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It’s possible that, had Red Robin finished his senior year of high school and gone to college as planned, he would have enough knowledge of biochemistry and ecology by now to concoct a plan.
Unfortunately, Red Robin’s twelfth-grade education is useless while whatever Mr. Bloom infected him with rages violently through his nervous system. Unfortunately, he can do nothing but writhe as agonizing pain stretches from his chest to his brain, cutting frayed nerves as it makes a ruthless exploration through his cells.
The pain is as merciless as Mr. Bloom had been as he shoved a small seed (it had been a seed, hadn’t it?) into the exposed tear of Red Robin’s suit, and it’s as merciless as Mr. Bloom’s simple, warped advice to give up is. “Don’t fight it, Red Robin. Just let go.”
(He almost sounds pitying)
(Almost sounds kind)
Red Robin spits thick, coagulated blood at Mr. Bloom’s feet and laughs wetly. “Yeah, right.”
Faux kindness leaks from Mr. Bloom like poison spilling from an overfilled syringe. “Don’t be like that, Red Robin, it’s not good for you to struggle. You don’t have to be scared, I’ve done this before.” And that. Well, that is precisely what scares Red Robin.
With gritted teeth and steel resolution, “Keep dreaming, beanstalk.”
Mr. Bloom exhales sharply, and Red Robin prepares for the fresh onslaught of pain. For the wispy, inhumane creature to plunge a razor-sharp arm through Red Robin’s chest and turn his corpse into a kebab. He waits, but the man (he can’t really be a man, can he?) just strokes Red Robin’s cheek with a long, spindly claw and.
And leaves.
Leaves Red Robin to die, abandoned, writhing, choking back screams (he refuses— he won’t give anyone the satisfaction of hearing his agony), the pavement burning beneath him.
There is a grueling moment in which Red Robin thinks he would do anything (anything, please) to stop the pain, but before he can make any promises to deities that he doesn’t believe in, the pain reaches his head and he gives in (just for a second, he swears that it’s just for a second) and the raging, unfathomable pain just.
Stops.
Everything shudders to an unsteady halt, and the only evidence of pain having been there at all rests in the way Red Robin’s hands tremble as though they are staving off frostbite.
He lies still, forever trapped between breaths. Curled tightly, fingernails gouging the Red Robin suit, trembling uncontrollably, he strangles for control that snakes from his grip.
He’s better than this.
It was just pain. He has to get up.
(He can’t)
“Oh, sweetheart…” someone familiar, someone human, whispers worriedly. Hands scoop his body off the ground, and he is peeled from the sidewalk in a manner that feels reminiscent of someone shoveling snow off their driveway. Except. Except, no, he feels valuable. Like a priceless artifact cradled in the gloved, cold hands of an archeologist.
The chilled touch against his skin stirs something young and yearning and ashamed inside of him, but when the arms pull him into their chest and whisper gentle encouragement, he knows that it’s not his parents pressing him into their touch.
His parents are gone.
(His parents were gone well before they died)
“Night…wing?” he tries, choking on his saliva as he cranes his neck to get a better look at the blue and black vigilante holding him.
“Mhm, that’s right.” Nightwing sounds pleased, though the lightness in his voice melts with concern as he continues in a crooning whisper, “Hey, honey. How’s it hanging?”
Tim groans, letting his head hang limp in his brother’s arms and feeling a sludge of relief run like hot lava through his mind. He’s safe. With his brother, he’s safe. “Oh, you know,” he says, flippantly, tired, “‘M having the time of my life, clearly.”
The next voice is far less gentle and far less breezy than Nightwing’s: “Red Robin. What the fuck did that piece of viney shit do to you? Did he touch you? ‘Cause I’ll rip him apart, I fucking swear it.”
The lava pools in the crevices that the pain has left in Tim, and he feels warm, warm all over. Warm like summer and old lightbulbs and blown fuses and.
And he’s supposed to be responding, isn’t he?
“I don’t know,” Tim answers, then frowns because it feels more like a lie than he had intended. He doesn’t ever want to lie to his family. Especially not while they have him so gently wrapped into their orbit. It’s intoxicating.
He tries again, tries to scrape the blurry, agonized memories into the forefront of his mind. “Mr. Bloom pressed something into my chest. It was… weird. Hurt. It doesn’t… anymore, though. My skin just feels…”
Hot. Clammy. Like the scorched skin of an overcooked Thanksgiving turkey.
“…weird.”
Red Hood is unimpressed, his tone tight and bordering on fanatical. “Pressed what into your chest? One of his seed things? Or an injection? I swear, if this fucker infected you with something, I’m going to fill his body so full of lead that—”
“—Hood,” Nightwing interjects, warning. He shifts his attention back to Tim. “Was it a seed, honey?”
Tim opens his mouth to respond, to tell his brother that he’s too old to be called honey or sweetheart or anything so soft. He’s Red Robin for God’s sake, not some little kid with a camera.
He opens his mouth, but then a burning sensation licks down his arms, and he bites down on his tongue and twists frantically out of Nightwing’s grip. His brother yelps a little, unsuspecting, and Tim lands on the ground with a heavy, uncoordinated thump. His hands, palms outstretched, smack against the concrete with a thwack that should hurt, but he can’t feel anything over the heat.
The heat inside the marrow of his bones and in the back of his mind and the heat that has begun to lap at his nerves, stretching outwards and spreading, spreading, spreading. It feels like the seed felt as it was jammed into Tim’s system, except this time, instead of pain, there’s just warmth.
Too much warmth.
Like an iron rod conducting electricity, Tim can feel his body draw inwards, gathering, swarming, channeling. Channeling the heat in his arms, his wrists, his hands. Pooling in his palms. Scorching. Bursting at the seams.
That’s not good.
“Get away!” He screams, twisting his body away from his brothers as the feeling of fire rises to his fingertips and then erupts out of his palms in a gusting inferno of red flames.
“What the shit—”
“Red Robin—”
“—Stay back!” Tim wails, clutching his hands together and willing himself to stop, stop, stop. This can’t be happening. This can’t. It can’t.
The fire cracks out of his palms again, scorching just past the shoulder of Tim’s suit and making him wail in pain as third-degree burns begin to eat the flesh on his hands, his body flailing against the force of flames spitting past his skin.
Like it’s his new mantra: “Stay back! Stay back, oh my God, stay back!”
In conjunction with his rising fear, the burning grows more aggressive. Hotter. Hotter. Ravaging him from the inside out, and as he grows more scared, it grows hotter, and he’s burning alive! He is burning alive!
(He is going to die!)
(He’s not ready!)
Hands wrap around him from behind, lacing together and holding him firmly in place, and Tim screams. He screams to let go of him, he screams to leave him alone, he screams that he’s going to hurt them, and he doesn’t want to, but he can’t stop it! He can’t stop this! Whatever it is, he can’t. He can’t!
“It’s okay…” Nightwing, no, that’s Dick Grayson, that’s Tim’s big brother, soothes. “Breathe, baby bird. You can. Trust me. Just breathe.”
He can’t!
As if he can read Tim’s mind (or is Tim speaking out loud now?) Dick whispers, “Yes, you can. You can.”
“Damn it, you’re hyperventilating! Just breathe!”
“—Don’t yell at him!”
“Don’t yell at me!”
He can’t do this.
“Red Robin! Ah, hell— Tim!”
“Oh, yeah, we’ve lost him, alright.”
“That’s not helping, Hood.” Tim can’t help but recoil at the venomous frustration in the words because he’s sorry. He doesn’t know what’s wrong with him. He doesn’t know what’s happening. He’s not a meta. He’s not a meta, he swears it! “No, no, I’m not mad at you, honey. Shh, it’s alright, baby bird…”
He can’t.
He… he can’t.
“Don’t tell Batman,” Tim sees black smudges encroaching on his vision like dark, angry bruises blooming inside his irises, and then he sees nothing at all.
_______________
He wakes up in cuffs.
“Morning,” Duke is the first to speak, and his voice is tight enough with rage that Tim actually forgets to feel upset himself. “For the record, I told them you didn’t need those. I know you wouldn’t hurt anyone, but fuck what I think, I guess.”
Power-dampening cuffs. Tim studies them with a slight frown, partly because he can’t believe he’s wearing them and partly because he can’t believe that whoever put them on him doesn’t know he can escape them. He helped design these, thank you very much. “It’s okay.”
“It’s not.”
“Okay,” Tim is too tired for this. Too confused.
A long, unsteady quiet hangs in the air before Duke breaks it with a cautious, “Tim? Do you, uh, mind if I ask you something? Just between us?”
“I’m not a meta.”
“Sure. But if you were—”
“—I’m not, Duke. Honest.”
The silence feels suffocating, clogging Tim’s throat with heavy sludge that makes it hard to take a breath. Duke hesitates, giving him another chance to fold, and then nods.
Nods again, like a puzzle fitting itself together right before Tim’s own eyes.
“Then it’s Mr. Bloom.” No more questions, only firm, careful statements. “Bruce had a theory, and, well, if you really weren’t a meta before, then I think you’ve just proved it. He thinks those seeds Mr. Bloom has been giving people give them superpowers or some shit. Seriously, Tim, you don’t even want to know how many people we’ve already had to pull in.”
Tim does want to know, actually, but he lets it go for now. He’ll check the Batcomputer once his family (and he himself) trusts that he’s not going to melt everyone in a four-foot vicinity’s face off. “How do we reverse it?”
“Not sure, yet,” Duke frowns a very Bruce-Wayne-frown. “But we’re gonna figure it out.”
“We do know how. Kill the bastard,” Jason suggests mildly, entering the room and setting his Red Hood helmet down on a table in the medbay with a loud clunk.
He seems calm enough, but when he moves to clear the distance between him and Tim, Tim can’t help but flinch at the vibrant green shade of his eyes. It’s been years since the fight in Titan’s Tower, but he’s cuffed and defenseless and scared and those eyes.
(He still dreams about those eyes sometimes)
(He hasn’t told anyone that)
Jason freezes, as if Tim has struck him.
“I didn’t…” he sounds just as pained as Tim feels. Just as guilty. “I’m not gonna hurt you.”
“I know,” Tim says, honestly, and the words are intended to reassure Jason he can come closer, but they aren’t enough, so he tries again, firmer this time. “Jason, I know. Now get over here and explain what your plan is because we all know that Bruce will never let you kill Mr. Bloom.”
Duke crosses his arms, “I dunno if Mr. Bloom even is human.”
“That won’t matter to him,” Tim argues, because there is no point in even having this conversation when Bruce won’t even kill the Joker. The Joker. Subconsciously, his gaze falls back to Jason. His brother looks as though he’s thinking the same thing, his eyes haunted with the same sickly green hue as before. “There has to be a better way.”
Jason takes a deep breath before he finally, finally draws closer to Tim and takes his cuffed hands in his own gloved ones.
Tim lets him, because this is his brother. His once-older-now-a-few-months-younger brother. Jason won’t hurt Tim. He won’t.
He doesn’t.
Instead, Jason’s thumb fidgets with the bandages on Tim’s hands, and he sighs. His eyes have narrowed on the burn dressings, focused enough that it looks like he can see straight through the wraps and to the charred skin beneath. “You scared us, you know.”
“I did?” The thought feels wrong, somehow. Misguided and crooked.
Beside them, Duke fidgets, and Tim can see the exhaustion in the younger man’s eyes. Has he stayed awake the entire time? In the weak smile he still gives Tim, Tim knows he has. “‘Course you did,” he says awkwardly, rubbing at his neck. “You shot fire outta your hands then knocked the fuck out.”
Tim remembers that, at least, but he knows in his core that there is more to the story. “What else?”
“What else?” Jason echoes.
“Yes. What else happened?”
“Nothing.”
Duke’s nail scrapes against his wrist, itching the skin in what Tim knows is a nervous tick. He shifts his attention to the youngest of the three, leveling the sixteen-year-old with his own narrowed gaze. “What else, Duke?”
Even after Jason shoots him a warning look, Duke folds. “You woke up in the Batmobile, ranting about some shit. Saying you needed to help Mr. Bloom. Like. Get him energy or somethin’.”
A chill runs through Tim’s spine, and he stares down at his hands. Jason releases them, carefully, and then snaps his fingers to get Tim to look him in the eye.
“Hey. It’s fine, Timmy. It was just for a minute, and then you went back to sleeping, and you haven’t glitched since. We think the cuffs are helping.”
“Doubt it,” Duke comments darkly.
Jason ignores him, “Tim. You gotta give me the word.”
“What?” Tim blanches because he knows what Jason is asking, but to be asked it? Right here in the Batcave infirmary? In front of Duke? In front of the Batcomputer and the cameras and the damn bats abovehead?
“I can’t let him get away with fucking with your mind like this. I can’t.”
“He hasn’t—”
“—Timbit, you have third-degree burns all over your hands because of this asshole. All you gotta do is give me the word. One word, and even if it doesn’t fix you, at least he gets what he deserves.”
Tim thinks of Mr. Bloom pressing a seed into his chest and he thinks of the burning pain and the screaming and he thinks of the fact that he is now a meta and Bruce hates metas and. And it’s a tempting offer. More tempting than Tim wants it to be. More tempting than it should be for a former Robin.
“No,” he says, finally, and Jason deflates.
“Your funeral.”
“Jason,” Duke cuts in, outstretching his arms in bewilderment. “Shut the fuck up, dude.”
The door to the Batcave opens with a purposeful thud, and Tim watches as Damian, Cass, and Dick file in. “Yeah, shut up, Little Wing,” Dick grins cheekily, and Jason (whose eyes have settled a reassuring dark cyan at his older brother’s presence) promptly flips the eldest Wayne off. Dick laughs, but the sound dies out once his gaze lands on Tim.
Softly, “Hey, baby bird, how are you feeling?”
Firm, “Fantastic.”
“Sarcasm, Drake? Must you always stoop so low?”
Tim, in a very mentally sound way, wants to start screaming and not stop until his entire family just gives him five minutes to breathe. He loves them. He does. But sometimes. Sometimes, they make him want to rip his hair out from the roots.
Politely (because he’s trying to be patient with the kid), Tim says, “It’s good to see you too, Damian.”
Damian tuts, but there’s a flicker in his gaze that has Tim’s mind stuttering for a moment because if he didn’t know his little brother better, he’d say that it was concern.
“So,” Dick starts, smoothing a hand through Damian’s hair before approaching Tim with a small smile. “Your… powers. Those are from Mr. Bloom and not… well, you know. You’re not…?”
“He’s not a meta,” Duke answers for Tim, sounding disappointed. “I already asked.”
“Well, he might be now,” Jason offers, unhelpfully.
Cass, who had yet to say anything, slides beside Tim and brushes her fingers over the cuffs. “Do you want them off?” she asks, and her voice is quiet enough that through the chaos of Dick and Jason arguing over whether or not Tim’s new powers make him meta or not, nobody else hears her. “I can.”
Just as quietly, Tim shakes his head and responds, smiling a little, “I can too.”
He can, but he won’t. As much as it feels debilitatingly wrong to be wearing cuffs in the Batcave of all places, Tim can’t control these powers any better than he can control the freaking weather. And, well, actually, maybe he shouldn’t be thinking that, because who knows what Mr. Bloom has cursed him with.
Cass nods and graces Tim with a smile so soft that it almost fades into the shadows of her face. “I know. Thought it was worth an offer, at least,” she says, shrugging, and Tim can’t help but be proud of how clearly she has gotten her pronunciations down.
“It is,” Tim reassures. “Thanks.”
“You’re welcome,” Dick says, and Tim groans because fuck is it hard to have a conversation when his entire family has the worst case of collective FOMO that Tim has ever seen.
Slipping forward, Dick replaces Jason’s place in front of Tim with a surprising amount of deftness. “Can I check your hands, baby bird? You got them pretty badly earlier…”
Tim extends his hand, obediently, then pauses and recoils with a wobbly frown. “I don’t know.” It’s one thing to let Jason check his hands. Jason, who has the Lazarus Pit flushing through his system, and who heals quicker than most people could ever dream of. It’s another to let anyone else. “I can’t…”
The room grows cold as five pairs of worried, intrusive eyes fall over Tim.
Dick softens, “Tim… it’s okay. You won’t hurt me.”
“You don’t know that!” Tim snaps, his rising panic strangling his voice because fuck! “You don’t know because I don’t know because nobody knows what’s happening! Nobody but Mr. fucking Bloom because suddenly I can shoot fire from my hands! Fire! Do you know how terrifying that is? To suddenly have superpowers when your dad hates metas?”
Everyone is silent before Duke says, almost shakily, “I do.”
And, shit.
Shit. Tim hadn’t meant that.
“Duke, I didn’t…”
“No, man, it’s fine. I get it. Batman is anti-meta. Keep ‘em out of Gotham, right? Except now that includes you, and what the hell are you supposed to do with that information? You didn’t ask for powers. Don’t even know what you’re capable of. Yeah. Shit’s scary. I know.”
It is. It’s so scary that Tim wants to crawl into his skin and hide in the warmth of his unwanted abilities forever. Coming up with a response to Duke is hard, though, and Tim hesitates, his eyes falling on Damian, because, out of everyone in the room, his youngest brother is the only one not watching him with a ravaged kind of pity.
“I don’t want powers,” he says, his voice jagged and sharp in all the wrong ways.
Damian, who seems confused about why Tim has chosen him of all people to tell this to, tips his head to the side and replies, rather simply, “I, too, do not want you to have powers.”
“Gee, thanks,” Duke murmurs, throwing Damian a light-hearted smile that the young Wayne just blinks at in confusion. “Kidding.” He turns back to Tim, and Tim can’t help but take comfort in the fact that at least Duke no longer looks like he’s interacting with a kicked puppy. “We’re gonna figure this out. We don’t know if the abilities are permanent or not.”
Tim squirms in his cot, “But they might be. Right?”
Duke shrugs.
“Tim?” Dick presses again, reaching out for Tim’s hands. This time, Tim relents and lets his older brother start unwrapping the ace bandages around his hands. It stings, but Tim is careful to keep his face neutral through the pain. He’s not about to make a fool of himself right now.
Well. More of a fool.
Once the last bit of bandage is peeled off his hands, Tim can’t help but wince under the cold, aching breeze of the Batcave. “Damn, that hurts.”
Lamely, Dick interjects, “Language…”
“Oh, cut the kid a break,” Jason, who has been pacing ever since Tim had snapped and shouted at everyone, hisses sympathetically at the sight of the gnarled, raw skin and rubs subconsciously at his own palms. “You’ll be fine, Timberlina. It’s bad, sure, but you’re healing alright.”
“You call this alright?” Tim asks, arching an eyebrow and flexing his fingers. The boiled, red, and white skin stares up at him like it’s mocking him. He cringes, “It looks like I touched the sun.”
Damian shoves past Jason to get a better look, and when he sees the burns, his face wrinkles in distaste. His mouth drops open, and words play at his lips, ghost-like, before he quickly spools himself back together. He tuts and shakes his head. “You would burn up well before you ever reached the sun, Drake. You should know that.”
Tim blinks.
Rolls his eyes.
There’s something about the way Damian’s eyes continue to linger on the burns and Tim’s expression as Dick applies burn ointment that feels both invasive and… and confusing— worried, almost, if it were even possible for the kid to feel such a thing. Whatever the look is, it stops Tim’s urge to snap back, and his voice comes out more fragile than he intends when he says, “It’s really not that bad.”
The five pairs of eyes (had they ever drifted away?) slip back onto him. Dick comments, “See what you made him think, Jason?” while Cass murmurs, “It’s not good,” and Duke says, somewhat affronted, “Dude, you look like fried chicken.”
Damian, who had been the one Tim was trying to make feel better, sighs heavily. “Cass is right. It is bad. Do not be an idiot, Drake; it is not a good look on you.”
“Right. But on Jason, it’s fine, right?”
“Excuse me?”
“Tim is implying that you are an idiot,” Cass clarifies.
Jason drags a hand over his face. “Yeah. Thanks, Cass, but I did catch on to that.”
She shrugs, sharing a look with Tim that is surprisingly flooded with sparkling amusement. He settles back as Dick begins to rewrap his hand, his mind tuning out the pain as he focuses on the noise of his family bickering.
“You okay?” Dick asks, gently, and Tim nods with a fragile, genuine smile.
And whatever is happening with Tim, at least he has his family. Tim shifts his gaze to Dick’s soft blue eyes and nods, “Yeah. I will be.”
Somehow, he really does believe it.