Chapter Text
Tim balanced carefully along the ice-slicked banister of the fire escape. From here, he could just barely get his camera angled up and between the tresses of the floor above him, where he had a perfect view of Batman from below. The man stood watch several stories up and several buildings over, the haze of the city lights casting him a dark silhouette.
Breathe in. Tim readjusted his grip on the freezing metal with his free hand, steadying himself. Breathe out. He snapped the shot.
The camera made a small clicking noise, and Tim braced himself against the next cold gust of wind to make sure the long exposure didn’t leave his picture blurry. He didn’t bother to flip through and review the photo – he couldn’t waste that kind of time. He wanted a better shot.
He was scanning the rooftops, trying to figure out the best way to get closer, when the quiet sound of a grapnel hook finding purchase caught Tim’s attention. He hopped off the balcony railing and drew back against the brick exterior of the building, regretting that he had grown out of his nice coat over the summer and his parents had yet to be back to help him buy a new one. But those thoughts disappeared when he found Batman again, just above him across the alley.
He gasped.
Batman stiffened and flipped around to face him.
Tim ducked quickly behind a snow-covered chair, sure that this was it, he had finally been caught. But Batman continued to sweep the surrounding cityscape for several seconds, and Tim dared to let out his breath.
He had been sorely disappointed to find that Robin wasn’t out on patrol tonight. The whole reason he had dared to venture this far from home during this blizzard was to catch a few pictures of the vigilante in the sweeping snow. Tim could see it now, Robin’s cape billowing in the blustery wind, smile confident, probably not even shivering because Robin was just that good, right?
Robin probably didn’t get cold. How else would he get away with patrolling without pants?
Tim watched Batman cock his head to the side, as though the pointy ears on his cowl hid real bat ears. After a tense moment of holding his breath, Batman seemed to decide there was nothing there.
Tim almost considered himself safe, before Batman suddenly straightened. “What do you mean, he’s not there?” He rarely spoke loudly enough for Tim to hear from his vantage points, but this rang clear even over the wind. Only a moment later, Batman pulled out his grapnel again and made for the edge of the roof.
Not wanting his night to be wasted, Tim raised his camera and framed Batman’s shoulders in his viewport. He clicked the shutter quickly as Batman launched himself off the roof and raced away.
Tim would catch up later. With fogging breath and numb fingers, he reviewed the last few photos he had taken. Batman loomed over the edge of the old cathedral, two kneeling gargoyles framing him. The wind had caught his cape. It was a nice shot, probably would end up one of his favorites.
Satisfied, he packed his camera back into his pack. It was best he headed home, now. The weather was only supposed to get worse, and Tim’s bike struggled in the snow. He was already dreading walking it back.
A flash of movement caught his eye.
Tim hesitated, sure it was just a trick of the light against the heavy snow. But then a small head peeked over the side of one of the gargoyles, and Tim itched to reach for his camera again. Robin was out, after all.
He took a few clumsy steps toward the edge of the balcony, knowing that Jason wasn’t quite as diligent checking his surroundings as Bruce or Dick had been.
It may have been the wind, it may have been the ice. It may have been the worn treads on Tim’s sneakers or his fatigue. But somewhere between peeling himself off the wall of the apartment complex and reaching the far edge of the fire escape, he slid.
He cartwheeled his arms wildly trying to find purchase, but there was nothing to grip, nothing to grab. His foot slipped into the empty air between rails and his momentum carried him backward over the barrier.
Tim’s heart raced as he fell, head-first. Then his foot caught the top of the rail, and twisted as it was, stopped his momentum with an audible snap!
He yelped. Bright spots of pain burst behind his eyelids.
Tim dangled head-down over the abyss of an alley below for a long second before his instincts kicked in. His right knee was still hinged over the railing, melting snow seeping into his pants. He tried to maneuver his free leg over the rail, but his first try made him slip a little further down.
With that movement, his backpack slipped off his shoulders. Dizzy with adrenaline and pain, he craned his neck back to watch it fall. There was a good foot or so of fresh powdery snow on the ground now. Dozens of feet below.
The backpack landed with a crack.
He thought he was going to be sick.
“Woah, there!”
Two solid hands wrapped around his trapped leg, and Tim hissed as his foot was jostled. “Stop!”
He was summarily ignored as the wiggling continued. “Got yourself in quite a pickle, huh? Don’t worry, I’m here to help.”
Tim knew that voice.
He recognized the sound of the grapnel releasing, and then the warmth was back, on the inside of his leg. “Here, grab my hands.”
It took Tim an embarrassing amount of fumbling to find the grip, but the second he made contact, those cool gloves were wrapping tight around his wrists. They tugged him up, up, until Tim was upright.
It was Robin.
Once Tim started, he couldn’t stop staring. Jason gently helped him back over the railing and onto one foot. The grapnel line was wrapped around his waist for support, and with a practiced motion he began to unwind it.
Up this close, Tim could see that his hair was wet with snow. And he wasn’t wearing pants, but tights? Thermal tights, maybe? The stitching around the “R” patch on his chest was slightly crooked, like he’d done it himself. His gloves had a different texture around the knuckles than Dick’s had.
Tim gasped as Jason slithered his foot out of the railing, study abandoned in favor of trying not to embarrass himself by crying in front of his hero.
Jason sucked air between his teeth. One of them was missing. “That looks broken. Why don’t we go back inside and get a trusted adult to help you with it?”
“What?” Tim barely stopped himself from dropping his foot to the ground in his confusion.
“This is your place?” Robin gestured to the window by the fire escape.
Tim shook his head. When Jason made a weird face, he panicked and added “I was just going on a walk.”
Stupid. Who went on a walk at this time of night, in this part of Gotham, in this weather?
Jason’s demeanor darkened with the words, obviously not buying the lie. In contrast, his next words came out softly. “Look, if you don’t have a safe—”
But whatever he was about to say, Tim didn’t hear. “You’re bleeding!”
Jason looked down at his stomach and cursed. Tim blinked. Dick didn’t ever curse as Robin. “Popped my stitches,” he grumbled.
“Stitches?”
Jason shot him a look. “Don’t worry about it.”
Tim took a closer look at the blood that almost blended with Robin’s tunic, and then he started to notice other details. The missing tooth. The edges of bruising around one eye. And—
“Where’s your cape?” Tim asked.
Jason bristled. “Where’s your coat?”
Both boys stared at each other, until another brisk gust of wind made them both shiver and duck their heads.
“You should call Batman,” Tim said. “It’s too cold.”
“Nah, Batman can find his way home without my help.” Jason flashed a sideways grin at him, and Tim was almost convinced to return it.
Robin smiled at him. Robin smiled at him!
Jason crossed his arms as a shiver wracked through him. “You have a cell phone?”
Tim shrugged. “No?” No reason to have one, if nobody would answer.
Jason sniffed, his nose running with the dry air. “Listen, normal protocol would have me call the Bat and get you home, but under the circumstances—”
“You lost your Bat-phone?”
“Something like that. Anyway, we’ve got to get out of this weather.”
Tim nodded. “Right.”
His backpack came to mind, so far below. There was a first aid kit inside; Tim wanted to be prepared in case of emergency. He knew there was at least one suture. But there was also the camera, and imagining Jason’s reaction to it made him hesitant to say anything. Tim could always come back for the bag in the morning; it wasn’t like someone else was going to steal it in this weather.
Without his backpack, Tim had nothing.
Silence stretched on uncomfortably, further dampened by the snow. Tim observing Robin observing Tim.
Finally, Robin crossed his arms and broke the tension. “What’s your name, kid?”
Tim didn’t think he was that much younger than Jason, but he let it go. The cold was starting to get to him. “Tim.”
“Okay, Tim.” Jason turned his back, and for a moment Tim thought he was going to leave. But instead he crouched, holding his arms back invitingly. “Hop on.”
Tim took one step forward, hissing again at the pain in his foot, but hesitated. “What about your stitches?”
“Gotta be honest with you,” Jason said, turning his head slightly. “It’s not going to feel good, but we’re both going to freeze if we don’t get to some shelter.”
“Oh.” Tim still hesitated, guilt planting his good foot solidly on the ground. “But I—”
“Come on, pipsqueak. The snow’s getting worse.”
It was, and so Tim did.
Jason grunted lightly when Tim lifted both feet, but it was likely more from his injuries than Tim’s weight. Tim wrapped his arms tightly around Jason’s shoulders and did his best to squeeze with his good leg, too.
Each unsteady step down the fire escape was pure agony on his bad foot. The tiniest jostle lit a fire in his ankle. But Tim wasn’t the only one breathing hard when they reached the ground level; Jason had to pause a moment to catch his breath. He shifted Tim higher on his back, and they both regretted it immediately.
It was only a moment. Then Jason strode confidently deeper down the alley. They passed Tim’s backpack, now wet, without comment.
“Where are you going?” Tim asked. He was shaking, and it didn’t just feel like it was from the adrenaline. His bare fingers and wet toes burned.
Jason was shaking, too. “I know a place. Close. Dry, at least.”
Tim’s eyes watered against the frigid air. “Close,” he hummed.
Jason navigated the backroads and alleyways with confidence. Tim remembered that he had lived on the streets for a while before he ended up with Bruce. That’s what his parents had said—that Jason was a street rat. Tim didn’t think it was very nice to say, but that meant his parents maybe weren’t very nice, and he didn’t like to think about that too much.
In a lot of ways, it was easier when they weren’t around.
“You with me, Tim?”
Tim had shut his eyes against the stinging cold, but opened them again sluggishly. “Mm-hmm.”
“You sure you don’t have a better place to go?”
Tim thought of his dark, empty home. Rather, the long, long road back to it. He shook his head into Jason’s back.
Jason sighed. “Okay, well, we’re here.”
It didn’t look like much. They stood in front of a boarded-up window, layered with old graffiti. “I gotta set you down for a second,” Jason said. He glanced around a moment until he spotted a half-molded cardboard box, which he flipped over. “Sit here; don’t put weight on that ankle.”
Despite Robin’s careful movement, Tim inhaled sharply when he slid off the back onto the upended box. “You’re gonna b-bust in?”
“It’s not a break-in if it’s abandoned.”
Tim wasn’t sure if that was true, but he was too cold to argue with Robin.
Jason braced one foot against the window frame and wrapped his fingers around one of the wooden boards. He squared his shoulders and jerked back harshly. The board wiggled on its nails, but didn’t move enough for Jason to wrap his fingers around. Jason adjusted his feet again, took a deep breath, and yanked back, harder this time.
It drew a small noise out of the boy’s mouth, but Tim was more interested in the way the board splintered off its nails, revealing a gaping dark hole of the building interior.
Jason waited, a hand pressed to his side, head tilted like a bird. Like Batman, actually. “No alarms.”
“Is that good?”
Jason’s face twisted downward, but he didn’t answer Tim’s question. He was panting when he crouched down to collect him again. “Come on, just a little further.”
Tim blinked sleepily. “I’m tired,” he complained, lifting his hands over Jason’s shoulders again.
“I know.” When Jason stood, Tim slipped down, and Jason had to hitch him higher and tighten his hold on Tim’s legs. “No sleeping. You’ll feel better when you’re warmer.”
Jason ducked them through the opening he’d made in the window. It wasn’t really warmer inside, but the wind didn’t bite through Tim’s clothes anymore, and the snow wasn’t melting into his eyes.
Something in the far shadows moved, and Tim tightened his grip around Jason’s neck. “Where are we?” Tim asked. It was dark, the only light coming from the hole in the window, and even that was getting dimmer by the minute with the weather. His voice echoed in an odd way inside, giving him the impression that the room was bigger than he had expected.
Jason paused to reach back through the opening in the window and grab the wooden plank. He slid the plank back into place on the nails expertly, sealing away all of the light. “We’re safe.”
“It’s dark,” Tim whispered, throat tight with fear.
“Utility belt, right side, third pouch. Flashlight.”
Tim leaned down, hesitantly at the way that it made Jason flinch when he moved his weight, and found what looked like a penlight. But when he flicked it on, it was surprisingly powerful.
There was a hill in the middle of the room. It was a hundred chairs, stacked haphazardly like a barricade. Their red velvet was stained with tobacco and water and dirt. Under the chairs, a dozen eyes reflected in the flashlight’s light.
Tim squeaked.
The rats crawled away.
Jason gave a tight laugh. “Don’t worry about rats; they’re more afraid of us than we are of them.”
Tim didn’t think that was true. He’d once found a homeless man in an alley that had three rats inside of his coat with him. But Jason wouldn’t lie to him; maybe those had been pet rats?
“Shine the light on the desk over here?” Jason asked, interrupting Tim’s musings.
Tim reluctantly drifted the light away from the glowing eyes, toward the desk. There were still papers on the desk, as he and Jason got closer. “UNINHABITABLE” was written in big red letters across one of them.
“What does that mean?” Tim asked.
Jason slid the paper smoothly aside. “It means there shouldn’t be anybody else here to bother us.”
“Is this where we’re staying?”
“Just until the storm passes. Or until I can. . . .” Jason sighed. “Yeah, until the storm passes.”
He slid more papers aside until he found what he was looking for. “Third floor, Room 305. Can you remember that for me, Timmy?”
Tim nodded sleepily against Jason’s back. He tucked his chin down to rest the side of his head on the boy’s shoulder, where he could keep his nose a little warmer. “Room 305,” he repeated.
“Good.” It was Jason’s turn to yawn. “Just a little bit longer, and we’ll be warmer.”
“Okay,” Tim mumbled into his back.
Their journey upstairs was treacherous. Jason was getting more tired, too, and Tim could feel the sticky warm blood running down his leg. There wasn’t an elevator at all, so Jason had to carry him up the stairs. The steps creaked and bowed with their weight.
The door on the third floor was labelled, but locked. Jason didn’t put Tim down this time, he just lifted his knee and kicked the door as hard as he could with his heel. It only took four tries for the lock to click and the door to swing open on a dark hallway.
“What room was it?” Jason asked, keeping his voice down to a whisper for some reason.
Tim copied his tone when he answered, “Room 305.”
Jason nodded. “Shine your flashlight on the doors, so we can find it.”
That was when Tim realized they were standing in a hotel hallway. The carpet under their feet had a golden shaggy design and smelled like mildew and urine. The doors all had matching numbers on them, golden ones in a font that reminded Tim of old holiday movies he watched with his parents.
“Why isn’t anybody else here?” Tim asked.
Jason pointed toward a door a little further down the hall with an “Ah-ha!” before answering his question. “There was a rogue attack a few years ago. Joker’s laughing gas, I think. There was so much of it the city had to shut the place down to keep people from getting sick.”
Tim didn’t realize he had tightened his grip around Jaosn’s neck until Jason made a fake gagging noise. “Could you a lighten up a bit on the handle, there?”
“Sorry!” Tim released his grip a fraction. “So how do we know we’re safe from the gas?”
Jason slipped a key into the door’s lock. He must have grabbed it without Tim noticing. “It’s okay, I have an antidote if we need it.”
Tim was going to argue, but the door opened on a dark room with two beds, a couch, and a bathroom. They were cleaner than the rest of the building, except for the thick layer of dust.
“See? Blankets.”
Blankets did sound nice, but Tim eyed the beds dubiously. “They’re dirty.” Jason’s expression did something then that made Tim’s stomach do a flip. “I mean, it’s okay. Good find.”
Jason flicked the top cover of one of the beds and a big plume of dust went into the air. His jaw was tight, but he was gentle when he set Tim on top of the blanket. “Get tucked in, and keep your foot elevated. Uh, here.” He dug around in his utility belt until he flicked a glowstick at Tim. “I’ll be right back.”
Terror seized Tim as Jason turned away. “Where are you going?”
Robin stopped. “I’m just getting some more blankets from the other rooms.” His mouth twisted down, a split second. “And I’ve gotta get a hold of someone.”
“Batman?”
Jason’s lips pressed together into a flat line. “Yeah.”
As the older boy went around the corner, Tim’s eyes snagged on the growing patch of blood in his side.