Chapter Text
The Lazarus Pit burns.
Months later, Tim can feel it.
He likes the sensation, the clarity it brings him. The world is so much neater when he can analyze things without the crippling self-doubt that plagued him as a child. People are easier to manipulate if he doesn’t have to worry about their mental health in the aftermath.
He throws himself into the training that Talia al Ghul assigns him, more than aware that he is a replacement once more. She paces him through the same trials that she did her son all those years ago. Tim learns how to inflict pain, he learns the art of blackmail, he learns how to poison, how to make explosives, how kill.
Talia is pleased by him.
Tim is a favored pet. It is a matter of time before Talia leverages him against Bruce and her son. Apparently both Damian and Bruce blame themselves for Tim’s demise, believe that they could have saved him.
They’re right.
Tim burns with hatred with both of them.
But he hates Robin more.
The boy he used to be. The symbol of Batman’s restraint.
But Tim had pushed Batman the wrong way. When he was a kid, he’d realized that Batman would never be able to make an arrest stick if he didn’t show some restraint. But the man who’d killed Tim had been arrested dozens of time. The man who’d killed Tim’s father had been a parolee.
Gotham never needed Batman to be a protector.
Gotham needed a monster.
And Tim is very good at solving problems.
“We are correcting the faults in your training,” Talia assures him. “When we are finished, you will get your justice.”
He’s been watching her, too.
Tim hadn’t realized it as a kid, but when Damian returned from his sabbatical with the League of Assassins, Tim became the symbol of the Cold War between Damian’s upbringing and Batman’s ideology. He’d been the name screamed every time Damian alleged Bruce didn’t care. The example of restraint Bruce used whenever Damian had acted impulsively.
Tim doesn’t like being used.
So he uses the teachers Talia provides and he waits.
The teachers all have agendas of their own. Some of them hate Talia because of Ra’s. Some of them are being blackmailed. Some of them are looking for ways to advance. Some of them are driven by greed. Others, a lust for power.
Tim collects this information, a bigger picture starting to form in his head. The League of Assassins is less stable than it appears. The loss of Damian Wayne, the intended heir to the kingdom had sent splinters through new factions vying for power. And with Ra’s’s decreased stability due to Lazarus overexposure, everyone is quietly choosing their sides.
So at the end of his explosives training sitting across from a Russian mobster with a predilection for children, Tim drops some privileged information.
The mobster returns to his base and assassinates his boss, which angers the Ukrainians who, in retaliation, disrupt some of the weapons deliveries to the States which in turn…
Two sentences and Tim starts a civil war.
Talia tries to hide the bulk of the fights from Tim and he can’t decide if it’s some misplaced motherly instinct or if she doesn’t want him to realize that the organization is crumbling.
Her subterfuge does not last forever.
One of the rival factions of the League descends on their safe house. Tim wakes to the faint sounds of swords clanking in the distance. He slips a dagger into his sleeve and pretends to sleep until Talia opens the door.
“We must go,” she says. “This place is no longer secure and you must not be discovered.”
She cracks open the door and looks down the hall and Tim understands that she must still have plans for him.
But she’s made a mistake. Underestimated him and his distaste for being a pawn.
Tim slips the dagger out of his sleeve and buries it in Talia’s throat.
Her death will further splinter the league. It’s possible that Ra’s will see fit to save her, but that doesn’t change the outcome. The organization will not recover. Tim finds the nearest computer system and transfers as many funds as he can to an account for his personal use, uncaring as the blood slicks the keyboard.
Then he leaves for Gotham.
Gotham needs a monster, so Tim becomes one.
He borrows the name of one of her more notorious. Joker’s previous identity, the Red Hood is not well publicized, but it will get under Batman’s skin. It might even lure Nightwing back into town. He fashions the helmet himself, fiddling with the wiring until it has all the capabilities that he needs, night vision, infrared, a filtration system for various toxins. A voice modifier that is good enough to mimic Batman’s growls.
He infiltrates the GCPD’s computer system, the city’s CCTV network, Arkham Asylum’s mainframe, even the Batcave and he watches for almost a week before making his diagnosis.
Gotham is corrupt to her core. Everyone from the officers taking bribes to the staff at the Asylum asleep at their posts. He’s seen other cities. Where people execute child killers like the Joker rather than giving them a slap on the wrist.
The system is broken. So Tim goes after the system.
It takes him days to go through the information he collects. To build solid cases against the corrupt city officials and the dirty cops. He gathers the evidence with the same cool precision he used when he was Robin. Evidence so damning the cops would have been able to prosecute even on a vigilante arrest.
Planting the explosives is easy. They all pay collection money to the various Gotham’s gang which is supposed to buy protection. And while Batman goes after criminals, he’s always preferred to take out corrupt officials quietly. Tim remembers the lectures. Bruce wants the system to work and every exposed flaw only serves to lessen public faith in the institution.
So Batman focuses on criminals and when they inevitably escape to cause more harm, he throws them back in jail.
The systematic issues don’t get fixed.
Because no one can see them.
Tim checks the head-up display in his helmet. There are enough people that it will be almost impossible to catch everyone in a blast, but even the ones he misses are still a warning.
He waits until the first reported sighting of Batman for the night.
Then he blows up twenty-seven bedrooms.
He leaks all the evidence he gathered to the Gotham Gazette the next morning, left on Vickie Vale’s desk in a neatly bundled package along with a sticky note that says, Batman’s had this information for years.
He doesn’t bother to disguise his handwriting.
The explosions get Nightwing back to town. Batman greets him stiffly. “You didn’t have to come back so soon.”
“You needed me. Mother does not.” Damian lets out a long breath. “And I have no intentions of joining the ensuing fight. Let it burn.”
“Nightwing,” Batman says with a note of warning.
“Drop it, father. My place is here. It always has been. And it is quite clear that you have fallen apart without me. Twenty-two bodies.”
Twenty-three actually. Another one died at the hospital less than an hour ago.
“All of them corrupt officials or cops. There was a delivery sent to the paper yesterday alleging I had information implicating all of them, but did not act fast enough. Several of the dossiers were consistent with our internal files.”
“Am I to understand that the Cave has been compromised?”
“Unclear,” Batman says. “But the language was similar. And the note the perpetrator left with Vickie Vale only confuses things more.”
He hands a copy of the note over and Tim watches, delighting in the way the color drains from Damian’s face. “Did you run an analysis?”
“Yes,” Bruce says. “The handwriting matches our reference.”
Damian gives a curt nod. “Who knows enough about him to use him as a warning?”
“I don’t know,” Batman says.
Tim slips away.
Step one was taking out the corrupt cops and city officials. Step two is the gangs.
With their men in power gone, they are forced to go on a recruitment run and Tim is waiting with a sniper rifle.
He waits until the meets happen and then carefully picks off the recruiters. He wonders how long it will be before Gordon pieces together the pattern. He’s a little surprised they don’t have extra men on the targets, but Tim guesses with the half dozen cops they lost they might not have the manpower to spare.
He’s a little surprised Nightwing hasn’t called in Flamebird. This seems like the kind of situation where it would be useful to have a meta running around, but he guesses Batman’s control freak tendencies reign supreme. Tim enjoys the break. He’s managed to take out six recruiters in four different locations before the first sign of a Bat. It’s more than he expected, but less than he would have preferred.
Damian’s the one on scene, not Nightwing, a hazard of being a high profile figure near Wayne Tower. He reacts like vigilante rather than a civilian when the shot goes off, immediately calculating the trajectory from the way the body falls, his head swiveling to the rooftops. Tim stays put for a few extra seconds just long enough for Damian to get a glimpse of him. Red helmet, black body armor, sniper rifle held at his side. He sees Damian reach for his cell phone, but is gone before he manages to dial.
Tim’s been expecting a confrontation since he first made it back to Gotham, but it’s not Batman and Nightwing who finally track him down.
It’s the new Robin.
Talia had tried to dangle information about the new kid in front of him, like she’d thought the fact that Bruce replaced him would be a way to manipulate him. She’d been shocked when Tim hadn’t reacted to the news.
See, Tim always knew that his time at Robin was temporary. He’d been a placeholder, nothing more, a way to keep Batman sane until Damian made his way back to town. He’s been replaced before, he’d even orchestrated it, pushing for Stephanie’s brief stint as Batman’s sidekick. He’s not surprised that Bruce found a new kid. Batman’s always needed Robin, a way to keep himself in check.
Jim Gordon’s words haunt him, though, What does Robin need?
Jason Todd looks like Tim in the same way Tim always looked vaguely like Damian. He’s got the same dark hair, the same blue eyes.
But that’s where the similarities end. Jason is lean, but there’s an almost desperate hunger to his leanness that neither Tim nor Damian has ever worn. The costume has changed, too. A downgrade by Tim’s measure. The tunic’s been replaces by a dark red hoodie, the knee pads and shin guards under a sturdy pair of utility pants rather than over leggings. At a glance, he looks like he could be one of the dozens of kids littering Lower Gotham. Even knowing the obvious side of body armor, Robin looks scrawny.
Malnutrition, Tim diagnoses absently. It must have been fairly pronounced if the effects are still visible after the strict Robin training regime.
“You’re new,” Tim says. “Where did Bats find you?”
“Crime Alley.” Robin’s accent drips lower Gotham. He either hasn’t sat through the same drills Alfred used to train Damian’s accent away or Bruce decided he doesn’t care to hide the fact that the new Robin is a Gotham native. “I tried to jack the tires from his stupid car.”
Tim doesn’t laugh. He’s not sure he remembers how, but he’s interested despite himself. “And Batman gave Robin to a car thief? Just like that?”
“Nobody gave me Robin.” The kid wears an impish smirk under his red domino mask. The smirk on his face is less deadly that Damian’s, but sharper than Tim’s used to be. “I stole it.”
“Robin’s a dangerous job,” Tim says carefully.
“You should know,” Robin replies.
Tim doesn’t flinch. “What are you fishing for, Robin?”
“The helmet’s not fair, you know.” Robin bounces on his toes. “Hard to read people when you can’t see their faces.”
That’s enough of this. Tim draws a gun and aims it square between Robin’s eyes. “Ask your question.”
“Are you who we think you are?”
The gun does not shake.
Robin stares past the gun, fearless in a way that Tim barely remembers.
“B and Nightwing, they’re driving themselves crazy trying to figure it out,” Robin says. “But they always make things more complicated than they need to be.”
“So you came to the source.”
“Never hurts to ask,” Robin says cheekily. “So… are you the second Robin?”
“No,” Tim answers and before Robin can react, he redirects the gun from the kid’s forehead to his left leg and pulls the trigger.
Robin collapses, clutching at his inner thigh. Still a weak spot in the armor then. That’s… useful information. It’s entirely possible Nightwing and Batman have the same weakness.
Jason hisses through his teeth. There’s probably biometrics in the suit now. If Batman hadn’t erased the armor’s weak spots after Tim’s death, he would have at least increased the monitoring capabilities. He wouldn’t leave another bird unprotected. Jason glares up and him, but he can’t risk taking his hand off the wound. It’s likely that Tim clipped an artery.
Tim assesses for a moment and then lashes out, the butt of his gun smashing into Jason’s forehead. Jason’s head lolls to the side as he slumps unconscious, his hand falling off his bullet wound.
Tim estimates that he bleeds out within ten minutes.
Let’s see if Batman’s gotten faster.
Batman doesn’t make it in time.
No, it’s Nightwing who swoops in at the last second. Nightwing who manages to staunch the bleeding as he keeps up a steady stream of chatter trying to wake the kid up.
“This is why we didn’t want you out here, Jay,” he says. “If you bleed out, I will never forgive you. And there’s already a long list of offenses to your name.”
Tim’s felt numb since the Lazarus Pit, and if he wants to be honest with himself, it probably started well before then. He’s planned every step since he left the League of Assassins, the actions carefully calculated without regard for who might get hurt. He’d even planned for how to deal with Robin.
He hadn’t been prepared for this.
Damian Wayne had always treated him with barely disguised disdain. He was the cheap knockoff, a usurper who had weaseled his way into Damian’s legacy. Unskilled by comparison and by Damian’s estimation unworthy.
Tim thought it was about Robin. About the stolen mantel. That it would have been the same for any other kid who wore the mask.
But Damian’s worry for the new kid is obvious as he hauls him over his shoulder and makes for Leslie Thompkin’s clinic, his motions all speed rather than stealth.
Turns out Tim still remembers how to hate.
The Joker had known he was coming.
Looking back, Tim is sure that the magic piece of intelligence he’d found was actually part of a trap.
He certainly figured it out pretty quickly at the time. Subdued with a concussion grenade and then moved to a secondary location. He doesn’t remember all or even most of the twelve-hour torture session, but he remembers the end.
He remembers the Joker cupping his cheek as he gleefully said something about another bird sighting.
“Let’s hope the other bird puts up more of a fight.” He’d dropped Tim’s face with a cackle. “In the meantime, I thought I’d give you a breather. Harley’s going to check up on you in an hour, m’kay. She has some questions for you. About whose face is behind those masks. We’ve got us a little bet going.”
“Screw you,” Tim huffed.
He’d been rewarded with a swift kick to his face. His head swam and he woke up to an empty room, blood still gushing out of his nose.
If the Joker had gone after Damian, Batman would prioritize. Tim was supposed to be in the cave today. There was no way Batman would know he’d left. No chance he would figure it out until well after Harley made her appearance.
And if Harley came, Tim would talk. He knew his limits and how close he already was to his breaking point. Not to mention the dull roaring in his ears that could only signify severe blood loss.
Tim casted his eyes around the warehouse, fixating after a moment on a broken shard of glass.
If Harley came, he would break. And after that, he would die.
So Tim did what he always did.
He solved the problem.
Tim hasn’t exactly been hiding. Before he came back to Gotham, he’d made the decision that the Bats had absolutely no bearing on his plan. He hadn’t been part of that family when he was alive. There was no reason to think anything had changed with his death.
But he’s been expecting a visit since his day of precisely orchestrated executions.
He’d just assumed it would have been Batman.
Instead, he finds Damian in his favorite safe house.
He’s decked out in full Nightwing gear, an escrima stick in either hand. His uniform had changed subtly since Tim’s time as Robin, the blues brighter, the domino mask a different color. He has a new scar that slices through his cheek.
“Nightwing,” Tim acknowledges.
“Drake,” Damian says.
“It’s Red Hood now,” Tim replies.
There’s a pause followed by a frown. “You named yourself for your murderer.”
Tim ignores the question. “Why are you here Damian?”
“My mother survived,” Damian says. “I thought you would be interested.”
Tim crosses his arm “And what about Robin?”
“Jason’s fine,” Damian says. “Robin’s status is to be determined.”
Tim understands the implications, but he’s more or less lost the ability to put anything other than a bland face forward. “Jason is Robin. He stole it fair and square. He’s got a lot of the same problems I did though, running off on a hunch.” He fixes Damian with a stare. “You for a mentor.”
“Batman—” Damian starts.
“Didn’t have time for anything but Gotham. And Gotham needs Batman,” Tim says. “Almost as much as Bruce does. But it won’t forever.”
“Is that a threat?”
“No,” Tim says. “Gotham is broken and we’re all trying to fix it. Stay out of my way and I’ll stay out of yours.”
“You’re killing people.”
“People who deserve it. People who perpetuate the systematic corruption of the city. If people like the Waynes make sure the next set in the job are of higher quality, this won’t happen again.”
“Then come back,” Damian says. “Help us.”
“You don’t want me there.” Tim feels unsteady. This is not the confrontation he expected. Especially not after how he left the newest bird. He’s had a hand on his weapon since Damian entered his apartment. He’d just assumed that the confrontation would have significantly more steel involved. “You never wanted me here.”
“Of course we do,” Damian says. “You’re family.”
Tim sees… green.
They aren’t family. He’d forced his way into Damian’s birthright, been constantly belittled by the older boy for the slightest infraction. Bruce had taken him in only after Tim’s father had died, and it seemed clear that the situation was meant to be temporary, a stopgap until Tim could finish the paperwork for becoming an emancipated minor. He isn’t like the new kid, who’d been almost immediately adopted, and he isn’t Damian, the blood heir to the Wayne fortune. He’d fooled himself into thinking he might belong while he was alive, carved himself a place in the Teen Titans and at Bruce’s side. But the months leading to his death had seen his support slowly ripped from under him.
And when he’d died…
He takes a deep breath. Even tinged by the madness of the pit, he realizes that Damian is more skilled than him in combat. He will lose a hand before he manages to draw his gun. If he’d managed this conversation before meeting Jason, he might have had the element of surprise, but he doesn’t now.
Then again, Tim’s always been at his best when he fights with something other than fists. “I was never your family.”
“I know I didn’t always treat you well, but you were still family, Drake.”
“Wayne,” Tim mocks.
“I cannot change my past actions,” Damian says, his usually precise tones fraught with frustration. Tim can pick out the sharp edges of his childhood accent. “All I can do is act now. What would you have me do, Timothy?”
“You say we’re family? Fine.” Tim folds his arms and glares. “Then look me in the eyes and tell me Tim Drake’s official cause of death.”
As Damian’s silences stretches, Tim slips out of the room.
The official cause of Tim Drake’s death is suicide.
If Tim Drake mattered…
If Tim Drake mattered to Batman, there would have been change.
The Joker wouldn’t be back out on the streets.
The people who facilitated the escapes would be the ones behind bars.
And the story of Tim Drake…
He understands the need for cover. A way to explain Tim Drake’s demise that did not compromise Robin’s identity. Suicide took the messy edges of a young life tinged with tragedy—his father recently dead, his on-again-off-again girlfriend in the hospital recovering from a blown out spine—and married them to the stock character of a gifted loner.
He’s sure Brucie Wayne put on quite the performance at his funeral. Damian too. They must have been convincing because the press had decided they’d done all they could to help a deeply depressed young man.
And Tim, the real Tim. The idealist who’d decided to cut his losses in an otherwise failing battle disappeared like he never existed.
Not part of the family. Barely even part of the fight.
If Talia’s information was to be trusted, he’d spent longer dead than he did as a permanent residence at Wayne Manor.
He considers clearing out of Gotham all together.
Dismisses the idea just as fast.
Jason tracking him down had changed the time table, but he can still make his plan work.
He doesn’t know what to make of Damian’s appearance. Tim had expected a fight, especially after how he’d left Talia and his overture sits uneasily on his psyche. He doesn’t know how to reconcile this Damian with the one in his memory and pushing it away means it could bite him in the ass later.
Tim clears out his safe houses and reestablishes new ones. He’d initially set up in Crime Alley, but the simmering street-level rumors say that the new Robin has taken an interested in the area that Batman traditionally avoided and Tim doesn’t want to invite unwanted attention. Instead he hides near the police station, an apartment high enough to watch Gordon light the Batsignal in the moonlight.
He’s pretty sure he can take out Two Face and Penguin together if he times things right. He’s already started to spread back into the city’s security network. There’s patchy coverage in Lower Gotham, but the areas around Arkham are on camera twenty four hours a day. He’s not the only one in the feed. Batman’s signature lurks around every corner.
But computers were one of the few subjects where Tim had always been the best in the cave. Even Damian, who was loathe to admit Tim had any skill at all, would shift any hacking duties Tim’s way. After almost a year of persistence, he’d been allowed to digitize Batman’s case files and when he’d been in the system, he’d done what any hacker would.
He’d left himself a back door.
Red Hood is a different file than Tim Drake. The later file still listing him as deceased. It’s been cross-referenced it to Red Hood, Damian, by the digital signature. Jason’s tried to access it on a half dozen instances in the past week but didn’t appear to have passed the encryption.
Tim closes the documents and pulls up Batman’s intelligence on city hall’s corruption.
He uses Batman’s data to make his hit list.
Tim’s on a rooftop holding a sniper rifle when he hears.
Joker’s caught.
He sets the rifle down and scans through the channels in his helmet until he finds more information.
Not just caught.
Dead.
Joker’s dead.
His vision whites out. He finds himself gasping for breath, clawing his helmet off like he thinks that will help.
He’s not sure how long it takes, but eventually he tunes back into the radio chatter. The police is trying to check the scene for booby traps. Batman’s talking with someone—Stephanie? Since when did Stephanie know anything about medicine?—about causes of death and ways to confirm the Joker’s identity.
Tim looks down to the street below.
He’s missed his target.
*
It takes two days of waiting before the news confirms the identity.
It’s the Joker.
They’ve never had a name for the maniac, but the fingerprints and DNA match various other crime scenes, including, as noted in the Batcomputer, the murder of the second Robin.
He’s dead.
When the news reports hit, the entire city seems to be uneasy. Tim’s hits are still unsolved, gang violence is on the uptick and the Riddler seems to be making a desperate cry for attention, but it’s more than that. Almost like the city can’t believe the Joker’s gone.
His death certificate noted the manner as natural causes. A heart attack.
Tim cannot believe that.
He pours through the medical examiner’s files and then Batman’s files on the caves.
Then, finally, Stephanie Brown’s assessment of the corpse.
It’s the last documents where he finds it. Not a red flag if you haven’t encountered this particular poison, but almost a signature if you have.
He leans back, folding his hands behind his head.
To his knowledge, the League of Assassins has no problem with the Joker.
A second after, the answer slots neatly into place.
Flamebird makes him the minute he hits the city limits.
Tim hadn’t made much of an effort to hide himself from Kryptonians. He hadn’t intended on ever venturing into Bludhaven and Gotham was pretty much a meta-free zone. If he’s honest with himself, he’d forgotten that as much time as Damian spends in Gotham, he’s still Bludhaven’s superhero.
And Nightwing’s always had a partner.
Tim’s never been sure what to make of Jon Kent. The handful of times he met him when he was Robin, Jon had always been pleasant. But he’s Damian’s best friend and that means he’s either a saint or hiding a hell of devious streak.
Suddenly pinned to the wall two hundred feet in the air, Tim’s thinking it might be the latter.
“What are you doing in my city?” Flamebird growls.
There’s a sudden pressure around his head and then Tim’s helmet peels in half and falls. Tim plasters on a sneer to hide his surprise. “Thought I’d drop in, say hi to my big brother.”
“He’s not your anything, you asshole. I heard what you did to Robin.”
“If I’d wanted Robin dead, I would have shot him in the face. And I’d have done the same to Damian. But they’re both still alive. I swear I just came to talk.”
Jon’s face is still a mask of anger, but after a second tilts his head sideways, listening.
Tim watches, amused. “Nightwing?” he asks.
“He says he wants to talk to you,” Jon replies. He reluctantly flies them to a rooftop, and pulls back. His glare hasn’t improved since he Tim met him years ago, but he supposes the fact that it is backed by heat vision is threat enough. “If you hurt him, I’ll kill you.”
“You won’t,” Tim replies. “You should, but you won’t.”
Jon glares another second, seizes Tim by the shoulders and flies.
Tim hates this. Even when he was training with Impulse and his Superboy, he’d hated high speed travel. His ears pop, his vision blurs and he’d had more than one instance of nose bleeds following deceleration. Jon doesn’t let him down gently either, leaving Tim to roll roughly on the rooftop where Damian stands at the ready, his hand on his katana.
“Hood,” Jon calls after a second. “All the other stuff asides, I’m glad you’re not dead.”
Tim blinks after him as he disappears in a blur. “He literally gave me a death threat a minute ago.”
The domino mask hides Damian’s obvious eye roll. “Flamebird would never kill anyone.”
“I told him as much,” Tim says. “You, I’m less sure about.”
“If you’re here to make accusations, you’re welcome to leave. I have other obligations than you. Not the least of which being the boy you nearly killed.”
Tim can’t bring himself to feel sorry about Jason. Lessons always worked better when they came with blood. Maybe the next time he struck out against an unknown element, Jason wouldn’t be so caviler. “You like him,” Tim observes. “I didn’t think you liked anyone.”
“I like Jon,” Damian says. “I like Spoiler. I just didn’t like you.”
“Past tense,” Tim notes.
Damian shrugs. “I have no idea who you are now.”
“You had no idea who I was when I was alive.”
“You’re still alive, Drake,” Damian says. “I never expected to have the chance to right this particular wrong. Unlike my father, I am able to admit when I made mistakes."
There’s a roaring in Tim’s ears. He wishes for the safety of his helmet, but it’s lying in pieces on the street from where Jon peeled it off of his skull. His hands are shaking, but he hasn’t reached for a gun. Isn’t sure that he’ll even move.
All he ever wanted to know…
Was that Tim Drake’s death mattered.
“Joker…” Tim starts.
“Was a monster and now he’s a corpse. He’s not worth your thought.”
“Dead by poison,” Tim says. He has to know. “By my eyes at least. A League of Assassins blend.”
“I have an alibi,” Damian says. “An unimpeachable one.”
“Jon?” Tim guesses.
“Jon,” Damian confirms.
Tim feels something in his stomach unravel. “That won’t satisfy Batman.”
“Batman has always been rather rigid in his thinking. I understand the need for absolutes, but… I don’t always agree with the practice. Call it a failure in my upbringing.”
Tim swallows. “This doesn’t change anything.”
“Of course,” Damian says. “You’re still a borderline serial killer.”
“And you’re still a condescending prick.” He shuffles his feet. “Going to arrest me?”
“Not today,” Damian says.
Tim nods slowly. “Thank you.”
“You can come back if you want,” Damian says. “Jason’s less prickly than I am. You’d like him.”
“I was never a Bat, not really.” Tim pulls out his grappling gun. “No point in starting now.”
He leaves Bludhaven feeling shaken.
It’s almost three months before the next time he runs into one of the Bats. He’s carried out a few hits, but in the months since he got to town, the criteria for his hits has been climbing steadily. Damian’s been mostly in Bludhaven, and he’s known Batman’s habits well enough to slip his notice since he was six years old.
Robin’s the one who tracks him down. There’s no lingering sign of the bullet wound that had almost killed him months ago. His slapdash uniform hasn’t changed. He looks more like a kid in a dark red hoodie than a vigilante if you managed to overlook the mask. He tries to hide, but when Tim makes him, he gives him a cheeky smile and waves.
“You survived,” Tim observes, though he’d known that long ago.
Jason scoffs. “I had worse injuries than that before Robin.”
“Just wait.”
“You changed everything, you know,” Jason says. “Spoiler and Agent A told me what they were like before.”
“They were dicks,” Tim says. “Nightwing especially.”
“Sure, but I don’t think B would have adopted me if not for you,” Jason admits. “And I realize how much that sucks from the other side. The best thing that happened my whole life only happened because you died.”
“Yeah,” Tim agrees. “But I’m not dead anymore.”
Jason gives him a faint smile.
Then Tim makes a connection. All Damian’s talk about family. Talk that Jason probably believed.
If Damian’s Jason’s brother and Bruce Jason’s adopted dad, then Tim’s the edgy family outcast. The black sheep. The rebel.
“Hey kid,” Tim says. “I’ve got a lead on a drug trafficker. Want to tag along?”
“Yeah.” Jason’s trying to sound cool, but he’s obviously excited. “Yeah, let’s do it.”