Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The day Timothy Drake-Wayne dies, Wayne Enterprises’ stock drops two-hundred and thirty seven points by close of market.

At a nineteen percent decline, it’s the largest single-day crash the American market has ever seen because at seventeen, Tim was the best thing to happen to the conglomerate in over three decades. The Wayne’s may have started the company, but it was built on the back of a very young, very calculating Drake, and Gotham knew it—the world knew it. So when the headline splashed across every paper and news channel for the entirety of the daily cycle and into the weekend, public confidence shattered under the reputational shadow of ‘Brucie’ Wayne.

Clips of the playboy billionaire resurface, cycling back into the scrutiny of the public eye to be dissected. After all, the man who once tripped into a fountain—head down, ass up, thong on—couldn’t be trusted to lead.

Would the retired Lucius Fox step back into the role until a replacement could be found? The press could only question. There was too much uncertainty, and every second Bruce Wayne refrained from making a public statement, it only grew, compounding into a swelling void of discontent that could be heard across the world affecting international markets.

Over the following days, it didn’t matter what statements Richard Grayson released, ensuring the durability of WE and requesting privacy for their family at this time, Bruce Wayne couldn’t be found. Only his voice would cease the onslaught.

But he’s gone. Lost, though the public didn’t know that carefully, strategically guarded secret.

So day by day, press releases by opinion pieces, everything the Waynes built crumbles one stock at a time. It’s easy really, to shatter something that has always been seen as ‘too big to fail’, all it takes is a lack of confidence. All it takes is a knife of tragedy twisted in deep. The board of directors, chairman, and advisors are human; they’ll fall for it like the public.

By market open on Monday, when the stock has hit its lowest since the recession and a shiny coffin is being lowered into a private cemetery marking the end of the Drake line, thirteen shell companies covering a single private investor buys each and every last one of them.

It’s not a controlling share, and it nearly wiped out his reserves, but everything goes according to plan.

Tim had expected and could afford nothing less than perfection because this was just step one—a black pawn slid into position, a challenge met and posed.

In the past 72 hours, he has broken nearly a dozen laws, and if the FBI ever caught wind of it he’d have to plan a prison break next, but he’s not going to get caught. He’s too good, too well-trained, and too damn desperate to fail.

Failure has never been, and never will be, an option. The second you’re not good enough, you’re done—not just with your stolen cape but dead. Cruel words, honest and unrepentant cut through the dissonant fog that fills Tim’s head the moment he spots the coffin… his coffin.

Though it holds a cloned cadaver, as humanely sourced as a dead body can be, and enough of his spleen to really sell it, the coffin had always meant to be his. A little too small and short to be comfortable—he had, after all, picked it out upon Bruce’s order when he first became Robin. It was his, and that fact does something to Tim’s brain, makes him pause on a held breath and go utterly still until the world begins to blur in the edges of his vision… or that could just be the rain as it picks up, hammering down onto his head as he lingers back in the shadows, unable to get any closer.

The dreary paints the perfect picture. Tim isn’t the only one who thinks so; behind a police line, dozens of paparazzi snap away, until their camera blends in with the lightning cracking in the distance.

A deluge approaches but this mockery of a ceremony will be over long before it hits.

Amongst the trees, Tim is covered from the worst of it, and he’d feel sorry for the pallbearers as they walk his coffin in… if he knew them.

And that too cuts through the haze with a sliver of morbid humor, for all the love he held in life—fans lusting after him, companies and CEOs and rouges hunting him for his mind, heroes respecting his skill, and citizens for his sacrifice—no one holds him now.

Only Dick, Helena, and a hired crew.

Where are the masses now? Where are his school friends? Moved on in his absence overseas, abandoning him as he abandoned them in his quest to find Bruce. And his team, those he fought beside, bled with, gave everything for? Well, they can’t exactly show up at the funeral of Timothy Drake, but maybe that’s just an easy excuse. He doesn’t let himself consider it too long.

Tim blinks for the first time in too long, eyes burning but dry, and scuffs his foot along a root growing out of the grown, scraping the mud from the bottom of his patent leather oxfords.

The only people here who knew him, or at least, knew beyond the barest minimum of who he is—was—are Dick, Damian, Helena, and Barbara.

Dick doesn’t corral his emotions but lets his devastation rule his face, carve deep under his eyes and etch across the corners of his mouth; it plays for the camera as well the single tear streaking from the corner of Bab’s eye. Especially compared to Helena’s rage and Damian’s blank mask as he stands to the side of the empty front row, reserved for family. Only because Tim is looking, does he notice the way Damian’s hand tremors once or twice every few minutes, strained by the fist he holds like his sword, and he only looks because he can’t look at Dick.

Dick who stays.

Stands silent, who tries to speak and offer words but can’t—for once in his life—get them out and just flounders up there until Helena swoops in with a curt yet emotional address. As she speaks, she looks to the sky, to where the heaven she believes in lies beyond the storm, but she won’t find him there… Tim thinks they both know it, just for different reasons. Heroes, anti-heroes and vigilantes like them… they operate too much in the grey to see those pearly gates.

Tim can’t hear any word she says over the rain and roaring blood in his ears; it’s probably better this way.

Easier to stay still and hidden as they drop their dirt and lay their flowers. He swears Dick slips something under the stack of white roses, but he can’t see exactly what.

And then it’s over.

Like it never happened and Tim’s life was but a passing moment, the small crowd of associates file out and the press fizzle away with the rain.

But he can’t move, rooted into place, stuck amongst the trees, Tim stays until the coffin is strapped to the lever and lowered, as slow and respectful as the process can be.

He’s not alone.

Dick waits, watching so silent and statuesque until he breaks on a gasp and tilts his head back to the sky. Any tears he may cry are washed away with the rain. And Tim—he wants to break too. He wants to drop to his knees and let failure settle upon his shoulders because for a moment its call is sweeter than that of revenge, and justice.

Never before has he wanted to forget the mission, abandon his plans and just take a step—a single step.

There’s a twig in front of him, storm or not, that's all it would take to be seen.

To end this.

But he can’t. He can’t.

So Tim pulls at the raw edges of his soul, marches back into the memory of the last time he saw Dick Grayson and just sits in it, the hurt, the betrayal, the shock of being replaced as Robin when it was the one thing—the one thing—that held his sanity in check. Dick stole it from him, gave it away to Damian. It still hurts when he thinks about it, like a bruise he only really notices when it’s pressed, but that’s what he does, touches the memory and grinds his thumb down until he can’t take that step. Petty and spiteful, he won’t let himself do.

Even as he curses the sky with Dick. That’s all they have now… no longer brothers, or partners in crime to fight back against the neverending night, just men under the same sky. Men with bodies under their feet.

Dick stumbles as the coffin lowers under the edge of the earth, not even half-way down yet, but his knees seem to weaken. He takes a step back. Another. Gasps for air and holds it, and then just like that, sorrow is replaced with rage. A visual shift so entrancing, Tim sways, almost taking an unwitting step before he stops himself.

Tim thought he knew anger incarnate, thought he met him as a child when he threw himself in front of a grieving man to save Gotham herself from his wrath. But Dick has always held a well of rage, let it warm behind his smile.

A shiver rakes down Tim’s spine—wonder, perhaps even awe at the sight. Or maybe just the cold setting in as his suit lays wet and plastered against his skin.

Never before has Dick looked so much like a god of old, like Achilles, as he walks away, standing taller, moving with just refined grace and fluidity and purpose, one thing on his mind.

Revenge.

In this, too, they are the same.

Don’t fuck up. Batman’s final order rings out with the crack of thunder. Tim wonders if Dick can hear it too, the echoings of their mentor. He wonders if Dick hates him a little bit too.

Probably, probably not. They were Robins by choice. They are who they are now by choice. One way or another, Dick and Tim have chosen this life every step of the way, what happens now is just… a ball rolling down the hill, set in motion years ago, too late to save.

They can only move forward. Keep rolling.

Tim watches him slip into his car, rage against the wheel—losing control the same way one steps off a building, with a breath, a beat of silence, and then a scream ripped from his lungs. Tim cannot hear a sound of it—their cars are too advanced—but god how he moves, anger in motion, all fists and shaking head until… until he stops, a marionette with its strings cut.

Dick presses a single finger to the dash, accepting a call, Tim notices a moment later, when he starts speaking, though his mouth is nearly shaded by his too long hair as it falls over his face. Another thing, another small thing that sings the passage of time, he’s been away from Gotham for too long.

The call doesn’t last long, but it seems to rally Dick, drawing him up like a bow, an arrow pointed to the heart of the city where only darkness lies.

A mission. A purpose. A plan.

They have never been that different… but Dick would have stepped from the shadows. He would have failed, and not seen it as such. Tim has never been afforded such leeway.

So he watches Dick speed off, engine roaring too loud to be respectful to the lurking ghosts, and turns back to the grave.

Staying until the end, Tim swears he feels it in his soul the moment his coffin settles in the dirt, but he doesn’t stop to consider it, dusk is upon them.

And he has work to do.

***

According to a highly specific contingency plan coded into the Batcomputer, the surviving party of vigilantes cannot announce the death of a civilian identity at the same time as the mask. Even in death, their secrets take priority.

So as Tim flies through the night, motorcycle engine a muffled purr, revving as he drives too fast through the lingering traffic over the bridge, the streets do not whisper that Red Robin is dead.

No one outside of the Bats know, and yet those in Gotham who lived through the dark days after Jason’s death did, not in so many words nor any idea of who died, but on a base level, they know.

From the moment after the funeral when Dick appeared in the skyline as Batman—Robin nowhere to be seen—something in their hind brains flared. It’s instinctive, like the very make up of their DNA had been recoded that year. The smart goons and rouges scurry away, cockroaches determined to live another day, battening the hatches to brace.

But the new, foolish, or perhaps most audacious criminals pay no such heed.

Tim, of all people, knows better than to go out tonight, but the funeral and seeing Di—the coffin and his parent’s graves have turned him reckless. He should be in his safehouse, preparing for tomorrow, but the itch under his skin has made the cosmetic touches required for his new identity all but impossible.

A suit, however, is easy to pull on. He’s worn a mask nearly every night for the past ten years, he can put it on in his sleep. Even if it is… different than the one he wore last.

The goggles irritate him in a small way; he still hasn’t gotten used to the change in his field of vision or the way they press into his cheeks in a way his domino never did. Distracting when he focuses on it, the differences don’t end with the goggles or even the pointed ears, but continue into every inch of the suit—even the fabric has changed, more flexible and slick, less structured armor. No touch of red, just black and small touches of cat-bright silver.

Nothing of his past.

Though he has not held the name in years, Tim is no longer Robin. Red Robin is gone, only Stray remains. As cats so often do.

Little survivors, just like him.

A new mask. A new name. A new purpose… and yet—and these days there is always a yet—Tim is feeling reckless, hungry, frothing with need and an urge he cannot fight. He is suddenly a kid again, camera in hand, chasing shadows and knowing how to see while being unseen.

Only an hour, just one detour, that’s what Tim tells himself, but he has never been good at control when it comes to Dick Grayson, this is—and has always been—his first mistake.

Just to check on him, this too is a lie, but one that leads him to a drug deal in a port warehouse.

High in the rafters, Tim watches uselessly as he has done all day. All week.

Ever since that night, his last one as Red Robin, Tim has been stuck on the sidelines, observing what Gotham has become, what has been left in his wake, refamiliarizing himself with key players and the skyline he saw only in his dreams. Soon Stray will make his debut, but as for tonight, he has to remain undetected a little longer.

Easier said than done when Dick kicks the double doors open wide and says nothing.

No quip.

Not a single word.

Just the heavy judgment and damnation of silence.

There’s a pause, a shuffle, the goons torn between the duffles of drugs and those of cash. They take a step back, but Batman—Dick—is already moving.

He carves through the men like a blade. Yet he draws none.

Batman doesn’t reach for a single weapon as the dealers and goons recover from their shock and launch into action, closing in on him.

Not his modified escrima, batarangs… nothing.

The past and present play before Tim, overlapping with uncanny déjà vu. He has seen this before. Only this time, with this Batman, no child will throw themselves in front of the victims of his grief. Damian knows how to follow orders, or he respects Dick enough to comply for now.

A shot rings out, one and then several. Tim startles from his trance, lurching to—to do something, help Dick, but he’s already moving again, a shadow blurring across the floor as bullets deflect and ricochet.

Unfaltering. Butal in a way he rarely was as Nightwing, using moves and attacks he never taught Tim—some he doesn’t think Bruce knows Dick can do… he doesn’t look like Batman. No, this man was trained, perhaps unwittingly, by Deathstroke, and it shows as he rips apart the dwindling group.

But how long will this expulsion of emotion last? They haven’t spoken in a year. Haven’t seen each other. Haven’t been on the same continent, much less the same city. Surely, Dick does not hold this much of Tim in his mind or heart. His grief will pass like storm winds, raging and destructive, to a cold breeze, and then nothing at all.

Good, Tim thinks, forcibly nodding to himself. Good. The sooner Dick stops… emoting, the easier this whole thing will be. The last thing Tim needs is his biggest weakness—the fault line forever in his foundation—getting in the way of his revenge.

Heart in his throat, Stray watches as Dick fights, breaking from his rage only when there is no one left standing.

Not even him.

Batman lays in a crumpled, devastated mass of black fabric.

Tim swallows, realizing at once how his hands hurt from holding onto the beams. Knuckles aching and finger’s bloodless, he held himself back. His claws are dug deep, wood splintering under them. He pulls his hands away slowly, peeling up his fingers one by one, counting each measured pant—sob—below him.

And god, Tim wants—he wants so much.

But he backs away, hands shaking to reach out, pick Dick up off his feet and brush him off. Take off his goggles and disguise and feel the brunt of Dick rage like a hammer to the head because it would be better than this, but Tim can’t. Won’t let himself.

And maybe, just maybe if he has to pull up the memory of seeing Nightwing replace him as Robin with a boy who tried to kill him, dust off the image like a film strip and let it replay in his head just to take a step back, maybe he does.

Because Tim takes a single silent step back, and then another.

He walks away.

It feels like a damnation upon his soul, but he does it.

Tim pretends he doesn’t count every breath, measuring every meter between him and the warehouse as he drives away. It’s a lie he tells himself, along with another: Dick will be fine by morning.

He just had to get it—Tim—out of his system. He’ll be fine, and Tim will be able to complete his mission.

Everything will be fine.

And thinking this is the second mistake Tim makes. Because for all the effort and strategy he put into his plans, they end after claiming a controlling share of Wayne Enterprises. There is no ‘and then’. That’s it. He owns it, and for all the sleepless nights he tried to draft something more—nothing.

There simply isn’t a plan.

It makes him itch, feeling unsettled, but if there is one thing that can make him focus on the world around him, bring his brain back to the moment and task at hand, it’s the wind rushing over him… and the knowledge that he’s about to break into the Wayne Tower.

It’s something he never thought he’d have to do, but even seventeen year old Tim knew himself well enough to plan for it.

He once created backdoors into the security systems, little breaks in the code only he knew how to exploit. He knows the bandwidth, resolution, and frame rate of every camera, how far they lookout on the street, and those that monitor in the building. The night guard rotation has been scheduled in his brain like an internal clock, and there was a time he knew each by name.

And if Tim paused to consider the previously incredibly low turnover rate of those employed by WE, he’d come to the conclusion that they probably are still the same, but he doesn’t pause. Secure in the fact that he won’t get caught or see any of them, Tim pulls his bike into his chosen alley a block over from the tower, hides it conveniently behind a dumpster, and initiates the antitheft-electric protocol.

He turns slightly, standing in the shadows of the alley and looking up at the blue glow of external lights that halo the Wayne Tower.

Nightwing blue. A bright, protective blade. A message subtle and overwritten in the high-tech aesthetic all innovative companies seem to chase, but there. The glow of the tower is a visual cue of who protects this city, even if the citizens themselves don’t know how to read it.

Tim turns his back to the light, lifts his arm, and fires a grapple.

You see, there are several ways to break into a building. The standard con takes you in the daytime, smoothly talking your way through, or an even better planned strategy of blending in with a work crew.

There’s the inside man approach. A rat or mole, at the end of the day, is just a man looking for a check, and Tim’s pockets are deep enough to pay, but where’s the fun in that. At least with a robbery, Tim can come gunslinging, getting what he wants, and getting out—a sledgehammer approach that came too close to what his predecessor would do. And that is simply unacceptable. He’s already toeing too close to Jason’s dramatic plot line, best to keep it different when he can.

So, Tim’s approach is a scalpel. Burglary, pure and simple. Getting in and getting out without ever being noticed.

The tower is no easy target but that’s common knowledge. In fact, it’s impossible. You can’t go through the roof because of the sensors. The batcomputer gets an alert anytime someone lands, and if it’s unsanctioned, Babs will send a vigilante to intercept. Can’t go in on the street level because the cameras, reinforced the glass, bombproof doors, and locking mechanism. Break a single window, get caught.

That’s to name the basics. It doesn’t begin to cover the upgrades to account for every contingency Bruce and Tim could both come up with at one point or another.

Conclusively impossible.

But the moment the soft soles of Tim’s boots hit the ledge, he doesn’t slow. He has two blocks to travel, a well mapped route he has run several times over in a simulation, and he needs to get high—high enough to jump onto the small balcony outside his old executive office.

The balcony is monitored, the tiles hiding pressure panels… except for one he disabled years ago.

Stretching his legs and arms, grapple-gun firing at the last possible moment to send him launching up, careening around corners, and over alleys, Stray runs like it’s the first time he’s felt alive in years.

The Gotham air—laden with pollutants, both smog and lingering poison that has been known to give respiratory issues to newcomers—smells like home. Lights, fuzzy in the haze, are familiar but if Tim thinks past the next step, next roll and stretch, he still wouldn’t feel like he’s home.

Such a thing is beyond him now.

Homes are for the comfortable. The moment Tim is comfortable, he’s complacent, and complacency kills quicker than any sword.

He has to keep moving, keep running.

Never stop. Never rest.

That’s how he dies.

But cats always land on their feet, so when he’s sprinting across the roof’s ledge, a misstep from death, Tim digs his toes into the corner lip and jumps.

Wind rushes through his hair and grips at nothing—his suit is too slick to catch and ripple against skin, and he has no cloak to slow him down. There’s no controlling the fall, not like he’s used too and for a split second, panic claws into his throat like a scream.

The balcony reaches up to grab him, growing closer and closer until he can make out the specs of silver in the marble tiles as they glimmer in the blue light.

Gaze locked on on the spot he aims to land, Tim twists, reaching back and firing over his shoulder to anchor and slow, and if he misses, if he doesn’t make the connection he’s—

Tim’s shoulder pops as he’s yanked upward and swung back a foot. The lurching force is brutal and unforgiving, but he slows and launches back up before his toes hit a pressure tile—and pancakes himself, but that’s secondary to getting caught.

Releasing the line, Tim drops to the balcony on target. He takes the impact in his knees, going against training, but he can’t exactly roll with the momentum or drop back for three points of contact.

He takes it and keeps moving.

Twenty four seconds, that’s how long he set the external cameras to freeze and loop. Just long enough for him to come into frame and get inside his old office, so he’s barely felt the sledge hammer to his knees by the time he’s dropping into a crouch and launching forward.

See, years ago when he was bored and avoiding a meeting with Lex Luthor, he rewired this specific tile to open the door when pressed with enough force than a single step could carry. It’s his first lucky break that it still works, that he doesn't smack face first into the plexiglass door, instead flies right through the doorway, tucks into a roll, and comes to a stop braced on the carpet of his old office.

Panting, Tim waits with his head tilted to the side as he listens intently. The cat ear headset and helmet acts as an amplifier for his hearing and connects to his computer interface that he set up at his main safehouse.

Without backup, he’s a one man show, relying on his AIs and wit alone.

For now, he’s enough.

No alarms sound, his computer isn’t notified that the Batcomputer has pinged his entrance.

The camera had switched off the second he landed on the balcony, one by one they’ll black out and loop until he’s out of range—nifty this little trick he picked up overseas.

And just for a second, relief eases the vice in his lungs. He drops his head and loosens his shoulder—one breath, that’s all he gives himself.

But he catches a soft, lingering scent. The spice of a cologne that is all but imprinted in his lungs.

Dick has been here.

Tim looks around, taking in the office beyond the cursory glance darting over security measures, entrances, and exits, and sure enough, Dick has taken over the space. A slow encroachment like ivy on the walls: an unfamiliar framed sketch here, a hand-painted mug there, new pictures on the desk of—he can’t tell from this angle, but they weren’t his… Tim never decorated. At least not beyond the tasteful pieces his aids picked out.

Something sharp scrapes the inner sanctum of his heart, a pain deep and uncomfortable.

Tim bites the inside of his cheek and shakes it off, stamps everything down.

Keep moving, never stop.

The moon is still high; he’s not safe yet.

Tim is back on his feet. He doesn’t go straight for the desktop, but for the door.

If this were a made-for-TV spy movie, he’d plug a flash drive into the nearest computer and ‘hack the mainframe’, but the truth of the matter is that most companies—especially those dealing with proprietary, classified, or sensitive information that goes beyond trade secret and competitive advantages—are locked down against external drives.

At best, he wouldn’t be able to click the download button and transfer the lines of code that would allow him entry. At worst, IT would be notified the second the computer registers that something unallowed has been plugged in.

But if you can get to the servers, there’s a way around it. Which means the next problem is getting to the servers and past the layers of security made explicitly to stop you.

These measures—for most companies—ward against internal errors, corporate espionage, and to protect the customers because the likelihood of a normal company being broken into to steal information is pretty slim… unless you’re Wayne Enterprises, then it’s just a Tuesday.

Slinking down the halls, Tim navigates to the nearest stairwell, pausing only to disconnect the wire that helps track when the door is opened. Which is just overkill in his opinion. Hell, as Avin, Tim broke into a museum that was less guarded than this place.

Making a note to reconnect the wire to the base later, Tim pulls out his grapple again, hops up on the stair rail and jumps.

He counts as he falls, floors racing by until he reaches the one that hosts the serves—the one that you can’t get to in the elevator without a special badge keyed to the specific floor.

Fire safety code means they have to connect to the stairwell, and breaking through the keypad lock is easy work.

The combination rotates on a quarterly basis, but the formula stays the same and the only thing that changes is the root value that counts up. Tim works it out in his mind, remembering what it was the last time he saw the code and considering the time that passed.

He works it out in a matter of seconds.

Finger to his ear, Tim laughs to himself, “I’m in.”

He could do the rest in his sleep, all he has to do is find the correct server and plug in his drive. It will upload his code and set off a chain of events.

First, Dick’s calendar will be updated to include a morning meeting about the new consultant.

Of course, he won’t remember setting this up, so the second thing is a backdated email chain from the executive admin with Tim’s swapped meeting minutes to the board reviewing a very real meeting they had—a bug Tim setup years ago in the conference room to solve an inter-company harassment case, once again very useful.

The only thing changed in the notes, is a line addressing the fallen stock value and company image, in which the core action item is to hire the best consultant money can buy, a cover Tim carefully cultivated an online presence for.

It will hold against scrutiny, for now. If Dick starts to see the cracks… well, Tim hopes to be long gone by then.

Finally, the last piece, is the filled and filed paperwork for an in-house consultant onboarding, ready to be pulled up at the click of a button from a harried HR professional.

Everything is in place, a stage set for curtain fall, and at seven fifty-five on Monday morning, Tim strides into the lobby of the Wayne Tower and smiles at the receptionist.

“Caroline Hill, here for a meeting with Richard Grayson.”

Chapter Text

Tim has never gotten used to the discomfort that is uniquely heel-related. He has walked over glass and Legos that were less painful than wearing stilettos for prolonged periods of time, but Caroline Hill would never be caught dead in anything less than four inches.

She is a woman of many tastes. It’s an image he projects: the perfect blonde with brown eyeliner sharp enough to kill but toned down as to not clash with her skin tone. Beautiful, perfect, and utterly innocent.

Every piece of Caroline’s outfit has a purpose and nothing is out of place.

Only a woman with keen eyes would be able to tell his nails, long coffin cuts painted a professional light blue, are temporary press-ons and his hair is a high-quality wig that took him an embarrassing amount of time to learn how to put on correctly.

And Dick is far from keen right now.

The older man looks like a walking bruise, tender to the touch and vaguely discolored from the sheer amount of slightly off-shade foundation covering his actual bruises.

He sits down heavily, nearly sending the plush chair rolling backwards, chugs the entirety of his black coffee—really, Dick, goddamn… Tim had only known him to drink sugary lattes, but whatever gets the job done he guesses. Maybe Tim’s just annoyed that he can’t have any more caffeine today after his morning Zesti.

Pretending to take a glance around, Tim notices that the pictures he saw in Dick’s borrowed office are from Damian. He doesn’t know what to think about that and tries not to form a conscious thought regarding the kid. Instead, Tim takes a slow sip of tea, consciously mirroring Dick’s actions to put him at ease, not that Dick notices. It takes him three or four more drawn out, weirdly quiet seconds to look up and blink.

Dick clears his throat and offers, “My apologies, Ms. Hill.”

A sheepish blush stains high on his cheeks, barely peeking through the makeup that covers what Tim can only assume is an impressive black eye.

“Please, call me Caroline.” Tim waves him off with a smile.

“Caroline,” Dick says, voice warm and disarming enough that any normal person would feel at ease. Tension grips Tim’s spine, wraps him in caution, and makes everything in him sit up.

He doesn’t brace, but it’s a close call.

All it will take is a single misgiving from Dick, one wrong move and this entire plan falls apart. Tim has contingencies, sure, but none work as well. He needs this to work, but Dick has always been the best detective when it comes to people—reading them, knowing their thoughts and intentions, even if he can’t always put it in words, Dick is never wrong about a person. Tim just needs him to see past the instinctive distrust his disguise brings.

But Dick is just getting started, honing in on cracks.

“I’ll be honest,” he says mildly, but danger lies behind that smile. “I don’t recall setting this up. In fact, I don’t remember ever discussing contracting a—what do you call yourself—Crisis Strategy Consultant?”

Distrust drips from Dick’s words, and Tim remember a time, years ago when he was the new CEO, all but forced into the role and floundering, when a secretary pulled a stunt like this, setting her friend up as consultant to help the poor, young CEO but really only take his money.

Tim had them both fired and blacklisted from WE, any of their holdings and affiliates.

It was his first true act as CEO, the one that had people whispering about him over their cubes.

So it’s not entirely far-fetched.

Tim glances past Dick, staring over his broad shoulder and rumbled lines of his suit jacket as he throttles the growing discomfort in his chest. If shifting weren’t a sign of weakness or a cue Dick could pick up on and pull apart to be anything less than sincere, Tim would move around in his seat and visibly shake off the feeling.

He takes a breath because this he can do. He can sell it.

“Well, there’s your first mistake,” Tim all but purrs as he raises a manicured brow. “Relying on your own memory when you need to have trustworthy, competent people around you. Surely, you are juggling quite a bit, Mr. Grayson.”

And unlike Caroline, Dick doesn’t correct him, aiming instead for the subtle power dynamic. Good, maybe Dick isn’t as useless as a CEO as Tim initially thought.

Dick winks, but his words are dismissive as he says, “I’m good at juggling.”

Tim hums in acknowledgment. Looking Dick up and down, he takes a second to let his gaze settle before asking, “How’s that working out for you?”

It’s direct, perhaps a bit too direct, but Tim doesn’t shy away. He needs to press and push until Dick pushes back because this is very much an interview and Tim feels it slipping into the heat of an interrogation. Despite how much effort he put into Caroline’s cover, it wouldn’t hold up under the full brunt of Dick’s attack—Tim wouldn’t hold up.

So he needs to get his point across. Quickly.

“Look.” Tim folds his hands in his lap. “I'm not here to fire anyone or create more problems, or lay a facade to help raise public confidence only for it to fall again in a few weeks. I am not here because your board thought it was a good idea,” Tim says without stressing the point, a subtle mention, that’s all.

“You don’t like me, I’ll leave.” he shrugs, remembering that Caroline wouldn’t shrug a moment too late. “Simple as that.”

And Tim could wax on, shifting the power further into Dick’s hands. He could present his previous work and skill set, share his false-testimonials, but nothing will work as well as the truth.

So when Dick stays silent a second longer, his gaze darting from one brown contact lens to the next.

Tim offers the truth like a hand outstretched.

“I am only here to help you.”

He lets his words linger, the earnest truth slipping through on the fringe of desperation because if Dick believes this then maybe there will still be a relationship between them to salvage when Tim is done.

“Trust me or don’t,” Tim says easily, but his heart hammers in his ears and the world of dreary clouds and the smudged outlines of buildings fades and Dick is all he can see, all he can focus on. “But I’m good at what I do.”

Then he shuts his mouth before the next part slips out.

No matter the cost, Tim will get the job done. That’s why Bruce sent him after all. Why grabbed him by the cape and said—

“I’ll offer a probationary trial run, month by month basis,” Dick says at last, and it doesn’t sound like it’s pulled from him, rather a genuine offer that comes on the wings of promised relief.

“I’d be concerned if you offered anything more,” Tim teases. His smile is purely Caroline, soft and teasing, and far from the sharp bite that usually twists across Tim’s mouth.

“Now,” Tim leans back and recrosses his legs. “I believe I still have you for forty minutes, would you like to get started or schedule another time?”

“And start racking up that consultant fee? No thank you.” Dick teases easily, slipping into a more comfortable mask. He, too, adjusts in his seat as if torn between leaning forward and resting an elbow on the desk—Tim’s desk—and sitting back in the chair, spreading his legs in feigned relaxation. And it is feigned because while suspicion no longer tightens the corners of his eyes, this is still very much a test.

Just one Tim is passing.

Further pushing the ball into Dick’s court, Tim waits until Dick asks, “So what great advice do you have for me?”

Reaching into Caroline’s purse, Tim pulls out the seventy-four page strategic plan he put together that will solve most, if not all, the problems that cropped up in his absence. Did it take him an entire night to draft and refine, not to mention the sheer amount of market research—read: stalking—he did on WE’s competitors and internal structure? Yes, Tim threw his heart into this… it was a worthwhile distraction.

“Let’s review the executive summary and high points, and then I will leave you with a copy to review outside of my paid time, does that work for you, Mr. Grayson?” Tim winks.

It’s meant to be a friendly tease, a call back, and yet a flash of interest flares through the tired, dull blue of Dick’s eyes, and—oh. That’s a first.

Dick has always held Tim kindly in his gaze, indulgent at times and annoyed at others, but interested? Never. Now his gaze lingers, searches and dares Tim to meet it. He feels seen, perceived, and that is… familiar, Tim guess, he knows he’s attractive. And it takes him a minute, a dumb, heart-fall of a minute, to remember the face he wears now is not his own.

Tim drops his gaze and runs his thumb over the sharp edge of the booklet’s plastic cover, focusing on the minor bite to ground him against very sudden awareness of his tongue.

It’s not the plan, he is supposed to prove his worth to Dick, earn a place by his side as a confidant on merit alone. The strategy booklet blurs before his eyes, and for a split second, his brain sprints through the pros and cons of the redirection. Yes, it's a bad look for women everywhere, and there are simply gender nuances he doesn’t understand and will be playing into in a bad way but… infatuation—it could work.

An interested man will keep her near and seek her out.

Tim could work with that, and of course, he makes his decision completely ignoring the pleasant fluttering of nerves deep in his chest.

He pushes back a lock of blond hair, tucking it behind his ear as he glances up, meeting Dick’s eyes, gaze stuttering over that goddamn smile and darting away before his heart can betray him with a skip.

No, he doesn’t notice how the years have changed them.

Tim focuses on the task at hand, the next move, and the words come like cotton in his mouth, but he says them anyway.

“The problem, Mr. Grayson, is the company's public appeal. By not making a statement, you’re compounding the tragedy and keeping it fresh in the mind of the public as they wonder why.”

“I released a statement,” Dick counters with a frown.

“You are not a Wayne.”

Dick pulls back, a minor flinch. They’re both thinking it, Tim wasn’t truly a Wayne either, he only had the last name for legality, but Caroline is not supposed to know that.

So she forges on, seemingly oblivious. “You may be Richard Grayson, the once-ward of Mr. Wayne, and well known in Gotham, but to be frank, it’s not enough.”

And this time Dick doesn’t bother to hide his reaction, even the most unobservant viewer can see the way Tim’s words wash over him, leaving cuts along the surface. Old wounds never truly healed. Tim winces internally, but schools his outward reaction, using it for his advantage.

Caroline leans across the desk, smiling apologetically though sincerely. “This is how you know I’m good. I’m not going to pull punches with you, Mr. Grayson. I’m going to tell you the truth, and the truth is we need Bruce Wayne to release a statement.”

“He’s indisposed.” An open and shut statement, the same variant he gave to the press. But Tim—Caroline—needs more than that. He signed several highly-specific NDA’s and one blanket nondisclosure, and for what WE is paying him, well, it goes against their own interest for him not to ask.

“Where is he now?” It doesn’t help that derision slips in between his words as he says snidely, “Jet setting in Europe?”

“Rehab.”

Well, that’s a new one. Tim feels his brows raise imperceptibly, but he nods his head in an understanding, disappointed manner. That’s the kind of story they’re going with apparently. Tim puts two and two together and considers the tale they must spin.

“We can work with that,” Tim says, voice light even as he feels a bit raw and mercenary and slightly vengeful. “Release a statement—raise public sympathy.”

Confusion knots Dick’s brows together. He shakes his head, “How is that going to fix anything?”

“It won’t help right away,” Tim admits, “But the company’s image and branding will last longer than downturns in the market. Wayne Enterprises has held out through recessions. This is a… momentary blip on the path of growth.”

“Don’t call my—” Dick breaks off, and everything in Tim stills as he watches Dick leash his reaction, grinding his teeth instead of yelling. He feels the breath Dick takes like it’s pulled from Tim’s own lungs. “Timothy Drake was not a blip. His death is a very personal tragedy, and I will not have you speak that way to me.”

Geez, Tim, starting off poorly, a half-hysteric thought.

Tim dips his head acquiescing. The room spins, his ears ring, and he swears—swears the skyscraper is swaying in the wind. He hadn’t known… he didn’t know Dick cared like, like that.

“My apologies,” Tim says, and it’s not enough. God, he miscalculated… in more ways than one, but he can’t do anything now. Can’t call this whole thing off before it’s begun so—so Tim doubles down. He does what he knows best and shoves everything down but the cold fact at the heart of the matter. “He was not a blip, for you. But for the public, those who did not know him, your shareholders, he has to be.”

“Out.”

Dick is up on his feet in an explosion of movement. The chair slams back against the wall, and Dick lurches into an agitated pace.

Tim flinches, not at the sudden movement, not in fear—he could never fear Dick—but at his tone, like shattered glass. Broken.

“Get out,” Dick demands, breathing heavily.

“No.” Tim doesn’t mean to say it, it goes against the character he wears like a mask, but he can’t back down now (even if it would be the smart choice). He shifts in his seat, palms slick over the leather arms and the back of his thighs stick to his pants.

But he stays.

Tim stays as Dick walks back and forth, carving a path in the plush rug, looking torn between bodily tossing Caroline out via the door or the balcony and too damn chivalrous to do either.

Lifting his chin and chasing Dick’s wide, anger-bright eyes, Tim says, “You already signed me for a month. You’re going to listen to what I have to say.”

Dick stills, shocked by the audacity. Muscles quiver along his jaw, trembling under the force of his tension.

“I’m worth it, Mr. Grayson,” and he should have closed his mouth, ended it with that, but the worlds are drawn from Tim against his will, and his voice goes painfully soft, gentle in a way that doesn’t make sense for two strangers. “Just because it hurts now doesn’t mean it won’t be better later.”

And yet—and yet Tim hopes he’s right.

Either way, the promise is good enough for now.

Dick rights his chair and sits down heavily. He waves a hand at the booklet and nods.

“Walk me through it.”

***

They take a break after their predefined hour.

“Feel free to continue using the table, or ask my admin to assign you an empty office,” Dick said as he steps out for a meeting.

Tim tilts his head up, blinking in disorienting confusion as he is pulled away from drafting the statement on his laptop because why would he leave his office, but the question dies in his throat as Dick rebuttons the second button of his jacket and adjusts his watch.

Dick only smiles, gently amused with breaking Caroline’s focus.

Right, not his office anymore.

“I’ve overstayed my welcome, I’ll go—”

“No, I didn’t mean it like that, you're fine where you are. I just—” Dick pauses, faltering momentarily as if he’s not entirely sure why he cares. “I want you to be comfortable.”

Tim pushes back the blond hair as it falls in front of his face. “I’ll stay here then, but don’t worry, I should be out of your way soon.”

Dick nods and walks away without another word, and Tim can’t help but wonder if everything feels weirdly stilted for him too. Grief hangs around Dick’s shoulders, dragging him down, but there’s more. For Tim too, he hasn’t—it hasn’t been—

The door doesn’t shut; that is too much trust given to an outside consultant, cameras or not, Dick’s admin will keep an eye on Caroline as she works, so Tim can’t react visibly.

He works for a few more minutes until he hears her laughing with a coworker, and only then does Tim subtly adjust the pearlescent ring around his watch face. One click, two. The camaras—those that used to be his—cut off.

A seven second delay from a localized electromagnetic pulse, that’s all he could make the watch do.

But it’s enough. Tim is already on his feet and counting.

A bug in hand, he slips it into place under the rim of a plant’s pot. Another goes under the desk phone. A third, across the room, hidden under the frame of Damian’s sketch.

That’s time, one second, and Tim is back in his chair… but his computer is rebooting—shit. Shit, it’s not much, but to an observant eye it’s a signal that more happened than a standard camera delay.

Tim shifts in his chair and stretches his arms over head with an exaggerated yawn as he blocks his computer screen from view until it’s back up and running.

Only when he’s typed the short pin and the saved document is pulled back up, does his heart return to a semi-steady rhythm.

He types a sentence and deletes two.

F-J-D-K, his fingers rest, taping but not hard enough for letters to appear, but at least the small sound keeps his ears from ringing in the silence.

Tim expected to feel more during this—thrill, rage, tainted pleasure, anything but the weird numb sparked through with twinges of regret.

Regret. That was his constant. His shadow.

But every choice he made that led him here, there was no other option. Even in hindsight, nothing reveals itself to him, no other path but the one he took.

”There is blood on your hands. All those lives you took, and you think yours is worth saving?”

F-J-D-K-J-D-K-F-F-F |

Tim backspaces, smashing the button harshly like he can delete the memory from his mind.

Mouth set in a firm line, he forces himself to focus on the task at hand. He jabs each key, typing up the concluding statement, taking it letter by letter. Step by step, that’s the way he’ll get through this.

“How’s it going?” Dick asks, appearing in the doorway.

Tim looks up sharply; he’s back too soon… or maybe more time had passed than Tim realized.

“Almost finished,” Tim says, catching up to the present. He looks down at his draft, watching Dick move closer in his periphery until he’s leaning over Tim’s shoulder. His breath is warm, and every soft breath blows a bit of hair in a sensitive, intimate caress over the cusp of Tim’s ear.

Close. So damn close.

What does he see? The barely-there freckles on Tim’s nose? The slight discoloration of his contacts? The scar on his mouth from a few too many split lips? No matter the name he dons or the makeup he wears, his face is a map to the truth, the unique fingerprint of his identity, and Tim can feel Dick looking at him, his eyes a fiery imprint, tracing and memorizing the blush that peeks through his foundation.

But Tim’s nervous exhale is written off, misunderstood. There’s no other explanation for why the corners of Dick’s mouth lift into a small smile, but at least he has an explanation. Tim has no such excuse when the little wrinkles by Dick’s cheeks send him spiraling.

How does he not see Tim? Is Dick really that blinded by his–what, grief? Or…

Tim finds another reason, a possible excuse.

This is the first time he has looked at Tim like this—close enough to touch. They have never been this close unless they were sparring and then it was clouded in adrenaline, training, and it-it was not like this. It was different this is…

Tim swallows, losing his thought and dragging his gaze back to the computer screen. The light burns like a young star, searing his retinas, blazing but not blinding. And yet he still sees it, the quirk of Dick’s mouth—lips so, so close.

“Good,” Dick hums low, skimming over the available paragraphs.

Not ‘It’s good’. Just good.

A shiver rolls down Tim’s spine like a careful finger, a blunt nail.

Tim clears his throat and says something he knows will have Dick stepping back. “You have requested privacy at the end of every statement, but the press have yet to listen. Instead, I’d advise redirecting their inquiries to an inbox handled by WE’s internal public relations team… or me.”

Sure enough, Dick moves back—the loss of him, physical.

“I’ll redirect them to a team,” Dick says as he turns away, walking over to his desk as if to put some space between them, which Tim is… grateful for. “Any worthy of a response will be sent to us for review.”

Tim nods, “That’s a good plan, but I need you to understand this is the beginning, the first step to saving your company’s—”

Dick flinches, and Tim’s immediate reaction is to run through his words, recount whatever he said to warrant such a reaction, but then… then Tim sees it: the glint atop an adjacent building.

A scope catching light, the only warning they get before the shots fire.

The window shatters.

And a bullet finds its mark.

Chapter Text

Two shots fire. Back to back, one to damage the glass, another in the same spot to break it.

The window shatters.

A third shot.

Dick is hit, blood sprays, splashing across Tim’s face—how, how… he was over there and now… Dick moved, lunged to cover him.

Her. He blocked Caroline with his body.

But-but she wasn’t the target.

There is blood on Tim’s hands.

Caked under his nails, coating a sheen over the acrylic polish, warm and wet against his palm.

There is blood. So much blood.

– Two Months Earlier –

Tim had done it.

He found proof of where and when Bruce was, delivered it to the Justice League, and they brought him back.

He had done it. Passed the test. Completed the mission.

And now he can go home.

Home.

Gotham—her name, a prayer on his lips, the streets he dreamed of, was haunted by but could never truly leave. His city is a drug, vile and cruel after the high, but god, he will reach for her every time.

He’s missed her.

Home.

To dust off his safehouses.

To run across the roofs with Dick again.

To fly the night.

It’s nearly time. Bruce is debriefing with the League while Tim waits outside their war room, and then they will leave together, return home victorious together.

His hands shake, but he stills them, clasps his fingers together as he braces his elbows on his knees, sitting on the bench in the hall.

Waiting. What’s an hour more?

Tim lets it pass.

It’s not ten minutes later that the Justice League files out. Larger than life, the heroes have known Tim since he was a child, and yet, they pay him no heed as they walk past.

Superman watches him, suspicion in his gaze, a cutting blade.

Only Wonder Woman dips her head in acknowledgement.

An unwitting scream raises in Tim’s throat; do they not know what he had to do? What he sacrificed? He doesn’t expect praise, but suspicion and shunning silence?

Tim sits back, straightening before he stands, hands held loosely behind him—a soldier at rest, when Batman calls him into the room with a gruff,

“Red Robin.”

Swallowing his unruly reaction to the heroes, Tim lifts his chin and walks in, each step measured and paced like he’s walking to his doom.

Batman stands before him and waits.

He offers no other order, but Tim knows what to do.

He tells Bruce everything. Every step he took, every line he crossed. He lays it at his feet.

A confession.

He went to a church service once. It was a holiday; he was young and bored and had watched Home Alone, alone. So he went and just wanted someone—anyone to talk to.

It feels like that. Like stepping into a confessional. In his mind, he closes the wicker door and takes a seat on the rigid too-small bench. Would Tim get on his knees next? Beg for forgiveness?

As he talks, he picks at the seam of his cape, a fingernail scratching back and forth. His voice grows hoarse, tongue heavy, and throat dry, but he doesn’t stop until they’re caught up to the present.

Every fight aired, every failed experiment, everything.

Bruce doesn’t move, his face is a blank mask behind the cowl. Judgement curls in the air, lingering like shadows rising to strike. Disappointment hangs like a blade over Tim’s head.

He stutters in an explanation, and for the first time he lies: he walked out of the fight with the Widower, he wasn’t on the brink of death. He suffers no weakness.

Would anger be better? Is his mentor waiting to strike? Should Tim brace for a blow? He doesn’t give Bruce the chance; he continues speaking like it’s a lifeline.

Because the problem didn’t end when Bruce came back.

While away from Gotham and out of office, someone—some organization—has been laying siege to Wayne Enterprises. He had noticed hackers had been trying to get past his walls, shell companies had been buying up every available stock, IT alerted him to new phishing attempts, and several employees told their supervisors about being approached with offers of payment for information. Company loyalty will only hold on for so long, but what happens if someone is blackmailed instead of cajoled?

Tim needs to get back; Bruce needs to get back, soothe over the loose ends and help Tim remind the world that WE cannot and will not fall.

But that had been on the backburner, a low priority.

Yesterday, Tim Drake’s name had shown up on a monitored hit list. Babs hadn’t seen it yet, and Tim took it down before she could.

He needed a plan before involving Oracle.

He needs a plan.

But Bruce—Batman will know what to do.

So he lays it out, the problem he’s found, the proof, and waits for B to offer up a plan. Like old times, when they were Batman and Robin, the dynamic duo, bouncing ideas off each other until they have every contingency mapped and the perfect plan in place.

Tim waits, waits until the hope in his chest falls to his feet and dread sweeps in.

“All those lives you took, and you think yours is worth saving?”

“I—”

Batman takes a step forward, large, imposing, every inch the Dark Knight.

“When you blew up Ra’s base, do you think that went down without victims?” Preternatural, Batman’s eyes seem to gleam in the void behind the cowl as he cocks his head to the side and looks at all Tim is, everything he has ever done to survive, to bring him back… and it is not enough.

Tim is not enough.

He failed.

And the judgement comes.

“There is blood on your hands.”

He knows that. Tim’s not a fool but they were assassins touched by the Pit. They—they were a casualty, a cost he paid to bring Bruce back. How many had they killed? Those deaths, those men and women are no more on Tim’s hands than Ra’s, and they… they will haunt Tim in his dreams, but that’s a price he will pay.

He brought Bruce back. That was his mission; he completed it.

He’d do it again.

And–and Batman must see that on his face, hear it in his silence because the harsh line of his mouth grows harder.

“You’ve crossed the line,” he growls, and nothing could prepare Tim for what follows, but deep down, he knows he should have expected it. He remembers the man he first met, remembers his Batman.

But his heart stalls, slows and stutters like he’s watching a car crash.

“You should’ve died with them.”

It steals his breath, replacing the space in his lungs with rage.

“And where would you be?” Tim manages to get out, choking on disbelief. “Who would’ve saved you?”

He doesn’t let his question linger.

“No one.” Tim takes a step and snaps out his hand, slicing it through the air like a blade. “They all believed you were dead. I saved you.”

But Batman has nothing to say to that. Afterall, it was expected of Tim, it was the minimum of which he could do. He did it, but not well enough.

“Be glad I’m not sentencing you to Arkham,” Batman denounces. “But since you still breathe, you can earn your way back to my side.”

He doesn’t mean as Robin, that is dead and gone, a piece of history erased. No, he means a Bat, and ally. Not an enemy.

After everything they’d been through, after everything he’s done. He drew Batman back from the brink of destruction, resurrected him after Jason’s death, and this—this is how Tim is cast aside?

Being replaced by Damian was one thing, Tim was… growing out of the name and cape. Like any teenager going off to college it was time for him to leave, but he never wanted to go this far.

He wanted to still be able to come home.

The loss leaves him reeling, but it’s Arkam’s name that levels him, strips him to the foundation.

Tim scoffs and shakes his head, jaw tight. “So much for judge and jury, huh? It’s all fine when you make the call.”

“I don’t kill.” Batman reiterated with a growl.

“What a lovely lie you tell yourself, Bruce,” Tim says. There’s a fist around his throat and it feels like Batman’s heavy gauntlet, but no one is touching him now. He stands alone in the room, a line drawn between them, and Tim finds himself on the wrong side.

“Your hands,” he chokes, speaking around the well of emotion, ignoring the sting in his eyes, “have taken more lives than mine. But unlike you, I will do what I have to, to protect those that are mine.”

“I’m not yours.” Three words so simply said, but they are not alone. “You are no one to me now. No one. Nothing but a disappointment.”

Tim’s not sure this is real, the world… tilts and distorts but fear gas doesn’t itch his nose like a sneeze.

“I saw you as a father,” Tim admits—breaks. “Against my own judgment, you were a father to me.”

“You were a soldier.” And that… that hurts the most. A good soldier, but Batman is quick to dissuade him of that notion. “Second-rate at best. You failed.”

Yet here Bruce stands, cutting the last tie to Family he has.

No one holds him now. No one and nothing.

He does it like it’s easy and moves on just as quick.

“I will be out with the league—” Batman offers no details, no information. Tim has lost that privilege. “You will fix this.”

And Bruce tells him the plan.

Tim tries to reject it, tries to stop him as the orders settle over his shoulders.

“After everything you’ve done, I should be putting you in Arkham, instead I am offering you a way out. This is the cost.”

“But what is he paying for?” Tim breaks first. His question is a desperate plea. What is Dick paying for? This, this plan will hurt him as much as Tim. He doesn’t have to name him, they both know he refers to Dick. “What has he done to deserve this?”

Batman doesn’t snort, but derision drips from his words, wreaths in him in violence. “You truly think he will care?”

Tim flinches, a visceral reaction.

“Nightwing will mourn, but he’ll snap back. Always does.” Approval is apparent in Batman’s voice, he doesn’t have to add the following praise, but he still does, as if to twist in the knife. “The best of my soldiers.”

“He could help,” Tim tries, swallowing his pleas with the stone in his throat. “He should know.”

“I taught you better than that.” Batman growls. “This sentiment of trust is an unbecoming weakness of yours; I thought I broke you of it.”

And Tim is brought back, thrown into the haunting memory of his sixteenth birthday, the fear and anxiety, the pressure that gripped his heart, every second spent in agony, the days without sleep. The-the years overcoming the distrust born of those days, and every argument he had with his team, the bats, with Batman himself that followed that lesson.

His stomach turns over, bile clawing at his throat.

Dick is not—Dick would never betray them, would never attack their souce of income. None of the Bats or Gotham vigilantes would… but they might… unwittingly give something away.

“How can you maintain control of the mission, if you leave it in others hands?” Bruce’s question overlays the past.

Hypocrite, Tim wants to snap, but if he opens his mouth, he doesn’t know what will come out. But did Bruce truly care for his parents’ company, was he able to? What is a company to a calling?

He doesn’t say a word; Tim hardly breathes as Batman moves closer, stalks towards him—a predator encroaching—but he doesn’t attack. Not with fists.

At his shoulder, unable to look at Tim and already half-way past him, Batman says, “Don’t fail me anymore than you already have.”

And if Tim could feel anything past a devouring fog settling over him, numbing his heart, he would have flinched again.

“Rely on no one but yourself—distrust is a gift kin to a knife, useful in more ways than one.”

Then Batman walks away, leaving Tim with his heart in shards and an order in its place, struck through his chest, holding his ribs from caving in with a thousand knives.

Knives.

Ears ringing, Tim almost doesn’t hear the final order.

He wishes he doesn’t.

“A new name,” Bruce growls over his shoulder; he doesn’t look back. Doesn’t say Tim’s name. Nothing. “And no cape.”

No ties back to Batman, Robin… nothing that connects to who he was.

This is more than a mission. It’s penance.

Tim is a free agent. A stray.

– Present –

Tim lands with a startled ‘oh’ as the breath is pushed from his lungs by the force of the fall; the sound is too husky, too rough and deep to be feminine, but neither of them notice as they wait for another round of bullets.

Pinned under Dick, the world snaps back into focus, one nerve at a time. He’s so damn heavy, but Tim wouldn’t push him off for anything.

They’re on the floor, blocked by the heavy executive desk, and no more shots ring out, but they’re not in the clear yet.

Unbeknownst to Dick, Tim has already begun to count—the same measure Dick is taking. They count every passing second. The WE security team have already been alerted, Babs too. She’ll send Duke and maybe another Bat on the dayshift to clear the adjacent roofs and hunt the shooter while the hired team locks down the building and alerts the police, following protocol.

Maybe they have been in the game too long, maybe they are or simply are too well trained and are bound to notice, but despite the adrenaline pumping through their veins, after three long, painfully drawn out three minutes pass, they know they are no longer in danger.

If they do not move into their sight, the shooter will move on. They shot three times and missed, but they don’t light the office up in a smattering of bullets. They were precise. Professional even.

And that makes this all the more worse.

Tim had been wrong. He’d gotten the target wrong and—

“Are you okay?” Dick asks, demands really. He’s braced one hand under Tim’s head, having kept Caroline from hitting the ground too hard, but now it… lingers. A gentle touch, held for a moment too long. He pulls away slowly; his other arm keeps Dick aloft and atop him.

An easy show of strength—one Tim knows he, too, can achieve—but still it leaves him lost. At a loss.

Lack of oxygen, his brain helpfully supplies, or it could just be Dick. The scent of him fills his nose, throat, and lung, enveloping him from the inside out with that sharp and spiced yet impossibly warm smell, like something steam would curl from in a mug on a dreary day.

“Caroline,” Dick prompts, a bit louder, more concerned. The name snaps Tim out of his thoughts. “Are you okay?”

Right, right he asked a question. Tim moves to answer, but he’s drawn back to his hands—pinned between their bodies, one on Dick’s still beating chest and his other hand clasped over his weeping shoulder in a tight instinctive hold to staunch the bleeding… bleeding.

“You’re bleeding,” Tim says. Numb, dissonant. His words taste foreign.

“Just a little bit.” Dick shrugs, ever irreverent even as they’re pinned down, only it’s not them pinned down, not Dick and Tim, Red Robin and Nightwing, but two people in different masks. Unrequited strangers.

“A little bit,” Tim repeats dumbly, still lost in a haze of… well, not shock. His ability to feel shock in a situation like this has been flayed from him, but maybe–maybe something kin to it.

And not because of the bullets but because it’s been… so long since Tim had been protected, held with care even if his lungs ache from the air being knocked from them. When was the last time someone shielded him? Never, he wants to answer, and if he had been at one point in time, it is quickly forgotten, rewritten in new light.

“The bullet clipped me,” Dick says, his voice a low, soothing thing—victim voice, as Tim knows it. “I’m fine, Caroline.”

The name is intentional, a tug back to the present, to your body. It may work, but that’s not his name. But Tim is fine, he’s fine… he just doesn’t believe Dick. Or, he knows it’s just a flesh wound. Muscle and sinew caught and torn by the bullet, nothing truly life threatening, but he can’t seem to make himself show it. So far from his heart, a total miss when he thinks about it, but it could've been lethal.

Fortunately, Tim’s disconnect and confusion works for the cover.

“Look at me,” Dick orders, still so wonderfully worried over his charge, a hapless civilian caught up in her first assassination attempt.

Dick shifts his weight and drops his hand to Tim’s chin, pulling his focus with gentle assertion from the wound to his gaze.

Their eyes lock, the deep blue of depthless oceans clashing the pale ice of Tim’s gaze… only no, he’s wearing brown contacts… contacts that are visible when looked closely at. But in this moment, this split moment passing as quickly as like glass falls, Tim is swept away by Dick, by the arched bridge of his nose, the mole under his left eye, his tanned skin, gorgeous and warm. Everything that he is, both inside and out.

Tim blinks first. He releases a shuddering breath.

Dick smiles cheekily. “There you go.”

And Tim knows his once-mentor, the man he knew upon the pedestal Tim once sat him on, is seconds away from slipping in a teasing ‘good girl’; Tim can all but see it hovering in the corners of his lips.

He braces for it, already painfully aware of his facial muscles and the rising temperature of the room; Tim’s only relieved—and not at all saddened—when they’re interrupted.

“Sir.” A harsh barking voice cuts through the curtain of intimacy that befell them. “Are you alright?”

Only one trained to notice would have caught it, but the second WE’s Head of Security called in, Dick flinched, not away from Tim but closer, covering his body with his own, still expecting violence.

It’s normal behavior, rationally Tim knows this. It’s what they would do with a civilian present. It’s what they’ve been trained to do or simply protective instinct that runs in them all, deeper than their hearts and the courage they scrape together. Tim knows this, and yet… and yet his heart bursts in his damn chest.

It means nothing, but god, is it everything.

And then it’s over.

They are given the all clear.

Tim is swept away by the first responders, and he can only watch as they are separated by police and paramedics, pulled out of the office and down to the street level. A thousand questions come from every direction, cameras flash in tune with the glaring red and blue lights, a news helicopter flies above, circling the scene.

Chaos descends, but through it all, past the crowd that ebbs and flows around them, Tim only has eyes for Dick.

So easily could Dick have died. Tim has been wrong; he wasn’t the target… It was a general kill order. The CEO of WE is the target. Whatever organization is trying to dismantle WE thinks they killed Tim, but it wasn’t enough—one head severed from the hydra.

Dick is the next target.

And they won’t stop until he’s dead.

Chapter Text

Night has fallen by the time Tim brushes off the concern of overworked nurses, given a statement to the police, and lost Caroline’s Dick-assigned, WE security officers that followed him to the hospital and would have escorted him to his current safehouse if he hadn’t put his—or, rather, her stilettoed—foot down.

He has plans that don't involve them.

Tim drops by one of his many caches and changes, shifting from Caroline to a nameless girl to boy in an oversized hoodie, drifting down the street until he’s at his true safehouse and base as Stray.

Making quick work of his preparation, Tim eats dinner before shedding his disguises and tugging on his catsuit, lacing up his boots, and secreting away his weapons and tools. It takes but an hour for him to flow through the warm up exercises ingrained in him, and before he knows it, he’s slipping through a window and off into the shadows.

Tonight, Tim has but one goal: have the city whispering his name by dawn.

A thief has several options in Gotham.

When Tim drafted his plan to gain the attention of a shadow organization haunting him (which he truly needs to find the name of because that’s a damn mouthful), he was stuck on practicality.

The most easily attainable and liquidable items are kept in homes on display, but that won’t earn him any nefarious accolades or street cred.

Only a fool would go after the cash in a bank, any thief worth their name knows they only keep ten percent of their total assets in cash, and that is quite frankly not worth Tim’s time. Leaving the option of safety deposit boxes; he after all knows which ones the worst of the worst use and where they store their valuables… and he had planned to steal from those.

Had.

And then an interesting piece of information came across his computer, unburied by an old program he constructed as Robin: a known embezzler deep in the Penguin's pocket had put his gemstone collection on display in Gotham's museum of art. Arrogance, it seems, can make a fool of even the most cunning criminals.

Robert Hathaway… he was just begging for Tim to saunter in and take whatever he can get his claws on.

Tim slips out of his window and onto the fire escape.

Rain drizzles, the night crying softly over Gotham as sirens shriek into the night. It mists and collects on the waterproof fabric of his suit, running in rivulets. Tim zips the low front, tugging it all the way up to the structured top of his high collar… because that was a design choice he made… in case he needed to show a little chest.

And no, Tim’s not embarrassed at all by that decision.

And he was certainly completely sober when he designed it and financed the League of Assassin’s–associated tailor who owed him a favor (and succumbed to the plethora of blackmail Tim piled against him). Yeah, the asshole gleefully made the naval-deep neckline.

But hey, it’s the easiest time he’s had dressing for the night in years…

Heart in his throat, feeling all too young and alive, Tim climbs to the top of his building and takes off running.

The old apartment complex resides in an overgrown part of town, a street from the bowery’s invisible border, so he doesn’t reach for his grapple when his toes hit the ledge and he launches himself across the gap.

Flying, falling—it’s all the same really, as long as you’re in control.

And Tim is.

Every breath, every step. It’s planned and practical, no dramatic flare but not utilitarian either. Tim is quick, fluid in the darkness, sure in his approach.

There’s a roof where he expects it, a perfect gargoyle to latch his grapple upon when he needs it. He raises no alarms, catches no stray gazes, and makes it to the museum in good time.

Gotham’s Museum of Art is impregnable, tried and tested by the best of the best.

There’s no simple key card access system, no well-worn code box… The front doors are bombproof and the back door, out by the dumpster, can only be opened from the inside, consistently monitored, and locked up tight.

But Tim doesn’t head towards a door or drop to the street level. On the nearest building, the one that can’t keep a tenant longer than six months, he holsters his grapple gun and cracks his fingers.

The museum doesn’t have a good anchor point, and without his cape to help glide… Well, it’s a good thing Tim is phenomenal at free climbing.

He rolls out his neck and shakes out any strain in his shoulders from the run over here. Adrenaline pumping through his veins, he takes several steps backward.

The only way onto the roof is a leap and free fall, no safety net. Only a hope that he catches a cornice or window trim.

Gaze locked on the hand hold—the cornice a third of the way down from the roof, and directly across from him. It’s not perfect, the height doesn't account for the foot he’ll fall during the leap, but it will do.

He’ll just have to get some height as well as distance.

Easy enough.

Tim gathers himself with a breath, filling his lungs to capacity… and then he takes off sprinting. His feet pound against the rough roof, every step a jolting bounce, shoving him forward as he throws every ounce of strength he has into building up momentum.

The edge approaches. He doesn’t look, doesn’t track the end nor the dark street below. His gaze never falls from his target, and his feet never falter, but he counts down, and—

Leaps.

Thrill shrieks through him, caught behind clenched teeth and a swallowed scream that would give up his position and intentions.

So as he catches the roof, toes braced against the impact, the only sound Tim makes is a slight ‘oof’.

He fumbles for a second, body ricocheting back with the force of hitting the wall, but he shifts and tenses, taking the energy exactly how he was once taught it has become muscle memory.

Tim sticks the landing, manages to stay on, then he takes another breath and begins to climb.

Shifting his weight and reaching for the next tiny hand-hold in the wall. He plans his moves three steps ahead, knowing where he’s going to go and how to get there before taking the bodily stretch and pull, a drain of muscle strength.

The sweeping gothic architecture lends to a thousand shadows, and he becomes another one, the liquid dark moving up the building.

The razor sharp tips of his clawed gloves catch every small grove and divot—artistic scaffolding after one too many explosions. Or was it the earthquake? Tim doesn’t remember, but either way, it works in his favor.

It’s an improvement onto his last suit; even the finger grips and rubber pads weren’t this effective. He makes quick work of the climb.

Huffing in time with his movements, Tim pulls up to the ledge and sits on the edge of the roof for a half-minute. His arms are warm, firing with the exertion of a good workout, and he can’t keep the smile off his face as he lifts onto his feet and makes his way over to the air conditioning control unit.

You see, after Selina’s most daring heist, and conveniently when she and Bruce were amongst one of their many torrid spats, Bruce Wayne fully funded the museums’ state of the art security system.

Utterly impenetrable. Not even Tim can hack it; no, he has to beat it the old fashioned way.

Dozens have tried, even Catwoman couldn’t crack it, always losing on the third layer of security… but Tim helped build it.

He knows every entry point and weakness, and frankly, built in a few of his own.

Because if the boy he had once been occasionally snuck in when his parents were out of town—or after his mother’s death—to see their prized art, then well, no one has to know. No one caught him then.

No one will catch him tonight.

As the AC unit he picks the lock and pops open the control panel. It’s harmless to anyone who doesn’t know what they’re looking at and who doesn’t notice the signal receiver and flip switch hidden at the bottom, covered in spiderwebs and over six years of dust.

Tim flips it and hopes. Half-way across the roof on the infamous skylight, a window pane pops open. He wants to clap his hands and bow as he closes the control panel and strides for the window.

It’s easy work, breaking in.

Or maybe Tim can do anything and everything with enough planning. Preparation, analysis, and strategies are his greatest assets. His time as Robin—when the Bat and Cat were well and truly entangled—taught Tim every secret the museum holds.

He connects the rope and anchor to the harness built into his suit and rappels down, timing it perfectly.

Tim could use the same trick he did last night at WE when he blinked out the camera’s, moving in secrecy through the museum, but he doesn’t. It would defeat the whole purpose. Tim needs to be seen but not caught.

Good enough to get away with it, but not good enough to be a ghost.

He disconnects his line and drops to the floor, diving for cover as the camera roves over the gallery, keeping its lens at his back and never a full face. Even with his mask, he can’t risk Babs running her facial recognition software on him.

Not that his night is without risks—another one is leaving the line dangling and window open, an easy escape for later, but a clear sign of activity should a Bat fly over.

Tim hardly has to pay attention as he moves across the marble floor, silent and sure-footed.

He familiarized himself with each exhibit and hall in the daylight, making excuses for his parents to take him, show off the pieces they brought back from their archaeological travels, but in the night, when Bruce slipped off to… court Selina, conveniently losing Tim amongst the marble statues and sculptures, he memorized every inch of this place.

It hasn’t changed much over the years, Tim admits to himself as he creeps through the winding halls and endless rooms that labyrinth into one another. Exhibits are always coming and going, paintings on loan and traded, but the shell of the museum is still the same as he remembers. However, the walls are more full, Batman’s reputation—or perhaps even trust in the Wayne’s funding—boosting confidence.

In fact, they once chased Catwoman through the winding corridors, lost her around the very island wall Tim now darts behind as the camera looks over the impressionism gallery.

He remembers it like another life unfolding before him. A phantom wind carries the illusion.

A child, too-small for his age, all knobby knees and sharp elbows and panting breaths, a streak of color against the dark, arms outstretched as he runs after the hero of myths and whispers, falling forever in his shadow.

Batman never once looked back, but Tim was always there, keeping up no matter how hard his pulse raced or muscles ached.

Tim drops his head against the wall. Should he have known this would happen, his fall from grace? Was it predetermined, stitched into the very fabric of his first hand-made Robin suit? He should have known when he first pricked his finger on the needle and bled into the seams.

Robins bring hope and light to Gotham, but to do so they carve from themselves. It is an ephemeral place, quick burning.

Batman never looks back. But they do.

Sighing, Tim shoves off the wall, reminding himself that he’s here for a purpose, not to relive a past life… Only, that’s when he sees it—the painting that has crept into his thoughts since his time in London.

And here it is.

A Degas in Gotham. Holy fuck.

“What fool?” Tim breathes, drawn forward like he’s reeled in by the piece, the lines both stark and fluid. He steps over the velvet rope that blocks off the painting.

But it’s not the painting itself that catches his attention. No, that’s a clear and labeled copy on loan to bring to life the true prize: Edgar Degas’ preparatory sketches. Newly discovered, they’re on their first museum rotation since their reveal at the National Gallery.

Of the eight surviving sketches only three are on display here; the same subject is reflected in each, but every drawing is a bit different, showing Degas’ process and development of the infamous piece.

Tim’s hand is in the air, fingers itching to trace the lines even as his mothers words ring in his head, ghostly chastisement for trying to touch the art.

Each sketch is on a pressure pad, the frame armed, and the wire it hangs from connected to a delicate sensor. The moment it’s set off, six squad cars will be redirected to the museum—but a Bat will beat them there.

Tim shakes his head, breaking the trance and moving away, but not without one more backward glance.

It’s a wonder just to see the sketches… but he can't, he's here for gems. Stupid, shiny little gems that he won’t feel too back about stealing because, well, if someone steals from a thief is it really stealing?

Tim shrugs to himself, walking away—or more accurately sneaking, but everything he does tonight's going to be inherently sneaky. But the movements come natural, he’s not sure he knows how to walk in a way that produces sound anymore, the roll down his arch is instinctive.

Nearly to the precious stones and jewelry hall, a whistle sings through the quiet.

A night guard. That’s new.

Tim doesn’t panic. He hadn’t accounted for it, but when a plan goes awry, the last advisable thing to do is panic. Nerves in his stomach, Tim controls his breathing and takes account of his position as the whistling grows closer.

Standing still in the open hall of statues, Tim’s in one of the better hiding places. He can mold into the shadows and hide behind a pedestal or platform and wait until the guard passes through, or—

Batman stands in the dark.

Shit.

Fuck. Tim stumbles back a step, flinching and lifting his hands—town between placation and defense, scrambling. Heart tangling up his feet and sheer, blind panic scrambling his brain, it takes Tim too long to catch the metal words glinting red in the low night lighting.

Hall of Heroes.

It’s a goddamn exhibit.

Tim huffs a short laugh and rubs his nose. But the guard is still close, his whistle turns into an off-key hum and finally muttered half-lyrics.

He risks another moment to look at the vigilantes of Gotham. They pose, heroic and mighty, or are caught and engraved mid-fight. Each of a different medium: Batman carved of basalt; Nightwing stone and mosaic tiles; Batgirl in marble; Orphan in shards of obsidian; Robin, painted with tiny handprints, only his sword bare of color. Even Red Hood has a statute, crafted of welded scrap metal and glass that catches the light just so. Batwoman, Huntress… they go on and on.

Tim turns in a slow circle.

And does not find himself, though he doesn’t know why he expected to, or why his chest aches.

There’s an empty platform and a sign he adjusts his goggles to be able to read: Batman and Robin: Coming Soon!

Fists clenching and unclenching by his side, Tim doesn’t know what comes over him, but instead of hiding behind the sweeping shadows of Batman’s flared cape, he leaps up onto the platform and poses.

Still and barely breathing, Tim watches from the corner of his eye as the guard walks through the door.

Rocking along to the music blaring through his ear buds, he… quick steps through the hall, mock-fighting his way around the statues. He doesn’t once notice Tim, the imposter among heroes.

It takes every ounce of will to bite back his laughter as the guard goes up to Batman and mimics his pose before moving one, dancing away.

So obviously not a Bat-vetted guard.

When the hall is clear and the guard gone, Tim chuckles to himself and steps down. The gems are thankfully in the other direction, so their paths won’t cross again.

He wastes no more time, shoves down his wandering thoughts, and moves quickly. He’s been in here too long, and his luck is dwindling; he knows it.

Get the gems and get out, that becomes his sole goal. Everything else is secondary.

His target is barricaded by a protective gate that drops from the ceiling at close and is programmed to open five minutes after the museum opens in the morning. There's an override, in the security office, but the detour is not worth his time when Tim knows the door is wired to sensors on the floor that can be reached and disabled by prying back the floorboard.

And would you look at that, he came prepared to do just that. Tim disconnects the sensor to the drop door and lifts it carefully, just enough to slip under and props the door open on the carefully pried off and soon to be reglued baseboard.

Another obstacle down, setting him up for his next: lasers. Because of course there are lasers.

The sketches weren’t protected by a grid, but stones are? Tim rolls his eyes, obviously the curators don’t understand the worth of the pieces they showcase, but that’s not his problem.

The lasers lay six inches off the floor in grid, and then from the walls and ceiling they criss-cross and move in standard rotation.Any disruption will set off the alarm, and the control panel is in the middle of the room. Only an acrobat and born contortionist could get through… or someone trained by one.

Faintly, Tim wishes for the guard’s playlist because what comes next is as much a dance as it is a performance for the cameras above.

If he timed it right, Bab’s will be performing a cursory check on Gotham’s usual targets any moment now.

Alarm or not, Batman and Robin will be on his tail soon. But that doesn’t mean he lets his leg drop as he shifts carefully over the laser and then drops into a bend, flipping carefully and painstakingly slowly over the next light. Not setting off the alarm is a point of pride he won’t be defaulting on.

By the time he makes it to the case of gems, Tim has had enough and grown tired of his little adventure. Flowing through the motions, he finds the hidden panel in the side of the display, pries it open. Cursing the amount of electrical work thievery takes, Tim snips the wire, pausing only to avoid another laser, and lifts the glass.

And finally, after what seems like an age, he gets his claws on the damn stones.

He stores them safely in his pouches and pockets, and turns to leave.

The acrobatics come and go with flair and precision.

Easy.

Too easy.

No matter how much he tries to focus on the task at hand, now that the stones are in his clutches and a day away from being fenced for a healthy donation to the Gotham Food Pantry, Tim’s mind drifts back to Dick.

Anything could happen, and with the target on his back larger than their baseline… Tim is worried. He should have taken the extra time and risk to hack into Babs’ system to keep track of Dick.

Sure, he has Robin as back up but… still. Tim can’t let the fear go. It grows, compounding with every second left in the dark.

Going through the motions, Tim rolls back under the door and—like manifested from his traitorous thoughts, a shadow carves across the floor.