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Tim wasn’t Robin, not anymore. Jack Drake had awoken from his coma – a miracle, the doctors had said – and he had found out. Tim knew he should have been more careful, he was always so well prepared in everything else in life, so why hadn’t he been in this one instance?
As much as he hated to admit it, he knew the answer, too.
Never before had Jack Drake given a shit about parenting. The moment Tim was old enough to be left alone, he and Janet were off to the airport, to some exotic dig or business meeting. Anywhere, so long as it wasn’t Gotham. And Tim was left behind at Drake Manor, looked after by nannies, carted off to boarding school. Forgotten.
Tim hadn’t thought that he would need to go to any extreme lengths to hide his Robin uniform – Jack hadn’t before taken enough interest in him to know what he did outside of school, let alone enough to look inside the bag he left underneath his bed.
He stared out the car window, unwilling to be the first to speak as Jack Drake drove them home from Wayne Manor.
“I don’t believe this,” Jack fumed.
Tim stayed silent.
“How did this even happen, Timothy? How did you manage to get recruited to become Robin, to fight crime for years?” They pulled into the driveway and Jack stopped the car, but neither of them moved. Jack’s breath was coming in harsh puffs, a telltale sign of his anger, and Tim just wanted to go back to the silence.
“I wasn’t recruited,” Tim said, still staring out the window. “I stole the armour and then forced him to train me.”
“What – why? Wait, you know what. How did you even manage to keep this a secret?” he sneered.
Die. Die, die die die die, drop dead, his mind chanted at the man beside him.
Tim had had enough of it. He turned to look at Jack, relished at the way he flinched back from whatever he saw on Tim’s face.
“Oh, I wonder,” Tim started, his voice mockingly cold. “I was left alone in the house for months at a time. The staff weren’t even there – they assumed I was travelling with you. Mrs Mac only came by once a week to cook the meals so that I didn’t starve, not that you would have noticed either way. There wasn’t even any effort on my part, I didn’t even need to keep it a secret. You were too busy gallivanting across the globe to even realise you had a son.” Tim’s voice steadily rose, till he was almost shouting at the man before him. He took a breath, reigned in the anger and got control of himself. Tim’s face shuttered off, and there was no hint of anything left to show.
“Thank you for driving me,” Tim said in a pleasant tone as he exited the car.
Sometimes, in the dead of night, when he lay in bed thinking, he wished that he had done it. Pulled the plug. His dad had been in a coma, he’d had the chance, and yet he had been selfish. He couldn’t do it, not to the only living relative he had left. And now look at where it had left him.
No Robin, no family, no hope.
Jack Drake had taken everything away from him. He had made a miraculous recovery, and his first act had been to barge in on Tim’s life.
Jack hadn’t been in Tim’s life ever, and yet still he tried to sweep years of neglect under the rug, because now he wants to invest in his son’s life. As if he had any say in the matter, as if he hadn’t given up the role of dad when he left his son on the doorstep of an empty house for months on end with nothing more than empty promises. And yet he felt like he could just barge in, pretend everything was fine and rip away everything Tim had gotten for himself in his absence.
Tim wished Jack was dead.
The nights were restless. Tim was buzzing to go outside, into the Gotham night. He had done it since he was little over 8, years and years and years that now left him empty in the absence of them.
Jack Drake had been trying. That was the problem. Fourteen years of pretending that Tim didn’t exist and then suddenly he was trying. He asked about his day at school. He kept up the conversation at the dinner table even when Tim refused to say more than three words in return. He encouraged Tim to pick up some old hobbies to fill his time with. But Tim had grieved for his father years ago, when he had been almost killed in his own house and his parents had said four words – four words – regarding his well being before they were swept away in whatever else concerned them. Tim couldn’t even muster up any care for the man who was now wrecking his life as if he had any right.
The last suggestion was one that Tim had listened to though, just not in the way Jack had hoped. Pick up an old hobby… he could do that. His camera was sitting on the shelf collecting dust, it had been so long since he used it. And he wasn’t going to do anything else during the nights anyway.
So when night came again, Tim loosened the floorboard under his bed, dug out its contents and put on the plain black armoured suit – one of the extra ones stored in the batcave for emergencies – a domino mask and a black utility belt, hung the camera around his neck and climbed out his window.
Jack had taken precautions to make sure that his son would not return to the Robin position, but they were useless against Tim’s training. He was so sure of himself, so certain that his son would no longer be Robin, he didn’t even bother to check Tim’s room at night. He was out of the house and making his way down the street within minutes, leaving Jack Drake behind in that hollow manor, none the wiser.
It was a different experience, travelling across the rooftops of Gotham when he didn’t need to worry about crime he needed to swoop in and stop, or the next civilian he would need to save. All he had to do was move. The first week of his adventures, Tim stuck closely to Batman and Robin’s patrol, shoving the bitter feeling he felt when he saw Steph patrolling as Robin as far down as it would go. He was happy for her – he was. It was just… that was his role. It was meant to be his.
Tim had a collection, by that point. He had photos of Bruce, of Dick in both Robin and Nightwing uniforms, and now of Steph, dressed in the bright purple of her Spoiler uniform or in the Robin costume. But there was a gaping hole in his collection – Jason. Some of his most treasured pictures were of Jason’s time as Robin, and yet Tim owned no pictures of Red Hood.
It bugged him. As Robin, Bruce had forbidden him from entering the Red Hood’s territory, but he wasn’t Robin anymore. The next night, Tim was running across the rooftops of Crime Alley, staying as silent as possible while he hunted down the vigilante.
Jason didn’t work with the bats. When following Bruce and Steph, it was easy enough to just hack the batcomputer, or predict them himself if he had to. But Jason’s patrol routes were unknown.
Over the course of the next month, Tim mapped out any sightings of Red Hood, from police reports or his own run ins. He taped up a map in his room, filled it with the coloured pins to mark every place that Red Hood had been seen in. He was a detective, but by the time he had figured it out, he was on the verge of quitting, tearing the whole map down in frustration and just giving up.
Planning your patrol routes around the chilli dog stands was so random – so Jason – that in the end Tim didn’t even mind that it had taken him so long to work out.
Watching the Red Hood work was exhilarating. He had all the grace and agility of his Robin days, and double the viciousness. Jason would periodically wipe out whole warehouses full of gang members, leaving behind dead bodies, groans of pain and blood coating every surface. It was brutal, but effective.
Tim knew that Batman could never do it, kill a criminal. But he could. The Robin costume and all its symbolism, the light it brought to Gotham, meant that Robin couldn’t kill. It was the key value of the title, and Tim couldn’t corrupt that. But he also knew that Robin was holding him back.
Tim had done the first of his training under Lady Shiva, months and months worth of fighting and training. She had taught him her own lethal skill. The only problem was, Robin didn’t kill, so instead he adapted it, held back, and relied more heavily on the training he had received from Bruce. But Lady Shiva was the most skilled martial artist in the world, and Bruce was not.
Tim thought of it, sometimes. Of what he could do if he didn’t have to hold back. He could become his own hero, like Red Hood, killing as needed and not holding back, not purposely making himself weaker so that his opponent came out alive.
Tim regularly kept up his training, practicing the skills that Shiva had taught him, but he never used them on field. One day, he hoped, he would be able to.
His own vigilante… Tim wondered what that would look like. He loved his bo staff, the reach he had with the weapon, but it wasn’t lethal enough for his liking. But a sword was awkward in his grasp – he knew how to wield one, of course, it was a critical part of Robin training to learn how to wield all manner of weapons, but he couldn’t find it in himself to use one unless necessary. A spear, or maybe a scythe – though that weapon had been all but ruined for him by the Scarecrow – maybe even a battle axe.
Tim almost laughed out loud as he imagined what criminals’ reactions would be if he started to carry around a great big, double-sided battle axe. In the end, he decided that he might just incorporate retractable blades into his bo staff, though. He was the most proficient with that weapon, anyway.
Tim would also carry around more knives. His own knife, the one he had first killed with, had not left his possession since the robbers had broken into Drake Manor. Alfred – the all-knowing saint that he was – somehow knew this too, and every Robin utility belt Tim had ever worn was equipped with a sheath at the back, hidden underneath his cape.
What about the costume? Tim considered it. The uniform would have more black to it, of course – he was sick of all the yellow and green colours he wore as Robin, which made it almost impossible to blend into the shadows with – but he couldn’t bring himself to get rid of the red entirely. He would do something that was similar to the Nightwing costume, then – small hints of the colour along the arms, chest and boots. There would be a hood, too and a cape – he liked the extra protection it provided, even if he hated how much effort he had to put in to make sure it didn’t get in the way. And there would be more pockets, extra storage tucked away in the outfit, for extra space to hide gadgets.
It was nice, the planning. He couldn’t be Robin, couldn’t be any sort of vigilante again for who knew how long. There was too much of a risk, that Jack Drake would find out again, and this time he wouldn’t be so calm. He’d march straight to the closest news station and next morning every station in America would be revelling over the fact that Bruce Wayne was Batman. But one day, one day he might be a vigilante again.
One night, Tim had followed Red Hood to a drug bust, and he was now crouched in the shadows of the rafters as he watched. The bullets were flying through the air, hitting mostly kneecaps and other non-lethal areas. Tim had to stay on guard to make sure he didn’t get hit by the stray bullet, but it was worth it. The ease at which Jason could take down so many people, if only because he didn’t have to worry about them getting back up again any time soon, was eye opening. If Bruce was more nonchalant about his killing rule, if he aimed to maim, but didn’t mind if it went too far, he could clean up the streets so much faster, more efficiently.
Criminals who had been shot took months longer to get back on the streets than those who were released by a corrupt police officer the very next day. And it wasn’t like Red Hood killed all of them. Sure, a stray bullet dealt a lethal blow, it was bound to happen in a situation such as this, but the majority of the shots were non-lethal.
Tim absentmindedly pulled out one of the throwing knives he had stored in his utility belt, turning it around in his hand as he watched. He had bought a dozen of them years ago, and though he would never be allowed to use them on patrol as Robin, it was still fun to practise with them. He didn’t even know why he bought them, really – no, that was a lie. Tim had bought them when he was training as Robin, because all of the video game assassins used them, and he had thought that they looked cool. Tim still wasn’t sure if he preferred them to batarangs – he appreciated that they could be used in close-quarter knife fights as well as for throwing, but they were so much easier to kill someone with, were designed to sink right into the flesh while batarangs were made to impact more than cut.
The gunfire slowed to a stop and Red Hood stood in the middle of a sea of bodies, breathing heavily. Tim couldn’t help himself; he snapped a picture of the scene. As Red Hood pulled out the magazine of his gun, checking how many bullets were left, Tim tucked the camera away, hunching closer to the shadows as he prepared for Red Hood to leave.
Movement caught his eye – over by the door that Red Hood had entered through, the ones he had left wide open behind him as he began to gun down the occupants of the warehouse, a criminal was entering the building. They had their gun drawn, ready to fire. Red Hood’s back was turned, and Tim just. Reacted.
One second, he was crouched in wait, the next, the throwing knife that he was holding was flying across the room. Another blink and it was sticking out of the person’s eye, deep enough that they couldn’t survive. Tim had barely moved, and yet there, collapsing limply to the floor was yet another person he had killed.
The cornea of the eye was the only part of the body that didn’t have a blood supply, Tim thought to himself as he watched a small trickle of blood flow from the woman’s eyeball. The knife had embedded itself deep enough in her head that it had reached her brain – that was where the blood came from.
Jason’s head had whirled around as the sound of the body thudding to the floor echoed throughout the warehouse. “What the fuck,” he said as he saw the body, only noticeable because, unlike the other, this one had a knife embedded in its face.
Tim squeaked in shock as he realised what he had done – he’d just killed someone in front of the Red Hood.
"Replaceme-" growled Jason, then he paused, glanced at the body again and looked confusedly back at Tim. "Did – did you just kill that guy?
Tim stayed silent, but that was answer enough.
“Another of B’s Robins breaking his no kill rule? Oh, I never saw this coming.” Jason laughed. “That’s another thing you’ve copied from me now.”
Tim was officially dead. Batman would find out that he had killed people, and he would be dead. But if he was going to die, he had to at least show some dignity beforehand.
Tim jumped down to the floor, avoiding the bodies as he walked over to the corpse. He bent down and grabbed the knife, harshly tugging it out of the body. He regretted it the moment he felt the eye come with. Tim had been exposed to gore for years as Robin, and only that stopped him from reacting as he shook all the gunk off the blade – all the eyeball and brain matter – before he wiped it on the woman’s sleeve. It wasn’t like she wouldn’t be needing it anymore, anyway.
“You could at least say thanks,” Tim drawled as he stood.
Jason looked shocked for a second, at the lack of reaction the whole situation was getting from Tim, but he hid it quickly. “Not the first kill, I take it?”
This time, Tim grinned. “If anyone can be accused of copying around here, it’s you. The only original thing you’ve done is die.”
Jason’s shoulders rose and his fists clenched – two signs that Tim should really be sprinting out of the area as quickly as possible. But Tim stayed put, arms crossed as he watched Jason try to restrain the pit.
“You want to get a chilli dog?” Tim blurted out.
Tim had no idea how this had happened. One moment Jason looked like he was seconds away from strangling him, and the next they were seated side by side atop a run-down apartment building, eating chilli dogs in silence.
And then it happened again. And again. And again. Somewhere along the line, it became a routine – Tim would stalk the dynamic duo for a bit, then split off to photograph the Red Hood, and then the both of them would get chilli dogs, sit on a rooftop and talk.
They never discussed anything important. Instead, Jason would tease Tim over his weird chilli dog toppings, or they’d discuss Tim’s day at school, or Jason’s latest case, or complain about Dick’s antics.
“So not as much of a rule follower as you pretend to be, are you?” Jason said one night, purposely trying to sound more curious than mocking, as if he wanted to keep the peace just as much as Tim did. They hadn’t yet talked about what had happened that first encounter, but it seemed like they would tonight.
Tim snorted out a laugh. “I used to sneak out and follow Batman around on his patrols. I blackmailed him into making me Robin. What part of any of this spelled out ‘rule follower’ to you?”
Jason laughed, but the sound trailed off into silence.
“You know, I never apologized,” Jason said after a while. “When I came back, my head was all fucked, and then Talia was there telling me everything was all your fault. But you didn’t deserve all that. Sorry.”
“Thanks,” Tim said, a genuine smile spreading across his face. “You know, you were my Robin, growing up. My hero. And so yeah, it hurt, the whole tower thing – more than just getting the shit beaten out of me, anyway,” Tim added with a wry look.
“But I understood, too. You were basically driven insane by the pit – ”
“Still am, too,” Jason interrupted to say.
Tim glared and continued. “I knew you weren’t fully in control of your actions. So, I forgave you. Plus, it’s not like I haven’t done worse to anyone – though I did it to the people who deserved it.”
“How’d you even end up killing someone, anyway?” Jason asked.
Tim grinned and adopted a storytelling tone. “I was ten - ”
Beside him, Jason spluttered in shock. “That is not how you start a murder recount. Holy shit, really?”
Tim playfully glared at the man across from him. “Yes, now quiet. I was ten, and I followed you and Batman into Crime Alley.”
“Fuck.”
“Do you want to hear this or not?” Tim asked.
Jason stayed silent beside Tim, so he continued on with his story. “So yeah, I followed you into Crime Alley. One of the street kids told me about a guy they saw near a murder scene, so I headed over to it to see if I could find something.”
Jason looked like he was enjoying interrupting Tim’s speech now. “Did you?”
“Did I what?”
Jason rolled his eyes beneath his domino mask. “Find something?” he asked, as if it was obvious what he had meant.
“Yeah,” Tim said dryly. “That 'something' slammed my head into a wall and threatened to kill me.” Tim delighted in the way Jason froze with shock – served him right for interrupting him so much. “And so, in return I shoved a blade through his throat.”
Jason whistled. “Damn. And that was it?” he asked.
Tim looked at him, incredulous. “No. A couple months later - ”
“Wait, wait, wait. You've killed more than once? How many people?” Jason interrupted him to ask. Tim seriously thought he’d known there was more than one – someone who had killed once as a ten-year-old wouldn’t act so nonchalantly about killing again, more than five years later. You had to be a repeat offender to be as blasé as Tim was.
“Four - well, five now,” Tim amended.
Jason looked him in the eye. “Well shit, kid. Do tell.”
“That's what I was going to do,” he said with a glare. “A couple months later, two people broke into Drake manor. They were robbing the place, but they ran into me and decided I could be ransomed off too. One of them took me down to the kitchen to find something to tie me up with, and while they were distracted, I stole their gun and shot them.” Tim had avoided any names so far, as they were in the field, but they were far enough away from any recording device, and he wasn’t Robin and Red Hood was a criminal.
“The other one started screaming at me when she heard it, yelling death threats and all of it. Ran all the way down to the kitchen to kill me in revenge. I hid in a cupboard, hoping I could surprise her from behind.”
“But that didn't happen?” Jason asked.
“Agent A walked through the front door as she came down the stairs. She almost shot him, but I jumped out and shot her first. One through the shoulder, the next through the head.” Tim blinked back the view from his head, of her limp body and bloody flesh where there should have been a face.
“Fuck, you have the worst luck. What did A do?”
“You look like you need popcorn for this,” Tim remarked dryly.
Fuck yeah, I do,” Jason said, shameless in his response.
Tim laughed and continued on with his story. “Agent A looked straight at me and said, in these exact words I swear – ‘We shall need a shovel, Master Tim’.”
Jason started to laugh, and Tim joined in. “Oh god. He's unflappable, I swear,” said Jason. It was a weird thought to have, once he had seen the man break down on his couch, but Tim supposed Jason was right. In every other situation, Afred faced it with a cool and collected demeanour. No wonder the man had lasted so long as butler to Batman himself.
“He is,” Tim agreed. “And now we have tea every Sunday - you should join us. He misses you.”
Jason shifted where he sat. “Yeah…” He cleared his throat. “I'm kind of dreading asking this, but what's the next story?”
It was a blatant change in topic, but Tim would allow it. “Oh, this one was fun,” he said gleefully.
“Seriously? You murder someone and it’s fun.”
Tim crossed his arms. “You kill people too; you have no right to judge. And at least hear the story first.”
“Yeah, yeah.”
“You had died. And I wanted revenge. I wanted to kill the Joker - was really close to it, actually, even with all the reasons why I shouldn't.” Beside him, Jason had gone rigid.
“See, Batman was… well, he was passively suicidal. He would let the criminals hit him just so that he could get close enough to beat them bloody - he almost killed some of them. It was that bad. And the Joker's death would result in a power struggle, thousands dead - Batman included in that. I would have done it. Regardless of all of it, I would have done it.”
“But I had seen Alfred mourn you, and I couldn't put him through that again,” Tim said.
Jason looked at him consideringly. “You would have killed the Joker?”
Tim scoffed, but he considered his answer carefully. This was one of the biggest issues that Jason had when coming back, and Tim would not make a mistake. “That clown should have been killed the moment he set foot inside of Arkham. Killing him now, however, would lead to so many more dead than its worth. So, I couldn't kill Joker. Instead, I decided to take revenge for the first Robin instead.”
“'Wing? What's happened to - oh. Tony Zucco.”
Tim nodded. “Yeah. I planned it all - didn't have to do a thing. He had a blackmail book, hid it at an orphanage. I drained all of their accounts so they had no choice but to sell – afterwards B donated millions of dollars to the place, so it's fine now,” he added on afterwards. “But news reached Zucco that the place was going to be demolished, and he was rushing to get out of prison so he could save the book.”
“Zucco played the parole board, and in the meantime his men started to kill off all the crime bosses in Gotham. It was easy after that - I paid one of the police officers to suggest a negotiation, and only Batman would be crazy enough to enter a negotiation between all the Gotham crime bosses. Together they all realized Tony Zucco was to blame. While B went to hunt down the book, the crime bosses ordered a hit, and as soon as Tony Zucco set foot outside of Blackgate he was gunned down.”
Jason was practically speechless. “How - fuck, wow.”
Tim grinned. “Thanks.” In a more serious tone, he continued. “And thanks for listening, too, I guess. It’s nice to talk about it.”
“I thought Alfred knew?” Jason asked, confused.
Tim shrugged. “We don't talk about it. I mean, when I became Robin, he made me promise to kill if my life depended on it, but other than that.” Tim shrugged his shoulders again, not really knowing what to do. “It’s kind of like if he doesn't mention it then he isn’t lying to Bruce.”
Jason was silent for a few moments, considering. “Well then,” he finally spoke up. “You're welcome for listening. It’s the least I could do.”
Then, Jason grabbed his helmet and climbed to his feet. “I need to finish up patrol, but we'll see if I can make it to Alfie's Sunday tea.” He jammed the helmet onto his head, and with a jump, the Red Hood was off.
Tim sat on the ledge for a moment longer. He was still processing the whole interaction, as he always was after an encounter with the Red Hood, but this one held the record for the strangest. Tim was half convinced that he had made it up, but sitting next to him was his own, half-eaten chilli dog. He didn’t know what that conversation had done, but it had changed things. The Red Hood wasn’t just another bat, the fallen Robin, an elusive threat. Instead, he was just Jason.
And who knew, maybe he’d see Jason at Alfred’s tea on Sunday.