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1 – Mid-fight
Killer Croc doesn’t hold back in a fight. Never has. Never will. Especially not with Robins.
Tim almost wishes he would.
He’s alone in the sewers. Batman and Nightwing somewhere drawing fire from some goons with above-average aim.
Tim wonders if Croc managed to find the only competent thugs in Gotham before his back hits a wall with a scrape of armoured fabric and the thud of possibly-broken ribs.
His head swims for a moment, even as he forces himself upward. To his feet.
There’s something behind Croc, he notes distantly before the human-crocodilian figure rushes him again.
Red and glowing and swaying organically.
It may be a hallucination. But Tim’s fairly certain that he didn’t hit his head that badly.
So he focuses on the rogue trying to kill him first.
Croc snarls as he swipes at Tim with a large, strong hand, claws extended outward to claw at Tim’s insides.
Tim ducks down and it whooshes past his head.
And the shadows waver, just for a moment.
A stillness settling over Tim and everything around him.
A darkness to Tim’s vision that can’t entirely be blamed on the back of oxygen or his head hitting the wall.
It’s inky and black and endless.
It’s familiar.
“Power beyond comprehension, Child” Alastor’s voice offers, cheerful and with just the right twinge of mocking for Tim to believe that it really is him.
A hand sticking out of the shadows.
But Tim doesn’t have time to refuse politely. Croc’s still moving in the darkness, swinging wildly, unable to see.
Tim closes his eyes, drawing on his training with King Snake.
He lashes out at the source of the snarling with his staff and hears it connect.
Hears Croc snarl louder.
Sees the blackness fading.
He takes advantage while he still can.
He doesn’t need to see to fight.
And the shadows keep him silent.
Croc’s on the floor by the time Alastor’s laughter begins to reverberate along the walls.
“Till next time, Tim”
2 – Hallucination
Tim hates Scarecrow. Maybe not as badly as he does the Joker. But almost.
There’s something off-putting about someone who isn’t trying to save their dying wife, about someone who isn’t a 50% chance of a villain.
Scarecrow doesn’t care for anyone or anything but his tests. His experiments.
He reminds Tim too much of Alastor and it makes his brain itch uncomfortably.
Last time he was high on fear toxin, he saw Jason. Angry and alone and wheezing. Dying alone in a warehouse while Tim stood by.
Tim’s seen Batman kill due to fear gas.
He’s seen Nightwing miss a swing and fall, down down down with no net.
This, however, may be the worst.
He’s in a warehouse when he realizes that the rebreather he has on has been compromised. Alone, in the darkness that should feel reassuring. Should feel like home.
He’s alone when the darkness becomes stark white walls.
He’s alone when the whispers start.
And he quickly loses any semblance of what is real and what is not.
That smiling shadow?
That glowing red haze?
The tables of archeological artifacts?
The figure of Alastor reaching out a hand with a smile that seems sharper, more malicious than Tim remembers?
“Lonely. Oh so lonely, little bird”
But Alastor never called him a bird. That isn’t something he does.
“Oh so lonely, in a warehouse of darkness and death. Just like your predecessor. Do you want some help?”
The voice is kind. It sounds like Alastor, is the thing.
But there’s a glint in his eye that isn’t amusement. There’s no kindness on his features.
“I’ll end it for you. You know I will. Just ask me, Baby bird”
That’s Dick’s nickname. Not Alastor’s.
The smile is wrong.
The jacket drips with blood. Alastor never lets anything touch his jacket.
But the fear wipes those thoughts from his head.
“Alastor, Alastor please. Don’t do this. Don’t offer this” Tim pleads into nothingness.
Alastor’s eyes are dead. He isn’t listening.
“Your soul, little bird. After all, you’re older now. And who knows how many people you’ve hurt. I’m sure Heaven won’t miss a little soul like yours.
But then. Why should I want your soul, either?
Maybe I could keep it here” he gestures to the white walls and clean tables
Alastor’s head tilts to the side, his ears flopping slightly as gravity changes. But there’s something off about the motion. Something distinctly not like Alastor.
It looks like Bruce when he’s worried.
But there’s no worry in Alastor’s eyes.
“No” Tim states with conviction. He won’t go back there. Not to an empty house without shadow.
And some part of him knows this isn’t Alastor but he still fights when fingers reach for his arm, holding him still.
Tim doesn’t see a needle slide under his skin, an antidote applied.
No, Tim sees green sigils and darkness leaving him alone and bound. Unable to leave.
3 – Titans Tower
The Titans are down.
Brought low by a crime lord that Brice sent him here to stay away from. Asleep.
Tim checked their pulses. But they aren’t waking up.
The hallways are red and black. And red and black. In turns. The emergency lights glowing with muted sirens. Tim’s willing to bet that the emergency signal is equally silenced.
Red Hood, after all, isn’t an idiot.
Tim runs, a bullet wound on his shoulder kept stifled with a hand and a limp just barely stifled by using his staff as a crutch.
But he isn’t alone.
He can hear heavy footfalls behind him. He’s not sure how far. It all sounds so much louder in his head.
But Tim runs. It’s what he’s always been good at.
Another shot rings out and Tim’s thigh burns. He gasps out loud at the sudden pain, but he doesn’t stop running. Not yet.
Move while you still can, he thinks.
And then Red Hood catches up. Taking advantage of Tim’s slowed movements with both legs now compromised.
The laughter is familiar. Joker-like in the hysteria. The volume as it echoes around the empty stairwell.
And Red Hood launches him over the edge, tumbling with no grappling line.
Wing whips past his face for a long moment. Too long.
He should have hit floor by now.
But there’s shadow around him. Blackness surrounding him. The black before the red.
There’s a hand reaching out from the shadow and Tim almost grabs it on instinct before he sees the black fingernails and the red sleeve.
He hesitates.
“Power to beat this usurper, Tim” Alastor offers, voice ringing out around him. And Tim almost takes the hand with the sheer relief the voice offers.
But Tim doesn’t want power. Not even if it means beating the Red Hood.
Because Robin isn’t allowed to be non-human.
He looks at the hand, suspended in the air and still falling through shadow and blackness. But the hand doesn’t move from him.
Easily within reach.
Tim takes a breath and feels the bullet in his shoulder shift with it.
“Thank you for the offer, but no thank you” Tim says, short but trying his best to be polite.
Preparing himself for what he knows is coming.
His side slams into cement not a second later, and Tim feels the crack of what must be ribs. May be a pelvic injury too, just to rub salt into the wound.
The red flashes again and highlights a red helmet as it stalks toward him.
Highlights the swelling shadows behind him.
But Tim’s eyes go dark before he can see Red Hood remove the helmet, eyes glowing green and stopping the shadows in shock.
4 – Blood Family
The casket closes with a sense of finality. There’s something about seeing Jack Drake’s face disappear beneath silk lining and dark wood that reminds Tim of the words Alastor said what feels like a lifetime ago.
“I cannot bring back the dead”
But Tim doesn’t feel the same devastation in his chest that he did back then. Doesn’t feel the urge to offer himself up for his father, despite the fact that he didn’t even know Jason when he made the offer.
It makes him think that he may be in shock.
But his back remains straight. His hands stay behind his back, folded like a good son/soldier/Robin/Child.
His hands twitch to clench into fists at the thought but he swallows heavily and keeps his posture.
It’s what his father would have wanted, after all.
So his eyes stay dry and his hands stay behind his back and he bites back the emotion swelling under his tongue that he can’t name.
He doesn’t see the darkness descend until his suit is covered with is, black blending into black and bleeding together.
“You’re angry”
Is he? Is that what this emotion is? Anger? But at who? At Bruce for not saving him? At Jack Drake for dying? At Tim himself for being unable to save him?
Tim swallows and glances to the side, seeing red jacket and yellow teeth and red deer-ears. His throat burns with something. An emotion that Tim cannot name. But now that he thinks about it, may be anger. Or grief. Or maybe something else altogether.
“I don’t know”
Tim’s voice is flat. No emotion present in his facial features. A bland mask that his other forged and his father encouraged.
Alastor hums next to him, the sound like white noise and radio static.
“I think you are. Angry, that is. And I think you want something from me”
It’s an offer in pretty words.
Tim wants to see his father again.
He wants to scream.
Maybe he wants to scream at his father.
“Do you know where he’s gone?” Tim asks before he can think any better, something violent and volatile roiling in his abdomen.
He’s still staring at a darkened casket and the feeling in his heart doesn’t feel like grief.
“He’s available to me. I can take you to him”
“For a price” Tim retorts sharply, his mother’s words and his father’s attitude and nothing of Tim.
Alastor smiles at him like he understands.
“Do you want to see him?”
Tim wants many things. He wants Jason to stop shooting at him. He wants Dick to come back and stop living in his own filth out of spite. He wants to hunt down Captain Boomerang for making him think about his father as anything but a distant figure.
He doesn’t care for Jack, he realizes.
“I don’t care about him. I don’t want to see him. Ever”
Alastor’s smile is wide, his eyes glowing like lamps, antlers extending from his head and a red X appearing between his eyes.
Tim doesn’t startle.
“I don’t want to give him anything. But I don’t want to see him again”
The lamp-like eyes scan over Tim once again. Meet his blue eyes with their own.
Tim doesn’t flinch.
“Oh don’t worry. He won’t be around much longer”
5 – Clones and friends
Conner Kent is dead, Kon-El deceased. Taken off this mortal plane.
Tim wants to laugh. Because his friend’s never been mortal. Always been other. But he dies just like everyone else Tim’s ever cared about.
Kon was invulnerable. This wasn’t supposed to happen. But Bart was supposed to be faster than death.
Look where that got both of them.
Tim’s staring, he knows. His eyes feel dry and sticky like he hasn’t blinked in a while.
Attempt 99 – Failed.
The screen is green, white text spelling out his fixation without emotion.
Another attempt at bringing back his friend. Failed. And Tim isn’t sure he can stomach the false hope of trying again.
The shadows get longer at the edges of his vision.
Green tubes of liquid and the green screen lighting the lab in ways that make him yearn.
“Tim?”
Tim doesn’t startle. Doesn’t react at all to the voice.
He isn’t even sure it’s real.
But the voice is closer, louder a moment later “Child? May I ask why you are alone in a lab? Should I be concerned?”
It’s mocking. Tinged with amusement. But Tim can’t help the scoff that builds in his throat.
This is his lab, after all.
“I can’t bring them back”
Tim already knew that.
Has known that since he was small and thin and desperate.
“But I can offer you vengeance. The killers still live. I can make their existence pitiful. Can make them regret what they have done”
Tim’s fists clench at his side.
He knows what Jason’s always on about now.
Vengeance.
Superboy Prime is still alive. So are the rogues who killed Bart.
Tim’s hand twitches at his side, muscles reluctant to follow his order and shake a hand.
Alastor’s eyes focus on his with just a bit too much sharpness, just a tinge too much concern behind the yellow and black.
Tim blinks back to himself just as Cassie rushes into the lab and Alastor vanishes with an expression Tim cannot name.