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Batman and Robin stagger into the cave, bloody and bruised. Bruce hobbles on his dislocated knee. Tim holds a soaked-through field dressing to the fresh wound on his temple, trying to ignore the trickle of blood he can feel sluggishly soaking through his hair.
Alfred rushes to Tim first. He presses a clean towel to Tim’s scalp, making him hiss. “Thank god you’re both all right. What happened out there? Oracle said she lost track of you both hours ago.”
“Nothing,” Tim says. He doesn’t look at Bruce. It’s taken everything he has in him not to crumble yet under the weight of Batman’s loathing, but he doesn’t need to look to know how bad it is. He can feel it radiating off of Bruce in waves. Both of their uniforms are splattered in that man’s blood.
“Master Bruce, sit down right this instant and let me look at that leg.”
“I’m fine, Alfred.” Bruce shakes Alfred’s hand off his shoulder when he tries to slow him down. He keeps stalking in the direction of the locker room. He hasn’t spoken to or acknowledged his Robin once since they escaped the warehouse. Tim had to apply the field dressing to his head himself.
Tim risks, “Batman, are you—”
“Don’t talk to me.”
Tim’s mouth snaps shut. He lets Bruce go.
Alfred tuts at the attitude, but he’s learned by now not to persist in a losing battle. He leads Tim to the medical bay and sits him down to look at his head wound. He methodically tests Tim’s vision with a pen light, checks his reflexes. “You have a mild concussion,” Alfred diagnoses. “You will need to take it easy for a few days.”
Tim figured as much. Harvey Dent packs a punch.
While Alfred sets about stitching up Tim’s head lac, the interrogation starts. “So, are you going to tell me what happened, or will I have to find out on my own?” They lost contact with Alfred and Oracle in the comms shortly after Two-Face captured them. They missed all of the important parts.
“Nothing much,” Tim says, even though nobody can get away with lying to Alfred’s face, but he can’t—he can’t just say— “Two-Face caught us. We got away. I’m sure the cops are processing him now.”
“And that’s the entire story,” Alfred says doubtfully. “Nothing else happened.”
Tim can’t tell him. It’s taking all of his self-control not to cry as it is. He can’t stop picturing that man’s eyes when the bullet struck between them. The way his body slumped in his chair, kept from falling to the floor only by the chains holding him captive. The way Bruce roared.
“Master Tim,” Alfred says. Tim forces his eyes back open, biting his cheek to maintain his composure. “Are you going to make me beg?”
“A civilian died. It was my fault.”
Alfred merely nods. He must have been expecting as much. “I’m sure you weren’t as responsible as you feel you are.”
If only he knew.
Alfred snips the last thread. “It’s all right to be upset. Being strong does not necessitate lacking emotion, despite what your mentor tries to display in his own behavior. Don’t let him get to you. It’s a tragic part of this life that you can’t save everyone. You did everything you could.”
Except Tim didn’t do everything he could. He warred with what he knew he should do versus what he felt he had to do, and he made a dubiously educated choice. He may have chosen wrong, but…what else could he do? It all happened so fast.
Tim opts out of spending the night in the manor’s guest room despite Alfred’s insistence. He goes home alone, his body a living wound, but he welcomes the pain. He deserves worse.
Dana stayed the night, so Dad doesn’t even notice the bruises or the bandage at Tim’s hairline in the morning. Figures.
Tim stays home from school. No one will gawk at his absence, and even if they did, it would just be another thing for his dad to lecture him about and forget about the next day. During his self-enforced sentence in his room, Tim lies atop his bedspread and stares at his clean hands. He feels blood on them even though he knows logically he never laid a finger on that man, but he still caused his death. He still hears his pleas for mercy.
Did he have a family? Tim doesn’t even know his name. Batman and Robin got the hell out of there as soon as the GCPD arrived to book Two-Face. He’s sure that Bruce knows. He’s obsessive-compulsive enough that he wouldn’t have slept until he dug up every scrap of information he could find on Tim’s hapless victim. Maybe he was married. Maybe he had kids. Who cried when the police delivered the news? Who will bury him?
No one will ever know that Robin was responsible because Batman would never rat him out, and Two-Face can claim credit anyway, but…still. Tim ended a man’s life and gets off scot free. How is that fair? What form of penance could possibly make up for what he’s done?
Tim will never shake the dread that warped him as he watched that man take his last breath. The sound of the gunshot. Bruce’s scream of rage.
What now? Tim just shattered the Robin legacy in one fell swoop. Dick and Jason never would have messed up the way Tim did last night. They were better. Smarter. They would have found a third option. Tim just…played along. He doesn’t deserve to wear the cape and mask anymore. He should turn in his uniform and inform Bruce of his resignation today, but Tim doesn’t have anything else. Nothing in the world matters more to him than Robin. Can he just throw it away so easily?
Tim checks the time on his nightstand. Dick should still be at work around now. Too busy to bear the burden of knowing what happened and having to live with it. He’s got more important problems to deal with.
Being the person he is, Dick picks up anyway. Always good, always dependable. If he were still Robin, he would have freed Bruce and the civilian and taken out Two-Face all at the same time. He would have saved the day. That’s what a real hero does.
“Hey, slacker,” Dick says. Tim can hear the smile in his voice. “Aren’t you supposed to be in school?”
“I’m ditching.”
“Uh-oh. What happened?”
Tim is the one who made the call, sought out Dick for advice, but he still can’t—he can’t say the words. He shuts his eyes. “I messed up really, really bad, Dick. I’m lucky if Bruce doesn’t fire me the minute he sees me. Even if he does let me stay, he’s never going to trust me again. I don’t know what to do.”
“Hold on, slow down. What are you talking about? What’s going on?”
“I killed someone.” Tim tries to maintain his composure, but his voice breaks. “He was—he was just a civilian. He didn’t do anything wrong. He didn’t deserve it, but I couldn’t…I had to…” He stifles a sob behind his hand. “He hates me.”
Dick is silent. For a terrifying, crushing moment, Tim thinks he hung up. “No, you didn’t. You wouldn’t. There has to be more to the story.”
“I did. I’m not the one who pulled the trigger, but I—I told him to do it. I made it happen.”
“No way. The Tim Drake I know never does anything without a good reason. Walk me through the case.”
Tim throws an arm over his face like he can hide from what he’s done, but there’s no hiding from this. No do-overs. “I’m sorry. I’m really, really sorry, Dick. I didn’t mean to ruin Robin.”
“Just tell me what happened, Tim.”
Tim sniffles. He never should have called Dick in the first place. He’s just forcing another person to live with the burden of knowing how badly he’s tarnished the Robin legacy and everything that Batman stands for. “This was a bad idea. I have to go.”
“Tim—”
“I’ll talk to you later.” If Bruce doesn’t send him to prison first. He hangs up on Dick’s protests.
Bruce never would have sentenced his Robin to death, even if it were Tim. He’d never. Batman doesn’t kill. Robin doesn’t kill.
Robin killed anyway. He didn’t think. He just reacted, and now an innocent man is in the morgue with a bullet in his head.
It’s all over.
Tim can’t lock himself away from the world for long. He’s forced to attend school the next day to avoid turning heads, carefully hiding his bandaged forehead under a beanie. If he were as intelligent as he claims, Tim would make himself scarce from the Batcave at all costs, but Alfred instructed Tim to let him check his stitches, and he can’t say no to Alfred twice in one week.
Alfred determines that Tim is healing well enough, though he should still take it easy for a few days. “Try not to be like Master Bruce walking on his freshly dislocated knee, hm? I know you idolize him, but perhaps it’s best if you don’t inherit his more self-destructive habits.”
He’s only nice because he doesn’t know the full story. Bruce must not have wanted to see the disappointment in Alfred’s eyes if he learned what happened, either. Tim really wouldn’t be able to handle that. Alfred leaves to fetch Tim some dinner before he goes back home. As Tim waits, he starts to hear voices deeper in the cave, a long distance from the medical area.
He hears Bruce’s booming voice clearest. But who else is here? Tim hops off the cot, creeping closer in the direction it’s coming from. Eventually Dick’s voice filters through as well. Tim’s blood runs cold. He wasn’t supposed to come here. Tim didn’t leave him with much choice after hanging up on him like that after dropping such a huge bombshell, but still. It doesn’t take a detective to deduce who they’re arguing over.
“—can’t believe you’re taking his side after what he did!”
Tim peeks around the corner to see Bruce in his usual workout gear. His knee is still wrapped, but that was never going to stop him. Dick is dressed in civilian clothing, as if he got off his bike after driving here from Blüdhaven and jumped directly into a fight with Bruce, which, knowing him, is probably exactly what happened. Tim would be flattered if he weren’t so nauseous. They’re both red-faced and stanced like a brawl is inevitable. Tim ducks back out of sight before they can spot him.
“He made a mistake, Bruce! He’s a kid! You can’t give up on him for making a questionable decision under impossible circumstances.”
“He killed a man.”
“To save your life!”
“I didn’t ask him to!”
For a terrifying moment, all Tim can hear is heavy breathing and the distant echoes of bats chittering. He waits to hear the thud of a fist connecting with flesh, as Dick and Bruce’s fights usually end, but it never comes. Tim peeks around the corner again and is nearly bowled over by Dick.
Dick stops in his tracks and looks down at Tim like he’s genuinely surprised to see him lurking. Figures that Tim masters the art of sneaking around right before he’s about to get fired. “Oh. Tim.”
“Dick, what’re you—” Tim has to fight back the instinct to run away. He’s never seen Dick so enraged before, which is saying something—especially when Bruce is involved. Knowing that his rage is on Tim’s behalf doesn’t stop his pulse from quickening.
Dick crouches down to Tim’s level—something Dick has made a point of never doing before. He never treats Tim like a kid even while they both know that’s what he is. “Listen to me, Tim. Whatever bullshit lecture he tries to give you about what you did, disregard all of it. Nothing that happened that night was your fault. You hear me? You did everything you could.”
Bruce interrupts, “Don’t you dare tell him—”
“You shut the fuck up,” Dick snaps up at him. He seizes Tim by the shoulders. “You made a bad choice, and it sucks, but there was no good choice. You did what you could. It wasn’t your fault, okay? Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.” He hugs Tim’s stiff body tight. “I have to go, or else I’ll do something I regret”—he sends another scathing glare Bruce’s way—“but if you need anything at all, you know where to find me. Even if I’m busy, call me, and I’ll come get you wherever you are. Got it?”
Tim nods wordlessly.
Dick sends Bruce one last warning look before he takes his leave. He doesn’t even stop to say hi to Alfred upstairs.
It’s just Tim and Bruce left in the cave. And the bats. Tim would feel more at ease locked in a cage with a lion.
He’s put this conversation off for as long as he could, but it looks like his time has run out yet again. Tim swallows thickly. “You’re firing me?”
Bruce’s expression, as always, betrays nothing. “No,” he says finally. Tim’s lungs loosen only a fraction. “Dick made it very clear that Robin is not mine to take, and that he will be enforcing as much. But I should.”
“Why? Because I couldn’t kill you instead?”
“A human being is dead because of you. Do you have any idea the enormity of what you’ve done? You don’t just move on from something like this. How can I trust you to be my partner when you can’t even do the bare minimum by keeping a cool head when circumstances get difficult? It makes you a liability.”
Tim keeps his shameful gaze fixed on the stone floor. “I know.” The only thing in the world more important to Tim than Robin is Batman. It’s the only reason he doesn’t run out of this cave and never come back.
“His name was Henry Rockwell, if you care. He was a math teacher. He had a son in college and a pet hamster. He could have made it out alive, but he’s dead now because of a choice you made.”
Tim hasn’t cried over it yet. He does now. He can’t help it; once the first tear falls, there is no stopping the flood. “I know. I’m sorry.”
“Good. You should be sorry. This should haunt you for the rest of your life. It should motivate you to never make a mistake like this again.”
“Two-Face was going to kill you, Bruce. There was no other way out. I thought—”
“Don’t tell me you thought it through,” Bruce snaps, “because you didn’t. I was fine. I had my lock picked twelve seconds after the timer started. If you’d been paying attention, you would have known that. You killed an innocent man for nothing!”
Tim can’t help it. He breaks. “It wasn’t for nothing because I was saving you!”
“I didn’t need saving!”
“How was I supposed to know that? I didn’t have a choice.”
“There is always a choice,” Bruce snarls. “If there is no good option, you find a third way out. You use your head. You don’t play directly into a psychopath’s twisted game.”
It takes all of Tim’s will to raise his head and meet Bruce’s eyes. “If it were me, what would you have done?”
“I sure as hell wouldn’t have murdered an innocent man on a whim.”
“Fine. Tell me what to do, then. You’re the one in control now. I’ll set the scene: Batman and Robin are kidnapped. We’re chained up in chairs in a warehouse. In the chair next to me is a civilian. Two-Face picks up a gun and tells you to choose who dies: me or the civilian, or else he’ll kill us both. You have ten seconds. What would you have done?”
“There was a gap in the mechanism in the lock on the right side. I would have waited for you to take advantage of that and free yourself, and—”
“But you wouldn’t have known that at the time, would you?”
“I knew you would have found some way to—”
“But you didn’t know that. What if I couldn’t get myself out before he pulled the trigger? What if my chains were different from yours? What would you do, then?”
Bruce’s patience is fraying. “I would have stalled until—”
“He gave you ten seconds. You can’t stall longer than that.”
“He was obviously bluffing,” Bruce shoots right back.
“How do you know that?”
“Because I know Harvey.”
“And if he wasn’t?” Tim says, stepping forward, chin raised in defiance. “The countdown ends and he shoots me and the civilian. We’re both dead. Our blood is on your hands. Game over.”
“He wouldn’t have—”
“You don’t know that!”
Tim shouldn’t be talking to his mentor like this when he’s already hanging on by a thread. One more misstep and he’s out. Robin is done. Tim Drake is back to just being Tim Drake, and Batman is without a Robin once again. A better partner would take the tongue-lashing in silence and move on.
“I did consider it from every angle. I took in all the factors, and I weighed my options. If I choose one, if I choose both, if I choose neither, if I choose one and he kills the other—I considered it all. Two-Face always keeps his word on a coin flip, and I was the coin he was flipping. Fifty/fifty chance of it being either of you. I knew whatever I said goes, and I knew you couldn’t die. That was all.”
And when Tim pointed his finger to indicate which one would get the bullet and Two-Face fired, a selfish, terrible part of Tim felt relief. Bruce was alive. Tim had saved Batman. His young life was effectively over, but he’d at least accomplished that much. He heard the clatter of chains a second later, and then Batman was hurling himself at Two-Face like a beast. He’d needed those extra two seconds to free himself.
If Tim hadn’t acted, Bruce and the civilian would have been dead before he could do so. Or if he’d chosen to kill Batman instead, maybe Two-Face would have hesitated in surprise and Bruce would have gotten free anyway. Maybe a meteorite would have crashed through the ceiling and killed Two-Face right then and there. Maybe the gun was full of blanks.
Tim had no way of knowing. All he had to work with was the choice in front of him. That was it.
“I thought he was going to kill you,” Tim whispers, his voice breaking. “Gotham couldn’t lose Batman. Robin can’t—I couldn’t—” Jason would laugh in his face if he could see Tim now, reduced to this. Pleading and pitiful. “You’re all I’ve got.”
Bruce’s eyes hold no sympathy. “That can’t matter out there in the field, Tim. Saving civilians is always supposed to be our number-one priority, but you were selfish that night. Worse—you were stupid.”
“Why? You taught me to rely on logic. Weighing the outcomes. Choosing to save the civilian saves one life. Saving Batman saves hundreds. What else could I have done?” Tim spreads his empty arms. “What do you want from me?”
“I want you to be better.”
“I will be. But I won’t apologize that you’re alive right now.”
The echo of that gunshot is going to haunt Tim until the day he dies. So will the glazed look in the man’s eyes as the life left them. Deaths like that are supposed to stay with you forever. Tim will do everything in his power to never fall into a trap like that again, and he will use the tragedy of that night to propel him to become better, smarter, stronger. Maybe that’s the best outcome he can hope for.
He can’t undo what’s been done. He just has to learn how to live with it.