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Fight or flight. Run, or stand your ground. Impulses triggered by fear, adrenaline. They are the body’s natural reaction to an attack; fight off the thing before it hurts you first, or get away before it can strike. It’s not much of a head-scratcher to guess what Batman’s reflex under fear toxin is.
“You,” Batman snarls, grabbing his Robin by the hair and wrenching his head back so hard Tim is certain he’s going to snap his neck in two. “You’re not supposed to be here. You belong in Arkham. You’re dangerous.”
“Batman,” Tim gasps. He scrambles desperately at Bruce’s wrist. “It’s me. It’s Robin. Joker isn’t—”
Bruce can’t hear him. Of course he can’t. Scarecrow’s fear gas is too powerful for Tim’s pleas to be heard over the hallucinations of the Joker’s laughter, or whatever horrible acts he’s committing in Bruce’s broken mind.
Tim has been Robin for long enough to know fear toxin protocol like the back of his hand. Keep your rebreather on at all times. If you think you might have been exposed, take the antidote immediately before the effects have time to kick in. They both carry auto-injectors of the antidote in their belts.
It was meant to be Tim who got infected when his rebreather broke in the middle of the gas-flooded space, but Batman is a protector above all. He gave Robin his mask and held his breath for as long as he could. It didn’t take long after that.
Robin’s instinct when faced with danger should be to fight as well, but Tim knows without having to test his luck that he could never beat Bruce in a fair fight. Flight is his only chance. He breaks a gas pellet in front of Bruce’s face and takes advantage of the five seconds of confusion to wrench himself out of the larger man’s grip and make a break for it.
“Al—” Tim just barely dodges the batarang aimed for his jugular. “Alfred, call for backup! Nightwing, Batgirl—anyone!” He already expended too many of his weapons fighting Scarecrow’s goons, but he’s not helpless. He flings pellets filled with knockout gas, praying that they’ll hit their mark.
Tim is fast, but he isn’t fast enough. He’s grabbed by the cape and wrenched to a whiplash-inducing halt, just barely keeping from falling backward into his attacker. “Bru—Batman—” Tim ducks a split-second before a swinging knife can take his head off.
“Master Robin, what’s happening?” he can hear Alfred’s voice crackling through his comms. “Who is attacking you?”
Bruce’s next blade slices Tim across the stomach before he can dodge, dropping him to the ground with a choked-off noise. The pain is blinding. Any deeper and he’d have to switch his top priority to keeping his intestines in. He can already feel blood at the back of his throat. “B-Batman, please.”
Even compromised by fear toxin, Batman wouldn’t kill. He would never murder a human being. Not unless it was the one person in the world who deserved it the most.
“You killed him,” Bruce growls. It’s a good thing he still has the cowl on because if Tim had to see the sheer hatred in his eyes up close, it would be his undoing. “You took him away from me.”
If Tim had a shred of self-preservation left in him, he’d run. He’d run bleeding and broken for his life, no matter the futility of it, the surety that he would be caught. But he can’t leave Bruce here like this, trapped in a nightmare with the thing that terrifies him the most. A fear-ravaged Batman could destroy all of Gotham in a single night if set loose.
When Batman can’t defend himself, it’s Robin’s job to step in. He is the last line of defense between Bruce’s violent fear and innocent people. It’s a noble sacrifice, all things considered. Hopefully everyone will understand. And if they don’t, then hopefully they’ll all blame Tim for his own death instead of Bruce.
“You’re a monster,” the Batman snarls with every punch, raining down fury upon his enemy. Tim does his best to deflect the hits with the arm not holding pressure on the wound in his abdomen, but he’s half Bruce’s size and a quarter as strong. He never stood a chance. It’s all he can do to dodge fatal blows; it doesn’t even register when Bruce’s borrowed rebreather is knocked off his bloodied face.
“Batman, I’m—” Tim spits out a glob of blood. Another molar gone. “Bruce, it’s me! It’s Tim!”
“I’ve sent backup your way,” Alfred says frantically in Tim’s ear. No matter how fast they drive, it won’t be fast enough. Tim is an antelope fending off a lion. “Hold on, my boy.”
It occurs to Tim that this could go any number of ways, with the majority of them probably ending up with him dead. It’s very possible that Alfred may be forced to hear Tim be murdered by the man they both idolize the most. “Alfred, I—” Tim is cut off by a hand seizing him by the throat. Bruce hauls him up until his feet leave the ground, cutting off his oxygen and crushing his windpipe.
Tim’s vision blots out at the edges, but at least he’s gotten the proximity he needs. Tim whips out the inoculator pen he’s kept hidden in his sleeve and jams it at the sliver of Bruce’s neck uncovered by the cowl. He can’t imagine what the hallucinations must turn the antidote into—a knife? A syringe filled with poison?
Bruce knocks the pen from Tim’s hand like a pesky fly. For good measure, he snaps Tim’s arm at the elbow.
Tim screams.
Bruce drops his harmless assailant back to the ground. Tim curls around himself the best he can, clutching his broken arm to his bleeding stomach. “Please,” Tim squeaks, barely able to drag in a complete breath through the waves of pain.
He’s well aware that there’s a very real chance he will die by Bruce’s hand tonight. A Batman who killed his Robin won’t ever recover; it’s simply not possible. He’ll never be the same again if Tim dies here tonight, but it doesn’t look like Tim will have much of a say in the matter.
Bruce stands over Tim like he’s worth less than the dried blood on his shoes. “I should have killed you a long time ago. He should be alive instead of you.”
“Bruce…” Tim wheezes. The toe of Bruce’s boot smashes into his face, and Tim can feel his cheekbone fracturing under the impact. That’s going to suck later if he survives this.
“You’re a monster. You don’t deserve to be alive. I should have put you down like the rabid animal you are the first time I saw you. Jason was perfect, and you—” The next kick sends stars hurtling through Tim’s vision. He’s barely holding on to consciousness at this point. “You are nothing.”
Tim knows Bruce isn’t talking to him. He knows that. They’re just words intended for a monster concocted by his worst nightmares, but they’re exactly the right ones.
Tim tries to raise himself up on one elbow, just enough so he can look Bruce in the face. “Bruce, look at me.”
The next blow knocks Tim out for a solid few seconds. “Stay down!”
A good soldier follows orders. Thanks to the blood loss and his injuries making self-defense impossible, Tim stops fighting after that. He takes every blow dealt to him, doing what he can to protect his vital organs from the fists and heavy boots.
Tim manages to slip his one working hand up to his earpiece. He can’t hear Alfred anymore over the ringing in his ears, but he can at least get this message out before his time is up. “Alf…don’t tell Bruce it was his fault, okay? Lie to him. Tell ‘im it was Scarecrow. Make up whatever you have to. Don’t…don’t make him have to live with this on his conscience, ‘kay?”
Tim isn’t quite conscious anymore after that. He knows he won’t survive this much longer, going by the blood he can feel soaking through his uniform and pooling around his head. Maybe he’ll drown in it before Bruce is done. At least then it wouldn’t be Batman’s hand that does him in.
Tim almost welcomes the oblivion when he sees a dark angel appear behind Bruce. It doesn’t come to claim Tim like he expects, though.
Batgirl is quick, prepared. She’s jamming a sedative into Bruce’s neck before he has time to realize she’s here at all, and by the time he does, it’s already too late. The only reason that Cass wins the short battle while the sedative seeps through Bruce’s bloodstream is because Bruce is already so out of it. It doesn’t take long for the effects to kick in after that.
Cass kneels at Tim’s side, forgetting their fallen mentor entirely. Tim can feel the blood cooling beneath his broken body. He doesn’t even know where most of it is coming from; there are too many wounds to count.
“What’s worse?” she asks. Tim can’t see her face behind her mask, but he can hear the horror in her voice, see the tremble in her raised hands as they hover over Tim, not knowing where to start, where to touch without harming him further.
Tim groans and shifts the hand pressed to his bleeding midsection in answer. Cass immediately takes up holding pressure on the wound. Tim doesn’t even have it in him to scream from the pain this time. “Not…not his fault,” he gurgles around the blood in his mouth. “He d-didn’t mean to.”
Thankfully, Tim passes out before Cass can respond to those pitiful last words. He wonders if he’ll finally get to meet Jason.
He wakes up in the Batcave’s medical bay two days later.
His entire body feels like a bruise. Luckily, the worst of it is muted behind the painkillers he’s been pumped full of. Tim doesn’t ever want to know what this would feel like without them. One of his arms is encased in a bulky cast all the way up to his bicep, while the other holds an IV that’s likely the source of the medicine keeping Tim’s pain levels in check. The rest of him must look ten times worse under the blankets.
He looks to his side and finds Bruce standing beside the medical bed staring off into space, his arms crossed tight over his chest. At the sound of Tim weakly clearing his throat, Bruce blinks out of his trance. He drops his arms when he glances down at the bed and discovers Tim’s eyes open. “Tim.” He sounds almost embarrassed.
Tim glances around the small room, but he sees no one else. “Al—” He swallows, wincing. “Alfred?”
“He hasn’t slept since Cass brought you in. I told him I would watch over you.”
“Oh.” It’s bad, then. Tim knew he would be. He was certain at the time that he would die, but not knowing the severity of his injuries makes him queasy. “How bad is it?”
The line of Bruce’s mouth is grim. He doesn’t speak at first, debating whether he should tell Tim the full extent of it. Finally, he answers, “Eighty-two stitches. Broken arm. Concussion. Internal bleeding. Lacerated spleen, but you’ll keep it. Extensive bruising. We kept you sedated through the worst of it, but you should make a full recovery in time.”
Tim supposes it could have been worse. He could be dead right now, so he should be grateful for the upcoming weeks of bed rest. “Okay.”
“I—” Bruce shifts uncomfortably on his feet. He can’t meet Tim’s eyes. “Tim, I’m—”
“It’s okay,” Tim interrupts. It’s impossible to mentally compare the man in front of him now with the one who put him here two days ago. Guilt is laced through every line on Bruce’s face. It hangs in the dark circles beneath his eyes. “You didn’t mean it.”
“It is not okay. I could have murdered you.”
Tim almost shrugs, then thinks better of it, remembering the broken arm. “I knew you wouldn’t,” he lies. “Thanks for not, though. Would’ve been awkward to explain to my dad how the neighbor killed his kid.” The joke falls flat. Bruce has the best poker face Tim has ever seen, but he still looks gutted. “We’ll have to stage a bike accident or something,” Tim tacks on to force the conversation along to a more practical place. “Or maybe I was running late for school and stepped onto the subway tracks by accident. Leslie can forge medical records, right?”
Bruce lays a hand on Tim’s shoulder, lightly enough that he can barely feel the pressure. Somehow it still hurts. “Don’t worry about that now. Your job is to rest. I will handle everything else.” Bruce examines one of the machines beside Tim’s bed, reading his vitals. “How is your pain? Dr. Thompkins should be back in a few hours to check on you again, but we can keep you comfortable for now.”
Tim takes stock of himself. “Mostly just sore. Headache’s pretty bad, but I guess that’s the least of my problems.”
Bruce hums, reaching for the IV pump to give Tim another dose of painkillers. “That’s most likely an aftereffect of the knockout gas. We couldn’t sedate you properly for the first two days in case the medicine reacted with the fear toxin, so we had to use the gas until the toxin wore off.”
Tim frowns. “Fear toxin?” Under the haze of all the pain and panic, Tim forgot that his mask had been knocked off in the assault. He’d assumed the gas in the surrounding area had mostly dispersed by that point.
Bruce looks at Tim like he’s the crazy one. “Yes. There was a heavy amount of fear toxin in your system. You didn’t know?”
“I…guess not.”
While Bruce goes about checking over Tim’s vitals, Tim tries to rationalize how it could possibly escape his notice that he was on fear toxin during the fight. It’s hard to miss, but he doesn’t remember any hallucinations.
As Tim thinks on it more, though, it dawns on him that of course he wouldn’t notice the toxin’s presence in his system. Bruce had already done all of Scarecrow’s work for him by the time the gas had time to kick in. The most terrifying thing that Tim could ever imagine was already happening to him.