a minute, scanning left and right across his face, and then nods once. “Tim has a habit of facing impossible odds and bitch-slapping them. I think he can survive — I’m just not sure if he thinks he should.”

Damian thinks about asking what she means by that, but then that phrase from her final video floats through his head, and he realizes he already knows: I probably would’ve blown my brains out in the yard eventually. 

Behind it, another phrase comes rushing back to his mind, surrounded by the smell of wet asphalt and the sound of blood and tears dripping onto the pavement in a Gotham back alley: I’m sorry for not being your big brother.

Grief twists harshly in his chest. The pain is becoming more and more familiar, and Damian refuses to become fully acquainted with it. Not Drake, not this time. 

Damian frowns. “Maybe he doesn’t think he should survive, but I do.”

The assassin’s eyes widen a fraction before she’s suddenly grinning sharply and leaning forward in her chair, gripping the armrests with cracked white knuckles. Her eyes glint with certainty and danger — somehow, it’s comforting, and not only because Damian can actually read these emotions. “Then convince him,” she says, voice low and full and quietly excited. “Convince him to fight. Talk to him, sit with him, read to him — it doesn’t matter. Just… be here with him. He’ll know it. I know he will.”

Damian isn’t sure if he believes that. But as he sits here and looks from the assassin to Drake and back again, he realizes that he doesn’t care about what he believes — he only cares about what he can do to give this family another chance.

He exhales and reaches out, entwining his fingers with those of the white spider hand in front of him. Instinctively, he brings it to his forehead and bows his head as if in prayer. “Timothy,” he mutters, half to himself and half to the boy on the cot. He barely even notices the shift in his language — it just feels too right to be disruptive. “I am here with you. I am here, and I want to be your brother, too.”