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The rain in Gotham bled down the brickwork, dragging soot and coal-dust with it until the whole city looked like a smudged charcoal drawing.
Tim sat on the rusty edge of a fire escape four stories above the soot colored ground, considering. He wasn’t in uniform. He wore a faded, oversized black hoodie beneath a beat-up leather jacket that he'd borrowed.
The upper leg of his trousers had fused to his flesh like a long, black strip of Velcro, festering damply against his rain-soaked skin. His thigh throbbed with a sickly-sweet vibration, a high-pitched buzzing that ushered the faint taste of ozone under his tongue. When he'd shift to quick, the fabric tore away like the rip of a bandaid, leaving more angry red hiding beneath. The sanguinous gore acted like an organic cement laid thick and binding his coarse leg hairs into a matted mush with the coarse fibers of the trousers. The friction ribbed and tickled his dangling legs as they hung over the voided vacuum below him, the soles of his muddy sneakers teasing the pitch-black alleyway below.
He checked his phone. 4:15 PM.
The screen pulsed with fresh notifications.
Bruce [4:02 PM]: Dr. Quinzel is here. Where are you?
Bruce [4:12 PM]: Tim. Answer your comms.
Alfred [4:15 PM]: Master Timothy, your tea is growing quite cold, and Master Bruce's patience is wearing dangerously thin. Please check in.
Tim stared at the glowing bubbles of text until the screen timed out, concealing his face back to the gloomy dark of the city around him. He flipped the phone face-down on the wet iron grate. The metal lattice dug into his palm, a sharp, biting cold that felt tingly in the tip of his head. Real. Unlike the appointment he was missing.
Mandatory evaluation… the words tasted like wet sand between his teeth. Bruce thought everything could be fixed with a checklist, some clinical diagnosis, and a well-structured return-to-field protocol. He never did understand that sometimes the machine just didn't want to run anymore.
A slight tremor pulsed through him as he reached into the inner pocket of his jacket. His fingers brushed past a stray batarang and closed around a crumpled, half-empty pack of cloves. He rummaged around, and pulled one out. The paper was slightly damp. He flicked his old brass zippo and shielded the flame with a cupped, trembling hand. Usually, he'd prefer matches, but in this Gotham torrent, that wasn't really an option. The click of the wheel was a hushed whisper to the clutter of the alley below.
He needily sucked the ash deep into his lungs until his eyes and throat furiously imperiled him. The bitter charcoal-black hit his lungs like a blow to the chest, nearly choking him before he caught his rhythm. That beautiful tickle that browbeat his throat coated his tongue and dissolved into a velvet warmth.
It was exactly what he needed right now. The smoke struck his nervous system like a heavy bassline, drowning out the shrill, razor-sharp sirens blaring in his head. In an instant, that frantic momentum slowed, and everything in his line of sight melting into a fog.
He leaned his head back against the windy-wet air, letting the smoke curl up from his lips into the downpour.
And, soon enough, his mind drifted off.
He thought about Bernard.
Bernard had been sweet. So normal. A safe harbor in this hellscape of a city he was bound to. As much as he wanted it, though, normalcy was more of a sweater that didn't fit right. Far too tight across the shoulders, always reminding Tim of the armor he’d stripped off to wear it. He felt a dull, familiar throb of guilt for how easily he’d pulled away, how quickly he’d let the silence stretch between them until there was nothing left to say.
Tim closed his eyes, the cigarette burning down between his knuckles, and let himself remember. Not the clean, polished Superboy the public saw in Metropolis, but Kon. The version of him that belonged in sweaty, poorly-lit garage venues and late-night Waffle Houses at three in the morning.
He could see him so clearly. Right down to the messy, spiky crown of his dark hair that always looked windblown and smelled like the cool of the stratosphere. The silver glint of his double eyebrow piercings that Conner always fiddled with when he was trying to read a blueprint or a map, and that cute little bridge piercing on his nose that wiggled every single time he laughed his real, loud laugh. And his snake bites. God, those snake bites. Two little dark rings framing his sugary bottom lip. Tim could still hear the soft, rhythmic click-click of Conner’s teeth tapping against them when he was bored, and the way they tilted whenever he gave that goofy, lopsided grin that made Tim’s stomach become acrobatic. His warm bronze skin… and those obnoxiously big doe-eyes tucked behind the long lower lashes he always complained about.
Tim had spent three whole years pretending he didn't notice the melty ways Conner looked at him through his pointy, curled bangs.
He’d spent three whole years trying to sound totally normal and professional while his chest ran every which way under his skin like a trapped bird every time Conner leaned over his shoulder to look at the computer screens, bringing all the warm, cozy heat of the summer sun right into the ice of Tim's workspace.
They were both avoiding it. They had been for a long time. And now Conner was two months off a messy-ish breakup with Cassie, his life a chaotic tangle of clone bullshit and Kansas farm chores. And Tim... Tim was practically a ghost in training. He had nothing to offer a boy who flew through the stars except more gravity.
Tim took another stinging drag, the cherry glowing a bright, furrowing orange in the darkened sky. The smoke trickled down his throat, but it didn't fill the hollow, aching void behind his eyes.
He missed him. He hated it. But he missed him so much it felt like a physical sickness, a dull ache behind his ribs that no amount of Gotham rain could wash away.
•··········•··········•
His hoodie didn't keep the dampness out for long. By the time Tim slid off and out of the fire escape and hit the pavement of the Bowery, his trousers were soaked through at the knees, clinging even heavier to his skin, the salt mixing with the sweet tang of red mottled on the fabric.
He walked head down, with his hands shoved deep into his pockets, his shoulders hunched to keep the wind from biting his neck. The city around him was a blur of hostile sensory input. The screech of subway brakes beneath the grates, the wet slap of tires against oily puddles, the flickering pink and green neon of a dive bar across the street— it all felt incredibly distant, as if he were looking at the world through a thick pane of dirty glass.
This was the drop. The crash after weeks of operating on pure adrenaline, black coffee, and a maximum of four hours of sleep a night. His brain felt entirely drained of dopamine, leaving behind a cold, gray landscape where every single action required an exhausting amount of calculation. Moving his legs felt like wading through a pasty swamp.
This sucks, he thought, the simple, juvenile phrase repeating in his head like a broken record. Everything just completely fucking sucks.
He didn't want to go back to the Manor. He didn't want to go to his nest in the city. He didn't even want to go to the houseboat in the Gotham Marina. He just wanted the buzzing behind his ear to stop.
He stopped in front of a twenty-four-hour pharmacy on the corner of a desolate intersection. The storefront was an eyesore of yellowing plastic signs and cracked security glass, illuminated by a buzzing, flickering white fluorescent tube that cast a sickly pallor over the sidewalk. Tim aimlessly pushed the door open, and a little electronic chime jingled overhead, a cheerful, tinny sound that made his jaw clench.
The air inside was hot, smelling strongly of floor wax and rubbing alcohol. Tim walked the aisles aimlessly, his boots squeaking loudly against the white linoleum tiles. His eyes scanned the shelves without really registering the labels— bright boxes of cold medicine, rows of cheap cosmetics, plastic bottles of shampoo.
He stopped in the analgesic aisle. He needed something to take the edge off, he supposed.
He reached out and grabbed a large, generic bottle of prescription-strength acetaminophen, along with a box of heavy-duty sleep aids and a roll of basic elastic bandages. It was an arbitrary selection, as you can imagine, to some non-super powered teen boy in Gotham who didn't know how to ask for help.
He carried the items to the front counter. The cashier was another tired-looking teenager with dark circles under her eyes and a nametag that read Kimmy Chu. She didn't look down once as she swiped the bottle, the red laser of the scanner flashing across Tim’s pale, rain-slash-tear-streaked face.
"That'll be twenty-two-fifty," she mumbled, her voice entirely devoid of life. Her pale eyes stared straight ahead, looking straight past him.
Tim reached into his pocket, moving past his Wayne AmEx, and pulling out a handful of stray crumpled bills. He laid them on the counter one by one, his fingers clumsy and curled by the cold. He caught a glimpse of his own reflection in the security mirror mounted above the register— his skin was a mousey white, his eyes dark and patchy, his hair plastered to his forehead in messy, dark clumps. He looked like the exact kind of kid Robin was supposed to protect.
"Need'uh bag?" Kimmy asked. Her eyes lingered on his damp, expensive leather jacket, then on the trembling of his fingers.
"No," Tim whispered. His voice was raspy, a dry scratch that barely cleared his throat. "…Thanks."
He scooped up the meds and the bandages, shoving them into his jacket pockets.
"Hey, aren't you—?" Kimmy started, a faint recognition in her voice. Tim didn't wait for her to figure out either one of his personas. He spun out quickly, the electronic chime jingling again as he scrambled back out into the freezing Gotham rain, the heavy door clicking shut behind him, sealing him back in dark.
He turned down Miller’s Lane, a narrow, unlit cut-through between two abandoned textile warehouses. It was a known dead zone… the GCPD didn't even bother patrolling there unless a body was actively blocking traffic. The only light came from the far end of the alley, a dim amber glow from a distant streetlamp that barely reached the trash heaps.
He heard them before he saw them.
Three adult(?) men, leaning against a rusted dumpster. The orange tips of their cigarettes bounced in the dark as they talked in low, gravelly murmurs. They smelled like cheap gin and wet denim. Local enforcers, likely muscle for one of the low-level dock gangs trying to make a name for themselves in the Bowery.
Tim didn't drop into a stance. He didn't prepare for some sort of defense. He didn't even take his hands out of his pockets. He just kept walking, his boots loud and deliberate against the wet asphalt.
"Hey. Kid," one of them called out. He was big, wearing a greasy quilted jacket, his shoulders broad enough to block the path. "You lost? This ain't the tourist side of town."
Tim paused. He knew how small he looked. How defenseless.
"Move," he said. His voice lacked the authority of Robin. It came out flat, empty, and fizzled out into the dark.
The big one laughed, a wet, ugly sound. "Ouu, we got a brave one. Look at the boots on this punk. That’s real calfskin, boys."
The other two stepped out from the shadows, closing the distance. One of them pulled a pair of heavy, iron brass knuckles from his pocket, sliding his thick fingers through the holes with a metallic clink.
Tim felt a cold wave of relief wash over his chest, the kind you get when you're on a swing and the wind is rattling your chest gently. His head and heart when silent with morbid curiousity. He wanted to see how much it took to break the shell of his skull. He wanted to feel something that wasn't this.
"I said," Tim repeated, his eyes fixed on the man’s knuckles, "move."
He tried to fight the flicker of a smirk playing at his lips in the dark.
The big man stepped forward and threw a heavy, looping right hook.
Tim could have dodged it. He could have slipped the punch and swept the man’s knee. Instead, he stayed, perfectly still. He let his eyes track the oncoming fist, waiting for the impact.
The brass knuckles bonded immediately with the left side of Tim’s face.
The sound was visceral, a loud, wet, sickening crack that echoed inside the narrow alley and directly into the base of Tim's skull. The force of the blow tore his feet from the pavement, launching him sideways into the nearby brick wall. His head bounced off the rough stone with a dull thud, and he slid down into the grime, his hands finally slipping out of his pockets to slap uselessly against the wet concrete.
The pain didn't hit him immediately, but the shock wave did. His vision went completely white with a blinding, flashing sheet of static that made his ears ring with a high-pitched, piercing whine. He bit his dirt-washed tongue and tilted his head, feeling the rain on his skin.
"Yeah, not so tough now, are ya?" a voice barked from ten thousand miles away.
Tim rolled onto his side, a wet cough fighting tooth and nail for freedom from his limp lung. He gasped, and quickly felt something sharp and hard snip against the soft fleshy tissue of his throat. It bored into the raw of his tonsils, anchoring itself like a deadset parasite.
He retched, a thick, ropey strand of black-crimson slime stringing from his lips into the puddle below. Suspended within the foul, warm slurry was a jagged, splintered shard of his lower left bicuspid. The iron knuckle rings had sheared the tooth completely in half, leaving the remaining half still rooted in his gums. The freshly exposed nerve endings, looking like pallid, translucent worms, quivered against the open air, throbbing in sync with his frantic heartbeat.
A second later, a heavy work boot crashed into his stomach.
Tim doubled over, the air exploding from his lungs in a wet gasp. He curled into a tight fetal position, his hands coming up instinctively to cover his ears, still refusing to fight back at all. He lay there a punching bag, as the three men took turns kicking him deeper into the dirt.
Details. Focus on the details, his training whispered, a detached, mechanical voice in the back of his concussed brain.
He felt the skin over his right cheekbone split open, a clean, hot tear that started bleeding profusely, the warmth running down into his ear. He heard the distinct snap of his fifth and sixth ribs on the left side giving way under a heavy heel, the sharp bone fragments digging into the surrounding tissue with every ragged breath he took.
The wind blew a freezing, icy draft, directly hitting the exposed nerve endings of his broken tooth with a searing hot-cold ache. The pain was unspeakable. It was a white-hot, electric needle driving straight up into his jawbone and into his brain, a blinding agony that made his entire body convulse. He tried to swallow, but his mouth was filling fast with an iron-y blood, his lips swollen, split in multiple places where his teeth had driven through the flesh from the inside out. He could feel the jagged edges of his remaining molars scraping against the raw, shredded lining of his cheek every time his jaw involuntary twitched.
"Check his pockets," one voice muttered. "Hurry up!"
Big, rough hands tore at his jacket in a hasty slurry.
"Let's go. He’s done."
The footsteps faded into the steady downpour, leaving only the sound of the rain splashing against the asphalt.
Tim lay in the dark, his face pressed against the wet brick. He was covered in filth, his clothes soaked through with a mixture of rainwater and his own blood, much more than he blotching he'd relished earlier in the evening. Every single micro-movement felt like being burned alive.
And yet, as he stared at the crimson puddle spreading out from his face, the numbness in his chest was gone. He was alive. He was broken, he was stupid, and he was completely alone, but he was alive.
•··········•··········•
It took Tim ten minutes just to find his phone.
His fingers were slick and shaking so violently he could barely grip the pavement. He dragged himself forward an inch at a time, his probably broken ribs screaming in protest, his breath coming in shallow, wheezing gasps that tasted like copper and dirt. His left eye was swelled completely shut with a heavy purple that blocked half his vision.
He found his phone face-down in a puddle three feet away. The screen was badly cracked, but as his bloody thumb smeared across the glass, the display flickered to life, casting a ghostly blue light over his ruined face.
He didn't call the Manor.
He didn't call Dick.
He didn't call the Cave.
With blurred, double vision, his thumb hovered over speed dial number 3.
Kon.
The text beneath the name read Smallville. It felt like a different planet. A place where the air didn't taste like garbage and blood, and where the sun actually shone.
Tim pressed the button. He lifted the phone to his ear, the cold glass pressing against his split, bleeding cheek, the sharp edge of the cracked screen digging into his skin.
Ring.
Tim held his breath, his heart hammering against his cracked ribs. Please pick up. Just say something stupid. Just tell me you're there.
Ring.
The pain in his jaw was a rhythmic, pulsating roar now, a siren going off inside his skull. He closed his eyes, a single tear cutting a clean path through the soot and blood on his face.
Ring.
The line clicked. Tim’s chest tightened with a sudden, desperate surge of hope. "K-Kon..." he tried to form the syllable, but his swollen lips split further, a fresh trickle of blood running down his chin.
Then, a blast of loud, crackling static burst through the speaker, followed by the upbeat, chaotic sound of a punk-rock guitar riff playing in the background. It wasn't Conner. It was his recording.
"Hey, you’ve reached Conner Kent!" Conner’s voice blared out, incredibly loud in the soulless alley, completely bursting with that familiar, obnoxious, indestructible energy that Tim loved and feared in equal measure. "I’m either asleep or currently being yelled at by Clark for eating out of the cereal box with my bare hands. Which is NORMAL, by the way. If this is Bart, I didn't steal your shoes, man, check under the couch. If this is anyone else, leave a message after the beep... or honestly, just yell loud enough, I've got some, uh, super hearing! So, I might pick it up anyway if I'm in the zip code. Peace!"
A loud, electronic BEEP echoed through the line, followed by the dead hiss of open recording static.
Tim sat there, the phone pressed to his ear, his head tilted back against the wet brick. The contrast was too much. It was a physical blow to his chest. Conner was out there, living a life that had color and noise and laughter. And Tim was here, a discarded piece of Gotham garbage, literally lying in a dark alley.
He couldn't do this. He forced his swollen, ruined mouth to move, the broken shards of his bicuspid clicking painfully against his tongue.
"Fuck this," Tim whispered.
The words were barely a breath, a wet, gravelly scratch that cut through the static before his fingers lost their grip entirely. The phone slipped from his hand, landing with a tiny splash into the reddish puddle beside him. The screen stayed bright for a few seconds, illuminating the words Recording... before the water seeped through the cracks and the display flickered out into total darkness.
Only five words remained drifting through his mind;
I need a fucking cigarette.
•··········•··········•
The pale blue sky over Smallville was massive, an endless bouqet of forget-me-nots peppered with crisp, cold stars that didn't twinkle through the heavy night air.
Conner Kent sat on the edge of the farmhouse roof, his legs dangling back and forth over the edge of the shingles. (Author's note: Incase you didn't notice, they were made for each other.) He wore an his beaten leather jacket over his black Superboy t-shirt, the sleeves crinked up to his elbows. The twilight air was a crisp breeze that with notes of lush alfalfa, damp earth, and the distant, clean scent of the impending winter.
He was idly spinning a leaden crescent wrench between his fingers, the metal whirling in a silver blur before he caught it perfectly in his palm. Spin. Catch. Spin. Catch.
He was bored, but it was more than that, he was restless. His (super) hearing was dialed down to a comfortable radius— the low hum of the television downstairs, the crickets in the cornfields, the rhythmic thump of a tractor engine three farms over.
But his mind wasn't in Kansas. It hadn't been for weeks.
It was stuck in Gotham, like stubborn gum on his shoe.
Conner reached up, his thumb subconsciously rubbing against the tiny, dark metal studs of his snake bites. It was a habit he’d picked up recently. Every time he thought about Robin— every time he thought about Tim’s sharp, ridiculous, brilliant seawater eyes looking at him with that intense focus— his lips would tingle. He’d find himself remembering how Tim’s voice would pleasantly drop an octave whenever they were alone and away from the rest of the team.
They were playing a dangerous game of chicken, and Conner knew it too. He’d wanted to say something at least hundred times. He’d wanted to fly straight to Gotham, knock on Tim’s window, and just pull the guy out of his own head.
His phone buzzed in his pocket. A brief, sharp vibration.
Conner pulled it out, expecting a text from Bart about random bullshit or videogames. Instead, the screen displayed a notification that made his stomach twist painfully.
Missed Call: Tim
New Voicemail (0:04).
Conner’s eyebrows knitted together, his piercings butting heads. Tim never called his civilian phone. Hell, Tim never called without texting first, and he certainly didn't leave voicemails. If Tim needed Superboy, he used the encrypted Titans channel. If Tim called Conner...
Conner pressed his thumb to the screen, lifting the phone to his ear.
Through the tiny speaker, Conner’s advanced super hearing picked up an unusual symphony of sounds. First, the heavy, wet, uneven wheezing of someone whose lungs were filling with fluid. Then, the distinct, rhythmic drip-drip-drip of a heavy liquid hitting a puddle. In the far background, the faint, echoing wail of the constant GCPD siren bounced off narrow stone walls.
Then came the voice. It didn't sound at all like Tim. It was a pale comparison, a weak, wet scratch that barely had enough air behind it to form consonants.
"Fuck this."
A click followed— the sound of teeth slapping against each other— and then the line went dead.
Conner stood up so fast the shingles beneath his boots groaned. His heart was jumping, a loud, frantic thud that echoed in his ears. The crescent wrench slipped from his hand, tumbling off the roof and embedding itself three inches deep into the lawn below.
"—Kon? You okay up there?"
A voice broke his focus. Cassie was hovering a few feet away from the roof line, her arms crossed over her denim jacket. She’d come over to help Ma Kent with the winter canning, a casual, post-breakup friendship they were both trying incredibly hard to maintain. She was looking at him with a mixture of confusion and puzzled concern, which, really, wasn't out of the norm.
"You look like you saw a ghost."
Conner didn't answer right away. He stared at the dark phone screen, his jaw tightening until the studs of his snake bites dug into his lower lip.
"Listen to this," Conner said, holding the phone out, and turning the volume to maximum to be sure Cassie caught it. He played the four-second clip again.
Cassie listened, her expression shifting from curiosity to a sharp, hardened frown within a single second. She knew that background noise just as well as he did. She’d spent more than enough time in Gotham to recognize the wet echo of its alleys.
"Is... is that Tim?" she asked, her voice dropping.
"Didn't Bruce say he went AWOL today? Before some important meeting?" Conner said, his boots hovering an inch off the roof now, panicked. "And Dick texted me thirty minutes ago asking if I'd seen him. Cassie... he’s in some Gotham alley, and he never calls me like this. Never."
Cassie looked from the phone up to Conner’s face. She saw the look in his eyes that went way beyond team loyalty. She’d known him long enough to recognize that look.
"Go," Cassie said firmly, stepping back to give him clearance. "I'll text Cassandra… or better yet, Steph. Don't worry about boundaries or Bruce's stupid rules for Gotham. Just go get him, Kon."
Conner didn't even wait for her to finish the sentence.
•··········•··········•
A sonic boom devastated the quiet peace of the Kansas cornfields, a thunderous CRACK that rattled the windows of the farmhouse and sent a flock of crows exploding into the night sky.
Conner didn't care about the noise. He didn't care about the airspace regulations. He tore through the upper atmosphere like a missile, a streak of black and red cutting through the clouds at Mach 3. The friction of the air howled in his ears, a deafening roar of wind that paralleled the frantic, spinning terror in his chest.
Hold on, Tim…
He didn't need gps or directions. The moment he crossed the state line into New Jersey, entering the foul, heavy cloud cover that near-permanently blanketed Gotham City, Conner dialed his super-hearing to its absolute limit. He filtered out the millions of voices, the screeching tires, the blaring radios, and the pound of the city.
He listened for a rhythm. A very specific, familiar, erratic rhythm.
He found it.
It was weak, a fluttering, shallow thump... thump... thump... but it was definitely there.
Conner angled his body downward, plunging through the smog like a shooting star.
He tore into Miller’s Lane with an explosive thud that shattered the asphalt beneath his boots, sending a shower of muddy water and gravel flying into the brick walls. He didn't even check his surroundings. He looked straight into the darkest corner of the alley.
And there was Tim.
The sight made Conner’s breath catch in his throat for a moment, a sudden, choking wave of fury slamming into his chest. Tim was slumped against the rusted base of a dumpster, his body twisted awkwardly, his head resting against the wet brick. His hoodie— Conner's— was torn and smeared with grease, and his trousers soaked through with moldy black and streaking red. His face… his face was unrecognizable.
The left side of Tim’s jaw was a swollen, distorted mass of deep indigo and red. A long, jagged laceration ran across his right cheekbone, still leaking bright, arterial blood that mixed with the salt rain. His lips were shredded, split open in multiple places, coated in a thick, drying crust of dark crimson. Through the gap in his swollen mouth, Conner’s x-ray vision could see the disaster inside— the shattered fragments of enamel, the raw, bleeding gums, and the completely exposed, pulsing nerve endings of a broken bicuspid.
"Tim,"
He dropped to his knees in the filth, his super-strength completely forgotten as he reached out with trembling, hyper-careful hands. He slid one large arm behind Tim’s shoulders, scooping the boy up against his chest. Tim’s body was freezing, completely soaked through, his head rolling back limply against Conner’s bicep.
"Hey, hey, look at me, Timmy, come on," Conner pleaded, his voice breathless as he pulled Tim closer, trying to use his solar-heated body to warm the shivering thing before him. "I'm here. I'm right here. Who did this to you? Just tell me who did this."
Tim’s right eye flickered open a millimeter, a dull, glazed gray-green that didn't seem to focus on anything. A small, wet wheeze bubbled from his split lips, a gurgle of bloody foam popping at the corner of his mouth. He didn't have the strength to speak. His fingers twitched against Conner’s leather jacket, a weak, useless scratch before falling limp against the pavement.
Conner’s felt for internal damage— maybe… three fractured ribs, probable concussion, massive soft-tissue trauma, and a alarmingly low heart rate that was skipping every fourth beat.
"No, no, no, you don't sleep, Tim, stay with me," Conner yelled.
An absolute, suffocating weight suddenly settled over the alley.
The ambient temperature seemed to drop five degrees within a single second. The heavy drop of rain was cut off as a sweeping shadow fell over the two boys, blotting out the distant amber glow of the streetlamp.
Conner looked up, his jaw clenching, his piercings catching the glare of two glowing white lenses.
The Batman stood at the entrance of the alley.
His massive black cape billowed out behind him like the wings of a predatory bird, his posture rigid and radiating an aura of unadulterated wrath. The rain slicked off the sharp corners of his cowl, his face completely unreadable. He had followed the sonic boom. And now, he was looking at his broken sidekick in the arms of a Metropolis meta.
(Author's note: Why is he aura farming…)
Conner didn't back down. He didn't drop his eyes. He tightened his grip on Tim’s limp body, pulling him tightly against his chest, his eyes flashing with a dangerous, defiant heat.
"Don't just stand there!" Conner roared into the dark, his voice echoing off the brick walls like a challenge. "Help him!"
•··········•··········•
The first thing that returned to Tim wasn’t sight, or memory, or even the pain. It was the sterile, omnipresent hum of medical equipment.
Whir. Click. Beep.
It was a cold, mechanical rhythm he knew better than the pacing of his own heartbeat. The air smelled intensely of antiseptic, sweet antifreeze, and the underlying metallic tang of a familiar medical bay. The sheets beneath him were crisp, heavy, and tucked in with a militant precision that could only belong to Alfred.
Tim tried to shift his head, but a sharp, localized spike of heat shot through his lower jaw, locking his muscles instantly. He gasped, or tried to, but his lips felt thick, heavy, and taped down.
"Hey, Boy Wonder."
The voice was low and tired with a rough, gravelly warmth that didn't belong in Gotham. It was a Smallville voice.
"Whoa, whoa, easy there, don't move too much," it continued, almost cooing.
Tim’s right eyelid fluttered open, struggling against a crusty weight. The harsh, overhead halogen lights of the Cave’s medical bay had been dimmed to a soft, amber glow.
Sitting on a steel stool pushed right up against the edge of the mattress was Conner. He looked exhausted. He had tossed his leather jacket over the back of a nearby chair, sitting only in his tired Superboy shirt. His dark, spiked hair was a mess, falling into his eyes, and the silver glint of his piercings caught the soft light as he leaned forward. His hands were resting gently on the edge of Tim’s mattress, just inches away from Tim's dead-weight fingers.
The two dark metal studs of his snake bites shifted ever-so-slightly as he gave Tim a small, tentative, and incredibly sweet smile. Relief.
"Well," Conner said, his blue eyes searching Tim’s face with an intensity that made Tim’s chest ache worse than his head did. "You really did a number on yourself this time, Timbo."
Tim let out a weak, muffled sound through his swollen mouth. He reached up with a clumsy hand, his fingers brushing against his left cheek. His jaw was heavily bandaged, wrapped tight to keep it immobilized. Underneath the gauze, he could feel the dull, throbbing ache of oral surgery— Alfred had undoubtedly spent hours cleaning the structural damage, wiring his jaw, and extracting what was left of the ruined bicuspid.
"Alfred fixed you up," Conner confimed, noticing Tim's look. He reached out, his hand hovering over Tim’s wrist for a second before he gently, carefully, closed his fingers around Tim’s hand. His skin was hot, radiating that steady, comforting solar warmth that always made Tim feel like he was standing in a sunlit field instead of the damp cave. "He, uh, wired the jaw. Said you aren't allowed to eat anything that doesn't go through a straw for the next three weeks. And not a lot of talking, too. Which is really more of a blessing for the rest of us."
Tim tried to chuckle, but it came out a soft choke. He closed his eyes for a brief second, letting the warmth of Conner's hand anchor him.
Beep-beep-beep-beep.
Conner’s grip tightened just a fraction, a reassuring, steady pressure. "Hey, look at me. Breathe. You're safe. It's okay now," Conner’s voice dropped, losing its lighter tone, becoming raw and laced with a lingering horror. "When I found you... God, Tim. Your heart was barely beating. I thought that maybe... I thought I was too late."
Tim stared at him through his good eye. He wanted to tell him he was sorry. He wanted to explain the weight that had pushed him out of the Manor and into the streets and alleyways. He wanted to explain that he hadn't wanted to die even when he kinda, really did. But he could only offer a weak, apologetic squeeze of Conner's hand.
Conner looked down at their joined hands, his thumb idly tracing the line of Tim’s knuckles. The silence between them stretched. It felt heavy with all the things they were far too terrified to say out loud. Conner’s lower lip twitched, his snake bites clicking faintly against his teeth— a habit Tim knew meant he was holding back a flood of words.
"You, uh, you called me," Conner murmured, his eyes still fixed on Tim's hand. "You left a voicemail. You never do that." He finally looked up, his blue eyes bright, searching Tim’s face for an answer. "Why did you call me, Tim?"
Before Tim could even attempt to signal an answer, the heavy, hydraulic groan of the Batcave's elevator echoed across the stone cavern.
The heavy, rhythmic thud of combat boots approached the medical bay. Conner didn't drop Tim’s hand immediately, but his shoulders squared, his usual posture returning in a split second as he turned his head toward the shadows.
Bruce stepped into the light.
He had taken off his cowl, his dark hair damp with sweat and rain. He was still wearing the heavy suit, the bat-insignia on his chest smeared with Gotham grime. He stopped at the foot of the medical bed, his hands resting on the steel rail. His eyes mapped the bandages covering Tim’s face, then flicked down to where Conner’s hand was still lightly covering Tim’s fingers. Bruce’s expression didn't change, but his jaw tightened.
"Alfred is preparing a liquid sedative mixture," Bruce said, his voice a low, gravelly baritone that filled the quiet space. He wasn't looking at Conner; his eyes were fixed entirely on Tim. "The GCPD found the men who did this. They were holding your wallet and your other things in a squat near the docks."
Tim’s monitor spiked slightly. He didn't want to hear about them. He didn't care about them.
"With all due resepct, Batman," Conner warned, his voice dropping into a low, protective growl. He didn't move away from the bed. "…He just woke up. Let him breathe for Christ's sake."
Bruce finally shifted his gaze to Conner. The tension between the two was thick enough to cut with a batarang. "Superboy. I appreciate you bringing him in. But this is a family matter. Tim skipped a mandatory— er— meeting, today, to walk into enforcer territory without armor, without weapons, and without defensive protocols. This wasn't a mugging. This was a very deliberate act self-destruction."
The words hit the room like ice water. Tim pulled his hand away from Conner’s grip, drawing his arms inward, his chest tightening beneath the hospital gown. He hated how easily Bruce could dissect a tactical failure while entirely missing the human agony behind it.
"Oh god forbid he was depressed!" Conner snapped, standing up from the stool. He didn't use his super-strength, but his sheer presence was imposing, his spiky hair casting a long shadow across the metal floor. "Look at him! He’s clearly been struggling and you're treating him like a broken piece of equipment that missed a maintenance check! He's more than some sidekick or teammate, man!"
"You don't understand Gotham, Kent," Bruce said, quietly. "And you don't understand what happens when a member of this family stops fighting back. If you hadn't broken the sound barrier over the Midwest, we would be preparing a differentroom in the Manor right now."
Bruce stepped around the bed, reaching out a heavy, gloved hand to gently adjust the IV drip line connected to Tim’s arm. He looked down at Tim, his eyes softening just a fraction into something resembling guilt.
"We will talk about this when you're fully recuperated, Tim," Bruce said softly. "For now... rest."
Without another word, Bruce turned and walked back into the dark toward the supercomputer, his long cape sweeping behind him, leaving the two boys alone in the amber light.
Conner let out a long, heavy breath, his shoulders dropping as he sat back down on the stool. He looked at Tim, whose eye was swimming with sudden, exhaustion-fueled tears.
Slowly, he reached out and took Tim's hand again, his thumb rubbing smooth circles against his skin.
Tim let his head sink back into the pillow, his vision blurring as the heavy sedatives began to bleed into his system through the IV. The pain in his jaw was fading into a dull distance, replaced by the tender heat of Conner’s hand wrapped around his own.