Chapter Text
Haunting, cold and depressing would be the best description of Tim’s scenery for the past three weeks.
If he wasn’t already a pale lithe boy before, now he would be treated like a sickly victorian child — that is, if anyone even gave a flying fuck.
His legs had gone numb from sitting, other than the sensation of thousands of needles pricking at the skin there. Tim Drake — Gotham’s newest billionaire brat — stood at the console, hunched over, hands coming to rub at his face, maybe to rid of the exhaustion that threatened to morph into tears.
Other than the shoddy bulb illuminating the makeshift lab in his parent’s manor’s basement, the screens harsh blue glow read one thing and one thing only : ‘Attempt 99 : Fail .’
When his icy blue eyes refocused to take in the environment, papers of days worth of now useless information lay torn or crumpled on the ground, the echo of a hoarse voice screaming ringing in his ears.
Turning towards it , he watched as the last of his material automatically appear in the green liquid of the stasis pod, bobbing up and down. It obviously— wasn’t Konner.
It never was.
It hadn’t moved since he’d begun the experiment. No sign of life. No sign of anything. Just another failure.
Ninety-nine failures.
Ninety-nine fucking failures.
Tim was probably the final hundredth.
Tim rubbed at his eyes, red and stinging from lack of sleep, and probably twelve overdoses on caffeine.
This isn’t going to work. It was never going to work.
Never work.
Never. Work
Never.
Work.
But he couldn’t stop. Not when the memory of Kon still burned behind his eyelids every time he closed them. Not when the guilt of surviving gnawed at him like a parasite.
Not when he knew deep down, the only reason Lex could even ‘make’ Kon was because he had a team of 22 Tim’s, while Tim isn’t even sure he was himself anymore — bringing the one man army to it’s steady descent into failure.
Hundredth time’s the charm?
But he couldn’t give up now — not when he’d
come so far
barely made a nickel’s worth of progress.
His movements were akin to something mechanical, making Tim wondered if he actually cloned himself — before snapping out of the absurd stupid , dumb thought.
He’s really starting to go insane isn’t he?
Inputing the final sequence, Tim had to quell the ache in hus heart and use the logic in his mind, making sure to not make another stupid mistake — something he’s been making more times than clones.
“ Tim. .. ”
This , Tim figures was his hundredth blunder. Not the ball of material going through metamorphosis, but forgetting to lock the door and turning on the security system.
The voice wasn’t deep and soft like he’d almost imagined, but something in between a gasp and a loud whisper. The booming voice of leader finally going down a few octaves, every but of it laced with horror.
“Cassie I can explain I swear—”
“ TIM!”
His body processed the yell quicker than his mind, and the flinch he gave nearly caused him to tip over and ruin everything.
He barely had time to brace before Cassie stormed into the lab, her voice reverberating off the metal walls.
Cue ensuing arguments, tears fighting, a punch or two, breaking something, breaking more things and finall —
“Oh Tim,”
It was raw. Defeated.
Exhausted.
Her voice had gone hoarse, tears making tracks through the concealer that covered her cheeks and her nails digging into her golden lasso. But, she would never use it on him. They both knew that.
And Tim felt even worse that he was the reason she was like this now. His only remaining friend.
“This is madness, Tim. You can’t keep doing this to yourself—or to him. Why?”
Desperation leached onto each word, and in the following sentences that became murk in Tim’s mind. Still, he’d flinch at the sharp edge in her voice, but he didn’t respond. What could he say? She wasn’t wrong.
“You need to shut this down,” she said, softer this time, but her words cut just as deep.
His gaze flicked back to the pod, frost still curling along its surface. His throat tightened as he forced himself to speak. “I will.”
They both knew he wouldn’t.
Cassie hesitated for a moment before nodding, stepping back toward the door.
When did they get like this? Before, even after they broke up — being the only ones with some intellect in their team they would talk for hours on end.
But — he can appreciate that the understanding and empathy never quite left.
“You need to let him go, Tim. Before this destroys you. Us. We’re all that’s left.”
He pretends to not notice the red staining the corners of her eyes, her blonde curls, always shining and kept in too condition with too products now a tangled mess, exceeding her desired length.
He knows she doesn’t intend to leave, not before making sure Tim does. Not before solving the problem herself.
“Does Nightwing know?”
—Because I won’t hesitate to tell him.
Not before making a masked threat.
Because Cassie — Young Justice team leader of a team, albeit a half dead team, with one of the 2 remaining too bordering on being admitted into Gotham’s most brutal asylum. Wondergirl was still their team leader. And she still has a duty.
When the door closed behind her, the silence returned, heavier than before — because no-one was there. Not even the dim glow of blue from the computer.
But now? Fuck empathy and understanding.
Three weeks later, after he concluded that Wondergirl was a fucking snitch, and once Tim gets his affairs in order he’d personally give her a damn stitch.
For now, after being labeled public enemy number one by the Justice League and its unofficial subunits, Tim found himself back in the shitty lab. This time around — making sure to
lock
the damn door that caused all this mess in the first place.
But when he flicked the switch to turn on the light — the room already had the soft glow of early morning sunlight creeping through the cracks.
It looked like a ghost town—like the aftermath of something catastrophic. Apocalyptic, almost.
The green liquid from the shattered pod spread across the floor in an eerie puddle, a new species of mould probably arising from it, definitely not approved.
And the walls — blasted apart, like a force had torn through them.
The pod was empty. Broken. In pieces.
And Tim—Tim was royally fucked .