Chapter Text
Tim had lost a lot of people to blood loss. It was just one of the realities of running around the streets without any sort of proper set-up, as well equipped as his field kits were these days. He hadn’t had the ability to haul around blood bags and IVs by himself.
Now, at 16, he might be able to physically carry around a small cooler, but he didn’t have to. By this point, he used a run down van, bought off Joey with a wad of cash that had been more than the asking price, and that could hold a cooler for him.
He didn’t run from street to street as often since Nightwing had looped him on where the official patrol route was that night, so Tim could make stops along it with the rest of his schedule. He took his van, and he answered calls and messages. If he stumbled on any kids that needed it, he sent them to the run down apartments that he and Jason had turned into free housing. If those kids had been kidnapped, he took down the names or descriptions of their captors and sent them to Jason.
Notifying the Raven really was a convenient way to get rid of any human trafficking ring, and Tim came across them less and less. But back to the point. He used to lose too many to blood loss, and he knew about how much blood he could use in a night, always just enough to keep them alive even if they’d passed out. He had bags in a cooler in his van that he kept stocked, sometimes (more often than he should really) with his own blood. Being O negative had to have some uses after all.
Tim knew roughly how many bags he usually needed, and appropriated them from the hospital next to Bristol accordingly to supplement what he physically couldn’t bleed from himself. The hospital could afford to fly in more bags. Tim could too, probably, but the red tape it would require would be too telling. It didn’t matter the reasons, anyway. He needed that blood, Gotham needed that blood.
He was running out of it much faster than usual.
It hadn’t been a particularly subtle shift when more and more people came to him (him to them?) with deep cuts, whispering with shifty eyes about the flash of a blade, a proper sword, and the little terror who wielded it. Too fast to be human, the more superstitious would mumble to him. “In a downed Robin’s colors,” they’d shudder. The ghost of the dead Robin from a few years back, a taste for blood and vengeance the same as the Bat.
Jason vacillated between fury and morbid amusement at the irony in the murmurs.
Some nights Nightwing would have to keep Jason in a hold as he howled, eyes greener than emeralds, so, so sickly green and Tim would debate on whether or not to sedate him.
How dare someone wear the colors he died for, died in, he’d curse and spit. Sometimes Jason would laugh and laugh and laugh and it wasn’t the Joker but it wasn’t Jason either. The laughter always broke into sobbing if it hadn’t already led to Dick frantically knocking the younger boy out. Tim was very glad that Dick was there, even if those nights left all three of them trembling.
Jason always came back though, a little more weary, a little more anxious, but, in Tim’s opinion, recklessly brave in the face of it. It couldn’t be easy to face your own murder over and over again, even if it wasn’t happening in reality. It was in those fragile moments that Tim would whisper what comfort he could, reminding Jason that he was the Raven, a bird with unclipped wings once again, that the Joker was gone.
Dick never had any words to give, but he was there and holding on despite his own tears and that was important. It was three months after the newest Robin had appeared that Jason had an episode bad enough that Dick got hurt. An elbow to the face in the flailing. In his fury, Jason was vowing to “get rid of that smiling bastard” and Dick was down and Tim had to tackle their brother and use his knockout pen. When everyone had come to, Jason had been very, very quiet. Tim was giving what he could.
Jason had his face tucked into his knees, arms squeezing them closer in a tight fetal position. Despite that, his voice, already hoarse from screaming, rang out in the apartment.
“I don’t even remember it, you know? Killing the Joker. It was all too green. I’d had a plan, to force Bruce to choose to kill the freak. Even if he hadn’t, I’d rig the warehouse to blow and he’d be put down either way. He’d be gone and I’d finally be free.”
Tim closed his eyes. He’d always suspected, was always fairly certain, but hearing it out loud?
Jason took a shuddering breath, voice bitter. “Instead, I woke up with one less bullet and a new set of ghosts.”
Dick choked on a sob beside him. They’d all been grateful when the Joker died. Dead, burned, his metaphorical grave spat on a million times over. But there wasn’t an escape from the memories or scars in the mirror. Tim has cleaned enough blood off of shaking hands, sometimes not his own, to know that, once you knew what that tasted like, the desperation of the damned, there wasn’t any healing from it. There was only living in spite of it or dying because of it.
The Joker was dead, and Jason would never have to fear an attack from him again, but it wasn’t closure because it would never really end.
(“Dead. Dead dead dead or alive or something in between,” Jason would sometimes mutter on his worst nights. Dick was still mourning the mirages of opportunities lost every time Jason took a breath. Tim thought he might be something in between.)
Simply put, it would be a disaster to try and pin down the newest Robin, because it would undoubtedly end with Jason having to confront both the boy and Bruce.
Dick maybe could’ve told them about the newest addition to Gotham’s nocturnal wildlife, but that would’ve required talking to Batman. Tim wouldn’t ask him to do that, and Jason wouldn’t even consider it. Since siding with the Raven, Nightwing hadn’t been in the same room as Batman or Bruce Wayne. It seemed to be a mutual situation. Tim did his best to stay out of the way while still being supportive in the background.
Every day, the odds of one of them having to actually speak to Bruce again grew. Tim hated the idea of it. He liked the idea of trying to isolate or poach the newest bird from the Bat even less. There were too many variables, and what if the newest bird wanted nothing to do with his brothers? It wasn’t like he’d reached out either. Tim really was at a loss, but he also couldn’t keep letting people bleed out from sword slices.
Something had to happen. Tim didn’t know what, and each day added to his spinning frustration, his wheels caught on ice. Sometimes, if he had the time, he’d try to explain the problem to his dad, going for far too long just talking in circles. He could not let his brothers deal with Bruce. He also couldn’t force the young Robin to stop cutting people by his own power. He was missing a piece to the puzzle. It was only an offhand comment from Dick that clicked it into place. He’d been sipping the hot chocolate they’d made after a relatively short ‘green episode.’
“This powdered stuff is kind of shitty compared to Alfred’s. Still works though.”
Tim didn’t remember what he or Jason said in response. It didn’t really matter.
Alfred Pennyworth. Now there was a thought.
His plan was relatively straightforward: Get Dick to talk to Alfred and then get Dick to make Jason talk to Alfred. Simple, elegant, and entirely not his problem once it starts.
He hates it.
Alfred is a variable that he has no reference for beyond what his brothers have said in passing. He does not know what motivates the butler, or what might be the desired outcome of having the boys meet with him. But it would be something. It would give them insight on what’s happening within the Wayne household without forcing Dick or Jason to face anything they couldn’t. It was a gamble at best. What if Alfred’s loyalty was to Bruce and Bruce alone? What if he, like Dick had initially, wouldn’t believe Jason was alive anyway? What if he didn’t care?
But what if he did?
If he helped, what would that mean for the two of them? What would it mean for Tim? He didn’t know, not even a speculation of what it would do to their little family of three, and he hated not knowing. More than anything, he hated how little he could do to change things. He would ask for the help, he would reach out when he fell short, but how could he here, with this? Who would he turn to, when the only people who he could consult were the very problem he was trying to solve?
Questions haunted Tim like powdered snowfall, swirling in his wake. The only way to get answers was to ask more questions. The more Tim asked Dick about Alfred, the more contemplative the man seemed, and Tim worried over the fact that his plan was working. Even Jason would chime in every now and then, talking about how the butler helped him with homework or how he made a certain dish. But then the moment would pass, and Dick would try to teach Tim a new acrobatic move and Jason would make fun of them before teaching Tim how to break out of something new, zip-ties or a hold or a car trunk.
Once a month they would round up any of the kids that wanted to try in their housing units and teach them different things, cooking and cleaning and little life skills that showed maybe there could be something beyond this, that they wouldn't just end up in a gutter one day. It was hard, especially with the little ones who were already addicted to things their parents had given them and Tim had to hold little kids as they shook through withdrawals he couldn't mitigate well enough. The ones he could, he weaned off, but it just wasn't feasible for them all. The risks were too great on both sides of the equation.
Others had been grateful to him, hanging off his legs and arms or generally being his shadow as he worked. These kids, he taught in the moment, little ways to keep them alive like disinfecting their friends cuts or stopping nosebleeds or treating shock. Some of the older ones started following him into the nights, too, learning to put pressure on wounds and gauging when someone needed stitches. Tim wasn't really sure how to feel about that. The first time one of his shadows, a twelve year old named Ivy, came with him to Joey's, the man had groaned about his troubles multiplying. Then gave them both soda and told them that their van was out back.
Tim thought maybe Joey didn't know what to feel about it either. Would it be better for the kids to be at school and not following him out straight into danger? Sure, but Tim was already doing his best to give them a stable place to live instead of the streets. He figured the danger was already there for them, but this way they wouldn't be doing anything destructive. Already, a couple of the kids he'd taught the fundamentals, fifteen year olds just looking for somewhere to land, had taken that knowledge and become what amounted to field medics in their squads when they started working for Jason.
Tim was happy for them if it meant there were less deaths to deal with, and they helped out by adding their own patients to his files. It had taken time, but Tim didn't feel as stretched thin. And that meant that he had more time to spend harassing his new brothers and getting bullied in the name of "training" in return.
When he visited his dad in the hospital, he'd whisper about how lucky he felt to find somewhere that felt like his place. So, when Dick started talking to Alfred again, small phone calls when he thought Tim was asleep, he thought that maybe it'd be okay, to have another person watching out for them.