Chapter Text
The dream always ended with blood.
Not Tim’s blood, technically. Well, yes, also his blood. A decent amount of it. A truly enthusiastic quantity. But the thing his mind remembered most vividly was the sound.
Metal scraping against metal.
The crack of armor splitting.
And the voice.
“Yield.”
Cold. Calm. Final.
Like winter had learned how to speak.
Tim woke up choking on air.
For one terrible second, he thought he was still there. Still kneeling in the ruined courtyard with rainwater soaking through chainmail, one arm hanging uselessly at his side while torches burned around him like dying stars.
Then reality slammed back into place. Cheap apartment ceiling. Buzzing fan.
Three missing assignments.
A sock hanging from the lamp for reasons he no longer remembered.
Right. Modern life.
Tim stared upward in silence, chest heaving.
Then, very carefully, he pulled the blanket over his face.
“Nope,” he informed the universe.
The universe, unfortunately, was not accepting feedback at this time.
His phone alarm exploded beside his head.
Tim groaned like a dying Victorian orphan and smacked at it blindly until it stopped screaming. He laid there for another minute, blanket still over his face, contemplating whether he could legally drop out of society and become a swamp cryptid.
Probably not.
The dream lingered anyway.
Not fully. Never fully. Just fragments. A castle made of pale stone. A banner with a black dragon stitched in silver thread. A sword heavier than it should have been.
And him.
Not Tim Drake, sleep-deprived scholarship student and part-time caffeine corpse.
Someone else.
A knight.
A low-ranking one, judging by the armor. Not noble enough for polished silver plate or jeweled crests. No heroic cape fluttering dramatically in the wind either. Just practical steel, dented at the edges, worn leather straps, and the permanent exhaustion of someone whose job description mostly involved surviving other people’s bad decisions.
Which honestly still sounded like his current life.
Tim rubbed a hand down his face.
“Cool,” he muttered to the ceiling. “Love that for me.”
Another fragment surfaced before he could stop it.
The True Knight.
That was what people called him. Not a title given by the king. Worse. A title given by the people.
Bruce.
Even in dreams, the name felt heavy.
Bruce of House Wayne.
The kingdom’s shield.
The king’s blade.
The man children pointed at during festivals while adults lowered their voices in reverence.
Tim only remembered pieces of his face. Dark hair. Sharp eyes. Armor black as a moonless lake.
And the sword.
God, the sword.
It had cut through his neck like judgment itself.
Tim sat bolt upright.
“Nope,” he repeated firmly, climbing out of bed. “Absolutely not participating in destiny today.”
Outside his apartment window, Gotham University loomed across the street beneath gray morning clouds. Students shuffled around campus carrying coffee cups and unfinished regrets.
Normal.
Modern.
Zero swords.
Tim grabbed the least wrinkled hoodie from his chair and paused when his phone buzzed again.
UNKNOWN NUMBER.
Tim narrowed his eyes.
That already felt threatening.
He answered cautiously. “If this is about taxes, I’m a little broke at the moment.”
“Timothy.”
Tim froze.
Deep voice. Calm voice.
Somewhere in the distance, thunder dramatically rolled across Gotham’s skyline because apparently the weather had unionized with fate.
Tim nearly dropped the phone.
“Nope.”
“What?”
“Nope,” Tim repeated, already hanging up.
His heart pounded hard enough to file for noise complaints.
That was impossible.
Actually impossible.
Bruce Wayne was many things.
CEO.
Billionaire.
Local cryptid spotted only at galas and funerals.
But there was no reason his voice should sound exactly like the man from Tim’s dreams.
None.
Zero.
Absolutely not.
Tim stared at his phone.
The phone buzzed again instantly.
Tim rejected the call so fast he almost dislocated a finger. Then he blocked the number. Then he stared at the blocked confirmation screen.
Then he blocked it harder somehow.
“Problem solved,” he declared.
A beat passed.
His phone dinged.
UNKNOWN EMAIL: Your scholarship mentor assignment has been finalized.
Tim opened it.
Then immediately wished he hadn’t.
MENTOR: BRUCE WAYNE.
Tim stared at the screen so long his brain briefly blue-screened itself.
There were seven stages of grief.
Tim personally invented an eighth called absolutely the fuck not.
He reread the email three times as if the letters might rearrange themselves into something less horrifying. Maybe Bruce Wayne was secretly a very common name.
Maybe there were thousands of Bruce Waynes roaming Gotham freely.
Like pigeons.
Unfortunately, the email included a picture. Dark hair. Sharp eyes. A face that looked carved out of expensive marble and unresolved emotional trauma.
Tim wanted to throw himself into traffic.
Not because Bruce Wayne was dangerous currently. Probably. But because Tim knew one thing with the deep spiritual certainty of a man being hunted by fate itself:
If he got too close to Bruce Wayne, something catastrophic would happen.
Maybe not today.
Maybe not tomorrow.
But eventually; Sword.
Courtyard.
Death.
And honestly, Tim had plans this lifetime. Tiny plans, but still. Graduate university. Pay taxes unwillingly. Maybe buy one of those dinosaur-shaped chicken nugget packs adults technically weren’t supposed to buy for themselves.
He couldn’t do any of that if he got stabbed by destiny.
Tim grabbed his backpack with the grim determination of a soldier marching to war.
“New strategy,” he muttered while leaving the apartment. “Avoid Bruce Wayne and all associated entities.”
Right...
Completely achievable.
The universe laughed immediately.
Because the second Tim stepped onto campus, someone crashed into him hard enough to nearly send both of them sprawling.
Coffee flew everywhere.
“Oh my god, sorry!”
Tim looked up.
Black hair with a white streak.
Blue eyes.
Built like someone who fistfought refrigerators recreationally.
Jason Todd.
Tim knew him instantly despite never technically meeting him before.
Because memories flooded violently behind his eyes.
A knight laughing while blood covered his gauntlets.
A reckless grin during battle.
The sound of someone yelling, “Jason, stand down!”
Tim’s soul attempted to evacuate his body through his spine.
Jason blinked at him. “Uh. You good?”
Tim, meanwhile, had gone spiritually feral. Danger danger danger danger.
“Sorry,” Tim said quickly, taking three entire steps backward. “I actually have to go die elsewhere.”
Jason blinked. “What?”
Tim didn’t answer because his nervous system had officially left the chat.
This was bad.
Bad bad.
Historically catastrophic, even.
Because standing in front of him was Jason Todd, who in Tim’s fragmented memories had once punched a fully armored knight off a horse using what appeared to be pure spite and several unresolved issues.
Tim had seen exactly three seconds of that memory and still felt psychologically threatened by it.
Jason frowned. “You look pale.”
“I was born pale,” Tim shot back automatically.
“No, dude, you look totally pale.”
That was because he was haunted. By murder. Specifically his own.
Tim took another careful step backward like Jason was a particularly emotional bear.
Jason noticed immediately.
His eyes narrowed. “Why are you walking away like I’m about to bite you?”
Because in another life you probably would’ve bitten someone during battle.
Tim kept that thought to himself. Mostly because saying it out loud would get him institutionalized. Instead, he forced out an awkward laugh that sounded like a car failing to start.
“Haha. What? No. You just have… energy.”
Jason stared.
“What the hell does that mean?”
“It means,” Tim said desperately, “that I suddenly remembered I have somewhere else to be.”
“You’re literally standing in front of your class building. I remember you, in this class."
Tim looked up.
Right.
Damn it.
The universe had become petty.
Jason followed his gaze toward the lecture hall doors before looking back at Tim suspiciously.
“Professor Crane’s criminology lecture? Ring any shitty bells?"
Tim’s soul attempted another escape attempt.
Of course it was this one specific class.
Of course fate would shove him into the same class as one of Bruce Wayne’s children (his own fault for not recognizing every students's face honestly).
Actually, technically not child. Jason looked older than him by a few years. Built like someone who consumed protein powder dry for fun too.
Tim wondered briefly if he could fake his death before attendance started.
Probably not convincingly.
Jason suddenly squinted at him.
“Wait.”
Tim’s fight-or-flight response loaded a gun.
“What?”
“Have we met before?”
Tim’s brain detonated.
Images flashed violently.
Torchlight.
Castle walls.
Jason grinning bloody and wild while saying, “You’re insane if you think Bruce won’t notice.”
A younger Tim tightening armor straps with shaking hands.
The smell of rain before battle.
Tim physically recoiled.
Jason’s eyebrows shot upward. “Okay, wow. That reaction feels personal.”
“Nope.”
“You said nope like four times now.”
“It’s a versatile word.”
Jason snorted.
And there it was.
That stupid laugh.
Tim froze because somehow, impossibly, it was the exact same laugh.
Not identical in sound. People changed between lifetimes probably. Hopefully. Otherwise reincarnation was horrifying.
But the feeling of it was the same.
Warm, sharp-edged. Dangerous in the way open flames were dangerous.
Tim suddenly remembered sitting beside a campfire in armor while Jason laughed at something stupid and Bruce stood nearby pretending not to smile.
The memory vanished before Tim could grab it properly. It left behind an ache so strange Tim almost stumbled.
Jason noticed.
His expression shifted slightly. Less mocking now.
“You seriously okay?”
No.
Absolutely not.
Tim was one weird dream away from developing medieval PTSD.
But before he could answer, another voice cut through the crowded hallway.
“Jason.”
Tim’s entire nervous system folded like cheap lawn furniture.
Slowly, against every survival instinct he possessed, he turned around.
Bruce Wayne stood at the end of the corridor.
Dark coat.
Dark eyes.
Calm posture.
And Tim’s memories slammed into him hard enough to blur the edges of reality for half a second.
Black armor soaked in rainwater.
A silver dragon crest.
A sword lifting.
Yield.
Tim stopped breathing.
Bruce’s gaze landed on him briefly.
Just briefly.
But it felt like being pinned beneath something ancient. Tim understood, suddenly and horribly, why people in his past life had called Bruce the True Knight.
It wasn’t because he was the strongest.
It was because standing near him made your instincts whisper: follow or fucking run.
Tim personally chose flee.
Immediately.
Tim escaped the hallway through cowardice, speed, and what could generously be described as advanced prey instincts.
Unfortunately, Gotham University was designed by sadists.
Every corridor curved into another corridor. Every staircase somehow led to emotional suffering. And every turn Tim made seemed scientifically engineered to increase the likelihood of encountering a Wayne-related lifeform.
At one point, he accidentally opened the wrong door and found himself in the fencing club.
There were swords inside.
Tim left immediately.
“Absolutely not,” he whispered, backing out slowly while a sophomore in protective gear stared at him in confusion. “The universe is escalating.”
By the time he finally reached Professor Crane’s criminology lecture, Tim was ten minutes late, psychologically exhausted, and carrying a stolen bag of sour cream chips from the vending machine incident.
Not intentionally stolen.
The machine had technically gifted it to him during combat.
Tim slipped into the farthest seat possible from humanity itself.
Back corner.
Near the window.
Maximum escape potential.
Perfect.
Then someone dropped into the seat beside him.
Tim nearly climbed the wall.
“Jesus Christ,” he hissed.
Jason looked deeply offended. “That’s not my name.”
“You move like an assassin.”
“Thanks.”
“That wasn’t a compliment.”
Jason stole one of Tim’s chips anyway.
Tim watched this betrayal in silence.
The audacity.
“You followed me?”
Jason crunched loudly. “Nah. This is my seat.”
Tim stared. "No it is not??"
Jason stared back. "Yes it is now."
Shitty ass brat.
Tim looked around the lecture hall desperately as if another seat might materialize through divine intervention.
There are a few up fronts but Professor Crane entered the room before Tim could attempt escape again.
The lecture hall quieted instantly.
Tall. Skeletal. Glasses glinting beneath dim lights. The kind of man who looked like he drank black coffee brewed from cursed knowledge.
“Today,” Crane began softly, “we’ll discuss fear.”
Tim considered dropping the class immediately.
Crane continued pacing slowly down the aisle. “Fear is fascinating because it reveals truth faster than morality ever will. Strip a person down to fear and you’ll discover who they are beneath performance.”
Tim sank lower in his seat.
Absolutely not ominous.
No sir.
Jason leaned sideways slightly. “You look like you’re being hunted for sport.”
“I feel like that too.”
“Seriously,” Jason muttered. “Did Bruce accidentally scare you or something?”
Tim almost inhaled a chip wrong.
Accidentally.
Sure.
Like accidentally causing avalanches.
Tim kept his eyes firmly on his notebook. “Your dad has the aura of a medieval executioner.”
Jason barked out another laugh.
Several students glanced over.
“Okay,” Jason admitted, whispering now, still grinning, “that’s fair.”
Tim did not smile back because unfortunately it was not a joke.
Crane’s lecture blurred in and out after that. Tim tried focusing.
Really, he did.
But every few minutes his brain would abruptly throw ancient trauma at him like an unpaid intern tossing paperwork.
A battlefield under gray skies.
Bruce kneeling before the king.
Jason covered in blood and laughing anyway.
The sharp sting of rain against armor.
Tim gripping a sword with trembling hands.
None of it made sense yet.
The memories came broken apart like shattered glass. Tiny pieces. Incomplete.
And the worst part?
None of the memories showed Bruce being cruel.
That would’ve been easier.
No, dream-Bruce was calm.
Honorable. Terrifyingly fair. The kind of knight who gave enemies a chance to surrender before killing them cleanly.
Which somehow made the memory of dying by his sword worse.
Because Tim couldn’t even hate him properly.
The lecture ended an hour later.
Students began packing up immediately, conversations swelling across the hall.
Tim stood with the determination of a man escaping prison.
Jason noticed instantly.
“You always leave this fast?”
“Yes.”
“You got another emergency?”
“Yes.”
“What is it this time?”
Tim slung his bag over one shoulder. “Avoiding the Wayne bloodline.”
Jason blinked once.
Then slowly grinned.
“Oh, that’s personal personal.”
Tim pointed at him warningly. “Do not make eye contact with me in public anymore.”
“Nuh-uh. You’re sitting next to me next lecture too.”
Tim looked genuinely terrified and disgusted by that.
Jason laughed so hard he almost choked again.
Tim fled before further emotional damage could occur.
New strategy.
Avoid all possible Wayne connections.
This included:
• Bruce Wayne himself
• Jason Todd
• Wayne Enterprises buildings
• Charity galas funded by Wayne Enterprises
• Any man standing dramatically on rooftops
• Black coats
• Swords
• Rich people with suspiciously good posture
Simple.
Definitely not the beginning of a psychological breakdown.
Tim spent the next week operating like Gotham’s most paranoid raccoon. He changed routes between classes daily.
If he spotted Jason in the distance, he turned around immediately.
Once, he climbed out a library window to avoid accidentally sharing an elevator with Bruce Wayne. The librarian saw him do it. Neither of them acknowledged it.
Unfortunately, fate had developed a sense of humor.
Because the more Tim avoided the Waynes, the more they somehow appeared.
He saw Bruce on campus twice despite the man supposedly being absurdly busy.
Once speaking to university board members.
Once standing outside a building while rain poured around him in a scene dramatic enough to deserve orchestral music.
Tim had hidden behind a newspaper stand for fourteen full minutes waiting for him to leave.
The vendor eventually asked, “You buying anything?”
Tim bought gum out of shame.
Jason, meanwhile, became worse.
Not dangerous worse.
Persistent worse.
Like an extremely sarcastic stray cat who had decided Tim was interesting.
He’d appear beside Tim randomly in cafeterias.
Drop into empty seats during lectures.
Steal food with zero remorse.
“You’re weird,” Jason informed him one afternoon while eating fries directly off Tim’s tray.
“You’re emotionally intrusive.”
“You climbed through a second-story window yesterday.”
“You saw nothing.”
Jason grinned. “You know, normal people just ignore Bruce when he visits campus.”
Tim looked horrified. “You can ignore him?”
“...Okay, fair point.”
Because even now, in modern clothes instead of armor, Bruce Wayne still carried that same impossible presence.
People noticed when he entered rooms.
Conversations shifted around him instinctively.
Like the world itself adjusted posture.
And every single time Tim saw him, another fractured memory surfaced.
A hand gripping his shoulder after battle.
A low voice saying, “You fought well.”
Standing beside Bruce beneath castle banners while exhaustion dragged at his bones.
Warmth.
Trust.
Then blood.
Always blood afterward.
Tim hated it. Hated the confusion clawing through him.
Because if Bruce had truly been his killer in another life...
Then why did every memory before that feel like home?
Jason pointed a fry at him suspiciously. “You stopped running away.”
“Temporarily.”
“I feel so honored.”
“You shouldn’t.”
The cafeteria buzzed around them with the usual chaos of university students operating on caffeine and academic despair. Somewhere nearby, someone was loudly explaining cryptocurrency to an increasingly trapped-looking engineering major.
Tim ignored all of it.
His focus stayed on Jason (Not obviously).
He wasn’t interrogating the guy under a swinging lamp while thunder cracked outside. This was subtle information gathering.
Very professional.
Jason stole one of Tim’s chicken nuggets.
Tim watched the theft happen in real time.
“You know,” he said slowly, “normal people ask before taking food.”
Jason ate the nugget anyway. “Counterpoint. You weren’t defending it.”
“You’re a raccoon in human form.”
“I’ve been called worse.”
Tim believed that instantly.
“So, you’re Jason Todd.”
Jason blinked once. “Wow. Incredible detective work.”
“Shut up. I’m introducing myself properly this time.”
“That’s your proper introduction?”
Tim considered this.
“Fair.”
Jason snorted.
Tim held out a hand across the table. “Tim Drake.”
Jason looked down at the offered hand dramatically.
“Should I be worried this is cursed somehow?”
“Only emotionally.”
“Damn. The worst kind.”
Still, Jason shook his hand.
The second their palms touched, another fractured memory hit.
Steel gauntlets clashing together.
Jason grinning beneath torchlight.
“You think too much, Drake.”
Tim jerked slightly.
Jason noticed immediately.
“There it is again.”
Tim released his hand fast enough to qualify as suspicious.
“What?”
“That weird thing you do.” Jason leaned back in his chair. “It’s like I zapped you or something.”
Tim didn't answer that and grabbed his drink before took a long sip purely to buy time.
Unfortunately the universe hated him personally because Jason kept talking.
“Seriously, though. Have we met before university?”
“No.”
“You answered that way too fast.”
“Because it’s a simple question.”
Jason hummed like he absolutely did not believe him.
Tim redirected quickly. “So what’s your deal?”
“My deal?”
“Yeah. Every university has one guy everyone knows by reputation.” Tim gestured vaguely with a fry. “Congratulations. You’re apparently ours.”
Jason barked out a laugh. “That’s because Gotham students are nosy.”
“No, it’s because you look like you’ve either been in prison or won underground fight clubs.”
“…Both statements are a little offensive.”
“But not inaccurate?”
Jason grinned crookedly instead of answering.
Interesting.
Tim filed that away mentally beside the growing pile of Things About Jason Todd That Felt Concerningly Medieval.
“So,” Tim continued carefully, “you and Bruce Wayne close?”
Jason gave him a look over his soda cup.
Tim suddenly got the horrible feeling he’d stepped onto thinner ice than expected.
“Why?” Jason asked casually.
Tim shrugged with forced nonchalance. “Your last name’s not Wayne, but people still associate you with him.”
Jason studied him another second before relaxing again.
“Bruce took me in when I was younger.”
Tim’s stomach twisted strangely.
Took me in.
The words echoed against fragments of memory.
A freezing winter night.
A starving street thief getting dragged into castle walls by knights.
Bruce saying, “He stays.”
Tim blinked hard and the memory shattered before he could fully grasp it.
Jason kept talking, unaware of the war crimes currently occurring inside Tim’s brain.
“Honestly, the old man’s annoying as hell sometimes, but he means well.”
Old man...
“So you live with him?” Tim asked carefully.
“Part-time now.” Jason shrugged. “Got my own apartment near campus.”
Tim relaxed slightly.
Okay.
Good.
Distance from Bruce.
Healthy.
Strategic.
“And the others?” Tim asked before he could stop himself.
Jason raised an eyebrow. “Others?”
Shit.
Too fast.
Too interested.
Tim scrambled desperately for recovery. “I mean, doesn’t Bruce Wayne collect adopted children like Pokémon cards?”
Jason choked on his drink laughing.
Several nearby students turned to stare.
“Oh my god,” Jason wheezed. “I’m telling Dick you said that.”
Dick.
Right.
The eldest.
Tim knew the name from both lives now.
Richard of House Wayne in the past.
Dick Grayson in the present.
Bright smiles. Acrobat movements. Dual swords flashing beneath moonlight.
Tim had only seen fragments, but unlike Bruce’s heavy storm-like presence or Jason’s wildfire recklessness, Dick’s memories felt warm.
Safe.
Which probably explained why he lived in Blüdhaven now instead of Gotham. Even fate understood one emotionally stable sibling per city was enough.
“He’s not here much anyway,” Jason continued. “Works in Blüdhaven.”
Tim nodded slowly like this information did not feel dangerously important.
“And there’s Damian,” Jason added with the exhausted tone of someone discussing a small hostile prince. “Still in high school. Tiny cryptid. Likes animals more than people.”
Tim nearly inhaled a fry.
Jason leaned forward slightly.
“You know,” he said, amused now, “for someone trying this hard to avoid the Wayne family, you sure ask a lot of questions about us.”
Tim froze.
“…Counterargument,” he said carefully.
Jason looked delighted. “You don’t have one, do you?”
“I had one like thirty seconds ago.”
“Tragic.”
Tim groaned and dropped his forehead lightly against the cafeteria table.
This was going horribly.