Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Red Robin dies with a bang.

In the echoing silence, as the sound of a gun being fired reverberates through everyone's skulls, it feels like reality has shifted, a hairline fracture zipping right through the middle of it as it splinters.

Tim Drake dies with a bang.

Smoke rises from the gun barrel, held slightly away from a vulnerable temple as the body slumps in death, no longer kept aloft by a working, living organism, and the murderer laughs.

“I killed the bird!” the man exclaims, giddy, as if he, too, is surprised by his own feat. He's not even a Rogue , Jason thinks. Just a dime-a-dozen upstart supervillain-wannabe who managed to lure all the Bats to an abandoned warehouse and clipped the wings of the third Robin like it was nothing.

The grating voice snaps Jason out of his momentary shock, stillness burned away like the wick of a stick of dynamite to give way to the explosive murderous rage that starts filling his veins, but before he can lunge at the piece of shit who killed his brother, killed Tim , a black shadow whispers past him, lightning quick, and descends on the poor sod. Jason watches Batman pull his hand back and ram his fist into the fucker's face, the loud crunching noise letting everyone know he broke bone, then catch Tim's limp body before it can hit the ground when the bastard's forced to let go of him in the wake of the punch.

Preoccupied with laying Tim gently down to the ground, Batman doesn't notice when Jason strides over to the boy's murderer and unloads a shot in the man's kneecap. The useless lump shouts, wailing at the pain, but Bruce doesn't even seem to notice. All of his attention is on his son, the dead one. And isn't that a kicker? Jason thought he'd hold the title forever. Looks like Tim came for this one too, after taking the Robin mantle. The thought makes Jason sob.

The sound, startling himself as much as the other Bats, makes Jason's usual, low-level anger he keeps simmering in his veins at all times crescendo yet again, and he unloads another bullet in the F tier villain, this time in his thigh, then he throws himself at the man and starts pounding his body with his fists, hitting every piece of flesh or bone he can get at. There is a roaring in his ears that drowns out everything else but his vision is crystal clear, utterly focused. He hits and hits and hits until he can't even feel his fists anymore, then he hits some more. When someone pulls him away from the mangled body, Jason is breathing so harshly he's surprised he hasn't passed out from lack of oxygen.

“-dead! You can stop now, Jason.”

Dick's voice sounds wrecked, hoarse and wobbly, and Jason knows his older brother well enough to know that it's hiding not just grief and heartbreak but an unsettling amount of anger, too. He remembers Dick's confession, a few months ago, about an incident involving Tim and the Joker and some off-colour jokes said about Jason's death that ended in Dick beating the man to death before Bruce resuscitated him. Jason is very aware he could have easily been the one holding Dick back now, if he'd been just a tad slower to break out of his shock and pounce.

“I'm fine, Dick,” Jason snaps, can't help himself, can't find it in himself to be gentle or grateful or understanding, not when their little brother is fucking dead , and pushes Dick's hands away from his body and takes a few staggering steps back from the idiot whose face he just rearranged. He gets his breath under control, just barely, and looks at the man long enough to determine he did kill the bastard, before he looks away. He doesn't trust himself not to lose it again and attack the still corpse otherwise. “Where's B? Where's T- Red Robin?”

“The Cave. B took him and left,” Dick answers, eyes hidden by the domino on his face. Jason knows better though. He can almost taste the tears in the man's eyes.

“Batgirl?”

“Followed after them. You know she wouldn't leave him alone, not…” even now , Jason hears without the words being spoken. Maybe especially not now.

“Alright. Let's get out of here, then. Call the cops to pick this piece of shit up. Or don't. Throw him in the Harbor for all I care.”

Jason doesn't stick around to hear Dick's response or to even check he follows him. He shoves his helmet on his head as he strides out of the warehouse then mounts his bike and speeds out of there, hands gripping the handles so tightly the leather of his gloves creaks.

Alfred is standing in the middle of the Cave like a ship drifting listlessly in the centre of a tempestuous ocean when Bruce gets there. The devastated look on his father's face would make him stop and fuss over the man in his own, stilted way, on any other occasion. This time, though, Bruce strides past him with Tim clutched in his arms and storms into the med bay.

Cass isn't far behind him – Bruce knew she followed them, never expected anything else, but he hadn't had the mental capacity to deal with anything but his second youngest’s lifeless body and he still doesn't – while Alfred seems to be hanging back still, and she has just closed the door behind her when Bruce bends down and lays Tim on top of an empty cot. His hands are careful and gentle in a way that belies the strength hidden in those scarred fists and the damage they usually can and do deliver. He lifts one of those fists, palm open, but the sight of his bloodied glove makes him recoil. He takes a step back from Tim and suddenly he can't bear to be in the Batsuit, can't stand the thought of being Batman, the Caped Crusader, the Dark Knight. Not now. Not when he failed, yet again, to save a son who was in danger and needed him. Batman can't save his own sons, it's the last person Bruce wants to be.

“I'll stay. You go change,” Cass whispers.

Bruce nods jerkily then storms out of the room towards the showers. He rips the suit off his body robotically, methodically, one piece of armour at a time, then stands under the cold spray of the shower for a few minutes, staring blankly at the tile as the water runs down his skin and washes away the blood, sweat, and grime. He tilts his head, watching the dirty water swirling down the drain, then shakes himself out of it when he remembers the too-young body waiting for him on a gurney in the medbay.

When he returns, dressed in sweatpants and a Superman shirt Tim got him for his last birthday, Cass is sitting on another gurney across from Tim, staring at him blankly and intently even as her fidgeting hands reveal her true distress, and Alfred is just stepping away from Tim. The motion allows Bruce to get a look at the boy and his heart breaks for the thousandth time tonight.

Tim has been taken out of the Red Robin suit, a sheet covering the lower half of his body, and the rest of his exposed skin, bruised here and there, has been cleaned meticulously and thoroughly with a wet sponge; Alfred's work. His temple and face are blood- and grime-free as well, though nothing could possibly cover up or fix the glaring hole in Tim's head.

A little unsteadily, Bruce approaches the boy on legs that feel like they're barely supporting his considerable weight, and this time, when he brings up a hand, he lets it stretch towards Tim. The limb is trembling but he places his palm on the boy's face, holding it, stroking his cooling cheek, and he doesn't realise what's happening when his vision blurs until the first drops fall.

Bruce starts crying in earnest as he pets Tim's face.

At some point he registers movement and sounds, voices talking, arguing, whispering, shouting. Cass comes over and climbs on top of the gurney then wraps herself around Tim's body, holding on and crying silently. Dick approaches, stands quietly for a moment, then leaves in a storm of sobs and hiccups. Damian shows up at some point to tell him Alfred is setting up dinner and that he is being summoned, but neither Bruce nor Cass move away and Damian leaves, quiet and subdued for once.

So much time passes that Bruce can barely feel his legs after kneeling on the floor for so long. Cass' eyes are blinking for longer, struggling to stay open with every movement, and that's when Bruce finally forces himself to be a person and not just his grief, so he stands up and gently pries her tightly clenched fingers away from the sheet covering Tim. Without saying a word, Bruce slides his arms under her and lifts her up. She buries her face in his chest, silent, and lets herself be carried away from her vigil, her brother, her best friend, and Bruce tries not to falter as he walks away from Tim.

The Manor is quiet as he trudges along its long corridors. Moonlight spills through squeaky-clean windows hidden by transparent curtains, the only source of light to guide Bruce's way, but he could make this journey blind and deaf. He enters Cass' room and places her on her bed, drawing the blanket up and over her body and smoothing her hair with a careful hand before retreating.

“Get some sleep, Cass. We'll figure it out in the morning.”

The only answer he gets is a near-silent sniffle and the sound of bed sheets rustling.

He checks on his family while he's there. Damian seems to be sleeping when Bruce enters his room, but as soon as he closes the door on his way out he can hear the sound of rustling, some thumps, and sees a sliver of light shine through the crack under the door. If the drawing supplies left out on Damian's desk and the lamp right next to them were any indication, the boy is likely to spend the rest of his night losing himself in his art. Bruce should probably corral him to bed anyway, but he finds that he doesn't have the strength or will to do much parenting tonight. At least the boy is drowning his feelings in paints and crayons, not drugs and alcohol. Silver linings.

Alfred is not in his room when Bruce opens it slowly after a cursory knock, but he's not worried. The man is probably still in the kitchen, the stove light on, cleaning counters or washing dishes or polishing the fine china they literally never use because the Wayne brood are too chaotic to be trusted to eat in anything other than IKEA crockery. Alfred has his rituals when dealing with upsetting events and Bruce doesn't intrude. He leaves him to it and instead moves on to his other son's bedroom.

Dick's room is illuminated by his Flash nightlight – a gag gift from his boyfriend, if Bruce recalls correctly – and it bathes everything it reaches in an orange glow. Dick is sitting on the floor at the foot of his bed, his knees drawn to his face, shaking. Bruce lingers in the doorway for a long moment, unsure what to do. He's never been good with feelings – feeling them is all fine and dandy, but actually expressing them properly, in a healthy manner is a whole other can of worms – and even less so when it comes to Dick's feelings. His eldest is a complex creature Bruce doubts he's ever learned to understand. Equal parts similar to Bruce and as different from him as night and day. Many of their fights in the past – and some more recent, as much as he hates to think about how he still slips, still reverts to the unemotional Batman persona even when out of the cowl – stemmed from Bruce's inability to understand Dick and how he responds to his emotions, what triggers them, what he needs. In his quest to protect his son, he drove him away. In his attempts to comfort, he offended. In trying to soothe ruffled feathers, he only angered Dick further. He's getting better at dealing with Dick nowadays, but Bruce is still rooted to the spot as he looks at his eldest, his first-born even if not from him, and sees him so broken and alone.

Perhaps out of all of them except for Bruce and Alfred, Dick is taking this the hardest. The young man isn't a stranger to loss but instead of making it easier to cope with, it only makes it hit that much harder. His parents, Jason, now Tim. How can Bruce comfort him now? What is there to say that isn't a complete lie or an empty platitude?

In the end, it's Dick who solves his conundrum for him.

“I don't want to talk, Bruce.”

Bruce exhales, grieved and guilty and angry and helpless, and nods. Dick, head buried in his knees, doesn't see it.

“Okay, chum,” Bruce whispers. “You know where to find me.”

He leaves Dick, drowning in loss and the orange colour of his nightlight, and closes the door.

One child is still unaccounted for. It hurts to think of him now, in this heavy moment of the same grief he felt only a few years ago, and Bruce doesn't even know if he wants Jason to be roaming somewhere around the Manor or out there on his own. Either option hurts.

Still, he makes his way back to the Cave, planning to check the Batcomputer for the Red Hood’s location before taking Tim's body to the freezer, treading inaudibly as he retraces his earlier steps.

The first part of his plan gets scrapped as soon as he enters the Cave. Jason's motorcycle is parked next to the Batmobile and the shining red helmet lies shattered on the ground in its vicinity, clearly having been thrown carelessly, and when Bruce walks up to the medbay door, he finds his middle children together. Jason is sitting in a chair he dragged to Tim's bedside, one of Tim's pale, thin hands clutched tightly in both of Jason's huge ones, and he's hunching so badly over them that Bruce has a moment to feel worried about his second eldest's spine.

He doesn't enter the room.

Every instinct in his body is telling him to go inside, to be there with his boys, to watch over Tim and comfort Jason, but he ignores it. The last person Jason wants in there is Bruce. With a heavy heart and a lingering look, Bruce leaves them to it, and goes back to the Batcomputer console where he scribbles a reminder for Jason to store Tim’s body properly before he leaves and an invitation to spend the night in the Manor when he's done. He sticks the note to Jason's cracked helmet, which he places on the motorcycle, then he goes back upstairs to a quiet house that has seen too much grief.

He braces himself for a sleepless night. The first of many to come, if past experiences have taught him anything.

Chapter Text

The morning doesn't bring relief. A new day has emerged from the darkness of the night, the sun not even attempting to break through the heavy clouds and smog of Gotham, but it makes no difference to Dick.

He hasn't slept all night.

Every time he tried to lie down and close his eyes, all he could see was Tim. Tim's face – the little that was visible while in costume – and Tim's body. The way it recoiled, as if trying to get away, when the gun fired. The way it slumped in his murderer’s hold. It feels like his ears are still ringing even now.

So the morning makes no difference to his mood as far as Dick is concerned.

He takes a shower, barely feeling human as he goes through the motions with a blank stare, he changes clothes, and he goes down to the kitchen for breakfast. The counters are more sparkly than usual and Alfred is in the middle of putting away the fancy china, so Dick can guess what the old butler was up to the night before. Cass is curled up in a chair, knees drawn up to her chin as she worries at her cup of tea with a fingernail, scratching back and forth over an imperfection in the cup. Jason is pounding his fists into some dough, the only healthy outlet for the grief-stricken rage he's probably feeling that wouldn't end up with broken hands and bloodied fists, and Damian, for all intents and purposes, is eating his breakfast as usual, if it weren't for the absent look in his eyes and the clenched fist he has on his fork.

Bruce isn't present.

Dick honestly doesn't know if he should be mad at him for it or not. His children, his father, his family, need him, now more than ever. They're all unravelling at the seams in their own ways and the least Bruce could do is fucking be here with them, sharing a shitty breakfast while trying not to think about their brother’s body, waiting to be buried, in the Cave's morgue freezers.

On the other hand, Dick wouldn't want to be faced with everyone else's grief after just losing a second child if he were Bruce either.

The conflicting emotions make Dick's anger rise and he wishes he had his own dough to pound into a pulp right now.

“Good morning, Master Richard. Would you like some breakfast?”

Everyone lifts their eyes from their various distractions to look at the doorway where Dick has been standing frozen for a few minutes. He can't stand the scrutiny, the pressure of so many eyes on him, and he yearns to find Timmy and use him as his personal teddy bear, the way he always does when people are too much and his skin itches from too much attention, but he can't do that anymore because his brother is fucking dead.

“I-” The words seem to be lodged in his throat, barbed wire sliding down his esophagus, and Dick feels like he's choking. He swallows drily, almost does choke for real, and he shakes his head. “I can't do this,” he manages to rasp out, voice breaking and cracking, before he turns on his heel and marches out of the kitchen again.

Nobody comes after him, or if they do, he can't hear them. The hallways blur in his periphery as Dick walks blindly around the manor but it isn't that much of a surprise when he finds himself in front of the grandfather clock. He opens the door and flies down the stairs, and when he reaches his destination he doesn't even look at Bruce, sitting in a chair next to Tim's open freezer cabinet, hunched over and silent.

“Get out,” Dick orders. He doesn't care if he's being cruel. He doesn't care if he's being unfair. He's been holding himself together and looking after others for longer than he cares to remember. Eldest daughter syndrome, Donna told him once with a wry smile, and isn't that fucking accurate. He was the one left to pick up the pieces of everything Bruce fucked up every single time, the lost to the timestream fiasco only the latest in a long string of events. And every time he's walked away, trying to put himself first, every time he's messed up – because of course he did, how could he not when he wasn't ready for anything life threw at him and he just fumbled his way through, hoping he wouldn't irreparably damage everything and everyone around him along the way? – Dick has felt that crushing guilt and self-hatred that he always thinks might well kill him one day. When he left to be his own person, he felt like he'd abandoned Bruce, abandoned Alfred, abandoned Gotham and Robin and all that it meant to him, even if it was Bruce who fired him and made him feel like he was going to burn out of his skin if he spent one more second in the same house as him.

When Jason died, Dick felt like he could have done something if only he hadn't been away, or hadn't kept his distance from Bruce, or hadn't felt a bit resentful of the kid who came along and not only filled the empty spot Dick left behind in Bruce's life but also the one he left in the Robin costume.

When he didn't listen to Tim's plea to return to Gotham as Robin to help Bruce get his head out of his ass, he felt like the worst person on Earth for putting a little kid in a position where he felt an obligation to put on a stolen suit and become a grown man's emotional support crime-fighting child. As if it should've been anyone's responsibility to handle Bruce's inability to handle his losses.

Time after time after time, Dick felt guilt for things he shouldn't have. He pushed himself to come back, again and again, to ignore the shouting matches and the disappointed stares and the pointed comments. For Bruce's sake or Alfred's or Jason's or or or.

But this time, he's not anyone's emotional punching bag or support pillar or scapegoat. Today, Dick is an older brother who watched his baby brother get shot right in front of him the night before, and he wants a moment alone with Tim without anyone else watching him or listening in. Maybe he's earned his own goddamn temper tantrum.

To his credit, Bruce doesn't say anything. He gets up, just as silent as he was when Dick entered the room, and he crosses the distance between his chair and the door in a few long strides before Dick is left alone with Tim's body.

That need to lash out, to take his feelings out on someone else, is like an itch he can't scratch and Bruce's silence and easy acquiescence makes Dick want to go back out there and pick a fight over it. He doesn't know why. He knows it's unfair, and in any other circumstance he'd be able to remember that Bruce is not the same person he was when Dick was fifteen or eighteen or twenty, that they've been getting along better lately, that his dad is trying. But now, today, right this minute? Dick wants to lash out.

He resists the urge, if barely, and makes his way over to Tim instead. He doesn't sit down, too restless to handle the stillness of a chair, but he stands over his baby brother's body and looks down at him properly.

Last night he fled after a few seconds of catching sight of him. The image of Tim, pale and unmoving, lying on a cot with a sheet pulled over him, had been too much to stomach. Dick burst into tears before he even registered it and then he fled the Cave before his family could hear the howls that wanted to break free from his chest.

Now, he just cries silently as he looks at Tim.

Tim has never been outrageously tall like Bruce and Jason are, how Damian probably will be once he grows up, but he wasn't short either. The perfect height for big brother cuddles , Dick always said when Jason made fun of Tim by calling him short stack and Dick tried to soothe the baby bird's ruffled feathers. And really, it was true. But now he looks so incredibly small, lying there on that cold, metal surface, looking like it'll swallow him whole and make him disappear. 

Dick is a very tactile person and he shows his love for his people with hugs or hair ruffles, shoulder touches and playful hip checks. But after years of people objectifying him, trailing their eyes all over his body, finding any and all excuses to ‘accidentally’ brush against him, cop a feel, disguise a caress as just squeezing past him, after Tarantula and Mirage and the feelings those experiences have left branded into his brain and body, Dick hasn't been handling touch as well as he used to. He still loves showing his affection that way, but sometimes he thinks he might shrivel up and die or claw his own eyes out if someone so much as looks at him, let alone touches him.

Tim has always somehow been the exception.

Maybe it's because he knows Tim grew up without any physical affection on account of his parents birthing what they thought was a doll meant to look pretty and be put up on a shelf when they got bored of it instead of a real actual child that needs love and care to thrive, and he never wanted to deprive the boy of even one Dick Grayson cuddle if he could help it. Maybe it's because Tim has always understood Dick in an intrinsic way, has always looked at him with those deep, blue eyes of his and seen Dick in a way no one in the family ever has – except for Cass, but she doesn't count because she has an unfair advantage. Maybe it's because Dick need only remember a photo album tucked away in Tim's room full of Dick-as-Robin and Dick-as-Nightwing pictures to know that he's had Tim's eyes on him for years, before he even knew they were there, and they've never looked at him with anything but admiration, respect, and awe.

Whatever the reason, Dick has never felt the need to hide or recoil from Tim. On the contrary, when everything got to be too much but he still craved to be comforted in some way, Dick could always track Tim down and wordlessly tuck the boy against himself and cling. He never questioned Dick, never pried or pushed him to talk, and those were, as far as Dick knows, the only times anyone could pull Tim away from his work without the boy kicking up a fuss. He'd just quietly close his laptop, lean against Dick, and hold him back as loosely or as tightly as Dick himself held him.

And now Dick can't even bring himself to touch that cold, pale skin.

He doesn't want to touch. Doesn't want to feel the lack of life, the cold of death and endings and things left unsaid. Doesn't want the unnaturalness of Tim's corpse flesh to replace his memories of warm, soft muscles going lax against him or the steady rise and fall of a chest glued to his own.

So Dick just stares and cries and tries not to rip his hair out of his head, and when he can't take the silence anymore, he storms out of the morgue and leaves the Cave on his motorcycle, calling Wally on his way out and begging him to meet him at his apartment in Bludhaven.

He can't be anyone’s emotional support right now. He can barely support himself.

Chapter Text

When Kon was dead, he didn't feel anything. One second he was alive and fighting and the next he was… alive and getting ready to fight again. As far as he knew, no time at all passed, or if any did, it was just a few hours spent passed out. It wasn't until he came back to the past – his present but actually his future because why should he be fortunate enough to arrive back seconds after he died – that he realised that actually, yes, a lot of time had passed, and yes, he was the only one who felt nothing while he was dead.

He didn't understand. Couldn't. He saw the pain in Cassie's eyes and the grief-loss-burden weighing Tim's shoulders down, but he didn't understand . Couldn't wrap his head around his friends mourning him, living in a world without him, moving on with the loss of his life trailing after them like a ball and chain attached to their ankles. He accepted it and took it in stride, tried not to show his worry when Cassie's eyes lingered too long on Kon's face or when Tim hugged him with a desperation that hadn't been there before. He facetimed Cassie at all hours whenever she needed the confirmation that he really was back and didn't complain at his disturbed rest when she woke him up in the middle of the night with a phone call. He flew to Tim's side when his boyfriend woke up from a nightmare with Kon's name on his lips, a broken whisper he'd been too out of it to manage to suppress in time, and didn't mention it when Tim's tears soaked into Kon's shirt as he held him through the aftermath.

He didn't understand but he rolled with it. For Cassie. And for Tim.

He didn't understand and on the bad days – the days when Tim couldn't pry his fingers away from where they were clutching Kon's shirt tight enough to permanently stretch the fabric, the days when Cassie needed to keep the video call going as she slept and the entire day afterwards when she woke up because the thought of hanging up and not seeing Kon's face in real time would send her into a panic attack – Kon really didn't want to either. He knows it was terrible of him – and believe him, if he could spare his best friend and his boyfriend this pain, he would he would he would – but he's been secretly hoping he'll never see that same grief and anxiety from their eyes reflected back at him from his own when he looks in the mirror. He doesn't think he could stand it.

And now? Now he wishes he could go back to that ignorance. Wishes he could be as supportive yet oblivious as he was three days ago, two days ago, an hour ago. Wishes he could keep being a bad person, the kind that sometimes recoils from the well of sadness in Tim and Cassie's eyes, if it meant having Tim alive and breathing in his arms right now.

When Tim died, Kon wasn't on Earth. Clark needed help on a space mission and they were still in that awkward period where Clark was trying to actually be a parent to him and Kon tried not to let him see that he didn't need Clark to be one anymore, so when Superman suggested a team up with Superboy for the low stakes intergalactic mission, Kon agreed easily enough. He didn't have anything urgent demanding his attention on Earth and he knew the Titans could handle themselves without him for a few days. So he flew over to Tim's bedroom to let him know he'd be gone for a bit, kissed him deeply, and promised to bring him a souvenir from the planet Clark and him were visiting.

When Tim died, Kon wasn't on Earth. So when that shot rang out and took the most important person in the world to Conner Kent with it, Kon was shaking hands with an alien city-official after saving their daughter from an assassination attempt gone wrong, oblivious and ignorant and too damn far away to do anything even if he'd heard.

And when Kon finally came back to Earth, dirty and sweaty and tired to the bone but full of satisfaction at a job well done, instead of being greeted by Tim's familiar heartbeat, a yawning silence as still as a tomb met him where the steady beat should have been. He didn't even wait for Clark to get off the ship, didn't give a damn about space-decontamination showers or mission reports – he just got back to Earth, back to Gotham, back to the Cave as fast as he could, knowing it couldn't ever be fast enough, not unless he could turn back time.

Kon didn't understand why Cassie went off the rails, why Tim tried to clone him close to a hundred times, why the two of them seemed like their entire world had been upended and turned inside out in his and Bart's absence. He didn't understand how someone could mean so much to another person that their death could bring them to that brink, that edge, that crossroads between feeling too much and not feeling anything at all ever again.

He understands now.

Tim is pale, almost translucent, and looks obscenely small and fragile amidst the plush, white satin of his casket. The suit he's been dressed in is form-fitting, tailored specifically for him, and it looks wrong. Kon knows how much Tim hated wearing formal clothes, suits most of all. How they reminded him of all the galas, soirées, and business dinners his parents would force him to attend and parade him around to show off their sole heir. How they always come in a neat package with Timothy Drake-Wayne, businessman, who knows how to charm the pants off anyone and, most importantly, the checks out of their pockets. Tim isn't stuffy suits and perfectly centred bow-ties – he's ripped jeans and Kon's worn Superboy shirts, he's Dick's stolen sweatpants and Cass’ crop tops, he's Bruce's oversized university hoodies and Stephanie's booty shorts.

Kon knows that Tim would hate being buried in something so stuffy and formal.

The weather is as cloudy as any other day in Gotham. It doesn't rain, though it would be fitting if it did, and the Wayne family section of the cemetery is far enough away from the main entrance that they're safely away from any prying eyes of other graves’ visitors. The funeral is a private affair, family and friends only, and the casket has been left open while a priest rambles on about God knows what – literally – to an audience of probably zero. Kon doubts that anyone is paying attention.

All the Bats are present, naturally. They're all grouped together, a wall of mournful black that for once doesn't come across as intimidating – as it usually does when in-costume – but rather brittle and cracked, as if they're holding themselves and each other together by the skin of their teeth. Kon hasn't talked to them today aside from uttering the customary condolences expected of him, though Cass did walk up to him after he first caught sight of Tim in that blasted casket and wrapped him up in a silent hug. She's standing behind Barbara's wheelchair now, left arm intertwined with Bruce's and right hand clasped around Stephanie's, and Kon can't see her face but he can hear her quiet sniffles.

There are other people present – the Commissioner, Tam and Lucius Fox together with the rest of their family that Kon hasn't officially met in person yet, some of Tim's civilian friends, a few caped friends who knew Red Robin's identity and managed to take some time away from their own crime fighting to pay their respects to an old friend. Other heroes are simply here to support Tim's mourners – like Wally West holding a crying Dick Grayson in his arms, or Roy Harper standing next to Jason Todd with an arm wrapped around the buff man's shoulders.

And parallel to the Waynes, forming their own, much smaller wall, though just as important in Tim's life as his family, the remaining three Young Justice members stand side by side in front of the casket. The rest of the Titans were forced to stay in San Fran and hold down the fort while everybody else was busy here.

Kon is standing in the middle, trying to be a support pillar for Cassie and Bart as they lean against him, but at this point he's no longer sure who's supporting who. If he had to guess, he'd say they're all supporting and being supported, like a precariously built Jenga tower that's liable to collapse at the slightest wrong movement. Cassie keeps breaking out into tears and calming down for a beat only to start all over again, and Bart is uncharacteristically still and silent as tears stream down his cheeks in solemn, mute rivulets. He hasn't said a word since they met up to get to the funeral together and Kon will probably be worried about the chaos gremlin some time later, when he doesn't feel like someone took a meat cleaver to his chest and made a mess of things inside.

Standing here now, watching the priest shut his book and step away, watching Bruce Wayne caress his son's cold cheek one last time before closing the lid on the casket, watching that casket being lowered into the ground and every family member grabbing a fistful of dirt to throw on top of it – Kon understands why Tim tried to clone him 99 times. Why Cassie joined a cult. Kon understands and he doesn't know if he wants to find out what he'll do now that Tim is gone.

When he blinks next, half the people in attendance are gone and gravediggers are almost done filling Tim's grave up. His face is wet though he doesn't remember crying, and his mouth is drier than a desert. It's time to leave, to go home, but Kon doesn't know if he can move yet. Doesn't know if he wants to. He thinks he could probably stay here and waste away, a useless sentinel for a dead boy's final resting place, and nothing or no one would be able to move him.

Dick Grayson steps in, walking up to the bereft Young Justice teens, and saves Kon from that fate.

“We're having a late lunch back at the Manor,” he says, voice quiet and lifeless, though Kon has known this man long enough to detect the attempt at gentleness, at comfort, for the lost kids in front of him. He appreciates the effort and the kindness, since he knows how much effort it must be taking him to think of anything or anyone outside of his own grief. “Alfred made enough food to last us a week and then some, so I thought… You don't have to go home just yet. Why don't you come along and get something to eat? You can see Tim's room before you go, maybe you'll want to take something of his to hold onto, whatever you need.”

Kon looks down at Bart then Cassie, searching their faces for an answer, and they both nod silently up at him.

“Yeah, sure. Let's go.”

Dick nods and offers them a grin that's more of a grimace, and the three of them follow the Waynes as they make their way out of the cemetery and to their cars, getting inside a black SUV and sitting quietly in the back on the way to Wayne Manor. And during all of it, Kon feels that lack of a heartbeat pressing in on his eardrums, drowning out his thoughts and filling them with a steady hissing mantra of your-fault-your-fault-yourfaultyourfaultyourfault . He tightens his grip on Bart and Cassie and tries to wrest away the red filling his vision. Going feral won't bring Tim back. Killing his family or other innocents won't either.

Slowly killing himself while he learns to live with the Tim-shaped hole in his chest and life… well, that's another matter altogether. Surely, Tim wouldn't begrudge him this .

Chapter Text

Life without Timothy Jackson Drake-Wayne is… oddly colourless.

It's not something Damian ever thought about or even noticed – in fact, in the beginning, Damian was trying very hard to not think about life with Timothy in it, even tried numerous times to remove him from it – but now that Timothy is simply… gone… it's hard not to feel it in the marrow of his bones.

For all intents and purposes, nothing really changes. The Manor grounds are as expansive and full of greenery and life as they always are. The Manor itself is just as big and empty in 90% of its unused rooms, while the remaining space actually occupied and frequently used by its inhabitants keeps seeing the same amount of visitors with the same frequency as ever. In fact, there has been an in crease in activity since Timothy's passing in the form of Todd suddenly deciding to more or less move in, as well as Richard finally giving up on his harebrained idea of living alone and leaving his apartment empty to instead take back ownership of his bedroom across the hall from Damian's own.

Cassandra hasn't left Gotham since the funeral and Brown seems to be splitting her time evenly between the Manor and her own lodgings, holed up in Cassandra's bedroom – Damian has no interest in finding out what the two girlfriends do to occupy themselves with in the privacy of that room – or keeping her company in the dance studio when Damian's sister feels the need for an audience.

With Richard's move back to the Manor comes the West speedster's incessant presence as well. Damian doesn't think he will ever approve of anyone sniffing around his siblings, but he can't deny that the redhead's presence has a soothing effect on Damian's oldest brother. He could do without West – Wally – speeding past him to ruffle his hair in a surprise attack that Damian has no hopes of evading, but sometimes one must make sacrifices for one’s loved ones. Hearing Richard's suppressed snickers at Damian's expense is incentive enough to keep him from murdering the speedster in his sleep.

Even Timothy's “Young Just Us” trio drops by the Manor every so often – sometimes as a group, other times on their own – though their presence is usually contained to Timothy's bedroom and, occasionally, the kitchen when Pennyworth successfully bribes them with freshly baked goods and cups of tea.

Yet, despite all the increased presence and activity in the Manor, despite the world not stopping in its tracks or changing in a significant manner in the wake of Timothy's death, life seems to be devoid of colour more often than not. Pennyworth keeps making odd concoctions he'd developed to encourage Timothy to eat more after he confessed that his lack of spleen and the dietary needs that came from it made it difficult for him to adapt to his new lifestyle, but since no one in the household likes the dishes, they remain untouched, sitting in the fridge until they spoil and someone eventually throws them away.

Todd has random bouts of anger, similar to his unstable behaviour when he first returned to Gotham – according to what Damian heard and the little he witnessed before the man ‘got his shit together’, as Timothy aptly put it once – which he deals with by ruining his knuckles against punching bags in the Cave or by beating up traffickers and perverts to within an inch of their lives out in the Bowery. More often than not, though, he locks himself up in the library and only comes out when Pennyworth announces a meal, eyes bleary after clearly having read nonstop for hours on end, and no one says anything about his violent outbursts, everyone simply glad he's not on a murderous rampage once again or dead in a ditch somewhere to put up too much of a fuss. Damian has heard hushed conversations between him and Pennyworth about therapy, held late at night over cups of tea under the weak light of the stovetop, but since he was meant to be sleeping at that time, he has kept that knowledge to himself.

Cassandra, outwardly, isn't all that changed. Sure, she is quieter than she used to be, not even signing in response to people addressing her most times but rather choosing to shake her head in yes or no answers, but she's the one taking Timothy's death the easiest out of all of Damian’s siblings. Or, at least, that's what he thinks, until he leaves his room in the middle of the night one time in search of a glass of water, only to stop in his tracks when he sees the door to Timothy’s bedroom cracked open and hears Cassandra’s muffled sobs from within the room. When he sneaks a brief glance inside, he spies her curled up in their brother’s bed, clutching a stuffed animal Damian vaguely recalls Timothy winning for her at a fair a few years ago, and crying into it with the force of a thousand grieving souls. The sight makes Damian so uncomfortable, sends him so off-kilter, that he quietly and quickly retreats from the cracked door and flees back to his bedroom, glass of water long forgotten.

In contrast, Richard is the most obviously affected by the loss out of all of them. While their Father's presumed death from a few years ago affected Richard significantly – adding, on top of that, the responsibility of being Batman, the stress of Timothy's disappearance to find proof of Father's continued existence, and the uphill battle of getting through to a younger  Damian and ‘domesticating’ him, as Todd once called it – and it showed in the graver, more sombre way he carried himself, it hadn't truly robbed him of that sunshine-like disposition and irritating, perpetual optimism and enthusiasm Damian has come to know Richard by and love him for. But somehow, it seems like Timothy's passing is the straw that broke the camel's back. Richard is more subdued than ever, sullen even on his worst days, and more prone to anger and snapping in retaliation when once he might've simply rolled his eyes good-naturedly and fired off a taunt or a tease. He's always tense, always on the verge of starting a fight with people for reasons Damian doesn't understand, and more than one argument has been averted simply because West swooped in and physically carried Richard off at superspeed before he could say something truly hurtful. Damian is the only exception to Richard's short temper, sometimes Cassandra too, but that has more to do with the fact that the older man simply refuses to engage with them when they accidentally say or do something that ticks him off. Father and Todd, sometimes even Pennyworth, take the brunt of Richard's anger.

Father, though… Damian doesn't know what to think of him now. The man haunting the Manor's halls – and there really is no other word for it – is not the man Damian knows. While he knows better now than he did when he first got here, has a better grasp on who Bruce Wayne really is and what his expectations are, he still has built up a certain image in his head of who his Father is. In the wake of Timothy's passing, however, it feels like that carefully constructed image Damian has managed to put together over the years has been blown to pieces. And in its place stands a man Damian hardly recognises.

Father is quiet now. He has never been the most verbose Wayne family member, certainly, but nowadays it seems like he lacks the energy to even give out his famous monosyllabic answers or grunts. He rarely rises to the bait when Richard loses his cool and reacts with anger at a perceived slight, simply sighing in defeat and exhaustion and quietly, calmly trying to explain to his eldest that ‘no, Dick, that wasn't a dig at you, I was just curious -’ before giving up and retreating to his study when his efforts are plainly wasted on a too-incensed Richard.

He still dresses up and goes out at night to subdue the criminals of Gotham and perform his duty to his beloved city, but Damian can clearly see that his heart is not really in it anymore. When one of the regular Rogues throws out a nasty quip or even an honest inquiry about Red Robin and his absence from the roster, Father honest-to-God flinches as if the mention of his middle son and his absence burns him physically. Outside of the cowl, Bruce Wayne does his job as CEO of Wayne Enterprises, tries to do his duty as the father of numerous adopted children and otherwise, and simply drifts . Like a ghost, unmoored and unable to cross to the other side, Damian's Father is gliding through life and the Manor without aim or purpose, and it makes Damian wonder, sometimes, who really died that day – Timothy, or Father.

As for Damian himself, well…

Everybody and their mother knows that he and Timothy didn't start off in the best of ways. They've come a long way since then, though, and Damian would like to think that they'd finally started acting like real siblings – and feeling like one to each other too – before Timothy died. Damian certainly ceased to feel any true animosity towards the older boy. Really, for a few months now Damian has started to realise that his hatred of Timothy was more jealousy than real hatred, and once they cleared the air and started getting to know each other, admiration revealed itself behind the smoke and mirrors placed there by his mother's words. Timothy wasn't a perfect person or fighter, but he was a remarkable strategist and an admirable warrior in his own right – that alone would have been enough for Damian to respect him. But above all else, over the course of their amicable relationship, Damian has found that Timothy was so much more than that: funny and sarcastic in the way that he could trade insults back and forth with him without taking them to heart, capable and independent in the way that spelled out the fact that he'd had to look after himself since no one else was going to – and Damian can relate, even if their situations were vastly different growing up – and so kind, loving, forgiving, that it was often hard not to feel like a heartless bastard when put next to him.

Timothy had lost so much, faced so much hardship and darkness, had had so many reasons to fall off the deep end and come back with a vengeance after each and every person who ever wronged him. And yet he never did. Yes, he came close to it, maybe more than once, but he always stopped right there on the precipice. He always had the strength to pull himself back and away, to say no, when so many others, weaker than him, would have surely said yes.

He forgave Damian, after all. It took time and a lot of effort on Damian's side, a lot of actions speaking louder than Damian's apologies, but he forgave him. Damian isn't sure he would've, had he been in Timothy's shoes.

But despite the relatively recent closeness, Damian wouldn't have thought that the loss of this perplexing, incredibly complex person would be felt so keenly by him. But it is. He feels it like a broken rib pressing into his lung, or a tack in his shoe embedded in the sole of his foot. Painful, but bearable, yet so very constant and persistent. It demands to be felt, and can't be ignored for long. It's always there and Damian can't make it go away.

It's infuriating.

It's heart wrenching.

It makes Damian want to cry and bang his head against a wall and fling his art supplies across the room and yell at the top of his lungs.

How unfair that Damian should lose the person he spent the most time hating and wishing gone just when he finally started allowing himself to love him and seek him out on purpose. Somewhere out there in the desert, Damian is sure his grandfather is laughing himself silly at his failure of a grandson's karmic suffering.

For a long time, there is only darkness. And silence.

The nothing is all consuming, is all there is, is everything, is all there isn't. It is and it isn't.

He doesn't exist. Not in a way that a human brain can comprehend. But he isn't gone either. He's something in between or– he is something outside of that and a little to the left.

And then there is something. A spark. A crack, mended. Gold poured in the crevices, solidifying and strengthening the weakness in the structure. Not a rewind, not a do-over, not a fix… a second chance. An opportunity.

There is breath in his lungs. The air rushes in and expands the now healthy organs, heart pumping away, blood rushing in veins, and a fluttering pulse beats beneath the skin once more.

Tim's eyes shoot open, a gasp caught in his throat, and he coughs, his throat dry, his mouth like cotton. His body aches, as if he's been put through a gruelling training session, but it's nothing major. His head, though… It's pounding something fierce. His eyes are open, but he can't see anything. It's all pitch black, with no light peeking in, but he's lying on something soft, plush, and his questing fingers identify it as satin. When he tries to bring up a hand, it knocks against something hard and unyielding on top and it sends Tim's heart skyrocketing in alarm.

He starts to trail his fingers around, patting every surface he comes in contact with down, and it doesn't take a genius or a detective to figure out what's going on. Tim is… he's in a coffin. Oh God. Oh no.

He tries to think, tries to remember what he was doing last, before he got knocked out, who he was with, who he was fighting. Who would get a kick out of putting Red Robin in a coffin. But his mind comes up with absolutely nothing. His head just aches harder, sending sharp knives lancing through his temple and his eyes, and he moans in pain, screwing them shut.

He takes a minute or two to calm his breathing and his racing pulse. He may not remember what happened but he has to think this through carefully. He pats himself down, as much as he can in the confined space, but he can't find any of his gear. Whether that means he was taken as a civilian or they stripped him out of the RR suit remains unclear. But what matters is that Tim has absolutely nothing with him that can help: no comms, no weapons, no tools, not even a panic button.

He has to get out of here. He can't stay locked in this coffin for much longer. Who knows how much air he has left? He can't suffocate. He can't die like this. Can't do that to Kon, Bart, Cassie, his family. Oh God, Jason . No, that's not an option. He can't have one of them find Tim dead in a coffin, can't have Jason bury a brother who died in a coffin .

Okay. Think, Tim. He has to get out. But– wait a second. Where is he? He… he strains his ears, ignoring the pounding ache in his temple that's getting worse, but he can't hear anything. No traffic, no waves lapping against the docks, no sounds of nature or people going about their lives, nothing. Absolute silence. Like a grave.

No.

No.

Nononononononononono!

He refuses to contemplate that. Tim has not been put in a coffin and buried! He hasn't ! He can't have.

Oh God.

Is this what Jason felt when he woke up? Is this what he thought? Did he panic like this, too? Or was he already too brain dead to consciously feel or think anything and just acted on instinct as he clawed his way out to the surface? Was he afraid? Did he cry, thinking he'd die all over again, alone in the dark, already buried, and no one would ever even know?

Tim's afraid.

He's also crying.

The haze of panic dissipates a bit, enough to bring him the presence of mind to realise he's crying – loud, heaving sobs that are probably sucking up so much of his oxygen but. Tim can't stop. He can't think straight and he can't rationalise any of this, can't find a solution and solve the problem, because someone left him in civvies, put him in a box and dumped six feet of dirt on top of him and he's scared and alone and he can't see anything or hear anything and he just wants someone to help him! He wants…

“Kon!”

Tim's voice breaks and the name comes out barely audible. He coughs, ignoring the rawness in his throat, and tries again.

“Kon! Kon-El! Conner !”

By the time he gets to the third try, Tim is wailing and banging on the wood, tasting the saltiness of his own tears, begging for his boyfriend to hear him. It's agony, calling out for Kon over and over and over again like a mantra, a prayer, and his headache keeps getting worse and thinking is getting harder. He seems to tire himself out after some time and stops thrashing around. His throat is even rawer now so his voice drops down to a whisper, but he doesn't stop, chanting Kon's name like a litany. After even more time, he can't form a coherent thought to save his life, his head on fire and his temple pulsing like a beating heart, and he doesn't know what he's saying or why he's saying it but he keeps it up because something in him is telling him that it's important.

Who he is, is a mystery. Everything is a mystery. He doesn't know anything, can't understand it, but he keeps whispering, repeating to himself this one syllable word on loop.

“Kon. Kon. Kon. Kon.”

Chapter Text

Tim's death hit the family hard. They hadn't been the most well adjusted family before, not by a long shot, but they'd been together. Tim and Damian weren't competing for the spot of youngest sibling anymore – nor were they trying to murder or maim each other either – and Jason was patrolling with at least one Bat almost every night he went out. He came for dinner every Sunday, and lunch every time he didn't feel like cooking – no, Alfie, he wasn't lonely in his apartment, he just didn't want to cook for himself, that's all – and no one tensed or watched him warily every time he showed a sign of annoyance or anger anymore. Things were good, even if not perfect. Perfection was overrated anyway.

But Tim's death broke something in all of them.

Maybe it was the straw that broke the camel's back, one last death in a series of way too many, that they just couldn't weather as stoically as they usually would. Maybe it was because it was Tim – the guy with a plan, who never gave up, never backed down, who seemed to survive everything life threw at him like a cockroach with a vengeance. Him dying was… unthinkable. Especially because of a gunshot to the head. Maybe it was because Tim seemed to be the glue that held all of them together. With his forgiving nature and obsession with holding the family he built for himself as close as possible, they'd all been powerless to stop him when he dragged each of them, kicking and screaming, back home or on joint patrols or simple outings for coffee or ice cream or to the park. That's how Jason got close to him, how he came to know Tim as a person and started loving him. Why it hurt so much when he died.

Whatever the reason, the Bats aren't quite the same anymore.

Bruce is more quiet and subdued than usual, doesn't have the same drive pushing him forward every night he goes out. Dick wavers constantly between too much anger he doesn't know what to do with and depressive apathy that leaves him lifeless and unresponsive. Cass is spending more and more time with Steph, dancing and studying for her college entrance exam, and when she seeks them out there is always this look of worry in her eyes when she sees the state of them. She's always seen more than anyone else and it must be painful to see the people you love struggling so much. Especially when she is suffering too.

Damian took up photography, going out on the grounds and spending hours lost in nature behind the lens of a brand new camera Jason knows is a matching copy of the used and loved model sitting propped up on the desk in Tim's room in the Manor. He's even stopped throwing insults at everyone who mildly inconveniences him lately.

And Jason… Jason is managing. He's in therapy – someone Dinah recommended – and it sucks and it leaves him more angry or upset than he felt going in sometimes, but he's working through it. He spent so long hating Tim, wanting him dead or hurt, and when he was gone it felt like he was the one who did it. He woke up so many nights from nightmares where it was Jason holding Red Robin against his chest and it was Jason's gun blowing a hole in his bare temple.

After he and Tim patched things up and gave a brotherly relationship a try, he used to wake up from similar nightmares of the multiple times he and Tim fought, where the outcome was always Tim gasping his last breaths or choking on his own blood. Back then, a simple text checking in on him or, when it was really bad, a selfie as proof of life, was enough to calm Jason down and let him go back to sleep.

When Tim died for real, that wasn't an option anymore.

So therapy it was.

It's kind of funny to think that Jason is the most well-adjusted one in the family now, barring Cass.

That doesn't mean he still doesn't have his issues, though.

Tonight, everyone is at the Manor, sleeping. They had a long, punishing patrol, with escaped Rogues and way too many League assassins crawling all over Gotham like ants, and it was a complete fucking disaster since they couldn't coordinate to save their lives. Between Nightwing constantly sniping at any order issued by Batman and Batman getting distracted every five minutes someone didn't check in to say they were alive and breathing and would you get off my ass for a minute while I kick the Riddler's teeth in, jeez? it's a wonder they managed to round up the Rogues without anyone actually dying for real. As soon as they got back to the Cave, they hit the showers and scattered upstairs, Bruce being the first one to abandon the idea of debrief in favour of escaping back to his bedroom to sulk. The rest followed his lead in sullen silence and soon the house fell quiet as everyone either fell asleep or pretended to do so as to avoid talking to anyone else.

Jason, though, can't sleep. He has nights like this, when he's too keyed up to stay still in bed and he knows that even if he falls asleep, the nightmares will be more vivid than usual. And he can't deal with that tonight on top of everything else.

In lieu of anything better to do, he takes out a copy of The Brothers Karamazov from the library and goes back down to the Cave, where he's guaranteed to be left alone even if someone decides to brave the outside of their own room. He's read this book before, and it isn't strictly light reading material, but something about Alyosha, Ivan and Mitya’s brotherly relationship is tugging at his heart right now and he'd rather lose himself in Dostoyevsky’s endless monologues about religion and family than his own nightmares.

He's in the middle of the monastery scene at the beginning of the novel when a shrill alarm starts wailing and bouncing off the walls of the Cave. The Batcomputer comes alive, automatically switching sleep mode off to display an alert on three monitors, letters big and eye-catching.

Jason stares, eyes wide, and it feels like he forgets how to breathe for a second.

He knows that alert. That alarm. He was the one to suggest it – demand Bruce do it or else . It was a long shot, unlikely to happen because once is a coincidence, twice is a goddamn concern because who the fuck keeps bringing dead Robins back to life, but he made Bruce install a sensor in Tim's coffin before they buried him, that would detect life signs. Just in case.

And now that sensor has been triggered and it's sending alerts to let everyone know that hey, assholes, remember that kid you saw die and had to bury? Well, let's just say it's a good thing you didn't go with cremation!

What the hell.

Jason drops the book to the ground as he surges to his feet, sending the rolling chair spinning away in a random direction, and he's rushing for his motorcycle before he even has a chance to think. He mounts it and goes roaring out of the Cave like hellhounds are on his heels, and he only stops briefly to grab a shovel before he goes tearing down the road towards the graveyard. It could be a false alarm. The sensor could be malfunctioning, a crossed wire or something, or someone might have decided to do some graverobbing tonight and picked Bruce Wayne's dead kid in the hopes of finding something valuable in a rich person's casket. But what if? What if it's real? What if Tim's alive?

That's all Jason can think about as the wind roars in his ears and the graveyard gets closer. His heart is pounding, mind whirring with images of what he might find: a random stranger looting through Tim's disturbed grave? Tim, gasping and shaking, covered in dirt, with broken nails and scrapes on his hands from digging himself out? Absolutely nothing at all?

He doesn't know which would be worse.

And if his mind briefly flashes back to his own resurrection, the disjointed and fragmented images of coming to awareness surrounded by pitch black darkness, of clawing his way out of his coffin, of wandering around aimlessly until he got hit by a car, Jason ignores it the best he can so he can focus on the present and not his half-remembered trauma.

He gets off his bike and leaves it abandoned at the cemetery gates when he gets there. He grabs the shovel then pushes the gates open, running blindly towards Tim's grave, uncaring of the lack of visibility. He'd know this path with his eyes closed, he doesn't need light to guide his way, not after the many times he's walked it in the past few months. He's mentally preparing himself for what he'll find and something in him cracks and breaks when he's near the grave and sees someone kneeling in the dirt. He can't see them very well in the dark, but he can see enough to be able to grip the shovel tightly and ready himself to whack them over the head with it for daring to mess with his brother's grave and give him false hope.

Before he can do that, though, they turn around and speak.

“Jason! Thank fuck, get here and help me dig.”

Jason stops and stares, squinting in the dark at the figure.

“I- what? Conner?!”

Conner motherfucking Kent nods frantically, hands covered in dirt.

“Yes, it's me! Now shut up and use that shovel, we have to get Tim out before he suffocates!”

For a second, Jason just stands there and blinks at the boy dumbly. He wonders, hysterically, for a brief moment, if the boy has finally lost it. If the grief has been too much and he's gone off his rocker, digging up his boyfriend's corpse to… fuck, try to revive him or clone him or something. But that doesn't explain the sensor going off. And–

“Suffocate?!”

Conner huffs out an impatient breath and gestures towards the ground.

“Yes! He's alive! I don't know how, okay? I don't fucking know! But his heart is beating again and he's been calling for me and I didn't bring a shovel so I can't fucking dig him out so fucking help me already before he runs out of air and dies again!”

That shakes Jason out of his stupor. And reignites the flame of hope in his chest. He rushes towards Conner, nudging him none too gently out of the way, and starts digging like a man possessed. The other boy, still kneeling on the ground, is going at it with his bare hands with a desperation Jason feels keenly in his own chest, and it feels like it's taking forever but soon his shovel hits something sturdy on the next dig and he scrambles to bend over and search for the latch, unlocking the casket and pushing the lid open as fast as he can.

That flame explodes into a blazing fire, lighting his veins up like the fourth of July, when he comes face to face with Tim, alive and breathing, curled up in his own coffin.

“Tim?! Tim, can you hear me? I'm here, Jay's here, I've got you!”

The boy – his brother, his friend, his family – doesn't respond, doesn't seem to be very aware of his surroundings, but that's fine. It doesn't matter. They'll figure it out later. What matters is that he's alive and whole and Jason is getting him out.

With Conner's help, he gets Tim on his feet and they haul him out of the grave. He's unsteady, can't keep himself up under his own power, but Conner pulls him into his own arms and keeps him up while Jason gets out too and dusts himself off ineffectively.

Wide eyed, Jason turns to the other two and manages to hear them over the roaring in his ears.

“Kon. Kon. Kon.”

Tim's voice is so weak and raspy, it's a wonder Jason can even hear him. But the sound of it is like the sweetest song he's ever heard and he'd give up a whole limb to be able to keep hearing it. He hadn't known how much he enjoyed the sound until it had suddenly been gone.

“I'm here, Tim. I found you. I heard you. I told you I'd always listen, didn't I? I'm here, sweetheart.”

Tim doesn't seem to hear Conner or comprehend what he's hearing if he does, because he keeps up his mantra even as the other boy pulls him closer to himself and buries his face in Tim's hair.

Jason hates to break the moment up, but he wants to hold his brother too, and also get him back to the Cave, wake everyone else up, and figure out how fucked in the head Tim is right now. And what they're going to do about it.

“I don't think you can reason with him right now,” Jason says, gently. “Here, let me have him while you cover up the grave. Don't want anyone to come strolling in and find Tim Drake’s grave disturbed and empty in the morning.”

Conner looks, understandably, not very thrilled about the idea of giving Tim up, but he can't exactly tell Jason no. He passes the unresponsive boy over reluctantly and starts covering up the empty casket again while Jason holds Tim up and against his chest. He looks down at him, cursing the weak moonlight as his only source of light, and tries to map out Tim's face as best he can. He runs his hands over his back and arms, satisfied to not feel any injury, then checks his head. His gunshot wound is gone, not even a scar or blemish to show that someone blew his brains out a few months ago, but when Jason's fingers brush over the healed spot Tim screws his face up and moans in pain, the first time his chanting has stopped since they opened the lid of that casket. Jason frowns in concern.

“Does your head hurt, baby bird?”

He knows it's a long shot, but he can't help asking.

Tim makes a confused noise, tilting his head as if trying to process the words, then shakes himself off and resumes chanting Conner's name. Jason sighs and pulls his brother closer.

Before he can descend into full worry mode, Conner walks up to them, having finished his task, and looks at Jason.

“I should fly him to the Manor. You can take your bike back and I'll meet you in the Cave.”

Jason hates the idea of letting go of Tim just as much as Conner did earlier and there's an irrational part of him that worries the boy will fly off with his brother and he'll never see him again, but he tamps down on it and tells it to shut the fuck up. Jason can't carry Tim home on his own or on his bike, and Conner needs both arms to hold Tim tightly and make sure he doesn't slip out on the way to the Cave; he can't carry both Tim and Jason. It's a sound plan.

He still hates it though.

“Okay,” he acquiesces, sighing. “I'll meet you at the Cave.”

Conner nods and eagerly accepts Tim back into his own arms when Jason hands him over. He wraps him up tightly and securely then flies off and Jason stares after them for a short second, heart pounding with adrenaline and a whole cocktail of emotions he can't detangle for the life of him right now, then turns on his heel and marches out of the cemetery and to his bike. He can't get home fast enough.

Dozens of shadows detach themselves from behind gravestones and tree trunks, slinking away from their hiding spots to approach the freshly vacated – and disturbed –  graveside. One of the assassins, the one in charge tonight, takes the lead and pauses in front of the marble stone. They scrutinise the writing on the stone, tracing the name with their eyes – a name that has fallen from their Master's lips too many times to count over the past few years, a name that seems inescapable these days – before their gaze travels down to the ground and the uneven, hastily rearranged mound of dirt in front of the stone.

If they hadn't seen it with their own eyes – if they hadn't been there when The Demon's Head's Daughter brought Jason Todd with her after taking care of business in Gotham – they wouldn't have believed it possible. The dead coming back to life, no Lazarus Pit needed. Curious.

“Our Master will want to hear of this latest development since it concerns his chosen heir. Group A, break away and keep an eye on the Manor. Group B, spread out across the city. Group C, follow me,” they command, not bothering to throw a glance at the named groups to verify their orders are being obeyed. With one last interested glance at the now empty grave, the leader turns away and melts back into the shadows, the smallest group of the bunch following their lead as they retreat to a secure location where Ra's al Ghul can be contacted and informed about Timothy Drake's state of being.

Something tells the leader that they'll need to find a way to break into the impenetrable fortress that is Wayne Manor sooner rather than later. Their Master will likely wish to retrieve his heir when he's at his most vulnerable, considering what they've been able to observe of the boy before the clone whisked him away.

At least they'll finally be doing something worthwhile after being stuck in this miserable city just to annoy the Bats for weeks.

Chapter Text

Dick is the last one in the Cave, late by a couple of hours, which is a blessing in disguise since it means that everyone has already had their fill of Tim by the time he stumbles into the med bay on shaky legs. If he knew that his baby bird would be coming back to life during the night, he never would have asked Wally to smuggle him out of the Manor and to Bludhaven before leaving for a mission with the League.

His lateness is irrelevant now, though. None of it matters, not when his eyes fall on the body lying on the hospital bed everyone in the family has been acquainted with over the years, not when his little brother is alive and whole again, his chest rising and falling steadily despite his unconsciousness. 

“Dick, I-”

“For fuck's sake, old man, leave him be.”

Dick vaguely registers Bruce and Jason's voices, doesn't really process their words, and just sprints towards where Tim is lying bundled up with an obviously stressed Kryptonian keeping watch over him. He gives Conner a brief glance, nodding at him, but his attention is quickly diverted back to his baby bird, the most pressing concern at the moment.

“Oh, Timmy,” Dick murmurs and promptly bursts into tears.

He falls to his knees next to the bed, shaking hands finding their way towards Tim's lax palm, and he clutches that warmth with all his might, as if his little brother would disappear if he let go for even a moment. He cries and cries and cries, eyes blurry with tears yet still struggling to blink through the curtain obscuring his vision so he can drink in the sight of Tim's face, the proof of life found in his rosy cheeks and the parted lips letting out soft puffs of air at regular intervals. He reaches for Tim's face, cradling his jaw as tenderly as he can, then lets his hand fall to Tim's chest so he can feel the rise and fall of his lungs, the faint beating of his heart.

With one hand on Tim's chest and the other nestling Tim's palm to his own cheek, Dick tilts his head to the side and lets himself shut his eyes for a moment. He soaks up the warmth and the movement of Tim's body, allows the beeping of the heart monitor to smooth over his jumbled mess of a heart, and slowly, his tears taper off into nothingness. 

He just stays there, locked in a world all his own, staring down at his baby brother and tracing his warm skin with a shaking finger over and over again. He needs the reassurance, the proof of life. It takes a long time for Dick to pull himself away from that hazy, parallel reality and go back to the real world, and even longer to take his eyes away from Tim.

“How…” his voice cracks on the word and he trails off. He doesn't even know how to continue the question even if his voice wasn't failing him.

An uncapped water bottle with a straw shoved inside gets pushed into his hands and Dick takes it one-handed. He sips slowly while his right hand is rhythmically stroking Tim's hair, eyes darting between his brother and Alfred's misty eyes like clockwork. Jason is hovering nearby, face betraying his whirlwind of emotions, and Conner is now lying sideways at the foot of Tim's bed with his brother's legs in his lap.

“Guess we're all allergic to staying dead in this family,” Jason is the one who responds, snorting ruefully. “Woke up in his coffin and triggered the alarms I had Bruce set up. Dunno how. Same as me, probably.” He shrugs.

“I, uhm, heard him call my name. I thought I was dreaming at first but it kept going after I woke up, just more and more panicked… I half-thought I was finally going crazy, you know? Hallucinating Tim's voice. But I couldn't take that chance so I jumped out of bed and flew to his grave. When I got closer I started hearing his heartbeat, too, so I knew it had to be real.” An incredulous laugh. “Fuck if I know how we keep coming back to life, man, but I sure am glad.”

Dick looks from Jason to Conner and back again then down at Tim's sleeping face and can't help but agree. It's a miracle, that's for sure. Part of Dick wants to laugh, certainly, because at what point does a miracle stop being one when it feels like it keeps happening every other Tuesday (Jason, Conner, Bart, Bruce, Wally, and so so many others)? But the other part of him, the more cynical side, reminds him that not everyone gets that lucky – to come back or have someone given back – and he sobers back up (his parents, Bruce's parents, Tim's and Jason's). So his hand tightens around a lock of black hair as he takes a deep breath in and silently thanks whatever higher power keeps giving his brothers back to him, acknowledging the gift for the privilege it is.

He's not going to take it for granted.

“Master Bruce has been running the appropriate tests to make sure Master Tim's health is in good order,” Alfred speaks, gently drawing Dick away from his mind and back to the present. “Doctor Thompkins popped in for a quick checkup and went over the results with him as well. She left shortly before you got here, Master Richard.”

“And? What did she say?”

Jason, Conner and Alfred all grimace slightly before the reply comes. It doesn't settle Dick's worry in the slightest.

“Physically… he is well. There is nothing wrong with the young Master.”

“But?”

“But his brain is like scrambled eggs,” Jason answers flatly. It seems like he's as unnerved as Dick is by Alfred's uncharacteristic reticence but he's doing a decent job at covering it up with nonchalance.

Conner sends Jason a dark glare that does absolutely nothing. Jason rolls his eyes as he crosses his arms and shrugs.

“What? It's true. I should know. Baby bird's brain is fine. Physically . Technically . But he did get shot in the head and then spent fuck knows how many minutes in that coffin six feet under before we got him out. I don't know how whatever magic that brought him back works but it clearly isn't a miracle cure so now he's copying me, again , by lying around all comatose.”

“How do you know?”

“Huh? I just explained it, Bird Brain.”

Dick rolls his eyes. “Yes, I know . I meant, how do you know he's not actually fine if the medical scans showed he's healthy? He's still sleeping.”

“I told you he was calling for me, right?” Conner begins and Dick switches his attention to the foot of the bed, nodding shortly. “Well, he kept that up the entire time it took me to reach him, like a mantra. No other word, no other sound, nothing but that. Just… ‘Kon, Kon, Kon,’ over and over again. It didn't stop after we got him out. Not on the way here from the cemetery. And not through all the tests Bruce ran or Doctor Thompkins’ examination or Alfred trying to get him to drink some water, not until we sedated him so he could get some rest.”

“Actually, he did stop. Once.”

Everyone turns to look at Jason and he scowls at the attention but pushes through.

“It was while you were covering the grave back up,” he tells Conner, though it's clear from his raised volume that he means his answer to be heard by everyone in the Cave, including Bruce and Damian lurking by the Batcomputer as well as Cass and Steph huddled together in a nearby cot. “I was checking him for injuries and when I touched his head where the gunshot wound was supposed to be he broke off from the chanting to moan in pain. It didn't last long and he didn't seem really capable of stringing words together when I asked him if it hurt, but… yeah.”

Dick looks back down at Tim. Worry is burning in his chest like a bonfire and he flutters his hands uselessly above Tim's face and chest, not knowing what to do, how to help, acutely aware of his uselessness – there is nothing he can do. He's not a doctor or a magic person. He doesn't know how to heal people nor does he have healing potions at his disposal–

“What about the Lazarus Pit?” he bursts out before he has time to think his words through. Almost immediately, Dick grimaces and regrets them, wanting to take them back, as Jason's face pales before morphing into a veritable thundercloud of anger while pained and indignant noises come from Bruce and Damian's directions respectively.

“No.” Jason's voice is an impenetrable wall, leaving no room for argument even if Dick were inclined to argue. “Timmy is going nowhere near that shit. And especially not anywhere close to Ra's. And anyway, the Pit should be our absolute last resort, Dickface, not the first goddamn thing you can think about!”

Dick can see Jason's hands are balled into fists, arms hanging at his sides and clearly itching for a gun or to punch something – probably Dick's face – but then his younger brother visibly forces himself to take a deep breath and let the anger go, and his hands slowly loosen up bit by bit until they're open and relaxed by his sides.

“You're right, I'm sorry. I shouldn't have said it.”

He feels awful, he does. Not only for dredging unpleasant memories up for Jason but also because this is a sensitive topic to everyone, especially those who were very much around to witness Jason's rampage through Gotham after his experience with the Pit and the League of Assassins. Contrary to what most people would believe, the Pit doesn't take over someone's mind after a single use and turns them into a killing machine. But the experience is traumatic nonetheless. The jarring feeling of going from being dead to suddenly breathing lungfuls of magic green soup would be enough to destabilise anyone. Add into account the lack of familiar and reassuring faces and sprinkle a dose of good old fashioned emotional manipulation while you're at your most vulnerable and it's no surprise that someone who already had anger and abandonment issues like Jason would go ballistic and enter his villain era. Dick doesn't want to imagine what that would look like with Tim instead, who's actually gone through fractured or nearly broken relationships with all of the Bats and wouldn't need much manipulating to turn on them if Ra's got his hands on his brother.

And no offense to Jason, but if villain Jason was a menace, then villain Tim has the potential of being downright apocalyptic.

No one wants that.

And yet…

Tim's chest continues to rise and fall steadily, his eyelids fluttering every so often with what Dick hopes are dreams. Dreams means brain activity. It means his little brother won't be catatonic for the foreseeable future, possibly forever. And Dick knows it's selfish of him, to want more, to demand better – doesn't he already have enough? Isn't it enough for Tim to be alive, moving and breathing and not buried in an expensive suit six feet under? But, to his shame, it isn't. He wants Tim's smiles, the small and private ones that the media never see and the wide and exuberant ones that come out when he forgets to keep himself tightly bundled up and out of the way. He wants his laughter and his giggles, and the way his breath catches when Dick tickles him to get the remote from under his butt. He wants to hear Tim's methodical and meticulous voice walking Dick through a case and he wants to feel Tim's fingers sliding through his open palm when Dick whispers his insecurities to his little brother, the only brother he ever felt not ashamed to be open and honest with in his godforsaken life.

He knows the Pit isn't an ideal solution, shouldn't even be a last resort. He knows that. But the selfish part of Dick Grayson that never quite stopped wanting his parents back and Zucco dead instead can't help but think that Jason eventually got better and came back to them, didn't he? Surely it wouldn't be so bad with Tim, if he managed to track down a nearby Lazarus Pit to dunk him in and immediately took him back home to care for and rehabilitate as a living member of society.

It's a selfish, disturbing train of thought.

Dick can't bring himself to fully quiet it, though.

“Damn right you shouldn't have,” Jason grumbles, hackles slowly lowering when Dick doesn't try to argue. “Besides, we don't know if Tim's condition will persist when he wakes up or how long it'll last if it does. Talia wasn't big on patience when she nabbed me so I wasn't really given the chance to recover on my own before she threw me in the green sludge.”

“Jason is right,” Bruce finally decides to speak, piping up from his place at the computer. Dick tenses at the sound of his voice but forces himself to relax, redirecting his energy towards smoothing Tim's blanket out and fluffing up his pillow. “We have to be patient and not rush Tim's recovery. However long it takes for him to come back to us.”

‘And if he never does?’ remains unsaid inside Dick's head, bitter and fearful in equal measure. He doesn't voice a response and simply lays his head down on top of Tim's chest, arms clinging to the boy's waist and ear pressed against the ribcage, listening to the steady thump-thump of his heart doubled by the heart monitor next to the medical cot.

He'll do whatever it takes to get his baby bird back. He lost him twice already – first when he screwed up with the Robin mantle, then when he wasn't fast enough to save a brother from death yet again – and he doesn't plan on doing it a third time. And if a Lazarus Pit is needed to accomplish that… then so be it. Dick isn't losing Tim again.

There is a shadow trailing after Damian.

Today is Saturday, so he has no school to attend, and patrol isn't starting for hours yet, but Damian is an early riser and as such he has been trying to keep himself busy all day. The Manor is a big place and, as has become the norm for the past few months, it's wildly more populated now than it used to be, so finding places where he can be alone has been increasingly difficult. He doesn't want to get in anyone's way (okay, he doesn't want to deal with anyone right now because the past two weeks have been hard and he's been fighting a whole cocktail of feelings and thoughts he doesn't really know how to articulate to anyone but himself so he doesn't want to spend time bonding ) and he has nowhere to go since it's raining cats and dogs outside, so Damian has been flitting from room to room since he woke up in an attempt to avoid people and curb his boredom.

The only person he's interacted with all day has been Pennyworth, and that was in the morning when the butler served him breakfast and a tight lipped smile, but other than that, Damian has been left alone.

Or something close to that.

He first noticed his silent company an hour after he left the dining room while he finished proofreading his science report for Monday in the library. He heard the unmistakable creaking of the double oak doors and the soft padding footsteps of light, socked feet on the polished floors, but kept his eyes on his paper and ignored the unwelcome intruder. If Todd had decided to forgo the privacy of his room to instead read his accursed classics in the library, he was more than welcome to keep his own company on the opposite side of the room to Damian. And if it was someone else, like Brown or Cassandra – the light tread did indicate someone of smaller stature than Todd, and while he usually wouldn't have counted Richard out, who could move more gracefully than a ballerina when he wanted to, Damian doubted his older brother had left his vigil over Timothy so early in the day – then Damian truly had no interest in entertaining them at this hour when he had more important things to focus on.

When the person didn't speak or attempt to breach his personal bubble, Damian had shrugged internally and focused all of his attention on the concluding paragraph of his paper, content to leave the interloper to their own devices.

Only when he finished and rose from his seat in preparation to vacate the library – it was getting close to Todd's roaming hours and he truly didn't want to run into the man today – did Damian's eyes alight upon the person sharing the quiet space with him. He was standing at the floor to ceiling windows, socked toes pressed against the glass in tandem with the palms half covered by Kent’s sweatshirt sleeves, frayed at the edges, and he was staring absently at the rain soaking the Manor grounds beyond the windows, swaying from side to side and seeming to murmur something under his breath.

Damian didn't bother to decipher it. He already knew what the words were.

Word.

Timothy didn't seem to even realise he had company, too focused on the downpour beating against the reinforced glass.

Damian's heart constricted at the sight and that cocktail of confusing emotions threatened to sweep him under but he swallowed harshly against the tide and straightened himself up, gathering his school report and leaving the library with haste. He debated letting someone know that Timothy had left his room but Richard barrelled past him with mussed hair and a missing sock right as he was weighing the pros and cons of talking to someone about it so he let it go and continued on his way.

He thought that was that. They never really left Timothy out of their sight – too scared of what he might do if left alone for too long, how he might injure himself or wander out onto the grounds aimlessly – and after the morning scare he gave Richard, Damian doubted the older man wouldn't just stay glued to their wayward brother for the rest of the day.

But not even an hour after that, when Damian was getting warmed up in one of Richard's abandoned gymnasiums for some solo practice, the creaking of oak doors alerted him to someone's presence for the second time that day and this time, he turned around to acknowledge his company. Timothy shuffled in, gaze absent as ever, chapped lips murmuring the same word over and over again mutely, and came to a stop in front of the mirrors spanning the entire length of one wall before he plopped down unceremoniously on the ground and started drawing invisible patterns on the mirror with his index finger.

Damian watched him silently for a long moment. His brother was dressed in day clothes now, as opposed to the mismatched pajamas he had been wearing that morning, though he doubted Timothy had dressed himself. His hair, overgrown but clean and combed, was spilling down his back and across his shoulders, and he observed how Timothy would raise his free hand every so often to remove a stubborn strand that kept falling into his eyes.

He wasn't acknowledging Damian, just like in the library, but he seemed perfectly content to sit there and trace nonsensical shapes into the pristine mirrors tended to by Pennyworth religiously.

Once again, Damian swallowed all of his feelings down and pushed them to the back of his mind. He was here to train, not ogle his brother and angst about his condition, so he left Timothy alone and forced his mind to focus on his warm-ups before losing himself for a little while in the familiar exercises and drills of Father's training regimen.

He walked Timothy to the kitchen after he was done, trusting that someone would collect the boy for lunch before he had a chance to wander away on his own again, then retreated to his bedroom so he could take a shower and lay down in bed for a while. Pennyworth brought him a sandwich when it was clear Damian wouldn't be coming down for lunch, for which he thanked the man politely, and then he spent the following two hours drawing in his sketchbook and listening to the pounding rain outside.

But restlessness got to him before long. There was only so much drawing he could do in an attempt to ignore the storm in his heart before he simply couldn't take it anymore. The only solution, in the absence of grabbing Titus’ leash and whiling away the hours outside, was to wander around the Manor and explore the numerous rooms that remained empty even after all the recent overflowing company.

Which brings him back to now.

As soon as he steps outside into the hallway and starts walking, he can hear a bedroom door opening and closing with a soft click. Soft steps are trailing him, silent and unhurried, but determined in dogging him no matter how many twists and turns he takes. Damian doesn't know why Timothy has decided to be his own personal shadow today, given his lack of interest in anyone but Kent since he was brought home – and even then, it doesn't take him long to forget the clone is there and drift off into haziness again – and he doesn't know what to do about it.

Richard is probably freaking out. Todd, too, though he always tries to hide it as if they can't all see how much he cares about Timothy, about all of them. What Damian should do is take Timothy by the hand and drag him back to wherever Richard has decided to hole up today. It's not like he can do anything for the older boy. Talking doesn't help and any activity they try to engage Timothy in only manages to hold his attention for a record of 4.65 seconds before he loses interest and drifts away again. The only things he's been able to do so far for longer than that – and with a lot of prompting and constant reminding at that – have been eating, going to the toilet, and washing himself (unless it's a bath, at which point Timothy just lies there in the tub and plays with the water like a child, dunking his sponge and then squeezing it out before repeating the process again and again ad nauseam).

Damian barely knew how to talk to Timothy when he was in full possession of his mental faculties. They had only just begun to get closer. He is way out of his depth now. He can't possibly engage with this catatonic version of his older brother and look after him. It's ludicrous.

And even so…

Damian looks back at Timothy out of the corner of his eye to see the boy still following him like a lost duckling at a steady pace. He heaves a sigh, letting his shoulders slump for a brief moment, then takes a fortifying breath and marches determinedly towards the end of the hallway and the window alcove waiting for them.

He takes a seat, arranging the pillows across from him in a more comfortable position, then looks back at the slowly approaching Timothy. He breathes in again. He can do this.

“Take a seat, Timothy.”

There is no outward response, no sign that Timothy heard Damian or understood his words if he did, but the older boy sits down when he reaches the alcove all the same, even going so far as to prop his feet up and draw his knees to his chest.

Damian turns his face towards the cool glass of the windows and stares off into the distance for a long time. The rain has yet to abate, still going strong so late into the afternoon, and something in Damian's chest aches with relatability. When he turns his head to gaze at Timothy once more, he lets his temple rest against the glass, welcoming the chill against his warm skin.

“I hate seeing you like this, you know?” He speaks out loud though his voice is soft enough not to carry too far down the hallway.

Timothy makes a noise, a whine or a chirp that on anyone else might have been called questioning, but his eyes don't rise to meet Damian’s and his fingers keep worrying at the frayed edges of Kent’s sweatshirt sleeves.

“There was a day when I might have rejoiced at your downfall. The great Timothy Drake, reduced to a bumbling idiot who can't even feed himself without supervision.” Damian scoffs, more at himself from a few years ago than at Timothy now. “Now all I can think about is how much you'd despise knowing we've all seen you like this. How you'd see this weakness and think yourself lacking. You'd beat yourself up for making all of us responsible for you, for making our lives harder, and you'd hate all the work you left unfinished, all the cases that could have already been solved if you'd been well enough to solve them.

“There was a time when I couldn't see your worth. When I thought that anything you can do, I could do better. But every time I've had a difficult case, whether with Batman or on my own, since you died… all I could think about was that I wanted to call you and ask for help. Because that's what you do, isn't it? You help. Always. Even when you shouldn't, even when we don't deserve it. Maybe even more so then.

“But me? I can't help. I can't do a blasted thing to aid you. I can only sit here and watch the rain fall while you remain lost in your head and hope you'll help yourself for once and find your own way back to reality, back to us.”

There's a lump in Damian's throat and he lets it break outwards into tears, refusing to swallow it down for the first time since Timothy came back. He cries quietly, the only way he knows how, and thumps his head against the window desperately, frustrated that he is so helpless in the face of his brother's health. What good is he, what good is Robin, if he can't even help his own family?

A gentle touch on his balled hands startles him and he whips his head around to see Timothy's cold, slender fingers wrapping around Damian's knuckles. The touch is soft and clumsy but it's all too clear to Damian that Timothy is attempting to stroke his knuckles and pet him.

“Kon, Kon, Kon,” Timothy whispers in a voice louder than before but not by much. His brows furrow momentarily and he shakes his head, as if frustrated, then he sighs and repeats the name again more softly.

Damian's astonishment is enough to stop his tears and he extracts one of his hands to wipe at his eyes before he lays it back on top of Timothy's, squeezing once.

“Yes, Timothy. Kon.”

He smiles at his brother, a tremulous, fragile stretch of lips, and Timothy looks up into Damian's eyes for a longer stretch than he usually affords eye contact before looking back down. It might be his own imagination and wishful thinking, but Damian thinks there might have even been a raised corner to Timothy's lips, something approaching a smile, before their gazes broke away from each other.

He thinks about Richard's words the day – late night, early morning – they got Timothy back. About the Lazarus Pit. And he thinks about a dead boy coming out of the miraculous waters, scared and alone, surrounded by enemies, lied to and egged on, whose anger and insecurities were used against him to fulfil an agenda not his own. He thinks about his grandfather and his obsession with Timothy, he thinks about the lengths Timothy went to in order to drive his rejection home and remain in Gotham, with his family, instead of by Ra's al Ghul's side.

He thinks it might be easier, if they just admitted defeat, if they lost patience, if they lost hope, and just took the easy way out by using a Pit. But he also thinks Timothy would hate it, hate them , and would probably never forgive them for doing that to him.

Damian looks at the boy in front of him, blue eyes hidden by his too-long fringe, hands clasped between Damian's own, and he shakes his head. No, he couldn't do that to Timothy. Even if it means delaying his recovery by a significant amount of time. Even if it means never getting him back completely.

Damian has been nothing but selfish and self-serving for the majority of his life. He used to never hesitate to pick the easiest and fastest route that would take him to his goals, no matter what he had to do or who he had to walk on to get there. But his family taught him that there is another way, a harder but drastically more rewarding way. Timothy taught him that there is worth in sacrifice and compromise. He refuses to go back on his teachings now. He won't be selfish this time. And he'll be here for his brother, every step of the way, even if it means never getting more than a hesitant touch and the ghost of a smile in return. This, he promises.

It's a rare sunny day in Gotham. Technically Bristol – Tim explained to him multiple times that Bristol is separate from Gotham, though Kon just lumps the entire area together in his own head if he's being honest. The important part is that it's a warm day, sunny without the heat suffocating them, with the smell of blooming flowers pervading the air and tickling his senses.

Tim has been back for close to two months now and Kon couldn't be happier.

(That's a lie. He could always be happier. For example, if he could kiss his boyfriend and have him reciprocate, he'd be over the moon. If Tim could say anything other than his name, he'd burst into song. If there was literally any progress in Tim's condition, Kon would probably convince Ma and Pa to sell the farm and he'd donate all the money to charity. But none of that is happening so he remains happy that Tim is alive and tries to convince himself that it's enough. That he isn't worried. Most days, he succeeds.)

Because it's a beautiful day and because Tim has been cooped up inside the Manor for too long, Kon, Cassie and Bart decide to dress him up for the weather and take him outside for a stroll around the Manor grounds, determined to enjoy the weather and the fresh air. Tim doesn't seem to be capable of enjoying much, but they all tell themselves that that doesn't matter.

It's a good day.

They finish a few laps around the place at a steady pace – Tim's pace, that is, which Bart detests on principle but tries to endure for the first three minutes before he loses the battle and starts running around like the Duracell bunny – then come to a stop a little ways away from the Manor's back entrance where Kon can feel at least the illusion of a modicum of privacy. He unfolds the blanket Alfred generously provided them with and spreads it out evenly across the manicured grass then gently guides Tim down to take a seat before doing the same himself. Cassie plops herself down next to them, leaning back on her elbows to sunbathe after placing a pair of sunglasses on her face, and Bart takes a beach ball from… somewhere and starts playing against himself at rapid speed.

“Are you thirsty, Tim?” Kon asks, pointlessly, and sighs to himself when Tim, predictably, doesn't answer. “C'mere.”

He pulls out a water bottle from the tote bag Alfred gave them, sticking a straw into it when he twists the cap open, and holds it up to Tim patiently while the boy takes a few pulls from it as prompted. He gives his boyfriend a smile and wipes the corner of his mouth when a drop slides down his chin, then shoves the straw all the way inside and traps it there by twisting the cap closed.

“I don't know why you even bother asking him things,” Cassie says while Kon busies himself with rummaging through the tote bag's contents. When he shoots her a glare she's not even looking at him to receive it which– rude.

“Just because he's non-verbal doesn't mean we should treat him like he's a piece of furniture,” Kon snaps, irritated. “It's good to talk to him, anyway; he might start responding eventually.”

Cassie snorts. “Yeah. Right. If that's what you wanna believe… be my guest.”

Kon doesn't really appreciate her tone – or her words. He abandons his task and shoves the tote bag away from him with more force than necessary as he turns towards her with balled fists.

“What's your problem?! Seriously, Cassie, why are you even here if you find taking care of Tim such a chore? Nobody's forcing you to be here!”

Bart stops zooming around the place abruptly, leaving his ball to bounce away, neglected, in favour of looking between Kon and Cassie with a frown on his face.

“Guys…”

“It's not a chore!” Cassie erupts, ignoring Bart, and straightens up so she's sitting upright and facing Kon. “But this is pointless! It's been two months and there's no change! None! And instead of looking for actual solutions, all of you are content to just… play babysitter and wait for a miracle to happen! It's frustrating!”

“I know it's frustrating! For fuck's sake, every day I come here and expect to find Tim at his laptop, three energy drinks empty on his desktop, hacking away into some random Gotham villain's bank accounts! And every day, I see him wandering around the place with no recognition of anything and when he sees me he only stops chanting that damn mantra for a few seconds before he goes right back to it! I can't sleep, Cassie, because all I can hear is him whispering my name on loop! So don't talk to me about frustrating!”

Kon gets up from the blanket and walks a few feet away so he can start pacing, feeling as if he'll burst at the seams if he keeps sitting there and doing nothing. Bart watches him worriedly and makes as if to stop him a few times but always holds himself back. Cassie remains where she is, her own hands fisted tightly, a tick in her jaw as she glares at the fists in her lap.

“I can't keep seeing him like this,” she says eventually. Her voice is much quieter, subdued almost, and it's clear that all the winds have been taken out of her sails. Kon empathises. “It's like… like we have him back but not really. Like a cruel trick, a monkey's paw. Here, morons, you can have your best friend back. Surprise! He's a shell of himself that can't even drink water without spilling it on himself. Enjoy!” She huffs and leans forward to roughly pull a clump of grass out of the ground, tearing into it viciously as she speaks. “What a joke.”

Kon huffs his own frustrated laugh and nods. “Yeah, I know. I get it. But I'd rather have him like this than not at all.”

Bart makes a sound of agreement, vibrating nervously a foot or two away.

“And you think I don't?” Cassie shoots back. “But why isn't anyone doing anything? Like, it's clear this whole ‘give him time and he'll heal’ shtick isn't working! Why aren't we talking to someone? Maybe they can help!”

“And who would we even talk to about this, Cassie? Zatanna? She doesn't deal with this kind of stuff.”

“I don't know… that Constantine guy, maybe? He's into all sorts of weird magic stuff. What's the difference between a dead boy brought back to life by unknown means now catatonic and getting into a fistfight with the devil, or whatever the hell he does in his spare time ?”

Kon and Bart both snort, prompting a small smile from Cassie in return, and Kon finally stops pacing to look off into the distance towards the Manor. He has no doubt that someone is keeping an eye on them – whether through the actual windows or the multiple cameras installed around the property – but he wonders if they can listen in as well. He's not sure if he even cares.

“I'm sure they've already looked into it. Or have a good reason not to if they haven't.”

Bart snorts derisively this time and shakes his head.

“If Tim taught us anything about his family is that they're disasters who don't really go about things the rational way when it involves one of their own.”

“Yeah, that's literally how Tim became Robin, c’mon,” Cassie agrees.

“Okay, point.” Kon runs a hand through his hair, blowing out a tired breath, and his eyes fall on Tim who's been quietly braiding a lock of his own hair during his and Cassie's semi-argument. The sight is both incredibly cute and heartbreaking. “But we can't just go behind Batman's back. Not with this.”

“So we just do nothing? Wait for him to just get better on his own?”

Kon shakes his head. “I don't know.”

“There's not much else we can really do anyway,” Bart pipes up, balancing his ball on the tip of his index finger now with his tongue stuck between his teeth. “We don't have any connections the Bats don't so even if we go to anyone about this, Batman will hear of it before we even finish talking. And then he could get mad enough that we went behind his back that he bans us from seeing Tim. And I don't know about you, dudes, but I'm not ready to give up on my Tim time.”

Cassie blows out her own frustrated breath and groans dramatically as she lets herself plop down on her back with a thud. “Me neither. Ugh. Fine, whatever. You guys win.”

Kon shakes his head, snorting quietly to himself, and walks back towards the blanket.

“I'm going to pretend to be surprised now,” he says teasingly, all anger swept away like dust in a breeze. He crouches next to the tote bag, intending to rummage around for a can of soda for himself, but his hand falls away limply, task forgotten, when he looks at Tim and realises the boy is now fiddling with his finished braid while his other hand holds a water bottle up to his mouth, straw sticking out between his lips.

“Is he-” Bart begins, voice breaking in his excitement.

“He is!” Kon answers jubilantly. “He took it and opened it and drank from it! All by himself!”

All the noise seems to finally reach Tim in that moment because he lifts his eyes away from where they were glued to the end of his braid, gaze locking with Kon, and he offers up a small smile that Kon is fairly certain has behind it the power of the sun with how powerful it makes him feel. His eyes even crinkle at the corners briefly while he smiles.

Kon drops himself down next to Tim and pulls him gently into his side, holding him tightly to himself as he presses a lingering kiss into Tim's hair. He breathes in the scent of his shampoo mixed with the spring flowers in bloom and lets his spine relax and his muscles loosen with the relief he feels.

“I know you're in there, sweetheart. Take all the time you need, but please don't forget to come back to us. We miss you,” he murmurs into Tim's hair and breathes out slowly. When he looks down at Cassie, he finds her watching them with shiny eyes hidden behind sunglasses and a sad smile on her lips. He knows it's not nearly enough. He does. But after living in a world with nothing at all, Kon isn't very inclined to being picky now. He'll take what he can get. Even if it's something as small as this.

Chapter Text

The room is quiet and still as a tomb. The window is open and the soft breeze from outside wafts in every so often like clockwork, ruffling the curtains and disturbing the silence with the sound of shifting fabric on wooden floors. The moon is high in the sky, only a half disc illuminating the night, but it's more than enough light for Dick to see in the near pitch dark of Tim's bedroom.

The younger boy – and really, he's a man, has been for some time now, but Dick can't think of him as anything but his little baby brother, all of thirteen, showing up at his door and demanding things of him that no one else would have ever dared to, with a gap-toothed smile and way too much faith in him – is sprawled almost sideways in his bed, blankets kicked off to the foot of his bed and one pillow smothered half under him, half in his arms as he sleeps.

Dick sighs and leans back against the doors of Tim's dresser, hugging his knees closer to his chest as he keeps watching his brother sleep.

It's become a problem and he knows it. He doesn't need Alfred's pursed lips or Cass’ frowns to know that. He can't keep acting like this – overprotective, smothering, obsessive. It's not healthy, for Tim or himself. Yet, there's nothing he can actually do about it, or at least nothing he can bring himself to do: the thought of falling asleep in his own bed (or worse, back in Blud), not knowing if Tim is safe, if he's still alive, if he hasn't wandered off again on his own and put himself in danger… It's too much to bear. At least here, at the Manor, in Tim's room, he can put a stopper to the bubbling anxiety coursing through his veins like lava and relax for a bit.

Sometimes he sleeps, curled up on the floor and half ready to spring awake at the slightest sign of danger, always waking up with a crick in his neck and a sore back. More often than not, though, he spends the entire night standing guard over his brother, unable to sleep but knowing that he wouldn't be able to focus on anything else were he to retreat to his room and make himself busy.

Dick's eyes, as has become the norm, don't take long to drift back towards the contorted starfish in the middle of Tim's bed. The sight stirs conflicting feelings: awe, gratitude, bitterness, longing, heartache, guilt, shame. He averts his gaze when it becomes too much and lets his eyes drill holes into a fixed spot in the darkness.

It's been four months. Sixteen weeks. A little over a hundred days. More than 2,500 hours. And each one has been filled with Tim, alive and whole and back in their lives, a walking miracle that Dick refuses to take for granted or lose sight of lest he gets taken from them again. He's happy; more than he can remember being lately, more than he knows how to handle, and it would probably be overwhelming to feel so much of it after months of nothing but anger and abject misery if it weren't for the constant tide, as if dragged to shore by the moon each night, of frustration and bitterness, swept under by shame-flavoured sea foam immediately after.

The fact that Tim is even alive should be more than enough. The fact that he's well enough physically to not be bed-ridden and unable to do things without assistance even more so. And yet his progress – what little there is – has been slower than slow and hardly what one would call consistent. Sometimes he does things on his own, unprompted, and other times he needs someone to feed him every bite of food and wipe his mouth because he doesn't seem capable of even lifting a fork up to his mouth.

Dick knows he should be patient. Everyone keeps telling him that. And he wants to be. But the sight of Tim living day after day as little more than a shadow of what he used to be does nothing but fill him with anger and longing. He can't keep waiting around like this. He can't keep having his brother so close yet millions of miles away, trapped in a brain that, for all intents and purposes, seems entirely healthy and functional. He needs his Tim back. And it gets harder and harder each day to convince himself that Tim wouldn't find it in himself to forgive Dick for taking drastic measures.

Leslie is stumped, as Dick suspected would be the case from that first day in the Cave medbay. Zatanna, though not familiar with whatever type of magic might have been at play in Tim's resurrection, gave it a try regardless at Bruce's insistence but, predictably, came up empty. They tried every other magic user or mystic arts expert they know or vaguely even heard of, all of it to no avail. No one could even tell them what had the power to bring Tim back to life, in the precise state he was in, let alone how they did it and why Tim isn't back to normal despite all evidence saying he should be. And Constantine? Fat load of good he did. Took one look at Tim, snorted, and walked away, throwing this over his shoulder as he sauntered out of the Cave at a leisurely pace: “I ain't touching that with a ten foot pole, love. Not my business to interfere in interuniversal fourth-wall breaking divine interventions. I'm sure you'll figure it out on your own soon! Cheerio!”

And that was that. No other leads, nothing to tell them where to even begin looking for a reason behind Tim's catatonia or how to fix it or even how long it would last and if there was even a drop of hope left that it would eventually go away.

Dick is ashamed to admit that he's honestly a few bad days away from asking Damian for Talia's number and strong-arming her into providing him with the location of a working Lazarus Pit he can use on Tim.

The curtains flutter restlessly in his periphery and he's debating getting up to close the window, not wanting Tim to get cold in the night, when the quiet gets disturbed by shrill alarms cutting through it like a knife. Dick jumps to his feet in an instant and he's halfway to the door when he looks back, remembering Tim and the opened window, and he rushes to the bed where a confused Tim has opened his eyes blearily and is struggling to stay upright. Dick smooths back his tangled mess of hair and shushes the confused noises of his baby brother as soothingly as he can.

“It's okay, baby bird. You're safe. I'm just going to see what the fuss is all about and then I'll come right back, okay? You stay here and wait for me, please.” Dick plants a kiss on Tim's forehead, squeezing his shoulder briefly as he shuts his eyes tightly, then he rises to his feet and hurries to the window to close it hastily without drawing back the curtains. “I'll be right back!” he calls out one last time, throwing what he hopes is a reassuring look in his confused brother’s direction, and then he slips out the door and into the hallway.

The alarm is still blaring outside of Tim's room and now that he doesn't have the door somewhat muffling the sound, he can also pinpoint its origin. It's coming from the Cave, and though it's not one he has had reason to hear often, Dick knows its significance: the Cave has been breached. 

They have unwelcome visitors downstairs.

Dick takes out his escrima sticks, always tucked away under his sweatpants and ready to be brought out at a moment's notice, then carefully makes his way towards Bruce's study and the grandfather clock therein. The Manor is silent apart from the annoying alarm that's making Dick's teeth ache with how hard he's gritting them but he’s under no illusions that the rest of the family isn't awake and alert, probably making the same trek Dick is, only from different directions, if they haven't already arrived downstairs before him. His thoughts are confirmed not even a minute later, when he runs into Steph and Dami, both clad in pajamas but ready for a fight, ready to defend their home and their family. Dick nods in their direction, placing his index finger over his lips silently, then motions for them to follow him as he takes point in their little impromptu line towards the study.

They obey without hesitation and soon the three of them are filing into Bruce's study on silent feet, the steadily growing louder alarm working in their favour as it masks any slight sounds they might be making by mistake. The clock is disturbed, the secret passage left wide open by the previous user, and Dick doesn't know if this is the source of the alarm or if another member of their family got there ahead of them and didn't bother shutting the door behind them as they rushed down to the Cave. He's not even sure which option he prefers, not with the uncertainty of what or who they might be facing.

They don't waste much time lingering in the study. Dick goes ahead first, taking the stairs two or three at a time in his haste to assess the situation and come to the aid of whoever got there first, and before he knows it, he, Damian and Steph are standing in the middle of the Cave, Jason and Bruce at their side, and what looks like a small army of assassins standing against them on all sides. Dick turns around in a circle, trying to spot a gap in their formation, but they're well and truly surrounded.

“Took you long enough,” Jason grumbles without much heat.

“Stealth was advisable as opposed to speed, Todd,” Damian retaliates, though Dick can hear the frustration and apprehension in the teenager's voice.

“What matters is that we're all here,” Bruce interjects before the two boys can get into their usual brand of squabbling. “Get ready to engage at a moment's notice.”

Dick wants to point out that not all of them are here, but a flash of colour up in the rafters grabs his attention for a brief second and he shuts his mouth. It looks like Cass took a different route down. As such, he nods silently and flexes, getting into a fighting stance as he waits for the assassins’ move.

As if they had been waiting for the entire family to arrive, their numerous intruders explode in a flurry of attacks without warning. Dick has no time to think about the odd situation or the reason behind their presence here as four assassins jump in his direction and start attacking from all sides. He blocks attacks faster than he can think, throwing kicks and punches almost as much as he evades them, but his sticks come in handy and give him an edge every time he manages to target vulnerable spots and electrocute his opponents. Even so, there are a lot of assassins, and their skills are nothing to scoff at. Even with their entire family facing off against the small army it's clear that they can't keep this going for too long lest they utterly exhaust themselves into uselessness. They have to end the fight and soon, especially with–

“TIM IS UPSTAIRS!” Dick yells as he remembers the confused boy he left in his bedroom all alone and unguarded. He doesn't know where Alfred is and he is aware that the old butler is more than capable of using a shotgun and fighting back against threats, but it's clear the League has brought out the big guns tonight and Alfred on his own against God knows how many assassins will not be nearly enough.

“YOU LEFT HIM ALONE? WHAT THE HELL, DICKFACE!” Jason shouts back indignantly as he shoots an assassin in the leg and another in the shoulder.

“WELL WHAT WAS I SUPPOSED TO DO? TAKE HIM WITH ME?”

Two assassins come at Dick at the same time, aiming their swords at his neck, but before they can strike Damian and Cass jump on their backs and incapacitate them before springing away again to fight off more of their assailants. 

“CAN YOU TWO STOP YELLING? ONE OF YOU BREAK OFF AND GO BACK TO HIM BEFORE THESE FUCKERS GET A CHANCE TO!” Steph intervenes with a roll of her eyes. “It's like I'm dealing with amateurs.”

“Stephanie is right. We cannot leave Tim vulnerable,” Bruce grunts his agreement, punching an assassin in the face and breaking the leg of another immediately after.

“You go!” Jason declares before Dick has a chance to volunteer himself. “I'll clear a path for you and keep these fuckers off your back until you get upstairs.”

“There might be more assassins inside the Manor already. Be careful and take Tim away and to a secure location if the risk of being overwhelmed is too big,” Bruce orders.

Dick nods tightly. “Roger that.” To Jason, he offers a grim smile and what he hopes is gratitude in his gaze when their eyes lock. “Ready when you are.”

Jason takes the lead, shooting assassins left and right, while Dick removes any stragglers from his path. It's slow going and it's clear that the army still left functional are doing their best to slow them down even further and there is no doubt in his mind now that their real goal here was Tim all along. He can't believe how stupid he was to leave his baby brother all alone. He should have taken him and fled as soon as that damned alarm started.

“This is where I leave you, Dickie. Find Tim and get the hell out of here, okay? Don't fuck it up,” Jason says, saluting him with one of his guns, and then Dick is through the door and into the study, the grandfather clock shutting behind him with a click that sounds like finality. He can't let his worry for the rest of his family overwhelm him if he has any hope of finding Tim and keeping him safe. Now, more than ever, he needs to keep a level head and focus on the mission.

Without the blaring intruder alarm ringing in his ears, the Manor is eerily silent. The stillness makes goosebumps rise on Dick’s skin and he tamps down on the worry that he may already be too late. Steeling himself, Dick starts walking on light, stealthy feet and retraces his earlier steps back towards Tim’s bedroom.

There is no sign of any stray League assassins up here but he knows better than to feel safe because of that. He pays close attention to every dark corner and shadowy place where an assassin might be hiding as well as making sure not to step on any creaky floorboards on the way up the stairs, and the house remains quiet and seemingly empty as he makes his way back to where he started.

It's when he enters the family wing, right at the top of the grand staircase, that he finds the first sign of something being wrong. Bloody handprints on the dark wood of the banister.

Dick's heart jumps to his throat at the sight and he has to take a few seconds to steady himself and not jump to conclusions.

He keeps walking, trepidation and worry buzzing in his veins and threatening to make him lose his cool, and the blood doesn't disappear. As he advances further along the corridor towards the end of the hallway where Tim's room rests, trickles of blood accompany his journey. Dark, wet smudges stain the other bedroom doors here and there and it's clear to Dick that whoever was injured was unsteady on their feet and had to hold onto their surroundings to reach Tim's room. He can only hope it's an assassin.

The door to Tim's room, when he reaches it at last, is wide open. In fact, it looks like someone blasted their way in. He steps inside with his guard up, ready to take on another army all on his own to defend his little brother, but he is halted in his tracks by the sight that greets him.

Alfred, shotgun in his hands, slumped against the foot of Tim's bed with blood pouring out of his side.

Dick freezes. His brain stops like a record scratch on those old vinyl players Bruce still keeps around and he cannot make sense of what he's seeing. The blood is dark and glistening in the moonlight and, vaguely, Dick remarks that there is too much of it on the floor and on Alfred's pajamas.

“Don't just stand there, foolish boy,” Alfred snaps, gasping in a breath, voice weak and raspy. It accomplishes the task of breaking Dick out of his stupor, though. “Those blasted ninjas took Master Tim! Go, before they get away!”

Dick finally notices the glaring absence of his brother, as well as the disaster that the bedroom has become, the clear victim of a vicious fight, and he looks at the open window letting in the breeze he was enjoying not even an hour previous. He looks indecisively at Alfred, conflict clear on his face.

“I'll be fine, don't worry about me. Go, Dick! Go now!”

The informal usage of his name, more than anything, jolts Dick fully back to reality and he nods jerkily towards his grandfather as he leaps to the window and vaults over the ledge, landing roughly on the grass three stories below. He shakes himself off as he forces his mind to reorient itself quickly and he spots his target several yards away even through the nighttime gloom. Two figures, running with what Dick might have confused for inhuman speed, one of them carrying a limp body slung over their shoulder.

Tim!

Dick runs, sprinting as fast as his tired muscles and sleep deprived body lets him, and he curses the distance between them as he closes the gap frustratingly slowly. The assassins seem to realise someone is on their tail and put on a burst of speed but Dick gives chase, pushing himself to go faster, further, harder, ignoring the burning in his calves and lungs as he runs. The assassin carrying Tim runs ahead while the other one hangs back a few feet and Dick is sure it's purposeful. Even so, he tries to overtake them and ignore them in favour of the one who has his brother, but they don't seem keen on letting that happen.

Dick gets grabbed, halted in his progress, and he tousles around with the assassin for a bit – too long, way way too long – before he manages to jam his escrima sticks in their neck and make them go limp. Huffing and panting but aware he has no time to catch his breath, Dick stumbles away from the unconscious body and resumes his chase, cursing the delay when he spots Tim and his kidnapper much farther away than they were before. He has to catch up to them fast, before they leave the property and have a chance to get away.

While he struggles to shorten the gap between them, an unwanted thought pops into Dick's head. It's one he's had before and he tries to shake it off but he can't make it go away no matter how hard he tries. It's horrible. It's unthinkable. It's not worth the risk and it could never be, not when it's Tim and not when it involves Ra's al Ghul of all people. But it rises to the surface nevertheless and he can't squash it fast enough: the thought of letting the assassin get away, of throwing a tracker at them at the last second, of letting Tim get dunked into a Lazarus Pit – for surely that's the reason Ra's has made a move now, the only reason he could ever have for taking Tim away from them when he's at his most vulnerable – and saving him just a little too late from the dunking, oh well, what can we do, I tried my best, let's go home now.

He didn't think it was possible to hate himself more than in this moment.

He isn't afforded the luxury of dwelling on his self hatred, however, as he finally manages to catch up to the assassin and his brother. He jumps over the fence at the border of the property and nearly lands on top of the assassin on the other side. They fight, punches and kicks getting thrown around like candy on Halloween, and Dick finally manages to get a hold of his opponent as he puts them in a chokehold.

He's holding on with all his might, willing the assassin to pass out faster as he feels the tremble in his muscles, when he lets go abruptly and with a gasp, burning pain erupting in his side at the same time. The assassin pulls their sword out of Dick's stomach, gasping silently as they struggle to their feet, and without a word or look back, they pick Tim up and hobble away towards a waiting vehicle. Dick is putting pressure on his wound with one hand and trying to crawl his way towards the car with the other, and right before the assassin gets in the backseat and shuts the door behind them, Dick flings a nanotracker in their direction and prays that it sticks to their clothing.

The door shuts loudly, almost mocking him with the volume, and then the car – a nondescript black SUV – drives away with a screech of the tires, kicking up dust in its wake and leaving Dick behind to scream his frustration to the uncaring moon. He beats the ground in fury, gravel digging into his palms as he hits the ground again and again, then, drained emotionally as well as physically, with guilt and shame constricting around his heart like a poisonous snake, Dick falls limp against the asphalt, curled into himself as he tries to staunch the bleeding of his stab wound.

By the time Bruce and Damian find him, Dick has run out of tears to cry and all he wants is to tear his way through Ra's’ base until he finds Tim, hoping that there is enough forgiveness in the world for Tim to bestow it upon him for not only his failure but his selfishness as well. It's hard not to feel like his dark thoughts served as a temptation to the universe in how things played out.

Chapter Text

“Leave us.”

The order comes out softly, the silkiness of the owner's voice doing nothing to take away from the danger underneath and the power behind the voice, unquestionable and irresistible. The agent who brought his prize lays it down gently, smooth movements never betraying the injuries they suffered in their quest to bring it to him, and then leaves as swiftly as a summer breeze, no trace they had ever been there to be seen. The remaining guards bleed into the shadows of the chamber, alert and ready, but making themselves unseen to their master's gaze.

Ra's looks down at his precious gift. Years, he has been waiting, scheming, biding his time. Oscillating between murderous rage and genuine respect, the young man at his feet has been the subject of his ruminations for a long time. He has tried everything – bribery, blackmail, threats, magic, mind control, good old fashioned emotional manipulation. Nothing has been successful in his quest to get Timothy – his Detective – to become his Heir and come to him, where he belongs.

Nothing until now.

He was rather… distraught when news of Timothy's passing reached him. Such a waste of talent and wit. So much lost potential. And to a common, low-level thug off the streets of Gotham, too. Ra's has been right to wish that blasted city's annihilation for years now. But he was occupied elsewhere at the time and by the time he could reach his chosen Heir it was already too late to revive him with the Pit's miraculous waters. His quest to find other means of resurrection bore no fruit and he had simply given up hope, accepting defeat in the matter for the third time in his life – why did all his Heirs run away from him when he could give them so much more than they could ever dream? – when the unexpected happened.

Fate shone down upon him and brought his Heir back!

Now, at long last, he has him in his grasp. Months of holding himself back, waiting for the Waynes to settle into a routine and the false sense of security which it gave them, months to organise the mission down to the last, smallest detail to ensure no room for error. Months of worrying Timothy would recover on his own before Ra's had a chance to snatch him away and show him a better way.

All that is gone now, however. All the worry and fretting can finally be put to rest.

“I doubt there are words in any language on this earth that could possibly convey my happiness at having you here, Timothy,” Ra's murmurs as he steps towards his prize, circling him slowly and assessing. The boy is frail, much weaker than he ever has been in the long years they've known each other, but that is only to be expected from a catatonic who hasn't been keeping up with his training regimen. No matter, that is something to be fixed later. They have, after all, all the time in the world to rebuild Timothy's muscles and re-hone his skills. His hair is much longer, too, flowing silkily down his back and across his shoulders, though there are a few tangles here and there. It's not a hairstyle he's used to seeing on Timothy but he thinks it suits the young man very much. A bit of grooming and some hair accessories and he will look like a proper Demon's Head's Heir in no time.

As for the boy himself…

“It pains me to see you looking like such a failure. A useless husk of yourself,” Ra's tsks, shaking his head. The boy, kneeling on the ground limply and looking around with a dumb expression on his face, doesn't seem to be too aware of the criticism lobbed at him by the League of Assassins leader. “Which is why we will rectify this atrocity at once. I won't take any chances of your mismatched… family … finding you before I can revive your precious faculties. Not to worry, we will have you back in no time, my Heir. And then the real work begins.”

Timothy remains unaware of his surroundings which prompts a disappointed sigh to escape Ra's’ lips. Still, he rallies himself and jerks his wrist sharply towards his guards, beckoning them forward. A pair steps up to him, kneeling for a moment, before they straighten back up and await their orders.

“Strip him and assist him to the Pit. Be prepared for when he emerges.”

The guards nod, bowing their heads, then do as he commands. Ra's takes a seat further away from the center of the room – and, consequently, the Lazarus Pit – strategically placed so he has the best vantage point while being able to slip out of the room without issues should Timothy's revival be more… violent than anticipated (he has no interest in fighting the boy now and anyway, it would be a waste of an opportunity since Timothy would be too out of it to even register the identity of his opponent), and waits for the guards to finish undressing his Heir. He watches without interest – really, as if he'd lust after a boy just a few years older than his grandson – but once the guards lift Timothy into their arms carefully and starts closing the gap between them and the Pit, Ra's leans forward with something he might even dare call excitement singing in his veins. He has coveted this boy for so long – still regretting not taking the opportunity to dunk him in the Pit that first time he had him in his grasp, when the lost spleen provided such a wonderful excuse – that it almost feels unreal that he has him finally, right here in this room, and is about to witness the boy's wonderful resurrection as a new man.

The guards reach the shores of the Pit, careful not to touch the waters themselves, and then they carefully lower the pliant body in their arms towards the still surface, letting the water swallow him bit by bit until there's nothing left. Ra's watches with rapt attention, heart beating a staccato drum in his chest, and as he does the water starts glowing a vivid green, bubbles rising to the surface as if boiling, and he spies limbs thrashing beneath the surface.

A body finally breaks free, shooting upright with a strangled gasp and a few hacking sounds, and then the most beautiful green eyes snap open as the coughing subsides, the arresting pair staring right at Ra's.

A sweeter sight has never graced his eyes before.

Sometimes, Dick would talk out loud when he spent his nights guarding his brother's bedside.

More often than not it was nothing consequential, just idle chatter to fill the long stretches of silence that raked over him like a grater to the skin. He'd tell a sleeping Tim about his day, speculate about the Knights’ chances of winning their next match, wax poetic about something sweet Wally had done for him recently. Normal stuff. Big brother stuff.

But sometimes, on the really bad nights, when it felt like he'd choke on his own thoughts if he kept them inside his head for one more second, he'd whisper his shameful thoughts to the ether, knowing there was no one awake or aware enough to understand even if they heard. He'd pour out all his fears and frustrations, the complicated mess of feelings twisting inside his belly like a snake pit, and he'd beg Tim for forgiveness when the shame got to be too much.

Somehow, it feels like his fault.

It feels like Tim's kidnapping and their inability to locate him fast enough is the product of Dick's late-night confessions and troubled thoughts. Like he manifested it into existence somehow.

And he doesn't know what to do with that.

He's leaning back against the pillows of his newly assigned medical cot – and would you look at that, it's right next to Alfred's! – trying and failing to sink back into their plush comfort. White bandages span his entire torso, keeping the stab wound he got the previous night tightly wrapped and safe from infection. The other minor scrapes and bruises have been tended to and cleaned, and the painkillers Jason shoved into his hand half an hour before are doing a wonderful job keeping the pain at bay and his mind pleasantly fuzzy.

A fuzzy mind is the last thing Dick wants.

The tracker he threw at Tim’s kidnapper stuck, which was good, but if Dick had hoped the assassin would fail to notice it until they reached their final destination, he was sorely disappointed when he had Bruce check the location and found it had been discarded somewhere Turkey, the coordinates matching one of the long abandoned League locations Tim destroyed during his quest to find Bruce. Even so, Batman and Robin took the Batplane to Turkey immediately to check the place out for any possible leads, but they came back empty handed. The only thing left behind was the tracker and the ribbon Dick had put in Tim's hair the previous evening before he tucked the boy in.

Bruce and Damian are running around Gotham, trying to find wayward assassins to interrogate – for a group that formed a small army the night before and who has been scuttling around their streets like ants for months now, they sure made themselves scarce pretty quickly – while Jason is dividing his time between trying to get a hold of Talia and actually dealing with the crime-fighting part of their family's whole gig. Cass and Steph are assisting as much as possible, having divided the city into three more or less equal parts in an attempt to cover as much of Gotham as they can.

Meanwhile, Dick is stuck on bed rest, his injury rendering him pretty much useless in all things vigilante related. He doesn't have any more leads than the rest of his family and the guilt and self recrimination threatening to drown him aren't really conducive to him being a good long-distance partner at the moment either. He's leaving it to Alfred to assist the others on the comms, knowing that not even a stab wound can keep that man away from aiding his family.

Dick hates being a sitting duck. He hates having to sit there and twiddle his thumbs while everyone else is out there, hitting the streets and actually doing something to help.

‘Don't fuck it up,’ Jason said, and what did Dick do? Fail utterly and miserably at keeping his baby brother safe. And now, because of his failure, Tim is God knows where, surrounded by evil assassins and, worse still, the most evil of them all, their leader – Ra's al Ghul.

Ra's has been obsessed with Tim for an uncomfortably long time. There is no doubt in Dick's mind that the man has just been salivating at the idea of getting his hands on a confused, vulnerable Tim, just ripe for the indoctrination and manipulation the Demon's Head has probably already started, eager to turn Dick's little brother into the perfect servant to the villain's agenda. After everything Tim did to beat Ra's and his attempts at winning him over to his side, all the sacrifices he made, all the blood, sweat and tears he poured into standing firm against the attacks and bribery… he is about to end up right where he tried so hard to stay away from and all because of Dick.

It makes him sick to his stomach.

If they manage to find Tim… if he ever gets the chance to lay eyes on his baby brother again… Dick won't be surprised if the boy can't even bring himself to look at Dick again. With such a lousy excuse for a big brother, Dick wouldn't either.

Damian is at his wit's end.

They've been scouring the city for lone shadows they could drag the littlest clue from about where his grandfather might have stashed Timothy for the past three weeks and they've come up empty at the end of each search. It's like the entirety of the League of Assassins has ceased to exist in or near Gotham, gone in a puff of smoke. It'd be impressive if it wasn't so frustrating. 

Being inside the Manor isn't any better, either. The house feels stifling with so many people stewing in their own marinade of worry and anger, and the Cave provides little shelter when Richard and Pennyworth are still chained to their medical cots, recovering from their respective stab wounds.

Damian is worried.

Damian is pissed. 

He thought he left behind everything that has to do with the League and his grandfather. It was a foolish thought.

Just because he hasn't been bothered by the man's agents or the man himself for the past couple of years doesn't mean that he was ever rid of the man and his cruel, bloody legacy. He may no longer be his target, but that hardly means his grandfather's machinations don't impact him anymore. If anything, they're impacting him worse now, knowing that someone he's come to care so much about is in danger, vulnerable in his grandfather's presence, and Damian can do nothing to help.

Not for the first time, Damian curses his own weaknesses. If he'd been faster, stronger, better, he could have followed Richard upstairs and helped him secure Timothy.

Then again, if he'd been any of those things, he might have been able to save Timothy from that gunshot wound to begin with.

“Pick up the fucking phone already,” Todd growls, ripping Damian rudely out of his depressing musings. The big oaf is pacing around the foyer, leather jacket half dangling from his arm as he holds the phone to his ear with the other. Damian guesses he has just come back from yet another excursion into the bowels of the city to find even a scrap of League-adjacent contacts that can get a hold of Damian's mother. His heart twists, as it often does when his mother is brought up, but he ignores it as he always does. Too many conflicting feelings and rationalisations are tied around the topic of his mother for him to start untangling them now. Or ever. Never is preferable.

“She probably expected you to get the hint after the fiftieth missed call,” Damian drawls. He takes little satisfaction from the way Todd jumps, clearly having not expected Damian to be there, and he rolls his eyes at the way the older man bares his teeth at him in retaliation.

“Well that's too damn bad,” Todd huffs as he finally unlodges his jacket from his remaining arm and hangs the garment up on the rack. “I'm gonna keep calling until she answers. She owes me, like, twenty favours after the shit she pulled a few years ago and I ain't forgetting any time soon.”

Damian understands the sentiment but doesn't have the heart to inform his brother that he doubts his mother sees things that way. As far as she is concerned, she did Todd a favour. If anyone owes someone anything in this situation, it's Todd, not her.

Before he has the chance to think of a topic change, the phone starts ringing shrilly in the echoey space of the foyer. Todd almost drops the phone in his surprise and even Damian breathes in sharply in anticipation, though he tries to squash his hope preemptively. Todd rights himself and hits the answer button, putting the phone on speaker.

“Is there a reason you have been blowing up my phone for the past month, Jason? I am a busy woman, you know,” comes the drawling, bored tones of Damian's mother. It's been one year, six months, and twenty seven days since he last heard her voice. The sound makes him ache and burn with anger in equal measure.

He wishes Timothy were here. If anyone knows anything about complicated mother-son relationships, it’s certainly him.

“Cut the bullshit,” Todd snaps impatiently. “Your old man has Tim and I wanna know where he took him. And before you give me any bullshit, I know you know something so don't play coy.”

There is absolute silence on the other end for long, agonising moments. Damian starts entertaining the thought that she might have just hung up on them. Then comes a sharp exhale and the sound of shuffling close to the speaker.

“I am not your lapdog, Jason Todd. You don't command me. What I may or may not know is strictly my business and I am under no obligation to tell you anything . You forget yourself and I fear that it might be time for a refresher lesson soon. Now, I have business to attend to and I don't wish to be disturbed, so if you'd be so kind as to stop pestering me , I'd be much obliged.”

Before his mother can end the call – or Todd can blow a fuse, judging by how red his face has gotten during the woman’s tirade – Damian leaps towards the phone sitting in Todd’s outstretched hand and presses it to his ear, taking his mother off speaker.

“Don't hang up,” he rushes to get out and he hopes it sounds more like an order than a plea. When the call doesn't disconnect but expectant – dare he say, stunned? – silence meets him, Damian takes a deep breath audible only to himself and wills steel into his spine and voice. Now is not the time to falter. Timothy can't afford Damian to fail. “I know you probably think you don't owe me anything anymore. You made that very clear when you dumped me here and then washed your hands of me, regardless of the little contact you've kept every so often ever since. But I think you owe me a great deal and while I highly doubt you could ever repay all of it in any real capacity, consider that debt settled thusly: give me Timothy’s location so that I may rescue him. We both know you are aware of where he is being kept.

“Do this one thing for me and I swear I will never ask anything of you ever again.”

When only a hitched breath meets his speech, Damian clenches his hand into a fist and blinks away the furious tears threatening to spill over. He swallows harshly against the lump in his throat and forges on.

“I am your only son!” he thunders, and his voice is cracking from more than just teenage hormones, “you owe me this, at least! For once in your life stop being the Demon’s Daughter and just help me! Please, mother…”

His grip on the phone is almost crushing and his battle against his tears is rapidly approaching its disappointing end, but just when he thinks this might be a lost cause after all, Damian’s mother clears her throat and replies. Her voice is suspiciously wet.

“The Demon’s Head took Drake to the base in Yemen. I will send along the exact coordinates shortly.”

Damian breathes out in relief and slumps in on himself without even realising it.

“Thank you. I won't forget this.”

Another short stretch of silence meets him and then, “no, you need not do that. It is my responsibility and honour as your mother to aid you in all of your endeavours. I am just performing a duty I have been allowing to fall to the wayside for far too long.”

His own phone pings with a new text message from an unknown number and he finds a set of coordinates waiting for him when he swipes the screen to unlock it. He passes the phone over to Todd, ignoring the sad look his brother is giving him, and wipes his moist eyes after Todd has disappeared around the corner, no doubt heading towards the Cave to suit up and tell the others.

“Yes, mother. Still. Thank you.”

She sighs, long and tired, but when she speaks next, there is a smile audible in her voice. “You are most welcome, habibi. Go rescue your… brother. Be safe and… know that I am sorry.”

Damian doesn't ask her what she is sorry for. He thinks he knows and anyway, the list would probably be too long if he started listing everything out right now. Instead, he makes a noise to signify his agreement and nods, unseen by his mother from the other side of the call.

“I always am. Until next time.”

“Until then.”

The call ends with a beep and Damian remains standing there for a long minute, staring at the blank screen, before he shakes himself off and marches down to the Cave with sure, determined footsteps. He has a brother to save. Everything else can wait until Timothy is back in their home, safe from meddling immortal assassins.

Chapter Text

His return to the land of the living – and the functioning brain-having – is a rude wake up call.

Tim thrashes beneath the surface of murky, bright green water, swallowing mouthfuls of it the more he tries not to. He doesn't remember how he got here and he doesn't much care for being here any longer, but his struggles are uncoordinated and his movements erratic. Finally, as if by chance more than purposeful command, his body jerks upright and he's no longer struggling at the bottom of the water but rather sitting on it, upper body mercifully free of liquid.

He gasps, gulping deep, desperate breaths, and coughs when the assault of oxygen scrapes against his airways in an unpleasant manner. He manages to expel some of that water but when he's debating giving himself some time to recover versus assessing his surroundings, the choice is taken from him by the sound of a soft gasp.

Tim's eyes snap towards the sound and his gaze finds the last person he'd want to lay eyes on when waking up in a green magic pool.

Ra's al fucking Ghul.

The man stands up, clapping enthusiastically, but makes no move to approach Tim.

“Wonderful, Detective. That's the most graceful first time resurrection I've yet to witness.”

Tim frowns and opens his mouth to speak but explodes into a series of coughs that rattle his bones instead. He's barely regained his breath when he registers the presence of a person close to him, but not touching, extending a towel and a robe in his direction; it's only now that Tim realises he's as naked as the day he was born. Tim looks from it to the assassin holding it and lets his eyes slide towards Ra's with a raised eyebrow.

“Don't be petulant now. Take the towel and the robe. Don't want you catching a cold, now do we?”

Scoffing, Tim pushes himself to his feet a bit wobbly. He waits for a beat to make sure he won't just fall back on his ass then grabs the robe, shrugging it on quickly, followed by taking the proffered towel almost numbly and starting to dry his hair as he steps out of the– yup, that sure is a Lazarus Pit he's just come out of. Great. This day can't possibly get any better!

While he's fluffing his hair up with the unfairly soft towel – and since when has his hair been this long? Why is he here with Ra's? What happened? – Tim takes a look around the chamber, trying to find any weaknesses or exit points he might be able to make an escape through. Sadly, there aren't any, not that he expected otherwise, and he forces himself to redirect his attention towards Ra's, the biggest threat currently in the room.

“What have you done with me?”

Ra's tsks as if scolding an unruly child but he finally steps away from that damned glorified throne and toward Tim.

“So ungrateful, Timothy. You should be thanking me, really. If not for my intervention, you would have continued walking around like a doddering idiot for goodness knows how long until your so called ‘family’ finally found a way to cure you. I just… sped up the process,” Ra's explains without actually explaining anything at all, and ends his sentence with a smug smile.

Tim stares at him, right arm stuck in the air trying to keep the towel steady on his head, and gives him a dubious look.

“Right… and what exactly happened to turn me into a… ‘doddering idiot'? That's the part I didn't quite catch.”

Ra's widens his eyes in a comical parody of shock and he even places a hand on his open mouth to seal the image. 

“My dear Detective… why, you died!”

Record scratch.

Stop.

Rewind.

Tim stares blankly at the man as he lets the towel drop to the ground. He can't quite get his lungs to work and he idly wonders why that is and if this is what it felt like when he was dead.

Because he was.

Dead, that is.

Apparently.

Suddenly, his head explodes with pain and he doubles over, clutching his temples and gritting his teeth as the sting of a thousand knives penetrates his brain and starts digging . He gasps, trying to get some oxygen into his lungs, but the pain only punches what little breath he manages to gain right out of his chest.

An image, as if seen through grainy, burned film, stamps itself into his eyelids, and Tim chokes as the entire scene replays before his very eyes. A mission gone wrong. A dime a dozen thug, a wannabe Rogue, an arm like a vise around his shoulders, a gun kissing his temple, a shot going off in the deadly silence of a warehouse. And then, for the longest time… nothing.

Clearly, it didn't stay that way. He remembers waking up, vaguely, somewhere dark and stuffy. He remembers terror and he remembers a name.

“Kon!” he gasps, the sound punched out of him with the same sense of urgency that drove him to repeat it like a mantra in the satiny confines of his casket; yes, he remembers that.

“Don't bother calling for your little friends, Timothy. I have taken measures to ensure they won't disturb us here.”

But Tim barely hears Ra's. He's scrambling at his head, gripping his hair tightly as that darkness descends upon him again, even if only as a memory, and finds himself once more lost in a sea of nothing. Did someone find him? Did they dig him out? Did he dig himself out? He thinks of Jason, all of fifteen years old and calling for his dad, wandering the streets alone in a state of confusion. Was that him, not too long ago? Has he been wandering around, unknowingly, this entire time until Ra's found him?

But… no. He said… he said something about Tim's family. Yes. That must mean they know he's alive. He must have been with them, at least at some point after his resurrection. Which means they're on their way, they're trying to track him down and save him. It's only a matter of time until they do. And Tim has to hold on until then. He can do it.

He can.

When he feels in control enough to not lose it again, Tim raises his head and slowly straightens up from his hunched position. He raises a bewildered eyebrow at the body lying unconscious at his feet and he bends down quickly, before Ra's can stop him, to check for a pulse. He breathes easier when he finds one.

“You didn't appreciate my guard approaching you to retrieve your towel,” Ra's explains unprompted and he sounds peeved when he follows it up with, “it seems even in your distressed state under the influence of the Pit you are resistant to deadly means of incapacitation.”

Tim smirks in response but says nothing else as he rises back to a standing position.

Ra's looks at him for a moment, scrutinising, then seems to reach a decision as he snaps a gesture to his remaining guards before turning on his heel and sauntering out of the room.

“Do keep up, Detective. I don't want you getting lost.”

Tim grits his teeth at the order and debates just refusing to obey out of sheer pettiness, but he knows that Ra's is enough of a bastard to leave him behind and then smirk at him in amusement when Tim finally finds his way around the place, thirsty, hungry and exhausted, hours later. He scrambles after the man, sending the guards peeling themselves away from the shadows a dirty look, and follows at a more sedate pace once he's satisfied he won't lose sight of the bastard.

They walk in silence, blessedly, and Tim takes the time to scan his surroundings and memorise as many of the twists and turns they take as he possibly can. He doubts he has any hopes of escaping on his own with no allies, no gear, and no clue where he is and what is actually going on, but it doesn't hurt to be prepared. If anything, it at least gives Tim something to focus on, other than the fact that he apparently died then came back and somehow, between then and now, ended up in Ra's’ clutches and took a dive in the Mountain Dew from Hell.

When they finally reach their destination – and Tim has lost count of how many corridors they traversed, which makes him wonder if they just went around in circles a few times just to confuse him – Tim finds himself standing in a small room, at least by Ra's’ standards, clearly decorated to feel cozy and inviting, a private space meant for two people to feel at ease around each other. Tim knows Ra's too well to feel even a sliver of that, but he has to give him props for the attempt. Ra's also knows Tim very well and the man knows Tim would never feel even a little bit comfortable were they in a big, ostentatious dining room or something equally ridiculous.

He had enough of those growing up to last him a lifetime.

“Please. Sit,” Ra's invites, gesturing towards a comfortable looking chair once the doors close behind them. There is a matching one right across from it and between them, in a mockery of intimacy and quaintness, rests a round coffee table made of glass and deep, rich wood with intricate golden accents wound around the legs. It looks elegant and expensive but deceptively simple – another indicator that Ra's has thought everything through so far and is trying his damned hardest to put Tim at ease and woo him to his side.

He has no doubt this is yet another of Ra's’ attempts at getting his desired Heir. Tim is not sad to say that he will enjoy dashing his dreams in short order.

Even so, he takes a seat in the chair that was pointed out to him and lets himself sink into the cloudy soft cushions at his back. On the table rests a tray, filled to the brim with finger foods and sweets, and next to it are a clay teapot, a sugar dish, a creamer, and two teacups waiting patiently in their saucers.

Tim rather feels like he's about to take tea with the Queen.

Ra's takes the other seat, movements fluid and elegant even when he does something as banal as sitting down, and starts piling a plate with a selection of everything from the tray before he hands it over to Tim. He's not dumb enough to trust Ra's not to have poisoned the spread, but he's also too hungry to care very much at the moment. Besides, he doubts Ra's is trying to kill him again before he's even had a chance to monologue his recruitment speech.

“How do you take your tea, Timothy? I forget.”

Tim picks up one of the little sandwiches on his plate and eyes it dubiously for a moment before shrugging and shoving the whole thing in his mouth at once.

“I don't,” he replies, words nearly indecipherable among his half chewed food.

Ra's wrinkles his nose at Tim's uncouth behaviour but seems to recognise a losing battle when he sees one and simply sighs before starting to prepare a cup of tea for him regardless. 

Tim snickers quietly, taking way too much pleasure from annoying the man, and continues to demolish the plate in his hands. He's not sure if it's the whole being dead thing or if this is a Lazarus Pit side effect, but he's absolutely famished. He makes a mental note to ask Jason when he sees him.

Once the cups of tea have been prepared and Tim is nearly done eating, Ra's leans back in his own chair, back straight, and looks back at Tim without blinking or wavering. The attention is making him uncomfortable but he bears with it, chewing just a little faster so he can exchange the empty plate in his hands for the cup and saucer waiting for him on the table.

“So,” he says at last, breaking the silence that has settled over the room, “when's the speech starting?”

“Speech? Whatever do you mean?”

“Oh, don't play dumb.” Tim rolls his eyes. He takes a sip of the tea and surprisingly doesn't spit it out immediately. Huh. He'll have to ask for the blend before he hightails it out of here. “You know what speech. The one where you tell me how you outsmarted me and captured me without my family knowing and where you list all the reasons why I should give up my noble goal of protecting my city in favour of starting up a life of crime, murder and mayhem. You know how it goes. Then I tell you no, you get angry, we fight, I kick your ass, I leave, rinse and repeat.”

Tim takes another sip, humming at the pleasant taste – is that a spicy note at the end right there? He'll really have to remember to ask someone what the flavour is, or– oh! Damian might have an idea – and looks at Ra's through his lashes as he lowers the cup to its saucer. Ra's, instead of looking like he sucked on a lemon the way Tim was hoping and expecting, is instead watching Tim with too much amusement to make him feel comfortable.

“What's so funny?”

“You are, Detective.” Ra's chuckles and boy does the sound send shivers down Tim's spine. “I don't need a speech, my dear. We've both ‘been there, done that’ as it were and I think we can both agree it's best I spare you the tedium of hearing it again. No, I think I should let your dear ‘family’ do the talking for me .

“You see, it's no coincidence that you are here with me right now. I had no reason to outsmart you, as you put it, because they basically dropped you straight into my lap. I do feel for them, however. I only spent a scant few minutes in your charming company before taking pity on you and restoring you to your proper faculties, so I can only imagine the ordeal it was for them to care for a catatonic version of you for the past four months. I would have lost patience long ago.”

Tim's hands start trembling on his cup and all amusement or smugness drains from him in a moment. He bends towards the table to place the tea back down before he can drop the cup and spill the contents all over his lap and looks back at the man in front of him with what he hopes is a neutral expression. Judging by Ra's’ smirk, he's not doing a very good job masking his trepidation.

Four months? He's been alive for four months and no one managed to find a way to heal him?

And what's this about losing patience?

He knows he can't trust a single word that comes out of Ra's al Ghul's mouth but still his treacherous heart can't help constricting in pain at the thought of his family being stuck looking after a… a… a useless husk of himself, out of his mind and incapable of doing anything on his own, for that length of time.

They're better now, all of them. He's mended all the relationships that went taut with tension or went frayed at the edges a long time ago. He even managed to build a few new ones. But the fact remains that Tim has always hated being an inconvenience, being the one in need of help as opposed to being the one to help. He's been working on that, trying to accept that he is only human and he deserves the same considerations he affords others but… it's still a work in progress.

It's a hard pill to swallow.

“But you don't have to believe me , of course,” Ra's continues when it becomes clear that Tim isn't going to be saying anything in response. “Let's hear it straight from them, shall we?”

Tim watches as the man pulls out a tablet from within the folds of his robes and taps on it in quick succession before he places it neatly, damningly, between them on the coffee table. He presses play and leans back in his seat, watching Tim like a lion stalking its prey.

An audio file starts playing.

‘The great Timothy Drake, reduced to a bumbling idiot who can't even feed himself without supervision,’ says Damian’s voice, scoffing derisively.

A clicking sound indicates the track changing.

‘Are you thirsty, Tim? C'mere.’ And that's Kon, talking to him in a gentle voice, but it hurts so badly because he doesn't remember it, none of this, and it just feels like he's being babied.

‘I don't know why you even bother asking him things,’ Cassie snaps. He can hear the bitterness in her voice, the condescension, the exhaustion. It hurts, more than he wants to admit, but he gets it. He wouldn't want to put up with a catatonic him either.

‘This is pointless! It's been two months and there's no change! None!’

‘I know it's frustrating! For fuck's sake, every day I come here and expect to find Tim at his laptop, three energy drinks empty on his desktop, hacking away into some random Gotham villain's bank accounts! And every day, I see him wandering around the place with no recognition of anything and when he sees me he only stops chanting that damn mantra for a few seconds before he goes right back to it! I can't sleep, Cassie, because all I can hear is him whispering my name on loop!’

‘I can't keep seeing him like this,’ says Cassie again and there's so much defeat in her voice it breaks something in Tim's heart. 

And then, the track changes again, a clear sign this is a different file taken from a different day. Tim doesn't know if he can bear hearing any more. He dreads to know what else his family have said, how much he's burdened and disappointed them. He doesn't want to know but he has no choice. He's a prisoner here, that much he knows, no matter how hard he tries to act nonchalant and impertinent, so all he can do is sit there and take it.

‘I don't know how many more days like this I have in me, baby bird.’ Tim's heart stops altogether at the sound of Dick's voice. His big brother. His hero. ‘I keep telling myself to wait, that it'll get better, that it's what you deserve. But I don't think I can bear watching you be like this for much longer.

‘I don't want you to hate me, but I think I could live with that hatred if it meant getting you back, properly this time. Jason is doing just fine, after all, isn't he? Why would you be the exception?’

Tim's brain refuses to understand the meaning of the words, mind shying away from the dawning realisation of what Dick meant. No. He can't believe that. He won't. Dick wouldn't…

But the next track proves him wrong.

‘What about the Lazarus Pit?’ Dick's voice asks.

Dick would.

Another click.

‘If Tim taught us anything about his family is that they're disasters who don't really go about things the rational way when it involves one of their own.’

A final click and then silence.

The audio file is done.

Tim stares at the tablet in complete silence. He looks at it but doesn't really see it and there's a roaring in his ears that sounds a lot like his entire world crumbling to pieces right before his eyes. He doesn't know when he starts crying, only that his vision blurs and the tablet disappears altogether behind a curtain of salty moisture. A handkerchief is thrusted at him and Tim takes it without thought, wiping at his eyes angrily and blowing his nose with more aggression than is advised.

He darts a glance at Ra's and finds him watching him with a self satisfied expression in his eyes that the fake sympathetic frown and downturned lips do nothing to mask. He averts his gaze quickly, hiding his eyes behind his unusually long bangs – and seriously, who let his hair grow out this much?! – but doesn't acknowledge the man.

It's a trick.

He knows it is.

But…

Those were his friends. His family. Damian, Kon, Cassie, Bart.

Dick.

He knows their voices, their vocabulary, their intonation. These audio tracks are not fabricated. Taken the hell out of context, most definitely, but… they still said all of those things. Thought them. Lived them for the past four months he's been stuck in catatonia.

The worst thing, though? It's that he can't find it in himself to blame them for it. Not really. He doubts he wouldn't have reached the end of his rope had he been in their shoes. But it still hurts to hear.

Ra's’ smug eyes flash again in his mind and Tim grits his teeth silently. No matter the context, or lack of it, he can't let Ra's’ manipulation work. He may not be sure of where he stands with his family, how much of what they said was in the heat of the moment or a desperate lament and how much was their true feelings, but he does know where he stands with Ra's. This man does not have Tim's best interests in mind. He is nothing but a manipulative snake who'll stop at nothing to get what he wants, and Tim knows that that thing is him. He can't let him win.

He knows what grief does to a person. He's been there. The kind of unspeakable, out of character things one is willing to do, just to get their loved ones back. Nobody understood Tim’s attempts to clone Kon or the desperation with which he searched for Bruce and the things he did on his quest to get him back; the parts of himself that he lost along the way. But Tim knows. He understands.

He may not agree with Dick's suggestion of using the Pit to heal him (he's still reeling from the knowledge that he has already been thrown into one, forever changed in a way he is yet to understand or fully grasp) but he can understand the kind of grief and desperation behind such a thought all too well. He doubts he wouldn't have considered the same thing had it been an option with Kon.

So no. He won't give Ra's what he wants. He'd rather die again, permanently this time. But he is smart and he knows he should bide his time, hold his cards close to his chest. Any wrong move and Ra's might decide to kill Tim again and take him for another swim, one that might not leave him so in control of himself and his temper. Besides, he doesn't know when and if his family will find him. He can't depend on them right now, not when Ra's has gone to such great lengths to control the narrative this time and they might not even know where to begin to look for him. They might not get here in time.

Tim will play his part, make Ra's think he finally won. He will watch, learn, and make an escape plan. And when he gets out of here, he will find his family and they will talk, and Tim will finally know exactly where they stand. He owes them that much. Maybe even himself.

“Do you believe me now, Detective? That I, and only I, know what you need? What you want? What you deserve? I did what they didn't have the guts to do, but as opposed to them, I never once lied to you about my goals and methods. I never pretended to be something I am not,” Ra's entreats, forcing Tim to face reality once more and lift his head towards him.

Tim watches him for a long time, eyes calculating as he locks all of his feelings behind a tightly closed door, and nods reluctantly, baring his teeth in a grimace of pain and betrayal.

“Yes, I… I suppose so…” he breathes sullenly, letting his despondency shine through, allowing his voice to tremble with the weight of his hurt.

“Fear not, I will take care of you, my Heir. And you will get your revenge, I promise you that.”

Tim doesn't reply, only lets his eyes drift away from Ra's and looks at the view beyond the window, the clear skies and shining, blinding sun. Yes , he thinks, I will get my revenge. Just not on them.

As soon as the door closes behind him, Tim slides to the floor and weeps into his drawn up knees.

He is all too aware that he's most likely being watched but he is too drained and overwhelmed all at once to care. Let Ra's think what he wants about Tim's little emotional display. 

Tim falls on his butt, back to the door he just closed, and cries like a little kid. It's liberating, in a way, to let himself go to this extent and just let it all out without a care about who might be hearing or watching. He doesn't often let himself do that, or at least he didn't use to; his parents weren't as horrible as some people think they were (Dick, in particular, has strong feelings about the way Tim was raised, but considering how much of a disaster Bruce was when Dick was ten, he hardly thinks the older boy has room to judge) but they weren't exactly big on showing or expressing their emotions in a healthy way either. He knows his mother learned to suppress signs of ‘emotional instability’ at a young age because that was the only way to get taken seriously in a world designed by misogynistic white men, while his father found it incredibly hard to break away from his own parents’ philosophy of ‘men don't cry’. They never tried to suppress Tim's own outbursts, especially not with something like yelling at or, god forbid, beating him, but they never quite encouraged it either.

His mother's awkwardness and inability to comfort him made any interaction stiff and uncomfortable, which only led to Tim hiding that he was upset whenever she was around, to spare her the ordeal of having to face an emotional child.

And his father's off-handed remarks about crying ninnies and people needing to ‘man up’ whenever he saw a male lead in a movie shedding a manly tear for more than two seconds on screen always made Tim squirm, stomach twisting, and promise himself never to cry in front of his dad if he didn't want to be met with the same scoffing derision as the actor on the TV.

They weren't the best. Sometimes he really fucking hates them. But they weren't the worst either.

He wonders if he got to meet them. On the other side, whatever that is, that yawning, gaping darkness that he doesn't remember. Were they proud of him, if he did? Did they finally admit they failed as parents in more ways than one and apologise for it?

Yeah, he doubts that very much.

Tim can't really wrap his head around the fact that he died. Sure, he remembers it now, remembers the moment that led to his death down to the last, minute detail. And he remembers waking up in that coffin, so confused, so scared, so helpless. But, at the same time, it also feels like all of that happened to someone else or as if it happened in a dream. He keeps expecting for the memories to disappear, sifting through his fingers like sand in a desert and blowing in the wind of oblivion. Yet every time he closes his eyes, that image of all-encompassing, stifling darkness greets him, and he feels the phantom coldness of steel biting into his temple.

Tim takes a shuddering breath in, willing his lungs to expand, then holds it in for a beat before letting it all out shakily.

His right hand finds purchase in his hair and he runs it through the long strands once before coming back to rest at the base of his fringe. He tugs on it, relishing the sharp sting of it as the motion pulls at his scalp, and his mind flashes to his reflection in the mirror, imagining a white section growing in, stark against the black of the rest of his hair. When he next exhales it turns into a sob and he's crying all over again.

This time, the darkness of a tomb is exchanged for the suffocating assault of poisonous waters drowning him again and again as he tried to surface for air. He feels it everywhere, in his mouth and nose and ears, blocking everything else out and leaving only itself and its insidiousness, and the way it pushed, unrelenting, until it wiggled its way into every crevice of his being.

The feeling of wrongness, of being changed irrevocably and against his will, makes Tim swat at his forearms and try to claw his skin off, a vain attempt to cleanse himself of the fate he never wanted.

He doubts Dick would have gone through with it, but all he can hear, echoing in his head like a death knell, are those words from Ra's’ file, that damning question that feels as though it sealed Tim's fate.

Exhausted and drained from all the emotional assault of the day, Tim cries himself to sleep right there on the floor of ‘his’ room, falling into a dreamless sleep that offers no rest and no comfort upon waking.

The next day brings no respite. If Tim thought that Ra's would be content to let him wallow in his room for the time being, he is sorely mistaken when a pair of assassins enter his room without knocking and start manhandling him towards the bathroom, where a filled, steaming tub awaits him. He strips and enters it, washing himself while grumbling obscenities under his breath about his dear host, and then the same pair from earlier shove him back towards the bedroom and into a clothing set that Tim is sure Damian would look right at home in. As it stands, Tim only feels highly uncomfortable and restricted, and wishes, more than ever, for his comfortable sweatpants and hoodies instead.

Before he has time to catch his breath, Tim is ushered towards another room, this one much bigger than the one from the night before, and that is where he finds his captor, sitting at the head of a long, lavish table, laden with dishes that couldn't possibly feed only two people.

“Come, Timothy, sit. Let us eat.”

Remembering his decision from the other night, Tim swallows every instinct to grab a knife from the table and embed it in Ra's’ eye – it wouldn't kill him, and besides, the bastard would be inside the Pit and back again for round two before Tim even had time to find his way to a bathroom, let alone escape – and instead sends the man a mulish look but does as he's told.

This is a careful balance he has to maintain. He mustn't appear too eager to join forces, or it wouldn't be believable, but not too resistant either or Ra's might decide another swim is in order to tame some of that feistiness and teach Tim a lesson in respect.

They eat in silence, which is a blessing, but once they're done, Ra's lowers his fork to the table elegantly and steeples his fingers, watching Tim steadily from over the top.

“Your body is in pitiful shape,” he says without preamble. Tim bristles and his hold on his knife tightens for a long moment, imagining how good it would feel to take the utensil and stab it through the man's palm, but his reflection in the polished silverware reminds him of his goal and he fights against the urge. He takes a deep breath and allows his mind to remember that even he noticed how much weight and muscle he's lost since the last time he… he was alive. Ra's’ piercing gaze misses nothing but Tim only glares back silently, daring him to comment on Tim's momentary lapse in temper. “Before we do anything, we must rectify this travesty first. You will be assigned a trainer who will draw up a regimen for you going forward, and when she deems you ready, I will take over. I'm sure there will be no problems in that department.”

Tim nods reluctantly. It's not ideal – the last thing he wants is League training when he's unstable and emotional and God knows how susceptible to adopting murderous methods – but he also knows he doesn't have any reasonable excuses to refuse. Besides, he is in pitiful shape, and if he has any hopes of escaping on his own, he has to regain his strength and re-hone his skills.

“Excellent,” Ra's says in the empty space left by Tim's silence. “I think my choice in trainers will raise your spirits. After all, I've heard all about my grandson's fondness for you as of late.”

Tim's face twists in confusion and he's in the process of opening his mouth to speak when the doors open abruptly and someone saunters in. He whips around and his eyes widen, then narrow angrily, when they fall upon the unmistakable form of Talia al Ghul.

“You,” Tim hisses, seething, and green, poisonous rage takes over his vision as he rises from his seat and sends the chair clattering to the ground with the sudden, violent movement. He doesn't even think, barely has time to blink, before the knife he was holding goes sailing through the air, aimed perfectly at the unimpressed face of Damian's mother. She catches it by the handle without even a flinch and throws it back on the table without taking her eyes off Tim.

“Pitiful. My son threw knives better than that when he was in diapers.”

Tim grits his teeth and balls his hands into fists, preparing to vault over the table and strangle her, when Ra's’ voice cracks through the tension like a whip.

“Children, behave. Timothy, I expect you to show my daughter the respect she deserves and try to limit assassination attempts to the training hall. As for you, Talia, do try not to antagonise a glorified teenager so shortly after his encounter with a Lazarus Pit. One would think you've had plenty of experience in that department,” Ra's admonishes tersely.

Tim knew that Ra's hated Jason and Talia's decisions during that period immediately after his resurrection, but hearing the contempt dripping from his tongue at the mere mention of the incident right now really drives that home.

Idly, he wonders if that's how Talia sounds when she mentions him too.

“Very well, father,” Talia agrees and her voice betrays none of the annoyance she's probably feeling at being scolded like a child, especially in front of Tim himself. “Why have you summoned me today?”

“I want you to train Timothy,” comes the unhesitant reply. “He needs to be whipped back into shape and I trust no one else to give him the adequate guidance he needs. Your… experience with the Bat style of fighting is also invaluable and the whole process will be much smoother if we can work with it when teaching Timothy our way, rather than against it.”

Talia wrinkles her nose, the only concession she makes to show her displeasure, but nods nonetheless.

Don't worry , Tim thinks angrily, I'm just as pissed off as you are.

“Wonderful. I have matters to attend to for the rest of the day, but I'm sure the two of you will get along splendidly in my absence.”

Tim takes it for the dismissal it is and rises from his seat silently, storming ahead of Talia but having to stop and wait for her to lead him to their destination when he realises he has no idea where he's supposed to go. She doesn't say anything, though the smirk on her face speaks for her loudly enough, and Tim almost stumbles with the wave of unadulterated anger bubbling in his veins at the sight. He curses to himself, unnerved by the intensity of this feeling, but forces himself to take deep breaths as he follows Talia and shove it all down.

His anger is not a stranger to Tim. He's had to fight it and control it for such a long time that he's forgotten what it’s like when he doesn't. But he's never nearly lost his cool so many times in a row over such small matters before and he doesn't like what that says in the light of his recent swim in the Lazarus Pit. All the more reason to keep a lid on it and not give in.

They spend the rest of the day in the training hall. Talia is a stoic teacher, even more cutting than Lady Shiva if that's possible, but she isn't unfair. She correctly assesses Tim's abilities given his lack of exercise since he came back and sets him realistic instructions accordingly. If it weren't for his disdain for her as a mother and person in general, they might even be capable of getting along. They break away an hour before dinner and Tim trudges back to his room feeling like every muscle in his body is aching and some other ones scientists haven't discovered yet. He hasn't felt like this since he was thirteen.

A warm bath awaits him when he enters the quarters he's reluctantly calling his and he can't even find it in himself to pretend like he isn't grateful to whoever drew it for him. Wincing and gasping with every movement, Tim peels back his layers and sinks into the tub, sighing in relief when the hot water instantly soothes his abused muscles.

The next days and weeks stretch into a monotony of eating all of his meals with Ra's – aside from lunch, which he spends alone since Talia ditches him as soon as they take that break – and spending nearly all of his remaining time training under Talia. He doesn't hate her any less during that time, doubts he ever could (not when he remembers Damian and the look in his eyes every time he skirts around the subject of his mother, not when he can see Jason in his mind's eye and hear his voice whispering brokenly about his time with the League), but he can at least appreciate that she's doing a good job getting him back in fighting shape in record time. Her company is vastly preferable to Ra’s, at any rate, though it really is a tight contest on most days.

Tim's main problem, though, and the cause of most of his concerns and sleepless nights, is the uncontrollable bouts of rage that he experiences on the daily. It's become exhausting to the point where he'd rather lock himself up in a closet somewhere just to avoid human interaction that might possibly trigger it. It’s getting harder and harder to keep it under wraps, to remind himself that giving in would just mean letting Ra's win. The mental image he has of Bruce's disappointed eyes should Tim kill someone, even if under the influence of something like a Lazarus Pit, gets easier and easier to ignore the more he is forced to grit his teeth and take deep breaths to keep the anger contained. It would be funny if it wasn't so sad how Bruce's frown alone used to be enough of a reminder to keep himself in check, once upon a time, yet now the mental image barely makes a dent.

He wants Damian, who could never judge Tim for dirtying his hands with blood.

He wants Jason, who knows what it's like to live with this suffocating anger better than anyone in the family.

He wants Cass, who knows Tim better than he knows himself and loves him more than she could ever hate him, even if he became a murderer.

He wants Dick, who's never, not once, turned Tim away no matter how many lines he's crossed over the years, who's been more patient and understanding than Bruce ever was.

He wants his siblings.

He aches with the yearning in his chest to wrap himself around them and breathe more easily with the knowledge that he is safe and that nothing can touch him as long as he has them at his back. He is tired of putting on a mask every minute of his waking moments, constantly watching his back because Ra's realising that Tim's allegiance has never faltered from his family would spell his doom. He just wants to breathe without restraint and let his guard down.

He wants to not be so angry all the time.

Around the three week mark, Tim is almost back to his usual physical abilities. He's just as good with a bo staff as he’s always been, having only needed to regain his dexterity before muscle memory kicked in for him and he started twirling the staff around with practiced ease. Tim’s plan of escape is finally starting to become realistic and he starts looking for weaknesses in the place’s security, trying to figure out a way to get rid of at least Talia before he enacts it so as to remove one of the two major obstacles in his path to freedom. How to go about it, how to orchestrate a good enough distraction to get her out of his way, well that's the real question…

On what ends up being his last day at Ra's’ base, though he won't know it until much later, Tim and Talia break away for a short break during which Tim downs two whole water bottles and then stops in his tracks as if paralysed at the sight of his reflection in a hand mirror left lying on the refreshments table. He stares at the image, familiar yet foreign, and he doesn't realise he stopped breathing until his lungs start burning and seizing with the need for oxygen. He staggers to the table, gasping raggedly, and picks up the mirror by its intricate handle with shaky hands then lifts it closer to his hairline, inspecting it.

His fringe, long already after going four months without a haircut, is now longer than ever. He hasn't been studying his appearance much since he got here, entrusting the pair of attendants assigned to him to make him look somewhat presentable for Ra's, but he isn't sure how wise of a move that was considering how blindsided he feels now as he stares at the white roots growing starkly against the rest of his jet-black hair at the base of his fringe.

He knew it was coming. He knew what to expect. And compared to the anger problems he's been facing lately, this really is a non-issue in comparison.

And yet, the physical, unrelenting proof of his change, and the irreversibility of his transformation hits him like a tonne of bricks and leaves him gasping for air.

Tim doesn't even realise when he breaks the mirror.

He just stares down at the shattered glass at his feet and the blood dripping from his left fist, knuckles littered with shards and pooling blood. At least he can breathe now.

The sound of heels clicking on the floor breaks his standoff with the mirror's remains and Tim swivels his head around to keep Talia in his sight as she approaches him with an unreadable expression. He hates how hard he finds it to read her, especially when he sees so much of his little brother in her face and the way she carries herself. It's an unwelcome reminder of his longing for home.

Talia stops two feet ahead of him, keeping the broken mirror as a barrier between them, and looks at him as if trying, not for the first time, to strip him down to the bone and see what he's made of. Not for the last time, either, judging by how she doesn't seem to quite find everything she's looking for.

“I'm sorry to say we're going to have to cut out training short today,” she says without commenting on Tim's outburst or likely glowing eyes. He'd be thankful for it if he thought she did it for any reason other than not giving a shit.

Tim hums as he flexes his fist, wincing at the pain rapidly flooding in with the loss of adrenaline.

“Something urgent has come up and I will be taking my leave. Indefinitely.”

Tim raises his eyes towards her at that, leaving his bloody knuckles forgotten, and searches her face, studying the pursed lips and pained eyes, the traces of guilt and longing he can spy in her green irises – so painfully familiar – before she locks all emotions away behind the customary wall he's become so acquainted with. It's a puzzle he'd love to solve in any other circumstances, but he has more pressing issues to focus on at the moment. Mainly, how his escape timeline has moved up significantly with Talia's imminent departure.

“I'm sure Ra's will be disappointed to hear you've abandoned your duties so quickly,” he replies anyway, just because he enjoys needling the woman when he can and antagonising Talia is one of the few pleasures left to him post-resurrection.

Oddly, instead of scoffing or narrowing her eyes at him in irritation at his insolence, Talia chuckles, the sound almost rueful, and shrugs.

“I expect my father will soon have bigger reasons to be upset with me than just my stopping your training.”

Well, if that isn't cryptic…

“...Stay safe, Talia,” Tim says after a long, ponderous silence in which he catalogues everything about her and somehow ends up remembering only the things that remind him of Damian. “And… you know, it wouldn't kill you if you called your son more often. He may not be the little kid you dumped on our doorstep anymore but he still needs his mom.”

That same pained look, full of guilt and longing, from earlier makes a reappearance and now Tim knows that whatever reason she has for leaving, it has to do with Damian. Tim's constricting heart hopes it doesn't have anything to do with Damian being hurt or in danger, but judging by the lack of urgency in Talia's demeanor, he concludes that it probably doesn't.

“I'll be sure to keep that in mind,” she says, voice choked up in an uncharacteristic show of emotion and weakness, before she clears her throat and schools her body language and voice back into the neutrality he's come to know her for. “I… did not hate the time we spent sparring together, Timothy. And I think I've come to see at least a bit of what my son sees in you. I am sorry for what my father did to you, for what it's worth. But I think you have all you need to overcome this new wrench thrown in your life.”

Tim feels unexpectedly touched by Talia's words and swallows harshly against the lump forming in his throat. He's often found that compliments from enemies have the tendency to be not only more meaningful but ten times more impactful – it's like they know your flaws and shortcomings, all the reasons to hate you, on such an intimate level, that for someone like that to find something to compliment you on signifies a microscopic level of understanding few people can have in your life. And for Talia, who's hated Tim for as long as he can remember, to offer these kind words right when he needs them most? It hits somewhere deep inside of him.

She doesn't give him an opportunity to say any more, nodding once in farewell before she spins on her heel and marches out of the room and away from him for who knows how long. Her perpetual shadows – assassins he suspects are only loyal to her – follow swiftly in her wake, and all Tim is left with are the broken remains of that damned mirror and a random servant springing from a corner to clean it up and offer him disinfectant and a pair of tweezers to take care of his wounds. Tim takes them, mind still stuck on Talia's unexpected words, and takes a seat on a bench where he can start working on the tiny shards embedded in his left hand.

Chapter Text

He's still mulling on his escape plan – now that Talia is out of the picture for good, he can focus on only getting away from Ra's without having to worry about evading her too – by the time dinner rolls around.

Tim's made pretty decent progress on mapping the place out in the three weeks he's been here and has come up with at least twenty different ways to sneak out and be on his merry way before someone pulls the alarm and all hell breaks loose. The problem, though, is how to be on his merry way. From everything he's managed to observe of the outside of their little compound so far, there's nothing but empty desert for endless miles in every direction. No sign of civilization, not even something as small as distant lights or smoke, and, to top it all off, no mode of transportation available. Every single time someone has arrived or left the place, they've done it by plane, which only touches down on the helipad long enough for their passenger to board or get off before taking off immediately after.

The only other variation has been the singular truck that comes by once a week, always on a different day and at a random hour he hasn't managed to find a pattern to yet, that brings supplies. Tim's considered hijacking it more than once – it would be entirely too easy to do so, too – but his main problem remains: he has no idea where exactly they are and how far the nearest populated area is located in relation to the compound (or the direction in which to go to reach it). He'd rather not risk going off further into this endless desert and run out of gas and supplies. It would be a pitiful way to go, even worse than getting popped by random thug of the day #38, to just waste away from thirst and hunger while getting cooked alive inside a metal box under the hundred degree sun of the open desert.

As much as he hates it, Tim will just have to keep waiting, biding his time, and hope for a golden opportunity that won't end in him getting snatched right back ten minutes later or dying a second time from his own stupidity.

He's lounging around his room as dinner time rolls around, enjoying the lack of pain in his muscles for once, and he's just wondering what's taking his babysitters so long to come fetch him for his daily dinner with Ra's – he's told them countless times that he's perfectly capable of reaching the dining room on his own, but apparently Ra's doesn't like the thought of Tim left to wander the place all on his lonesome and has ordered this lackeys to babysit Tim every time he's not with him, Talia, or in his room – when a powerful explosion rocks the place up and sends Tim tumbling to the floor before he can catch himself.

“What the…” he mutters to himself. Even in his confusion, Tim's long-honed vigilante senses come alive with the presence of danger, and he narrows his eyes, listening carefully for any follow up sounds, as he lifts himself up from the ground. Every muscle in his body is tight with tension, ready to spring into action at the drop of a hat, and it's now that he realises how much he's missed this. The thrill of anticipation, the promise of a real fight – it's singing in his veins in a completely different way to the green rage he's become sadly used to fighting, and he lets it flow freely.

Not even a minute after the explosion, his babysitters make their appearance, looking more haggard than usual.

“Come, our Master has ordered us to keep you safe. We must retreat to the underground bunker.”

Tim narrows his eyes at them and thinks quickly. Chances are, the compound is under attack from some sort of League of Assassins rival or even an unhappy sect that's decided to go rogue. Hell, Talia herself might be behind it, which would explain her shifty behaviour and hasty retreat earlier that day. But… it wouldn't make sense for her to be behind it, not with everything she said there at the end. Besides, there was something in her eyes, in what she didn't say, that makes Tim think that while she might have known something he didn't at the time, she isn't the one behind the current attack. And it was quite obvious she knew something big was coming, big enough to anger Ra's more than Talia abandoning Tim’s training… but he's made it clear that Tim being trained properly in the LoA's way is the most important thing on his list of plans for Tim before they move on to anything else, so why wouldn't he be outraged by Talia going against his explicit orders…? Unless… unless Tim wouldn't be here to be trained by her to begin with.

Yeah, Tim can see how that might enrage Ra's enough to overlook Talia's disappearing act to begin with.

So, that means whoever is attacking right now is either here to take Tim away or is providing just the distraction and getaway method he's been needing this entire time.

(He tries very hard not to think the answer is the first option, because he doesn't trust himself to remain balanced and rational if he allows himself to believe that any of his friends or family are just a few floors and corridors away from him.)

In the few seconds it takes Tim to raise and discard all of these rapid-fire theories, the sounds of fighting get louder and more frequent outside of Tim's room. His babysitters get antsier when they hear it and before they can lose their patience with Tim's hesitation and just throw him over their shoulders and take off, Tim snatches the standing lamp next to his bed, snapping the top off in one quick move, and lays into the two assassins at an inhuman speed he's spent the better part of these past three weeks getting used to. He uses his makeshift bo staff with a fluid ease he relishes, grinning in spite of himself as the lamp support collides with flesh and makes bruises bloom like flowers and downright cackling when the occasional snapping of bone rings out like a gong.

It takes ten, twenty seconds tops for the two assassins to be rendered unconscious and end up lying in a bloody heap on the floor.

“That's for manhandling me like a doll for an entire week,” Tim quips, smug, and blows some hair out of his face as he straightens up.

He exits his room, quiet and careful as he steps on near inaudible feet, and makes up his mind to first go to the training room and retrieve a bo staff before he's even aware of the direction his feet have taken. It's eerily silent as Tim walks, the sound of battle growing quieter the further he goes. On the one hand, a good thing, since he's guaranteed not to run into groups of assassins itching for a fight – he's expecting maybe one or two stray individuals at most, if that. On the other hand, the silence unnerves him and makes him as tight as a bowstring, not to mention anxious that by the time he retrieves a bo and goes back, the fighting will be over and his window of escape closed indefinitely.

Despite the anxiety rummaging through his insides and trying to turn his stomach upside down, Tim reaches the training room without incident and even finds the weapons case unlocked; not that he wasn't ready to bloody his left arm again anyway, but it's definitely easier on him and quieter too.

He takes the beautiful bo he's been thinking of as his since Talia let him wield a weapon in training – ignoring the ever-persistent thought at the back of his mind reminding him that it's a detachable double-bladed bo staff, one Batman certainly wouldn't approve of – and runs his hands over it once in appreciation before he grips it tightly, battle ready, and creeps back towards his room and what has become obvious is the origin of the fight.

He finally encounters other people as he moves past his room, injured assassins falling back to regroup, most likely – or perhaps looking for him when nobody received confirmation from his babysitters that he was secured? – and he renders them unconscious quickly and efficiently. He'd like to think it's because they're already tired and injured from fighting someone else beforehand, but Tim, unfortunately, knows better. A combination of the temporary strength boost given to him by the Pit and Talia teaching him quite a handful of League moves and techniques he's found rather easy to incorporate into his fighting style means that, while he might have broken a sweat going against multiple assassins with the thrill of the fight keeping them alert before his death, especially when so out of real practice, he has little to no problems laying waste to them now.

It would be a confidence boost if it didn't worry him so much. How easy it would be to slip, even for a second, even in a small way, and be unable to come back from an irreversible action.

He tries not to dwell on it.

The first familiar face he sees is Steph. Her bright blonde hair and purple Spoiler outfit take his breath away as he skids around a corner and spies her using one assassin as a springboard to land on the shoulders of another and choke them out with her thighs. He watches, mesmerised, unable to take his eyes away, and a tear falls down his face without his notice.

“Take that, Lego Ninjago rip-offs!” she yells, cackling as she breaks away from the crumpling assassin and flips in the air, kicking the springboard one in the stomach with her feet at full force.

“Chatter, Spoiler,” Batman's voice rings out chidingly from a few feet further away before it breaks off in a grunt as he takes his own kick to his armored stomach.

Tim gasps, he couldn't contain his reaction if he tried, and the sound seems to be louder than he anticipated because it makes multiple people freeze mid-battle save for whipping their heads in his direction.

A lot of voices ring out in the abrupt silence of the room, echoing his name in various pitches and with different emotions lurking beneath the surface, but it's one in particular that makes Tim whip his head towards it in return.

“Timmy!” Dick gasps and his voice is so full of relief, longing and guilt that Tim knows before he's thought it through that there is no way he won't forgive Dick for what he heard on that file after they talk. His own body language probably mirrors those sentiments exactly, and he smiles in the direction of his big brother, taking a step towards him almost subconsciously.

Dick's moment of inattention, however, costs him. The assassin he was fighting prior to Tim distracting everyone takes the opportunity to rid themselves of an opponent and strikes without hesitation. Before Tim even knows what's going on – and before Dick can dodge or block the blow – a sword slices into Dick's side, cutting into muscle and flesh deeply, and Dick crumples to the floor with a gasp of pain, legs too weak to support him anymore.

Tim's mind goes quiet at the sound and sight. It's like all thoughts are wiped, a blank, staticky blanket being drawn over any conscious thought or idea, and he's left running on pure instinct and feeling alone. And the feeling rapidly taking over all others is pure, unadulterated anger.

Tim tightens his grip on the weapon in his hand, the smile on his face a long forgotten memory already, and for the first time since he woke up under the unrelenting assault of the Lazarus Pit's waters, he embraces the fact that he died and came back wrong and lets the anger find an outlet. With a snarl on his lips and bloodlust roaring in his ears, Tim lunges towards the waste of space who dared hurt his brother and snaps the staff in two, revealing the gleaming, sharp blades to his paralysed audience, then starts attacking two-handed. He spins around his target, slashing at every vulnerable area he can find, no matter how shallow or short the cut, and the pounding in his head sounds like a chant, calling for more blood, more pain, more more more, and he lets it chant because this piece of shit sliced into Dick and nobody hurts his brother on his watch.

When Tim comes to a stop at long last, panting and still unsatisfied with his punishment, the assassin is on their knees at Tim's feet, bleeding from every body part and barely holding themselves upright. Tim spits blood in their direction, realising he must have bit his tongue or cheek at some point, and the assassin's flinch makes something dark lurking inside of Tim purr in satisfaction.

He barely registers pulling his hand back and slashing from left to right at the assassin's neck level.

When he blinks himself back to awareness, Tim is staring at a half-decapitated body, collapsed at his feet in a rapidly growing puddle of blood, with his staff in two pieces, one of which is dripping with the same blood wetting his bare feet.

The staff slips out of his numb fingers. The two pieces clatter to the floor loudly and splatter even more blood onto Tim. He takes a step back, staggering on shaky legs, and his wide eyes find Dick a few feet away, sitting on the floor and putting pressure on his wound while staring at Tim with eyes as wide as dinner plates and enough sadness to fill an ocean.

“I… but they… I'm…”

Tim doesn't really know what he's saying. What he wants to say, what he should say, what he can say. Isn't really sure the words have been invented yet.

Frantic eyes search familiar faces, any familiar faces, and he wishes they didn't when he finds Steph's shocked face, Cass' unreadable eyes, Bruce's shuttered expression. All cowled, all speaking louder than any bare face could ever speak.

Tim feels like he's drowning on dry land. His eyes return to the dead body at his feet – his dead body, the first person he ever killed, decapitated in cold blood without hesitation – and he feels bile rising to his throat. He's turned around and puked his guts out before he has time to think about it, and then he falls to his knees, shaking, sobbing, gagging, wishing he were the one lying in a pool of blood right now.

He's just thinking about his bladed staff, trying to remember how far from himself he's thrown it and if he can get to it before anyone can stop him, when a broad, warm body drapes itself over Tim and covers him up like a blanket. He shudders and sobs even harder and hates himself for the way he leans into the comforting weight.

“Shh, baby bird, you're okay. You're fine, it's alright, it's all gonna be just fine, ya hear me? It's okay, let Jay handle it, yeah?” Jason whispers, muttering softly in Tim's ear and rubbing up and down his arms. Tim hiccups on his sobs.

“Ja-ha-ason,” he wails, feeling like a little kid, lost and so lonely, wishing for someone to take responsibility for once and let him follow their lead instead of constantly having to be grown and three steps ahead.

“I'm here, Tim. I'm here .”

Tim's crying doesn't stop, only seeming to get louder.

“I know. I know, baby bird. It hurts. It hurts so fucking much. Just let it out, okay? Let it all out and let me handle it, I promise it's all going to be fine. I'll make sure of it.” And there's a growl in Jason's voice, a dark and threatening promise that says that he will make it be fine, and God save anyone who stands in his way. It's comforting in a way he knows most people wouldn't agree with, but Tim welcomes it and the security it gives him to fall apart. He leans back into Jason's chest as the sounds of the fighting resume yet fade into the background, focusing on the scarred hand running through his hair soothingly instead, and when he feels the prick of a needle in his neck he simply closes his eyes and allows his mind to slip into the waiting darkness.

He's not ready to deal with reality again. And he doesn't think he ever will be, not if this is the reality he can expect to come back to when consciousness returns.

Chapter Text

The picture painted in an ocean of red speckled with black is an all too familiar one. He doesn't want to remember it, has been trying to forget it for longer than he lived it to begin with, but Jason, unfortunately, remembers.

Green waters, loss of control, dead assassins at his feet. Rinse and repeat, minus the water.

He didn't care at the time. His moral compass was busted all to hell when Talia revived him and he was full of so much anger – all his own, home grown , no store-bought Lazarus induced one needed – that he was more than happy to get his training in and let it all out on Ra's’ lackeys while he was at it. Sure, the Lazarus Pit side effects didn't help, but Jason hadn't tried very hard to keep himself contained. That didn't come for a long time, and by the time he was in Gotham it hadn't even been an issue of the Pit influencing anything: that had been all him.

But now that his moral compass is more or less pointing in the right direction, at least most of the time, Jason thinks about that period of his life with nothing short of horror. He's had more than one nightmare torturing his psyche at night. And this? This is straight up out of one of those nightmares.

He clutches Tim close to his chest, cradling his baby brother in his arms firmly yet gently. Tim's no longer the scrawny fifteen year old he wanted gone from the streets, but he's still so paradoxically light and fragile in his arms despite being a grown man doubling as a vigilante. He's just tried to inflict death by a thousand cuts on the poor bastard that hurt Dick – has just sliced through that assassin's throat so deeply that the head is hanging on to the neck by less than half of its width – and yet Jason still feels like if he handles Tim wrong he'll shatter in a million pieces on the ground.

He vaguely feels like he should be descending into a spiral right about now, what with the horrific scene in front of him and the white streak in Tim's hair – not to mention the memory of Tim's eyes, once so very blue, just like Bruce's, shining a poisonous green as he hacked at the assassin over and over again – but Jason finds that securing his brother and getting the hell out of here takes precedence.

The rest of their family are still fighting, with Tim's super dorks assisting or causing more mayhem, depending on who you ask, so Jason hitches Tim higher in his arms and gets the hell out of dodge while their enemies are distracted. Impulse clears a path for Jason as he runs ahead and mows assassins over at superspeed and when Jason reaches the Batplane, Superboy has just set Dickwing down on a bench, where Alfred gets immediately busy cleaning his sliced side up and patching him up, sending him disapproving side eyes all the while.

Jason marches to the opposite bench, Tim in tow, and sits down heavily with the younger boy in his arms. He doesn't put him down or let go, just adjusts Tim's position to something more comfortable – and which won't kill his back or make him wake up with a crick in his neck – and leans back, content to wait for the others to wrap up while he watches Alfred work. Conner sends the passed out young man a longing look but he knows as well as everybody that he's still needed outside the plane and that the mission takes priority now that Tim has been secured, so he leaves with one last backward glance.

For all intents and purposes, both Dick and Alfred should still be benched. Their stab wounds aren't as bad as they were after Tim was taken, but three weeks isn't exactly enough time for someone who was run through with a sword to be up and about, fighting ninja assassins of all things. Alfred, Jason can excuse, since the man is just here to provide medical assistance aboard the plane – which was clearly a good idea, all things considered. Dick, though? Alfred isn't the only one pissed at him right now, to say the least.

Alfred is putting the supplies away while giving a newly patched up Dick the cold shoulder when the rest of their merry band of idiots file into the plane with an odd sense of urgency dogging their steps. Jason straightens up, ready for whatever bullshit comes next, but doesn't get up yet. He just raises an eyebrow at Stephanie, the one closest to him.

“What now?”

The blonde laughs, the sound coming off a bit crazed around the edges, perhaps with hysteria, and shrugs.

“Ask the Energizer bunny over there. These people are insane!”

“Damian, help me initiate take-off, hurry,” Batman orders and power-walks to the pilot's chair like hellhounds are at his heels. The two disappear from sight.

“If you think we're insane, you should see the average Tim-approved Young Justice plan, then,” Cassie mutters.

“Seriously, what the hell did you do? Why’s the old man acting like he just remembered he invited Catwoman over and forgot to hide the family heirlooms?”

Everyone turns to look at Impulse, including his own friends, and the boy pauses by the mini-fridge, which was definitely not stocked with hungry metahumans in mind, to look at them all with wide, innocent eyes.

“What?! Don't look at me! I just took a leaf out of Rob’s book!”

Conner barks a laugh out at that, surprising everyone, and he shakes his head while shrugging.

“He isn't wrong, though. Tim did do that the last time he was stuck in a League base with Ra's.”

“And what exactly did Tim do then that the speedy shrimp copied now?” Jason prompts, impatient and more than a little curious.

“Oh, I rigged the entire base to explode in about… hmm, two minutes? Something like that,” Bart finally replies nonchalantly with a thoughtful look on his face that seems to have more to do with which snack to eat first from their mini-fridge and less to do with the fact that he's just confessed to the imminent killing of who knows how many League people. At Jason's incredulous look, Bart scowls before he takes a huge bite out of his chocolate bar, then says, “oh don't give me that look. I made sure they had enough time to get out. If they hurry. Which they probably should.” At the continued silence, he adds, “I'm sure they'll be fine,” and doesn't manage to convince anyone of the truth of that statement.

Jason whistles. “Who was gonna tell me Tim and his three stooges were such little murder machines?”

Cassie scowls at him as she lifts Tim's limp legs to take a seat on the bench on the other side and then gently sets them back down to rest in her lap. She gives one of Tim's ankles a squeeze before she relaxes.

“We don't kill .”

“Just… maim a little,” Conner continues, coming to a stop in front of their bench and settling down directly on the floor so he can gaze at Tim's face without obstruction.

“I mean, statistically speaking, we've probably killed a lot of people since we started Young Justice. We just don't know for sure,” Bart pipes up. He's now on his fourth or fifth snack, Jason isn't sure.

“And I'm certain the universe is a better place for it,” Alfred adds in typical Alfred fashion, not sounding the least bit surprised by the news that one of his grandsons and his friends have been going around almost certainly killing people for years.

Jason, for his part, wants to be more surprised by the news, wants it to be harder to accept than it is, but he's known that Tim’s moral compass is a weird thing for years now. So frustratingly straight when it comes to other people – he's heard enough ‘Batman doesn't kill’ lectures to last him a lifetime – but when it comes to himself, Jason’s always had the impression that Tim hasn't become a supervillain simply because it'd disappoint Bruce. That kid is a paradox; he's so painfully kind and selfless, so driven by justice and the need to save people, to right as many wrongs as he can, yet he's capable of so much destruction if he ever lets himself slip. Sometimes, Jason thinks that it's really all about efficiency with Tim – that he would be willing to do anything, even murder, if he considered that approach to be the most efficient. The only reason he hasn't done it outright yet – until now , he silently amends – has probably been, like he said earlier, the Bruce-patented disappointed face he'd be sure to get.

Having been on the receiving end of that look, Jason can't fault Tim for keeping himself in check so thoroughly.

Before he can philosophise further about Tim’s grey morality, the Batplane finally takes off and jostles them all a little. Just in time, too, since that's the moment the compound goes up in flames, exploding in a beautiful shower of fire and debris, and the impact jostles the plane even further before Bruce stabilises it and then takes them away for good.

Seemingly satisfied for now, Bart finally throws the last empty wrapper away and zooms towards Conner, stopping himself a second too late and almost toppling the Kryptonian over, then flops himself down so he's sitting with his head in Conner’s lap. He lifts a hand up which he uses to gingerly pick up one of Tim’s and then threads their fingers together, smiling gently and humming in satisfaction.

“We've got Rob back, Kon,” he whispers softly. Jason tries to give them their privacy but it's kind of hard to do when he's sitting right there with his brother's head in his lap.

“We sure do, dude. We sure do.”

Jason can't help but silently agree with the awe in Connor’s voice. He looks down at Tim and brushes the long, black hair away from that pale face, still dotted with blood splatters. Murder or no, he's glad to have his little brother back. And he’ll knock Bruce’s ass into next week if he doesn't share the sentiment. He won't let Tim doubt his place in this family because of what he did, not like Jason did. He'll make sure of it.

Chapter Text

When Tim first came to the Manor – when he finally gave in and admitted that his house was empty more than full, that he alone was not enough to fill all the empty crevices and dark corners of the place, and that maybe living with Bruce while his parents were away wasn't such a bad idea after all – he often felt the need to get away.

Tim was used to loneliness but also solitude. Sure, the former hurt, especially when that chasm in his chest opened up its jaws and threatened to swallow him whole and all he wanted was a lousy hug or even a phone call from his parents that wasn't them informing him of their itinerary for the week or asking him to do something for them when he had some free time after school. But the solitude? That, he welcomed. He liked the quiet and the peace when it wasn't pressing in on him like an anvil, and the freedom of knowing he could make as much noise as he wanted, walk around naked for all he cared, sing at the top of his lungs or skip around the house on one leg – it was something he treasured and one of the biggest reasons he hesitated to take Bruce up on his offer for so long. In the end, it was the crushing loneliness (and the attachment that grew over their partnership that blossomed into something he had still hesitated, at the time, to call family) that made him relent.

But the need to be alone remained.

In a house as big as the Manor, it was ridiculous for Tim to feel the need to hide – the only people living there at the time, aside from him, were Bruce and Alfred, after all. He only had to duck into one of the empty rooms in the guest wing and his desired privacy wouldn't hesitate to materialise around him.

But Tim had wanted something different.

Anyone could track him down, eventually, and break the illusion. He needed to go somewhere others wouldn't think to look for him or simply wouldn't enter regardless. And that's how Martha Wayne's art studio came to be his refuge.

Tucked away several yards away from the Manor, shielded from the casual observer's view by the beginnings of the small copse of trees dotting the Wayne grounds, Martha transformed what once was a shed of sorts into her personal art studio when she married Thomas. It had remained empty since her death, and relatively untouched. Bruce couldn't bear to enter for a long time after he lost her and then by the time he felt ready, he thought himself unfit to enter her art sanctuary after neglecting it for so long. Alfred only tidied up every few months.

And so Tim picked it as his own sanctuary, spending hours walking around the modestly sized space on loop as he examined the finished and half finished paintings in their protective frames, scrutinising brush strokes, pigment choices, and wondering where his grandmother might have taken this painting if she'd had the chance to finish it, or if she'd have hung that painting up in the Manor if she'd been around when it was done drying. In time, with Bruce’s permission and Alfred's help, Tim built a dark room in addition to the shed and cleared a small area for himself where he could display his developed photos, and it became the place where Tim ran away to be alone when his need for independence became too much. Everyone knew to leave him be when the lock on the door was left hanging open and in turn, Tim got to spend time with his grandmother in the only way he could while breathing became easy to do again.

It's also the place he runs to when he wakes up back at the Manor in his own bed as if nothing life-changing and life-ruining happened in the past God knows how many weeks.

He throws away the covers draped over him and leaps out of bed, heart hammering in his throat. He swivels his head around, taking in the sun setting gently over the horizon outside his window and the very dim light casting shadows all over his bedroom – unchanged, yet neater than he usually keeps it, and so so very wrong. A distressed sound escapes him, like a caged animal, and he knows that he needs to be gone. It doesn't even matter where – just… away.

He doesn't even bother finding shoes. Tim just opens up his window carelessly, almost getting tangled in the heavy drapes secured around it, and climbs down to the ground with the expert ease only someone who's snuck out this way more times than they can count can possess. The grass is damp under his feet which means Alfred has already watered his rose bushes for the evening  – no risk of running into him and getting stopped then.

Tim is a shadow himself as he steals across the grounds and towards his sanctuary. Bare feet silent as a tomb thanks to the brief training he received from Talia, Tim makes absolutely no sound up until the moment he reaches his destination. Once there, breaking the lock is just a matter of finding the right tools – which he doesn't, because if he forgot to take the key with him, he sure as shit didn't remember to bring lockpicking tools along – but luckily really heavy rocks will do in a pinch and soon the lock lies broken on the ground. Tim slips inside, shutting the door firmly behind him, and then he slides down to the ground and lets his head thump back against the nearest wall.

He doesn't remember how he finally escaped the compound. He doesn't remember the ride back to Gotham. Hell, he doesn't even remember who carried him inside and who pulled the covers on his bed back and placed him in the middle, who tucked him into bed, who drew back the drapes to block some of the sunlight coming in from outside.

He doesn't remember any of it, but he wishes he could forget everything that came before that.

He looks down at his hands and finds them clean. He examines the lines on his palms, the crevices between his fingers, and the space beneath his nails. He can't find one speck of blood anywhere he checks.

Yet in his mind, the red is so very vivid it almost looks fake. He thinks he could drown in it if he let himself fall to the ground in the middle of that pool, might choke on it still if he isn't careful going forward. He can almost taste the iron on his tongue, that heavy scent assaulting his nostrils and clinging to the very depths of his olfactory system. And though he's looking at his bare hands, he could swear he still sees the thick liquid drip drip dripping down his fingers, congealing in his palms, drying under his nails and flaking off the knuckles.

Tim knows it's all in his head, knows he wasn't even conscious for long enough afterwards to witness the blood drying. But just because he wasn't there to see it doesn't mean it didn't happen. Tim has always had an active imagination, he can fill in the gaps.

Footsteps shuffling around the grass outside the shed catch Tim's attention and pull him out of his spiral. He can hear the heavy tread as well as the hesitation as one foot steps on the gravel right outside the door and then retreats back into the grass, undecided. Tim holds his breath, himself not knowing what he wants the person outside to do, and shudders on his next exhale when he can hear a grunt and a sigh as a heavy body sits down and leans against the door on the other side.

Slowly, timidly almost, Tim scoots across the floor and tentatively leans his left side against the door, right hand placed palm first against the wood.

For a stretched out moment, no one speaks.

Then–

“I never thought I'd see that lock open again,” Bruce murmurs just loud enough to be heard through the wood. Tim's breath catches and he doesn't bother quieting the sound no matter how much he wishes he could hide from this. He doubts this is something he can truly hide from – what he did, or the consequences of that, or Bruce himself. If anything, he knows his own psyche won't allow that to happen even if everyone else does.

Tim doesn't know what to say and doesn't trust himself to speak just yet. But he wants Bruce to know that he's listening, paying attention, and so he hums vaguely and presses his head more firmly into the door.

“When I held you in my arms again after I thought I'd lost another son,” Bruce continues quietly with a note of grief mixed with wonder that Tim feels too unworthy a recipient of to linger on for long, “I didn't even care that you might never speak to me or anyone ever again. Leslie said you might be catatonic forever, everyone else kept yelling at me to call up JLA members to examine you and cure you, your friends didn't understand why we were just content to let you be. I know most of your siblings didn't either.

“But I was just so happy to have you back, you know? Once seemed like too much already, but to get a son back a second time? And to be lucky enough to get to him before someone else had a chance to mess with his head and turn him against me and everything I stand for? I wasn't going to mess with fate by forcing its hand. If you were meant to go back to your usual self, then I was confident that it would happen organically when you were ready.”

Tim swallows drily as he listens to Bruce's one-sided conversation. He closes his eyes to stop the burning he can feel in his eyes and shudders again as he brings his right hand to his chest where he clutches his worn t-shirt where his heart is. It hurts. He wishes he could make it stop. But he knows he hasn't earned that right.

“Today… when I saw you standing there in that room, dressed like a League member and holding a staff in that familiar way… I could have cried,” Bruce goes on, unaware of how hard it is for Tim to breathe and the sensation of pins and needles in his right arm as his chest constricts with a pain so visceral he thinks he might just die from it. “I had my baby boy back. My sweet little Robin. The little menace of a child who bullied me into taking on a new partner and getting my act together because he just cared so much – about Gotham, about Batman, and about justice.

“But I was late again. Your hair was white, your eyes were green, and the moment Dick got hurt all I could see was this nightmarish combination of Ra's al Ghul and the Jason we knew before things got better between us. I-”

“Please stop,” Tim whimpers and a sob breaks out of him so violently that he bangs his head against the door. “I-I know you hate me,” he forces himself to say between anguished cries and undignified hiccups, and he sniffles harshly as he tries to wipe the tears away with shaking hands. “I hate myself.”

The door shudders as the sound of frantic movements kicks up outside and when Bruce speaks next, his voice seems almost to be right in Tim's ear.

“Sweetheart, no!” he denies and it's a sweet sound, a comfort Tim doesn't deserve. “I could never hate you. Nothing you do can ever make me hate you, Tim. I told Jason that once upon a time and he didn't believe me, not for a long time. But I will tell you the same thing, now and as often as you need to hear it, until you finally believe me. I love you more than I can say and I would sooner die than hate you, sweet boy.”

Tim's crying peters out but he still sniffles pathetically. He closes his eyes tightly, squeezing a few more tears out of his damp eyelashes, and he wonders. Can it really be this easy? Can he really just kill a person and then go back to living his life, being the same Tim he's always been, the same son Bruce loves so much? Where's the justice in that? What makes him different and above the laws of men and morality? Why should he receive his father's love and acceptance when the person he mutilated and killed lies dead somewhere in the desert?

“Then you should. You should hate me and lock me up and make sure I never see the light of day again,” Tim says despite the hoarse voice threatening to send him into a coughing fit. “Or banish me from Gotham forever so I can't taint this place further with my bloody hands.”

Unexpectedly, Bruce huffs a laugh.

“And people say Jason is the theater kid.” The door creaks and Tim wonders if Bruce's back is killing him, lying on the gravel outside and leaning on a stiff wooden door like this. His stomach twists with guilt but he's still hesitating to open the door and come outside. “I never did anything like that to Jason, Tim. And he killed a lot more people in less understandable circumstances. What makes you think I'd ever do that to you?”

Tim shrugs even if he knows Bruce can't see him.

“I don't know… it's just the way it should be.”

Bruce hums then stays quiet for so long that Tim almost forgets his companion, distracted as he is by his swirling thoughts.

“Do you think, perhaps, that you're just projecting your guilt onto me instead? I should probably be offended that you think so badly of me, but I know how your mind works. You've always been your greatest critic, Tim. You were thinking of ten ways to improve your form in training before I could even see you finishing an exercise, if you don't remember. And okay, fine, maybe you're right that this should bother me more than it does, and maybe it does, a little, somewhere deep inside I'm not too keen on examining at the moment, but I'll also say that you've always been the more rigorous when it comes to justice of the two of us.

“I'm a hypocrite, Tim,” Bruce admits, sighing. “I've dedicated my life to the pursuit of justice but when it came to my own son's killer I couldn't bring myself to actually finish it, no matter how many chances I had. I've forgiven Dick for killing Joker and Jason for everything he did as the Red Hood in the beginning. I hated your parents for not treasuring you the way you deserved yet continued to send you out onto the streets of one of the most crime-ridden cities in America every night with nothing but a brightly coloured suit and a few trackers. I'm not really known for being impartial when it comes to a lot of things, actually. Especially not my children.”

Tim can't really find a flaw in that. It's all true. He hates himself – for his loss of control, for breaking the one rule he set out for himself because he knows how his mind works and how easy it would be to justify murder in the pursuit of justice if he let himself (he even has proof of what happens when he does, in the form of Evil Future Tim) – and he wants there to be some sort of cosmic punishment dealt to oath breakers of Tim's caliber. In the absence of it, he wants Bruce, the man Tim has modeled his moral compass after, to cast judgement on him and declare him guilty and irredeemable.

It's irrational. It's ridiculous. But it is what it is.

“But surely you can't just be fine with me being a killer. You said so yourself – I reminded you of Ra's!”

Bruce makes a noise of assent.

“There is a reason he's been so obsessed with you, Tim. I never denied it, at least not to myself. The two of you are similar, as much as I hate to admit it. It never worried me, because I know my son and you could never truly join a man like him, but the parallels are there for those with eyes to see.”

Tim hates the words, hates the truth behind them, and he clenches his fists so tightly the nails start biting sharply into his palms.

“So yes, you reminded me of him. And I didn't, not for a second, hate you for it. If anything, I hated myself.”

“What? Why?”

The laugh Bruce huffs out is bitter and harsh in a way that uncomfortably reminds Tim of those early Robin days, when Bruce was an asshole and Batman a disappointment. They didn't last long after Bruce realised that Tim was there to stay, because Bruce might be many things but an abusive adult is not one of them, so he got his shit together and started looking after Tim to the best of his grief-laden abilities, whipping him up into shape fairly and carefully to prepare him for his new role. But outside of that, when it was just regular old Bruce feeling sorry for himself, that laugh made many appearances before it finally died away.

“Because I failed you just like I failed Jason,” comes the heavy reply. “I swore I'd do better, that I wouldn't fuck it up twice, and then the same thing happened again. Clearly, I'm doing something wrong if I can't keep any of you truly safe.”

“Bruce, no…”

“It's okay, Tim.” Bruce sniffles, audibly trying to pull himself together. “This isn't me throwing myself a pity party, it's just the truth. But that's not what matters here; what matters is that, while I couldn't help what happened with you, couldn't stop history repeating itself in those aspects, I can stop myself from making one particular mistake right now.”

“And what's that?”

“I can make sure my son knows I love him. I can make sure I don't drive him away by putting my foot in my mouth and showing my concern through condemnations,” Bruce answers quietly but with so much emotion Tim can nearly feel it through the door. “I don't want to go weeks without knowing if you're even still alive, Tim. I don't want to fight with you every time we meet and only feel how thin you've gotten when we throw our fists around on a rooftop somewhere. I don't want to make the same mistakes with you that I made with Jason. I refuse to lose you again.”

Tim sniffs. “Even if it makes you a hypocrite?”

“Hypocrite is my middle name.”

“I think grandpa Thomas might have something to say about that,” Tim mutters, voice wet again with the tears of relief and love flowing down his face like rivers.

“I'm sure he'd agree, actually. I was a hypocrite from a young age, you know? Drove him and mom up the wall with it.”

Tim laughs despite himself and the lightness in his chest makes it so he can push himself up to his feet, arm braced against the door, and twist the knob slowly before pulling the door open at long last. It's only years of training that keep Bruce from tumbling backwards as his back support is removed and Tim giggles, feeling younger than he ever has, as he offers his dad a helping hand and pulls him up as well.

Bruce dusts himself off and then freezes as he watches Tim, clearly unsure what to do now that they're finally face to face. His eyes don't stray from Tim's own, don't flicker up to the white patch in his hair and don't watch him with disgust or fear or hate for the green swirling among the blue Tim knows is visible even now, but rather take him in as he is and drink the sight of him in like a man who has just encountered an oasis after days stuck wandering in a desert. Bruce opens his mouth to say something but Tim cuts him off by throwing himself at his dad and hugging him tightly.

“I don't think I'm okay, yet,” he mutters into the fabric of Bruce's shirt, burying his head into his dad's shoulder as Bruce's arms come up instantly to hold him close. “But thank you for still loving me even if I'm like this.”

Bruce buries his hand into Tim's hair and cradles his skull gently, pressing a kiss into the crown of his head then breathing in deeply.

“That's fine, you can take all the time you need until you're okay again. And you never have to thank me for that. I love you with the same ease I breathe oxygen into my lungs, sweetheart. It's not a hardship.”

The wave of tears crashes into him again and Tim lets it, burrowing closer into Bruce, as close as humanly possible, and doesn't even put up a token of protest when his dad lifts him into his arms like he's thirteen and gangly again. He just wraps his legs around Bruce's waist and lets himself get carried back to the house, head resting on Bruce's shoulder and right hand playing with the hair at the man's nape. They don't say anything else on the trek back to the Manor, but they don't need to. They've said all they needed to say already, at least for now. The rest can wait until later.

Chapter Text

The following night finds Tim outside again.

The moon is nowhere to be seen, though he can guess its location if the brighter patch of clouds is anything to go by, while the few stars just barely visible in the gaps among them twinkle serenely in the pitch black sky.

He's on the roof this time. His bedroom got stifling quickly, the complete silence and stillness of the room pressing in on him in a way that reminded him uncomfortably of his room at Ra's’ place. It didn't help that the room was too cold to sleep without a blanket on but the weight of it felt too much like a casket lid snapped shut on top of him. He might have to ask Alfred to turn the heat up in his room from now on. But that's a problem for tomorrow.

Tonight, he climbed through his window – upwards, this time – and scaled the side of the Manor until he reached the roof. He's sitting down, legs crossed and knees hugged to his chest, cheek resting on top of them as he glances at the sky. The air is crisp and refreshing and Tim breathes it in like he hasn't had a good inhale in decades. His lungs expand and shudder on every exhale while unpleasant memories rattle around in his brain.

Last night's talk with Bruce settled something animalistically restless in his chest. Like a cornered, guilty dog, he'd been whimpering in a corner, ready to bolt or meekly accept his punishment. Now he knows better. It helps to know that his dad doesn't hate him, even if a small part of Tim still thinks he should. And it's only natural that he would think that – Batman, and by extension Bruce, has been such a paragon of justice and morality to Tim for most of his life that it's hard to admit that maybe he's put him on a pedestal that is too high to realistically reach. Bruce has been Tim's true north when it comes to his moral compass in many ways along the years – every time he doubted if a course of action was truly acceptable or a step too far in the wrong direction, he only had to think about what Bruce would do and he had an answer. Things like hiding a whole entire Batmobile in the batarang budget could be excused and justified – things like killing Captain Boomerang, not so much.

Tim knows, logically, what is morally justified and what isn't. It's just hard to convince himself, sometimes, that just because logic and statistics also indicate that an action is the most beneficial in a certain situation it doesn't necessarily mean that it's moral and acceptable. That he should pursue it. That repeat offenders with no scruples who show no inclination for reform should be dealt with permanently so that they don't keep getting infinite chances to make new victims.

There's a reason Tim's only beef with Jason has always been about the unfair bone he had to pick with Tim over being Robin. He never really had to get over or forgive Jason's lethal methods. Not deep down in the buried recesses of his psyche.

Tim hates guns and murder for a whole host of different reasons to Bruce.

It's because of how easy it would be if he could resort to them without consequences.

So to have Bruce's forgiveness and unwavering love, after all of that, when he's been the guiding star of Tim's morality for so long, it's more reassuring than he'd like to admit.

The ease with which he slipped up back at the compound is why he hates Ra's and that damned Pit so much. He's had a master control over himself since he became Robin. No wasted movement in his fighting style – every swipe of his bo and swing of his grapple has always been calculated to be as economical and efficient as possible – and an ironclad grip over himself and his emotions – Tim would never allow his feelings to cloud his judgement and endanger the Mission (at thirteen, the Mission was synonymous with Bruce, and his goal was keeping Bruce alive so he could keep being the Batman Gotham needed, which Tim couldn't do if he ever slipped up and lost his cool because of nerves or personal anger). But with one simple action, irreversible and with such terrible consequences, Ra's took it all away. Unmade Tim. Unraveled him. Threw a wrench into the gears he's been painstakingly oiling and maintaining for years just because he could and wished for it. Just to watch him stumble and struggle and ultimately lose.

Tim knows, in a way that is hard to explain but which he intrinsically understands because of the similarity Bruce spoke of the night before, that Ra's was very much aware that he could never twist Tim's loyalties so easily. Sure, maybe he believed that Tim's foundational trust in his family was shaken by the audio recordings he manipulatively shoved down his throat, but he knew Tim too well to ever fall for Tim's attempted ruse. Tim knew that as well. It was probably just a game, just Ra's allowing Tim his little attempt at manipulation to see how far Tim was willing to go, amusing himself in private while still getting to train his chosen Heir in the League's image and push him ever so slightly forward with every day spent going through katas with Talia.

He knows with a certainty he'd bet his life on – again – that if his family hadn't found him when they did, he would have been killed and thrown back in the Pit again and again until Ra's finally got the Heir he wants. It is, after all, what Tim would do if the roles were reversed.

The scuff of a shoe, deliberately allowed to be heard in a family of Bats, rings as loudly as a gunshot in the silence of the night. It effectively pulls Tim out of his own head and he straightens his posture to twist his neck towards the source of the noise.

Dick's silhouette reveals itself as the pale light of the sky hits his white sleep shirt.

His brother folds himself down next to Tim with a fluidity Tim has always envied. He's as flexible as the rest of the family – perhaps sans Jason and Bruce, whose bulkiness doesn't pair as well with flexibility as the rest of them – but there is something liquidy to Dick's movements, a natural propensity for flowing and bending and trickling down like water, that no amount of training could ever get Tim to replicate it. It’s like Dick's bones aren't made of the same calcium as the rest of the human race.

“Couldn't sleep?” Tim asks, being the first to break the silence and start their first conversation since Tim got back.

He hasn't talked to much of anyone, really, and he wishes he could say it's not because he's afraid. But the truth is… he is. He is so afraid to talk to his family. He fears he's changed too much on the outside too, not just the rotten inside he can feel festering with an acid green puss that's spilling over onto his organs, and that his siblings, his friends, his boyfriend will all see it and back away in disgust and disappointment. It's not the most logical train of thought, but it's a hard one to repel. Tim's fears have always been stronger than his logic.

For this reason, he avoided the entire household after he and Bruce got back inside. His dad carried him up to his bedroom and laid him down on the freshly remade bed, but when the door shut behind Bruce and the silence settled over him like grave dirt, Tim had pulled out a pair of headphones and his laptop and got to working on – metaphorically – dusty case files while listening to a podcast he had been up to date on before he died. Alfred knocked on his door like clockwork to set plates of food on the corner of his desk at every meal, but didn't try to pry Tim away and down to the dining room to join his family, and Tim just buried himself further into the detective work in an attempt to smother the guilt he felt at depriving them of the son and brother they just got back because he was too afraid to face them.

That guilt rears its ugly head now too, and Tim is just too tired to feel much fear, so that's the only reason he can bring himself to face his eldest brother instead of turning tail and running.

“Haven't done much of that lately, to be honest,” comes Dick's quiet reply accompanied by the shrugging of his broad shoulders.

Guilt and shame slam into Tim like high-speed trains barrelling into a brick wall. There aren't really many reasons to account for Dick's lack of sleep aside from Tim and his many forms – Tim dead, Tim catatonic, Tim missing. Like Rome, all roads lead to Tim these days, it seems.

“Don't,” he says next and Tim looks at him in confusion. Dick's eyes are unerringly trained on Tim's own even with the low visibility. Absently, Tim wonders if his eyes glow now, like cats’, but he lets the inane thought get swept away like dirt under a rug. “Don't apologise. I know you and I won't let you feel in any way responsible for anything that's happened to you since that night.”

Tim lowers his gaze, unable to meet Dick's eyes even when he can just barely make them out, and starts picking at his nails to give himself something to focus on.

“Hard not to when I'm the reason you haven't been sleeping.”

“Fuck that,” Dick spits with a protectiveness that warms Tim down to his toes. It's not a rare undertone to his brother's voice but it never fails to make Tim feel loved. Appreciated. Special. He may be older now, wiser some might say, and he's long ago taken Dick down from that pedestal he put him on as a child, but in a lot of ways he'll never stop being a sunflower, sad and wilting at times, coming alive and brimming with life at the barest touch of sunlight from Dick's radiance. To be loved by Dick Grayson is something that few can remain unaffected by. To be favoured, even in small ways, even less so.

“But am I wrong?” Tim challenges with a small lump in his throat.

Dick makes a disgruntled noise and shifts until he's close enough to wrap his palm around Tim's fidgeting hands. Tim stares at the image, at the sight of Dick's broad, long-fingered hand wrapped so wholly around both of Tim's, and he marvels at how safe and comforted he can still feel at the proof of his big brother's protection.

“It wasn't your fault an asshole killed you while on patrol and it wasn't your fault that whatever magic brought you back to life didn't fix your mind too. It sure as shit wasn't your fault that Dami's asshole grandfather played us like a fiddle and kidnapped you from under our noses.”

“But-”

“If it was me instead, would you blame me? Or Cass? Or Jason, or Dami, or Steph?”

Tim snaps his mouth shut with a click and frowns. He hates it when Dick uses his own irrationality against him.

“No,” he answers reluctantly, “of course not.”

“Well then. There you have it. Defendant found not guilty.” Dick squeezes Tim's hands and even if he's not looking, he knows he can find a fond, victorious smile on Dick's face if he shifts his eyes away from their clasped hands.

Tim huffs, shaking his head, and accepts Dick's verdict.

“If you say so, your honour.”

They sit in silence for a while, just two brothers huddled together under the pale curtain of filtered moonlight, and Tim's chest settles as time stretches, the fear fading like wispy smoke in the wind even as another emotion takes its place. It's familiar and he doesn't want it, but it demands attention and Tim is helpless to deny it. He feels betrayed, as he remembers that recording, and of course his mind with the aid of some green turns it into anger. It's so easy to turn everything into anger these days.

“Ra's tried to turn me to his side, you know,” Tim speaks out suddenly and he slips his hands out of Dick's grasp to wrap them around his legs instead. If Dick finds the gesture odd or his change in topics abrupt, he doesn't say anything about it. Tim licks his chapped and bitten lips and makes himself continue. “It didn't work, as he probably knew it wouldn't, but it hurt me, and that's almost just as good as far as he's concerned. I knew what he showed me was carefully curated and taken out of context to create the maximum amount of complicated emotions that would rattle me. I knew that. I do know that. But… it's still real. Still true. And I doubt that any amount of context could really fix the black hole I have in my chest every time I remember it.”

“What did he show you, Tim?”

Tim turns his face towards Dick at long last and stares at his older brother with an expression he can't begin to imagine the look of. It matches the swirling nebula of feelings exploding and imploding in his chest on a never-ending loop.

“Recordings. Of Kon, Cassie, Bart. Damian. You.”

Confusion, then concern, blooms in quick succession across Dick's face, and then his expression morphs into realisation followed by shame and sorrow. It's not a new expression on his brother – in fact, Tim is quite familiar with it. It doesn't make it hurt any less or make the anger soften. It's anger wrapped around grief and hurt and disappointment, but it burns just as hotly in his veins. It scorches.

“Them, I can forgive. It still hurts, but I'm sure there's an explanation out there that can justify their words, even if they still hurt. But you? How could you ever think the Pit was a solution? That I would want that? Forgive that?! You know what that thing does! You've seen it first hand. How could you ever want that same thing for me, Dick?”

And just like sand slipping through his fingers, the anger drains away to leave heartbreak in its place instead. Tim's voice breaks and lowers in volume as he speaks until it trails off into a whisper, followed by utter silence. Trees are swaying in the breeze, branches and leaves rustling and creaking like old bones, and Tim feels so much hurt that it's a wonder it hasn't spilled out of his mouth and nostrils yet, pooling at his feet and drowning him in it.

He wants the anger back. The anger is easy, it's free of rationality, it lets Tim just blow up and hurt back , so he doesn't have to think about how much he's hurting. But he can't quite grasp it, no matter how much it reaches out in turn, not when Dick is looking at him with tears glistening on his cheeks as they fall and gather at his chin. The sound of repressed sobbing doesn't surprise Tim. But the agony that rips through him as he hears it does.

Tim scrambles to throw himself at his brother, wrapping his arms around Dick and falling in his lap without coordination, simply desperate to hold him and make those sounds go away. He starts crying too, shoulders shaking and chest constricting, and he burrows so close that it's a wonder he doesn't manage to slip under Dick's skin. Dick's arms enfold him in a hug without missing a beat, clinging to him like a lifeline, and Tim wonders how long it's been since Dick was held like this, touched like this, with Tim dead then absent, then gone.

“It changed me, Dick,” Tim cries, a muted wail he can't fully let out, as he buries his face into Dick's shoulder. “I'm not me anymore. You saw what I did. Is it worth it? To have me be a killer? Was it really so bad when I was a useless husk?”

“No, no, no, baby bird. Of course not,” Dick denies frantically, putting a stopper to his sobbing in favour of hushing Tim. “I was wrong. I was weak and I was selfish and I wish I could take it all back, I wish I could trade places with you because you didn't deserve this and I hate myself so much that I didn't protect you when you needed me.”

Tim grips Dick's shirt tightly and shakes his head, eyes clenched shut against all the hurt and the migraine he can feel building in his temples.

“Not your fault.” And he knows it isn't. No matter what Dick said or thought, a moment of weakness or not, Tim would never doubt this. Dick would have done everything in his power to keep Tim safe and if Tim was still taken, then it only means that Dick's everything just ended up not being enough. He could never fault Dick for that.

“Yes, it is,” Dick disagrees vehemently. “I was stupid and let you get caught then taken away. I should have been better. Shouldn't have let you out of my sight for even a moment.”

“Dick, you couldn't have chained yourself to me 24/7. You're not omnipotent. I never doubted your care for me, that was never in question.”

But Dick shakes his head stubbornly.

“I spoke it into existence. For four months straight, all I could think about was that I wanted you back and that I was willing to do anything to make it a reality. And then what happens? The exact thing I was contemplating. Hell, knowing Ra's, he might have done it just because he heard me say it and wanted to spite me,” Dick scoffs bitterly.

“You're giving yourself too much credit here,” Tim counters. “Ra's was always going to use the Pit on me if he managed to get his hands on me. He threatened me with it when I lost my spleen and I'm sure he's regretted not going through with it this entire time.” It's easier to push away his own swirling emotions when he's focusing on using logic to calm his brother down. But the reminder of what got them to this point leaves a bitter taste in his mouth, like bile coming back up, and Tim's right back where he started. “So since you didn't personally dump me in it, please don't blame yourself. But… I can't say that it doesn't hurt that you contemplated doing it. And I can't make myself sweep it away and get over it. It hurts, Dick. Was it really so bad that I couldn't do anything for you in that state? Was I that much of a burden?”

He wishes his voice was strong and angry. But in reality, it's only brittle. Fragile like a Prince Rupert's drop. Liable to shatter into a million pieces at the slightest pressure.

Dick tightens his hold on Tim. His right hand flies to his head and starts petting his hair, while the other one clutches the back of Tim's shirt like an iron clamp as if he's afraid Tim might dissolve in his arms and disappear into thin air.

“When you died, something in me snapped,” Dick starts. It's not what Tim was expecting but he wiggles closer to his brother until he's more comfortable and lets him speak. He wants to hear this, no matter how much it might hurt. Besides, he owes it to Dick to hear him out. “Maybe it was bad timing, maybe it's because it was you, maybe because I've lost so many people and I keep losing them and no matter how strong I get, how much I train, how much I prepare and overthink and plan, I always seem to end up on the same side of the funeral like clockwork. I don't know, Tim. I just… lost it.

“I was angry at everyone, most of all myself. Wally helped but he couldn't be there all the time and besides, I didn't want to burden him too much with my shit.” Tim makes a noise of disagreement at that. Dick could never be a burden. He always helps everyone around him, whether it's as Nightwing on the field or as a friend, lending people a friendly shoulder to cry on or a sympathetic ear to listen. He does so much for so many and he almost never takes anything in return. The only person aside from Wally that Tim's seen Dick consistently turn to for anything has been him, and even that only started happening once Tim grew up enough for Dick to not feel as guilty about relying on his younger brother. But he knows now is not the time to fight Dick on his worth and whether he deserves comfort or not – he does – so he stays quiet.

“I moved back here because I thought… I don't know what I thought, really. That being close to your grave might help? That being able to slip into your room and touch your things might be a good enough substitute for you?” Dick laughs and it's not a happy sound. “Naturally, it didn't help. Of course it didn't. I just got angry at other people instead of myself and picked fights with everyone, especially Bruce. God, I gave him so much grief for anything I could pick on.”

“Why?” Tim asks quietly, his first interruption, even though he knows why. He was here the first time the Bats lost someone, after all.

“Because I blamed him,” Dick replies instantly, since he, too, knows what Tim does. “I lost another brother and although it made no sense to blame him any more than it did to blame myself, I still felt like it was his fault. That he failed, somehow, to protect another son, and it only proved me and Jason right. I was right to not want you in the suit way back when, and Jason was right to not want anyone in the suit after he came back. I just wished you hadn't had to pay the price for us being right.”

Dick's voice turns quiet and grief-stricken as the hand in his hair presses Tim's skull closer to his shoulder, as Dick's head lowers towards the crown of Tim's own head and his older brother presses a lingering kiss there.

“It's alright,” Tim whispers, clutching Dick tighter for a moment, even though it really isn't. He died. And he still dreams about the press of cold steel against his temple, the deafening sound of a gunshot, the flash of pain cut short so abruptly before utter nothingness took its place like a TV being shut off.

Dick breathes in deeply for a few long moments before he resumes petting Tim's hair and clears his throat.

“I split my time between Blud and Gotham after some time,” he continues a little less steadily than before. “I couldn't handle being in the Manor for too long and I suspect everyone breathed a little easier when I wasn't there to snap at everyone's heels like a rabid dog all the time. The night you came back was one of those times when I needed to escape. So I wasn't here. By the time I finally got back, they'd already brought you to the Cave, did all the tests to make sure you were okay, and concluded that you'd be catatonic for no real medical reason for the foreseeable future.

“I know it feels like I thought less of you because of your condition. Babs has been subtly and not-so-subtly calling me ableist for the past five months because of this. So I know how it comes across.”

“It really does,” Tim admits quietly. He's glad Dick brought it up himself before he had to because it really isn't a great thought to have about the brother he's looked up to for so long.

“I'm sorry, baby bird,” Dick says with feeling. “I can't really put it into words, but I'll try, even if I know it might still not sound all that great.” He clears his throat, spine straightening almost involuntarily, and Tim listens closely. “The reason why I hated seeing you like that is two-fold. On the one hand, I know how much you hate being perceived as a burden and not having your autonomy, how much you pride yourself on your brain and detective skills. To have all of that taken from you, to have so much uncertainty surrounding the possibility of you ever getting it back… I ached for you. It didn't help that it reminded me that Jason was where you were now, only he'd been wandering the streets and getting hit by cars, ending up in a hospital as a John Doe and getting whisked away by the League with all of us none the wiser.”

Yeah, Tim can see how that might have been hard to handle. It doesn't really change anything, it still was wrong for Dick to say what he heard him say on the recording, but Tim can admit, even if a little grudgingly, that Dick isn't wrong . Every time he thinks of himself as a checked-out shadow wandering around the Manor halls with no real recollection of anything that he did or felt during that time he gets so uncomfortable he thinks he might die.

“And the other reason?” he prompts, unwilling to dwell on that any more.

Dick blows out a breath. “The other reason… is less empathetic than that. I was just selfish. I wanted my little brother back exactly the way he was before I lost him, and I felt cheated. I wanted to talk to you and play rooftop tag while on patrol and whine to you about my job in Bludhaven and about Wally leaving his socks lying around the entire apartment. I wanted to listen to you tapping the keys on your laptop at inhuman speeds when you get sucked into a particularly interesting case and I wanted to see the barest of recognition in your eyes when I called your name.

“For the first time in my life, I wanted to be selfish and get what I want. Just this once.”

“But you weren't the only one that would have had to face the consequences of that, Dick,” Tim points out quietly.

“Yeah…” Dick agrees shamefully. “I know, Tim. There aren't any excuses for what I said, I know. I'm not trying to excuse myself. Just want you to understand, I guess. You deserve an explanation and an apology, if nothing else.”

Tim finally pulls away from his brother, scooting until he falls out of Dick's lap, but he remains close to him, their knees touching. He looks at him, taking in the disheveled hair, the five o'clock shadow, the way his shirt is bulkier on one side of his torso where Tim has just now remembered his brother got hurt two days ago. He can't bring himself to hate this man. Just like he's never been able to in the past. Kon, Bart, Cassie, they've all cussed Tim's family out on numerous occasions down the line and swore vengeance on them for fucking things up with Tim in various situations (and yes, they are biased, because whenever Tim is the one to fuck up, suddenly they're suspiciously quiet). Dick has been the recipient of that a handful of times, the worst one around the time Tim lost everyone he cared about in what felt like the snap of a finger. But Tim is a weak man. He craves love and affection and company. He loves Dick Grayson with everything he has. He was the first person he can remember being loved by in the same way he loved them, with the same intensity and the same devotion. He hasn't yet found a mistake that Dick could make that would be big enough to override that and make Tim hate him.

He will always forgive Dick. Just like he knows Dick will always forgive Tim.

“You really picked a bad time to do something selfish for once,” he agrees and chuckles, the laughter easing something in himself as well as in the tension between them. Dick slumps, clearly relieved, and Tim takes pity on him by reaching over and flicking his ear in admonishment. “You're still an ass but… I think I get it. I don't know that I wouldn't have felt the same if it had been you in my place.” Tim shrugs.

“So… am I forgiven?”

Tim shakes his head, smiling, and latches onto Dick's neck to tug downwards with all his strength so he can give him a noogie.

“Yeah, you're forgiven,” he replies loudly enough to be heard over his big brother's yelps, ducking the flailing limbs trying to knock him off.

Before they can devolve into actual fighting and possibly fall off the roof together in a tangle of limbs, Damian sticks his head out of his window and aims a withering glare at their obnoxious asses.

“Will you two idiots cease your idiocy and get back inside? Some of us are trying to sleep.”

Oh, wow. He didn't even find a synonym for ‘idiot’ to diversify his sentence. Damian must be really tired. Oops.

“Yeah, okay, we're going. Sorry, Dami,” Tim whisper-yells, putting a stop to his and Dick's rough housing as he extricates himself from Dick and sends Damian an apologetic wince.

Damian's face softens significantly even if he still keeps up an irritated front.

“See that you do,” he declares imperiously. He hesitates another moment before he retreats, saying, “I'm glad to hear your laughter in our house again, Timothy,” and then he ducks back inside and snaps his window shut.

A wide, wondering smile appears on Tim’s face and he clutches a fist to his chest, trying to contain the love he feels for his little brother and the happiness exploding in his heart.

Dick comes up behind him and drapes an arm across his shoulders, staring up at the night sky before tilting his head down towards Tim with a half smile.

“Let's go. I want some cereal and you have a fuckton of movies to catch up to. We're having a marathon in my room.”

Tim doesn't point out that Alfred won't be happy about Dick raiding the kitchen for cereal at this hour or that it's literally the middle of the night and they should be sleeping. He knows neither of them will be able to get any sleep right now. Instead, he smiles back at his older brother and races him back inside, whisper-hollering in his face when he beats him to the kitchen, and doesn't even complain when Dick hoists Tim in his arms one-handed and carries him off to his room, bowl of cereal precariously held in the other hand.

It feels good to have something else in his chest other than anger for once. He's had enough of that during the past three weeks to last him a lifetime.

Chapter Text

Sunday dinner at Ma and Pa's is something sacred. That was one of the first things Kon learned after he moved to Smallville and started living with the Kents. It's a day when everyone is home – Clark, Lois and Jon included – and any disputes are to be set aside and left at the edge of the Kent property while everyone helps Ma with dinner and they sit around the table, eating good food and catching up on everyone's goings-on. It's not only tradition, it's mandatory. It's the only way Ma figured out how to get her son to come home more than once a month, if she was lucky, and as the family grew, the tradition stuck.

The only times they're allowed to miss it is if the world is about to end. And even then, they might still get scolded for not finishing their mission in time for dinner.

But when Kon's phone lights up with Tim's ID, and when Tim's soft, hesitant voice asks if he'd like to come over, Kon doesn't even hesitate to fly downstairs – literally, just to save time, despite Ma's rules about not using powers in the house – shrugging his jacket on and patting his pockets to make sure he has his phone and some cash on him, and tells Ma that he's meeting Tim and he doesn't know when he'll be back.

Surprisingly, she doesn't rip into him and drag him to the kitchen by the ear. She doesn't even scowl at him in that way that still makes him feel like a few months old clone still getting the hang of this ‘life’ stuff. Ma gathers him in a firm hug, kissing his temple before she pulls away, and presses a container into his hands with a worried but fond smile afterwards.

“Give this to Tim but buy some ice cream on your way to Gotham, you know the one he likes. Now shoo, don't keep the boy waiting.”

Kon shoots her a wide grin and nods. He's out the door and up in the air headed for Gotham before she can blink and he's clutching the hot to the touch foil tray he knows is filled with fresh-out-of-the-oven apple pie to his chest protectively. Tim isn't really a sweets kind of guy, preferring savoury snacks over sweets any day of the week, but Ma's apple pie with ice cream on top is the one time Kon has seen his boyfriend forget his table manners and simply inhale the food placed in front of him. The first time he had Tim over at the farm and Ma gave him pie, Tim blushed from head to toe when he stopped for a second to breathe and realised how utterly he forgot himself. His red cheeks were blown out like a chipmunk's and he had some melted ice cream in the corner of his mouth. Kon thought he was the most beautiful thing he'd ever laid eyes on.

Ever since, Ma has always made it a point to bake more pie than they need and either tell Kon to invite Tim over and send him out the door with explicit orders to deliver the goods to his boyfriend. She's always complaining about how skinny Tim is and plying him with apple pie is the only way she's found to rectify that glaring oversight. Tim pretends to complain that he won't fit in the Red Robin suit anymore if she keeps baking him pies, but he's never turned her down in the entire time he's known her.

Kon stops to get ice cream before he reaches Gotham, knowing better than to step foot in a supermarket in one of the most crime-ridden cities in the country after sunset – he loves being a hero, he really does, but he'd rather not get delayed stopping a robbery when he's about to finally see his boyfriend after getting him out of that ninja fortress in the desert and then being banned – though not in so many words – from the Manor until Tim settled back into the routine of being home.

Tim is waiting for him outside when he touches down on the perfectly manicured grounds of the Manor. His hair is still long – Kon isn't sure if he just hasn't had time to cut it yet or if he's decided to keep the look – but gathered in a truly haphazard bun at the top of his head, with strands hanging out of the loosely tightened hair tie and falling all over the place. He's wearing booty shorts that Kon is pretty sure Cassie lent him that one time the AC broke down in the Tower during one of the hottest days of the summer and all of Tim's clothes were waiting to be washed in his hamper, and hanging loosely off his bare shoulders is what Kon is very sure is his favourite t-shirt that he thought Jon ruined in the wash last year but was too chicken to admit. The orange fading light of the sun falls across Tim's exposed pale skin like a halo, giving him an ethereal glow, and when blue-green eyes fall on Kon from behind thick, dark lashes, Kon feels like all the breath has been knocked out of him.

He lets the plastic bag he used to carry the ice cream and pie the rest of the way fall on the grass without care as he steps closer. A tentative but excited smile blooms on Tim's face and he starts walking too, slowly at first, then sprinting at full speed towards Kon, and he is helpless to do anything but open his arms and catch him when Tim throws himself into his chest.

He clutches his boyfriend like he'll disappear if he loosens his hold even for a second. Tim buries his face in Kon's neck, shaking with silent tears that drench the collar of his shirt, and Kon doesn't give a shit if he ruins all of his clothes with his tears as long as he stays right where he is, safe and sound in his arms.

They stay like that. Kon doesn't know how long, doubts that time really has any meaning now that Tim is in his arms, but he comes back to the present when Tim starts tugging on his arm. He gets the message and sinks down to the grass, taking Tim with him as he goes, and they sit together, intertwined like two beings fused into one, as the garden lights turn on all around them.

“I brought you pie,” Kon says, deciding he'll be the first one to speak.

Tim makes an interested noise and perks up, looking up at Kon from underneath his lashes with wide eyes.

“Oh, shit, did I interrupt family dinner? I totally forgot what day it was, I'm sorry.”

“If you think I was going to sit quietly at the table with Clark and my annoying little brother while you waited for me here, then you're really not as bright as I thought you were, Rob.”

Tim laughs and shakes his head, slapping Kon's chest playfully.

“Well if you're just going to sit here and insult me after I so bravely stood up to my whole family when they said I should take more time before I see you in person…” Tim trails off and pushes against Kon's chest to lift himself up, clearly intending to leave. Kon has no intention of letting that happen, though, so he tugs him back down into his lap and wraps himself around Tim like a limpet.

“Nope, you're not going anywhere.”

Tim struggles, more for show than anything else since they both know he could escape Kon's arms if he really wanted to, super strength or no, then groans pitifully as he gives up.

“What if I need to pee?”

“Well, Jimothy, there comes a time in every couple's life where they must learn to let go of inhibitions and-”

“I am not going to pee myself while you keep me hostage in your lap,” Tim protests vehemently, sounding so genuinely horrified that Kon can't stop himself from breaking character and laughing himself silly.

“Okay, okay, no peeing on ourselves or each other,” he agrees breathlessly in between peals of laughter.

“Thank you.”

A blanket of silence falls over them like the first snowfall – gentle and serene. Kon breathes Tim in and he can't get enough of the pomegranate scented shampoo and the coffee hair mask Tim uses left lingering in Tim's hair every time the breeze ruffles the silky black strands. Tim is snuggled up to him like Kon is the most comfortable armchair in the world and that makes so much warmth explode and blaze in his chest that he's sure his torso must be glowing from within.

It's simple and peaceful and Kon is so happy he could burst.

“Did you get me ice cream, too?” Tim pipes up after some time as he's fiddling with one of the studs on Kon's jacket.

“You know I did,” Kon replies with a fond smirk. “Wanna eat?”

Tim hums in agreement and sits up properly so he can eat without causing a mess, but he's still glued to Kon's lap and his back is touching Kon's front like they're two magnets that can't be pried apart.

Kon uses his TTK to fetch the plastic bag he left lying forgotten in the grass. Thankfully, the pie is still plenty warm and the ice cream is only slightly melted. He silently thanks Ma for being one step ahead and packing a fork for the pie and a spoon for scooping because he sure as shit didn't think of that, and hands Tim the opened container of pie laden with ice cream when the grabby hands start getting impatient.

“God, this is amazing,” Tim moans around his fork, chewing like a neanderthal without a care in the world that ice cream is carving a path down his chin and towards Kon's shirt (Tim's, really, at this point). “Is Ma single? And is she looking for a rich, younger man to look after her?”

Kon barks out a laugh. “Sorry, babe, she's happily married and has a firm policy against dating twenty somethings who are currently dating her grandson.”

“Damn, okay. Have I mentioned I'm really rich, though?”

Kon wets the pad of his thumb with his tongue and wipes the ice cream streaks away from Tim's face.

“I'm sure she'll be happy to make you more pie without needing to become a cougar. Just tell me when so she has time to prepare.”

Tim swallows, pausing his eating to aim a beaming smile up at Kon, and leans up to peck Kon's lips sweetly before he goes back to finishing his pie.

“Okay, I will. Thank you, Kon. You're the best boyfriend in the entire multiverse,” Tim chirps happily.

Kon gazes down at him with what he's sure is the most idiotic, besotted smile in existence, but can't really bring himself to care much. He licks his lips, tasting apple and pecan praline from Tim's kiss, and thinks yeah, this is what love tastes like.

“No, I'm pretty sure that's you,” Kon murmurs with a lovesick sigh and leans back on his elbows so he can watch Tim eat and wave his fork around as he starts explaining how actually, he's pretty confident it's Kon because he's studied the multiverse extensively and he knows what he's talking about so it's rather pointless of Kon to contradict him. Kon is so happy to have his Rob back that he doesn't even pretend to be annoyed at Tim being a smartass. He just lets him prattle on and then shuts him up with a long makeout session when the pie is officially gone from the tray.

Tim doesn't fight at all when Kon pulls him down to lie on top of him and protests even less when he spins them around and traps Tim's body underneath him, covering him like a shield and tasting every inch of exposed skin he can get his mouth on. They only break apart and say goodbye when Alfred steps outside, late into the night, and clears his throat before telling them it's time for Master Tim to retire for the day. Kon blushes, embarrassed to have been caught mauling Tim like a horny teenager in the Waynes’ backyard, and takes off towards Kansas after receiving one last kiss from Tim and an amused eyebrow raise from Alfred.

He only realises he forgot Ma's fork and spoon in Gotham after he's slipped into his bedroom through the open window. Well, he hopes he has a nice funeral after Ma is done with him in the morning. The memory of kissing and being kissed by Tim all evening is definitely worth the hell Ma has in store for him for abandoning her cutlery so carelessly.

Chapter Text

Over the course of the following days and weeks, Tim gets used to being back home again. It's a work in progress.

His anger has diminished significantly now that enough time has passed since his dunking and there are no assassins, Talia, or Ra's around to needle him constantly and push his buttons until he snaps. It hasn't disappeared altogether, which he never expected would happen since Tim has carried anger around since he was eight and got explosively mad for the first time at his parents for lying about when they'd be home for the tenth time in a row that month , and so he just accepts that anger management courses are in order and that's that.

Jason is, naturally, his biggest help and, oddly, his staunchest protector. They've gotten a lot closer than they used to be over the years – the bar was so low when they first met that it's not really saying anything – but Jason has never shown quite so much protectiveness and gentleness towards Tim until now. Jason's care was always mostly shown through begrudging acts of service or by finding his favourite foods waiting in the kitchen for him with a sticky note bearing his name in a familiar, loopy script. But now every time someone lingers too long on Tim's white patch of hair or the greener than usual eyes when he gets angry, Jason turns into a guard dog and nearly bites people's heads off. And when Tim goes out on patrol for the first time, despite Bruce's orders to remain at home for a while longer, and Tim loses his shit at a Two-Face goon firing a gun at a civilian and almost kills the man with his non-bladed bo-staff, it's Jason who answers his distress call and squirrels him away to one of his safe houses where Tim can loudly fall apart without the rest of the family watching. 

It's Jason who talks him down and hugs him tight. It's Jason who threatens to punch him if he says he's a monster one more time and it's Jason who says, “even at your worst, you're a thousand times better than me, baby bird. So if you think I'm not a monster and that I deserve to call myself a hero, then do the math and figure it out.”

Tim cries for a whole different reason then and clings to his older brother, wondering what he ever did to deserve such awesome siblings in his life.

His reunion with Bart and Cassie – and then the rest of the Titans who have been dying to finally see Tim for themselves instead of just hearing about him from Kon or talking to him in the Titans group chat – goes much better that his first unsanctioned patrol, though he never really doubted that. Tim chooses to go away to San Francisco for a while, even if it goes against Bruce's every overbearing instinct. Tim doesn't want to abandon his family so soon after they just got him back, but he needs to get away, and Martha's art shed simply won't cut it any longer. He needs the sunshine and the Tower, the constant presence of at least a handful of Titans on rotation, and the type of crime fighting unique to SanFran that he won't get anywhere else – in short, Tim needs something as different from Gotham as humanly possible.

He sees Damian fairly often, since Robin is a regular face on big Titans missions, as well as Bruce and Dick  whenever Titans stuff intersects with the JLA. He keeps in touch with the rest of the family and flies out to meet them wherever they are on the globe or welcomes them at the Tower when they're in Gotham. Even Alfred visits him once or twice a month, if only to ensure his grandson won't ‘waste away eating nothing but reheated pizza and dinosaur nuggets’.

Kon whisks him away to Kansas just like he promised, where Ma and Pa gather him in a hug so tight Tim thinks superpowers might run in the family after all, regardless of blood connection. He ignores their shiny eyes and they do the same in turn, and then he's seated at the Kents’ table with Kon next to him and Ma and Pa across from them, eating pot roast and laughing at Pa's grumbling about a neighbour who lost a baby cow on their side of the fence and kept them up all night looking for it. He spends the night there, curled up on top of Kon in his childhood bedroom, and thinks that maybe life isn't so bad as he drifts off to sleep with Kon's fingers massaging his scalp rhythmically and Ma's apple pie settled comfortably in his belly.

He contemplates letting Red Robin die in that warehouse and ends up going through with it and changing his superhero identity. He brainstorms suits and colour schemes and themes, settles on something that suits him, but never quite manages to land on a name before the first worldwide alien crisis strikes and forces Tim to debut his new persona.

Later, when a major newspaper runs the first story about the crisis and how it was successfully averted, a photo depicting Tim socking the evil alien leader in the jaw and shoving them back into the portal they came in through shows a hero dressed in a blue, red, orange and yellow costume – a mixture of colours that remind Tim of Kon's Superboy suit, of Robin, Red Robin, Red Hood, and Nightwing, too. They call him Phoenix, on account of the colour scheme and the bird-like aspect of the suit, and Tim chooses to stick with it. He’s not sure he would have gone with something so on the nose for himself, but it does fit his situation rather nicely and who is he to deny the public what they want?

Tim isn't sure where he's going next. Doesn't know if he'll snap the next time he gets triggered and ends up killing again, he doesn't know if he can ever hear a gun go off and not get stuck in a flashback of a dirty warehouse floor and a gun against his head. He doesn't know when he can be back in Gotham, patrolling with his family, or if he even wants to. Kon has been talking about maybe settling down somewhere, just the two of them, and Tim has been eyeing a pair of engagement rings he saw online a little too intently to fool himself into thinking he's not seriously considering the idea. He doubts he'll ever give up the vigilante life for good, but he's quite content to take it easy for now and let Phoenix fly with the Titans only when needed or when he feels the need to stretch his wings.

It's a good life for the moment. He's not in a hurry to rush anything or waste any time. Tim plans to live his second chance to the fullest and make every second count. For now, that means spending as much time annoying his friends, FaceTiming his family, and smothering his boyfriend with love as humanly possible. He's taking it one step at a time and honestly? He couldn't be happier.