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‘This is it?’ Tim asked, looking up at the masked man in front of him, unable to hide the bob of his throat. ‘This is the end of it? Of everything?’
Deathstroke cocked his head, the gun in his hand not wavering from where it was pointed at Tim’s head. ‘This is the end of the line, kid. It’s over.’ Even through the voice modulator, Tim thought he could hear something faintly regretful in the mercenary’s tone. Maybe there was, maybe there wasn’t; it didn’t matter. Deathstroke was too good a killer to let something as petty as a conscience, as regret, to hold him back.
Tim swallowed, his throat dry. He had faced death before – of course he had, who in this line of work hadn’t – but now, today … it felt permanent in a way that it rarely had before. He was cold, he realised absently – ice seeped into his bones from the stone floor of the warehouse. The skin on his wrists, raw from the friction of rubbing against the rope bindings, ached with every stray breeze.
Daylight streamed through the small holes in the ceiling. In any other city, a kidnapping in the day would have been considered almost suicidal, only attempted by the most stupid of criminals. In Gotham … in Gotham, it was prudent. After all, who would prefer to face Batman, when they could be facing the Signal, who wouldn’t even operate during school hours, most of the time.
‘Could you tell me … ,’ Tim asked, then trailed off. ‘Could you tell me who organised this? Who paid you?’ His voice was rough from shouting. God, if Damian knew that he had been picked up, that he had been kidnapped in the light of day … the Demonspawn would laugh himself hoarse. Probably the only time that the child would laugh because of him.
‘You know there are rules. Expectations-,’ Deathstroke began, but Tim shook his head, eyes closing.
‘Please. We both know that this situation … I’m not getting out of it alive. Just-,’ Tim took a breath. ‘Was it Ra’s? Did he finally decide that I wasn’t worth it?’ There was a long list of people who wanted him dead, but people with enough sway to persuade Deathstroke, when the man knew that killing Tim would only set the Bats on the warpath … there were few.
‘Luthor,’ grunted Deathstroke, and Tim breathed out slowly.
‘Does he know about us? Does he know that I’m … Red Robin?’ Deathstroke had known for years, due to his rivalry with Tim’s brother, but Luthor … Luthor finding out would be disastrous. Potentially catastrophic, and definitely painful.
For a moment, Deathstroke didn’t say anything, and Tim thought that he wouldn’t. that they would just sit here, until he died. But then – grudgingly – ‘I won’t tell him,’ promised the mercenary. Tim nodded, closing his eyes, and trying to calm his racing heartbeat.
He couldn’t remember exactly how he had been taken – the drug racing around his system ensured that – but he remembered flashes of the last hour. The glare of sunlight in his eyes, the sound of crying – a child – and the cold glint of a gun pressed to Tim’s forehead. A syringe entering his neck, and then … nothing, until Tim woke here.
The warehouse, for all of its shabby looks, was heavily fortified. White noise generators ensured that no super powered individuals would be able to hear if Tim called out, and the many disguised guards stationed around the outside of the building ensured that this would not be interrupted by anyone before the time was up.
The bindings tying Tim down were tight – tight enough to cut off blood pressure to his hands – and even though Tim was certain that he could escape them, with time, he didn’t think he would be able to avoid the gun levelled at his face. And even if he did … he could already feel the poison overcoming his senses, blurring the edges of his vision. It was exotic, so he hadn’t been able to build up a resistance to it, but he thought that he recognised it.
Lionkiller, it was called on the streets, by the few lucky enough to have some. Extremely rare, extremely deadly. There was no antidote. It would kill him slowly, numbing his pain, and sending him into a sleep he would not wake from. A mercy of Deathstroke’s, and one Tim was all too happy to receive.
Maybe that made him pathetic. Jason had died in pain – beaten with a crowbar and then exploded. Stephanie had almost died, had been tortured until her body nearly gave up on her. Damian had been stabbed in the back by a clone created by his own mother to replace him. Compared to them, a death like this … it was more than any vigilante could wish for. A peaceful death, with no pain, and no betrayal.
That didn’t make it any less terrifying, in Tim’s eyes.
‘Can I call them?’ Tim asked softly, and Deathstroke, who had been looking around the warehouse before, checking every shadow, froze. He turned on his heel, to look at Tim, and opened his mouth to deny it, before Tim cut in. ‘Just to say goodbye?’ His palms were sweating. ‘However long it would take for them to figure out where we were, and get here, would be too long. I know how the poison works.’
Deathstroke breathed out through his nose, before pulling out a burner phone, dialling a number – how had he memorised one of their numbers – and nestling it between Tim’s neck and his shoulder, close enough to his ear that he could hear what was said.
The phone rang through a few times, and Tim felt his heart lurch in his chest, before it picked up suddenly.
‘Dick Grayson-Wayne here, who’s calling?’ Dick’s voice, as chirpy as ever, filled Tim’s ear. Even now, when Tim was on the brink of death, it reassured him, wrapping around him like a blanket, grounding him to reality only a little longer.
Tim cleared his throat, only now, when he had Dick here, realising that he hadn’t thought about what to say. ‘Hey Dick. It’s Tim.’ Even to him, that sounded stilted, and the pause between when he spoke, and when Dick responded seemed to ring in the silence of the warehouse, where all he could hear was Slade’s breaths.
‘Timmy? Aren’t you at work?’ There was a subtle probing in his words, a curiosity Tim couldn’t indulge.
‘You’d think that, yeah,’ said Tim. ‘But … no. I-,’ he cut himself off, biting his lip. ‘Where are you?’ he asked. He didn’t want to hoist all of this off on Dick – it would be easier for his brother if there was even one more person ready to listen with him.
‘I’m at the Manor, Timbo. Why? Is something wrong? Why aren’t you at work?’ Concern edged Dick’s words, a concern which made Tim almost want to give this conversation up, to hang up.
‘Is anyone there with you?’ Tim asked, hoping that there was. This would all hurt so much less, if Dick was with other people. From the corner of Tim’s eye, he caught Deathstroke watching him, but he didn’t meet the mercenary’s eyes. Why would he? It wasn’t as if he had anything to hide – no Tim was laid bare now.
‘Yeah? One second,’ Tim heard Dick pull away from the phone, and call for the others. His footsteps echoed in the phone, and Tim held onto those noises, those last semblances of normality, to keep him alive. ‘I’m in the lounge – Bruce, Alfred, Jason and Duke are here.’
Tim swallowed, and then smiled slightly. ‘Can you put me onto speakerphone?’ he asked.
‘Sure.’ Dick’s voice was uncertain. ‘They can hear you now.’
‘Before I start, can I just … I don’t want anyone to interrupt me.’ Began Tim, and already he could hear the tension on the other side of the line. Thankfully, they listened to him. ‘I can’t do this anymore,’ Tim said. ‘This life … our occupation. It’s getting to me, and I can’t do this. You have all been amazing to me – the first true family that I knew – but from this moment on, I think I need to do things by myself.
‘I can’t just keep coming back here, because every time I do, I think I lose a bit of myself. I need to be on my own, I need to leave.’ Tim chucked, a broken sound which forced itself from his lips. ‘I guess what I’m saying is that you shouldn’t expect to hear from me for a while. Forever, perhaps. You’ve been perfect, yet I need something different. Something which Gotham, and Red Robin, and the Bats can’t give me.’
Tim could imagine what the others would be doing. Could almost see the way that Dick’s face would crumple in on itself, could almost hear the nearly inaudible gasp of shock, as Alfred realised what he was saying, could almost smell the heightened fear and distress in the room. A bitter, metallic smell which had too often permeated the Manor.
‘Don’t try to find me,’ Tim said, knowing that this was one of the hardest things he had ever done. ‘Don’t come looking for me. I won’t be there for you to find. I’m going to reinvent myself, become someone new, and if you try to stop me, I can guarantee you will fail. It’ll be like catching wind in your hands.’ Tim choked down the sob which rose to his voice, and continued to speak, the composure he had learnt at his mother’s knee being the only thing keeping him going through this conversation.
‘This isn’t your fault,’ Tim promised them, though he knew that they wouldn’t believe him. ‘None of this is the fault of anyone. It’s just that … I don’t think that this life is suited for me. The evidence of that has surrounded me for years, and I can’t ignore it any longer. If I were to stay with you, if I were to continue … I think that at some point, I would make a big mistake – the sort you can’t change. I would hurt someone too badly, or I would lose someone. And I can’t do that to you.’
Tim shut his eyes, trying to put himself in the position of a different Tim. A Tim who had the option to leave – who wasn’t bound so tightly to Gotham that exiting its borders felt like losing a part of himself. In some way, he thought to himself, it wasn’t surprising that he was going to die here. Right now, it seemed too obvious to have missed in the past.
‘I’m going to live a normal life,’ said Tim. ‘I’ll get married-,’ and oh God, what was Kon going to think? How would he react when he learnt that Tim had left Gotham, had left him? What would he think, that when Tim had finally chosen him, he had vanished. It would hurt him so much. Tim squeezed his eyes shut to avoid the hot prickle of tears.
This couldn’t hurt more than finding out that Tim had died, surely? Tim knew Kon – he was too good for him. He’d probably assume that as long as Tim was happy, he could be happy. He would be able to move on, somehow.
‘I’ll get married,’ Tim continued, ‘And have kids, and have a normal job.’ He breathed in a deep breath. ‘It would be easier for you if you forgot me, but I know you, and know that your not going to dot it.’ He didn’t know whether he was talking to all of them, or to just Bruce, his father. ‘But just try to move on from this, from me. Because I don’t know if I can leave, if I don’t know that you would be happy, and if I don’t leave, I’ll just be miserable, and you wouldn’t do that to me, would you?’ He was rambling, Tim realised, and the poison was probably reaching his brain. If he wanted to give them even a shred of hope that he was out living a normal life, then he couldn’t die on the phone.
‘What I’m trying to say is that you shouldn’t mourn me. I’m not dying,’ the irony made him want to throw up, ‘I’m just moving onto a better life, where I’ll be happier. This is a step forwards, and I just want … I just want all of you to think of it as that. So … this is it.’ Tim looked up towards the ceiling, where the beams of light were growing darker, warmer. Sunset.
‘I love all of you, even Damian, and you Jason. And I’m sorry that I couldn’t spend more time with you, but this isn’t sustainable. Have a good life,’ he said, and almost life at how poor he was at this. ‘And Goodbye.’ Tim lifted his eyes to Slade’s, and almost gestured to hang up the phone, before-
‘Tim, wait, please.’ That was Bruce’ voice – Bruce’s voice shot through with emotions Tim had rarely heard from him. ‘Tim can … can you promise me something? If this is truly what you want?’
‘Yeah,’ Tim said, wishing that this call could be over.
‘Promise me that you’ll be happy. Promise me that you’ll be safe. And promise me that you’ll remember that you’ll always have a home back here in Gotham, no matter how far you go.’ Even to death? ‘Even if you don’t want me … ,’ Bruce choked, cutting off, ‘Even if you don’t want me to be your father anymore, you will always, always, be my son. That’s not the sort of thing that a single phone conversation can take away. We lov-,’ Tim breathed in sharply. ‘We love you.’ Bruce continued, and Tim realised, in a cut off part of his mind, that he had made the great Batman cry.
‘If you ever need us,’ Bruce promised, ‘We’re only a phone call away. So … just promise me that you’ll live a good life.’
‘I promise,’ Tim lied, and then handed the phone over to Slade. He hung up without a question, though the way he looked at Tim … something had changed. Tim tried to wipe his eyes on his shoulder, managing to remove some of the wetness of his cheeks.
‘It’s going to hurt them less this way,’ Tim explained to a silent Deathstroke. ‘At least now, they can lie to themselves. They can tell themselves that I’m happy, and they don’t need to feel guilt.’ Tim shut his eyes, looking up at those golden pinpricks of light above him, so much like stars. Sobs – great wracking sobs – rose up in the back of his throat, but Tim pushed them down ruthlessly. He would not cry in front of his own killer.
‘Don’t let them find my body,’ Tim asked, as his vision began to go dark. His body shut down around him, limbs losing feeling and movement. ‘I don’t want a funeral, I don’t want to be remembered. Just throw my body in a fire or something – dispose of it in some way that means they won’t know. I can’t do that to them.’
‘That’s a deal,’ says Deathstroke.
That was the last thing Tim heard, before his eyes shut. Maybe dying wouldn’t be too bad, he told himself. After all, little could hurt like the life he had led, like the last seventeen years.
Seventeen. Dying at seventeen; just another broken body amongst the hundreds of teenagers that Gotham kills each year. Tim had never been one for religion – it had seemed a farce, especially when one of his best friends was a demi-god. But right now, if any gods were listening to the prayers of a child, he wanted them to know that he was sorry.