Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Of the members of Tim’s family, Cass and Jason are the closest in age, with Cass being just a few months older. In that sense, they’re probably the closest to being “twins” in the Wayne family household. That being said, it’s Tim and Cass that are most likely to be confused for twins.

Which, Tim supposes, is… Well. 

It’s obvious as to why, they’re both half-East Asian, even though Cass’ skin is much darker than Tim’s and her features are a bit more stereotypically “East Asian”. It’s what enables Tim to pass as fully white under most circumstances— and also probably what made his time as the Wayne Enterprises CEO significantly easier than Dick’s. It’s really only when he stands near someone like Cass that his features become obvious. 

Which is fine. Tim’s relationship with his race is, like everything else in his life, a pot that’s been boiling over on the back burner for a while now. He’s made his peace with it, honestly, thoughtless to say of how Janet Drake completely sanitized herself from every aspect of culture Tim might’ve grown up with, and then up and died when Tim reached the age where he might have hard questions like “isn’t it weird that I know more Japanese from anime than I do Vietnamese?” or “can I blame the years I spent stalking our neighbors on this test I just took online that says I might have autism?” or even “what exactly is the protocol for if someone else gets my girlfriend pregnant??”.

Thanks, Mom.

All this to say that Tim really admires his big sister. Because even though Cass had grown up without language for most of her development, she managed to pick up both English and Mandarin within a year through determination of sheer fucking will— well enough that now, only a few years later, she passes decently well in both Hong Kong and New Jersey. And even though Tim can speak more languages than he has fingers— pretty standard for their family (although nobody even comes close to the number of languages Dick can speak)— he still thinks that’s sick as hell.

He admires all of his siblings, so much so that he sometimes feels like little Timmy Drake again with his camera looking at them (even Damian , sometimes), but the amount of sheer resilience Cass has: to have gone through everything she had, grown a moral compass, and still be (mostly) sane— let alone smile — well. It’s kind of terrifying. But mostly awe-inspiring.

When Tim first dreamed of becoming Robin, he’d been admiring Dick. When he became Red Robin, hurt and alone, he’d thought about the person Jason used to be. But after years of watching his older sister, Tim can’t help but reflect on how much he respects Cass and what she stands for.

As Batgirl, as Orphan, as Black Bat— as Cass, the woman that could face down pure evil and still sneak into Tim’s apartment to pull the laptop out of his hands and shove him into bed. 

(“Aww, Cass, ” he remembers whining sleepily on one such occasion.

“Shh, little brother,” Cass whispered as she crawled into Tim’s bed, immediately stealing all the blanket. “Sleep. I bought tickets for Star Fights tomorrow for us.”

“Star Wars, Cass, they’re called Star Wars,” Tim had mumbled before he succumbed to sleep, safe under the watchful gaze of big sister Cass.)

All of these things occur to Tim as he’s sweating his ass off in a parking lot, waiting for Damian to emerge from school.

Whereas any other kid would be a goddamned nightmare in their last year of middle school, pubescence actually chilled Damian out a bit. He got normal kid hobbies like art and playing cello and listening to horrible music that was a step up from his previous taste solely because it had been made within the last century, and had finally rid himself of his utter disdain for humans his age. Good for them.

But that meant Damian wants to participate in clubs now, which Tim is happy for him about in theory (he has some fond memories of chess club back in the day) but in practice just means that because Tim is nineteen, no longer the CEO of Wayne Enterprises, and still lives in Gotham, he is responsible for picking the brat up after school.

(“Why can’t Dick do it?” Tim remembers complaining. “He’s the one that actually likes the twerp.”

“ Dick ,” the man in question had said in the nasal voice he always used when he was feeling particularly snotty, “lives in a city that’s three hours away. Gas ain’t cheap, T.”

“Surprised you even notice, Richie,” Jason snarked, eyes glued to his phone. I’ve seen the texts between you and B, and 90% of it is you begging Daddy for gas money.”

Dick had his hand in the air, poised to deliver a punishing smack to the back of Jason’s neck when his wrist was grabbed by Bruce, accompanied with a Bat-patented warning Look . “As the man who fuels all of your vehicles, my word is law.” Jason fake-gagged. “Tim will be picking up Damian from school. That’s final.”

“This is a violation of my sixth amendment rights!” Tim declared, throwing his hands up.

Bruce squinted at him, letting go of Dick’s hand. Immediately, a smack rang out, as well as Jason’s familiar cursing, but Bruce ignored it. “...What does a right to a fair and speedy trial have to do with any of this?” he said, slowly. He was giving Tim that look that meant he was regretting having ever hired an adoption lawyer.

“Oh my god, he’s talking about the fucking eighth amendment,” Dick groaned from Jason’s headlock. “Cruel and unusual punishment.”

“Whatever, I skipped most of my civics class and I’m a model citizen,” Tim said, waving his hand. “Couldn’t have been that important.”

Jason laughed. “You sure you want to let this guy within 500 meters of a school, B?” It was a little hard to understand him, as he was currently fighting his way out of being choked by Dick’s legs, but Tim still caught enough to shoot back, “You literally kill people.”

“What are you, Puritan? Nobody’s perfect.” Tim smacked him. Then he smacked Dick too for good measure. He was promptly pulled into the wrestle pile.

Bruce sighed and walked out of the room. “Maybe Duke will make use of all the money I donate to that goddamn school,” he muttered to himself. 

Duke definitely wasn’t , and the only reason Bruce didn’t know that was ‘cause Duke had put Dick down as the person to receive all his absence notices, but Tim graciously did not mention that because Alfred didn’t raise snitches and also Jason’s elbow was directly on Tim’s small intestine. He suspected Bruce knew anyway.)

The point is that ever since Bruce regained his CEO status and exiled Tim into upper management for some bogus too-well-oiled department (seriously, Bruce? Cybersecurity? Tim basically automated this whole department years ago) Alfred and B have been on his case about “getting out more” and “seeing the sunlight”  and “not falling into bimonthly depressive spirals ending in energy-drink fueled mad science excursions into manmade horrors beyond our feeble comprehensions''.

(Okay, maybe Tim exaggerated that last part but it’s basically what Bruce said, the coward.)

And that included picking up Damian.

The minute the little brat had heard they had the chance to inconvenience Tim, they’d grinned so wide they almost cracked their jaw. By the very next day, Damian was a card-carrying member of the debate team, environmentalist club, GSA, vegan and vegetarian club (Tim hadn’t even known that was a thing ), and the Muslim Student Association, which together with band practice meant that six days of the week, Tim had to haul his ass through afternoon traffic to pick him up by 5.

Except for Thursdays, when Tim picked them up by 5:15 instead, because those were MSA days, which meant Damian would be saying his 'Asr prayer for ten minutes with his club members before he came out. Normally they weren’t so strict about prayer times, preferring to only say the noon prayer in the room the school provided for Islamic students after Bruce had yelled at enough PTA members, then wait to say the rest until they were at home, but MSA seemed to give Damian a community for his faith. Good for him! Tim is 100% not jealous, only feeling big-brother-y, happy feelings, yessir.

Seriously, he’s honestly happy Damian is growing into himself. He just wishes it didn’t feel like everyone was sort of… growing up without him? As if he was still stuck at 17, never taking that final step into independence. Hmm.

15 minutes isn’t that much longer to wait, and Tim spends it fiddling with his car’s controls to boost the AC (this cannot be 60 degrees) and scrolling through Twitter until his little sibling emerges, scowling as he’s teased by two girls flanking him in colorful hijabs all the way to Tim’s passenger door.

“—that your brother?” Tim hears as Damian wrenches the door open. Tim barely has time to aim a PR smile and wave at the girls before Damian slams the door shut again.

“Are those your friends, Dami?” Tim teases with a shit-eating grin and gets a mouthful of bared teeth in return. This carpooling thing does pay off sometimes. 

“Just drive, Timothy.”

Tim drives.

‘You want food?” he hums, spying a fast food place he knows has vegetarian options that his brother has admitted he ‘didn’t mind’.

Green eyes roll. “The economy is in freefall,” Damian deadpans. “Wouldn’t that money be better in a savings account?”

Tim snorts. “One, I’m a millionaire, recession isn’t real for me, and two, you do know that the self-help books in Dick’s apartment are just for decoration, right? Nobody actually reads them. Not even Jason.”

“Unfortunate. Jason could use some help.”

“Normally, I’d agree with you, but I think if Jason ever read a book that told him to lift himself up by the bootstraps, he’ll go straight back to the Pit days.”

Damian scoffs. “It’s been years since then. I was barely even Robin for that.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Tim sighs. “God, you’re young.” He can barely reconcile the Jason he knows now: twenty-one, working his way through an English degree, quick-witted and trustworthy, to the seventeen-year-old Jason that beat him black and blue out of pure rage in Titans Tower. Things are different now. Better. 

Tim is different now. So why does he feel so stuck?

And another way times have changed: instead of getting aggravated, Damian simply rolls his eyes again at Tim’s comment. The Damian of four years ago would rather steal Tim’s car than let Tim drive him around. He looks at Damian, staring passively at the sky. I get it now, Dick, it occurs to him. I get what you saw in him.

For a few minutes, they just cruise through afternoon traffic with only Tim’s playlist and his occasional road rage at a stupid driver for company, as usual.

Until: “Are you going to be Red Robin forever?” Damian asks, apropos of nothing. 

Tim starts. “What?”

When he glances over, Damian is looking right back at him. “Are you going to be Red Robin forever?” they repeat slowly.

“I dunno,” Tim answers, feeling weird. “Maybe? I don’t know.”

Damian tuts, refocusing on the sky.

“Why do you ask?”

“Nothing,” they mutter.

“Damian.”

Tim is ignored.

“I will literally pull over.”

Damian groans loudly. “It’s nothing! I was simply going to ask if you had plans to move on from Red Robin soon.”

Tim feels his eyes furrow. “...Why? Are you… unhappy being Robin?” He tries to imagine a Damian that didn’t want to be Robin anymore. His brain gives him a COULD NOT COMPUTE.

“Not for me, الحمار,” Damian hisses, eyes flashing. “For you.”

“...I don’t understand,” Tim admits, because he’s been working on admitting whenever he doesn’t know something lately. Dinah would be proud.

His brother hikes up his hood, and speaks like the words are being dragged out of his mouth. “Richard and Stephanie were gossiping, and they mentioned how Red Robin didn’t seem to make you… happy. Anymore. Stephanie said you ‘lost your Tim-ness’, or something else equally inane.” The phrase was spat like acid, though Tim had long learned to ignore Damian’s prickly outside. “Of course, none of our family members ever learned how to voice their concerns directly, so I shall say it: 

“I think you need to move on from Red Robin.”

Tim stares at them. 

After a moment, a hot flash of anger overwhelms him. Who the hell is Damian to tell Tim what is and isn’t good for him? The kid that stole Robin from him in the first place? Really?

“That’s awfully presumptuous of you,” he says coldly, fingers tightening on the wheel imperceptively. “Did Dick put you up to this?” No way the little gremlin initiated a conversation about Tim’s wellbeing of his own free will. No way.

The Damian of four years ago would’ve gone ballistic at the clear dismissal. This Damian just glares daggers. “Don’t be an ass. If being Red Robin is holding you back, it reflects poorly on all of us. That alone gives me reason enough to intervene, not to mention that I,” they pause and grit their teeth, “ care about you, Timothy.”

The admission shocks Tim into silence as Damian’s words sink in. He stares out at the rundown New Jersey traffic in front of him, contemplating. 

“I’ll keep it in mind,” he finally mutters.

“Whatever,” Damian scoffed, pulling out his phone to steadfastly ignore Tim for the rest of the night.

Tim really does keep his little sibling’s words in mind. They don’t leave Tim’s mind. In fact, the monologue rotates there for almost two months, taking up extremely valuable brain space.

Because Tim… thinks Damian might have a point. And that keeps him up at night.

They’re not entirely wrong, Tim thinks later as he rolls in lazy circles on his Redboard, killing time on a stakeout. Tim’s nineteen now. He hasn’t been officially Robin for years now, and the times he did put the R back on were drenched in melancholy, because Damian was missing somewhere but Batman needed a Robin . 

For years, he’s essentially played second string. Backup. Replacement . Jason had apologized, for calling him that name, one night when he and Tim were patrolling together, but Tim’s starting to think he might’ve been right the whole time.

Steph had said, according to Damian, that he’d lost his Tim-ness. What does that even mean? Who even is Tim outside of Robin? Even when he isn’t Robin, he’s still defined by Robin. The mantle has literally been his entire life, from three-year-old Timmy getting his first ever hug from a family of acrobats, to eight-year-old Tim wandering naively around Gotham because he needed to see him, to twelve-year-old Tim standing in the Wayne Manor doorway, soaking wet from the rain, on one of the many nights that his parents weren’t home with Bruce’s broken, dark face looming over him, because Batman needs a Robin . Who the hell is he without all of that? 

He glanced back at the bank he was staking out. It’s hours past when any action was supposed to happen, and there are still no signs of movement. “Whatever,” Tim mutters to the quiet and still street. “Who even keeps physical cash these days, anyway.”

“I know that was a rhetorical question,” Babs’ voice crackles over his comms suddenly, “but the answer is quite literally banks.”

“Oh, hi. A pleasure to hear from you as always, Oracle.”

“Likewise. Mind if I ask why you’re abandoning your post at the bank where your stepmother keeps her savings?”

Tim hums. “Counterpoint: wouldn’t it be funny to see Selina’s face if she got robbed?”

“Try again.”

“Fine, fine, I’ll stop crime at all costs, except when it’s committed by the few individuals Bruce has an interpersonal relationship with. Happy?”

“Not really, but I’ll take it,” Babs deadpans.

And Tim really thinks the conversation is over until-

“I’m noticing that you’re still not walking back to the bank.”

Tim groans. “This is so stupid. I’m going back to my apartment.” He launched a grapple line towards the high rises.

“A vigilante choosing to end the night early,” Babs marvels. “Now I’ve really seen everything. C’mon, Red, what’s got you so flighty? Is Ra’s bothering you again? Or is there a way more interesting case you’re hoarding?”

“What? No, nothing like that, I just—” Tim hesitates. 

I think you need to move on from Red Robin.

“—Oracle,” he says, feeling a little stupid. “How do you… find yourself?”

On the other end of the comms, the rapid clicking and typing that constitute background noise for a call with Babs pauses. He can feel her confusion over the airwaves. “What do you mean?” she asks cautiously.

The stupid feeling intensifies. “Like. Y’know. Without the cape. How do you… know if you’re… where you’re supposed to be?”

The silence on the other end lasts so long that he thinks Babs might have left the call.

“Oracle?”

Finally, she sighs. “This must be important if you’re asking to talk about emotions.”

Fair. “Yeah, kinda.”

“Okay. Look. When I got paralyzed,” Babs begins haltingly, and Tim winces, wondering if he should just say never mind and make a hasty exit from this conversation, “I spent a month just lying around, feeling sorry for myself. I had pretty much figured that Bruce was right all along, that I was never cut out for this whole vigilante thing.”

“O, you don’t have to—”

Babs cut him off, steel in her tone. “I’m not done. Gotham was really— really bad during those times. It was only after you became Robin that my dad even made me go back to working at the library.”

Tim absorbs this, silently. Admittedly, he hadn’t been paying as much attention to Babs at the time as he should’ve been, caught up as he had been with Bruce’s crumbling (more than usual, anyway) mental state, his parents, and protecting the people of the most crime-ridden city in the Western Hemisphere. That was probably a mistake.

“When Cass found me in that library, I thought my life as a vigilante was over. I thought my life, period, was over. I let Cass be Batgirl because I figured it’d be the last thing I could offer Gotham and then I’d just— I don’t even know, fade away or something. But then,” Babs confided, a bit lighter, “I helped Cass put on the suit and face her father. And it reminded me of why I became Batgirl in the first place.”

“To save people?” Tim guesses.

“That,” Babs says, “but also, to stick it to Batman.” Tim snorts, startled. “It’s true! It’s why I became Batgirl, it’s why I let Cass and Steph use my suit, and it’s why I became Oracle: because only I, not Bruce, or my Dad, or the fucking Joker get to tell me that I’m done. I decide when I’m finished. And I’ve faced way worse than a wheelchair. Get that?”

Tim is grinning by the time Babs finishes her speech. “Yeah. Yeah, I get that, Oracle.”

“Good. Did I answer your question?”

Did she? Tim thinks about it for a second, swinging across the rooftops.

“…I think so,” Tim assures her. “And… thanks. For telling me about that. I wasn’t even aware back then—” 

“You were just a kid,” Babs says, with a tinge of weariness. “Don't worry about it.”

“Can I ask something else?”

“Go for it.” The typing resumes over the line. Tim pulls himself into his apartment window, delicately stepping over the piles of clothes and paper that inhabit his floors while he thinks of how to phrase his next question.

“Do you miss it? Being Batgirl?”

Barbara hums. “Sometimes,” she replies thoughtfully. “But, Cass deserves Batgirl. I miss it less as I go on. Would I change it if I could? Maybe. But I like my life right now. I'm good with Oracle.”

“That’s… good,” Tim says. “...Can we stop talking about emotions now?”

“God, I thought you’d never ask,” Babs says, relief evident in her voice. 

“Any chance I can convince you not to tell Dick about this conversation?”

“Not even if you paid me,” Babs smarms. “Go to bed, Tim.”

“Later, Babs.”

bitch i mightwing: how dare you (Delivered 4:39 am)

bitch i mightwing: having an emotional conversation WITHOUT ME? (Delivered 4:39 am)

yum: oracle took longer to tell you than I thought she would tbh (Delivered 4:52 am)

bitch i mightwing: we will be Having Words timothy (Delivered 4:53 am)

yum: not if bruce finds out it was you that graffitied the police station and not Harley (Delivered 4:54 am)

bitch i mightwing: . (Delivered 4:59 am)

bitch i mightwing: one: go to sleep (Delivered 5:01 am)

yum: hypocrite (Delivered 5:01 am)

bitch i mightwing: TWO, fine. You have One Week. (Delivered 5:02 am)

bitch i mightwing: i’m also blocking you after i send this so i get the last word btw <333 (Delivered 5:02 am)

yum: i’ll be the judge of that (Delivered 5:03 am)

yum: nightwing? (Delivered 5:04 am)

yum: i fucking hate you (Delivered 5:04 am)

Luckily, Tim calls in a favor with Owlman ( long story, but it involves maybe too many dubiously legal caffeinated drinks) that has Nightwing busy in New York for a month. That’ll teach Dick not to threaten talks about emotions with him.

Cass comes back into town a few weeks later. And Tim makes up his mind. 

He drives from his apartment back to the Manor early in the afternoon, early enough to catch Cass before she hides somewhere in a cabinet for a nap (Nobody in the family tends to sleep at all around strangers, so sleeping on public transportation tends to be a no. With Cass’ disabilities, the experience is only more overstimulating, so they try to keep the private plane around for her. Unfortunately, Duke managed to crash it two weeks ago, and no amount of sincere apologies from him would bring the Batjet back from the bottom of a lagoon in the Maldives), but late enough that B, Duke, and Damian had already put away most of her luggage. Perfect.

 He finds her in her room, organizing her nunchucks into a drawer.

“Hey, Cass,” he greets.

Cass aims her trademark blinding smile at him. “Hi, little brother.” Her eyes sweep his face, and her eyebrows lift incrementally. “You want something?”

Tim nods and sits down on the floor. Cass flops onto the massive beanbag Steph bought her. A jaunty, uneven breath leaves Tim’s chest. He’s been trained out of all of his obvious nervous tics, but Cass can probably tell regardless. “So.” He starts out. “You’re Batgirl now, right?”

Cass looks down at her suit, as if checking to see if the Batgirl symbol hadn’t fallen off her chest when she wasn’t paying attention. She looks back up. “Yeah?” she says, the corners of her lips twitching.

Tim scoffs. “You know what I mean. Like you’re Batgirl for good, now? No more Orphan or… uh, or Black Bat?”

“Mm-hmm.”

“Well, I was wondering… y’know, since you’re Batgirl now… I’ve been thinking that I need a new alias, and we all know how Drake went, so I wanted to ask you if… if you don’t mind if I could. Uh—”

Cass’ black eyes glitter at him, eyebrows furrowed. “Tim, are you saying—”

“I wanna be Black Bat,” Tim finishes breathlessly.

Cass is still and silent. Tim stares at her, watching batedly for any reaction, but his mouth keeps moving. “If— if that’s okay with you. I’m not Robin anymore, and I’ve made my peace with that. But Damian and I were talking and I think Red Robin has been holding me back. I wanna try moving away from Robin. And, obviously, it’s your mantle and if you think I’m not… y’know, if you don’t want me to have it or something that’s totally—”

Cass reaches out. Tim’s mind flashes, wildly, to his mom’s hands, and her long, pointy nails digging into his side when he would say something she didn’t like. He tenses, slightly, and his eyes drop.

The hand comes to rest, softly on Tim’s shoulder before gliding up his neck to hold his cheek. “Really?” Cass breathes. 

Tim looks back up. Cass’s deep, dark eyes are brimming with tears. “You mean it?” She says.

“Of course, Cass,” Tim says, wide-eyed. “You’re the strongest person I know.”

The tears spilled over Cass’ bottom lids. “Little brother!” she cries, hooking him by the shoulders and yanking him in, “I would be honored!”

As Tim released a breath he didn’t even realize he’d been holding, he hugged her back, burying his face in her choppy split ends. And he smiled.

“Bruce named me,” Cass signs later, when both of their tears have dried. “He gave me Cassandra. Babs gave me Batgirl . I received both as gifts. I made Orphan out of anger, when I met my mother and rejected her. But I made Black Bat out of love. Love for my family. It is my-” she suddenly signs a word in CSL that Tim doesn’t recognize. She fingerspells the English phonetics out for him: “C-h-é-n-g-n-u-ò. 承诺. My commitment.”

“I’ll make you proud,” Tim vows, squeezing her hand in his.

Cass just shakes her head. “Little brother.” Her smile is soft. “You already make me proud,” she says aloud.

Later that night, all of his siblings (and Steph) are gathered in the Manor for dinner before patrol. By the time Dick finally waltzed through the door (turns out “I’ll be there in 15 minutes” meant “I’m just now entering the county”), and the table was set, and almost a dozen hungry vigilantes lined the massive dining table, streaks of orange evening sunlight flitted through the massive kitchen window.

Alfred gives the go-ahead, and dinner (“Finally,” Duke groans) starts. While he’s shoveling food into his mouth, Tim waits.

Damian starts complaining about something their art teacher said. Tim waits.

Steph talks about her and her mom’s trip to the soup kitchen. Tim waits. 

Alfred brings out a tray of cookies and almost starts World War III. Duke manages to grab the last one solely because he had the foresight to take the batteries out of Jason’s taser beforehand (Not that Jason would've actually used the taser, the big softie). Tim waits, garnering weird looks when he doesn’t even try to fight for the last cookie.

Finally, when everyone is in varying states of food coma, Bruce asks, “What about you, Tim? You look like there’s something on your mind.”

Tim smiles, only a little nervously, and stands up. “I actually have an announcement,” he says, voice shifting automatically into Timothy Drake-Wayne.

Eight pairs of eyes look back at him, intrigued. “You have the floor, Timmy,” Dick deadpans, curious.  

“Well… I was talking to Damian and Barbara a while back,” Damani’s bushy eyebrows pop up at being mentioned, “and I realized that I’ve outgrown Red Robin.”

There is a small pause.

“Oh shit ,” Steph blurts, as all of Tim’s siblings react with syncopated shock and excitement. Except for Cass, of course. “So this is a new persona announcement?” 

“About damn time,” Duke says, grinning. 

“Which name have you chosen?” Damian asks, trying not to look interested and failing.

“Well,” Tim says, feeling a blush creep up his face. “I asked Cass, and she said… that I could take Black Bat. And soooo… I did. I am.”

Another silence. Tim glances at Cass, and she winks at him.

Jason breaks the silence, teasing, “Oh wooow , so Cassie gets the consideration of asking permission but I don’t? Twice? Typical.” 

“Ignore him,” Dick smacks him on the back of the neck, then stands to pull Tim into a hug. “Tim, that’s awesome!”

“Yeah, it’s whatever,” Tim mumbles, but the words get muffled in Dick’s chest.

“We’re going to have to update your callsign,” Bruce rumbles, doing his version of a warm smile. “Congratulations, Tim.” He ruffles Tim's hair once he escapes Dick’s grasp.

Jason gives him a playful once-over, rubbing his neck. “You’re gonna have to lose a few if you wanna fit in Cass’ old costume.”

Steph gasps. “WAIT. Does that mean we get to design a new costume for Tim?”

“What? It’s my costume. I get to design it.”

“ I have to be seen next to you,” Damian sniffs as a counterpoint. “I should get a vote on the design.”

“Exactly,” Duke says, grinning. “We don’t want another Discowing.”

“Oh my god,” Dick moans over the laughter that breaks out. “Why does everyone always bring that up? I was finding myself!”

Tim glances at Cass. She shrugs back at him, eyes dancing amusedly. Your costume , she signs. You decide, Black Bat.

It almost startles him, to be called that, but the name settles in his mind warmly, like a scarf wrapped around his shoulders. 

Black Bat. Yes. Yeah, Tim thinks he’s gonna like that.

Chapter Text

Everyone knows that each of the Bats had a special kind of person. Of course, they would save anyone that needed help, but there are certain groups of people that drift toward certain vigilantes. Sex workers gossiping with Nightwing in the Bowery, Park Row kids letting down their barriers for Red Hood, and immigrant mothers leaving treats out for Robin were all commonplace sights in Gotham Knights. 

Tonight, a girl sits atop a rooftop, staring at the ground below. This high up, people and cars looked inconsequentially tiny, like little bugs. Her black hair whipped around like fabric in the wind. She tried to imagine that every person had their own lives, that time hadn’t stopped for everyone else, but she found she couldn’t. Below her, the ugly concrete infrastructure turned into a sea of swarming shadows, as if when she closed her eyes and tipped over the edge she would just keep falling and falling forever—

“Hi.”

She turned around, and from the shadows of the rooftop access door, two white lens-covered eyes regarded her calmly.

“H-hi,” she said weakly, heart beginning to pick up speed.

“What’s your name?”

“...Luisa.”

“Cool. What are you doing up here?”

“N-nothing,” she stuttered, not even buying her own lie.

The eyes tilted, like he was cocking his head. “I don’t think I believe that,” he said. 

She knew what he was going to say before he even askedthe question, but the question still hit like a wrecking ball. “Are you going to jump off?”

Louisa hesitated, sweat dripping down her back. She honestly didn’t know. “Not with you here,” she decided aloud, reasoning that he would definitely catch her if she did.

“That’s good.” The vigilante crept forward, exposing himself to the neon night. Luisa got her first good look at him, and it wasn’t somebody she recognised.

He was dressed in a mostly black, fitted costume. Upon first glance, his belt and insignia held the only splashes of color on his suit— a shiny metallic yellow— aside from his wrists, which were wrapped in strips of white athletic fabric.

“My partner died. They were everything I had,” she said blankly, fighting against the flashbacks. “I don’t know who I am without them.”

He sighed heavily. For a moment, she could see him considering his next words. “I know how you feel. I felt like that for a while, too. Have you tried talking to someone about it? That’s a heavy thing to carry alone.”

Hesitantly, she offered, “I tried talking to the… y’know, the people at the Suicide Hotline. But they weren’t really…”

“Helpful?” The bat said wryly. “Yeah, they weren’t great for me either. They mean well, but there are a lot of untrained people and the state doesn’t really fund them right.”

“Y… yeah.” It began to dawn on her that she was really talking to a vigilante about underfunded crisis prevention programs.

“Back then,” he continued, “things were really bad for me. I know they’re really bad for you. None of the shit people usually say helped me. I couldn’t believe I had “so much to live for”, and all the people that would miss me I was pretty angry at, like if I died I’d have the last word.

“But you know what kept me going?”

Slowly, she shook her head.

“It was the fact that my favorite show hadn’t ended yet,” he admitted. She startled. “My friends and I were all big fans of Wendy the Werewolf Stalker, and I knew they’d all hate me if I gave up the chance for at least one of us to see the finale.”

“Oh. Huh,” she said slowly. “Was it… good?”

He flapped his hand at her dismissively. “Oh, no, the show hasn’t ended yet. They’ll probably be making it until the sun flickers out. How about I tell you about it, so when you get the opportunity, you can watch it too? There’s some stuff in the comics that makes the beginning way less confusing.”

Far below them, in Luisa's peripheral vision, a truck covered with emergency markings pulled up. It barely registered in her mind. “Sure,” she said, curious despite herself. She hadn’t imagined superheroes had much time to watch TV. 

He talked softly for what was probably only ten minutes, but it felt like hours. He didn’t even pause when a hand came down softly, but firmly, on Louisa’s shoulder, and she peered up into the helmet-clad face of an Emergency Services member. 

The first responder began tugging her backward, toward the door, murmuring encouragingly. 

“Check out that show, okay?” the hero said, floppy black hair hanging in his eyes. There was an odd set to his mouth. He got up, and made his way toward the edge of the rooftop. “Stay safe out there.”

“Wait,” she whispered, even as Emergency Services wrapped her in a blanket and began coaxing her backward. The vigilante stopped on the ledge. “You never told me your name.”

The vigilante looked back at her and gave her a small, genuine smile. “You can call me Black Bat,” he said, then leapt off the rooftop, cape fluttering in his wake.