Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The funeral is a solemn thing.

The only ones present are what is left of the assorted Wayne children, and their butler. Tim doesn’t remember his parents’ funerals being like this, everyone so overwhelmed with grief. Of course, he’d been the only one present for them, him and Bruce, but Bruce had hated Tim’s parents with a fiery passion and his own grief isn’t – wasn’t? – enough to make him feel sick.

But, he thinks, looking around, add the weight of both Dick’s fury and agony, Jason’s blaring absence, Damian’s passiveness, Cass’s clear misery, and – by god, Alfred is crying, and that alone is enough to turn Tim’s stomach – and he is drowning in sorrow. Somehow, he manages to school his emotions into a blank mask and stare at the empty, open casket without seeing it. He doesn’t even realize the funeral is over until Cass rests her hand on his arm, eyes searching as she reads him, pulls him towards the Manor.

Alfred makes a simple comfort meal for supper, but Tim can do nothing except pick. He manages a weak smile when Alfred asks if he’d prefer something else, assuring the butler that he just isn’t hungry. He feels Dick’s and Cass’s eyes on him after that but refuses to take his eyes off the rice he’ll push around without eating. He excuses himself after a half hour, his body in turmoil as he switches between being blindingly cold and suffocatingly warm.

He closes his bedroom door and slips under his top sheet, a compromise between the chills and sweats. He thinks that maybe the stress of the deaths in his life have finally caught up to him in the form of a fever but ignores the logic in that and pulls his laptop onto his lap. He opens a spreadsheet, trying to focus on the names and numbers. Instead, his mind brings up memories of Bruce, the ghost of him dead in his casket, and Stephanie, her heart monitor sounding with the terrifying scream of a constant, flat nothing, and Kon, neck snapped at an unrecognizable angle, and Bart, killed by so many people at the same time it was impossible to tell who dealt the final blow, and this time Tim really is sick. He rushes to the bathroom and retches into the toilet, their faces still fresh in his mind, and he retches again.

A hand rests on his back after his fourth round of expelling what feels like all his organs, and when Tim is able, he looks up to see Dick. The man has exhaustion written across his features and concern in his eyes, and Tim hates that he’s the cause of another untimely burden added to Dick’s shoulders. Tim knows that for all Dick is his own person, he is the one of all of them the most like Bruce in that he believes the world his responsibility. Tim throws up again and then sags against the toilet. Strong hands pull him back and one goes to his hair while the other keeps the contact that Tim has craved his whole life, yet simultaneously despises.

“Hey, Timmy.” Dick says softly. “Rough night?”

“’M fine,” Tim murmurs. “Food poisoning.”

Dick snorts and for half a moment, Tim feels lighter. “I won’t tell Alfred you said that. He’d be insulted.”

“Hell hath no fury like Alfred scorned.” Tim tries to joke.

“How long have you been feeling sick?” Trust Dick to change the subject.

A clicking comes from the entry to the bathroom, and both Tim and Dick turn to see the source of the noise. Damian is up and staring at them, apathy and disdain written like a book across his face. Tim’s body protests at the sudden movement and he finds himself hunched back over the toilet, gagging up whatever will come out. “Grayson, I demand these actions be punished. Clearly the Pretender is weak to give into something as simple as an upset stomach.” Out of the corner of his eye, Tim sees Damian stand taller with each word. “As the blood son, I would be the ideal choice to-”

“No.” Dick says with finality, just as Tim opens his mouth to spew profanities at the boy that would have him scrubbing dishes for a month if Alfred overheard. Dick shoots him a look that says he knows exactly what Tim was just going to do, so Tim leaves his anger shaking in his bones as he spits into the porcelain and flushes the toilet. He can hear Dick reprimanding Damian, and he can feel Damian glaring death in his direction, but he can’t bring himself to focus on anything other than shrugging himself out of Dick’s hold and standing up without falling over.

Defiantly, he walks to the counter, pulling his toothbrush and cup from his drawer, rinsing his mouth before brushing his teeth. Dick has left the room, shutting the door behind him, though Tim can tell that he and Damian are arguing right outside. They’re not being quiet. Tim knows Dick, knows him enough to know that he has estimated the approximate time before Tim comes out, knows that Dick will send Damian to bed before Tim opens the door. Dick isn’t a genius, not in the same way Tim is, but he’s an older brother, and he’s smart.

Tim opens his medicine cabinet, only stocked with over-the-counter medications, and shakes a couple of anti-nausea pills from a bottle, and dry swallows them both. One catches and he coughs, trying in vain to dislodge it. In the end, he fills up his cup again and drinks it all, finally sending the pill on his way. He blinks back the tears in his eyes, writing them off as exhaustion. He wouldn’t cry otherwise. He’s always been emotional when he’s tired.

When he opens the door, Damian is sulking back down the hall, and Tim is speaking before the thought to hold his tongue registers. “Bruce is dead. Being the blood son doesn’t matter.” Immediately, Damian has turned on his heel, a scathing remark probably forming in his mouth, but to Tim’s surprise, he settles for a murderous look and turns back, disappearing into his room. Tim turns to Dick, taking in the intense look his brother has adopted in Damian’s direction. It softens as he turns to Tim, somewhere between disappointment and concern. Dick chooses to act on the latter.

“I heard you coughing.” He says simply, though his eyes betray his neutral tone. His hand comes up to Tim’s face and though Tim flinches, Dick never wavers, simply waits until Tim is still to check for a temperature. His hand touches Tim’s forehead and hisses gently.

“I’m not sick.” Tim tells him, the earlier chills erased from his functioning mind.

“Fever.” Dick murmurs in response, raising an eyebrow as he slides his hand down to Tim’s cheek. “Between your lack-of-sleep schedule and the stress of-” Dick stops short, takes a ragged breath, and continues. “The stress of Bruce, and the Titans; Tim, you’re allowed to not be alright.”

Tim swallows at the mention of his team. More people he couldn’t save. Guilt pools and then dispenses, infecting every inch of his body, and it must show on his face, because Dick looks at him with the expression he’s only seen on his older siblings – an expression that more than bleeds worry. Tim hates it and moves in such a way that Dick understands Tim doesn’t want to be touched. Dick drops his hand, and Tim turns away slightly. Dick sighs softly and Tim wonders if he knows how much his actions mimic Bruce’s.

“Get some sleep,” the older man says after a moment. “Don’t leave the Manor tomorrow until Alfred or I give you the all-clear. We need to have a press strategy.” Tim nods once, shows he understands, and wills his legs to move.

Just before Tim steps into his room, Dick calls out hesitantly, “Tim?” Tim turns. “I love you.”

Tim meets Dick’s eye, and realizes that, maybe, for all the Bruce Wayne in Dick Grayson, that’s not all he is.

Chapter Text

Tim wakes up the next morning to a gut instinct of not alone. He controls his breathing, trying to decipher who it is, and then he feels her gaze. Cass. Dick wouldn’t care to fold himself in the shadows as she’s done, and Damian would have killed him already. If he didn’t know better, he’d think Cassandra was a metahuman. Of course, he thinks wryly, he does know better, and rolls over; tries to find a cool spot on his pillow. Something slides off his lap and he sits straight up, grabbing blindly for his laptop, until a small, cool hand pushes him back into a horizontal position and hands him the device.

He tries to blink away the dizziness the sudden movement caused him. The dizziness mutates into a headache and when he opens his eyes fully, he’s grateful she hasn’t turned on any lights. However, in the darkness of the room, Tim can barely make out Cass’s figure beside his bed.

“Hurt?” She asks. Her voice fills the hollow emptiness of his dark space.

“No.”

“Hurting.”

“I’m fine, Cass.”

“Miss Cassandra. Master Tim, I am glad to see you awake. How are you feeling?” Alfred stands at the doorway, light flooding into the room, and Tim doesn’t quite manage to conceal a jump. Alfred’s eyes narrow in on him as he steps into the room.

“I’m fine, Alfred.” Tim says, a bit irritably.

“Master Dick informed me that you spent half the night in the washroom.”

Tim turns away from both Cass and Alfred, hears a soft sigh. Footsteps – too light to be anyone but Cass deliberately letting him know she was leaving.

“I did. It’s nothing to worry about. Dick checked me for a temperature.” Tim reluctantly climbs out of bed, away from the warmth he  and shakes off the remnants of sleep.

“He mentioned. I brought you breakfast.” Alfred holds up the tray in his hands and Tim blinks at it, unsure how it had escaped his notice.

“Alfred, I…” Tim swallows as the almost normalcy of the gesture hits him. “Yeah. Thanks.”

Alfred places the tray on Tim’s cluttered desk, somehow finding the space. He turns to leave the room but turns back. “My boy…” He stands there, staring at Tim, and Tim stares back before he realizes that Alfred’s lost in thought.

“Alfred?” Tim says quietly.

The older man looks up at him, tears in his eyes. “Apologies, Master Tim. Please do come down for lunch if you feel well enough.”

Alfred leaves the room and Tim sits hard at his desk. If he listens, he can hear Damian’s loud, childish complaints echoing from the dining room, so he doesn’t. Instead, he puts on his headphones, and drowns it all out, and he doesn’t think about them, and he robotically logs in to Wayne Enterprises, filling out all the paperwork he can online. He eats the oatmeal mechanically, more as something to do to keep his mouth busy, chewing on what he should instead of the inside of his cheek. His body goes hot, then cold, back and forth as he emails the staff, informing them of his immediate advancement as head of Wayne Enterprises. He prohibits replies and piles a blanket around his shoulders to alleviate the chill.

A knock comes at his door and he ignores it. “Tim?” Dick enters the room, and Tim looks up, briefly.

“What do you want?”

“How’re you feeling?” Dick makes an effort to smile, at least, and it’s so fake that Tim wants to hurl every meager bite he’s eaten. He looks away from Dick, back to his laptop.

“Fine.”

“That’s not what it looks like. You’re shivering, Tim.”

“We live in a mansion. It’s impossible to heat the whole place efficiently; it’s cold in here.” Tim states.

“Tim.” And Dick’s voice cuts through the music in Tim’s headphones, and his voice is so broken, and Tim discards his headphones, turning. “Tim, you were running a fever last night. You threw up everything. You’ve barely eaten. You’re shaking. Timmy, you’ve got to eat.”

“I’m writing emails to the staff at Wayne Enterprises, Dick. I have reports to write. Unless you want to be acting CEO of this stupid company until Bruce comes back?”

Tim realizes his mistake when Dick’s face falls, the empty smile dissipating, and Dick crouches in front of him. “Tim, buddy, you know Bruce isn’t coming back, right?”

“I know.”

“Then why did you say that? Until he comes back?” Dick looks up at Tim with concern.

“Jason died. He came back. Why not Bruce? He has to be alive.” Dick sighs, and Tim shuts up, his body freezing. He wants desperately to draw the blanket tighter around himself but he can’t bring himself to move. He knows that sigh, knows it from his mother, from Bruce; coming from Dick doesn’t mean anything different.

“Tim…”

Whatever Dick is about to say is cut off as he watches a shiver runs through Tim’s body, and Tim can’t help but pull the blanket tighter around himself. He murmurs an apology. Dick frowns, and his expression shifts again, and Tim moves away from his outstretched hand.

“I just want to go to bed, Dick.” He says. “Just let me go to bed.”

Dick moves away from Tim as he tries to stand up. His vision goes blurry and he stumbles more than walks to his bed.

“I’m going to ask Alfred to make you some soup.” Dick says. “You don’t look well, Tim.”

Tim doesn’t bother to grace Dick’s comment with a reply, just collapses on his bed rolls his body to face the wall. A calloused palm presses against his forehead, followed by a low whistle. “How’s your stomach feel?”

“Just wanna sleep,” Tim murmurs, willing the pain in his head and his mind away. Images, memories, flash on the backs of his eyelids; Bruce and Stephanie and Kon. Bart, his mom, his dad. They repeat, cycling, and he swallows a whimper. He doesn’t know how much time passes, but several hands touch him over the course of his restlessness, and he makes a sound of protest at something cold and rubbery being pushed gently against his forehead. Flashes of conversation spark around him but he doesn’t try to comprehend them.

He’s so cold.

Chapter Text

Tim wakes up sweaty. His room is still dark, albeit for a single lamp that is turned on low in the corner and is decidedly not his. He reaches, shakily, for the glass of water he keeps by his bed, absently acknowledging that it will taste like cardboard, and he chokes on the first sip. Sitting up, he coughs until he can breathe again, and only then notices that his water has sloshed over the edges of his cup to splash on his blankets. He sits there, stares at the water as it dries.

His mind races but he doesn’t try to keep up with it.

Bruce is dead.

He stands from his bed, finally, and like clockwork, gets ready for his day.

Bruce is dead.

He strips himself of his soaked, smelly bedclothes and gets into a shower. He lasts about three minutes before he feels dangerously close to fainting, and he gets out, sits on the floor, and dries himself. The water, having been hot, leaves him chilled as the fan spins cold air into the room.

Bruce is dead.

He dresses, shivers as he pulls on a suit, all black. He runs a comb through his hair reluctantly, every pull at a knot making his headache more unbearable. Tim grimaces at the pain. He opens his bedroom door, winces at the light blaring into his eyes, and walks down the hallway, towards the kitchen. He isn’t sure why, but when he steps in, Alfred turns and startles slightly.

“Master Tim, you’re up.”

“Tim?” Dick’s voice sounds from behind him, and Tim turns. “Where are you going?”

“Work,” Tim says flatly. “I have work to do, Dick.”

“It’s suppertime, Timmy. Work’s over. You didn’t even put on a fresh suit.”

Tim looks down at the suit he’s wearing, and recognition floods through him – it’s the same suit he wore to the funeral. Yesterday?

Bruce is dead.

His mind spins and he loses his balance, just a bit, goes to reach for the side of the island, and then Dick is there, holding him close.

“Breathe, Tim.” Tim sucks in a breath, only just coming to the realization that he’s spiraling into a panic attack. He clings to Dick, following his breaths, and chides himself for needing the comfort. “I think his fever’s gone up.” Dick says quietly over Tim’s head. Tim buries his head in Dick’s shoulder. His cheeks are wet and hot and he shivers, trying to keep the chill away.

Dick lowers them to the floor and continues to hold Tim securely against him. “Can you bring the thermometer, Alfred? Maybe we should call Leslie.”

Tim tries to tell Dick not to call her, and all he manages is a low moan.

“It’s going to be okay, Tim.” Dick runs a hand up and down Tim’s back, the way Tim has seen him do to scared or shocked children. “We need to take your temperature.”

Tim doesn’t lift his head, just curls in on himself. Though he can feel his breathing soften, even out, he very much cannot handle the looks of concern? Disappointment? definitely aimed his way.

“Tim, I need to take your temperature or I have to hook you up to an IV.” Dick states, weary, and Tim feels his stomach turn, but he doesn’t acknowledge the words.

“He fainted, didn’t he?” Damian’s voice rings out with his usual air of superiority and arrogance. “As I have stated, Father’s death is an unfortunate circumstance, but Drake allowing it to affect him this thoroughly is evidence of his inability to compartmentalize his grief. Mother would-” Damian is cut off by Dick, whose anger is just barely contained.

“Talia is not here, Damian. What she would do is negligible. We do not discard people who rely on us for help. Tim is no more or less affected by Bruce’s death than the rest of us. People handle grief differently, Damian, and your inability to accept that is just as much a weakness as you perceive illness to be. Go to your room, please. Once I get Tim stabilized, I’ll come talk to you.”

“I’m not wrong,” Damian sniffs.

“Master Damian, I should strongly advise you listen right now.” Alfred says.

Heavy footfalls that sound to Tim like a ten-year-old’s silent tantrum move away until he cannot hear them anymore.

“Tim, I’m going to help you sit up so Alfred can take your temperature.” Dick states. He begins to move Tim up and away from him. Tim protests the movement – even though he keeps his eyes closed, the light still seeps into him and strikes into his brain, and he’s so cold, and because his head protests, his stomach does as well, and he jerks forward with a gag, bringing nothing up.

“Perhaps we should call Dr. Thompkins regardless,” Alfred says somberly. He presses a rubbery thermometer against Tim’s forehead, and the shrill beep of an average hurts Tim’s brain.

“That’s definitely higher than earlier.” Dick says quietly. “Okay, buddy, we’re going to move you to the family room for a few tests and an IV. Your fever should be going down, not up.”

Tim shivers. “Dick, I… I gotta go to work.”

“Maybe tomorrow.” Dick says, and it sounds like a promise.

Tim nods slowly. “’M cold.”

“I’ll get you a blanket. Try to stay awake for me, Timmy.”

He doesn’t.  

Chapter Text

The haziness is not unlike that which Tim is familiar with. He notes, with some remnants of drowsiness, that he is alone in the great, unrelenting vastness.

Tim scowls in vague recognition. “This is a dream.”

He takes a step forward. His foot sinks and small grains of sand rub uncomfortably against his bare skin. He looks down at his body, which he cannot see, and wills it into existence. When he looks down again, he sees his body, and the ground before him is an endless cascade of sand. He takes another step as the wind picks up around him.

He sinks further, the wind almost unbearable as its intensity forces Tim to close his eyes. He tries to will it out of existence, the way he had insisted his body manifest, but the wind refuses to die down and Tim hears the shrieking long after his ears and cheeks go numb. He sludges through the sand as it gets thicker and heavier, and then the ground gives way beneath him.

He falls.

A thousand voices call out for him, a thousand memories ricocheting across time, and Tim opens his eyes in a panic to try to find them. He only catches glimpses as the memories play amongst the clouds as he falls, sand stinging his eyes as it falls with him.

“Tim. What is this place?” Cassie stares at him in anger; disbelief.

“What’s it look like?” He asks, glaring back.

“He wouldn’t be the Superboy we know!” She yells.

The scene shifts in front of him.

Red Robin sits, waiting. The phone rings. Tim watches himself pick it up, tries to scream not to; to try to delay the inevitable for just a few moments more, and the phone slides from his hand, and the crush of the news of Bart floods through Tim again, and then –

He lands. The ground beneath him is not soft and the agony is unbearable as his bones shatters within him and remake themselves again. He wants to scream, and he does, and he does not stop until it is over. Until he is whole again.

Footfalls sound, and this time Tim knows they are coming for him. He stands desperately, forces his body to move, and schools his face into a mask of calm before he is aware of it. He wants to run from the creation of his mind, knows it will be more terrible than even the Joker, knows that he can conjure evil itself from the roots of his parent’s neglect, but his legs refuse to be willed into movement and a split second after, Tim opens his eyes, ready to face down his opponent.

It's Batman.

Again.

It’s always Batman.

Bruce is dead. (Batman isn’t.)

Tim stares up at his mentor; hates the way that even in his dreams, Batman towers over his 5’6 self. He feels distinctly small and useless in his shadow. The cape he once sought as comfort, if only for a moment, offers no illusion of the menace it now possesses.

“What do you want?” Tim asks wearily, because Batman always wants something from him, always wants more, always what Tim doesn’t have to freely give.

“I want you to find me, Tim.” The voice that comes from Batman’s mouth is not the Batman that Tim remembers. He sounds frantic, and panicked, and Tim looks up to meet his gaze. The eyes that meet his are Bruce’s.

“You’re dead.” Tim says, a mantra.

“Find me – I’m not dead, I-I don’t know where I am.”

The Batman, with Bruce’s eyes. Tim knows that he exists, knows that Dick, Jason, and even Damian had seen him before, but Batman-Bruce had not been present for his own time as Robin. Tim, in the back of his subconscious, makes a note to ask Stephanie.

And then realizes he can’t.

“You are dead.” He whispers. “You have to be dead.”

“No, Tim, please! Find me!”

The wind picks up around Tim, embedded with sand grains and rubs his exposed skin raw. He watches as the wind begins to pick apart pieces of Batman-Bruce. Beyond any of his apprehensions, his instincts kick in, and Robin’s job has always been to protect Batman, and he tries to move.

He cannot.

His body is gone, skin torn from bone and bone from existence. He tries to speak and no sound comes out. His last thought before the sand swallows him whole is that: if this is real, maybe the others are alive too.

As his consciousness comes back to him, Tim feels a hand run through his hair.

“He’s awake,” Cass’s voice rings out.

The rubber thermometer presses against his forehead and Tim flinches back from its touch.

“Master Tim, it’s nice to see that you’re responsive.” Alfred’s voice is quiet and close.

“What time is it?” Tim asks. His head pounds, and he opens his eyes carefully. The room is mostly dark, beyond a low lamp and the flash of the thermometer screen. “What does that say?”

“Morning.” Cass says. “Early.”

“100.6.” Alfred answers with a sigh of relief.

“Where’s Bruce?” Tim tries to look around, but the action makes him dizzy, and he closes his eyes again. Cass’s hand in his hair stutters, and when he doesn’t receive an answer, he asks again.

“My dear boy, Master Bruce was killed a week ago.” Alfred sounds steady and concerned.

“No, no… He was just here. He… he talked to me.” Tim tries to think back, tries to remember, and all he comes up with is a hazy shadow, saying, ‘I’m alive.’

“Fever dream,” Cass states, and continues petting his hair.

Tim doesn’t say anything, doesn’t believe that she will believe him, and sinks back down. “How long have I been asleep?”

 “Thirty-two hours, approximately.” Alfred tells him. “I am going to inform Master Dick of your state, and then I will bring you something to eat.” The butler’s footsteps become quieter as he leaves the room.

Tim lifts his arm up to tuck it around himself and finds it pulling.

“IV. Don’t pull.” Cass offers.

"Helpful.”

She flicks his forehead gently. “Stop.”

Tim pouts but obliges her, obediently not moving his arm. He falls asleep before Alfred comes back.

When he next wakes, he is alone on the sofa. The IV is gone. His head doesn’t hurt, and when he tentatively opens his eyes, the dim light doesn’t send piercing needles into his brain, and he can clearly hear someone calling him. Tim calls, offers Dick’s, Alfred’s, Cass’s names back. One of them would hear him. No one comes.

His name sounds again, and it’s a pleading sound. Deep. Masculine. Familiar. Recognition settles in him and Tim stands, notes that he isn’t quite as shaky as he remembers being, and starts to walk. A plan begins to formulate, and he knows where he can find help.

By the time Tim reaches the run-down apartment complex, he begins to think that a bike might not have been a bad idea, even if Dick did track him down. His vision swims and his head aches again, and it takes the rest of his energy to knock on the door. He leans against it so heavily for support that when the door opens, he falls directly inside, and then there’s a gun pointing at him. Tim stares past the barrel, tries to clear his head long enough to think.

“Aw, fuck.” Jason clicks the safety on and looms over him. “The hell you doing here?”