Archive of Our Own

It’s cold.

It’s—it’s really cold, right now in this alley. It was cold at home, too. No, not home. That manor with freezing hallways that were always empty and void of any life, was certainly not a home. Not for Tim, at least. There was no one who could help him make it a home. A real home.

So Tim did the only thing he could think of at the time: try somewhere else.

He took to the streets every night that he could, snapping pictures of Batman and Robin on a camera his parents paid for but would never know that they did because they didn't pay enough attention to their bank account. He clambered over walls and arches to get that perfect shot, learned how to scale buildings, just so he can truly capture their wild and determined efforts. He learned so many things, just so he could be with Batman and Robin, even if he could never really be with them. The thoughts that were once occupied by pondering how to get his parents to stay for longer than a week are now occupied by excited musings of how to improve his photography and see even more.

It’s still cold. But now there is life around him.

At the Drake manor, there were closets filled with expensive clothing that would never be used. There were tasteful paintings of beautiful landscapes decorating the hallways, which while delightful at first glance, told you nothing about the owners. There were displays of delicate Chinese pottery, from the Tang Dynasty sitting at the front of the dining room for potential guests to ‘ooh’ and ‘ah’ over. Expensive things that so many yearned to own, but he was willing to trade all of that for this.

Tim had fallen.

He’s dizzy and his head is spinning round and round in circles. He knows why and he knows it’s his own fault. He had been scrambling onto the rooftop of the cafe that he knew had the perfect view of the dynamic duo confronting a robbery at the Gotham Bank, but the pipe that was attached to the edge of the building’s rooftop and what he was using to leverage himself, must have been dusty or wet or something, because he fell.

It’s hard to concentrate and as he fell, all he could think of was John and Mary Grayson falling, falling, falling, on that cursed but beautiful sunny day. Their bodies had gone splat. Splat on the ground, and he couldn’t look away until his mother roughly gripped his hair to forcefully turn him away from their broken corpses.

Now he’s in the same situation. Not entirely, but still broken like they had been. His right leg had broken his fall, but even as small and light as he was it wasn’t enough.

A small part of him is so curious and wants to look. Is there blood? It feels like it’s bleeding, but it hurts too much for him to actually tell. But ultimately, he doesn’t want to look at it; he really doesn’t. He’s scared. He’s read all of the articles, watched so many documentaries. He knows what it looks like when you break your leg. It’s all fine when you see a simulation or see it happen to someone else because you’re detached and distant from the situation. But seeing that happen to yourself? Entirely different.

Tim’s breath hitches as he tries to keep back tears and turns his head away. Now he could just barely see the warm light enveloping the orphanage across the street from where he laid on achingly freezing concrete, where children cried over the loss of their parents. Though his own parents were still alive, he understood their loss. But at the same time, he didn’t, because how do you lose something you never really had?

He wants to scold himself for being so reckless. So stupid. But honestly, he’s too tired; he’s really tired. And so cold. And his leg feels like it’s pulsing with pain—wait, no, don’t think about the leg. He’s too tired to think about the leg, right now. Tim exhales, a visible puff escaping from his bluish lips into the bitter Gotham air.

The cold creep along Tim’s fingertips like ice, the sensation of utter numbness running through his veins like the surface of a slowly solidifying lake. His blood feels like ice as his teeth violently chatter behind his lips. If he had the energy, he would maybe try to crawl to somewhere warm. But he’s exhausted.

He’s tired, and he knows what’s happening to him. His mind may be foggy, but he spent too much time on WebMD to not know that he has hypothermia. He knows that he might die here. If he had someone, even one person looking for him (and possibly willing to hug him, just like how he has seen in all of those movies), maybe he would have a fighting chance.

But he doesn’t.

He doesn’t have somebody like that. He has never been able to create a strong enough bond in which he could count on someone, not in his seven years of life. So for now, he will lay here.

With shaking, trembling fingers that he can’t even tell are attached to his hand, still. With slow and slowing pants for breath and a shivering body. With thoughts of Batman and Robin.

Maybe they will find him? He imagines Batman will scoop him up and give him a hug; a warm hug with a smile that reaches further than the corners of his lips, but to his eyes as well.

And now, all of the sudden, Tim doesn’t feel the cold anymore. The air that was once frigid, is just numbing now. It’s not warm. But it’s not cold anymore. Is that better? He’s not sure, but he closes his eyes anyway.

***

It’s cold, again. Tim’s eyes flick open. It’s so, so cold. Why?

He leaps up with newfound energy, running to the convenience store nearby. He doesn’t even notice how noiseless his steps are when he finds himself at the counter, where a bored teenager stood.

“Excuse me?” Tim awkwardly says.

She ignores him. Typical, but not unusual.

“Excuse me?” He tries again, moving to rest his hands on the counter when he suddenly falls.

His hands just… phased through the counter? Tim stares at his body before looking at his hands. He moves to smack the counter and lets out a shriek when he realizes that his hands aren’t making contact with the counter, no matter how much effort he puts into hitting it.

“Please, no!” He shouts, scrambling to his feet and moving closer to the cashier. “You have to hear me!”

But his efforts prove to be futile as she continues to scroll through her phone.

“I’m—I’m dead,” Tim mutters numbly to himself before rushing out of the store, back to where his cold corpse lay in the alley.

His shattered camera lays in pieces a little bit away from one of his hands. His body is curled up except for his right leg, which is stretched out and terrifyingly gory.

Tim twists his head away from the sight, his lip curling in disgust.

Realization hits him like a trainwreck and he quickly looks to check his leg. It looks horrifying but it doesn’t stop him from being able to use it. Something he should have clued into when he realizes he could still walk on it, evidenced by how he was able to run to the convenience store. He lets out a sigh of relief. He wants to throw up, but it could be worse. Not to mention that he can’t throw up, because of the dead thing.

He could walk. But it’s still so cold. He’s freezing, even though he’s a ghost. Tim wonders if this is some sort of a cruel trick or mocking by some malicious being, or beings of power.

Tim shivers; it’s cold.

***

It’s cold, but it’s always cold now. But Tim’s used to it. That makes it okay, right?

He sits on the edge of the rooftop watching Batman fighting off Catwoman. Tim supposes that they haven’t forgiven each other yet for what had happened at the gala last week, as Catwoman hasn’t grabbed his chin and led him into a kiss, which was often followed by other adult things that make Tim turn away and leave until the next day.

Tim’s fingers itch for his camera. Itch to snap a million pictures of Batman intensely focused on retrieving the pouch of diamonds that nestled in Catwoman’s belt against her hip. But he doesn’t have his camera, so he compensates for his loss by taking advantage of his invisible state to watch Batman from up close.

Suddenly and without warning, Batman flings Catwoman in Tim’s direction, the surprise causing Tim to lean away... and off of the rooftop. “No, no, no, no!” Tim shouts as he relives the night he died when—

He isn’t falling. He is… levitating? He is a ghost, Tim muses as he stands on air, so it does make a little bit of sense. He floats himself back up to where Batman and Catwoman are still fighting.

But the fight didn’t last very long afterward and Batman says something to Catwoman that Tim can’t hear coherently, but she definitely did. Batman recoils as she hisses at him and scratches his arm deep enough that it goes through his suit and reaches bare skin where blood pools.

It’s one thing to see it from afar, but it’s another thing to watch your hero pant from exertion and grimace from both physical and emotional pain up close. Tim moves to touch Bruce’s arm, forgetting that he won’t be able to feel it. Tim watches in resigned sadness as his hand phases through.

“Take better care of yourself,” Tim mumbles as he follows Batman to the edge of the rooftop, preparing his grapple to leap through the air. “And try to stop getting in fights with cats, you rarely win.”

Batman (obviously) didn’t hear him as he launched himself towards another building, towards another criminal, towards another crime.

“Do you ever get cold?” Tim asks the air where the vigilante once stood, feeling like the child he is. “Because I’m really cold.”

***

It’s really cold, and Tim wishes he died with more layers. Well, that probably wouldn’t have changed much, but it would be nice comfort, he supposes.

Tim swings his legs from where he is perched at a table where a family of two is sitting. Tim stares longingly at the waffle bowl of ice cream the daughter had quickly forgotten in favor of excitedly rambling about her day and what her friends did at school to her mother. He yearns for the luxury of talking to a parent who actually cares.

“Stephanie,” the mother regards her playfully stern, “Finish your ice cream before it all melts.”

Tim slides himself across the bench to sit closer to the girl—Stephanie.

“Can I share your ice cream with you, Stephanie?” Tim asks shyly.

Stephanie doesn’t answer and it feels like an explosion of emotional pain in his chest. He doesn’t understand why it keeps on hurting, no matter how many times strangers don’t respond. But regardless, he leans forward to take a fingerful of ice cream. His hand goes right through the cold, very cold, treat he pretends to enjoy.

His eyes feel like they’re watering, his throat is tight with that sensation in which you feel like you’re about to cry. That split second before sobs erupt from your mouth and tears rush down your cheeks. But he can’t cry. Because he’s dead. Ghosts don’t have the biology that would let them cry. Somehow, the lack of tears makes him feel even worse.

“Is this your favorite ice cream, Stephanie?” Tim asks after a moment, after he no longer wants to collapse right then and there and never get back up. “Stephanie? Can I call you Steph?”

Stephanie isn’t paying attention to him and is still excitedly rambling to her mother, now about how much she wants to become a nurse. Just like her mother.

“Steph, you like your mom, right?” Tim rests one side of his head on the table so he could still look at the girl. “You love her, right? And she loves you back?”

Tim gives her a moment to not answer him before he continues, “How does it feel to have someone love you? Does it feel nice?”

The sunlight of the unusually nice afternoon of Gotham beamed on the table but goes straight through Tim.

“I wish I had a mom like yours. She seems nice. Better than my own parents, at least.”

Tim watches them interact a little bit more before admitting, “I went to see my parents last week. It’s been a year since my death and they don’t—” He has that awful feeling in his chest again. “They don’t seem to care?” His voice is so wobbly.

“It’s been a year and I’ve seen nothing from them. Why don’t they care, Steph? All of those movies I watched and books I read said that parents cry for their children when they die. But they didn’t even cry at my funeral!”

Tim grasps at Stephanie’s hand that is lingering on the table, but his hand just goes through hers. What feels like a mountain of disappointment keeps building, and building up as he keeps forgetting that he’s dead.

“Is it my fault? Was it because my body was so ugly? Is it because everybody knew that I had run away? I couldn’t help it,” he wails, fists balling up. “My broken leg looked gross and the hypothermia made me all blue, but it’s not like they didn’t put so much makeup on my dead corpse so that they could have a nice and pretty open-coffin funeral! It all worked out, right?!”

The mother and daughter suddenly get up from the table. “Wait!” He leaps up and cries out. “Don’t go!”

But they don’t hear him and go to the trash can to throw away their waste. Tim slowly lowers himself back onto the bench with a sigh. He buries his face into his crossed arms. Tim takes a deep breath, in and out. Inhale and exhale.

“I think love would feel warm. Like a fireplace with newly burning logs. Taking all of your sadness and burning it away until all is left is joy.”

Tim stares at his hands. “Maybe that’s why I’m always so cold. Nobody could teach me love, even when I was alive.”

***

Tim watches in grim disappointment as Bruce and Dick argue with each other.

Under normal circumstances—of which’s occurrences are lessening and lessening with each dispute—he would rotate between each person to keep them company. But it’s unbearable to listen to their discourse that would almost always ensue whenever they interact.

Today, they’re arguing over the morality of torture. So instead, he sits at the windowpane outside, half-watching them, and half-watching Alfred care for the gardens. He turns his full attention back onto them, and yup. They’re still arguing.

With a sigh, he pushes himself off the ledge to levitate to where Alfred is.

“How are you, Mr. Pennyworth?” He asks despite knowing he wouldn’t answer. But Tim likes to ask, anyway. Maybe one day someone will answer. And anyways, talking to people is just another way for Tim to stay sane.

“The gardens look beautiful, as always, Mr. Pennyworth.” Tim chirps as he kneels to watch a ladybug on a pale white petal of a lily. “The colors are very nice, today! It’s very sunny.”

Alfred hums the tune of a song that Tim doesn’t recognize, but is very pretty. He tells Alfred so, but he doesn’t respond which is… fine. It’s okay. At least he could still have one-way conversations, even if no one can respond. It’s like having a pet fish, he supposes.

Tim winces when he realizes that he compared Alfred to a pet fish. “I apologize, Mr. Pennyworth. Do you have a dinner planned out for tonight? I’m afraid Dick might not attend, again.”

Mr. Pennyworth continues watering the lilies.

“I walked through the plazas today,” Tim’s eyes are still focused on the lone ladybug that was crawling towards another petal. “And I stopped by a bakery.

“I wish I could eat stuff, but I can’t.” Tim shrugs. “I sang ‘happy birthday’ to myself in front of the cake display. It was cool, I guess. If I could eat one last slice of cake, I would choose doughnut cake!”

Tim flings himself onto the grass yard. “Doughnuts are one of my favorite foods, Mr. Pennyworth. Do you like doughnuts?”

Tim’s eyes light up as he rolls himself onto his stomach. “Oh! I didn’t tell you. Today’s my birthday! I turned ten, today! I’m officially in the double-digits!”

He watches as Alfred turns off and puts down the water hose, wiping at his forehead. “How’s the weather, Mr. Pennyworth? I wish I could feel the sun.

“It must be pretty hot, ‘cause you’re sweating a lot,” Tim notes. “I’m still really cold, though. I wish the weather affected ghosts. I don’t know what I would give to be warm again.”

They, or rather Tim fall silent until there is a sound of a door slamming. Their heads simultaneously turn to see Dick storming out of the manor and towards his car.

“Master Richard!” Alfred calls out. “Won’t you please stay for dinner?”

“I’m sorry, Alfred, but I can’t.” Dick shakes his head, pressing a button on his car keys to unlock his car, a beep sounding from it. “I can’t deal with Bruce, right now.”

“Will you come back tomorrow, Master Richard?” Alfred asked with a pleading voice.

“No, Alfred. Sorry.”

Tim stands up, brushing his knees off out of habit. “I’ll go check if Mr. Wayne is alright, Mr. Pennyworth.”

Tim floats up to the window he was sitting at earlier and phases through it. He’s getting used to this. His skin, that isn’t even skin, shivers whenever he does it, but it really is a time-saver. He does, unfortunately, feel even colder. He frowns when he sees Bruce sitting in a chair, resting his chin on his hands, looking like he is bearing the weight of the world on his shoulders.

“Mr. Wayne,” Tim says softly, hovering a hand over his shoulder as if comforting him.

Tim used to try to place his hand directly, but he didn’t like the disappointment he felt, nor the coldness that spread through his body when he did it. It wasn’t worth it.

“It’ll be alright. I think you and Dick should take more time to listen to each other, rather than try to prove your point.” Tim sits in front of Bruce. “You keep saying that you hear him. You may be hearing him, but you’re not listening to him.”

Tim looks up at Bruce sadly. “It’ll be okay, Mr. Wayne.”

He turns his head to look through the vacant doorway of the room. “The manor must feel empty without him, but at least you have Mr. Pennyworth,” Tim tries to sound optimistic.

“Do you feel cold when he isn’t here?” Tim asks, not expecting an answer. He stares at his hands that seem solid to him, but are transparent to Bruce. “And no matter how many jackets you put on, and blankets you wrap yourself in, you never truly feel warm?”

Bruce doesn’t reply. Tim sighs. “It’ll be okay, Mr. Wayne. You two will figure it out eventually. Just—just try to figure it out before you end up like me.

“Before it will always be cold.”

***

Tim smiles, amused at the boy who is trying to take the tires off of the Batmobile.

“You’re a bold one, aren’t you? No one’s been brave enough to try to steal from the Batman, as far as I’ve seen.” He doesn’t get an answer, of course.

Tim doesn’t expect anything, at this point.

“Hey, kid!” He calls down at him from where he is sitting, on the roof of the car. “Are you doing this as a prank, or are you in need?”

The boy ignores him and keeps unscrewing.

“Probably in need,” Tim says to himself sadly. “I think I’ve seen him around before.

“You’ve picked an interesting date.” Tim swings his legs absently. “Did you know that Martha and Thomas Wayne died here?”

Tim watches him a little bit more before scolding himself, “Of course you do, you’re clearly a Gothamite. Or crazy.”

He sits in silent contemplation before saying, “Actually, probably both. It’s a common theme for Gothamites to at least be a little crazy.

“I like your vest,” Tim says, pointing at it. “I don’t think it would keep you warm, very well. Because of the no sleeves situation.” He shrugs. “Well, you do have a long-sleeved shirt. It’s red. Nice.”

Suddenly, Batman bursts in and sees the mostly tire-less Batmobile. And then to Tim’s and the kid’s surprise, he laughs.

Tim stares. He’s never seen Batman laugh while still in his suit. While strange, Tim decides he really likes what he looks like when he laughs.

But something clenches in his chest, a panging feeling or emotion that he has never felt before, except for when he was watching certain movies. Tim wonders if Batman would have reacted like that if he had stolen tires off of his Batmobile. His stomach turned and his skin had the sensation of goosebumps.

Tim doesn’t really understand how he feels, emotion-wise. All he knows is that he is cold. That’s one of the only things he can count on, these days.

***

After the fourth time Bruce hugs Jason, Tim figures out what he’s feeling.

It’s jealousy.

A wave of want and contempt for Bruce’s son rushes over him, like a tsunami that he is powerless to stop. Tim whole-heartedly wants to stop feeling this way. He should be happy for Jason, right? For getting somewhere better in life. To get what Tim had only ever dreamed of.

Tim watches bitterly as Batman pats the new Robin on the back and praises him for how well he is doing. He used to stay with Bruce every night, right by his side. But it’s really hard when Jason is there.

Tim growls underneath his breath and turns away from the newest dynamic duo. Jason has found his warmth, and Tim would never find his. Tim couldn’t help but wonder if he was doomed to an eternity of jealous desire and biting cold that chills his entire body until he is numb.

***

Tim bites his bottom lip anxiously as he watches Batman pant raggedly while fighting off Poison Ivy.

“Bruce, you should retreat,” he mutters as Batman narrowly dodges a vine shooting towards him.

Tim is sitting on top of a lamppost, and cringing away every time Batman is inflicted with another injury. But he hates how he is getting used to seeing his hero so beaten and battered. Back then, before he had died, he had to distance himself to ensure that Batman and Robin would never find him on his nightly escapades, and as a result, it was much rarer to actually watch Bruce get injured.

“Jason—Robin isn’t here. He had a school project he had to work on, remember?” Tim chides Bruce, who is gasping for breath after being punched in the gut by one of Poison Ivy’s vines.

“Be careful, will you? You have another person waiting for you at home, now. Three more than I ever had.” Tim swings his legs back and forth before throwing himself off of the lamp post and floating down to the ground, closer to Bruce.

“Alfred and Dick,” Tim pauses. He takes a deep breath before carefully saying “and Jason. They would be so sad if you died. And I would be, too, of course.”

He ponders that for a moment. “People are supposed to be sad when someone dies, right? That’s what I saw in the movies and stuff, but maybe that was just Hollywood being Hollywood.

“Hey, Bruce.” Tim looks down at his feet. “You cried when your parents died, right? I think I saw a picture of you crying when some rude newspaper reporters found you. And I know Dick cried when his parents died because I saw him. I think I would’ve cried if my parents died before I did. Are parents supposed to cry when their kids die?"

Tim wants to cry so bad, but he can’t. He detests being a ghost so much. He could only allow a dry harsh sob erupt from his throat. “Why—why didn’t my parents cry?” His voice is so shaky.” Am I being selfish? Maybe they didn’t care because I didn’t deserve to be cried over and I always made them really mad when I asked them for a hug like I see in the movies and—”

There is a loud crack and Tim’s head snaps back up to see Batman leap into the air to fling himself at Poison Ivy, leaving Tim behind. “—and I—oh. Uh. Okay. I’ll—I’ll see you later, Bruce.”

Tim stares forlornly at the shadow that disappears behind a building. He misses the rush of adrenaline he used to get whenever he was nearby the Batman. But he still shivers, enveloped by a frigid, icy air.

***

“No!” Tim shrieks as he watches Batman smash into the ground.

Terrified for his hero, he scrambles to his body, puts two fingers at his pulse, and anxiously stares at his chest. Tim lets out a deep sigh of relief when he sees his chest rapidly moving up and down, and feels his pulse underneath his fingers before Bruce shifts away from him, murmuring something about ‘cold’.

“I know, Bruce. I’m sorry,” Tim says softly and sorrowfully. “Wherever I go, the cold seems to follow, I guess. But I had to check; you understand, right?”

Bruce doesn’t answer and Tim sighs again, dropping himself onto the concrete beside him.

“Robin—” Tim hates that he keeps saying the name so bitterly, but he can’t help it. It’s horrible of him, but is it so bad to wish for something that you never got, but have to watch someone else get it? “—will be here soon, okay? And the Batmobile is en route.”

They sit in silence, aside from Bruce’s heavy breathing.

“I’m sorry, Bruce,” Tim suddenly says. “If I wasn’t dead, I would have been able to help. If I was physically tangible, I would've been able to stop them from shooting you with that paralyzing dart and kicking you off of that building.

“I’m—I’m sorry,” Tim bows his head in shame. “I wish I could help you, so bad. But I can’t. But soon you will be at the Batcave, and Alfred could help you.”

He reaches forward to hold Bruce’s hand comfortingly, but when Bruce shivers, Tim shrinks back.

“Sorry, Bruce,” He says, for what feels like the thousandth time. “You’re cold, aren’t you?” He squeezes his eyes shut. “I can’t help you there. Not when I’m so cold, too.”

***

Horrified with hands over his mouth in utter shock, Tim stares at Jason’s limp bleeding body that hangs in Bruce’s arms. While he didn’t especially like Jason because it always hurt to see someone get what you had always wanted, all the warmth you ever wanted, he is happy that someoneis, but was.

He suddenly hears a harsh sob echo through the cave and Tim looks up to see Bruce collapse to his knees and cry. Not the delicate type of crying that he saw in the movies. Not the crocodile tears that his mother shed when a business partner asked about him. Real tears that came from honest heartbreak.

Tim stands frozen as Bruce lets out loud ugly sobbing that hurt his ears, sending the bats above into a flurry.

“Jason,” Bruce says, “Jason, Jason, Jason, Jason, Ja—”

His voice cracks and Alfred steps forward to place a trembling hand on his shoulder.

“Master Bruce,” Alfred murmurs. “My poor boy.”

Tim can not help but wonder, is this how parents are supposed to act when their children die? Why didn’t his parents care as much as Bruce and Alfred? But Tim shoves those thoughts away and rushes over to Bruce, moving to drape his arms over him into a hug, just like how he sees it happen in the movies. But to his despair, his arms pass right through him, and Bruce flinches away.

“I’m—I’m sorry, Bruce.” Tim wants to cry with Bruce, give him a sympathetic hand, something, but he can’t. “I’m so useless! I can’t even hug you!”

“The Joker,” Bruce croaks, petting Jason’s hair and looking up at Alfred with such anguish, such hopelessness in his voice. “The Joker killed him.”

Tim sits beside Bruce, scooching as close as he could to the grown man, without infecting him with his chilling air that seems to surround him wherever he goes. He curls in on himself, hugging his knees and burying his face into his arms, as if that would provide himself any warmth. He could pretend, he supposes.

“I’m so sorry, Bruce,” Tim whispers softly, feeling useless.

He remembers that time he watched Bruce help Jason finish a last-minute science project. He remembers that time Jason excitedly recited his favorite scene from Othello, with Alfred right before dinner. He remembers that time Jason ranted about how Pride and Prejudice is completely overrated and that the novel that truly reveals Jane Austen’s genius is Persuasion, arguing Bruce into the ground, despite his best efforts to convince him otherwise. And he’s certain that Bruce remembers all of those times and more, as well.

Alfred kneels to Bruce who remains collapsed, hugging Jason’s body close to his chest. “Sir,” he breathes, tears slipping from his eyelids. “It’s cold down here. We shall move and call Dr. Thompkins.”

Tim squeezes his eyes shut. The Batcave, that was once so filled with life, and childish glee, and the occasional argument, now feels dead and cold. Alfred’s right. It is cold, and Tim doesn’t know if it will ever regain its former warmth.

***

Tim floats alongside Batman as he swings from building to building.

“Bruce,” he says in a scolding tone. “You should be resting. You almost got killed by that D-list villain's knife.”

His body shivers at the mere memory of that pain he had endured when he somehow temporarily possessed a nearby brick and flung himself at the villain’s arm, skewing their aim so that it only glanced off of Bruce’s body. But what was really terrifying, besides the fear of losing Bruce, was that there was something at the back of his mind telling him—screaming at him that his spirit was dying with every second he was stuck in the brick.

“You’re getting sloppy,” Tim murmurs grimly. “And more violent, too.”

He remembers watching the villain be beaten into near death, jaw most likely broken in at least four different pieces. He’d be eating out of a tube; most likely for the rest of his life. And then a question struck him.

“H-hey, Bruce?” Batman doesn’t answer as he lands in front of a crowd of ninjas that the Demon’s Head must have sent out.

“I hate to ask you this, but—but what’s stopping you from becoming a villain yourself?”

There is no answer, only grunts as Batman flings himself into action, knocking over several ninjas and flinging batarangs at them.

Tim sighs and walks along the edge of a rooftop, watching Batman single-handedly take on fifteen ninjas. Looking for any objects Tim could use to disable the ninjas or something, if need be. He lets out a little ‘aha’ in triumph when he finds a brick. He sneakily sets the brick down at a good vantage point of the fight.

But then, while he is distracted, a ninja does an unexpected roundhouse kick, sending Bruce flying from the rooftop while he is engaged with a different ninja.

And then Bruce falls. He falls. He’s falling, falling, falling, falling. Just like Dick’s parents, tumbling like fallen birds whose wings were snapped mid-flight. Just like Tim when his foot slipped on the rooftop’s pipe and the wind whistled in his ears and his camera fell from his fingers and his leg shattered on the unforgiving concrete pavement.

Please, not Bruce, too.

Everything feels like it’s shrieking at Tim to catch him. As he scrambles to find something to catch him, he sees Bruce close his eyes.

“Bruce!” He screams. “Use your grapple!”

Even the great Batman can’t hear him, not when no one else can, but it never stopped Tim from trying and hoping that one day, someone would listen. Especially times like now. Bruce is just allowing himself to freefall! And so Tim lunges forward and does something he had never thought he would do.

He dives into Bruce.

It’s a very odd sensation and Tim exhales harshly, seeing through Bruce’s eyes as he struggles to maintain control of the body. It’s heavy, and the entire body hurts, reminding Tim of the twinges from wounds he has seen Bruce take. He lets out a grunt, taking satisfaction in actually feeling Bruce’s lungs inflate and deflate, and clumsily pressing the button on the grapple that he has seen Bruce use so many times before. Knowing that every millisecond Tim is possessing Bruce’s body endangers both of them, Tim instantly frees himself of the confines of Bruce’s body the moment they are above a rooftop.

Bruce falls onto the rough cement roof and Tim collapses nearby, the frigidness and agony swarming him like a crowd of angry hornets.

All he knows is utter pain as the agony grows and grows. As Bruce stands, Tim still lays there, spasming. The icy coldness that shrouds him is like poison, despite that he doesn’t even have a body. It still hurts, possibly hurts even more than if he still did have a fleshy body of a child.

Tim numbly watches Bruce confusedly look around for any supernatural sources—him—that had saved him. But he doesn’t see Tim. Tim knows that Bruce will never know what Tim has done to help him. He knows that he will never be thanked for burdening himself with the Sisyphean task of keeping Bruce alive.

But it is worth it. He will do it, face the agonizing biting cold if Bruce ever needs him again. And Bruce will. And Tim will, too.

***

Tim breathes in and out. He isn’t technically breathing, but he’s grateful that his ghostly essence allows him to pretend, even if it won’t let him pretend to cry. Fluids, he supposes, and ghosts don’t work out very well.

It had taken him a week, but he was able to recover from saving Bruce from falling to his death. He had to slowly make his way through the neighborhood and ended up at Wayne Manor. Tim now sits in the library, watching Alfred dust the shelves.

He wishes he had discovered the ability to possess objects earlier, but at least now he knows how to protect Bruce, and that is valuable information—and better to have late than never. It was worth it, Tim swears. He’d suffer Bruce’s pain tenfold if his hero could walk burden-free. It’s hero-worship, he knows. But he’d do anything he has to. Because what good is he for if he can’t do even that.

***

Tim is tired. So tired. His entire ghostly essence doesn’t feel capable of doing anything more than allow him to lay precariously on this rooftop. Possessing things to keep Batman alive is exhausting and it hurts. There’s a cold feeling of despair that seemingly penetrates his chest, feeling as if it is impaling him.

He has been spending every single moment he could to ensure Batman’s safety, and it almost feels as if Bruce is trying to make things harder for him, as if he was trying to die.

“Bruce,” he croaks. Tim is laying a little bit aways from where Bruce is also collapsed, as he had just stopped his esophagus from being crushed by some villain by slamming a brick into their head. “Why?”

Bruce doesn’t answer, and he will never answer, but Tim keeps on talking because he has to. He has to talk so that he knows he’s not completely gone. Yet.

“I know,” Tim sucks in a breath. “I know you miss him; you miss Jason. But at this rate, I don’t even know if I can save you. You fully took off your grapple and dropped it midfall. I had to possess you to put it back on and swing you to the next building myself. And that made us both feel like we were freezing, and I thought I was dying all over again.”

A snarl grows on his face as he connects the dots in his head. “Are you trying to die?! Why couldn’t someone be upset for me, like how you are for Jason?!”

If Tim hadn’t died, he’d feel tears burn at his eyes. He knows it. An ugly gut-wrenching sob came out of his mouth as he pondered how truly unloveable he must have been before he died if his parents did not react the same way as Bruce is currently. Not even the tiniest fraction.

A fury that he didn’t even know he is capable of, due to his pure exhaustion, stoked in where his chest would have been. He knows, oh, he knows that he is being unreasonable. But does that invalidate his pain? It still hurts. So much.

Tim unsteadily pushes himself to his feet, staggering as his ghostly essence is racked with pain. The agony pulses at every inch of him, but he can’t do anything to stop it. The coldness that once felt chilly now feels like the burn of liquid nitrogen, like that feeling when you have been holding onto an ice-pack for far too long and your skin is begging you to let go.

But what’s different between that situation and Tim’s is that he can’t. He can’t let go. That freezing burn continues to hurt him and he is unable to do anything to stop it. Tim’s mind rages at the fact that Bruce is being so utterly careless with his life—throwing away what Tim would give anything to get back.

He wants so, so bad to be alive again.

Tim wants to eat ice cream, and take more photographs, and trim flower bushes with Alfred, and hug someone and feel their warmth radiate, and talk to someone and have them talk talk back to you. He wants that, all of those things, so, so bad.

But he can’t. He’s dead.

But Bruce can. He’s alive and Tim can’t understand why someone would want to throw that away?

That’s why Tim is so angry, he supposes. Bruce has the opportunity to do everything that Tim can’t and he won’t even give it a shot. Bruce can still reconcile his mistakes—fix things with Dick, spend time with Alfred, just live his life and have a happy family. A family in which you don’t feel alone and unnecessary and cold, but rather a family in which you are happy. A family in which you can’t help but smile whenever you think about them. A family that welcomes you into their warm home with worn blankets and unconditional love, that doesn’t desert you the moment you ask for something more.

Bruce has the chance to get all of this. But he won’t do it.

Tim resists the urge to throw something at him. Instead, he walks. And he walks. And he walks away. And he never wants to look back.

***

Tim comes back. He always does. He laughs hysterically. He always comes back.

It’s been weeks since that night he just couldn’t stand to be in the same place as Bruce; in the same city. But it’s not like he can leave. So he vowed to himself that he would stop looking for Batman. He would keep other people company instead, like children, or everyday adults who are trying to live their lives, and maybe he could do a little thing for them if he wanted to.

But he could never truly stay away.

Tim hovers through the Wayne Manor, looking for the familiar tall man with that frown permanently placed on his face. But he can’t find him. He can’t—he can’t find anyone. Tim twists and turns, but he can’t even find Alfred.

He goes out to the gardens. His ghostly body, forever stuck at the age of seven, goes straight through the walls until he suddenly stands before a stone.

And then he crumples to the floor.

“No. Bruce,” Tim mutters as his hands raise to his mouth and he screams. “No!”

A gravestone bearing Bruce’s name faces him as he stares at it with eyes wide, disbelieving that Batman—his hero—is dead.

Tim scrambles to his feet, clumsily pulling himself up as he runs, runs, runs somewhere anywhere, but here. Tim is panting as he runs through the streets, looking for some distraction from his woes, feeling utterly lost in the city he once proudly called his home. Passing by the alley where he died, he stops dead in his tracks.

The Batman’s cowl, bloodied and stained, rests on the concrete pavement near a dumpster. Tim lets out an unearthly cry he didn’t even know he could make.

“Batman… Bruce…” Tim moans as he crept closer to the cowl. “You can’t…”

The cowl suddenly rattles and shakes, and he flinches away. And then there is a tapping sound on the cowl.

“Is—is that you, Batman?” He asked, his voice unbearably shaky. “Doing morse code?”

He stands deadly still as he listens.

Y-E-S-W-H-O-A-R-E-Y-O-U

“I’m—I’m Tim.” Tim feels that ugly sensation again in which he would have cried if he was still alive. “I-I’m so so-sorry, Bruce. This is all my fault, all my fault. I was protecting you and it didn’t work, but then it was working so it became my job to protect you from everything, and you stopped taking breaks and kept letting yourself get hurt which means I kept getting hurt and it hurt so bad and it’s so cold and I just wanted to—”

S-T-O-P

Tim freezes at Bruce’s commands.

Y-O-U-C-A-N-T-S-E-E-O-R-H-E-A-R-M-E

“N-no, I can’t,” his ghostly hands are shaking as he hugs himself. “Am-am I supposed to?”

A-L-L-O-F-T-H-E-O-T-H-E-R-G-H-O-S-T-S-C-A-N

Shame burns into Tim, like a flame enveloping an ice cube. “Great,” he says bitterly, a torn sob twinging at him. “Another thing I’m a failure at. I keep on failing even though I’m dead. First, I died, and then I can’t save you, and now it turns out, I suck at being a ghost.” He lets out a hysterical laugh and throws his hands in the air. “I’m that bad!”

The cowl floats over to him and all of a sudden there is a warm seeping sensation on his shoulder. He leans into it before realizing. “Ba-Batman?”

P-L-E-A-S-E-C-A-L-M-D-O-W-N

There is a pause as Tim waits in bated breath, trying to keep himself from too eagerly leaning into the warmth that is slowly spreading throughout his body and beating the coldness away. It feels so nice. It’s what he imagined sunshine would feel like, anytime he saw someone basking in the sun.

I-T-W-I-L-L-B-E-O-K-A-Y

“Is—is Jason there?” The question comes out of his mouth without any thought, and he immediately regrets it. “Can y-you see him?”

There is the slightest drop in the helmet before it goes back to floating where it is now, presumably in Bruce’s hand. Tim has a feeling Bruce nearly dropped his cowl.

Y-E-S

Of course, Bruce could see him, Tim says internally. “Of course.” Those two words sound much more bitter than he hoped, and he squeezes his eyes shut. “I-I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it like that. Please don’t leave. Please don’t leave me, please, please, please,” he pleads, terrified—utterly terrified that he will be alone. Again.

I-W-O-N-T-L-E-A-V-E

Empty harsh sobs leave him as he hunches over, feeling like he was punched in the gut.

“That’s—” he laughs hysterically. “That’s what they say, every time. They—they say that they won’t leave. Every time, every time, every time. And then the very next day? Suitcases are gone from their closets and the car isn’t in the parking lot anymore. And I’m just there. Just there at the house, again.”

There is a silence and Tim feels like he is suffocating, “Bruce?! Did you leave me, too?!”

I-A-M-H-E-R-E

“For now,” Tim says bitterly, clutching at his hands.

The warm presence spreads from his shoulder and wraps around him. He instantly melts into the embrace.

“Are you—” Tim hiccups. “Are you hu—hugging me?”

The taps are on his ghostly body this time, instead of the cowl.

Y-E-S

And then a pause.

DO-Y-O-U-W-A-N-T-M-E-T-O-S-T-O-P

“N-no, please. Please don’t stop.” Dry heaving sobs escape his mouth as he shuts his eyes, delighting in the comforting feeling of warmth. A sharp but welcoming contrast from the coldness that he was forced to suffer from and the freezing frigid air that he felt like he always had to combat. It’s so different.

“Is-is this what a hug feels like?” his voice is so soft, but he can’t bear to speak any louder.

W-H-A-T-D-O-E-S-I-T-F-E-E-L-L-I-K-E

“Wa-warmth.” His eyes flutter as a smile spreads across his face. He giggles to himself. “It feels warm, and not cold.”

D-O-Y-O-U-L-I-K-E-I-T

“Yes, I do,” Tim breathes, thoroughly enjoying the feeling of the coldness melting away and warmth immediately replacing it.

He loves it.