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Headcanons
- Tim’s parents were always careful with their souls, carrying them on little pouches or leather bags. They are full and perfectly unscathed. Jack’s soul was a little more reduced, since he gave bits and pieces of himself to his own parents when he was a little kid, but Janet’s is whole.
- They never gave him a piece of themselves, Janet firmly against the act altogether, Jack following on her example.
- Little Timmy always watched his classmates on kindergarten running around, shinny shards of soul decorating them, radiating a love he never felt on his own skin
- Fast forward the night the Graysons fell, little Tim went back home and made a little necklace for the boy that flew for him and gave him a hug so warm he likes to think it’s what being gifted a soul feels like.
- He never really gets around to giving it to him though. It sits on a wooden box in a hidey hole under Tim’s bed, along with his most precious Batman and Robin photos.
- He once tries to give his parents soul shards (a wonderfully made ring and headset for dad and mom respectively). His mother is outraged, to the point where she slaps him. Then, for maybe the second or third time in his life, she hugs him.
- “-You stupid boy. Don't give your soul away so easily, or you'll have none left for yourself. And what do you think will happen to you, if you are soulless?”
- He never tries again.
- Tim once falls from a high spot, where he was perched taking pictures of the second Robin. His hero saves him, gives him an earful, and they become friends (Robin drops in before or after patrol to make sure Tim listened to his warnings and stopped sneaking out at night. Tim kept doing it, but was sneakier about it and Robin, despite being suspicious, has no proof that the kid disobeyed).
- Tim gives Robin/Jason a soul shard once, a little birdarang he craved after the one Jason gifted him, but shiny blue like his soul. It’s filled with awe, respect, shyness, adoration and what would equal as a crush if Tim were socially adept enough to recognize it. Jason is a stuttering mess for weeks, keeps the birdarang with himself at all times, right next to the soulshard Bruce gave him, and never takes it off. He plans on giving Tim something back, but is unsure as to what. Earing? The kid needed a little pre teen rebellion…
- He never gets around to doing it.
- He’s clutching Tim’s birdarang when he dies. Bruce doesn’t know who gave it to Jay, and is too overwhelmed with grief to investigate. He just buries Jason with it.
- After Tim becomes Robin, he finally gathers enough courage to give Dick his soulshard. He explains how much Dick meant to him growing up, but that Dick doesn’t need to give anything back. They’ve just officially met not long ago, after all. Dick promises to give him something soon, though.
- He doesn’t. Other things happen. IT’ll happen when it happens, he figures. No rush.
- Bruce gets a watch and Alfred a tie pin, but Bruce refuses to give anyone else a piece of himself, less of all Tim. He’s sure his soul is poisoned or something (He gave some to his parents, they died. Dick, he left. Jason, he died. Clark and Diana, they were superhuman, they don’t count. Alfred… well, Alfred is always the exception), and won’t allow his darkness to touch the boy (OH BOY IS HE WRONG). But because he doesn’t want Tim to feel like Bruce has a personal problem with him (*epic fail on his part*), instead of calmly explaining his reasoning, he also forbids Alfred from giving Tim a soul shard (That shit’s gonna explode on his face).
- Tim goes around to giving bits and pieces to his friends, too. Doesn’t really expect any back though, used as he is to giving and never receiving.
- He gives Steph a locket, when she tells him she’s pregnant, so she can keep a picture of the baby if she wants (or anything else if she doesn’t), even after giving him or her away. Steph doesn't reciprocate since pregnant women are advised against molding and sharding their souls, in case it hurts the baby’s soul development. Then she ‘dies’, and after she comes back Tim is angry at her, and there’s never a right moment for her to give him a shard.
- Cass… well, Cass is so touched when Tim gifts her a soul-made compass that always points towards the Manor (“So you can always find your way back home”), but her father has damaged her soul by throwing it around and dropping it a lot, and it’s just too bruised for her to give any away, though she promises herself she will the moment it’s healthy enough.
- Tim’s team… God, his team. By this time, Tim is kinda concerned, because he gave too much recently and his soul is looking kinda… malnourished? small? He can’t really put a finger on it, and he’s worried his parents will notice, so he doesn’t give his team a shard at first.
- It’s after his parents die (buried with the soul pieces Tim made for them, even if they never wanted to wear them) that he thinks ‘fuck it’ and, while hanging out with Kon and Bart, gatters courage and asks them what would they like.
- After being reassured that he wants to do it, Kon shyly asks for a earing (of course he does) and Bart for a ring (kinda like his grandfather’s? few other things would stay on him at the speed he runs, too). They wished they could give back, but Kon, as a clone and alien, was created with a soul no one can touch, like a phantom light following him around, and Bart already told them how everyone in the future was born with theirs inside their bodies.
- He sees the soul-made birdarang again, and that’s what cues him on the fact that Jason Todd came back to life. It’s colour had changed from blue to red, the only reason he recognized it was the tiny R he carved on the middle. He sees it close and personal when his former hero tries to gut him.
- He gives Cassie a bracelet on Kon’s funeral. Turns around and leaves before she can say anything about it.
- Tim lays in bed at night and remembers his mother’s words (“You stupid boy.”), and wonders what, indeed, is the danger of going soulless. He doesn’t know if it’s possible. His soul has shrunk, that’s obvious, but, thinking back on all the pieces he gave away, he should have run out of a long time ago.
- Bruce dies. Everyone whose soul he gave to are the ones that carry his casket. Damian and Tim are sitting on the front rows, but their lack of deep blue soulshards is telling.
- Not too long after, Dick gives Damian a little Robin sky blue brooch, to fasten the cape of his new uniform with. Tim wears black and red, not a hint of shiny soul on him. He leaves Gotham and looks for Bruce.
- Ra’s is the first person ever to inquire about his shocking lack of soulmade gifts. To wonder about the bruised state of his soul.
- “The Pit could heal it, restore it to it’s former grandness” “I’ve seen what it did to the bit of my soul I gave to Jason… no thank you.” “You’ve given far too much. It’s state is sad enough a hundred cynics wouldn’t be able to describe it without bawling” “It wasn’t a matter of give, it was a lack of take. And it’s not like giving it away is the only abuse my soul had to endure.”
- He brings Bruce back, but he’s so tired. His soul hasn’t been growing back on itself like it did the first few times he took from it.
- The love he felt when someone smiled at his soul shards was what feed his soul, he realizes. It’s past malnourished at this point.
- If he had enough soul left, maybe he’d have cared.
- The final straw is Damian, of fucking course. He doesn’t even remmber what the argument was about, even five minutes after it had ended. He simply didn’t care anymore. Something about Wayne Enterprises, the right heir, the blood son…
- Tim blinks blankly at Damian, hand reaching inside his pocket, looking for the now tiny, ping pong ball- sized piece of soul. The last he had left.
- Silently, he stopped Damian’s rant short by taking the gesturing teen’s hand mid air and holding it open, dropping the remains of his soul in it, and closing the now still fingers around it.
- “There. Now you truly have everything that was mine. Happy?”
- He turns away, and leaves.
- In different places, different people feel a sudden heat from the pieces of Tim’s soul they carry with them. Steph, Bruce, Kon, Bart, Dick, Jason, Alfred, Cassie… they all look for theirs.
- The soul is decorated with spots now, small flecks of darkness corrupting of the icy blue. It’s a bleeding soul.
- A dying soul.
- “And what do you think will happen to you, if you are soulless?” Sorry, mom.
- Apparently, decides Tim, dragging his hoodie over his head to hide his features as he boards the plane, you stop caring.