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“Welcome to Heaven!” A cheerful voice exclaims as brightness envelops Tim’s vision.
Tim blinks, pants because he’s fairly sure he was just fighting for his life. Spins to look for enemies and finds nothing.
Clouds. Sky. A single podium in front of him with a…person? Standing behind it. Looking at Tim with a wide smile that reminds Tim of greeters at schools.
False.
“What?” Tim demands, reaching for his staff but he finds nothing. He doesn’t have his staff. He looks down.
White. Blue accents. Eyes? And a black stain across his right forearm like he dipped his hand in ink.
The greeters seems to notice that at the same time Tim does. He freezes.
Tim continues to pant.
“I’m…uhm. I gotta call management for this” he says, reaching below the podium but not taking his eyes off Tim as he does. Not moving his eyes from the stain on Tim’s forearm.
Tim’s breath starts to steady.
“You called?” The voice is feminine. Kind.
The greeter’s voice is kind in turn, but almost dismissive. Like a adult speaking to a child. “I called Sera”
“Sera’s kinda busy at the moment so you get me”
The greeter sighs, head falling to his podium before he gestures to Tim like an exhausted retail worker to a difficult customer, which Tim thinks is kinda unfair given that he hasn’t even done anything.
The girl, dressed in white and blue and her eyes glowing blue like the sky around them, looks over at Tim before her eyes widen and she gives a happy yell that reminds Tim of Stephanie.
His instinct is to catch whatever Steph-shaped object comes flying into him.
The girl is Steph-shaped. But she is also literally flying so Tim thinks it’s fair that he ends up on his ass.
“Hi! I’m Emily! We’re gonna be the best of friends!” the girl declares in Tim’s face, smile wide and not deceiving like Tim’s used to.
Tim blinks blankly because he still has no idea what’s going on “What?”
The glee on Emily’s face dims a bit “What what? Didn’t Dave explain?” she asks, looking over her shoulder to the greeter whom still has his head in his hands. She seems to take that as an answer in and of itself.
“You died” She says abruptly and Tim’s heart. Stops “But that’s alright because you’re here now. In heaven. And you have the eyes so you’re one of us. I gotta introduce you to Sera and…” She trails off, suddenly, looking rather upset about it.
“Emily, I think you’re missing the big thing” the greeter, Dave, interjects, gesturing down to Tim’s arm, still painted black like he’d gotten some weird tattoo.
Emily hums at his side as she helps him to his feet, taking Tim’s blackened hand into hers and turning it while the greeter winces as if touching Tim is out of the question.
She spins Tim’s arm this way and that, just looking before she says “Oh! It’s a demon mark, right? Like a sign that you’ve made a deal?” she asks, looking like Tim as if he has any idea what’s going on here.
He blinks and answers before the questions that are building at the back of his throat can push their way out “Deals, actually. As in multiple” he corrects before he demands “I’m dead?”
Her eyes don’t change, stay kind and blue and…and it reminds Tim of his friends back when they were in school. When Tim wasn’t Robin. But when people still avoided him because he’s new money, because his parents are weird, because he’s weird.
But his friends had looked at him like that, like Emily does.
Kindness and trust.
“You’re dead, yes. I’m sorry about that. I know it can be a bit jarring. I don’t think most people get this bad of a welcome” she says with a sharp look at Dave, who’s still staring at Emily’s hand holding his with borderline disgust. “But most people with demon marks don’t tend to end up up here” she explains with the shake of a head.
“Generally, they go down. Are you sure you didn’t take a wrong turn?” Dave asks. His eyes desperate for an explanation, like his view of the world cannot account for Tim being here.
And Tim guesses it can’t. It would be as strange as Charlie’s hotel idea working.
Hell, even Tim didn’t think he’d go to Heaven given what’s he’s done over the years. But here he is.
Here he is.
Tim’s eyes widen and he rips his arm from Emily’s grip, staggering a step back “I can’t be dead” he says, eyes locked on hers as they fill with compassion and grief “I’m not done yet!” He declares and his mind flashes back to Duke, his brother he hasn’t bonded with yet. The way Cass’s eyes had watered at the mere idea of Tim dying one day. He’d never wanted to make his sister cry. The way Kon and Bart and Cassie are waiting for him in Titans tower and how they may be waiting quite a while before the bad news gets to them.
“I wasn’t done yet” he whispers but his words are tinged with grief as his knees buckle. Emily catches him in her arms and clutches him close to her chest like a friend would as tears begin to fall from Tim’s eyes, sparking like diamonds.
“It’s alright” Emily says, but it isn’t.
Tim’s dead.
His family will grieve him.
His friends will grieve him.
Alastor will grieve him.
The people here do’t even like him, he thinks, risking a glance at Dave.
And Tim. Wasn’t. Done. Yet.
He feels something pull on his soul, the black sleeve on his right arm spreading slightly from his forearm over his elbow like a living shadow.
Emily pulls away to watch as the shadow Tim casts turns darker. She smiles “It looks like you’re not done quite yet. What’s your name?” she asks, voice not any less kind.
Tim’s head starts to fuzz around the edges, like he’s experiencing serious blood-loss all of a sudden, but he musters a smile as he answers “Tim”
“Tim. It was a pleasure to meet you, even if other people don’t agree” he snips in Dave’s direction before turning the kind smile back in his direction.
“Enjoy your life while you can, Tim”
Gasping for breath.
“Tim?”
“Tim!”
“What?” Tim snaps, trying to slot memories and thoughts into place.
He was dead.
Now he’s breathing.
He’s fairly certain that dead people don’t breathe.
“Timothy”
That voice he latches onto. Calm. Cheerful. Sure
“Alastor” Tim’s own voice is filled with relief as he slumps forward, finally stopping the struggle he wasn’t even aware he was putting up. He meets Alastor’s eye over a bright blue shoulder that seems to be sobbing into Tim’s hair.
“I thought you couldn’t bring back the dead?”
That’s the first question on Tim’s mind. Because Alastor told him. More than once.
Alastor’s smile is brittle and peeling at the edges of horrific “I lied”
Tim starts to laugh, relief flooding his veins now that he has blood back in them. His eyes fill with tears as he looks down at his unblemished right arm, the red robin suit torn in places but a distinct lack of blue and white.
“How was heaven?” Alastor asks, as Tim feels a hand in his hair, shaking ever so slightly. His laugh turns hysterical, the memory of Dave’s disgust and Emily’s acceptance burning in his retinas.
“Kinda sucky” he admits with a last chucke before he takes a breath and shoves himself to his feet.
“Oh, and don’t worry too much, Timothy. I didn’t take anything that any of your family would want back eventually” Alastor says a moment later into the silence.
Tim’s eyes widen. He didn’t even think that one of his family had made a deal for his resurrection.
He turns to his family and catches Jason’s eye just as he looks away.
His eyes are blue, no trace of green in them.
“I’ll offer you Hood’s pit rage”
“I might just take that deal, Timothy”
Tim breathes easier. Then feels the spike of pain along his chest of an open wound.
“You couldn’t heal me too?” Tim whines and watches his family sigh in relief. Sees Alastor’s borderline manic smile turn slightly more personable.
“But seriously, I’m kinda bleeding out. Again”