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“Tim?”
“Hm?”
Duke doesn’t look very convinced, so Tim softens his smile, lets his eyes swoop to the side, like he’s thinking, like he’s lost in thought.
He doesn’t let the phantom feeling of blood on his hands stall him.
Doesn’t let it bother him.
Just cause his ties are stronger today doesn’t mean he can falter.
Duke doesn’t leave, still looking at Tim as if he’s one second away from breaking, and maybe he isn’t wrong. Tim hasn’t had this much backlash since…well, since Barbara’s been shot and the urge to raze the world to the ground reared its ugly head.
But Tim’s always been good at keeping his chin up and ignoring the urge to slaughter.
Has tried to avoid bloodshed.
No matter how many times it’s bitten him. Again and again. In this life and before.
Tim hides a shudder and feels Duke’s eyes flash over him, like he’s seeing something. Like he’s seeing something beyond Tim. Given his powers and the way that Tim’s ties are stretched, he might.
So Tim takes a breath and shoves the blood down. Shoves down the voice of a friend, asking him, begging him, to be kind.
And a moment later, the flash of blood as that advice backfires spectacularly.
Tim stifles a flinch as he feels blood spatter, non-existent and existing only in Tim’s memories and nightmares, against his face.
Duke falters in his steps.
Well, at least Tim has confirmation that Duke is seeing something. But Tim isn’t sure how much of it is visible.
So Tim continues.
“Tim…I don’t think…”
Tim knows what Duke is about to suggest. That Tim stay home.
But if Tim is alone with his own mind right now, he isn’t sure he’ll survive. So he ignores the phantom feeling of 600 eyes on his back (Expectant) and the real feeling of one set, worried, as he rides out of the cave.
He needs to remind himself that he’s alive.
That he wasn’t wrong.
That Polites didn’t die in vain.
Tim closes his eyes hours later, real blood mixing with the feeling of phantom blood down his back. He may have been slightly more reckless. Jumped into a fight a bit too quickly.
“You rely on wit” a whisper on the wind passes. And Tim’s lips turn into a bitter smile as he mouths “And people die on it”
He’s seen Signal, in flashes, throughout the city.
Signal isn’t supposed to be out at this time. He’s a daytime Bat for a reason. But something in what he’s seen on Tim this evening must have caused him to take on a double-shift.
Tim just hopes he hasn’t told anyone about what specifically he’s seen.
Tim can deal with a lot.
But he’s lost enough people, thank you.
A flash of a body, still in a giant hand and Tim wheezes.
“Red?”
It’s Babs. Oracle. It’s enough to anchor Tim in the here and now.
“O, what have you got for me?”
There’s a moment’s silence “Signal’s been asking about you all night. Where you are. What you’re up to. Started to freak out when you got slashed and I had to talk him out of stalking you. He’s never that paranoid” Babs states, voice clear and succinct and just a smidge too knowing.
Unwillingly, Tim’s mind goes back to a Goddess and a title.
Tim doesn’t want to think it.
Doesn’t want that back.
But he knows better.
He is, after all, just a man.
“Warrior of the Mind” a voice whispers, but it feels substantial.
It feels real and Tim’s eyes shoot open, hand shooting to mute his comm immediately out of instinct. He’ll pay for that later, he knows, in the back of his mind.
There’s an owl on the rooftop with him. It’s looking at him.
The eyes are familiar.
Tim’s breath doesn’t stutter or wheeze.
It freezes.
Eyes a golden shine of treasure. Of knowledge beyond.
Eyes that Tim hasn’t seen in…How long has it been? Years? Decades?
His feet feel cold.
There’s the roar of an ocean in his ears.
There’s the screams of 600 men in his head.
Blood dripping down his hands and splattering against the ground.
And through it all, the eyes watch. Evaluate.
“I am the infamous” his lips say without his permission and the owl gives a snarl that shouldn’t be possible.
And somehow, he knows he shouldn’t be saying this. That this isn’t real. Or maybe it is but he isn’t supposed to react to it.
But he’s always been stubborn. It’s what kept him alive all this time
The eyes dare him to say it out loud, to defy her once again.
And he does.
“Odysseus”
The pain is immediate. All-consuming. Familiar.
His knees buckle and they feel older. His hair sways into his face and it’s spotted with grey. That’s what 10 years of war can do to a person, after all.
His eyes blur and he’s on a battlefield. A ship. An island. A cave. More ships in a swaying tide that loom too large to be natural.
He’s alone.
There’s no help. No mentor. No friend.
There’s no siblings. But Odysseus never had siblings. That somehow feels important.
There’s leather against his skin, armour protecting his back but there’s no sword at his side.
There’s a voice.
“What…?”
“…Owl…”
“…Tim?”
He clenches his fist and fights not to swing out. A warrior’s instinct. One that’s been trained by war and bloodshed. One that’s ben tempered by the life and death of friends.
He breathes and his lungs fill with liquid. He twitches and his bones grind together like broken stones. He moves to stand and a sword pierces through his back. He moves to scream and his mind fills with blankness.
It’s a punishment befitting the Goddess of wisdom.
It’s every death Oddyseus observed and caused and tried to avoid.
Avoid the storm. Release it on your crewmates.
Don’t eat the lotus. Get several of his own men eaten instead.
Don’t kill the Cyclops. His men die at the hands of an angry, godly father, drowned like they meant nothing but pawns to hurt him.
Avoid Circe and her spell… Lose the favor of his one friend that could not be killed.
Actions have consequences.
“Wake up”
The order is clear. A voice in his head. But the voice isn’t feminine, isn’t divine.
He pushes himself upward and awake. Refuses to acknowledge the sticky feeling of drying blood covering his whole body. Refuses to acknowledge the pain of broken bones that aren’t his.
There’s a blonde man standing above him with a raised brow. He knows him. He does.
“Nasty curse, there” the man comments, an English accent tinting his words and Tim blinks back to himself.
He’s Tim.
Tim Drake.
Tim Drake-Wayne.
He isn’t Odysseus. Hasn’t been in lifetimes. Hasn’t been able to shake Oddyseus and his mistakes, either. Hasn’t been allowed to. But Constantine doesn’t know that.
And it is Constantine, Tim knows now. Blonde and English and rude as ever.
“What did you do to piss off a Goddess?”
Just as blunt as Tim’s ever known him.
Tim ignores the question. Instinctively looks around for an owl with golden eyes. Doesn’t see one. But that doesn’t mean she isn’t watching. The feeling of blood is still there. The pain in his bones still present. The crunch of a ribcage still trapped in his head.
Tim swallows.
He moves his feet to the side and moves to stand.
Collapses when his legs feel like the remains of a shattered boat and only holds back the grunt of pain with a mental order to be strong. To not show weakness.
“You can relax” Polites’ voice rings but Tim can’t allow a dead man to guide his actions.
Not when his former mentor doesn’t die.
“Sit the fuck down. I know a lot about curses and this one’s woven into your soul, kid. It’s not gonna shake just because you want it to”
Tim almost laughs. Woven into his soul. Quite a choice of words. But he’s probably not wrong. Not when Odysseus managed to piss off the goddess of the weave centuries ago.
And none of them have known peace since.
Tim takes a breath that feels like drowning and forces down a whine. No weakness. No mercy. No kicking a man while he’s down. No mercy.
The voices in his head argue like children.
Influence from Athena herself arguing with what’s left of Odysseus, growing fainter by the day. But not fading. Never fading. Too stubborn to give up.
“We can run” Telemachus had offered at Circe’s island. And Odysseus had refused. Had faces a sorcerer with a God’s gift. And nobody had won.
Tim swallows in the silence. He doesn’t know how long it’s been silent. Doesn’t know how long he’s been blurring into Odysseus’ memories.
He looks up.
Duke’s there, he registers first, his eyes wide and fixed on Tim’s chest like he can see the diminished, torn bits of the soul he calls his own fluttering around in its cage.
The rest of the family’s also there. Barbara too, he notices, off to the side of the Batcomputer and frozen.
“Kid?”
It’s Constantine’s voice. Hesitant and that’s what breaks Tim. Cause Constantine’s never hesitant.
He has to be strong.
Has to be sure.
Cause if he isn’t, people die.
And Tim knows that feeling.
Odysseus knows that feeling.
Tim starts to laugh, the memory of a plan and a giant springing to mind. A cyclops that Odysseus had extended a kindness to. A kindness that had come back and killed his best friend with the clenching of a hand.
Odysseus had felt so sure. Had known the plan would work. But he hadn’t anticipated the club.
Just like Tim hadn’t anticipated the shooting at his school that had killed Darla.
It’s a cycle that none of them could escape.
Tim could plan. Could have so many strategies that he’d drown in them. There would always be another dead because he didn’t plan enough.
600 men and how many were left over at the end?
Just him.
Tim wonders if he’s doomed to the save fate. Remembers a version of himself that had lost everything and everyone, had driven away the last few beacons of hope in his life to take an iron grip around the world and try to control it.
His laughter peters out into hysterical borderline sobs and he tries to swallow them back.
Draws his legs closer to his body.
Wishes the gods were kinder. That they didn’t have to punish the soul in his chest through different lifetimes and bodies.
But the gods weren’t kind. They never were.
Tim’s mind flashes to Athena – “You’ll see where it ends”
Zeus “This is the will of the Gods”
Hermes “Don’t thank me. You may still die”
Poseidon “Ruthlessness is mercy upon ourselves”
Lessons taught in blood and agony. In every body. With the tattered remains of Odysseus’ soul trapped in their ribs.
Tim wonders if Constantine can see the damage. Wonders if he thinks it’s all because of the curse.
He settles his head onto his knees, smaller and thinner and younger. Tries to shove back memories of stronger limbs that weren’t so acrobatic. Tries to shove back memories of sword callouses and fast talking.
He almost snorts.
After all, he and Constantine have more in common than the man knows.
He looks up into blue eyes that shine with hidden concern “I know” he says, not sure if he’s answering Constantine’s statement about his soul or if he’s talking about more than that.
Constantine’s eyes hold his own for a moment, thrown, before Duke steps between them. “Tim?” his voice is hesitant, like he’s talking to a ghost. He doesn’t know exactly how right he is.
Tim swallows. “It’s fine. She’s just being petty”
Another spike of pain drives through his chest and he can’t help the whine as he curls, Duke’s arms stretching out to hold him steady.
Tim breathes for another moment, lungs filled with broken chips of wood and seawater as his brother holds his steady.
“You shouldn’t insult them when they already hate you” Constantine recommends, his eyes wary and fists clenched trying to hide the protective rage, the urge to help that Tim knows is there. He knows because he and Constantine and alike.
Jaded heroes. Only survivors.
Tim smiles at him and it’s only him that feels the blood staining them, he thinks. But both Duke and John flinch.
“They’ve hated me for longer than I’ve been alive. Nothing I do is gonna make it any better” he states.
He knows it won’t.
No apologies would be accepted for the death of a child, the death of a prince.
No apologies would be accepted for the storm he didn’t even unleash, the broken promise of his men.
No apologies would be accepted for the killing of a Cyclops, or the hubris that followed.
Not that Odysseus would ever apologize, but if Tim thought it would do any good, he may have tried. Even if his own soul rebels at the idea.
Constantine’s eyes are on him now, as are Duke’s and Barbara’s and Bruce’s. And the rest of the family.
Tim never wanted them to know.
But neither Tim nor his previous selves ever knew when to stop challenging. It’s why they’re here, after all.
But Tim doesn’t want to see them, their concern and their eyes vowing to help.
Tim can’t be helped.
A soul older than most artifacts shoved into a baby’s body to suffer, over and over again, in the hopes of learning a lesson.
All they’ve ever learned is that people are good. They’re bad. They’re desperate and hopeless.
But they never could give up on any of them.
Warriors on the battlefield or Arkham inmates.
“What did you do?”
Tim laughs again at the question, the anger badly hidden in Babs’ voice.
He doesn’t hesitate “Me? Absolutely nothing” he says with a smirk and ignores the screeching in his head.
“What did your parents do?” Constantine asks instead and once again, it’s the wrong question.
“Nothing. Nobody this side of the Roman Empire had done anything” He says before he can stop himself, trying to silence the screeching in his mind.
The room freezes.
“Cursed object?” Bruce asks and Tim shakes his head.
Constantine’s head tilts. Looks down at Tim’s ribcage where Tim can feel Odysseus’ soul clinging like fabric caught on a tree during a storm.
“Reincarnation?” he asks and Tim smirks right at him.
“In a sense”
“So what did your previous self do that was so unforgivable?” Babs asks, even as the rest of the room stills in shock at the confirmation, Duke’s eyes shining in his direction with a bit more context now.
Tim snorts.
“I spared a life”