Chapter Text
"Two guys live in an insane asylum. And one night, one night they decide they don't like living in an asylum any more. They decide they're going to escape!"
Batman: The Killing Joke
Tim doesn’t wake up when he dies in his dreams.
There is no sudden jerk into consciousness after a fall. No scream of terror that opens his eyes to a dark, safe room. No comfortable end to a nightmare.
He’s pushed his body too close to the edge for too long. He’s lost the old animal instinct that fights to survive. The face of death has become familiar as a friend. Fear, necessary for a Robin, has become the baseline to Tim’s nervous system. As unremarkable as his heartbeat.
So when Tim dies in his dreams, there is nothing to do but wait.
Sometimes he falls. The grapple disappears from his hands, or it’s cut, or Tim realizes he forgot to shoot it at all. He hits the ground and pain, distant and nauseating—more pins and needles than the sharp horror it had every right to be—spreads through his limbs like warmth. He’ll lie bent in odd ways, unmoving and abandoned, watching bugs crawl across pavement through his one in-tact eye. The bugs crawl inside him. In his mouth and ears and nose and eyes and he knows. Tim knows what an insect does to a body. Has seen the dead with the wasps lapping at their blood and the maggot masses consuming their tongues and the beetles waiting patiently to peel away skin and sinew.
Tim knows and the bugs know and there is nothing Tim can do but watch them crawl closer and closer because Tim is dead, and the dead are good for one thing only. Feeding the bugs.
Tim has good reason to dread sleep. He has less reason to covet it.
Tim can remain unaffected for up to twenty-four hours awake. He loses track of his thoughts at forty-eight hours. He starts hallucinating at seventy-two. He knows how far he can push it, and more than that, he likes it. There’s a buzz that comes along with sleep-deprivation. A giddiness and mania and chaos that makes the world stretch and bend in odd ways, twisting to cradle him and pass him from one place to the next while he forgets the steps between. Laughter comes easy. He takes more risks, relying on caffeine and adrenaline to keep him lucid as he leaps over alleys and picks fights. Every time he lands, wins, lives, he revels in the victory.
But then he sleeps—because even Tim can’t put it off forever—and he dreams and he pays for every risk—every possible demise—by spending a thousand small eternities crumpled, burned, deconstructed, and eaten.
Always eaten.
He wasn’t eaten when he actually died— if he did at all.
Tim could have imagined it. He hadn’t been in his right mind. Hadn’t had a mind to be right.
There had been no Tim. Just Junior and the lightning. Junior and the lightning and the laughter and the smell of burning flesh.
Sometimes when people get viruses they smell burnt toast. It can linger for months after the sickness passes.
Tim smelled the burning of his flesh for three years.
Point is— Batman said that Tim died. That his heart stopped and started while he was strapped to the machine, so technically– technically Tim had died. But there hadn’t been bugs, and he hadn’t rotted at all, so why did he rot in his sleep?
One of the great mysteries of life, Tim supposes.
It’s not worth dwelling on. Tim had barely been Robin when that happened, and wasn’t that embarrassing. Not even free of the training wheels and he nearly shared Jason’s fate.
Sometimes, privately, Tim thought his fate would’ve been worse than Jason’s. Jason got to die as himself. As Batman’s son. Tim died as Joker’s.
If he died at all.
If.
It was possible Tim had been alive the whole time and Batman was wrong. He’d never died and he was still alive and there were no bugs. There were no bugs.
…
At forty-eight hours Tim loses his mind, and he likes it. His unhindered brain isn’t a pleasant place to live. He avoids it, when he can. Maintains the balance—the cyclical schedule of clarity, high, and death—like a trained horse walking on a beach ball. As healthy a state as Tim could hope to achieve.
So why the hell had every past Robin in the city decided to gather in his living room, clumped under a banner reading: Intervention Time! Go the Fuck to Sleep
‘The fuck’ was scribbled in small, spiky black letters above the larger red text. Jason’s doing. Or Steph’s.
Tim stood frozen in his open doorway, keys in hand, laptop bag slung over his shoulder. He was still in his work suit, sans jacket and with a half-done tie. Sue him, he hadn’t been planning on company.
“Hi,” Tim said, dumbly. He scanned over the small crowd of attendees, cataloging them. Dick, Jason, Steph, Damian, Duke. “How did you get in?”
Steph pursed her lips, thumbs hooked in her belt loops. “It was unlocked, Boy Wonder.”
Funny. Like Tim would ever leave his door unlocked. He was a vigilante.
Except, when he tried, he couldn’t quite summon the memory of flipping the latch.
“Fine,” Tim muttered, stepping fully inside. He toed off his shoes, setting his laptop on a nearby chair. “So you took that as an invitation, then? Nobody taught you boundaries?” He narrowed his eyes at them.
“Boundaries?” Steph squawked. “You want to talk about boundaries— Where the fuck have you been?”
“Work,” Tim replied. He padded over to his fridge, mismatched socks bright against the black and white tiled floor. The fridge was well stocked with ultra-caffeinated Zesti. It wasn’t normally available in the states, but Tim had his ways. He popped the tab and took a swig before turning back to the group. They were watching him in stony silence. “Not all of us freeload off Bruce.”
“Cut the crap, Tim. Do you think we’re stupid?” Jason scoffed. “You missed your check up.”
Tim raised an eyebrow. “My check up? With Leslie?” Jason’s glare hardened. “Jeez, Hood. If you were curious about my health you could’a just asked.” Tim set his Zesti on the counter. “I grew a half inch,” Tim said with a flourish, fanning out his hands in mocking dramatics. “I might just catch up to you one day!”
“We checked your chip!” Steph shouted. Her face was red and her hands were balled into fists. “You can’t lie to us anymore!”
Dick stepped forward, putting a hand on Steph’s shoulder as he did. She shook it off. “What Steph means to say,” Dick shot her a pointed look, “is that we know you haven’t been sleeping.”
Tim blinked at him. “...okay?” It wasn’t like Tim’s insomnia was a secret. “It’s not like you guys hold the gold standard of proper sleep cycles. We’re vigilantes. It’s kind’a in the job description.”
Jason crossed his arms, opening his mouth to speak, but Damian cut him off. “At moderate levels sleep deprivation impedes brain function in a comparable way to alcohol intoxication. In recent years brain scans have linked the brain state resulting from chronic sleep deprivation indistinguishable from that of a meth addict.”
“Don’t you think you’re taking that a little far?” Tim challenged. “I don’t have brain damage.”
“If you’re so sure,” Jason cut in, “then you won’t mind stopping by the cave to confirm.”
A spike of fear rushed through Tim. The thought of the machine, lying still, the darkness and the electricity and the— Junior and the lightning. Just Junior, and the lightning. “No,” Tim said, clearer than he felt. “I will not subject myself to tests to disprove your baseless accusations.”
“Tim,” Dick this time, palms flipped in a gesture of passivity, showing no weapons, “it would really make us all feel better if you would just—”
“It would make me feel better if you left. Now.” Tim pointed to the door, still leaning against the kitchen counter. He took another sip of Zesti. “I don’t have time for this.”
“You are being foolish,” Damian snapped. His teeth were bared and it reminded Tim of a feral kitten on the street. “Your body demands rest, it will not entertain your denial forever—and when it falters it will be us that suffer for your weakness.”
Dick’s jaw tensed, but he didn’t correct Damian. He never did.
Tim raised an eyebrow. “Then don’t work with me. No one is forcing you.” He tilted his head, admiring the way the lengthened needles of light crossed over themselves when he squinted. “Just leave this alone.”
“This?” Jason asked.
“Me,” Tim corrected. “Leave me alone.”
Jason shook his head. “No. I don’t think we will.” He stalked forward, looming over Tim. Tim didn’t bother to straighten his posture. There would be no point, and he couldn’t find it in himself to care. Not so many hours in. “You’re coming with us.”
He sounded so sure of himself. So sure of their authority over Tim, of their ability to corral him, that Tim couldn’t help himself but to laugh. The sound was high and stuttered and jarring. A compulsion that settled something in Tim to indulge. A pulse of energy, of lightning, that pulled the sound from his throat. Like a tapped nerve started a cricket’s legs to motion.
Once he’d started he couldn’t stop. Didn’t want to stop. Couldn’t bring himself to do anything about the growing horror on his brother’s face as Jason backed away from him. It was a child’s terror, and familiar to Tim in a way only he and Jason could know. Which isn’t to say the others weren’t afraid. They were frozen in their places, watching Tim go through the fit. Through the metamorphosis, moving to the state of his brain that felt like floating. The fun part.
When the laughter stopped Tim was hunched over. His Zesti was on the floor, spilling into a puddle that crept to soak Tim’s polkadot socks.
The world was abuzz with life. With color and echo and little threads of motion that collided into each other like lanternflies in a swarm. Tim put a hand in front of his face, watching the image double and overlay, old film stuttering before his eyes. He grinned at it. A pulse, jittering through him, had his neck jerk to the side, his teeth bite air.
“What the fuck.” It was Steph who spoke, voice high and reedy. Tim looked at her, backed against his couch under the sad little banner.
Tim straightened in an instant, a sudden jerk of motion like a puppet’s yanked strings. Jason flinched, half hiding behind Dick. Tim could see it in their eyes, the unease at his movements. He rolled his eyes, a chuckle bubbling up from his throat.
“I don’t want to go to bed,” Tim pouted, brows furrowing together. The impulse was strange. Some part of Tim, a small whisper in the back of his mind, knew this was odd behavior for him. Then again, wasn’t it all the more interesting? What else was he to do with this energy, with the string tied at his joints, if not heed its draw? To follow its direction? He let go, nothing more than action and reaction. A function to soak in the world around him and respond as it was designed to do.
“Something’s wrong,” Dick muttered. “Tim, we have to take you to the cave.”
“Don’t call me that,” Tim whined, hating the spike of unease he felt at the sound of the name, the long discordant cello note that signalled his dread. “It’s boring.” There was something else, some other name he knew. The right one, the pleasant one, the living one.
“What do we call you, then?” Damian asked. He was calmer than the others. A stone in rapids.
“Junior,” Junior grinned, cheeks pulled into shape and he reveled in the familiar thrill of a right answer, of a completed impulse. “Call me, Junior, kid.” Junior looked down at his clothing. Plain and blue and boring. “I’m gonna change.”
Damian nodded. “Okay,” he said. “Would you like help finding something suitable to wear?” he offered.
Junior gave him an odd look. “I live here, birdy!” He shook his head in fond indulgence, before making a show of stretching. Junior vaulted over the couch in a somersault, forcing Jason fully behind Dick as he went. Some part of him—something he’d denounce in his right mind—enjoyed Jason’s fear. It was good for him to spend some time afraid. Tim had been afraid of him for ages.
Junior tumbled down the hall and slipped into his bedroom, locking the door behind him. He could hear them, whispers compounded like held chords on an organ, as they debated how to capture him. Debated his nature—possession? Mind control? Drugs? How best to approach him when he returned.
It was silly. How certain they were that he would return. As if Ti– as if he would be dumb enough to sleep in a room with only one exit.
Junior took the time to change into better clothes. The closet was full of them, stuffed into corners and edges, never quite put away in their proper place. He grabbed the best ones, the colorful ones, the sharp ones, the bright things with texture and pockets and metal bits. He tugged them on in layers. Undershirt, pants, vest, jacket, bowtie, gloves, socks, boots— all various shades of magenta, purple, green, yellow. He hummed as he worked, nursery rhymes and bits of commercial jingles.
When he finished he stood on the tips of his toes and grabbed the hidden box in the corner shelf of the closet. The lining was decorated in bright colors and looping designs. Inside it held his weapons.
This was not the first time sleep deprivation had turned him towards more… erratic behavior, but he usually planned better. He locked himself in quarantine, impenetrable to anyone but Kon-El, and even then only if he judged his friend to be in his right mind. Not that Kon knew why he wouldn’t be. He’d been fed a number of excuses, and he’d never needed to ask.
Usually Junior’s impulses were more internal. Set on creation rather than escape.
Junior was creative in a way proper sleep eliminated. The twist of the mind that put into view the noise in the air of the world— it cleared the way for breakthroughs impossible to achieve sober. Breakthroughs like Junior’s jack-in-the-box immobilizing forcefield, or his prized possessions, Schrodinger’s Revolvers.
He’d decorated them polished brass, purple, and green. Classy, he liked to think. They’d taken ages to get right, and a whole lot of unauthorized searching of the League’s reality bending multiversal transport. He’d never been prouder. He’d probably have shown them to the Bat, if not for his hatred of all things gun.
Junior slipped them into the holsters at his sides. He grabbed a few more nick-nacks, and slipped out the hidden exit behind his desk.
Junior didn't want to go to the Cave. He didn't want to be trapped and contained and programmed. He didn't want to go to sleep and back to his vacant brain. He just wanted to have fun. Why was it so hard for them to let him have fun? Junior knew the game they were playing. He was good at hide and seek. He was better when the stakes included- Junior and the lightning. It was all just Junior and the lightning.
This was a game. It was always a game, and Junior? Junior had a winning streak to keep.