Chapter Text
"Past a certain point, you stop being able to go home. At this point, when you have got this far from where you were from, the thread snaps. The narrative breaks. And you are forced, pastless, motherless, selfless, to invent yourself anew."
- Zen Cho, The Four Generations of Chang E
Red Robin had a secret.
Maybe it was not a very special secret, considering most people who were into vigilantism or superheroing had a secret identity, that most of them had to, in their civilian identities, hide a big part of who they were as heroes. Red Robin did too.
But it was not exactly the same. Instead of having to hide part of the self when using one identity or the other, Red Robin, in typical fashion, blew the entire assignment completely off board by hiding the whole self in both vigilante and civilian identities.
Interestingly enough, the times when Red came the closest to not hiding that particular secret was when using an undercover identity.
An undercover identity did not have gender restrictions, after all. An undercover identity was like an outfit, sometimes quite literally. You could put it on and take it off whenever you please. It did not stick to your skin, did not cling to your bones. Easily detachable. And yet, despite that detachability, somehow Caroline Hill felt more real than Tim Drake did. Like Caroline was an outfit that fit, made of breathable fabric, while Tim snagged and caught at the skin like cheap nylon, or polyester.
And yet none of them were real. Not Robin, not Tim, not Caroline.
Red Robin felt even less real than Robin had. Like a hastily put together halloween costume, like a bandage over a gaping wound that did not just need stitches, but a skin graft.
But then again, what did time care? Not for people, not for silly little things like identities, and grief, and family drama. Time did its own thing. And Bruce was trapped in there, in the time stream, and Red knew it.
Therapy, Red thought. Might actually help, but not for the reasons Dick was considering it.
The Gotham night was not a pretty thing in the most traditional sense. It had never been, but that was exactly what made it so very unique and photogenic. Even without the outlines of Batman and Robin against the sky, against the Gothic architecture of the place, it remained beautiful, ethereal almost. Home.
Red’s legs dangled off the edge of the roof, collapsed bo staff twirling in hand, and several dozen different things flitting through the mind.
Where to even start looking for Bruce? When, quite literally, no one seemed willing to even consider the possibility that maybe, just maybe, he wasn’t dead? Weren’t their lives strange enough, with more than one hero coming back to life after death, to warrant a second thought?
There were some leads, of course. The painting in the Wayne Manor gallery, and then several other leads that Red was only half sure of, considering all the research had been done online and while the wonders of the internet were numerous, the accuracy of looking at something in real life could not be beaten.
Maybe Paris would be a good starting point. It was a familiar place, after all. And during a time when everything that used to be familiar to Red had been turned over on its head, maybe Paris would be the fix needed to make it easier to pretend everything was alright. At least a little. Just a shadow of alright, if not actually alright.
A very light, deliberate thud of someone landing on the dirty, gravely rooftop made Red twitch, but not turn around.
“Robin,” Wonder Woman said, walking closer, and then settling down right beside Red, her legs too, dangling off the edge.
“Red.”
There was a pause, where Diana looked thoughtful for a second, before she nodded, “Red Robin, I suppose.”
The hum Red let out sounded a little hysterical, but that was okay. Red felt a little hysterical as well.
There was silence for a moment. Well, as silent as Gotham ever got, that is. The City never really slept, after all. Traffic, screams, shouts, even a stray bullet or two. Red had to trust that Batman and Robin would handle it.
Don’t laugh, don’t laugh, because if you laugh you will start crying in front of Wonder freaking Woman.
“Nightwing told me that you might be having some… trouble, lately,” Diana began, and it was strange to see her so hesitant, like handling a bomb diffusion, except Red knew she handled those with a lot more confidence than she was displaying right now. “That you might stand to gain something, if you talked to someone.”
“Pretty sure he meant the therapist kind of talking, not you.” It was impossible to keep all threads of resentment out of the words, but Red Robin did a pretty good job of containing most of it.
“Tim,” she began, and Red tensed up. Foolish, really, to show so much emotion through body language, and of course Diana caught onto it. “Red,” she changed, and somehow that was worse. “Going to therapy is not a weakness—”
Something nasty was clawing at Red’s chest, building up beneath the ribs, bubbling up towards the throat, inevitable, unstoppable. Like a fire, an explosive, acidic fire.
“I know I need therapy,” Red laughed, this time letting it burst free, hysteria included, “But probably not for the reasons Batman thinks.”
Diana hummed, an invitation to go on. And then the thing beneath the ribs, it ripped out.
“I’m not who anyone thinks I am. I don’t think even I know who I am,” Red confessed, with all the weight of the world. “I don’t want to live like this.”
Diana’s eyes, then, widened in alarm, and there was a split second of confusion before Red laughed, “No, you don’t need to worry about that.”
“Tim—” she started, not looking the least bit appeased.
“ Don’t call me that!” Red snapped, with far more vitriol than a simple name warranted.
Diana looked understandably taken aback, “No one’s listening in—”
“Don’t. Don’t call me that. Just don’t call me that. It’s not right. ”
“Red?”
“That’s not my name,” Red said, reaching up to scrub at the tears that were leaking out, even though it was useless with the domino still on. Great. Now it would get wonderfully itchy if the mask stayed on. Horrifically enough, the next inhale was more a sobbing breath than anything. “That’s not my name, this is not my body, I don’t want it, I don’t want it. ”
Fucking hell, Red thought, the tears coming faster now, making vision blurry, eyes and skin around the eyes itchy, the domino uncomfortable. Pressing down on the mask didn’t help, nor did trying to scrub at it. But Red hadn’t expected it to.
Diana had moved while Red cursed under breath, her arms wrapping around Red’s, a warm solid weight. Strong arms. And while this hold did not feel anything like Bruce’s, Red still broke.
“I know B is alive,” Red gasped out, not wanting to dwell on that topic, even though the abrupt change was noticeably awkward and not very well done at all. “It’s not grief that is making me act this way. No one is willing to believe me, and that’s… fine. It’s fine, I’m used to people not listening to me. I’ll find B, and it’ll be okay.”
Diana said nothing. She just stared, and stared, and stared, something strange flashing in her eyes as she took Red’s tense, yet defeated form, the dark shades of the new costume seeming to almost blend in with the background, while Wonder Woman seemed to stand stark against the gloom of Gotham.
“What do you need, Red?” she asked, a calmness to her voice that could have rivalled the steadiness of mountains.
“I can do it.”
“I know you can. What do you need?”
“I can do it by myself,” Red insisted, voice coming out weak and wet. But Red could, could do it, alone, like always.
Diana sighed, a subtle thing, but felt all the same. The fire that had simmered and burst out was fizzling out, the fuel all burnt up, and in its place rose terror, another simmer, a horrible, low, aching dread. Red had said too much, things that weren’t meant to be said, to anyone, ever.
“If I’m…” Diana started, haltingly, and it was surreal to see someone as sure of herself as Wonder Woman falter. “Reading this correctly, you are—”
“ Don’t. Just don’t. Don’t.” Feeling like a broken record, the only thing Red could do was cling to deniability.
“Sweetheart, it’s alright—”
Red couldn’t stop it, couldn’t stop the way the tears flooded down an already wet, blotchy face, couldn’t help as heaving, ugly sobs escaped through a mouth covered with a fist. The other hand scrambled at the domino, to take it off, off, off, the suffocation too much right now, the itch beneath the skin turning back into a burn, like something was crawling underneath it, struggling to burst free.
A handkerchief thrust into trembling hands, rough swipes across the face, but the tears still wouldn’t stop.
Diana was rocking Red, slow, gentle movements. Little whispers in her voice, the words unintelligible, but the emotion behind them clear as crystal.
It was several moments, with Red’s face hidden in Diana’s embrace– because Bruce’s paranoia was contagious and they were on a rooftop out in the open–before Diana spoke again, this time louder, Red finally able to make out the words.
“First of all, what would you like me to call you?”
“I don’t know. I don’t know.”
A hand dragged through hair, gentle, coaxing, almost to the point that Red started feeling a little drowsy, spent and drained. “That’s okay. We’ll stick with Red for now, yes?”
“I was Robin,” Red said, whispering, “I was Robin. He took it from me. I was Robin. I knew that much. I knew it. That was all I knew.”
Especially after Stephanie. Especially when Stephanie took on the Robin mantle without a single blink of an eye about changing the boy wonder to a girl wonder. Especially when the backlash was so minimal as to not be there at all. Especially when she had been Robin, if only for a short period of time. She had been Robin, undeniably so. She’d been a girl, also undeniably so.
More than once, Red had looked at that costume. More than once, the intense longing had overtaken the heart, the desire to put it on, the longer tunic of it, the way it flared out a little at the hips, almost like a skirt, yet not long enough to prove a hindrance.
Red might not have been Robin at the time, but the pictures of Steph as Robin were still glorious, especially with all the new ways Red could follow her around on the Gotham’s rooftops, ways which had been inaccessible to tiny, ten year old Tim.
They were the most horrendous thing Red owned. An obsession, almost, staring, staring, staring, wondering and longing, a deep seated yearning, so colossal in its magnitude that it was unbearable.
“You’re still Robin.”
A snort, an ugly snot filled snort, “Just a washed up second rate copy.”
Her arms tightened, almost to the point of pain, but Red could only revel in the contact, relaxing further.
“You are whoever you want to be, Red. You. You choose. You always choose. No one can tell you who you are and aren’t. Not even Batman.”
Red stilled, a painful sort of hope blossoming within a bruised heart. A first confession, to a person, rather than some faceless anonymous online portals and chats— and it… did not sound like a condemnation.
It almost sounded like encouragement.
“Now, Red,” Diana said, firmly, and there was a jolt of fear, but she was still holding Red, securely, like she would never let go, like nothing could pry apart her grip. “You will tell me where one of your safe houses is, you will eat something, and we will talk, yes? Together. We will figure it out.”
“But I–” Red began, but Diana was already standing up, already adjusting her grip so that Red lay in almost a cradle across her arms as she picked Red Robin up.
“No, nothing, no buts.” She rose up in the air, and the wind rushed past them. “You will give me directions. That is all.”
Red gave Diana directions.
Then, curling her arms around Diana’s shoulder, warm despite the brisk wind that came with flying at not very safe speeds through the night air of Gotham, Red let herself feel. Let the iron bands that had been her ribs loosen, turning brittle with every second she could feel Diana’s heart.
She was not alone. No— that wasn’t right.
More than that, more than anything, she didn’t feel alone.