Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

______

'this is for the snakes, for the people they bite,

for the friends I've made, for the sleepless nights,

for the warning signs I've completely ignored,

there's an amount to take, reasons to take more.'

______

The boy’s name is Tim Drake. This, he knows. The boy has two brothers and a father, and they all love him very very very very much. This, they tell him. Sometimes they’re trying not to cry when they say it. The boy has been alive for eight months and three days. This, he has counted.

Of course, he was alive before then, too, but nobody was counting for him, then, and now he can’t remember.

Starting from when he can: the first two months of his life were spent in a hospital. Bleach-white, strip-lit, a maze of shiny hard surfaces and the fog of disinfectant and general anaesthesia. Question after question, a different doctor each day come to evaluate the same problem. Brain-damage severe enough to cause memory loss but not inhibit all function, leave him able to speak and walk and think? That’s rare, rare enough to be unheard of, unheard of enough to be deliberate. This, he hears the labcoats say when they think he’s under the blank slide of the painkillers they’re pumping him full with. His resistance to painkillers is above average- they say this as well.

He wants to reassure them. ‘Cause he can’t still think, not really- he’s damaged after all, as it turns out. The real Tim, the other Tim, used to be so goddamn clever. He used to solve mysteries. This Tim has only the misted hush of puzzle pieces that don’t fit together right. His brain is healing, they say, he might remember someday- but Tim only cares about the clever, cares about how now he’s always eight steps behind everyone else.

They asked their questions until they ran out, and nobody could figure out exactly what had gone on inside his head, but nobody could call it dangerous, either, or unhinged. He wasn’t mad, wasn’t bound for the asylum, brain damage or no, and so nobody could think of anything to stop his family finally coming, and so they came. The first hug Dick ever gave Tim took the wind right out of him, and the shock is almost enough to drag in a memory, but then it’s gone and Tim can only think of safe, of happy, of here. Bruce is behind Dick, and Alfred is behind Bruce. Dick, who is his brother. Bruce, who is his father. Alfred, who he supposes is Bruce’s father, in the ways that count.

And Damian, who is something else.

The fucking psycho had attacked Tim on sight, barrelling into his chest with cold rage. Bruce had had to manually drag his two sons apart, and Tim thinks Damian was crying by the end of it? but Tim had slipped back into a drugged stupor, so he can’t tell for certain. Since then there’s definitely been nothing but anger, anyways, and other Tim would probably have all the answers, but this Tim has none, so he leaves it alone.

About four months in, he is allowed back to the manor, on twenty different daily pills just in case. And, woah, okay, he lives in a manor. The air there is cold and stiff and piled heavy with secrets, and Tim didn’t think that family would feel this clunky and awkward, but what the hell does he know? He keeps to himself until he can figure it out, whatever is wrong here, hoards every scrap of memory from before like jewels. They come when he doesn’t expect it, and go just as easily. They’re useless. Flashes and dark hisses of colour, pain, laughter. Seven months and twenty-two days into this lifetime he finds one he can use, that drifts to him while he’s reading. The memory is of a photograph, clutched tight in tiny hands, his hands. The photograph is of the Batman. Oh, alright, then.

So:

• Tim’s family is weird and definitely, definitely keeping secrets.
• Tim is a Medical Improbability.
• One of Tim’s brothers genuinely wishes him death, the other will never look him quite in the eyes.
• Tim used to solve mysteries. Tim also used to be competent, have plans, know his family, probably sleep well at night without the drugs, run half his father’s company- really he had it all fucking made, most likely. This Tim will get there, damnit, and so he feels he ought to start with the mysteries.
• The first mystery is the Batman, he’s going to start with the Batman.
• From what Tim knows, the Batman does rooftops. Dark night and streetlamps and shadows obscuring the moon, and rooftops.

Know to know no more, Tim Drake. Yeah, right. So: it’s four am, and Tim is on a rooftop.

Sneaking out was the easy part, but Tim’s been out for hours and his unused muscles are cramping underneath him. It’s cold and dark and scary, although not as scary as it should be, but most importantly, somebody has been watching him. For a couple of minutes, now. Tim spins, patience cracked, impulse and energy shattering everywhere about him like gunfire. The silent watcher comes out to play, dropping from the roof above him.

There’s a hushed slide of leather and something else, soft and whispering against the hard night. A boy, taller than Tim in combat boots and a red mask drops into his vision. Another vigilante. There’s no press of knowledge against his consciousness this time, though, no sense that he’s missing something, like when he sees photos of the Bat. This boy is new, and judging by the firearms at his belt, dangerous. They regard each other for a second. It’s a silly feeling, visually the guy seems about the same age as Tim, but he can’t shake the sense that he’s encountered something grown up and weary, something he really doesn’t want to know about. There’s no trace of spandex on this guy, after all, just dark, heavy fabrics. Like he has nothing to prove.

And for a second, the press of his gaze- it's almost like being known.

Then the guy opens his mouth, and the illusion is shattered.

“Well well. What’s a poor little teenage billionaire doing on a rooftop like this?” Tim doesn’t know what the guy looks like, but there’s a smirk thick in his voice. So: he knows who Tim is. That doesn’t mean anything- Damian has said poor, ill, clueless Tim is like catnip to kidnappers at the moment, with his usual tact. In terms of the lowlife of Gotham, he’s a commodity, a walking checkbook signed for by Bruce Wayne. This alone should’ve stopped him coming out tonight, practically looking for trouble, but it didn’t.

Seeing no point in lying, he says “looking for Batman.” There’s a snort, but no gun pointed at him, yet.

“Bats? The guy’s overrated. All growly, all ‘justice’,” and he imitates a scorchingly deep voice that makes the hairs on the back of Tim’s neck prick up. “You look like you need a mask who’ll help you cut loose a little.”

“And that’s you?” Tim deadpans. The guy barks a laugh, and Tim becomes acutely aware of where he is, what he’s doing, how ridiculous his life is.

“Doll, you wish. I’ve got places to blow up, people to dispose of, you know how it goes,” and his voice rises with mirth as he watches Tim’s grimace. “What, you’re not a fan?”

“Of murder?”

“You know what- nevermind. You sound like just Batman’s type.” And it’s crazy, because Tim doesn’t know anything about this kid apart from the fact that he kills people, that he’s out doing god-knows-what on a rooftop at four in the morning, (like you are, says the voice in his head) but he doesn’t want him to go. He’s the first person to have looked at Tim without pity, spoken without a world of expectations heavy in his voice. This guy doesn’t know who Other Tim was, probably doesn’t give a shit. But he could give a shit about this Tim, if Tim gave him a reason.

“Slow down,” Tim says, “what do they call you?”

He doesn’t need to see the guy’s face, the grin splits his voice when he says “tell you what, princess, I’ll tell you if you can catch me,” and fuck, he’s fast. He clears the gap between this warehouse and the next with a running jump, and Tim is left there, frozen. Tim, who’s been in a wheelchair for months. Tim, whose head still throbs at what his doctor calls ‘stressful stimuli’. Tim, who is so fucking tired of being treat like porcelain.

He’s running at the edge faster than he knew he could, muscle memory taking over, easing him through the jump that follows. Which: what the fuck, okay, alright. The boy has waited for him on the next roof, he realises with a jolt, but then he takes off in earnest, slipping into the night, and Tim dives after him, and the chase is on.

Gotham has never seemed realer, brighter, focused so sharp it hurts his eyes. His limbs feel alien, so dull and weighty only this morning, now flinging him over the streets so fast he feels like flying, feels so at home it scares him. He’s worried if he thinks about it too long the spell will break so he focuses on the flash of red ahead of him, whooping and catapulting through the air, stronger than he is but heavier too, and Tim is closing the gap, Tim is winning-

The figure stops abruptly and Tim realises too late the row of warehouses has ended. Suddenly fully out of control of his own momentum he whips into the boy full force, knocking them both over but feeling nothing but the sheer adrenaline. He realises he’s grinning like a madman, realises he doesn’t quite know who he is. The boy groans beneath him.

“Careful, birdie. Anyone might figure you don’t know what you’re doin’.” His voice is wind-roughened, but Tim knows he’s grinning too. He slides off the guy and comes back to himself all at once, shaking.

“I- I'm sorry. Oh, Jesus. I'm sorry, I’ve got a lot going on- my doctor says I shouldn’t be out of the house- and this is insane. I don’t know how I even- are you alright- oh God-” but he’s cut off as the guy laughs beneath him, low and long and distorted by the mask. He sits up, in no hurry, and feels at the bottom of his mask until something clicks and he’s dragging it upwards, until there’s a boy in front of Tim, sheened with sweat and shaking his hair out in the open air.

Tim studies him for a second, halfway to blushing. His hair is dark and curled and shaggy, and unless Tim’s vision has gone funny again there’s a violent streak of white in it at his forehead, stark and unnatural. There’s day-old stubble on his face, but his features are young. Far too young for a mask, really, and there’s a split in his lip oozing blood that didn’t come from any race. When the boy opens his eyes from stretching, they’re electric blue behind a domino mask. They’re not the eyes of a killer.

The boy notices him shaking and frowns, and somehow, it’s a comfort just to be able to see it, instead of a blank red sheet. “Hey, kid, calm down. I don’t have much of a right to judge, but you’re acting a little crazy.”

Tim takes a breath in, lets it go. “I, sorry, I- I just think you might be insane and I’m not sure why I’m not dead, and I think I might be having a panic attack-” The boy raises his hands in a gesture of surrender, and Tim stops talking, focuses on breathing.

“Okay, kid, okay. You’re working through some shit. Hell, we’ve all got issues ‘round here. Cool it. I’ll take you home.”

Tim’s not sure what he wants to say, but what comes out is “You’re my age.” The boy laughs, open and easy, and it’s hard for Tim to remember that he might not be one of the good guys.

“Probably. But- you said you had medical issues, right? I don’t wanna come off patronising, but I'm thinking rooftops and strangers with guns, probably not doctor's orders?”

Tim’s breath crumples out in a sigh. “Not- not exactly. I'm not sick, I just- look, apparently I was hit pretty hard in the head, about eight months back. Everything before then is just blank. This is stupid, this is- I just needed to- to get away?” Cool, he’s already massively oversharing. He doesn’t add to get away from everybody looking at me and seeing somebody else, but surely it’s audible in the tremor of his voice. The boy is gazing at him with concern, face like an open book. It’s not what he expects at all of a self-professed murderer.

The kid gets up, stretches again, at ease in the murky light. “Okay, so this is the weirdest thing to happen to me on patrol tonight. But probably not this week. What am I gonna do with ya, kid?” Tim laughs a little, despite himself.

“Sorry, um, I'm not trying to get you to counsel me. I don’t even know your name…” and he makes it an open question. The boy looks down at him, eyes narrowed.

“They call me Red Hood, I guess.”

“Imaginative,” Tim says, and then claps a hand over his own mouth, horrified. The boy, Red Hood, barks another laugh.

“Rude,” he whines, and everything is so weirdly comfortable.

Hood doesn’t look or feel or sound like a murderer, he thinks, and then says as much, because why not? This encounter feels like it’s happening in the twilight hours, where nothing is wholly real, or even corporeal. Hood frowns, scratches his forehead.

“It’s complicated, birdie. I haven’ killed as much as most’ve them think, and I get no pleasure in it. But there’s people in this world we’d all be better off without, and I don’ ignore that, either. There’s those out there who’d disagree.”

“Like Batman,” Tim says, and thinks he understands.

“Yeah. Like Batman. Kid, are you okay?” Hood is clipping his mask back on and Tim is terrified that that’s just the end of that, that he’ll have to go back to suffocating in the manor and forget this ever happened.

He forces the panic down, considers his answer. “Maybe? I came out here looking for the Batman, ‘cause I can’t help but feel like I knew something about him, before, like he was important. But it’s stupid, isn’t it? Every kid in the city idolised Batman.”

Hood says “I didn’t.”

“Oh, you’re a liar. There’s no way.”

“Maybe, maybe not. But you didn’t answer my question.”

Tim sighs. “I don’t know? I'm hanging out at the docks with vigilante and it’s almost sunrise. I could barely walk until a few months back. Why do you care, anyway?”

Hood shrugs. “I like you, kid. You’ve got some spine. And it sounds like you’re going through it. I get it.” Tim stares at him, unimpressed, but he can’t tell if he’s caused a reaction.

“You get it? Really?” and the brief silence that stretches between them grows sharp edges.

“You don’t know anything about me, kid,” and Tim feels very small, somehow, and very cold. A shiver runs through him as the chilled air whips past, and Hood’s shoulder’s slump, a little. He rubs where his eyes are under the mask with one hand. “Look, you’re lucky I wasn’t busy tonight. I can take you back home, I don’t like the idea of you alone in the dark. But it might be better if you forgot about this. You’re right. It's not sane.”

Tim bites his lip. “I get it, you don’t want me to bother you. But-”

“Bother me?" The expression on Hood's face is almost a leer, but there's something false to it. "I’d race you anytime. Little mystery that you are,” (and fuck, Tim is blushing, now) “but c’mon, kid, you’re smart enough. I'm not the good guy here.”

Safe in the knowledge that, for now, he is wanted, he is interesting, (he's an insecure fucking mess, apparently) Tim laughs aloud. Hood steps back a little, like he’s at all the insane one here. “Yeah, Hood, I’d figured out you’re not exactly the kittens-out-of-trees kind of mask. But please, I’d put you at brooding antihero at worst. You must be, like, nineteen.” He laughs a little more because he can tell Hood is scowling.

He’s not laughing a second later when Hood scoops him up like he weighs nothing, fits him tight against his chest. “Alright, where to? How did you even get here?”

“Um,” he says, suddenly mortified, “Wayne Manor. I took a cab.”

There’s a shocked silence, and then Hood is laughing at him in earnest, laughs all the way down to the ground until he’s found a bike to hotwire and is fully focused on the task.

The whole scene feels dreamlike, impossible. He’s just given his home address to a masked vigilante, the kind who are always on the news doing crazystupid things, until Bruce turns it over, grimacing, like it might give Tim ideas. The kind Dick has warned him can be just as bad as the villains they fight. He’s not scared in the least, and he worries it’s something broken about him. His actions tonight, thinking it over, aren’t the actions of anyone fully in control of himself.

The motorbike engine purrs, and Hood looks up, laughing, and Tim meets him with the widest grin he’s managed tonight, and can’t bring himself to care at all.

He’s still shaking from the ride, the roaring exhilaration of it, his hands around Hood’s waist, when they ease up outside of the Manor gates. Hood is laughing aloud too, rolling joy like thunder, and shit, he doesn’t know how he’s meant to go back to breakfast in bed and a daily airing around the manor gardens after this. He realises he hasn’t let go and mechanically releases his arms, climbing off carefully. Everything in the street is still and silent, the city seems to belong to them.

“I’ll see you ‘round, birdie.” Hope explodes inside Tim, as raw and vivid as he’s ever felt it.

“You will?”

“Sure. We had fun, right? Head on down to the docks anytime. But there’s shit besides me down there, and it ain’t on me if any of it has its fun with you.” Tim nods frantically, barely considering the implications of any of it. Hood wants to hang out with him. For Tim now, not for Tim then. (Insecure, validation-seeking mess.)

Oh, yeah. Wait.

“Uh- I'm Tim. Tim Wayne. Even if you won’t tell me your real name.”

Red Hood inclines his head, like he’s laughing, noiselessly. “You thought I didn’t know?”

The motorcycle tears off into the night. Tim, aching with exhaustion now, sets about sneaking back to the house unnoticed and scaling the two stories to his room. He collapses onto his bed so brimming with happiness he can barely breathe.

______

 Course, in this house, the happiness doesn’t tend to stick.

Tim Drake knows this: there’s never been anything quite true about him. Tim Drake’s family disappear for stretches at a time, mostly at night. They get into fights a lot. Tim Drake is littered in scars that nobody will give him an answer about. There are rooms he doesn’t go into, questions he doesn’t ask. Names he doesn’t mention. The media knows he’s going through a ‘tough time’, which he knows because the headlines say it. But Tim knows he could remember eventually what his life is, if somebody would just sit him down and talk to him about it. Bruce asks him meaningless, trivial questions, about what he’s eaten, how he’s feeling. He says ‘I love you’ a lot, and Tim wants to scream at him, to beat his fists uselessly against Bruce’s chest, to say ‘tell me what I'm fucking missing, then.’ Everybody else gets it, apparently, but Tim can’t find the punchline. Damian sneers and taunts, and never seems to be around otherwise. Dick is wonderful, Dick is the best big brother anyone could ask for, and it’s so fake Tim wants to cry. The goodness isn’t fake, sure, but every other thing about him seems skin deep. He supposes Dick hates the lie so much that he has to make everything about himself into a lie so the cracks don’t show. There’s a girl called Cass he knows is family, somehow, knows nothing else about. A girl called Steph whose eyes always look so sad. And there’s Alfred, who doesn’t lie but says things like ‘Now, sir, Master Bruce wouldn’t want you to focus on anything but getting better.”

Tim is fine. Tim is so fine that if they ever stopped caring more about deceiving him than knowing him, they would see it themselves.

Tim is so fine he would probably be better by now if they weren’t all treating him like he was fucking already dead.

Course, it’s not always like that. Most days it’s better. He loves them all so much that it hurts, and they love him just the same. But he’s hurting for plenty of other reasons too.

______

‘it’s no big surprise, you turned out this way,

when they closed their eyes, and prayed you would change.’

______

 The morning after, he’s been allowed to lie in. It’s almost noon when he wakes, and he feels startlingly at peace, curled and sleepy in the sunlight. He checks on his motor function, absent-mindedly curling and uncurling fingers and toes, and sits up when all of a sudden, the night comes flooding back to him, sending him jittering with excitement. He has a friend, kind of. Somebody who looked at him straight and fiery, never once smiled sadly just because Tim was trying his best. 

He’s lying there twenty minutes later, immersed in memories of dancing over rooftops, uncertain just how much of it he dreamt, when Alfred pops his head in.

“My apologies, Master Tim, the household has been a little preoccupied today. Would you like any breakfast? Lunch, rather.”

He smiles at Alfred (probably uncharacteristically widely, but he can’t help it) and says no. He can’t even bring himself to want coffee- his mind is entirely focused on something greater, something far more satisfying. He thinks of Hood stretching above him in the moonlight and laughs aloud. In the quiet normalcy of his room he finds he doesn't know what he's expecting at all- you don't go out for coffee with a vigilante, surely. 

He finds he doesn’t care. It’s so much better than the mansion air, heavy and swarming with secrets, his head too fuzzy to make them out. It frustrates him to tears sometimes. But his thoughts have never been clearer, and he swears the night air is still whipping in his ears.

Still, even remembering the secrets makes the room’s bright walls constrict around him, and he struggles into a sitting position and then stands, ready to face the day.

He’s brushing his teeth when he sees them out the window. Bruce, Dick, and Alfred headed across the lawn to join them. Damian is sulking in the treeline further off.

They’re standing around one of the graves, freshly laid with new flowers. Huh. Another secret drifts to settle atop the others, and he swears he hears the house’s foundations creak.

Scowling, he spits into the sink and glares at his reflection. Slim, raggedy, pale. His ribs show some days, his scars every day. He inhabits a body that’s been played in, ruined and abandoned by someone else, the Other Tim who left him to pick up the pieces. But it can still run, as things turn out. Maybe him and Red Hood can get to some ruination of their own.

Movement catches his eye. The others are heading back inside, while Bruce steps closer to the grave, sinks to his knees all of a sudden. He’s mouthing something Tim can’t make out, and maybe crying, it’s hard to tell. Tim feels so cut off from everything, so cold and analytical, but it’s so so hard to connect with Bruce when Bruce refuses to give, to relinquish anything that could teach Tim who he is.

Other Tim would know what to do, Tim is certain. But this Tim knows some things. Knows that nobody in this house will bother to give him an explanation for what he’s just witnessed even if he asks. Knows that there are better ways of finding out anyway.

_____

Tim’s thighs are burning, and he feels a little sick. He’s pressed up against the keyhole of Bruce’s office, knelt twisted just to get the angle right. He’s barely caught anything said so far, but the other person in there is Dick, and sometimes Dick and Bruce yell.

There are two doors to the room he’s in besides the one he’s listening at, so he thinks he’s got a reasonably good chance of a quick getaway if anyone sees him. Even if not, so what? He doesn’t think he has a single thing to lose. The worst any of the adults would do is look disappointed because eavesdropping was above the old Tim, apparently. The only person in this house he has anything to fear from is Damian, really, as Tim suspects given the opportunity Damian really would try and kill him if he was sure it wouldn’t make his father too upset. Although maybe even then- Damian seems like the ‘better to beg forgiveness than ask permission’ type.

“C’mon, Dad…” he hears, and it wrenches something in his chest. All of the things This Tim knows are caught up in what Other Tim felt, the feelings he gave to Tim, and it’s a confusing spiral inside of him. He suddenly feels a lot closer to everything than he did at the grave. Of course he’s sad that Bruce is upset. But he needs somewhere to put that sadness, or he’ll have to carry it around with him until someone tells him why.

“For God’s sake, nobody else blames you!” Alright, so Bruce is being a selfish, self-sacrificing bastard, most likely, and Tim knows this is what Dick thinks because Dick said it to him once, back when he was exhausted from god-knows and used to get the boundaries between new-Tim and old-Tim real blurred.

He leans in, listens extra hard, even though his legs are shaking, his legs that were perfectly fine flying over rooftops hours ago.

He knows what psychosomatic means, he’s not stupid. There’s no biological, medical, rational reason for his energy to be so up and down, and none for his amnesia either. Knowing it doesn’t help. Knowing his own brain is betraying him, holding him back from any kind of a life makes it worse. He doesn’t give a shit what it’s gone through, he can’t fucking remember.

… Getting mad at his own brain is stupid. His life is fucking ridiculous.

“We can’t know what he would’ve wanted; he’s gone-”

“I know Jason is gone!”

Oh, right.

So it’s about Jason.

Jason is one of the names Tim can’t say. Alfred’s shown him some photos from when Jason was young, a frantic, streetwise ball of nervous energy. He’d been so terrified Bruce would kick him back out onto the streets he’d started hoarding cufflinks, watches, cutlery.

Jason is dead now. Tim has said his name aloud twice ever, and when it had been at the dinner table Dick’s eyes had clouded over and Bruce had left the room, but before he’d gone he’d looked ever so immeasurably old. Jason was the big brother Tim didn’t get to have, but Jason is also a tragedy that only belongs to the others, apparently. A sadness that isn’t for him.

His legs are screaming, and he finds he can’t sink down out of the position. He doesn’t want to hear anymore so he lets himself keel over silently and stretch on the floor, his eyes slipping shut. His body may be a trembling wreck but something in it knows how to fall. Another mystery to wear.

______

Dinner is served in silence.

Alfred has made paella, and it’s just as amazing as anything else Alfred makes, like Dick says. Thing is, Tim doesn’t really ever eat anything Alfred hasn’t made, so he doesn’t really have a point of reference. He’s itching to finish eating and go to his room, because the second he goes the rest of them go, off to their Big Secret, and then they won’t notice him leave for the night.

Tim doesn’t have a contingency plan for when they eventually do notice, and he knows that he likes contingency plans. Whatever, he’ll figure it out. It might be a symptom of not caring enough.

But he can’t go; Dick is being a Good Big Brother.

Dick is always a good big brother. He usually knows just when Tim needs speech, and when he needs silence. It’s usually silence, because not being allowed to talk about all the big secrets makes the little things he can talk about pretty meaningless. Tim is sure Dick knows this, is sure Dick understands and feels horrible, but he’s not going to make any excuses for anyone without proof.

Anyways, he must’ve been silent for too long, planning his escape last night and now brooding over it, because Dick is bantering and teasing Bruce and acting for all the world like a madman at a funeral. Which.

But it’s okay; Tim knows this protocol. He knows the bits where he has to join in and poke fun at Bruce and Damian, where he has to be overcome by laughter even though he’s pretending to be the bigger person. Or pretending to pretend to be- whatever. For the first time it occurs to him that this is probably how things worked with Jason. Jason wouldn’t have had to try to please Dick, it would’ve been his default setting. Tim feels a little more broken.

Damian is talking about his violin lessons. His teacher is useless, father, wholly and Damian thinks that really, two ‘artistic’ pursuits becomes timewasting, father, and hey, Tim is not the most fucked up person at this table. Nobody’s told him why Damian is the way he is, which. Ha. Surprise, surprise.

Bruce says, wearily, “Damian, it isn’t your job to optimize yourself for any purpose. No skill is detrimental, especially if you enjoy it.”

See? You can’t just say a thing like that to a twelve-year-old and then play happy families.

Tim says “Learning any instrument would be pretty cool,” quietly, and Damian looks at him like he has been scraped off the sole of the shoe of something that has been scraped off of the sole of Damian’s shoe, and oh boy, isn’t Tim thrilled he contributed to this conversation.

“Are you interested in starting?” asks Bruce, because he’s never met a problem of Tim’s he didn’t want to fix, except the important ones obviously. Tim shrugs.

“Probably not. I’d only be able to play on good days, and then I wouldn’t be able to leave the house for it, and I wouldn’t put you guys through listening to me learn, like, trumpet. Or whatever.”

“It would be a waste of money,” Damian agreed, and Bruce looked like he wanted to tell him off but didn’t have the energy.

“I don’t know, Timmy? Get you some bagpipes, move you back in next to Damian. I'm sure you could self teach! I could see it really working out for all of us,” says Dick dreamily, and Tim snickers, on autopilot. Damian reddens.

“You most certainly will not. Father-”

“Dick is just fucking with you, kid.”

“Language,” Bruce muttered, then winced. Oh, hi, ghost of Jason yet to leave us alone. Tim feels like an asshole. Ok, that’s enough. He smiles as widely as he can muster and stands up, and Dick frowns at the scrape of his chair against the hardwood floor.

“Hey, thanks Alfred.”

“You are welcome, Master Timothy.”

He slinks out of the dining room, hearing no chatter behind him. He wonders if he just hid himself well enough, he’d catch them in the act of going wherever they go, but he’s almost certain there’s a camera in his room that they check first. It’s fine, so long as they don’t check it any other time.

It’s not fine. What the fuck is his family.

The frustration lingers, marrow-deep in his bones. Tim knows that he used to be so clever, used to have all the answers. He’s clever now, in a way, but the art of cause to effect, picking up on little details, everything it takes to figure things out- he can’t muster it up. Last night was the clearest his mind has ever felt, and even then- fuck. He wonders if his family is disappointed, if they haven’t told him anything because they’d thought he’d have fucking worked it out by now. The press of old-Tim’s knowledge stays with him, in ways he can’t describe, ways that tell him instinctively that the injuries his family ends up with come externally, not from within. That they aren’t abusers, or criminals, or ninjas, and they’re probably not spies either. Every feasible explanation is swiped aside and Tim thinks he’s being laughed at.

Fuck.

He’s made it to his room but he’s kneeling on the floor, hands fisted into the plush carpet, head whirling, chest rising and falling like a lunatic. He instinctively shoots a glance at where he knows the camera is, above his wardrobe, because if they see him like this they won’t go, so neither can he, and Jesus, the air is so thick and stale he could suffocate in here, feels like he might. He grips tighter, forcing his lungs to operate at a normal speed, softening the iron clench in his chest. Gets up, pulls out a book at random, lays on his bed and stares at the pages until the words start sinking in. Hour by hour, the noises downstairs abate, leave him alone in the house. If he thinks anymore about where they keep going Tim might cry, so he thinks about Hood instead.

He stretches and gets up, crosses to his wardrobe, pulls out a hoodie with the Superman logo on it ‘cause he thinks it might make Hood smile. It won’t protect his identity as well as even a domino mask, but at least he’s trying to minimise the chance of anybody recognising him as easy kidnap material, especially after Hood’s warning. Belatedly he considers the idea that this could Hood’s plan to kidnap him by building up a false sense of friendship, but thinks that might be a little convoluted for the guy. He wonders how much he would even care- he gets a friend, Hood gets extortionate amounts of cash. Win-win, or whatever.

Tim shakes off his thoughts and, sighing, performs the ‘Oh-God-I-Really-Am-Dying-This-Time-If-Only-Bruce/Alfred/Dick-Would-Come-And-Help-Me’ fall and groan, stays splayed on the floor for at least five seconds. No sound from downstairs, no nothing. Nobody is watching. The clock reads 12:04. He’d been out for hours searching for the Batman last night, but this time he knows exactly where he’s going.

He approaches the window, slides off the lock, grins. Slips out into the night.

______

‘I wanna contribute to the chaos,

I don’t wanna watch and then complain.’

______

Hood had laughed at him for getting a cab, last time, and it hadn’t exactly been inconspicuous. Tim doesn’t know exactly who he’s so worried about finding him, but his gut tells him that attention from anyone, the city’s villains or vigilantes, will end in trouble. So he walks, hood up, face shadowed, trusting his body to take him the quickest, safest, quietest route across this city he barely knows. He swears he sees Nightwing once, darting over an alleyway, but the mask doesn’t look back and it’s over so quickly.

It’s a long walk, much longer than it seemed with his arms around Hood’s waist and the roar of the bike in his ears. He doesn’t mind it. He’s seeing a Gotham the manor’s windows don’t like to show him, something grimy and raw and rough to the touch. It’s a city that seems to belong so much more to someone like Hood, leather and all, than someone like Batman, but what does he know? The idea that his absence could be discovered at any point lies heavy in his peripheral, realer to him than it was last night. It makes him walk faster, snapping at his heels, but it feels a lot like excitement too.

If Bruce knew he was doing this, would he be surprised? Tim can’t figure Bruce out, there’s always too many walls in the way. Yeah, their family is messed up, normal precedents don’t really apply, but you don’t trap a kid in a house for months without explanation and then get shocked when he breaks out. Tim thinks? Hell, it’s not like he has much of a concept of normal, either. Surely, it would help if anybody talked to him about any of this.

Ahead of him, unexpected, he sees the oil-tarnished glint of water. Around him the shouting has become rougher, the girls on street corners bolder, the buildings squatter and filthy. This part of the city feels damned, biblically, and Tim thinks he could probably say a little too much about why Hood haunts these streets, blackened and unforgiving as they are. He’s cold, and scared, and the air tastes like salt and gunpowder. But there’s no secrets weighted on him, just the discoloured fog. Tim bites back a mad laugh. Yeah, this place will do.

There’s a bus station opposite him, and when’s the last time anybody caught a bus in Gotham? But nobody’s using it to fight or fuck, so he flits to it, hoists himself onto its top, and propels himself from there to the roof of the next house over. On the other side of that there’s a good size apartment block that’ll work just fine, and he tries not to think before scaling it. Tim doesn’t know how his body knows to do the things it does, but he’s petrified that if he pokes at them, they’ll slip away, leave him useless and trembling in the dark.

As he climbs, he becomes aware of the city around him, the noise and the brutality of it. A city like that could hit you hard enough you wouldn’t get up again, and Tim barely knows what he’s doing out here. But, simultaneously, the higher he gets the more separate from it he becomes, until he’s this distinct thing above a violent, shifting entirety. You could get addicted to this, he thinks, thinks at once of Hood’s knife-edge smile. Some more things make a little more sense.

He reaches the top and is quite unsteady again; this surpasses anything he scaled yesterday by far. But it serves his purposes, you can see half the city from up here, certainly all of the docks. Part of him is seeking a splash of red and leather, the rest of him feels like it could spend the rest of its life up here regardless. He sits facing east, watching the heady lights of the city, and lets the time pass.

Tim is brought up from his haze, around half an hour later, by the purr of an engine. Recognition pushes at him, and he knows there’s countless motorbikes in this city but he doesn’t think he’s wrong, either. He scrambles to the edge, watches the bike tear up the same street he’d walked down, directly below. It screeches around a corner, headed along the waterfront.

Tim isn’t aware he’s given chase until he’s flailing in open air, catching onto the adjacent block he’s flung himself at. This is insane, all-encompassingly crazy, but it’s with his permission that his body moves from that building, to the next, to the next. Hood is faster than him, obviously, but Tim doesn’t lose track of him, watches him grind to a halt somewhere familiar. He closes the gap until he’s clinging to a spire overlooking the warehouses they’d met on the previous night, sees Hood standing on one, looking around, uncomfortably vulnerable. Tim grins, his heart singing.

He waits until Hood looks ready to leave, then raises his fingers to his mouth and whistles, sharp and piercing, cutting a silhouette against the grimy sky. Hood’s head snaps to him, and neither of them can see the other’s face, but, oh, they’re both smiling.

He brings out a grapple from somewhere, and all of a sudden the claw is biting into the concrete at Tim’s feet. He watches Hood sweep himself off of the warehouse, do something impossibly graceful mid-air, and then he’s landing, right up in Tim’s personal space, his entire body radiating the smirk Tim can’t see.

“Of all the places, Timothy,” the Red Hood whistles, low, “You’re just gonna keep on surprising me, huh. I mean- how did you even get up here?”

Tim furrows his eyebrows, turns to point. “I was on there, watching for you, and then you came past down there, so I guess I followed you past those ones and- damn- up onto there? And then-”

He turns around, and the mask is down, and Hood is staring at him, nonplussed. “Yeah, okay, I don’t really know, either. I- I'm not gonna panic about it though, I swear.” Hood laughs, easyfree and low, and Tim’s knees go a little weaker.

“There’s my boy. You really have no clue who you are, do ya?”

Tim shrugs. “Sometimes it doesn’t feel important. Well, now it doesn’t, anyways. But whoever I was, I'm pretty sure he was crazy.”

“And yet you’re the one on a rooftop, talkin’ about yourself in the third person. You know what they say about glass houses and stones.”

Tim elbows him. “Fuck off.”

Hood’s eyes go big and wide, mocking. “Tim! Did Brucie Wayne really raise you so common?” Tim lunges for him, the most comfortable he’s felt in months, and suddenly Hood’s hands are at his neck and under his arms and fuck, he’s tickling. Tim resolves not to give in, not to beg for mercy, falling back and curling up as Hood’s hands chase him across the rooftop, his laugher ringing across the skyline, and oh fucking god Hood was going to kill him what the fuck-

“Uncle!” he wheezes, “oh my God, dude.” Hood smirks at him, flushed and wholly unrepentant, dark hair falling in his face. Tim notices with a jolt the ugly bruise rearing across his cheekbone, pooled with old blood. Hood sees him looking, touches it self-consciously.

“Relax. Comes with the lifestyle. You should have seen the other guy, I swear.”

Tim raises an eyebrow. “What did you do to the other guy?” Hood twists his mouth, sighs.

“Oh, back off, he’s fine. Dropped him off for the cops.” Tim stays quiet, decides he wants to hear this story. “Look, some of the girls gave me a tip, couple of days ago, a guy who always tries to take a bit more than he pays for, yeah? I just made sure he knew Gotham’s girls are protected. Batman won’t do it, or he won’t put his name to it, at least. Doesn’t work with his image, I guess. But those girls go through their fair share of shit already.”

“Okay,” Tim says, and he doesn’t think he can fault Hood, which is a little scary. “But what would the police do with him?”

Hood sits next to him, runs a hand through his hair. Tim knows they’re the same age, ish, but Hood still dwarfs him. It’s not a bad feeling. “There was… Kid, it isn’t pretty.” Tim looks at him, steady. “Alright. There was a girl in the room with him when I got there. Passed out, beaten half to hell by the looks of things. I called the police, told them to bring someone to take a look at her. Decided I couldn’t face much else tonight.”

Tim swallows hard, grounded by the sudden severity of it all. He wants to help Hood, doesn’t know how. He doesn’t want Hood to have to do this at all, but who else would’ve saved the girl? What he says is, “Sounds like you could use something to eat.”

“What, not something to drink?” Hood teases, but there’s no bite in it, and his tone of voice bizarrely reminds Tim of Damian.

“Dude. Do you even know how many of the drugs I'm on react badly with alcohol? ‘Cause I don’t, and I’m trying not to find out.” Red Hood looks affronted. “Where do vigilantes go too eat at-” he checks his watch- “half three in the morning, anyway?”

Hood grins. “Ever had a chillidog?”

Tim feels vaguely concerned, in a ‘that-doesn’t-sound-very-Alfred-approved’ kind of way. His hesitation must show on his face because Hood’s smile pulls wider. “More importantly, if I show you the way, are you gonna fall of the roof?”

Good question, actually. He rises, finds his legs aren’t shaking at all, so he stretches, luxuriously, aware of Hood’s eyes on him. “Only one way to find out,” he says. The Hood grabs his hand to pull himself up, presses something cool and plastic into it when he’s done. It’s a grappling gun. Excitement licks up Tim’s spine.

Hood saunters leisurely to the edge of the rooftop, springs halfway across the gap to the next building, uses his hook to make up the distance. He lands gracefully, twists to look at Tim, gleeful.

“Well, come on, then!” he yells, and Tim doesn’t hesitate to fly again.

They’ve only been dancing, leaping from height to height, for about five minutes when Hood shoots “alright, we better be careful, now,” across the gap between them, waits a split second for Tim to catch up- Tim doesn’t crash into him this time.

“Why?”

Hood’s smile glitters in the dull light. “We’re in the Bat’s playground now, birdie. Wouldn’t want him sweeping you off home.”

“You think he’d recognise me?” A snort.

“You’re only Bruce Wayne’s son. Besides, didn’t I?” He’s off again, leaving Tim to catch up, the adrenaline coiling in his body, setting the world alight. But they’re moving differently now, scanning the horizon, and the flashy jumps and flips and midair twists are gone. As a result it’s easier to catch Hood, ask him what he’s been wondering for a while.

“You and Batman… you don’t get on?” Hood has replaced his flimsy domino once again with the red mask, Tim realises. He thinks he recognises the silence that means Hood’s mouth is twisting in thought.

“Yeah, that might be a little bit of an understatement.” Hood rolls his shoulders, chasing some ache. “He doesn’t like my methods, and he doesn’t like that I know so much about him.” They move in silence for a few seconds. “And I don’t like him because he’s a huge dick, and sometimes he beats the shit out of me.”

Tim’s eyes widen. “Jesus.”

Hood laughs. “I probably deserve it, kid, don’t freak out on me. I, uh, spent quite a lot of time trying to kill him, back in the day. We’re all good now though! Allll good.”

“Does he… does he know that? Does he know anything about you?”

“You kidding? Got to keep the old man on his toes somehow.”

Tim wants to ask why, why Hood stopped, why literally anything was how it was. But as they clear another rooftop, a weirdly familiar silhouette in purple lands on a roof the other side of the street, and Hood grabs Tim by the scruff of his neck and drops, pulling Tim down with him. For a few seconds Tim reels, confused by the sudden loss of momentum, the sudden ache in his legs, but he comes back to himself and stays very still, very small, until Hood resumes breathing normally and he assumes the danger had passed.

“That was… Batgirl? We’re hiding from Batgirl?” he asks, because he isn’t sure if Hood’s going to bring it up. Hood growls.

“I do not hide from Batgirl. She just couldn’t know that you were- oh my God.” Hood gets to his feet and Tim starts to laugh, first nervously and then all at once.

“Dude, you panicked. I mean, I can understand, it must’ve been very scary for you-”

“Shut up, oh my God,” Hood glowers, and Tim tries, he really does. “Look, we’re here, now do you want food or what?” Hood drops from the roof into the shadows of an alley and emerges, crossing the street. Tim snickered and scrambles after him. They seem to be heading to a little bar, dingey with no name or sign of any kind. At the door Hood stops to talk to a tired looking woman in scarily high heels, and as Tim catches up he hears:

“Won’t be bothering anyone anymore, I don’t think. Just wish I could’ve gotten to him sooner.”

“You’re a doll, Mr Hood. Your pal is gonna get ID’d, jus’ so you know. What is he, fourteen?”

“I'm nineteen,” Tim said grumpily, and then realises his mistake and looks even more embarrassed. The lady laughs, high and pleased, and ruffles his hair. Hood’s body language reminds Tim of a vaguely self-satisfied cat for a second. He strolls inside, and Tim is quick to follow.

The bar isn’t packed, but it’s weirdly friendly, and everybody seems vaguely pleased to see Hood, more like he’s a stray coming in to be fed than any kind of vigilante protector, but Tim isn’t going to say that out loud. Nobody tries to ID him. Small mercies. Hood has his hood off again, gives the bartender a huge smile. She looks like she’s resisting the urge to pet him, gets to bringing him something without being asked or paid. Tim sits by him, a little confused but mostly just contented. He realises his limbs haven’t been giving him any trouble since he left the mansion, flexes every finger one at a time just because he can. Hood watches him, amused.

“Not trying to be nosy, kid, but for such an invalid, you seem pretty well.” It’s just enough of a compliment to burn pretty red into Tim’s cheeks, because he is weak and pathetic.

“Yeah,” Tim says, trying to figure out how to explain the mess that is his life, “it must seem weird to you. I'm kind of- up and down? Some days my brain doesn’t remember how to get me out of bed properly, and some days are like today? Most of my doctors think the pain and the unsteadiness is largely psychosomatic, but Bruce doesn’t like being told that because he thinks it makes me seem weak. It’s just a big mess.” He shrugs, aware that Hood is watching him intently.

“That’s pretty fucked up, Timmy. You know that?”

He smiles. “Yeah, it is, isn’t it? But- don’t laugh- everything seems better out here. Nothing really hurts, and who I used to be doesn’t seem to matter. You know?”

“Ok, you can’t say the world’s least relatable statement and follow it with ‘you know’. And I'm not trying to piss on your parade or anything, but you’ve known me for, like, two days. What’re you going to do if I don’t turn out to be everything you think I am, princess?”

Tim is saved answering when the bartender comes back with two plates and two cans of soda, answering Tim’s niggling ‘what-the-fuck-is-a-chillidog’ question. They aren’t actually that bad, although he doesn’t think Alfred would be impressed. He sees Hood wolf his down, sees the sheer joy on his face, so different from the boy who’d told him about the poor beaten girl earlier tonight, and finishes all his anyway.

When he’s down to the last dregs of his soda (grape), he answers Hood’s question.

“I'm not really that worried about it,” he says.

________

And it’s funny, cause he doesn’t need to be. Hood doesn’t let him down the next night, or the night after that, or the night after that.

They don’t see each other nightly. Tim is a recovering invalid, Hood says, he needs rest. And Alfred already gets suspicious enough on the days Tim staggers downstairs with huge dark circles, orbiting the coffee machine like a tired, grumpy moon for hours at a time. Every night for weeks Hood stops by the warehouses at the docks, and at the nameless bar, and sometime they get lucky and sometimes they chase each other in circles. Eventually Tim just demands Hood gives him his phone number, and Hood really must be whipped, because he quietly agrees. There’s nothing intimidating about him there, in the light of an ice-cream bar, typing his details into Tim’s phone, and Tim thinks for the millionth time that this isn’t what a killer looks like, not at all.

He saves his contact as three eggplant emojis and Tim isn’t even mad.

The fifth time they meet, Hood throws a domino mask at Tim, says if Tim ever makes him hide from Batgirl again there’ll be hell to pay. Tim doesn’t feel like a different person wearing it, doesn’t feel like he’s meant to save the world. But sometimes he sees his reflection in passing windows and scores an intoxicating, private, thrill. It looks like a 19-year-old kid with no baggage, no brain trauma, with a whole city to explore.

He feels like he’s winning something, piece by piece, and sometimes he wakes up at night thinking of the Batman, of the rare times Hood speaks about him, terrified that everything he’s made will be taken from him and called justice.

And so months into their little night-time games, when Batman shows himself at the docks, ripping apart one of the new gangs Hood was halfway to infiltrating, Tim feels no shock, only cool dread. Everything else he’s ever known says Batman is the good guy, Batman is here to save Gotham, but Hood is so unprepared as to only be in his domino and he looks so scared.

They’re watching from a rooftop, because they’d been on their way to Hood’s bike when they’d heard the screaming from street level, and the laugh had died at Hood’s throat. He’s putting on his mask, now, and when he turns to Tim and says, “you should go,” Tim says, “we should both go.” He puts a hand on Hood’s arm and meets his eyes, gaze level. The city stills around them for a second.

They both go.

Hood takes him back to a safehouse, and it’s probably once of many, but Tim knows this one is The Safehouse, knows it’s what Hood considers home. The bed hasn’t been made, there’s open cereal out on the counter, the milk in the fridge is fresh. It’s so domestic Tim feels tears well, can’t help but think of another universe where this is the only Hood he knew, rooftops and alleyways be damned. Hood has disappeared through a door to presumably the bathroom (there’s a shower running) and it’s barely two. An early night for once, huh. By the time the sound of water cuts off Tim has flicked through channels on the shitty little TV until he finds some cartoons, and is slumped on the sofa, eyes illuminated in primary colours by the flickering screen. Hood smiles softly at the sight, when he walks in, and Tim notes absently it’s the least raw smile, the least crazy Tim can remember on him.

He notices the absence of the domino, even, of the armour, of the leather jacket, and the world seems to fall away. It’s just Hood, shuffling his feet in scraggy jogging bottoms and a hoodie, hair wet and eyes tired and gleaming, and the moment hangs precious in the air like nothing Tim’s ever known. He can’t think of what to do with it so he smiles, sleepily, and pats the sofa beside him. Hood comes, comes to him like gravity. Tim falls asleep on his shoulder and wakes up in his bed at the Manor and things are different, after that.

His family will have noticed a change in him from before then, Tim knows. He’s quieter now and less angry, he’s given up asking the awkward questions and listening at doors. It makes him happier, easier around them, which makes them happier and easier, too. Okay, maybe except Damian. But there’s also a new distance, and a new sadness in Dick’s eyes which makes Tim think he’s noticed it too.

After the night, Tim goes over to Hood’s more often. Most likely Hood isn’t in, or is sleeping, so Tim picks the lock until Hood, badly pretending to be irritated, copies him a key. Bruce believes that he’s at the cinema or walking in the park or with new, normal friends, or whatever, and the others either take him at his word or don’t, and it doesn’t affect him in the slightest. He finds it’s easier and easier to love them from farther away. Finds he doesn’t mind having a family, secrets or no.

When Hood’s not at the safehouse- it’s more of a safe-shitty-apartment, really- Tim messes with his laptop. Because the Manor wi-fi has a stupid number of filters, and besides, he thinks Alfred is probably tracking his phone usage- he’s turned location off, and then hacked the software enough that he thinks it’ll be impossible for anyone to turn it back on, probably.

Cause that’s the thing. Other Tim was a detective, but he was a hacker too. And while Tim feels vaguely cut off from the ability to puzzle things out, the hacking comes naturally, almost unconsciously. He breaks into three secure FBI databases before he gauges he’s probably ready to try it out closer to home.

He gets into the comm system inside Hood’s helmet on the second try, and almost sends Hood off a roof.

“Hi.”

“Jesus fucking- motherfucker!”

He raises an eyebrow he knows Hood can’t see. “That was dignified, dude.”

Hood splutters at him. “How the fuck-”

“Why do you have a comm in your helmet that you don’t want people to use?”

“Fuck,” enunciates Hood, “I don’t know. Force of habit. How?”

“Apparently I'm really good at hacking? I don’t really question things anymore.”

Hood laughs, like it’s being ripped out of him, and then groans. “Birdie, I'm in the middle of some shit you might not wanna-”

There’re cameras on the sides of Hood’s head as well as at the eyes, so Tim sees the guy coming before Hood does. “On your left,” he says, watches Hood spring into action by switching perspective to a security cam across the street, wiping the footage as he goes. There’s four more, following the first guy up the fire escape, and he warns Hood about them, watches with some measure of satisfaction as he deals with them, capable and quick. He lets Hood get his breath back before asking, “who were those guys?”

Hood shakes his head. “You tell me, Timmy, being the tech guy. I tend to lose track of the guys lining up to get their asses handed to them. Hey, I wonder if I need to give you a code name?”

Tim is already moving to research the thugs before he considers the implications of what has been said. “You don’t mind me doing this?”

Hood sighs, weary but easygoing. “Naw, you almost miss having someone in your ear. But only occasionally, you hear me? Do you not have, like, school to get back to, eventually, anyways?”

Tim has been trying not to think about it. “Bruce says he’s gonna enrol me for the next academic year, so yeah, I guess. We’re just not really sure where I should- start?”

Hood, who’s perched on the edge of the building, legs dangling in a way that still sends worry crawling up Tim’s spine, makes a sympathetic noise. Tim wonders if he’s figured out the system, yet. Hood gave Tim a piece of himself- there used to be someone in a comm, for him, he hasn’t always worked alone- and so Hood gets something about Tim’s family, about how he’s doing. It’s a plan Tim’s quite proud of, but the list of things he doesn’t know about Hood is long and winding, and begins with his name.

Aloud, he only says, “even then, Hood. You’re not getting rid of me that easily.”

Hood’s voice goes soft, and he says I hope not.

And just like that Tim has a little bit more of a purpose, a little extra on the foundation of this thing he’s slowly beginning to call a life. The more of a person he becomes, the more he fleshes himself out, fills in his own cracks, the more memories drift back to him. Surprisingly, they’re mostly of Damian, Damian who’s barely changed at all since before the accident. Guess that makes a lot of things make sense. But sometimes he gets Dick or Steph, smiling in ways that are so familiar yet so different, and he has a few snippets of Bruce, even, looking at him with pride. There’s something that’s maybe even Hood, a smudge of red across from him on a rooftop, and that’s terrifying for a whole multitude of reasons, but Tim remembers that proof is important, so he doesn’t ask about it, doesn’t disturb whatever he and Hood have.

The scariest parts are still what he doesn’t remember- the plot holes in his fucking life. For example: he and Hood are dancing rooftop to rooftop somewhere in the East End, unconsciously following an ingrained patrol route while tossing banter back and forth, light-hearted, effortless. They pause on the edge of an apartment building so Hood can light up, their feet dangling above open air. It’s around half three, maybe, and the city is still loud and raw around them. But between them there’s a little bubble of peace, permeated only by cigarette smoke. Hood is a little quieter, a little more introspective, and it gives Tim a chance to study the way his profile cuts against the grimy air, the shock of white at his forehead. Of course, the nature of peace in Gotham is to be broken, and so the muffled, aggressive voices curling upwards through the smog from the alley beneath them don’t come as much of a surprise. He squints into the darkness, sees what looks like some kind of drug deal. One side has a messenger bag, full to bursting with something unknown that leaves a chemical tang in the air. The other has a duffel full of money, and it’s a little like watching a movie as they toss it down. Both sides have about five guys each, street brawlers, real mean types. But only one side are pulling guns, like they know exactly how they’re going to use them.

And both sides- both look more than a little surprised to find the Red Hood dropping in on the middle of their little deal.

“Boys,” he says, voice high with mock outrage, “throwing a party without me?”

The head of the first guy to move towards him makes a sickening crack when it’s tossed against a wall, and bedlam descends. Tim watches from above it all, oddly disconnected, as Hood takes both sides apart, piece by piece. He’s far from methodical; there’s a certain wild joy in his fighting, but this is routine. And so when the man who’d thrown the money struggles up from the pavement, dragging up his assault rifle, Tim’s brain doesn’t compute it for a second. Hood is at the other end of the alley, might not even see him before it’s too late, and the very real and present danger freezes up Tim’s brain, lets his body do the moving. He’s waist-deep in the fight before he even lets himself become aware of it, and the man with the assault rifle is smashed over the pavement, where Tim had landed on him. But he’s fully aware of his actions as he elbows the man who’s coming at him, shatters his nose, uses his own momentum to keep him travelling forward, and trips him, hard, into the cobblestones. He knows what he’s doing when he takes down the guy after that, and after that. And then it’s done. It’s just him and Red Hood, breathing heavy across a blood-soaked alleyway.

“Full of surprises, aren’t you?” Tim can’t read Hood, can’t tell if he’s actually surprised. Hell, Tim doesn’t know if he’s surprised himself.

Those are the scary parts. The parts where he remembers he’s squatting in someone else’s body, using someone else’s skills with someone else’s scars to show for it. And that someone is a stranger. But Tim is coping. He’s managing. He’s becoming something, someone.

And of course, the more whole Tim becomes, the more he notices all the gaps in Hood, and it makes him sad, sad deep deep down where he can’t find the answers even within himself.

Tim thinks maybe that the comm will help, that seeing Hood working will finally start to unravel everything about him, but only the third time he tries it out he realises that he was fairly devastatingly wrong. It’s half two when he plugs in his earphones, because Hood has cancelled their meeting at the bar. He’s got business he doesn’t want Tim wrapped up in, so Tim has figured he might as well try and be useful. There’s a mug of hot coffee beside him, and he’s wrapped up in Hood’s duvet. Because, you know, Hood doesn’t have to know. When he accesses the cameras, Hood is on his bike, speeding down a street Tim vaguely remembers. He’s set a noise alert for when he clocks in because he’s actively trying not to give Hood a heart attack, to let him focus, and so he doesn’t say hi, just lets Hood drive.

He hears Hood’s long, low sigh. “B’s been messing with my gangs again, Jesus. There’s a few shipments of something big headed in and I was handling it, he knows I handle the shit down here, Jesus we’ve fought over it enough!”

“What’s the damage?” Hood is only ever this worked up when it comes to Batman, and it hurts Tim to see him like this, instead of snarky and happy and a little manic, like patrol-Hood should be. Tim privately thinks that the Bat might do a lot less interfering if Hood ever briefed him on anything he got up to, like ever, but he tries to trust Hood to know what he’s doing.

“They were giving me a cut of every shipment for protection. They’d lead me straight to it for my share, I’d track it and handle it. B found out, destroyed the first two, is headed for the third one tonight, but we’ll never find the last one and he knows it.”

“Deep breaths, Hood. Please don’t do anything stupid.” Hood’s teeth are grinding, and Tim barely knows him like this, not just angry but serious too.

“Naw, when have I ever, birdie? I'm gonna approach from the top, I think. If it’s not too late I might get the jump on him, make him listen.”

“Need me to check the roofs?”

“I can handle it.” Ouch. He takes a sip of coffee, then a longer drink, allowing his eyes to slide shut. He feels more at home in this apartment than maybe even in his bedroom, and if he’s lucky he can convince Hood to come home early, and then they can watch a movie, or he can make Hood get some sleep, or they could just… hang out. Like they aren’t crazy people who frequent rooftops.

“Uhhh… T?” Hood’s voice sounds vaguely panicked and Tim opens his eyes blearily. “I lied, I don’ know I can handle this.” Tim blinks at the screen and, oh okay. That’s Nightwing.

He knows what Nightwing looks like, in theory, recognises the blue and the black. But there’s something off about him now, and it sets Tim’s head spinning with the wrongness of it all. Apart from that, even as a mess of pixels on Tim’s screen, he looks angry. The laptop tells him that Hood’s heartbeat is quickening and Tim doesn’t blame him, his own breath is stuttering as they circle each other, graceful.

“Why can’t you ever just leave shit alone, Hood? The Batman is handling it, kid. Just fuck off, please.” Oh my God, that voice. The room is spinning around Tim, vaguely. He feels so distant from himself, the worst he’s felt since- shit, since leaving the Manor that first time.

“Me? Leave shit alone?” Hood’s voice is high with rage. He’s nothing like the boy Tim knows, assertive and confident and happy. He’s taller than Nightwing, broader too, but his voice is young and scared. Who the fuck are you, Red Hood? “I had this handled! Nobody needs you here!”

“You were allowing the shipment of shit you don’t understand into this city, and profiting off it, too. Give up, and go home.” Nightwing’s voice is ice where Hood is fire, and all Tim’s lines feel so blurred.

“You don’t have a fuckin’ clue,” Hood says, voice flat, and Tim winces because he knows what’s going to happen, watches Hood fling himself at Nightwing and get thrown to the floor. Hood must hear his tiny intake of breath because he sighs as he gets up, says, “T, doll, might be better if you turned the comm off for this bit.” Nightwing tilts his head.

“Made a friend?” and Tim hates him in this moment, wonders what the fuck is up with Gotham if this is their hero. Abasht the Devil stood, and felt how awful goodness is.

“I got friends,” mutters Hood, lands a punch that knocks Nightwing sideways, but doesn’t make him fall. Nightwing springs at him, does something that looks like it hurts too fast for Tim to follow, and then they’re both a confusing whirlwind of movement, and only the sounds of grunts and blows remain because Tim has his eyes screwed shut, halfway to passed out. When he pulls himself back Hood has flipped up the bottom of his mask to spit a mouthful of blood at Nightwing, the petty fucker, from where he’s collapsed at his feet. Nightwing looks less angry, more tired.

“We can’t let you fuck this one up for us, Hood. Bad things happen when you’re around. People get shot-” and all of a sudden Hood is brimming with anger all over again, up on his feet in Nightwing’s face with renewed, vicious energy.

“Fuck you, Night-dick. Not that it’s any of your fucking business but I actually haven’t shot anybody for months. Ask anyone but your precious Batman. I am handling things, you piece of shit, and I'm not going now ‘cause you won but ‘cause I actually fucking know what the words damage control mean, unlike every other mask in this fucking city. Fuck off.”

Tim blinks, dazed. He thinks Hood might’ve managed to get through to Nightwing, get somewhere, anyway. The man certainly doesn’t pursue Hood when he flips backwards off the building, lands next to his bike. He’s halfway home before Tim can find even the words to say “Jesus, Hood.”

“I… you shouldn’t have had to see that. It’s personal. It always fucking is, with him.”

Tim uses his go-to question for whenever Hood talks about Batman or any of his allies. “Does Nightwing know that?” The silence is confirmation enough. He lets it drag, not because it isn’t awkward, but because he really needs to think. “Hood?”

“Yeah?”

“You’re aware you have no fucking clue what damage control is, right?” and miracle of miracles, Hood is laughing.

“Maybe I do when you’re on the line, babybird.” 

When Hood comes back to him, he’s a fucking mess.

Tim has had enough time to think, finish his coffee, think some more. He doesn’t interrogate Hood when he limps in the door, doesn’t even speak. He drags Hood over to the sofa, peels off his mask and doesn’t wince at the split lip and the swollen jaw and all the black-ink, oil-slick bruises. He sighs once, sad and heavy, and starts to strip him down to his boxers, cataloguing the injuries as he goes. Hood looks at him so trusting it breaks his heart freshly- like a sinner, like a child. He shepherds Hood into the tiny bathroom, makes him stand under the shower spray until he’s worried about the hot water, steps in himself and uses the last of it to wash Hood’s hair. He brings in clean clothes and stands outside while Hood puts them on, then feeds him painkillers and water and pushes up Hood’s pant leg so he can clean and dress the horrible scrape there. Everything else will sort itself out, he hopes. He’s in so deep over his head that he thinks it might just work out, like he can maybe successfully bullshit the universe. He runs over his mental checklist three times before he lets himself gather Hood into his arms, and cry a little, but only a little.

They sit by each other, sides pressed together, for a little over an hour. Tim says, “you weren’t lying,” and Hood says, “hmm?”.

“You told Nightwing you didn’t kill anymore. You weren’t lying. I guess I didn’t get it, ‘cause… ‘cause I haven’t known you to do it since I met you.”

Hood is so soft against him, and he thinks he could stay here forever, probably. “Yeah, birdie. Since I met you.” Tim keeps quiet until he hears Hood’s breathing even out, and then carries him to the bed, tucks him in. He’s so terrified to leave, to shatter this twilight vigil. There’s a peace they only seem to attain in the quiet hours, when nothing’s real outside this apartment save the stars. But it’s late, later than Tim usually allows himself, and who knows what time Alfred wakes up at anyway. He starts the walk home, half-entranced, and every step away feels a bit like unravelling.

There’s too much to think about, answers and their inevitable conclusions churning in his mind. But the streets are so silent and so pretty, somehow, and as Tim arrives at the Manor gate, still empty-headed, a pink dawn breaches the sky. He considers the possibility that this is probably what going into shock feels like. Wonders if he knows that from experience. He tries to chase the idea, follow his trauma down to the root, but just finds the same images again and again and again. Nightwing slamming Hood down to the roof; Hood spitting blood at his feet. Hood’s face when Tim had peeled off his mask, the way gore had matted into his white streak. As he pulls himself up to his bedroom window, slips inside, he decides he’ll give himself a night off from the knowing, from the deciding what to do next. His mind stays coolly blank.

Somewhere across the city Red Hood is sleeping peaceful, so Tim follows suit.

______

‘when the floodwater comes, it ain’t gonna be clear

it’s gonna look like mud.’

______

Tim wakes up, room full of sunshine, and is aware of several things all at once.

The first two are the most pressing, and they go like this:

• Dick Grayson is Nightwing.
• Hence; Bruce Wayne is Batman.

Hence; what the fuck.

He lays there, eyes focused on a crack in the ceiling, considering. Not spies then, or ninjas either. Well, mostly. Okay. That means Damian is the Robin he’s heard so much about, which actually does make sense. If any twelve-year-old is spending their nights enacting vigilante justice, Damian is a pretty obvious candidate. He hopes to god Alfred isn’t prancing around in a mask, but the man is clearly involved. So: every night Tim goes to bed and the rest go to their secret base and spend the night fighting crime, in secret, for reasons.

Cool. Coolcoolcool.

And sometimes fighting crime looks like fighting Hood. The recollection makes Tim’s insides squirm. And he realises that’s what’s jarring here, that’s what sent him spiralling last night- Dick is so good, and Nightwing is good as well, in an almost Biblical sense. He protects Gotham. Tim isn’t floundering at the way he acted last night- he isn’t stupid, he understands necessary violence- but his brain isn’t computing because it was aimed at Hood. Hood who isn’t a villain, who barely qualifies for antihero. Hood, who hasn’t killed anyone since Tim met him because it makes Tim sad. Hood, who under leather and muscle and boundless scarring is just a boy.

And Tim is the only one who knows that. So this whole thing- it’s all just miscommunication. In the sunlight everything is so easy and ridiculous it makes him want to cry.

He gets up, stumbles across the room to find his phone. The clock says 11:04, so Alfred has taken pity and let him sleep. Or they’re trying to keep him out of Dick’s way so he doesn’t notice all the fresh injuries. Oh. So much more makes sense, every second, and he feels the crushing layer of secrets start to peel away, freeing the air. He opens the texting app and finds Hood’s number.

If you’re awake, you can take me to lunch. If not, I am turning up at your house. -T xx

He considers waiting downstairs, but doesn’t know if his face will betray him if he sees any of them visibly injured. A growing part of him wants the details, wants to understand if it was Hood or Bats who was right last night, wants to know if either of them will track down the final shipment. The rest of him is content in the knowledge that the people he loves survived. He stays in his room, reads until his phone buzzes about two hours later.

wait outside ill pick u up ;-P

Is this your killer, Nightwing? Tim dresses, quickly, hurtles downstairs, shouts, “Meeting a friend for lunch!” Pretends he doesn’t hear Bruce ask, “who?” because it’s easier than slowing down to lie. By the time he’s reached the front gate it’s only a two-minute wait before he hears the purr of a motorcycle, before Hood skids to an expert halt in front of him, grinning.

He’s not in his hood or domino, and his dark hair is whipping in the wind. Last night’s damage shows on his face, and it makes Tim wince, but mostly he sees a boy his age in colourful civilian clothes, gleeful and in his element. Tim smiles back, scrambles on, wraps his arms around Hood’s waist and doesn’t think about anything for a few minutes. The café they pull up at is unfamiliar, brightly decorated in red and white. They find a find a window booth, talk about nothing as they scan the menus and watch the city pass by. Everything is bright and optimistic in the sunshine, and Tim’s problems seem a million miles away.

“What can I get ya?” The waitress has a lovely dimpled smile.

“Hot chocolate for me, doll,” drawls Hood, and Tim’s too happy to feel even a slight press of jealousy at the nickname. He orders coffee, and then they get waffles to split, and Hood fills the silence with meaningless chatter as he waits for Tim to put his words together, say the piece he came to say. Tim can’t think of any flowery way to phrase it, so he gives up trying. Listens to Hood’s story about a car chase that really should worry him more, then takes a deep breath.

“I, uh. I think my dad is Batman.” Hood chokes on air.

The silence stretches as he stares at Tim, then suddenly begins to laugh. “Jesus, birdie, I- I'm not gonna lie, I did not see that one coming.”

“I… I really should’ve figured it out before now, but there’s been a lot going on, and…” He gestures helplessly. Hood is looking at him like he’s precious, eyes all crinkled up.

“Bruce Wayne, kid? Really?” and there’s barely a slide of mockery in his voice. “That’s a pretty hefty accusation. ‘Specially to someone you know has a few bones to pick with the guy.”

Tim smirks. “Nice try, but you’re really not intimidating. You told me yourself you haven’t tried to kill Batman in ages. Who else was I going to tell?”

“I don’t know, man, the guy himself?” Tim scrunches up his nose, thinking, suddenly horrified.

“Jesus, you’re right, I'm actually going to have to tell him I know at some point..?” Hood starts laughing again, loud and long, and ohmygod half the café is staring. Tim isn’t used to the attention and he flushes furiously, grabs his coffee and Hood’s arm, pulls him outside to the tiny enclosed courtyard. Hood is still cackling, obnoxious. His face is lit up by a tiny shaft of sunlight that’s found its way down here, despite the oppressive brick walls rising on all sides, and Tim’s heart does a tiny stutter. There’s a handful of chairs out here that look like they haven’t been touched in years and Tim collapses into one, overcome. Hood sits opposite. He’s pink in the face and pleased, and Tim deliberately doesn’t think about how their knees are brushing.

“When you do,” Hood begins slowly, “I'm gonna put the recording stuff from my hood in your jacket. If you take it out, we aren’t friends.” Tim rolls his eyes.

“Anybody would think you’re holding a grudge for some reason.”

“Anybody would think telling me might’ve been a stupid idea, then.”

“Hood,” he smirks, “you’re a dumbass.” Hood stares at him, blankly. “I'm telling you because you already know. I didn’t figure it out because of them- well, partly- but most of it was you.”

Hood blinks. “I, uh-”

“You called Nightwing ‘Night-dick’.”

“Yeah, but-”

“You get so angry at them, you tell me it’s personal, even when they act like they don’t know you at all.”

“They don’t!”

“You instantly recognised me, a random teenager on your rooftop, who just happens to be family to your biggest rivals, then adopted me, and at no point questioned the idea that I’ve clearly had combat training.”

Hood folds. “The, uh. The defendant is exercising his right to remain silent.”

Tim shakes his head. “Who the fuck are you, Red Hood?” Hood’s head drops to his chest, his mouth twisting, and Tim gives in. “Oh, stop looking so pitiful. You know I don’t care about your secrets. But… stuff has been drifting back, recently. Old memories. So, heads up, if there’s any chance I might remember something you want to tell me yourself…”

Hood catches his drift. “I’ll get my confession on, or something.” Tim relaxes. He’s said almost everything that needs to be said, today, and then they can get back to just Hood and Tim, planning to insanely fuck with Tim’s family.

He stands, says, “But there’s still something you should know.” Hood looks instantly on edge again, his teeth worrying his bottom lip. “Even if… even if things were different, even if you’d never had anything to do with my family, I’d still be telling you this.” He steps closer to Hood, summons his courage. “I’d trust you with them, ‘cause I do trust you. I’d trust you with anything.”

It feels anticlimactic out in the open, so he figures what the hell, prays he hasn’t misread this. Drops into Hood’s lap. Hood tenses against him, the long hard lines of him, and his eyes dart upwards to meet Tim’s, electric blue and searching. Tension hangs between them, caught up in the air like spun sugar, and Tim can see the redness of Hood’s lip where he was biting it. Wants, so badly. Wants to reach out and touch it.

“Babybird,” says Hood, voice rough like smoke, like sharkskin. “You don’t know me.”

“I’ll let you know when I give a fuck,” says Tim, desperate, and the neediness of his own voice, raw and open, shocks him. He’s terrified, terrified that Hood will see through all his bravado to the scared little boy underneath and push him off. Terrified that he’ll see through it and he won’t.

He doesn’t. And Tim is so, so finished with waiting. He leans forward carefully, deliberately, presses a kiss into the very corner of Hood’s mouth, where there’s a minute scar. He goes to pull back and then one of Hood’s hands is at his waist, stopping him, and the other is in the soft hair at his neck, dragging him back in.

Their first real kiss is reverent, holy, and he’s laughing into the second one, high on joy, and it’s all too perfect for him to hold steady in his mind. He gives into it, lets the chaos swallow him whole. Hood kisses him and smiles into it like it’s a promise, like it’s a benediction. It’s softer and lighter than Tim ever could’ve pictured, if he’d ever dared to try, and they rise and sink with it like the tide.

Hood pulls back gently, pupils blown, looking at Tim like he’s something to be worshipped, like he’s hallowed ground. Tim is dizzy on top of it all, and he realises his hands are cupping Hood’s face. They’re wholly intertwined, but Tim finds a way to pull away, stand up, dash the hair from his eyes with a shaking hand.

“Um,” he says.

Hood chuckles, and it’s choked and throaty and Tim needs him like oxygen.

“Holy shit, babybird. You don’t hold back.”

Tim wants to kiss him again, wantswantswants, but instead he moves backwards until he finds his chair, sinks into it, takes a sip of coffee. ‘Cause that’s it. That, right there. The last box on his checklist.

“It was always that. From the start. That, or ‘birdie’. I never got it, Red. I might get it now.” Tim swallows, doesn’t know what answer he’s hoping for. “Was I Robin?”

Hood gives him a crooked smile, well-kissed and lazy in the sunlight.

“Yeah, Timmy. Far as I can figure- you were Robin.”

Tim grins right back, and the whole truth settles around him like wings, like birdsong, like things are going to be okay.

______

“Testing, testing, 1, 2-” Tim is standing outside of Bruce’s office, leaning against the wall, as Hood cuts him off. It’s nice- not to have to lean because your legs are numbing, failing you, or because you suddenly can’t feel your heart. Leaning because it’s a Sunday morning, because you settled for texting Hood and had an early night last night, because your whole life seems wide open in front of you.

“Receiving loud and clear. Still don’t get how you managed to get this thing working in the first place, but I ain’t complaining now.”

“I'm very clever,” Tim says drily, believes it too. He’s stalling, a little, because this is a conversation that needs to happen, but change is hanging balanced in the air around him, and it is a scary feeling.

“I know you are. I'm gonna turn off my mic- you don’ need me distracting you- but I'm rootin’ for you.” There’s a soft click, and Hood’s breathing cuts off. He isn’t alone, but it feels a little that way, and the door looms more ominous than ever. The camera is tiny, hidden at the drawstring of his Wonder Woman hoodie, with the mic attached. Batman would spot it, but Bruce won’t, because Bruce has been underestimating Tim. Things won’t stay that way for long.

He’s scared, but Robin can deal with that, and he was Robin, once upon a time. He knocks at the door and Bruce says “come in.” The man’s eyes light up when he sees Tim, who settles in the chair opposite the desk, enjoying the brief, unguarded flash of love.

“What can I do for you, Tim?” Well, now or never.

“Hey, B. Um, I- I'm here to apologise, I suppose.” He raises a hand, so Bruce won’t interject. “For a while I’ve been… off, I guess. Distant. I’ve been going through a bit, not knowing who I was, really. I thought if I could remember things would be okay, that you were all just waiting for me to remember. But you weren’t. You were trying to figure out who I am now, same as I was. But I think I know, now. So… yeah. I'm sorry.”

Bruce looks at him, still and quiet in the morning light. Tim had thought that that look meant pity, meant that Tim was fragile. But it didn’t. It meant that Bruce was letting himself be fragile, for Tim. For this whole family, love meant vulnerability. ‘Cause, you know, they were a little fucked up that way.

So: come on, Bruce. Cards on the table. Let’s tell the truth.

“Tim. You don’t… you don’t need to be sorry. I- we all try to be more open, to talk more, talk properly, but the truth is I was never any good at that stuff. I'm sorry, that you felt the need to have to go through this yourself. All of us- we’re here for you- whoever you want to be.”

Tim blinks. “I think that’s the most words I’ve heard you say in a row ever. And… you say ‘all’ but, like, even Damian?”

Bruce winces. “Damian loves you, Tim. He isn’t great with emotions, and he refuses to believe you’re not lost forever- he doesn’t want false hope. But he’s just coping, son. He’ll come around.”

Well. There’s some honesty; not the exact strain that Tim was hoping for. He gives Bruce another few seconds, but it’s not going to happen. Tim’s going to have to say it.

“I don’t… I don’t know that you get to poke at other people’s coping mechanisms, B. Given, you know, the, uh… dressing up like a bat and fighting crime?”

The casual amiability of the room turns to ice; Tim swears the temperature drops ten degrees. This contrasts immensely with Bruce’s strangled, casual ‘what?” a few seconds too late. Tim allows his smile to stretch, lets Bruce know he’s got him. The confused mask lasts a good ten seconds before Tim’s raised eyebrow cracks it right open, and Bruce’s head drops into his hands.

“You know, this is the second time you’ve done this to me,” he informs Tim, voice muffled. “I think you really are trying to kill me. You- you remembered?”

“Nah,” says Tim, vindicated but suddenly weary too, “I'm just clever. You guys are so, so far from subtle. It’s hilarious.”

Bruce mutters something about his blood pressure.

Tim sighs. “But, B- why hide it from me? You say you trust me, you say you love me, and I believe you, but… you must see how it looks?”

Bruce raises his head, meets his eyes. Speaks slowly. “I do see, Timothy. It’s- the choice to keep what we do a secret has been tearing us apart, especially Dick. It isn’t that we don’t trust you with it, but- doing what we do already took your whole life away from you. We weren’t ready to expose you to that again thoughtlessly. You could’ve- you could’ve just had a normal life.”

Whoops. Ah, well, Bruce- nice try.

Tim smiles sadly. “Guess a normal life was never going to be for me. But you’re saying being a vigilante- being Red Robin- it’s how I got hurt?” Yeah, he’s done his research. Found some grainy camera footage of himself fighting, a fight he doesn’t remember. He was pretty damn good.

Bruce nods. “Crowbar to the head from Joker, and then he injected you with something. We’ll probably never know exactly what he did, or why. It’s scary, but the best-case scenario-”

“He just did it for the hell of it, yeah.” There’s another silence between them, but it’s not uncomfortable.

“He’s back behind bars. He won’t hurt you again. But you deserve- look, Tim, if there’s anything I can do-?”

This part, he knows how to deal with.

“Sure, B. All I want- let me tell the others myself? And then, when I’ve thought about what I want to do, just respect it, yeah?” It hits him that the truth is out, that they’re both still standing, impossibly. No fighting, no yelling, not like when Dick and Bruce try and talk together, and shouts echo from behind closed doors.

Bruce looks vaguely concerned, more surprised. “If you say so, Tim. Anything you want.”

When Bruce’s door clicks shut behind him it takes Hood five more seconds to turn his mic back on. His breathing is a tad uneven, and Tim assumes he’s been laughing his fucking ass off as Tim has been struggling with his confession. Dick.

“I bet you enjoyed that, asshole,” he grumbles good-naturedly, moving towards his room where he won’t be overheard.

“What, you want me to lie about it? Golden, babybird, his face…”

Tim laughs despite himself. “Yeah, it was something, right? It’s gonna get better- I'm telling Damian next.”

“You’ve got a real mean streak, Timmy, anyone ever tell you that?”

“If they did, guess I managed to forget. That’s pretty sad for them.” Hood snorts.

“You still wanna meet tonight?”

“I’ve been in this house for like thirty-six hours now. If you cancel on me, I will find you.”

Hood’s laughter carries him through the rest of the day.

______

By the time he escapes from the house, extra vigilant tonight, there’s rooftop pizza waiting for him, and it smells as good as always. Hood knows his order backwards by now and they eat sitting a stone’s throw from the Wayne Manor grounds- Tim didn’t want to wait, sleep already curling inside him. They’re slumped against each other companionably, and when Hood puts the box down Tim crawls into his lap and kisses him, perfectly content. Hood groans, fists a hand in his hair, pulls him so close Tim can’t feel anything except Hood, doesn’t want to.

They’re both only in dominos and the risk sends a thrill shivering down Tim’s spine, but the idea of Batman heading home early only to find his son like this is a mood-killer, even if Tim suspects that maybe for Hood, it isn’t. Which: exhibitionist much? Anyway, they’re both tired, and so they kiss slow and easy until they’re sprawled out on the concrete, breathing each other’s air, and Hood picks Tim up and finds the bike, takes him home. Night air breezes gentle around his head as they take the roads back slow and meandering. It’s still a violent city, smells and tastes like smoke, but then, so does Hood. The sleepiness blurs Tim’s vision until the bright neon lights and streetlamps they soar past are just hazy colours, hanging in the air. Tim’s gotten to fall in love with this city twice, he supposes, and he still doesn’t understand why but that’s okay.

The safehouse is accumulating more of Tim’s things, recently: the nice branded coffee he bothers Hood into picking up; the mug Tim bought him that reads ‘world’s okayest crime lord’; his hoodies flung over every available surface. Tim is so close to sleep, so malleable, he barely notices when Hood practically pours him onto the couch, but he moans pathetically when Hood tries to pull away from him.

“Mmph.”

“Babybird, if we both fall asleep, you’re done for. We got a couple of hours, tops, okay?”

“Mmrrghh.”

“You’re killing me, here.”

Tim blinks up at him through the dark- neither of them bothered to turn the lights on. “Nobody’s killing anybody. Set an alarm, Red?” He makes his eyes big and wide and pathetic. “I just wanna wake up with you, just once?”

Hood stills, rubbed-raw all over with love, swears, does something to his phone. He collapses alongside Tim on the shitty couch, wraps himself around him, pressing open-mouthed kisses to his neck.

“You’re ruining me, kid. Sweartogod.”

Tim holds him as he slips into unconsciousness, safe and warm, and all is well.

Hood’s alarm wakes them at half four and Hood swears, Tim burrowing deeper into the couch, pressing further into him. There’s no Hood or Tim, just a mass of warmth and sleep, and Tim wants it forever, is barely prepared for the wave of wanting that knocks him back, crests and roars in his chest.

“I’ll tell them today, that I know,” he slurs, voice heavy with sleep. “And then I’ll be free all the time, for superhero business, and I can live here on your comms and make sure you don’t die, for forever.”

“Okay,” says Hood, dragging himself to his feet, pulling Tim with him. “Okay. But I don’t think you’re gonna get seeing me past them even if they are all impressed from your detective skills.” Tim hopes he can feel the eyeroll Tim can’t show him ‘cause he’s too busy pulling a hoodie over his head.

“I don’t mean tell them about you,” he sniffs, “it’s not like you’d let me anyway. Besides, imagine what it would do to Dick. He’d think I’ve been corrupted.”

Hood pauses, snorting. “Timmy, baby, it’s okay,” he mimics, voice high and feminine, “just show me where he touched you on the doll, alright? You’re safe now, my sweet summer ch- ow! Fuck-” he catches Tim’s arm as he goes to elbow him again, manoeuvres both of Tim’s wrists back against the sofa above his head, a grin catching at his lips. “Careful, birdie.”

“I hate you,” Tim says, shaking his head but smiling, too, “and I meant that once I finish giving Bruce and the rest heart attacks, I’ll tell them I want to be Red Robin again and they’ll get off my dick. We won’t have to sneak around then, yeah?”

Hood is laughing. “I believe you."

_______

“You know what I'm saying, though, right?” he prods, pouring his coffee the next morning. He’s still so tired he can barely see but Damian is always up for breakfast by seven and he’s not missing this chance for the fucking world. “Like, nobody asked for him to be all broody on every street corner. This city just doesn’t need the Batman!”

Next to him, Damian is pretending to concentrate on his cereal, absolutely vibrating with rage.

“And,” Tim continues, listening to the music that is Damian grinding his teeth together, “what’s up with that infant he drags around everywhere? Robin? It’s-”

“Master Timothy,” says Alfred from the doorway. Oh, fuck, Alfred. He’d forgotten. “The Batman and his allies give a lot to this city, and I'm certain a lot of its people respect them.” That’s definitely Alfred’s damage-control voice.

“Like, who’s ever been genuinely intimidated by Robin? The most threatening thing about him is having to tell your criminal buddies you got your teeth kicked in by a pre-schooler-”

Damian goes straight for his jugular. Oh, wow.

As the kid lunges for him his flailing arm knocks bowls of cereal and glasses of juice flying. Alfred makes a vaguely wounded noise, calm enough for Tim to think that this sort of scuffle was probably normal, once. Good. Damain knocks him backwards off the breakfast bar stool, clawing at his throat and biting, holy shit, but Tim manages to twist midair so they don’t both land on him. Damian is up in an instant like colliding with a puddle of cereal on the cold tiles didn’t even register, which, fair enough, Tim’s blood is up, too. He beats his brother’s fisted hands back, shuffling backwards towards the table, trying not to laugh. Damian grabs a handful of his grey tshirt, flings him sidewards and pounces, animalistic. Hood’s mic is muted again but Tim’s pretty sure the dick is laughing his head off. Damian’s face appears in his swimming vision, his hands moving to throttle Tim, but that’s Alfred’s hand on his shoulder, and it looks like Tim’s shit-eating grin is computing with him for the first time. His breathing stills, microscopically. His head cocks.

“You… you said those things on purpose. You know!” Tim’s smile spreads wider, freezes for a second when Damian’s eyes go soft all of a sudden. “Drake? Are you…” Shit. He kind of feels bad for the kid, now.

“Nah. I don’t remember, not really. I'm just smart that way.” He watches Damian’s eyes narrow again, harden. Huh. So Damian had cared about Other Tim, in his own messed-up way.

“Tt. It’s been nearly a year. Even without my memories, I would’ve figured things out in days.” Tim snorts a laugh.

“Sure thing, dude. Now get off.” Miracle of miracles, Damian does. He collects himself, brushes off his jacket, glances around at the devastated kitchen. He doesn’t bother offering Tim a hand up, but Tim doesn’t take it personally. Alfred clears his throat from the doorway, clearly unimpressed by this newest revelation.

“I hope you’re both planning on cleaning that up.” Damian glowers.

“Of course, Alfred,” Tim interjects before things turn sour. As he goes to pick up shards of porcelain, Damian moving to find something to mop up the coffee with, Hood’s mic clicks on in his ear. The fucker is wheezing, and Tim makes a disapproving noise under his breath. It is weird, what they’re doing. He thought he understood the urge to listen in on Tim’s conversation with Bruce, to see the mighty Batman, who’d apparently caused him so much pain, lose the upper hand for once. But Hood’s reactions feel vaguely personal- that word again. All his instincts say Hood knows Tim’s family, his logic too, but that doesn’t make any sense, not really. Nobody should know their secret identities, but Hood clearly always has. Nobody should be able to relate to the way Tim feels about his family, and yet. And yet. It’s one of the biggest puzzles he has left and he turns it over and over in his mind. He’s fairly certain that Other Tim didn’t know Hood, either, although he thinks they might’ve fought, once. It’s all… it’s all a lot, and so much potential baggage is hard to reconcile with the reckless, no-strings Hood he knows. He thinks it over as familiar laughter rings in his ears.

They work together in silence until the kitchen is passable. Alfred has left them to it, probably to talk to Bruce about Tim.

“Does Father know?” Damian says out of nowhere, hands twisting in front of him.

“Yeah,” Tim responds, makes it light and easy, “but only since yesterday. Haven’t told Dick, yet. You could help me, if you want.”

Damian’s mouth curls up into a smile.

_____

When Dick walks into the kitchen, whistling, Tim and Damian are working on something, heads down at the table. It’s more peaceful than he’s ever seen them together, actually, and if there’s a certain element of plotting in the air he’s prepared to ignore it.

“What’cha doing?” he asks, interested, moving to the fridge and opening it.

“Drawing,” says Damian, disconnected.

“Well, what’re you drawing?”

Tim looks up from frowning at his masterpiece. “I didn’t know what to do, so Damian said I should just draw what I saw, so I drew Damian. Now I'm making it a family portrait, and he’s stealing my idea.” Dick hears the tell-tale sounds of somebody elbowing somebody else across a breakfast table, and it’s familiar in a jarring way. Like how they used to be, lifetimes ago. He selects a carton of juice from the fridge, goes for a glass to drink it from because he isn’t an animal.

Damian sniffs. “I just finished you; I'm doing Father next. You can see if you like.” He says it like it’s a rare gift, which is true enough. Dick nods and so Damian flips his drawing vertically, hands tensing at its edges, drawing the paper taut, like he’s preparing for rejection. On the paper Dick is flanked by pale pencil-sketches he’s assuming will become his family, but it’s hard to take his eyes off of the finished portrait of himself, central. The lines are clean, sharp and arcing, highlighted in blue and white. It looks smooth, composed. Drawing-him is only in a sweater and jeans but there’s something professional in the way Damian makes him look, like he’s got it all figured out. It’s so far from how Dick has been feeling for the past year, tiptoeing around Tim with zero idea what he’s doing, that it almost makes him want to laugh, but instead unbidden tears well in his eyes. At least his little brother still has faith in him.

He says, “it’s good, Dami,” thickly, and means it.

Damian makes a “tt” sound, but his eyes are bright and pleased.

The moment hangs in the air for a second, warm and bright, and then Tim says, “hey, I’ve finished you too! Wanna take a look?” in a voice that’s far too breezy. Maybe he doesn’t understand the emotions he just witnessed, and suddenly Dick feels overcome with pity for him, dropped in the middle of this fucked-up family the way he has been. Dick’ll be sure to say all good things about his drawing, even though historically, it’s the one thing Tim’s pretty reliably shitty at. It certainly doesn’t occur to him that the happy tone is a trap, until- until.

Tim flips up his paper, smiling widely. It’s a cartoon image of a guy with Dick’s hair, doing a peace sign. In the Nightwing suit. Behind him is what looks to be a pile of crooks, in balaclavas, with ‘@£&%!’ speech bubbles. Robin is perched on top of them like a gargoyle.

Dick spits out his mouthful of juice, choking to the sound of Tim’s obnoxious laughter Damian’s quiet snort. Oh, great, they’re getting along. Tim only comes to thump him on the back after about ten seconds, the bastard. His breathing calms and he straightens up to shoot Damian a wounded look, horrified.

“You told him? This was important!” His littlest brother cuts him off with a look, although it’s ruined because his eyes are still sparkling a little. Dick hasn’t seen him unguardedly happy in- well, in too long, anyway.

“I didn’t say anything. I hear he’s supposed to be a detective, though. Maybe that had something to do with it?” Dick flails, internally, spinning to face Tim, trying to understand. Tim is leaning his hip against the counter, arms crossed, amused.

“Dude,” he says, “I'm nineteen. Exactly how long did you think you could keep the vigilante LARP-ing from me anyway?”

The look he’s levelling Dick seems slightly more accusing now, and Dick rubs the back of his neck.

“Ah, shit, Timmy, I know you’re not stupid. But I- I really did think we could give you a normal life, you know? I'm sorry for keeping stuff from you, but I can’t tell you I don’t still think it was the right choice.” He’s probably just digging himself a deeper hole. Oh, well.

But when Tim looks up at him from studying his fingernails, it’s surprisingly tender. “Yeah, Dick. I get it. It’s okay. But- I know, now. So no more excuses to treat me like a kid, okay?”

Dick breathes out. “Yeah. Okay.” Tim lets him work through it for a second then turns abruptly, moving for the door. “Hey, we’re not finished! Where are you going?”

“Out!” Tim yells, the door shutting behind him. Dick gapes. He may not be a kid, but shit, he is such a fucking teenager.

He shares a look with Damian, who just smirks.

________

‘and it’s no big surprise, you turned out this way,

the spark in your eyes, the look on your face.

I will not be late.’

________

And things are better, after that.

Hood’s bike is already pulled up outside by the time Tim makes it to the gates and they’re off without the needs for words, speeding down Gotham’s streets, more familiar to Tim by now than waking up in his own bed. Some days they head back down to the little nameless bar and accept the free good food and bad beer (Tim’s off his meds) until they can barely stagger to the door. Some days Hood will drop Tim off at the safehouse and go a’hunting, clearing up the docks one festering gang of scumbags at a time. Some days they both stay in, cooking together and watching absolute shit on TV when they’re done, full and content and chasing kisses.

It’s a way of being that Tim never could’ve believed himself capable of, twelve months ago. He lived a flat parade of a life, stepping in somebody else’s footprints. Other-Tim, so fucking clever, who would never stagger as he had under the weight of so many secrets, cool and efficient and loved. But this Tim is loved too. He’s coming to terms with the fact that Other-Tim isn’t a rival, or an expectation, or a ghost. He’s just somebody Tim used to be, somebody he feels that one day he’ll be again, or who’ll be him. The merger will be quick and painless and Tim won’t feel anymore whole, he’s whole already. But he’ll feel ready, ready to take responsibility for the life that belongs to both of them.

He knows these things when he’s joking with his family, when he’s held fast in Hood’s arms, when he’s tentatively relearning the rhythm of fighting, the brutal crunching sound that justice makes. For the first time he isn’t temporary. It makes sense, then, that his whole life would pick here and now to fall apart. There’s been a warm weight at his collarbones recently, the weight of having something worth fighting for, something to lose; and so loss comes knocking.

It’s about a month since he cleared the last of the secrets from Wayne Manor. He’s talked to Bruce about wanting to be Red Robin again, but it’s a more frustrating process than he’d anticipated. Bruce endures that Tim, after a year of being off duty, is nowhere near ready for active service. Tim can hardly tell him about the occasions where he helps Hood clean up, adrenaline high, blood in his veins like a whipcrack. And so when he isn’t hanging around with Hood in whatever messes they manage to get themselves into, he’s in the Cave (the Batcave!!) training brutally. They let him man the comms now, too, until the early hours, and it’s so lovely and familiar but it takes up the stolen time he used to spend with Hood. They take what they can scavenge in the day, instead, and it’s an odd impasse. As his relationship with his family reverts to something that’s simultaneously detached and business-like (in the way vigilantes must assume in order to cope), alongside being loving, his relationship with Hood softens, now they only see each other in the daylight hours. It’s something so much closer to dating than he ever thought he’d get, not often a rooftop in sight. It sets him weak and tingling.

They’ve stayed out a little later tonight than is customary anymore, it’s past ten and darkness has blanketed the grounds of Wayne Manor when the motorcycle pulls up there. The dusk imbues the air with a sense of secrecy, of privacy, and so Tim allows Hood to bracket him against the wrought iron fence, kiss him hard, without even a thought to the inhabitants of the house behind him. He thinks that’s it, but suddenly Hood is backing away, clearing the fence in a running jump.

“Coming?” he smirks from the other side. The sight of his kiss-bitten lips wipes any retort from Tim’s throat, and he’s scrambling over to pull Hood flush against him again. He’s not as agile as he used to be, yet, not as agile as Hood, but one day. Oh, one day.

“Gonna walk me home?” he mumbles as they pull apart, separated by only a hair’s-breadth of night air. Bruce will be getting worried, a distant corner of his mind tells him, but Hood is emanating heat, it’s rolling off him in waves, making Tim’s thoughts slow and his body twitch.

“Maybe I wanna fuck you in your own bed for a change,” Hood growls, the native Gotham on his tongue making it thick and obscene. Tim is aware of how he must look, feral and flushed, biting back a whimper.

“Alfred might have something to say about that,” he makes himself say, mouth dry. Hood breathes a laugh against him and the heavy atmosphere dissolves, at least for now. Tim sags, braces himself for another night’s goodbye, but instead:

“Well, might as well walk you back, now I'm here,” Hood says, gruff, and Tim kisses him again, just the corner of his mouth, just ‘cause he can. Then he makes himself pull away, darting through the grounds, sticking to where he knows the cameras’ blind spots are. He can barely hear Hood’s tread behind him, but he trusts that it’s there. Hood has never betrayed that trust so far.

They reach the wall of the house, where Tim’s bedroom window hangs open, one floor up. He thinks for a second Hood will press him against the cold stone, say goodnight for real, but instead the fucker flips up to Tim’s window ledge, backwards, lands facing out towards the grounds. Smirking.

“Show off,” Tim mutters, loud enough that he knows Hood will hear, scrambles up the wall after him. He knows stone cold in the pit of his stomach that something is very wrong, even moments before he sees it, when for a second his vision is filled only with Hood’s grin, glinting down at him. He hasn’t even bothered with a domino tonight.

As Tim slips up onto his window ledge, registers what he’s seeing, his hand goes very tight around Hood’s wrist. Looking for comfort, or acting as a manacle. He’ll wonder later and hate himself because he doesn’t know, just doesn’t know. Hood twists to see what he’s seeing, as far as Tim’s vice grip will allow, but Tim is barely aware of it. This, this might be what going into shock feels like. Huh.

His family is in his bedroom. Bruce is on the bed, Dick perched on his desk, Alfred standing, Damian leaning against his wall. Their bodies are facing the door, slouched like they’ve maybe been waiting a while, but they’re all twisted to stare at him and Hood, eyes brimful of shock and something else, something Tim can’t quite get a handle on. Dick has a tray of cupcakes, Bruce some sort of banner, and Alfred has relinquished a handful of helium balloons. Tim wants to laugh, bizarrely, as they bob against the ceiling. So this is how his life ends.

Hood has gone very still and cold beside him. There’s no give in him at all.

Tim is pretty certain he has a measure of how much shit he’s about to be in.

Then Dick croaks out, “Jason?” and Tim realises he has no idea, none at all.

Jason. Oh. Oh.

Bruce stands. There’s something in his face like the world is falling downdowndown around him. Tim feels Hood’s- Jason’s- pulse thrum in his wrist.

“Tim,” he says, small. “Tim, let me go.”

Tim does. Nobody moves as he looks up, fearful like Tim’s never seen him, slips back into the night.

Tim’s clenched hand falls to his side.

Dick says, “Jason,” again, broken and helpless.

Alfred says, “Master Timothy?” There’s something ringing fast and high inside Tim’s ears. He realises he wants nothing more than to follow Hood back into the dark, where there are no ugly, brutal truths to deal with.

He breathes out, quick and shaky. “World’s second-greatest detective. Huh.”

The air hangs broken around them, slicing at his vocal chords.

Red Hood is Jason Todd. Jason Todd is dead.

Bruce resumes his aborted movement, crosses to the window. Stares out into the black empty.

Dick says, “That was Jason. You’ve been with Jason… this whole time?”

Tim swallows, unsure which bits are his truths to share. “I know him as Red Hood,” he says, perfectly clear, watches it ripple around the room, quiet and devastating. Fuck it. Hood has been lying to him, this whole time.

Except. Except he hasn’t, really. Tim had made it common knowledge that he didn’t care who Hood was. And he hadn’t. But- fuck. Fuck.

Damian says, “Red Hood who runs the docks. Red Hood the killer.” It smacks into Bruce like a freight train, his hands tightening on the sill by Tim’s feet.

“He’s not a killer,” Tim says, probably believes it, too. Everything is dizzy-blurred, unreal in the pale moonlight.

“He’s not Jason,” says Bruce. “Jason is dead.” Tim watches Dick flinch, feels bizarrely like an outsider, watching some private play. Jason was never his tragedy, after all.

“I think he is,” Tim says, dull. “Whenever he talked about you it always seemed personal. He knew stuff about you he shouldn’t have known.” Bruce looks at him, and there’s sadness there and anger too, but Tim isn’t scared.

Dick, clearly working around something in his mind, says, “All this time when you’ve been out, you’ve been… You and him. It was- fuck, it was you in his comm that night.”

Tim looks straight at him and doesn’t say anything. Wonders if Dick’s world is falling apart quite like how his is.

He says, “if I try and go after him, will you stop me?”

Bruce says, “yes.”

He continues, spouts some bullshit about how it could be dangerous magic, could be absolutely anyone impersonating a dead boy for any reason, shuts up when somebody snarls at him. Tim realises, belatedly, that it was him. He’s watching his own family buckle and fold under various stages of grief around him and he can’t bring himself to care, can only think of Jason.

“Get out, please,” he says, and says nothing else, and in a roundabout sort of fashion they do. He sits on the bed and watches numb as Bruce locks his bedroom window shut tight, as Alfred pats his head and leaves and a lock clicks as he shuts the door behind him.

He realises he has his hands fisted in the banner Bruce had been holding, waiting for Tim to come in through the door like anything at all in their lives is sane. It reads ‘days since last memory loss incident: 365’ and ‘happy anniversary, Tim!’ in Dick’s hand, but the little drawings around the text- Tim grumpy in a wheelchair, Tim in a hospital bed surrounded by family, Tim as Red Robin- those are Damian.

He curls around it and cries and cries and cries.

______

‘with tears in my eyes in my eyes, I begged you to stay,

you said hey man, I love you, but no fucking way’ 

______

Alfred opens his door again at eight in the morning. He clearly thinks Tim is asleep, because he allows himself a sad kind of lingering look, the kind Tim doesn’t see on Alfred much. He’s clearly been crying, and Alfred doesn’t cry, either. Tim’s world fragments under him a little more. Alfred leaves a mug of coffee behind him, and Tim drinks it all without tasting, thankful for the rush of energy it gives him even while physically and mentally he feels like this empty, hollow thing.

The padlock is still on his door. So: it wasn’t a dream, then. In the daylight it looks weak and flimsy and means nothing at all.

Tim looks, long and hard, at his open door. Beyond it, he can find Bruce and make him understand, can find Dick and try and understand himself, understand who Jason was, what that means for who he’s become. He could find Damian, the one other person in this house who never knew Jason Todd, who maybe understands a tiny bit already.

He snaps the lock off of his window like it’s nothing, throws himself out like he’s got no bones to break.

He makes it down to the road in record time, and there’s no bike waiting for him. Something tears ugly at the hollow in his chest. Whatever, he’s always been good at improvising. A few streets down, a raggedy motorcycle is parked, and he hotwires it faster than Hood could, than B could.

They’ll know he’s gone, if not now, then soon. If they come after him, ruin this, he’s going to tear out their fucking throats. He’s never felt this empty since before Hood and it’s terrifying. As he whips through the narrow streets he wonders if Jason has killed since last night, feels horror chill his blood.

Tim’s hand is shaking so much he can barely manage unlocking their apartment, and when he manages it Jason isn’t there. His laptop is gone, the message hanging in the empty air. Leave me alone.

He thinks of Jason saying, “you were Robin,” grinning contented, bathed in sunshine, and what it means cuts through his ribcage. He sits on the sofa, just concentrating on holding himself together.

He waits for nine hours, thereabouts. The TV is on in the background, same shitty cartoons as always, but Tim can’t hear anything over the crashing waves in his mind. Time flows oddly about him, non-linear. As he waits, feeling worse than useless, worse than pathetic, he compiles a list of options in his mind:

• Jason Todd has left Gotham; Tim will never see him again.
• Jason is still here, but he believes Tim has betrayed him. If he ever does see Jason again, Jason will shoot him on sight.
• Tim doesn’t know if he would just let it happen.
• Maybe Jason will forgive him. Maybe he’ll actually talk to Bruce and the other bats, and they can figure things out.
• Maybe Jason planted explosives in this safehouse before he left, and Tim is sitting on a bomb.

He swallows hard, thinks of his family. Of Alfred having to bury him. Of a grave next to Jason’s, redundant now, of course.

At some point he gets up and goes home. Or, at some point he gets up and goes to the place that should be his home, that used to be. Takes the slowest, most meandering route he can think of, half to put off looking his family in the eye, half because he’s hoping to see a flash of red and leather streak across the rooftops above him. When he finally passes through the manor gates it’s raining, and he’s soaked through. Alfred answers the door almost immediately, the stern lines of his face softening to see Tim standing, slumped, shoulders heavy. He pulls Tim into an embrace and Tim thinks he might sob, but he doesn’t. Bruce and Dick are inside, pacing in the foyer, and they look so relieved to see him it’s almost a happy moment. Tim wants to push past them, make for his room or maybe the roof, but Alfred’s hand is still firm on his shoulder.

“If you’ll wait just a tick, young sir, dinner is ready.”

“Okay,” Tim says, mouth very dry. Is this it? They’re just going to pretend that last night didn’t happen, that Tim hasn’t been hanging out with a murderer? A murderer who should be resting six feet under not too far from this house? He knows in the hours he’s been gone the others will have been relentlessly using the Batcave’s resources to their full extent, hunting every scrap of info on Hood, cursing themselves for not joining the dots earlier.

This is how they’ve known him: Red Hood has been a presence for years, Tim’s unusually compliant memory supplies, and although he entered the Gotham crime scene in an explosion of violence, getting into numerous fights with the team initially, he’s calmed down enough to slip almost entirely off the radar. He helps them on very rare occasions, and rigidly controls a lot of the problematic drug trade. Nothing sold to kids, the girls on his blocks are protected, and even if he kills, which Bruce can never excuse, he’s never hurt the innocent. Of course they’ve delivered him to the police before, but jail won’t hold him, and his absence was far worse for the city than whatever he got up to on the streets. These are the facts, cold and hard, on a computer screen, that his family will have been examining all day. But Hood isn’t cold, he’s fiery and irrational- they could never sum him up in statistics, and that’s why they haven’t found him. Why they won’t.

Tim, by contrast, knows him, deep and intimate and messy, and they probably know this, too. Have probably pulled security footage of every time Tim and Jason ever met publicly- they know the timeline better than he does, by now. They’ll have seen the kissing and the fighting, stripping down all the layers of everything Tim has built, just like he was afraid of, and it still won’t be enough. ‘Cause Tim knew Hood, but he doesn’t know Jason. There’s not a soul alive who knows Jason.

All this runs through his head as he looks at Bruce and Dick, as they look at him, the foyer cold around them.

Bruce says, “you love him.”

Tim says, “yeah.”

They file into the dining room and eat in silence. Damian isn’t around, but Tim doesn’t have the energy to ask. When he gets up and leaves halfway through the meal, nobody calls after him.

Things around here will get better, he reflects, on the way up to his room. They’re a family, albeit an emotionally stunted one. Tim hiding things, the shock of Jason’s return- the pain will pass, even if some scars will never fade. It’s worse this way- the uncertainty, since they can’t be sure Jason is Jason, even if it’s a fact to Tim. But Tim’s lived with uncertainty for almost a full year, on a molecular level, and he worked things out. They’ll be fine.

He might not be.

It’s just- so much of his recovery was founded on Hood. Somebody who knew him, not the shadow of Other Tim hanging over his shoulders. Now that’s ripped away, the floor of Tim’s world missing from under him.

It isn’t late enough for any of Gotham’s usual nightlife to be out, but Tim finds he can’t stand this fucking mansion, these walls. He finds the domino Hood gifted him in the pocket of one of his hoodies, leaves through the unlocked window nobody’s bothered to fix since this morning. Usually walking Gotham is therapeutic, lets his busy mind drift away as he gets to where he needs to be. But now the city’s all threaded through with memories of Hood, places they’ve been together, silver and gleaming in the dusk. Course, there’s only one place that matters.

The slap of inky waves against rotted wood reverberates as Tim reaches the edge of the docks, pulls himself up onto the roof of the final abandoned warehouse in the row. Jason is waiting there for him, helmet in his lap as he looks distantly towards the edge of the water, captivated by some light Tim cannot see.

“Hey,” says Tim, feels very fragile, all of a sudden. He’s a pillar of ash and if Jason breathes too hard it might all be over, he might just be dust on the wind.

“Hey,” Jason replies, and his voice is a little different from how Tim remembers, on some fundamental scale.

“You didn’t turn up for family dinner. I think Bruce was kinda disappointed.” Tim figures what the hell, makes his way over the roof and drops down next to Jason.

“Pfft. My disappointing Batman streak is on like two straight years, now. I'm not compromising that.”

“Alfred was disappointed too.” Jason groans, long and low. “They- you have to understand what they’re going through. They don’t know what to think. Nobody’s asking you to move back in, but if you could talk to them- talk to me?”

“What am I gonna say? How the fuck am I alive? I don’t know, Tim. I don’t know how I'm here, only that it had something to do with the Al Ghuls, and I don’t know if I'm supposed to be what they made me or what Bruce made me or-” his voice cuts off in a strangled sob and Tim realises Jason has probably never talked to anybody about this before. He hears ‘Al Ghuls’ and burns to ask what that means, but it’s not what Jason needs right now.

“Hey,” he says, makes it low and warm and comforting, prays for a miracle. “Looked to me like you were doing a pretty good job of just being yourself. I told you before- I don’t give a fuck who you are. But right now, I'm worried about you. So forget figuring it out- please, let’s just go home?”

Jason looks at him, wild-eyed. “I can’t go back to the manor, birdie, you don’t understand- I saw, when I dropped you off, you were sleeping- all my old shit is still there, where I left it, like a fucking shrine. I can’t do that for them, anymore, be that- I'm not that kid-”

Tim puts a hand over his mouth, gentle, and his babbling cuts off. “Jason. I know. I get it. I really, really do. So let’s not go to the manor. Let’s go home.”

Jason seems to collapse a little, the frantic panic and tension he must’ve been running on for hours seeping away. Tim stands, offers him a hand. He takes it.

They go home.

Jason’s helmet is left sitting on the rusting metal, forgotten, eyeholes staring unseeing towards the scorched horizon.

______

‘and my nightmares will have nightmares every night,

oh, every night, every night.’

______