Chapter Text
It's been a while since Tim has been back out on the field.
First, there was the whole thing with everyone dying. Not ideal as it was, but then Bruce was alive and Tim could prove it but no one would listen and—and, well, that's not important. What is important is just that the whole ordeal meant Tim spent a lot of time away from his family, away from his work as a vigilante. And then Kon was back, and Bart was back, and obviously Tim had to catch up with them—so he spent some time away, out in San Francisco, and he may never admit it, but it had been nice. It was still nice, just to think about.
(He misses Kon, maybe a bit more than he should. Maybe a bit more than a friend. At least he can admit it in his own head, right?)
Then he was off on a whole set of clean-up missions, one right after the other, trying to minimize the mess of his globe-trot. When he finally came back, he was on the field for a little while—but not before getting a hard hit and being benched for a month.
So, yeah, he's been pretty out of it for a while. But he's glad to be back now, glad to be stretching his limbs, even if he does realise his suit needs some resizing and that he should probably (seriously) invest in rebranding. Red Robin worked when he was across the world, but it's a little less effective when he has his family dogging on him for being named after a restaurant. Which, he isn't, that's absurd, it slipped his mind completely there was even a place named Red Robin. It's not his fault! Names are hard, okay? Especially vigilante names. Everything just sounds sort of stupid unless you really don't think about it.
All of this to say, he's getting off tracks, and he misses the feeling of the wind in his hair as he jumps from rooftop to rooftop. It's an easy night, nothing much to worry about—no Arkham breakouts so far, no massive attacks, not even a bomb threat. It's a good night.
"Red, there's a mild street fight breaking out—edge of Coventry, away from the Upper East—Hood's busy, could you—?" There's frantic typing on Barbara's end as Tim's comms fizzle on, and he pivots the direction he's going as she speaks.
"Yep, yeah, got it, O," he says, just out of habit, though he does idly wonder what Jason's doing at the moment. Overseeing a shipment, maybe. Not that it matters, because it's just a street fight, and how hard can a little street fight between mostly unarmed civilians be? He'll be fine.
(He really regrets all the assumptions he makes.)
Tim is having a bad day, and it's very quickly becoming worse, but he's trying to make the best of it. Which isn't very good, but...he's pretty sure that's what you're supposed to do, anyway. At least he's back to patrolling, no longer benched because of his whopping four broken ribs and mild concussion.
(Why can he feel someone watching him? Is this what Bruce and Dick, and eventually, Jason, felt like when he was watching them? Should he be worried?)
Try as he might, he doesn't have a good feeling about today. He takes back everything he ever said about today; that street fight was brutal, especially considering he got shot. He's starting to think that it was the start of a gang fight, actually, but none of the people there were known affiliates for any name, so—either someone new is in the game, or Tim is really out of it.
He decides he's out of it when his leg clips the edge of a building, and hisses at the direct aggravation towards his fancy new gunshot wound. It's fine, he tells himself; it didn't hit anything major, it was just a graze, and while yes it hurt like hell, he'd dealt with worse. His ribs were still stinging when he breathed too deeply. All he needs to do is swing by the Nest, staunch the blood flow, maybe disinfect the wound if it looks worse than it feels, and wrap it up all nice. Then he can tap into some traffic cams while doing some casework, just in case anything happens that he needs to leave for. No, he's not turning in early; if anything, he'll probably be up later than anyone else, doing this. He can't be sure, of course, it's not like he's going to be at the manor to see any of them when they go to bed, but...
Ah, it's whatever. He'll see them all tomorrow morning, and they'll berate him for being reckless, or turning in early, or not going to bed until seven A.M., and it'll be like it always is.
Yeah, Tim thinks as he slides his window open, slipping into his bedroom, that's a great plan. Nevermind that it isn't a plan and you miss your boyfriend Kon and could really do with someone to keep you sane because you don't want to think about any thing that happened in the last year—
There's a thump.
Tim stiffens, drawing himself up to his full height, spine straight, looking around his room as indiscreetly as possible. His window is closed, latched tight and with three extra locks piled on top as soon as he got in. His closet is halfway ajar; maybe, but there's not much room in there for something to thump. His gaze turns towards his bedroom door—slowly, he stalks forward, lowering himself despite just standing up straight, moving as quietly as he can. He knows, logically, that to anyone not trained half to death, he's nigh undetectable, but every misstep, every slight shift of his floorboards sends his pulse jackrabbitting through his body.
He goes through the hallway, carefully scouting each room, one after the other, and...nothing. There's nothing (no one) there. He feels crazy—he knows he heard that thump—but he can't find anything. So he goes back to his window, triple checks the locks, and zip-ties his blackout curtains shut before changing out of his suit. The last thing he needs is his identity being leaked.
He drags himself down all three flights of stairs (he can't remember if he has an elevator. Does he? He should, if he doesn't. He needs to check that, in the morning. Hasn't he been living here for nearly half a year now? How does he not know this?) before settling on his couch, laptop tucked under his arm—when did he grab that?—and pushes it open, typing in his nearly twenty-one digit password, picking all the right answers to his multiple-factor authentication, before finally writing up his report for the night. Regular routes, street fight that could be an emerging gang dispute but probably isn't that worrisome, and an uneventful way home.
I'm tired.
Tim rubs his eyes, vanishing the thought from his head, and sets his laptop to the side. There's a dull twinge in his leg as he does so, and—and why is that, again? Nevermind. Tim will just grab a cup of coffee, sit down, and do some casework. Right. That was always the plan.
Except as soon as he stands up, his vision blurs around him, black creeping in at the edges, and his legs stubbornly refuse to keep him up. His last thought before blacking out is simply wow, I was right about today being horrible.
Waking up in a pool of your own blood, however small, is not a pleasant experience. Well, it's not exactly a pool, but it's definitely an accumulation. As Tim blearily opens his eyes, dragging his gaze across his living room, he can see the trail of red across the stairs, the carpet, a large spot on the couch. It's all a steady drip-drip-drip along the hardwood floors that'll be a headache to get out, and Tim mentally files through nondescript house cleaners he could hire because, really, he doesn't feel like doing all that.
There's still the gunshot wound.
Right.
He looks down, reassessing the wound in broad daylight. Shorts were a good call; he can see it clearly, and it's not pretty. He's pretty sure it hit something, but not anything life threatening. Well, maybe if he sits here long enough, he would bleed out, but it doesn't sound that appealing. His head is pounding; he's not sure if that's from the blood loss or the fall. Both, maybe.
God, it's a good thing no one is around to see him like this.
For a second, Tim lets himself curl up into the fetal position, eyes shut tight. Then he forces his legs outwards, his eyes open, and his upper body up. His vision swims the more he moves, but he steadies himself against the couch arm next to him this time, and gives it a good minute to pass. He limps his way to the nearest bathroom, which is, quite frankly, humiliating, and searches around for a first aid kit before sitting down on the floor, folding his injured leg atop his uninjured one. Now, a normal person wouldn't have thread and a needle in their first aid kit, but Tim also has a cyanide pill in the Red Robin suit. He's always a little over prepared.
He lets himself space out as he stitches the injury up, the same repetitive motions again and again, differentiated by the ever increasing sting of his injury, and—oh, he's pulling too tightly. His hand trembles as he eases the pressure, and he idly tries to put together a to-do list. Number one: clean up his bathroom and living room, if not the entire apartment. Number two: ensure that he actually finished filing a report for last night's patrol. Number three: clean up himself so he can be presentable when he goes to the manor—
Shit, the manor.
For a moment, Tim had almost forgotten. Cass had just returned from Hong Kong, and for an entire week this time, so he'd promised to go over and stay for a little while. No doubt, if he's late, she's going to start wondering where he is and what's keeping him so long.
"Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck..." The muttered curses under his breath are basically the only thing keeping him from panicking as he throws the first-aid kit to the side, stumbles to his feet, and starts frantically searching for his phone. Not with him in the bathroom, obviously, nowhere in the kitchen, is it there on the coffee table? No, no, what about the couch? Is it in his room, still on his bed from before patrol? Maybe. He should check.
It's on the ground, half-kicked under the couch; someone is trying to call him, the phone vibrating desperately against his foot. He stops immediately, scooping it up and trying to see the caller ID—Steph—before the screen goes dark, call declined. Fuck. He calls her back, waits for the third ring, and it goes to voicemail.
"Hey, Steph," he starts, and his voice sounds rough. He coughs once to clear his throat, then a second time just because he has to, before continuing, "I know I'm probably late, but I just, uh—"
I got shot and it hit me pretty bad but I underestimated so I passed out on the floor of my apartment and could you come pick me up, maybe, because I don't want to be alone? I'm so tired.
"—got caught up with some case work and everything, and, you know, I mean, you know how it is. Fell asleep on the couch and I'm finishing up right now—" He's lying, he doesn't even need to be, why is he so worried? It's not even a good lie; he's not typing, there's no ambient noise of it in the background, and if Steph brought this up to Barbara the older woman could probably, no doubt, verify he wasn't online at all last night. "—but, uh, I'll be there. Soon. See you?"
He ends the call. Voice mail, technically. He is so, so fucked. It's—he checks his phone—three in the afternoon. How does one sleep for that long with a bullet wound and whatever other injuries he hasn't even had time to catalogue? Actually, that's a stupid question. He's probably done this before, just maybe not in a while. Point is, case work is no excuse for being nearly four hours late to Cass's homecoming. He has no doubt that she'll understand, probably see through any of his lies before he can even flesh them out that well, but it's not her he's worried about. Well, okay, yes, he's worried about disappointing her. But mostly, he's worried about what everyone else will say. His relationship with the rest of the family is frayed enough as is; he doesn't need this to be added to the raging dumpster fire that is his life at current.
He just wants to lay down. Like, in a real bed. His bed.
Regardless, he keeps moving.
He pockets his phone before moving upstairs, silently noting where his blood is from last night, and trying to figure out when he'll have time to clean it, and whether or not he wants to go full-on or just surface level. He pushes his bedroom door open, and—why is one of his locks undone? Did he forget to put all three on his window last night, too out of it to fully register? He could've sworn that he did. Especially after whatever that thump was—maybe someone was in his house.
Well, that's a worry for future Tim. For now, he just needs to look presentable.
He all but tosses his shirt off, landing haphazardly on the bed, and it's joined by the pair of shorts that are only slightly blood-stained at the ends a moment later, trying to shimmy out of them without aggravating his newly stitched wound. There's a pair of loose jeans and a flannel that was probably someone else's, and he moves over to his desk as he makes quick work of buttoning said flannel. It smells like Dick, but Tim can't really remember a time that the first Robin wore something like it. Maybe it really is his own, and he just left it at Dick's place.
Thoughts for later, anyhow.
His hands are shaky, he dully notes, searching through his desk drawers, and—yep, there it is, the same heavy duty concealer that he knows everyone in the family always has on hand; he finally gets a good look at his face as he looks into a mirror, eyes darting between a few smaller bruises and some of his older scars. Right cheekbone, left jaw right underneath the corner of his lips, left side of his forehead, right on top of his eyebrow. He fills in the dip of his skin where scars from his time as Joker Junior remain, and then spends a painstaking amount of time applying concealer to his eye bags, trying not to smear what's already there. He does a pretty good job, considering he's mostly used to it, but he is under a time crunch right now, and also suffering from minor blood loss. Credit where credit is due, and all that.
He mourns the loss of any of the chance of coffee as he stumbles down his hallway, down the stairs, out into the foyer—he's forgetting something what is he forgetting? His phone, in his shorts. Fuck—he can't double back for it, either way, so he instead continues out the door and onto the street, even as his head compels him to triple check his front door is locked. It is—probably. Most likely? Ugh, fuck it. He doubles back, jiggles the door knob, and then sets off as soon as it refuses to give more than an inch. He's so late. He just hopes Cass won't be mad.
"Brother?" The word is nothing more than a soft whisper against his shoulder, but Tim jerks into full alertness anyway, immediately assessing the situation and trying to puzzle out where he is, the fastest way out, how much danger he's in—
"Tim!" Steph's voice.
Right. Cass's homecoming, a movie night to celebrate...when did he fall asleep? He remembers getting to the manor, the disappointment on everyone's faces (concern, worry), sitting down for a very late lunch. He remembers talking with Cass, trying to dance around why he left patrol early (seriously, a bullet wound? That took you out of patrol? Pathetic.), trying not to flinch when Steph kicked his leg to get his attention. It was fine. He'd dealt with worse during his Robin days, back when he had to go to school everyday and lie about the bruises, the hypervigilance, the eyebags—this is only for his own pride. He'd be fine if someone found out (or so he tells himself).
Then someone suggested a movie night, Cass's pick, and he curled up on the very end of the sofa, crawling out of his skin with...something. He doesn't want to think about it too hard, why he'd be so nervous around his very own family. Cass sat down next to him, Steph sat down in the airmchair next to the couch, and everyone else filed into the room, filling it with noise, too much, not enough, why is everyone talking, there's too much going on, I want it to stop, please stop, stop stop stop—
"Tiiiiim," Steph repeats, drawing it out with a tinge of annoyance, hitting his arm. She's half hanging out of her armchair, and a frown pulls at Tim's lips that he briefly considers hiding, but lets it stay. Why should he not be able to show annoyance of his own?
"I get it, I get it," he mumbles, cracking his neck and rubbing at his eyes. Cass has her head leaning on his shoulder, and she gives him a silent look that asks if he's okay. From anyone else, he'd hate it, call it pitying. From her, he knows better. He mouths I'm fine, and tries to ignore the way he can feel everyone's stares.
Barbara is off on some Birds of Prey mission, so she's not here. Bruce is—as per usual—in the worn leather airmchair closest to the fireplace, and Duke is presumably upstairs, sleeping in. It's a school night, or at least Tim is pretty sure it is. Dick is on the other side of the couch, with Damian tucked against his side, half-asleep, and Jason is—somewhere. Off doing whatever he does in his free time.
"I should go," Tim says, standing as abruptly as he'd woken. Cass's brows furrow minutely, and she opens her mouth to say something, but Tim is already moving, leaning down to give her a tight hug goodbye, a well understood see you soon.
"Wait, Tim, you—" Dick starts, but Tim doesn't stay long enough to hear the rest of the sentence. His steps are quick and determined, lengthening his strides to get out of there as fast as possible. He passes Alfred, standing in the doorway of the dining room with a tray of, presumably, hot cocoa or tea, but doesn't even bother with a glance as he keeps moving. He feels bad about it, but he needs out. He needs to claw his way out of his own skin and curl up somewhere quiet, needs to be bashed against a wall and feel the stone against his skin, to feel the reminder that he's alive and well. He draws blood as his nails break the delicate skin of his palms, and he doesn't even know when he first started clenching his hands.
The fresh air as soon as he opens the door of Wayne Manor is a relief, and part of Tim just wants to fall to his knees and cry. He doesn't. Instead, he keeps moving, slamming the door closed, and marches to where he left his motorcycle—the civilian one, obviously, not the Redbird—haphazardly climbing on and starting the engine. He doesn't even have a helmet—forgot it in his earlier panic to get to the manor, knowing he was already late—but he can't quite bring himself to care. All he can think of is getting out, leaving, and he doesn't feel like he's in full control of his body until he's already on the long backroads to the Trigate Bridge.
His hands hurt, cramping from how tight he's holding onto the handles of the bike, and he's probably been driving for a little while for the Trigate Bridge to be coming into view. His head is fuzzy, and he doesn't know if it's because of the gunshot wound—unlikely, but not impossible—or because his thoughts have been a mess of incomprehensible screaming and a loop of get out, get out, get out for the past who-knows-how-long. He doesn't even know what triggered it.
He tries not to think too much, then, as he gets on the Trigate Bridge, back into the traffic of Gotham. Patrol starts in a few hours; that's a few of hours of sleeping, a few hours to lick his wounds and make sure the stitching on his leg is better than it should be for the conditions it was done in. He feels eyes on the back of his neck as he weaves through the streets, and he takes a few turns sharper than he needs to, speeds just a little bit. It's fine.
He's panting by the time he gets back to the Nest, and he blames the faint trembles racking his frame on the cold, instead of anything else. He goes to open his door and the knob turns a whole two inches before he remembers it's locked, an entire thirty seconds spent fishing for his keys. As soon as he's inside, he locks the door, and then immediately slumps against it, sinking slowly to the floor.
He feels pathetic. He is pathetic. His eyes find the clock on the wall, and he checks the time. Nine thirty-two.
He can start patrol a little early, then. Might as well do his job. He forces himself to his feet, heading down into the underground levels of his apartment, and plops himself down onto the chair by the computer, falling into a familiar sort of haze as he begins to work. There's a shipment of laced drugs that had been circulating through Gotham for a little while, which shouldn't have been possible with the pacts Jason had made between the remaining gangs of Gotham; there had been a series of violent robberies in a group of apartment buildings, not enough to build a full case for them being connected, but enough that it's the most likely possibility; Scarecrow had just broken out of Arkham, but hadn't done anything yet, nor had they seen any sign of him; Tim's eyes scan across the information on his screen, his posture slowly slipping as pulls up the case files, the references, footage from body cams and CCTVs, criminal records, car rentals, purchasing histories from pharmacies, police reports, confiscated items—
It maybe isn't the smartest idea to be working on three—five, technically, if you count the robberies seperately—cases at the same time, but everything is pinging off-tempo, connections being made while he's already turned his gaze to another tab, and it's efficient, if a little messy, to just have everything open anyway. The minutes tick by, bleeding into hours, and he forces himself to save everything and turn the computer off once the computer reads 11:00, stretching until he hears his spine cracking and standing up.
He makes his way over to the spare suit he keeps tucked away, quietly noting in his head that he needs to retrieve his usual one from his bedroom later, and probably patch it up. He actually takes the time to fold his clothes as he changes into his suit, and pauses for a second after finishing, debating whether or not to reapply his makeup. It's probably smudging, so he reaches for the makeup kit he keeps down here for cases like this, watching his reflection in the glass of his suit case. It's fine, in the end.
He almost forgets to turn on his comms before heading out, and tries not to think too much as he taps into the usual line for everyone else. Tonight is fine. Tonight is going to be great. It's a horrible lie, but he holds onto it as tightly as he can as he heads out.
When Tim comes back after patrol, the Nest feels...wrong. He can't put his finger to it. Admittedly, he hadn't noticed it at first, too preoccupied with his injuries, trying to put everything away and file a report for the night without faltering, but now that he's upstairs, it's jarring. If someone asked him, he wouldn't be able to pinpoint what's wrong, but there's definitely something. He checks the locks on the windows, double-checks that the sublevels of the apartment are inaccessible, and even goes to the front door to ensure the padlock is still there. He goes back towards the living room, and...
Where's his puddle of blood?
Okay, bad sentence. Point still stands; he's well aware there had been a small puddle of blood where he'd passed out last night, and it's gone now. Looking back, he starts seeing all the things wrong with his apartment.
The papers on the kitchen island are neatly in piles, not scattered across every surface imaginable. The trail of blood from the previous night is completely gone, though the slight stain on the couch is still there. The padlock on the front door has a smudge of something across it, something that Tim knows he is not the reason for.
Undeniably, there was someone in his apartment. Possibly still in his apartment.
Carefully, he stalks up the stairs, tucking away every new detail that sticks out to him; any slightly ajar doors, any new stains, any missing old ones...
There's a noise coming from his bedroom.
Slowly, Tim stills. He lengthens his breathes, trying to keep them as quiet as possible, and gives it a second. Two, three, four. There's another stumble, a quiet curse, and the squeak of his mattress dipping under the weight of something. Someone. Tim takes a step forward again, waiting another few seconds, before in one swift motion pulling the door open, revealing—
There's a girl in his bedroom. She's small, and wearing a jacket entirely too large for her, but also worn and fraying at every edge, holes in the fabric where time (or more accurately, moths) have eaten away at it. Her hair is a tangled mess, sticking out every which way and disappearing underneath her worn jacket, the ends clearly dead. Her skin pale, absurdly so, and Tim can see the sharp jut of her bones even beneath her large jacket. Staring at him with the same intensity of his own usual stare, her eyes are a dead, icy blue.
"Hi," she says, quiet, and then clears her throat, forcing her voice louder, "Red Robin."
There's a split second of hesitation in Tim's head; he reminds himself he's in civvies, and keeps his expression a careful play between empathy, confusion, and shock.
"I'm not Red—" he starts, but the girl interrupts him.
"I know your secret identity is Tim Drake, and I have the evidence to prove it," she says. She folds her hands behind her back, but there's a glint in her eyes that reminds Tim of himself, when he was younger. Is this how Dick felt when nine year old Tim came to his doorstep, claiming he knew everything?
Probably.
"I've been all over your house, and I have photos," she continues, and, well, that about does it. She's the intruder, then, though Tim keeps a tab in the back of his head ready in case she isn't, in case she's lying. "And I know the rest of your family's identities. Bruce Wayne is Batman, Jason Todd is Red Hood, Duke Thomas is Signal, so on and so forth."
She smiles, sharp and a little mischevious.
"My name is Mia," she finishes, "and I need your help."