Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Something is off. 

He knows as soon as they touch down. 

Tim is uncharacteristically quiet, like he’d been the day they’d met. He hovers just barely behind Jason, watching. The air is sticky and settles on his arms like a second skin. 

The sound of the plane’s engines are almost deafening compared to the noise of the city. There are few cars on the street below, bustling around like tiny bugs fleeing from the light. Something is wrong, Jason knows. Tim knows too, he can feel it. This isn’t their city. 

When Jason turns, Tim has vanished and the plane is gone. He’s alone on the rooftop, and if he squints, he can almost see the outline of Wayne Manor on the horizon mocking him, goading him. 

But when Jason goes home, he doesn’t go to Bristol. He doesn’t go to the manor that had housed him. He doesn’t head to the polished, clean part of Gotham. He turns away from the rich facade of normalcy, and looks to Park Row. 

A strange feeling settles under his skin as he wanders the concrete skyline. The buildings are as dilapidated as they've always been, with caution tape haphazardly scattered in rooftop access doors, as if to give a warning to a bat to find a new place to roost. These places do not make good homes, and they cannot be saved. 

The feeling grows. It isn’t anger, not with the way his hair stands on end and he can practically feel every brush of the robes across his skin. He breathes out. Breathing in is more difficult. 

It’s fear, he realizes. Paranoia. He hates it. The city is unbearably quiet, and when the sun sets, ducking under the smog in order to cast the city in a warm, red glow. 

He lands on the balcony of a top floor apartment, its curtains pulled closed and the lights turned off. There is no sound from inside. There is no crackle of electricity running, no quiet chatter of the television, no footsteps. Complete, utter silence.

Wrong. It’s so wrong. He knows someone is living here, judging by the small potted plant on the corner of the balcony, alive and well as if it's been regularly watered. 

He pauses there, perched against the steel railing. When he looks down, he focuses on the dark shadows in the alleyways. He sees nothing but small, formless blobs occasionally hovering just outside the light of the streetlamps. But none of them come out, even as the sun finally dips down and darkness replaces it. 

Jason watches. His eyes search the skyline, waiting. 

Tim doesn’t really remember dying. He remembers the bullet, the blood, and the pain. He remembers trying to cover the wound, keep himself alive for just a few more seconds, surely someone was coming. 

He remembers everything that led to it, but he doesn’t remember  dying . 

He’d gotten used to it, mostly. People couldn’t see him, couldn’t hear him, couldn’t touch him. He’d gotten used to that in the League. But this was  Gotham, his  home.

It’s neither hot nor cold, and he can’t feel the heavy air on his limbs, or the way his throat burns with the smog. It’s nothing it’s supposed to be, and Tim hates it. He wasn’t ready to die. 

He wonders what his parents told the press about his death. Did they say he was missing? Away? Or did they create some sad, guilt trip about their son’s early demise? He wouldn’t blame them for whatever they said. The Drakes were good at saving face.

He lets Jason pull him through the city, following from the streets, uncaring of who was around. It wouldn’t matter, anyway. 

When night falls, he finds his way back up to Jason, hovering. Because that’s all he could do, even with Jason. He could speak and be heard and seen, but he couldn’t feel. 

“No Batman,” Jason mutters when Tim appears beside him. Tim hums, following Jason’s eyes for a moment before looking up at the stars. 

Tim shrugs. “Everything is odd,” He says, rather cryptically. 

“Really leaning into the ‘creepy child ghost’ stereotype, aren’t you? Be more specific.”

Tim doesn’t say anything. Jason already knows. He sighs, pushing off the railing and glancing back at the closed apartment behind them. “We could go to Bristol,” Tim suggests, uselessly. Jason doesn’t even deign him with a response as he turns around and jumps from the balcony. Tim sighs.

Jason runs, like he always does in the end. Everything is wrong, terribly, awfully wrong, and he’s terrified that maybe Tim was right. Batman is gone and there’s no signal in the sky. He hasn’t seen any evidence of Damian, heard no whispers of a Robin. 

He doesn’t know where he’s going at first, until he’s halfway there and starts recognizing the streets. 

“Jason—,” Tim starts, but Jason isn’t listening. He falters for a moment, and then all at once, something is  gone. Jason stops, barely stopping himself from going right over the edge of the roof he was running on. When he turns, he finds nothing but cold, empty air. 

Tim isn’t there. And Jason can’t feel him. 

One moment, they’re together, Tim being dragged along as Jason moves, his soul wrapped around Jason’s. Then, a pull. Small, like a child’s fist tangled in his shirt and trying to lead him. He ignores it, along with the eerie familiarity of the buildings. 

A sharper tug, much stronger. He calls out, as if to warn Jason of  something, and then he feels himself being ripped away, and suddenly, there are walls towering over him. Three perfectly gray walls and one green dumpster with peeling paint.

He doesn’t want to be here. He doesn’t want to be  here.

———

His blood is still on the concrete under his feet, a dried, rusty stain. The smell burns his nose, and Tim tries to breathe in, but the air is too thick and he wants to be anywhere but here. 

He looks down, and  god, that’s worse. It’s a body—  his body. Mostly decayed, which was no surprise to him. The sight makes him want to throw up. It’s not the body itself, not really. It’s the  clothes. He’d died as Robin, bleeding out in the costume. He knows. He remembered it, because how could he  forget?

But he isn’t in the suit. 

It’s just normal clothes. A Muse T-shirt and black cargo pants. Something comfortable, like he was simply walking down the street. 

Tim knows. 

He knows there’s only one person that could’ve done this— changed him out of his Robin costume just to change him. If it’d been anyone else, they would’ve called the police. 

But not Bruce. Bruce wouldn’t have called anyone. Bruce wouldn’t have left him there as Robin, worried about someone else stumbling across his body and finding him like that. There could’ve been a risk of them connecting Tim to Bruce. 

Could’ve been. 

Wasn’t.

Maybe Jason was right. He’s fourteen. He was, at least. Fourteen and dead behind a dumpster. Maybe it’s his own fault for believing he could help. 

He reaches out tentatively, touching the clothes. He pulls the shirt away, and he sees it. A small chip on his ribs, where his lungs would be. He runs his fingers over it, his mind much farther away from here. 

He’s dead.  Really  dead. He will never talk to his mother again. He will never feel the comfort of a hug, he will never hold a book. He will never get scrapes on his knees from falling off his skateboard. He will never chug some unhealthy amalgamation of cheap energy drinks. 

He will never be fifteen. 

Tim doesn’t know how long he’s been there, hovering just over the remains of his own face. 

———

Someone is shouting from above him, words incoherent and desperate. Tim ignores it. What is he supposed to do? Even if he responds, who will hear him? Another dead boy, maybe. 

The concrete is cold. Tim doesn’t care as he sits, resting his head between his knees, keeping his eyes closed. He doesn’t want to look anymore. He doesn’t want to feel, to smell, to taste the bile on his tongue. 

Tim wants to be alive. 

He isn’t. 

Tim isn’t like Jason. Tim doesn’t get a second chance. 

“Well that’s fucking gross.”

Tim snorts humorlessly, but he doesn’t move his head. “Seriously, kid. Was my body ever that… nasty?” Jason continues, lightly kicking Tim’s lifeless foot. 

“You were right,” Tim mutters finally, lifting his head to look at Jason. Green eyes meet gray, life meeting death. Tim doesn’t get second chances, not like Jason. “Bruce doesn’t deserve it.”

Jason says nothing. He doesn’t have to. He looks back down at the body and Tim assumes that he’s come to the same conclusion that Tim had. “No. He doesn’t.” He nudges Tim’s foot again, a disgusted grimace on his face. Tim has half a mind to be annoyed, but it doesn’t really matter, so he isn’t.

“Shitty place to die,” Jason says after another moment of cold silence. He finally steps away from the body, but Tim doesn’t move. “It might even be worse than mine, if you think about it.”

Tim thinks Jason might be fucking insane because  what? He can’t help the quiet laugh that bubbles out, the morbid humor hitting deep. He supposed that if anyone can make a joke like that, it’d have to be Jason. 

Jason who died. 

Jason who’s still dead in all the ways that matter.

Jason who got beat to all hell but at least his dad cared enough to come get him. To take his body home and give him a proper funeral.

Tim taps his fingers on his knees. He gets up. “Shitty place to die,” He says, echoing Jason’s words. Part of him wants to flee back to the manor, to see what Bruce is doing. To see if Tim had been worth enough to grieve for. 

The other part wants to stay away, as far as possible. And ultimately, the decision isn’t his when Jason backs out of the alley and Tim is forced to follow or be left behind with the remains of who he used to be. 

So Tim goes, and he doesn’t look back, because it doesn’t matter anymore. Tim doesn’t get second chances. Tim isn’t like Jason. 

Chapter Text

It isn’t a sudden change from black to green. It starts at the edges, creeping from the corners of his vision. Dark at first but it  slowly gets brighter. It felt like hours, to him at least, but Tim knows that can’t be true.

It’s still jarring, because Tim hadn’t thought he’d wake up at all. It was just him and his thoughts, over and over. Death didn’t feel so comforting. 

He remembers how it happened, the air rushing around him as he fell further and further. He could still hear the screams of the people on the street, yelling about a fire and an explosion. He felt the heat on his back and he knew that the scars would fit right alongside the others. Just another fact, something that happens. None of his family would question it.

And then the anger comes, pushing at the very edges of his mind. The green glows brighter.

—

Tim looks at the scars on his hands. They’re tiny, nearly invisible, but they’re  there. They’re everywhere, actually, just criss-crossing his skin like a grotesque painting. His fingers curl abound the smooth staff in his hands, and he ignores the way they shake. 

Tim can feel the eyes that watch him. He grits his teeth as he feels the rage building in his throat. He knows that the emotion isn’t  his.

Jason had told him, once, how it felt; The anger that pulsed under his skin like its own sentient monster. Tim wasn’t allowed around when the episodes got bad— because Jason never wanted to hurt him— but he still saw. He saw the way Jason’s eyes would shine green, the way his fists would clench tight enough to draw blood, the way the adrenaline made him difficult for even Bruce to contain. 

Tim is accustomed to pit fury. But he’d never been the one to feel it. Tim hadn’t understood then; why Jason didn’t trust him enough to be able to take care of himself. But he did now. 

Tim dropped the staff, watched it fall further and further out of his reach. It hit the ground and echoed like a death sentence. 

He looked forwards, at the kid in front of him who couldn’t be any older than himself. And he didn’t doubt that he would have lost this fight in normal circumstances. But Tim wasn’t going to be responsible for what the Pit made him do. 

Someone shouted something, but Tim wasn’t listening. He heard the wind around him, desperately trying to break his fall. He listened to the sound of his nails scratching at the stone around the pit as he tried to pull himself out of its waters. He heard the sound of the green, hissing in his ears. 

—

Tim remembers Literature. Back when things weren’t so complicated, but still so far from being simple. When Jason was still Robin and Tim was a kid. It hadn’t even been three years since then, but time has no meaning when compared to the grief of a child who’d finally had something to call their own. 

Tim remembers the book report, the first one. The one that he could have done on his own, but he’d harassed Jason into doing for him. It hadn’t been difficult, not at all. But Tim had wanted to see how far Jason would let him push before he inevitably walked away. (He hadn’t. Not then, at least.)

Tim remembers the way that authors always seemed to put meaning to everything, from the furniture to the mere color of the curtains. 

Tim remembers Green.  Immature. Inexperienced. Selfish.  There were other meanings, of course there were. There always was.  Envy. Green. Sickness . 

But Tim wasn’t sick. He knew that. He was fine, the scars showed him that. Because scars meant that a wound had healed, and he was covered in them. He was healing. 

The room is small, just a few feet wider than if he stretched his arms all the way out. And it’s silent. So incredibly quiet, besides a dripping noise he could hear echoing outside. It crawls under his skin, and Tim can’t stop the bile. 

Tim just pushes himself into the corner, away from the tiny little mattress on the other wall, away from whatever fake comfort these people were trying to give him. He puts his head between his knees and stares at the ground, at the smooth rock under his feet. 

Silence. 

Tim had never done well with silence.

—

He’s left there for a while, longer than a few hours but less than two days. Just in the tiny, quiet cell that contained his thoughts and spat them back at him. But then the door ( the gate, like he was cattle)  is pulled open and he is pulled out roughly. They twist and turn and Tim’s mind is too angry to remember it.

The small corridors open up eventually, into the same arena he had been in before. The same kid is there, glaring at him. Tim just tilts his head and stares. 

Tim isn’t given a weapon, not like the first time he was here. Someone commands him to pick something, and the Pit vehemently agrees. Tim looks down at the scars on his fingers and refuses. 

The boy across from him snarls something incomprehensible, but Tim has already turned his back. He can feel the way the threatening gaze settles on the back of his neck, but it doesn’t matter. The rage is bubbling under his skin, urging him to  kill, maim, destroy. And Tim won’t let it control him. 

—

He’s left alone for longer this time in the tiny little room. The one with the vomit in the corner that nobody cleans and the thing that could barely even be called a bed. The one that continues to feel smaller and smaller.

It feels like his own demise.

Alone, in the end, like he’d always end up being. He doesn’t sleep, because his body is trembling and every scuff against the floor feels like its own new wound. There’s a banging in the back of his mind, a stark difference to the constant anger that resides there now. 

He wonders how Jason dealt with it, the isolation. How he dealt with the screaming memories of a family that didn’t trust him and a father that was lost. (Or maybe, maybe this was Tim’s own special brand of torture. That would be better, because then he knew that Jason was okay, would be okay. Tim knew what loneliness felt like; he’d grown up with it. But Jason- Jason had Bruce, and Dick, and Alfred. Tim didn’t. Tim was alone.)

“Why do you not fight?”

Tim flinches, accidentally banging the back of his head against the rock wall he was leaning against. That voice is new, not one of the others he’s heard outside his room before. It isn’t different, not really. Still cold, cruel, and calculating, but  young. He looks back at the entrance and meets the green eyes of the boy that Tim refused to attack. 

Tim doesn’t answer him, and the boy huffs angrily. “Do you think yourself more skilled?” He snarls, but he doesn’t come any closer. That’s fine, at least Tim isn’t alone (for now).

Tim just shakes his head slowly. He doesn’t know what response the kid wants, and the wrong one might send him away. So he stays quiet, lets the silence creep in. The boy stares at him, eyes taking in every bit of Tim’s scarred and broken form. 

“Is it cowardice?” 

Tim just stares. At the source of it,  yes, yes it is cowardice. But this boy misunderstands, because Tim is afraid of the Pit, not of him. He shakes his head.

Wrong. The kid scoffs and turns away. 

Tim watches him go, but still says nothing. And then he’s alone again,   

Chapter Text

Tim looks out over Gotham’s skyline and smiles. To most, the atmosphere of the city was suffocating. Deadly. A prison. 

But not him, who spent the majority of his childhood slinking across rooftops with an expensive camera his parents had bought him for his eight birthday when they’d forgotten to show up. Not him, whose happiest memories were spent with his legs swung over a ledge as he stared at the sky. Not him, the little nine year old boy that flitted after Gotham’s vigilantes undetected. 

Gotham was his city. It was his home. And to him, as he watched the sun go down and the streetlights blink to life, it was beautiful. 

“You havin’ fun there, babybird?” 

Tim doesn’t flinch as he hears Jason’s voice behind him. He can hear the underlying concern in his brother’s voice and he takes a step back from the edge of the roof. He hears Jason exhale a quiet sigh of relief and throws up his middle finger in what he thinks is Jason’s direction. 

“Thought you trusted me not to jump.” He turns on his heel to face Jason, and snorts to himself when he sees that he isn’t wearing his helmet. It doesn’t matter how many times Tim tries to tell him that the helmet doesn’t trigger him anymore, but Jason still doesn’t wear it around him. 

Jason gives a fake laugh and looks him over. “I do.” He shrugs, then looks away. Tim watches him survey the area quickly before his eyes come back to settle on him. “Doesn’t make it fun to reminisce about.”

Tim rolls his eyes. “What, so you’re going to stalk me everytime I’m flying solo?” He retorts, voice bitter. He knows the annoyance is unwarranted, but he can’t help it. He’s been getting better, but none of his family seem to realize that. They only remember the fourteen year old boy that didn’t bother to reach for his grapple as he fell.

“That’s not-” Jason’s words get cut off when a few gunshots echo through the air.. He squints in the general direction, then glances back at Tim.

“Go on, Hood. That’s your territory.” Tim turns away before Jason responds. He releases a breath when he hears the tell-tale sound of a grapple going off behind him, and reaches up to turn his comm on. “You got anything for me, O?”

—

Originally, it was supposed to be a normal deal. All the major players were in Arkham at the moment— barring Catwoman, but Tim was ninety percent sure he saw her sauntering her way towards where Tim knew Bruce was, so he doesn’t think she’s going to be much of an issue. That also means Batman is going to be distracted for a while, which  is sort of an issue, because Tim isn’t sure he can handle this on his own.

Tim had dealt with magic before. But never on his own. He’d always had another Bat close enough to help, but he knew that Nightwing was still in Bludhaven at the moment, Jason was stuck dealing with  another gang issue (seriously, do those guys ever take a break from being assholes?), and Bruce was… he doesn’t want to think about it, actually. 

Jason was probably closest, but three minutes could easily mean life or death in a situation like this. Which meant that Tim was on his own for the most part. He presses his panic button hard, right before getting thrown into a wall. 

“Dude, that’s so cheating,” Tim mumbles as he tries to push himself up. He feels blood drip down his fingertips, but he ignores it. He looks up at the magician (Wizard? Witch? Warlock? Is it too late to ask what they’d prefer to be called? Is that considered respectful when they’re trying to kill you?) and squints. His hair falls into his eyes and he glares at the limp arm. God, he needs to start bringing hair ties. “B’s gonna be so pissed that I’m late.”

“You know…” The sorceress steps forward and bends down to his level. She makes a sort of mock-sympathetic sound and gently brushes the hair out of his face. Tim snaps his teeth at her, and grins when she frowns in disgust. But then she just pats his cheek in a way that isn’t unlike how a mother would react to a child. “I don’t think you deserve to die.”

Tim snorts and rolls his eyes. He yanks his face away from her hands. “Then what was the entire point of this? Hormones? Need to get that period violence out?” he smirks victoriously as she scoffs and stands up. And maybe that wasn’t his best idea, but fuck it. He really hopes his button wasn’t broken.

“I’d close that little mouth of yours, birdie. Or I might just change my mind,” She mutters something under her breath before he can respond, and Tim is too exhausted to notice the light and heat that erupts from her hands. At least, until his vision was bathed in a violent crimson and he felt his skin constricting his body. 

He thinks he can hear the woman giggling, but it’s drowned out by the sound of cracking. And screaming, but Tim doesn’t even realize that he  is screaming, until his throat stops making any human sound at all.

—

Jason hadn’t ever meant to hurt Tim. (Lie. He hadn’t wanted to, but he sure as hell meant to. Everyone tried to say it wasn’t his fault, that it was the Pit. But Jason knew. It was still his anger, his hurt. His resentment. Just… brought to the surface.) It’s why he made sure to take his helmet off every time he went to see Tim, because Tim had flinched once, and Jason never wanted to see that look of panic on his little brother’s face again.

And Jason remembers when Tim fell. He’d looked… more peaceful than he ever had, and Jason thinks that might be worse. Dick had been the one to catch him, even as Jason stood frozen a mile away, just watching the tiny form of his brother as he got closer and closer to the ground. To  death . 

So he never meant to hurt Tim, not now anyway. He’d told himself that it’d never happen again, that he’d protect the babybird as best he could. Tim would never fall again, because Jason wouldn’t let him. It didn’t matter if Tim fought him or hated him, as long as he was still  alive.

And then he hears the screaming, echoing through his head. He hadn’t even realized his comms were still on, or that he was connected to the Bats’ server. It takes him less than a second to recognize whose it is, because he heard the same scream every time his madness chose to rear up again. 

It was impossible to forget what  he’d done. 

Jason doesn’t even think it’s real at first. Until he feels his phone buzz against his leg and hears the loud pinging sound erupt in his ears. Tim had pressed his panic button. 

“Where the  fuck is he?” Jason snarls, knowing Babs already had Tim’s location. He pulls the trigger of his pistol and the gangster in front of him went down. He glares over at the rest of them, and they seem to take the hint that  something had clearly changed. Red Hood didn’t kill anymore. But he had today. 

Jason hears the rapid typing as Babs switches her own mic on. “Mile from you, convenience store on the corner of fourth and southbound.” She goes quiet for a moment, but her fingers don’t stall. “Nightwing and Batman are both en route, but they won’t make it in time.”

He doesn’t respond, already shooting off into the air. He takes across the rooftops as fast as he can, which is only fueled by his Pit-rage adrenaline. Tim’s screaming doesn’t stop, and he hears someone else giggle. 

He sees the store appear in his vision, the windows blown out and a woman standing in the doorway. She turns to him with a manic grin, hands open and pointed towards him. Typical. Goddamn magic users. 

The last sound Jason hears from Tim’s comm is an inhuman hissing.

—

One dead Robin. That was supposed to be the end of it. No more kids would be dragged into Bruce’s endless crusade against the criminal underbelly of Gotham. The mantle was supposed to die with him, when Batman failed to save him in time. When he refused to get justice for his own son.

Tim was the exception. Because Jason had tried to kill him once, and failed. Because the kid was more resilient than a majority of people Jason had ever met. Because Tim had brought him out of his madness and taught him how to be human again. Because Tim was his baby brother, and he wouldn’t let Tim die too. 

Two dead Robins. Jason had failed. He had been  right there, less than a mile away as his brother was beaten until he was broken and bloody. He had been so close, but still too far to save Tim in time. He thinks he understands how Bruce felt. But at least with him, they’d had a body to bury. But Tim was just… gone. No uniform, no body, no nothing. Just his blood, staining the white tiles.

And now there was a new one. Even smaller than Tim, even younger. He was the spitting image of Bruce, aside from the eyes. Jason would be lying if he said that it didn’t pull on his heartstrings just a little. 

And it was because of that, that the first time Jason saw Damian standing calmly on a rooftop just outside Crime Alley, he threw up. He’d seen Tim at first, standing there. Staring at him with his stupidly mischievous grin. The one that he nearly always had when he was with Jason, because he was always scheming something annoying. 

But it wasn’t. It was just Damian, shorter than Tim had been, even when they’d met at the Tower. Just Damian, who Jason had never tried to kill before. Just Damian, the boy who had the misfortune of being the blood son. Who had been raised as an assassin, if only for the purpose of dying. 

Jason couldn’t hate him, not for being Tim’s replacement. How could he, when he’d almost killed Tim for being his? Tim wouldn’t forgive him if he attacked Damian, even the Pit knew that. 

He sucked in a breath as he watched Damian fly over a rooftop, only to release it again when he spotted Dick not far after. He continued watching the both of them, up until they disappeared from his vision and sank into the endless darkness of a Gotham night.  

He turned around, looking back towards the tall figure of the main Wayne Enterprise building. It’s light stuck out like a sore thumb against the dull orange of the cheap streetlights far below it. It had been Tim’s favorite spot, on nights when the sky was clear enough to look at the stars. None of the Bats had been too inclined to let him up there alone anymore, so Jason found himself up there too more often than not.

He takes half a step towards the edge of the roof, only to trip over something that had definitely not been there a few seconds before. “Fucking-,” He looks down, and meets the smug eyes of a calico cat. The thing sits back on its hind legs and stares at him, tilting its head.

“No,” Jason groans, pinching the bridge of his nose. “I’m not doing this.”

It stares at him for a moment longer, just licking its paws smugly. It meows once, then stands up and pads a slow circle around Jason’s legs. 

“How did you even get up here?” Jason mutters, staring down at the animal and then glancing around. He looks around the roof, but the only entrance is a locked door, and he’s ninety percent sure cats can’t fly. “I’m going insane.” 

The cat meows again, rubbing its back between his legs.