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Nights in Gotham were strangely beautiful. Tim wasn't exactly sure what about it was so nice to live in.
He was simply on patrol and found himself just.. staring in awe. looking over the distance, seeing the vastness of Lady Gotham herself, it was really pretty from such a height..
He'd gotten used to the presence in his head, constantly sharing thoughts and feelings from his family, so he was confident someone knew he was just stargazing at this point instead of patrol.
he knew he shouldn't be stargazing, that he shouldn't have been sat perched where he was, he was exposed after all.
but it couldn't hurt to have a quick break, right?
He shifted to a more comfortable position as he sat there, he could feel his claws brush against the stone beneath his hands. he'd always found it a little strange how similar yet how different they were from humans.
like how he had hands but claws, or he had arms that had wings beneath them. he had a mouth but sharp teeth.
he shrugged it off as he thought about it. eh, it was strange but nothing too interesting to think about.
instead he turned his focus back to the view. he could see a decent amount of the city, surprising how far you can see on top of Gotham Academy. especially shocking considering he and Damian attended almost daily.
he found his gaze drifting, pondering his feelings about recent events, they'd been quite busy.
from helping Dad kill and take out mob bosses to helping him out with the company.
Tim had objected to killing these people until he was told about what one of them did to Jason-- almost killed him with a fucking crowbar-
he couldn't believe it was kept from him but it was enough to make him kill these monsters. even if it felt wrong.
why was he thinking about all this?
well...
he'd just heard someone on the roof. typically he'd just jump off and hide, he could fly after all- it was easier to hide that way than to terrify them.
only this time he stayed on the roof because he'd just got hit with a taser.
"what kind of kid carries around a fucking taser?!" he thought to himself before refocusing, he could already feel Dad and Dick checking into his vision to try help assist.
in hindsight, it had become standard for younger kids to carry such a form of self defence. After all it had become hard to use pepper spray on people who wore masks anyway.
he was surprisingly sensitive to such a shock. still, he had enough of a tolerance to push through it and begin to pull himself up from the ground next to the ledge, glancing up and to his left.
he could see some kind of teenager, maybe a year younger. they seemed terrified of him, and kept stepping back and forth. clearly fighting their instincts.
there was a pack of cigarettes below them, dropped in the panic. A late night attempt to smoke turned into this..
so un-organised.. it was almost cute
In a swift motion he was up from the floor and in the air, smashing his fist into their back shoulder.
they didn't stay upright long.
Tim pinned them down, snarling to keep their fear high as he tried to get answers from the batfamily. what was he gonna do??
he took in their instructions. all generally mentioning for him to knock her out and fake her out.
he could do that..
It had been a few hours since his little encounter. he wasn't very bothered by what had happened.
at most he felt bad because he had to knock her out, carry her out from the roof and into her supposed dorm room and place her in a bed.
what a fuckin' hassle
he was trying to help out Jason with a problem involving his Helmet, Jason could do it but Tim was faster and it was a busy night. he hated being back at the Cave this early in the night for that exact reason.
they still had to deal with a rogue Arkham inmate they had no idea the motivation of as well as some strange sightings involving hacks to important servers Gotham-wide
still, he obliged. it wasn't optimal for Red Hood to be out without a mask or gear.
they had all the claws and wings and yet a single head injury could ruin their entire operation, Tim always urged Dad about such a issue but he continued to argue otherwise.
he tried not to think about it, instead he just focused on fixing the helmet, having to re-upload some data to its visor.
as he worked he was really starting to get this awful feeling in his head. this kind of piercing feeling, like the world's worst headache as strange thoughts flickered in his mind briefly, only for a moment but they lingered afterwards.
"Where did I learn to fix technology like this?"
"When did I have such a high pain tolerance?"
"Why do I have scars I can't remember getting?"
and it stopped.
he really hoped everyone hadn't heard that..
he took a strained breath, don't reach for your head, don't reach for your head.
"H--Hey, Jay. c'mon, got your helmet working again." he smiled a weak smile, trying to ignore the piercing pain in his forehead.
Jason just grunted a thanks before going off again with his now working helmet. man's got places to be, Tim figured. he wasn't complaining about it anyway.
after he left he sat down, rubbing his temples while blocking the hive out for a moment.
he needed to get it together. he couldn't be thinking like that!
yet he couldn't help but notice how the thoughts had some rationality.
where had he gotten his tech smarts or pain tolerance? and he couldn't remember a single time when he'd gotten hurt enough that his skin scarred.
he could remember times where he had gotten scars but nothing about the ones he had already..
it was just a strange thought. you'd think if you have such scars over your body you would know where they came from.
yet when he looked at his human hands all he saw was scar after scar. his best guess were them being surgery scars, but even than that would be clean cut, planned. these were messy, around his fingers and knuckles near his claws.
after a while of thinking it over and over he could feel the subtle push to go back out.
he was spending too much time, he was needed out on patrol after all.
he could deal with these strange happenings instead of think about his awful memory..
as he left the cave, shifting and beginning to fly out, he was faced with the same sight like he had earlier in the night. the sight of Gotham's nights.
he knew he needed to go help Dad and Dick who were already ripping through an abandoned warehouse, going through the guards and moving to reach their boss.
Tim was supposed to be the one to block them in if they tried to run before they got there.
so knowing the rational situation he forced himself to move on past the beautiful night sky and view, instead pushing himself to fly faster.
he needed to make it there in time to play his part.
Thankfully he was right on time-- well, if you count 2 minutes off schedule 'right on time'. he was hidden and waiting in case the boss ran out like rats. in a way he hoped they did.
that meant Tim could do the honours for his father and brother.
sadly for Tim's venting solution, Bruce and Dick got to them first, Tim knew because he watched through his Dad's eyes as he killed the man ripping through his throat with his claws in one clean slash.
what a world they lived in huh? Tim always did wonder why in the headlines they still called them 'heroes', they were vigilantes at best but Tim knew they weren't exactly 'heroes'.
not that stopped the media.
they arrived back at the cave yet again to clean up the blood from their bodies, they couldn't be dripping blood everywhere after all.
he got a chance to think some more. it was funny how forgiving humans could be, labelling every victory they had as Justice Well Served. it definitely gave them a free reign on things they hadn't before.
Tim was pretty sure he hadn't seen the Wayne family with such free reign since Dad got rid of the crazy next door neighbou--
Dick, Jason and Bruce had been walking with Tim. listening to each other's thoughts and next plans for the night. now the main gang active recently was dealt with they could be more loose with their plans.
Dick and Jason were going off to grab a bite to eat wanting to wash away the taste of the blood while Bruce kept walking, planning to check on Damian who was benched recently from his.. less than ideal ways of killing.
so naturally he wanted to check on him in person, make sure he was doing alright before he was to head back out.
he didn't pay much mind to Tim's internal monologue. it was a trait he hadn't lost despite not being human anymore. he cut off the thought so it wasn't expressed to Tim.
he was wondering how Damian was doing, he was usually pretty bored if nothing else was going on. especially if he was benched from training or patrols.
he was sure he would've found a way to entertain himself by this point--
and then Tim dropped to the floor, his body sending out very violent seizing traits, a phantom feeling the entire family could feel as he convulsed.
Bruce obviously dropped what he was doing immediately and was by Tim's side quickly, trying to figure out what was wrong. it felt like something with his heart?-- no-
he couldn't figure it out quickly.
until he stopped and thought for a moment.
Tim was experiencing some kind of psychological episode, something Bruce was pretty sure was in relation to the false memories.
shit
Tim was convulsing violently, cries and choked sobs escaping him between the occasional cry out of pain, squirming and seizing on the spot.
Bruce took hold of him just like the year before, cradling Tim's face into Bruce's chest and shoulder area. his hand brushing his hair as he tried to calm Tim but it clearly wasn't working.
so instead he attempted to dig deeper, quickly trying to change memories or figure out what was happening.
within a minute at most he'd already reached what happened.
his mind was struggling between the fake memories he'd given to him, and the real ones of growing up as Tim Drake rather than as a Wayne.
he couldn't hold both inputs at once forever so his body was fighting itself now.
so it was simple in Bruce's mind.
just remove the episode he'd had building up and be done. if he couldn't find the past memories familiar than no episode could happen.. right?
he had to hope that was how it was working.
so his hand pressed against his forehead and Tim eventually seemed to black out, the memories being altered yet again.
it was taxing for his brain to put it gently.
He'd have to hope it helped..
so Bruce brought Tim up to his room, helped him shift and remain relaxed in bat form and placed him in his bed gently, brushing a hand over Tim's little forehead.
what was he doing.. but.. if this happened to his other kids...
he wasn't sure how he'd handle such a problem..