Work Text:
Tim thought the strangest thing that could happen to him was going to an alternate dimension with talking birds, a town of jack-o'-lantern people, and evil beasts that turn people into trees.
And, well, yeah. It is.
But there's a lot that's come close to it. Like becoming Robin and forming a team with the clone of Superman and Lex Luthor, the grandson of the Flash from the future, and Wonderwoman's sidekick in alien armor. Or his predecessor coming back to life, and Batman coming back to life, and aforementioned teammates coming back to life.
So, yeah, Tim has had a strange life, and he's only eighteen.
But he's gotten to a point where he thinks the strangeness has finally subsided into something a little more normal.
That is, until he starts growing antlers.
It all started when Tim turned eighteen.
Well, no. It all started when he blew out that lantern.
Wait, no. It all started when his parents got divorced.
Okay, maybe that's a little too far back. Or, well, maybe not.
Jack got Tim in the divorce, mainly because of his money, not because he was the better parent between the two. But, growing up, his mother got Tim on the weekends, a small reprieve from the demands of being the son of a socialite and a moment to breathe away from the leering eyes of Gotham's elite.
Over the years, Tim watched as his mom fell in love with a man much better for her than Jack Drake, a man who she married when Tim was young and eventually had a son with. A son who would become the bane of Tim's existence. Greg.
And look, Greg was a sweet kid. Tim didn't exactly know what to do around babies but he was a cute toddler. But then he started talking, and he never stopped.
Greg was the one who started calling Tim Wirt, which for some reason stuck with his mother and stepdad, and unfortunately did grow on him. So, his friends he made when at his mom's knew him as Wirt, a nice way to distance himself from being Timothy Drake, heir to Drake Industries, son of Jack and Janet Drake.
Greg latched onto Wirt like a bur on the back of a coat. He followed him everywhere, wanted to be where he was at all times, and talked his ear off even when he was practicing his clarinet. Wirt knew it was because he's a little kid who idolized his big half-brother, but it didn't make it any less annoying.
But then came that fateful Halloween journey. A world so unlike theirs. Greg almost dying (and it was Wirt's fault, it was his fault for leaving him, his fault for pushing him away, his fault for pushing him so far). A return to a home that didn't feel like home anymore.
Greg reacclimated back easily, his tall tales being brushed off just like all of his wild imaginative fantasies, but Wirt knew. He knew it was real. He knew what he endured.
Then Robin died, and he picked up the mantle to save Batman from himself, and those few days in that world became a distant memory.
But the woods had left a mark on him. Darkness covers him like a comforting cape. An insatiable hunger began to pool in the depths of his soul that he just couldn't shake. His eyes were just a little brighter, something more swirling in them as they peer through the night.
He just didn't think the mark it left would claw into his very being and transform him into all he feared to become.
These two sides of his life haven’t crossed; he made sure to keep them separate. So when Tim comes upstairs from the Batcave to find Greg drinking a mug of hot cocoa in the kitchen, he’s obviously panicking.
“Greg! What are you, what, uh, what are you doing here?”
The usually playful boy looks at him with a haunted gaze. “I had a nightmare.”
“Oh, Greg.” Immediately he goes to wrap his arms around his little brother, but as he pulls him into his embrace, he feels as the two are engulfed in darkness, Greg’s skin growing more pallid as he starts to cough.
Wirt immediately pulls away and watches with horror as Greg coughs up a leaf.
“Wirt?” Greg whimpers with fear.
He can’t respond. Just staring at the wet leaf in Greg’s hand. When Greg meets his eyes, he flinches back, and Wirt knows what he must see. The swirling, glowing colors of the beast shining off his eyes.
There’s a low croak from Greg’s lap and Wirt finally notices the boy’s frog. There’s something that has changed about the frog though, something that Wirt can understand now, and the petrification that emanates off the small creature.
“I think… something happened when I blew out the lantern.”
“What kind of something?”
Before Wirt can reply, Bruce, Dick and Damian enter, all stilling at the sight of the unfamiliar child.
“Guys, this is my half-brother, Greg,” Tim says awkwardly, stuffing his hands into his pockets.
Bruce, who had done his thorough background check on Tim is not as surprised, but hurt strikes over Dick’s expression, obviously hurt that Tim’s never mentioned him. Damian on the other hand seems to sizing up the boy.
The boy who brightens at the sight of another kid his age. “Hi! I’m Greg! And this is Madonno.” He lifts the frog. “It’s like Madonna but with an O.”
Damian, always interested by animals, steps closer to get a better look at the creature.
“It’s very nice to meet you,” Greg says with the deeper voice he uses when pretending that the frog is speaking, moving his little arm to wave at them.
“It’s nice to meet you too,” Bruce says. “Tim? A word?”
With a sigh, Tim goes with Bruce. “Look, I didn’t know he was coming. I didn’t even know he knew how to get here which… actually how the hell did he get here?”
“I’m not upset,” Bruce says. “I just… I didn’t realize you…”
“I don’t talk about him,” Tim says. “Not because I’m hiding him or I’m ashamed of him. He’s just… he’s a different part of my life.”
“Does he know—?”
“No. Neither does our mom or his dad.”
Bruce takes in his words for a moment. “Is everything alright?”
“He just had a nightmare. And needed me.”
“He came a long way for a nightmare.”
“I’m the only one who can help him through them.”
Before Bruce can ask more, he hears Greg coughing and his heart drops, running back to the kitchen…
…only to find Greg had chugged down juice too fast.
“Greg,” Tim says exasperatedly.
“Sorry,” cough cough, “Wirt.”
“Wirt?” Dick repeats.
Tim closes his eyes with a sigh. “It’s a nickname.”
“What sort of nickname is that?” Damian asks with a snort.
“Wirt,” Greg says, hopping down from the stool and tugging at Tim’s sleeve. “Can we go lay down? I’m tired.”
“Yeah, Greg,” Tim says. “Sorry, guys. This one needs his sleep.”
Tim takes Greg to his bedroom and the two get snuggled together under his sheets, the younger boy clinging to his older brother.
“You’re alright, Greg,” Tim says, a yawn taking over him as his eyes droop with molasses thick exhaustion…
He’s awoken by a scream. His eyes snap open and when he looks around he sees that they’re no longer in his room, instead in an all too familiar woods.
He realizes blearily that it’s not a scream but a squeal.
Greg runs around in the leaves. “Wirt! Look! We can go visit Beatrice and Lorna and Enoch and Fred and Miss Langtree and—”
“Greg!” he cuts him off. “How did we… how did we get here?!”
“You took us here.”
Tim’s eyes go wide. “What do you mean?”
“You wrapped me up in branches and then we woke up here!”
“Are you okay? Did I hurt you?”
“Of course not! You could never hurt me.”
“But I did,” Tim snaps. “When I left you behind and I left you with him, you got hurt. You trusted me and you got hurt.”
“Yeah, I trusted you and you came back from me and you stopped the Beast and you saved me and took us home!”
“I don’t think I did,” Tim mutters. His breath starts to quicken, quickly becoming hyperventilation. “Oh God. Oh no.”
“What? What is it?”
“I knew that it wasn’t over when I blew out that lantern.”
“Wirt.” Greg grabs his hand and he flinches away. Greg pouts sadly. “What’s wrong?”
“Greg,” Tim says slowly. “I think… I think I’m the new Beast.”
“Well… you’re not mean like the old Beast. And you don’t look like a Beast. You look like Wirt. Just with antlers. And shadowy.”
“What?!”
It’s then that he finally notices that he’s been shrouded in darkness and there’s something weighing him down foreignly.
“It’s okay!” Greg says. “We can make them pretty!” He hangs a ring of daisies off one of his antlers.
“Greg, how can you be so— no, I know why. Oh my God. I’m freaking out.”
“Don’t freak out, Wirt.”
“I don’t want to turn people into trees! I don’t want to make Edelwood.”
“Maybe you don’t have to!” Greg says. “Or maybe you only turn really mean people into Edelwood.”
And for a moment, Tim considers it. Considers using these new powers to finally put an end to the evils that terrorize Gotham, but quickly extinguishes the thought.
“No,” Tim says. “There has to be another way.”
“Well, maybe you should ask Bruce! Since he is Batman.”
Tim’s head snaps to face Greg. “How do you know that?”
Greg tilts his head. “Was it supposed to be a secret?”
Tim sighs. “No, you’re right. The Bats will know what to do. And if they don’t, then we will. Just… how the hell do I tell them this?”
Turns out that telling them is significantly easier when he returns to the manor in his Beastly form.
“Is there a way to create the Edelwood seedlings without taking an entire human life?”
“Well they’re made form the lost souls of children who have wandered far from home. And, I definitely don’t want to do that.”
“What if you make them out of souls that have yet to pass on?” Jason says.
“What do you mean?”
“Gotham, she holds onto her children. She can’t let them go. Their souls are held by her so they don’t leave. It’s how she was able to bring me back. But maybe you can make a deal with her. Take those souls and make them something tangible that will never leave Gotham.”
Which is how Tim finds out that the city is alive, not the strangest thing he’s encountered, and makes a deal with her to create a forest of Edelwoods that he can tap the oil from so long as she feeds them souls.
Tim’s antlers become less corporeal, more of a shadow that halos around him, making him taller than he truly is. His eyes still glow, but with the chemicals in the water, no one questions it.
And hidden deep within the winding caves beneath Wayne Manor lies his lantern, burning bright and keeping him alive.