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Tim has five minutes to fix this before he’s slingshotted into another future.
“I promise, I’ll do a quadruple flip just for you,” ten-year old Dick Grayson tells him, mussing up Tim’s hair, and Tim grabs his hand and tugs him in with all his toddler strength. He’s startled enough that he goes along with it.
“Check the ropes,” he whispers into Dick’s ear, urgent, encircling Dick into an embrace. “Check the ropes before your parents get on. Promise me, Robin.”
The boy jolts in Tim’s bony arms, pulling away, but Tim keeps him in place. “How do you know that nam—”
“Just promise,” he insists. “This is important.”
“Okay,” the boy murmurs back, baffled. “I promise.”
Tim’s parents whisk him away before there’s any more conversation, and Tim prays that this is enough.
Tim comes to at the feet of a Lazarus Pit.
The green sears his lungs as he coughs it out, teeth aching with tingles of being yanked alive, and he shudders on the stone floor. Clarity sets in a second after. He is the Demon’s Hand.
There are assassins lined in the cavern, Ra’s himself only a mere step away and watching with detached interest as Tim pulls himself together. “My Lord,” he rasps out to his mentor.
“My Heir,” The Demon’s Head drawls, unamused. “I’m sure you recall what happened.”
Flashes of a fight, the black blur and unforgiving hits, searching for retribution, Tim holding up semi-decently until the stupidest mistake of footwork lead to his death— “Wilson.”
“Yes,” Ra’s’ rumble is both a threat and a comfort, the two sides of Tim Drake warring to figure out which is which. “It seems my daughter’s efforts were not enough. I will be overseeing your training hereafter.” His hand cradles the top of Tim’s head, and instinct prompts him to raise his eyes to meet Ra’s poisonous green. “Do not fret. You managed yourself admirably for your station. Very few can claim life as a victory against Deathstroke the Terminator.”
He dips his head into a bow. “Thank you, my Lord.” The pressure disappears from Tim’s wet hair, and Ra’s’ robes swish as he stalks away, and Tim finds his mouth opening to ask: “Renegade?”
Ra’s stills. “He is still where you left him.” And he’s gone.
Tim doesn’t dare to breathe the relief he feels.
Tim learns that despite Dick’s parents making it for another six years, Dick Grayson still does not avoid the inevitable fall into masked personas.
There is still a man who orchestrated the deaths of Mary and John Grayson, and there is still a rage-fueled Dick Grayson who sought for revenge, except it’s Slade Wilson who finds him. Not Bruce. He is still an apprentice, just to the Terminator. Tim still chases after Dick, except now he is the Demon’s Hand and Dick is Renegade, and there is no warmth to their back-and-forth except the splatter of blood.
Or more than one.
He waits a day before approaching the Cradle’s prison.
Blue eyes bore into his skull from the picosecond that Tim breaches the space. “Heard you died,” Dick Grayson drawls. “Pity it didn’t stick.”
“I am Yad Al Ghul,” Tim replies, bored. He takes in the full glory of Renegade, a lethal man shackled to a cot with bandages up his sternum. He knows the wound that hinders Dick’s movements intimately. He was the one who put it there, after all. “Death often doesn’t keep me.”
He tilts his chin defiantly and promises fiercely: “When I get out of here, it will.”
“Well, that’s a positive attitude to have as a prisoner.”
“What can I say? I’m full of cheer and unicorn piss,” and this startles a huff of amusement out of Tim. Dick smiles smugly. “I knew you were capable of humor under all those flowy robes.”
“You’re still alive, aren’t you?” he quips. “Enough humor to last me several lifetimes.”
“One day, you’re going to get that stick out of your ass,” Dick vows sweetly.
Tim’s eyes glint with ill-hilarity. “I wonder what will replace it,” he muses, eyeing the prisoner with teeth that glitter in the torchlight, and leaves to Dick’s flustered cheeks.
Pru slides up to him after he’s beaten Owens into the ground. “I think your lover-boy misses you,” she sing-songs into his ear and swiftly backs off when his elbow juts out.
“Let him,” he says, unable to keep the thread of irritation out of his voice at the mention of Dick. He’d been to visit him a couple more times since his dip in the Pit, each ending with increasingly aggressive flirting from Dick’s part.
“I’d fuck you like I’d mean it,” Dick’d promised a faintly aroused Tim. “Until you couldn’t breathe and you were seeing stars, gasping out my name-”
It seemed that his initial innuendo crossed some boundary that Renegade was more than thrilled to shatter. “He serves no purpose as a prisoner.”
“I mean, I wouldn’t go that far,” she grins with all teeth. “You are the Demon’s Heir. He’d be a fool to refuse you.”
“The only thing that will happen the second I breach the cell is my death.”
“Touche.”
But something about their conversation stays with Tim, and some harebrained idea births out of sexual frustration. There was a reason why there were so many innuendos about swords, after all.
“You wish to bring Deathstroke’s apprentice out of his cell?” Ra’s looks almost surprised, and Tim thrills at the novelty of bringing that to his face. He dodges the sword-strike out of instinct, stepping out of the attack pattern his mentor is trying to drag him into.
“I believe it would be beneficial to interact with Grayson in a controlled environment,” Tim says measuredly.
Ra’s’s eyes narrow consideringly then slightly uncomfortable states: “If it is stimulation you crave, there are many servants who would be honored to lay with you.”
His brain scrambles to find an answer because this is not a conversation he ever wants to be having with Ra’s fucking Al Ghul. “Oh, God, no— I meant to fight him, Ra’s, not—”
“Very well,” the man interrupts, swiping his sword at Tim’s knees which forces him to swivel into a spinning slash. “I shall inform the medics to reduce their poison dosage in Renegade’s wounds. When he recovers, you will only spar under my supervision.”
“Understood,” Tim replies. He loses the spar.
But it’s fine because by the next day, he has a new opponent. Dick Grayson peers around the throne room, bemused, and his eyes narrow in on his sword laid in the middle of the room. When no one stops him, he approaches and picks it up.
“You will fight, or you will die,” Ra’s informs him, ever the steadfast asshole, and Dick eyes Tim thoughtfully.
“And if I win?”
There’s a flame-tipped rumble to Dick’s voice, one that captures Tim at the base of his spine and makes him say with a curve of his lips: “You’ll live to see another day.”
“Oh, don’t you look so beautiful under me, little Heir?” Dick pants into his ear, fierce and hot, and Tim wishes that was the bare minimum of the filth that the mercenary has whispered during their sparring sessions. He doesn’t even bother looking at Ra’s reaction anymore. “I wish I could keep you this way forever, breathless—”
Tim arches up into his hold, wantingly wanton for just the barest second, and by some grace, reverses their positions. Seated firmly on Dick’s torso, he drives a knife through his opponent’s palm and doesn’t think about how there’s only two layers of clothing between Tim’s dick and Dick’s skin. “Yield,” he orders, unforgiving.
“Hm,” Dick tilts his head, leering at him through half-mast eyes that drag up and down his body, and says, “this works too. I kinda prefer it.” He seems almost unbothered by the dagger.
Tim’s cock twitches and he grits his teeth. “I said yield,” another weapon digs it into the Dick’s neck until a drop of blood drips over.
A beat of silence later: “I yield.”
Ra’s dismisses both of them almost immediately. Dick’s gaze lingers on Tim as they’re separated in the hallway, headed in different direction.
“Prudence,” Tim calls and she’s by his side in an instant. “How do you feel about guard duty?”
Dick sits up in his cot when the gate slides open. “I could swear this isn’t our normal sparring time.”
Tim stalks in with the air of someone who owns the fucking place and takes his seat on Dick’s lap. “That’s because it isn’t,” his grin is a sly, devastating thing. “Call it a different type of exercise.”
There’s a long, motionless moment.
And Dick is the one who breaks the distance first. The air between their lips is a scorching sahara, and Tim’s mouth falls open on its own accord. Dick’s tongue is brutal, teeth clashing, and their kiss is so messy, and so fierce, and so violent, and Tim yanks on Dick’s hair and he moans. There’s a retaliatory grope at Tim’s bulge, prompting a gasp, and Dick’s teeth leave to nip on Tim’s neck. He pulls Dick’s hair again.
Tim is flipped onto his back to the vicious rattle of chains, Dick poised above his hips, muscles rippling like snakes and eyes choking with hunger. He looks more like a predator than he ever did fighting, and Tim thrills in this heady realization, chest heaving. He lifts his hips, allowing Dick to slide off his pants, and the man croons: “I just love it when you’re so compliant, Timmy— it truly warms my heart.”
“Has anyone ever told you that you talk too much when you should be doing other things?” Tim rasps.
“None that aren’t family.” he grins. Tim very briefly reflects on the irony of those words before his thoughts are cut off by Dick’s mouth. His lips are pressed against a scar on Tim’s outer thigh, tongue trailing up the surface, biting when he reaches the end, and he’s so smug when he states: “I put that there. I marked you, even before this.”
Tim’s breaths feel oddly jagged.
Dick’s warm fingers slide from Tim’s hip, the cold chain dragging against his skin, and circle around Tim’s cock. His thumb swipes across the tip, dripping the pre-come down the side.
He starts to say: “There’s oil in the pants—” and he chokes, jerking upwards when Dick swallows him down to the base with no warning. The man hums, pleased, and Tim bares his neck as his head rolls back. Dick’s hands move, taking an ass-cheek in each palm and squeezing, and he fucks his mouth on Tim’s cock. “Dick— oh, God—” he’s twitching with every swirl of his tongue, every drag of teeth when Dick dips downward, every moan as Tim reaches down and pulls on the dry, dark head of hair, and Tim comes without warning. Renegade looks him in the eyes as he swallows every drop of Tim’s come.
“Oil’s in the pants, you said?” he asks cheerily, shifting off and letting the chains clink as he leans backwards off the side of the cot, still on his knees, and pulls out the plastic bottle of oil. Tim watches him with flushed cheeks and glazed eyes, and Dick returns back topside and stares at Tim with glee. He murmurs: “I wish I could just keep you in here forever, baby bird,” Tim flinches at the nickname, startled but…not entirely disliking. Dick smiles like he has won the contest. “Legs over my shoulders, little Heir,” he orders, sounding remarkably like Batman despite having never met the guy, and Tim obeys like the good Robin he is. He hums, pleased, when he inspects Tim’s hole and finds there’s already a little slack for his fingers to slip by. “Look at you.”
“I did that in the shower,” Tim strangles out, keening when he crooks his fingers and drizzles a little more oil down. “Was thinking about y-you— and, I spread m-myself apart for you— oh, God, Dick—” He nearly comes again but Dick stills his movements and removes his fingers. “What’re you—-”
The man is frantic when he gets to his feet, shucking off his pants and pouring oil onto his dick. “I made a promise to you, didn’t I, little Prince? I’m going to fuck you so hard—” he’s almost deranged like this, and some part of Tim sings at inducing this lack of control. “So hard that you’ll be seeing stars, that you’ll be limping tomorrow—-”
“Stop teasing, Dick, please,” Tim moans, and he’s on him instantly. He presses into Tim, guiding his cock right between Tim’s cheeks, and the younger man arches up into Dick.
When Dick bottoms out, he does exactly as he promised on one of the visits. Tim is fucked like he’s meant to be fucked. He is seeing stars. Choking out Dick’s name and hears dirty, dirty things panted out into his ear. He is fucked until he feels he can’t breathe.
Dick comes in him first, but Tim follows beyond a second or two. The man releases Tim’s legs, slipping out, and collapses on him, breathing onto the skin in the crook of his neck.
Something in Tim possesses his hands to raise and twine into Dick’s hair. He relaxes into the petting, leaning to the side slightly to not crush Tim, but the tenseness in his muscles is gone.
The tenseness in Tim is gone too. He needs to get out.
He gently eases Dick off his shoulder, further onto the cot, and the man watches him do all of this in silence. “Someone will be by with a rag and change of sheets in a bit,” Tim informs him as he puts his pants on. He can feel Dick’s come ooze out of his asshole, staining his sleep pants, and his dick twitches. “See you tomorrow.”
“I’ll be ready,” Dick vows, and Tim leaves him
The slightest limp in Tim’s footsteps doesn’t stop him from both kicking Dick’s beautiful ass and getting his ass kicked. “I’m going to fuck you,” he whispers into Dick’s ear as he pins him down from behind, and the man shudders. “Tonight.”
“I’ll be ready,” he whispers and then yields. They go again and again, silent but thrumming with tension, until Ra’s stops them.
When they part ways, Tim sees Dick’s hand flex in his direction, and he smiles.
They fuck; Dick arching into Tim’s chest as the man writhes below him, moaning.
They fight. Dick wins thrice, Tim wins once.
They fuck, Tim pressed into the mattress with his legs over Dick’s shoulders, his ass eaten out.
They fight, dirtier tricks and brutal swipes. Dick wins once. Tim wins twice.
They fuck.
It goes on like this for a while, until the seasons bleed together, and Tim rests in Dick’s cot for a couple minutes longer, and Dick kisses Tim like he chooses to be gentle and adoring.
They fight. Something in Tim whispers to make this count.
They don’t fuck that night.
Instead, when Tim steps into Dick’s cell, Dick reaches for him like always, and there’s a sharp pinprick against Tim’s arm.
He swats it away, the dart clattering to the floor, and curses. “You fucker.” He can’t lift his arm, the numbness spreading to the rest of him. Whatever this is, it’s fast-acting. “I swear to God, Dick, if I find out you killed Pru or any of the rest of them—”
“Don’t worry, I told Rose to be very gentle with your friend,” Dick says, dodging the weak strike to his sternum, and moves in to wrap his arms around him, somehow both cradling and restraining him. He’s like a vice grip around him, not twitching at his flails or insults, and lowers them to the ground when Tim’s knees give out. “I’ll miss you,” he admits, laying him out on the floor.
“Kill yourself,” Tim spits out. Petty.
I’ll miss you too, he thinks.
Please, stay, he thinks. Stay with me.
Dick must see something in his eyes because he’s oh-so gentle. His hands are sheltering Tim’s face, fingers knit into his hair. His thighs are on either side of Tim’s hips and he sits fearlessly on Tim’s torso. “Oh, Timmy,” Dick’s voice is a breathy croon against his lips, “we were always meant for ruin.”
He has no idea how right he is, and Tim wishes he could tell him how this story went.
Tim slurs out this promise instead: “I’ll find you.”
Dick grins and brushes their lips together again. “I’ll be ready.”