Chapter Text
Soft. Everything around me is soft. I’m floating on a cloud, hungover from sleeping. My eyes don’t want to open. There are weights tied to my eyelashes keeping them closed. A dream is playing in the back of my head like a song on repeat. I can’t hear the melody anymore, only the lyrics.
“Little detective, you are wasted here. I could give you the world, I could destroy it. Whatever you want I will give it to you, just say the word.”
When the words finally sharpen enough and come into focus, I jolt awake. The voice causes my spine to shake and quiver. It’s so unnatural, so violating. Every time I hear his voice, it causes ants to crawl in my veins, stopping blood flow. My arms, my legs, they all turn numb and sore.
I fucking hate Ra’s. It’s that simple. I have no complex feelings towards him that I have difficulty deciphering. I’m not an idiot (present times excluded). Just because he was one of the first people to actually appreciate me doesn’t mean I owe him anything. And I certainly can’t just ignore all the horrors he committed just because he made me feel good about myself. Looking back, it’s pathetic. The way I let him manipulate me. The only reprieve is that I know I fucked him and the entire League of Assasins over.
My eyes still won’t open, but I’m definitely awake now. Nothing like a homicidal maniac’s voice to get you up in the morning. Or well, I assume it’s morning. There’s no sunlight on my skin, but I know the manner takes its blackout curtains seriously.
With my eyes still closed, I wiggle until I’m completely under the comforter. From there, I sit up so the sheets fall over me like I’m a ghost. Fuck, being a ghost would be great, right now.
I sit there, under my covers, for what feels like hours, but I’ve never been good with time. After a bit, I hear the door creak open. Alfred ensures the doors squeak, the floorboards creak, and other miniscule noises occur. Not only is it a test for the Robin’s, but it makes sure none of us will be caught unaware.
His feet hit the floor with minimal noise, but enough that I can tell it’s Bruce. I would’ve even taken Jason over him. I know he’ll look right through me, seeing his Tim where I sit. My Bruce has done this to me too many times to count. He looks for everyone in me. Anyone other than me. The names he’s called me on accident are as varied as they are incorrect. Jason. Dick. Nightwing. Damian. Robin. Hell, he’s called me Clark before. It really drives home that all I ever was to him was a stand in. A second rate replacement. That’s why it always hurt when Jason called me that. I always knew it was too true.
The comforter shifts and ruffles as he grabs the edge closest to him. His fingers grip it and pull. Taking away my warmth and what little protection the blanket afforded me.
As soon as the comforter slides off my face, I shoot my hand out, grabbing his wrist. Due to the leverage I have, I’m able to turn and yank his arm over my shoulder and bring myself down to the mattress. He’s forced to roll over me and land on the floor by the other side of the bed. From there, I move on instinct. I slide off the mattress and stalk to my bag that I see was placed on a chair on the other side of the room.
Searching through my bag with my eyes on Bruce, who has regained his footing and is standing by the bed. I hate that he’s not in a fighting stance. I’ve seen him settle into one just because Dick threw a candy bar at his head. But now, here he is, looking at me with pitying eyes, considering me a victim versus an assailant. Every bone in my body wants to prove him wrong, wants to show him that I am a threat.
But I can’t. Throwing him over my shoulder just now already put my attempted civilian identity at risk and in doubt.
He takes slow, hesitant steps toward me. His face morphs into some kind of placating expression. It looks wrong on his face, like it’s unnatural for someone like him to try and make himself look nonthreatening.
His voice tries to do something similar, it comes out softer than usual, “Tim, I know you’re scared, I know this isn’t easy for you. And I don’t blame you. You’ve been put in a horrible situation, but I promise, all we want to do is help. We’re not gonna hurt you in any way, you’re not in danger.”
Every word he says puts me more on edge. I don’t know how to respond. Saying nothing is the only option I really like, but I know he’s expecting some kind of response.
I swallow before forcing the words to climb up my throat and out my mouth, “What was he like? Your Tim.”
The question takes both of us by surprise. I don’t know why I said that. There’s no way he’s actually gonna answer. The gears are turning in his head, probably trying to come up with a way to divert my attention and cleverly change topics.
“He was… He was too good for this world. I’d never met anyone who’d deserved so much, but got so little. He tried so hard, but never got anything in return. Everything I did for him, it was nowhere near enough. I should’ve done so much more for him, maybe then he would still be here and you could’ve met him,” he says with such a tight voice that I know he truly cared.
He cared about me.
I know I shouldn’t push more, he’s clearly upset and I don’t want to push him anymore than I already have. But I can’t stop the words from coming out of my mouth. I do everything to pull them back down my throat, but they spill out anyway.
“What happened to him?”
Bruce’s eyes tell me everything I need to know, but I still want to hear him say it. Hear him admit that he was the cause, that he was to blame.
“He killed himself.”
I can’t stop the sharp intake of breath. It hurts. More than I thought it would. All I can think about is how many times I almost did the same thing. How many times I actually tried.
Bruce continues, taking my reaction in stride, “I don’t know how similar your childhoods were, but he had been through so much at such a young age. I thought I was doing the right thing, stepping up and trying to be there for him, but it just made everything worse. He wanted to be Robin, he wanted something to live for. Damian and I… We started training him. Even if he didn’t become Robin, at least he would be able to protect himself.”
His words circle inside my mind, it’s like cracking a code, but I have no idea what the cipher is. Nothing he says is making sense. If he took me in, if he trained me, then why did I do it?
His mouth opens and closes before he gets the resolve to continue, “Things were worse than we knew. At home. I’d only trained Damian before, and he was already a perfectly honed tool. Tim, he was so smart, but I struggled training him. He was so different from us. From body type down to just the way he thought. We all got so frustrated with each other. He and Damian, they used to be such close friends, but they started butting heads. I had no idea that training him would take away the only two people who were supporting him.”
I can’t wrap my head around it. They treated him so much better than my universe did. Why did he follow through when I didn’t? There had to be something else.
Licking my lips, I try to gather the courage to speak up. “What triggered it though? My universe, from what I can tell, was… well, worse. So why did he do it?”
Bruce looks shocked at my question. It’s still weird to see any expression other than doom and gloom on his face.
It takes him a second to process and come up with an answer. It feels like minutes before he finally answers, “He just… he wasn’t made for the life he had. If I’d been there for him more, if I’d treated him better, I think he would have gotten through it.”
His answer pisses me off. Not everything is about Bruce. Tim made a choice, and the decision he made shouldn’t be hijacked and turned into another mistake Bruce made that he uses to justify his self hatred. No matter why he made the choice, Tim made it all by himself. Obviously, it’s horrible, he was just a kid and he should’ve been stopped. But more importantly, he should’ve been given help and therapy long before it ever happened. Bruce had to have seen the signs. And even if he hadn’t, he knew Tim was from an abusive household and needed support. Bruce just couldn’t recognize that sometimes people didn’t need his help. Bruce training him wasn’t the support he needed.
I can’t stop some of the anger leaking into my words, “Not everything is about you,” I spit out.
He recoils almost as if he was struck.
My words keep coming, “he didn’t need you, he needed professional help. You seriously thought training the kid to be a child soldier was the right thing to do? You thought it would help?”
I know I’m projecting, I’m talking about myself now, and all the other kids who Bruce claims he saved. All I can think of is the amount of pain, the numbers of deaths, that all of us had to go through.
“I know,” his reply surprises me and stops my anger in its tracks.
“I know I made the wrong choice, that’s what I meant when I said I should have treated him better. He should’ve gotten the help he needed and the love he deserved. The Robins after him, they get what they deserve. Love. Care. And the safety to not be the strongest. The safety to not be Robin if they don’t want to.”
I’ve never heard Bruce talk so much about anything other than a case. And certainly never with so much emotion pouring into his words. A part of me wants to ignore everything he said. Wants to ignore that there really is a Bruce that learned from his mistakes.
“Jason,” I say, searching for a reason to distrust this Bruce, to prove he’s just as bad as mine. “What happened to Jason?”
He hides his surprise better this time. I can’t imagine being in his position, he’s being interrogated by a different version of his dead… son? And he has no idea how much I know, how much is similar to his universe.
“He’s… He’s doing good. He’s a freshman at Gotham University. Now he is-”
“Did he die?” I cut him off, not wanting to hear about what he’s doing now. I need to know if he actually learned from Tim, or if he let another Robin die.
Bruce just seems to deflate, like a balloon pricked with a needle, “We went to find his mom. We were caught off guard by the Joker. I barely made it out of the explosion alive. He didn’t.”
Now it’s me who can’t hide my surprise. I know the case like the back of my hand. Jason confronted the Joker alone, against Bruce’s orders. But it seems in the end, it didn’t matter. The result was the same. He still died.
“You were there with him?”
“Of course, I would never let Jason face the Joker alone,” he replies as if a little hurt that I would think so low of him.
“You should really be talking to Jason if you want to know more,” he continues. “He was on a school trip to Metropolis, but he’s getting back today.”
The idea of seeing Jason makes me nauseous. All I can feel is him holding me down. Him hitting me again and again and again.
“No, no.” I choke out. “I can’t. I don’t want to.”
Bruce finally moves from his spot, like a spell was lifted off of him. He quickly walks to me before dropping to his knees in front of me.
“Hey. Hey, Tim, are you alright? You don’t have to meet anyone you don’t want to.”
I’m shaking now, like a too weak scarecrow in the wind. There’s no way in hell Bruce will take me seriously now. I hate that I’m so worried about that. But I know Bruce thinks Tim wasn’t strong enough to be Robin. His belief of Tim’s weakness most definitely extends to me too.
It takes me a minute to regain my composure and answer. “I’m fine,” I say, knocking off the hands Bruce laid on my shoulders with my own.
How do I tell him Jason- but not his Jason- tried to kill me. More than once.
Apparently, I don’t have to figure it out, because we’re interrupted by a knock on the door. It’s sharp and quick, suggesting if we don’t open the door, they will. Bruce and I are frozen as we turn towards the door.
Neither of us have a fast enough reaction, as the door handle turns. The door is pushed open, slamming against the wall, probably leaving a dent Alfred’ll be pissed about. It bounces back, almost hitting the boy who threw it open.
I stare at the boy, he feels like a stranger, but I know who he is. The streak of white hair gives it away.