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Tim is fifteen and this is his third mission going out as a woman. Only, he isn’t a woman right now. Not like he was when he was Lucy, the nice girl from an honest background that had been his first time crossdressing. Right now, he was distinctly younger.
Rachel is 16 and she met this guy online who promised to take her out for a good time. Her parents are blue-collar workers that have barely a penny to spare, so she never even left the Narrows and she wants to see the glory-side of the city. She’s a bit of an emo, with a tight mini-skirt and ripped fishnets and her hair is almost as black as Tim’s. She smells like a cheap-body spray and her eyes are lined with kohl.
She has an accent that betrays her parentage and she’s a bit of a klutz, but she’s not stupid and she has some very snarky responses if someone bothers her.
Tim would’ve liked her, had she been real. He almost always likes the people he pretends to be. Sometimes he likes them more than he likes himself. It somehow makes it hurt worse when these people get used and abused in a multitude of ways. Of course Tim knows they aren’t real, that at the end of the day he goes home to his empty house as Timothy Drake, not Rachel Fraser, but the experiences stay with him more than he likes to admit.
But Batman has made it perfectly clear that what he does is important and that there is no one else who can do the job. So he puts on the tights and contours his nose and straightens the bangs of the wig he’s wearing and looks in the mirror as Rachel. He doesn’t dare think about what will happen later tonight.
The man he’s supposed to be meeting isn’t nice, which is why he came into contact with Rachel in the first place. He’s suspected of abducting young women and selling them or making them work for him, depending on the girl. And Rachel will be next, if all things go according to plan.
Tim makes his way to the bus station outside of Bristol, where there’s no danger of running into anyone he potentially knows. The cropped-fit of the top he’s wearing reveals a pale sliver of mid-riff and Tim has never done that before. He typically likes overly large hoodies and jeans, never tight fitting t-shirts. The chance of revealing muscle-mass he’s not supposed to have, is too high.
Rachel puts her headphones on and blares punk-rock-music so loud the woman to her left side-eyes her and changes seats. That’s fine with her, she doesn’t like old people anyway.
Gotham is dark when the bus makes its final stop and the man is already waiting for her. He’s not particularly ugly, but he’s also not very nice looking and Rachel chews her gum obnoxiously loud.
The man grabs her by the shoulder and goes to a night-club with her. Rachel has never been to one before and she has a lot of fun (Tim is acutely aware of the mic he’s wearing and of the panting breath of the guy against his ear. Hands start traveling and grabbing what doesn’t belong to them) Rachel throws herself against his chest, dancing sensually like she’s seen in a movie and completely unaware of the target she presents herself as.
The night is long and hot and her feet have blisters in her knock-off doc’s and the guy kisses her right on the mouth.
Rachel has never kissed anyone before and she’s not very good at it. (Tim has never kissed anyone and he’d always assumed he’d have his first kiss with someone he cares about…maybe with Conner. The guy’s lips are chapped and rough and he’s biting Tim’s lip and forcefully pushing his tongue deeper. Tim wants to gag, he can’t. He wants to scream and cry and rage but he can’t. Not here)
They make-out a bunch and Rachel is happy with it. She thinks she really likes this guy who’s rough and fun and has the money she’s lacking. He buys her a drink and watches her with the eyes of a predator and she like’s the way the bubbles pop in her mouth. Her lips are swollen and she doesn’t know how she’ll hide that from her parents. Right now, she doesn’t care.
Rachel giggles and follows the man outside easily enough, there, he pushes her shirt up and she pulls it back down. She’s not ready to go that far. (Tim is terrified, absolutely terrified because he can’t do anything, he’s not Robin, he’s not even Tim right now. What is he doing, what is happening, what is this?)
The guy snarks a bit but thankfully doesn’t push further. Instead, he stabs her with a syringe and she’s so surprised by it she doesn’t even shout. (Tim does manage to push his panic-button and knows that Batman is tracking his location)
When Rachel wakes up again, she’s chained to a wall and there are sirens outside. The guy is on the ground and Batman hovers over her. She could cry, she’s so thankful and she promises herself to never, ever, do anything so stupid ever again.
(Tim will be in the cave the next night and the night after and when Batman gives him a ginger wig, he’ll sigh and put it on without protest)
Then Tim is in the bat-mobile and Rachel doesn't exist anymore. Her makeup is running and the wig is in the back and Bruce is driving in silence. He can still feel ghost-lips on his, feel dirty hands and the breeze on his chest when the man pulled his shirt up. He’s terrified and traumatized, but this has been a successful mission and there’s no way he can tell Batman what happened. He’s embarrassed, but isn’t this part of his job anyway? He’s Robin, he’s the decoy, the honeypot, and he did what he had to.
Batman delivers him straight to his front door so he won’t have to walk back and grunts out an absentminded “good work“ before disappearing again. And that is that. Rachel doesn't exist anymore and this night is unimportant.
The victims they found and freed with his evidence, those are important. So why does Tim feel so violated right now? Nothing even happened to him!
It’s stupid and childish and still he cries and looks up at the sky where the stars are glinting through the smog. He’d wanted his first kiss to be special—not whatever this was. When he’d started out as Robin, he hadn’t thought this would be it. He didn’t feel like a hero, not at all.
Tim wakes up with a gasp and can barely tell where he is. A nightmare, he realizes as his breath evens out. Just a nightmare— or more like a memory.
Back then, he hadn’t ben accustomed to truly changing himself yet. He’d been petrified by the idea of going out again for months, before he could rationalize it and the next time he went out, he was fully emerged in Amanda and he barely wasted a thought on her after he was finished.
Maybe Rachel had stuck with him because it was the first time something had truly happened to him, out there. He’d been a boy, a child, before he’d been Robin and in a district like Bristol nothing ever really happened besides one or two lingering eyes in the school-hallway.
But that had changed with Robin and especially when he started dressing up as a woman, specifically. He had had no idea how much harassment women faced on a daily basis. Hell—he should be thankful he only ever experienced it once every few months.
It didn’t help that he went out to clubs and such to hang with predators and criminals. And Rachel had been a break-through more than anything. He’d practiced kissing and watched videos for days following the night, to make sure he would be better prepared the next time he went out. He’d been lucky Rachel was barely older than him and had a bit of plausible deniability. Had he gone out as a woman in her twenties the lack of practice would’ve been glaringly obvious.
Bruce never said anything about that night though he surely knew what happened, from the mic but also from the detailed report Tim had written.
It had been months since he last woke up with taste of bile in his mouth and the feel of lips on his. It was weird, too, since it had happened again after, and those times never stayed with him.
It taught him to differentiate identities at least—had he been more prepared it would’ve just been Rachel’s first kiss, not Tim’s too.
(He definitely didn’t count other firsts he experienced out on the mission. Those were other people, not Tim)
It was probably brought up by the scene he’d caused with Amelia a few nights ago. He’d had no clue he was the only one out on those honey-pot missions and the others had been horrified. It was an unexpected reaction. Most of them had given up most of their life for their cause, hell he’d lost his father over the mask and yet this seemed to have crossed an invisible line. Dick kept sending him concerned looks coupled with a vaguely-sick parlor to his skin that ebbed and rose whenever Tim entered the cave. He hadn’t expected disgust—not from Dick.
And Jason had made it his personal mission to chew out Bruce whenever possible, as if he hadn’t done more than enough of that already.
Worst of all was Damian though, the younger boy was a vicious reminder of the age Tim had been when it had all started. He was so young, innocent-despite the blood on his hands-and Tim couldn’t imagine sending him out to a club. It made him wonder how Bruce had ever stomached it. Made him doubt if it had ever been that important to begin with.
But there was no use to crying over spilt milk and someone had to go out. And if not him then who? Dick, who was pretty enough but also visibly shaken up by the mere thought of seduction, Steph who would punch the first guy to touch her square in the face, or Damian, an actual child? Cass lacked the acting skills and Jason wouldn’t work simply based on physique. So really there was no one else to take up the work.
Which meant that tonight, Tim would once again don a wig and prosthetics and go out.
It was fair to say he was already in a bad mood when he stumbled down the stairs to breakfast. He’d camped out in his room last night because patrol had extended past sunrise and the debrief meant he had been in the cave ’til 8.
He’d called out of work for the morning, but by 12 he had to be up again to get at least some of his growing pile of work done. No, he definitely wasn’t bothered that Bruce had chosen not to return as CEO, he was totally fine with that. It wasn’t like he’d been hoping to at least get a bachelor sometime in the near future.
Breakfast-or lunch at this point-was light and only he and Alfred ate together, chatting idly about the weather. It distracted Tim a bit from the growing dread of the night. Tonight would be far more…hands on than usual. He was going as Shelby Macleod, stage name Ariel, exotic dancer and hired for a special kind of party at the Iceberg Lounge. The guest list was stacked with everyone who was anyone in Gothams’ dark underbelly and he was hoping to get intel on who was working with who. Specifically, if the Falcones were planning on doing business with the Maroni’s in the near future.
He had a pounding headache before he ever even entered the building. The entire time it took for him to dress up and prepare was spent cursing his younger self for some very misguided decisions. This time, he made sure no one but Bruce was present before going out. He had no desire to repeat the altercation, especially because Amelia had been a curious student and Shelby was decidedly not. He was wearing what amounted to lingerie and heels so high he very nearly met Bruce in height. (Which, if you’ve ever seen Batman and Red Robin next to each other, took considerable effort)
Shelby was blonde, ironically enough, and her fake lashes were longer than he typically liked. They were heavy on his eye-lid and he was already starting to sweat under all the makeup.
Batman didn’t even look up when Tim left the cave again, prepared for a night of…fun.
Not even half an hour later and he was reminded just why he hated going out as a dancer so much.
Sure, the music was loud and touching was basically a given but that wasn’t the worst of it.
No, the skimpy outfit he was wearing allowed for next to no hiding spots, which meant that Tim was essentially unarmed in a room with hundreds of men who were probably armed to the teeth and dangerous, even without their weapons. And Tim couldn’t run in his heels, couldn’t hide because he was meant to be seen, he just had to plaster himself against a chest and hope for the best.
He’d worked his way across the room towards the corner where Maroni’s goons formed a semi-circle around the mob-boss when suddenly, his arm was grabbed and he was pushed into another direction.
Shelby nearly broke her ankle, but managed to steady herself on a suit-clothed arm. The man who’d accosted her just laughed as if he hadn’t nearly caused an incident. He was pot-bellied and stunk of alcohol even in the fog of the club.
It took Shelby a second to place him, but when she did she nearly froze.
This was Antonio Falcone, slightly disgraced bastard son of Marco Falcone, the current leader of the mob. A perfect target really. (Tim was very familiar with the man, he appeared at nearly every party he had to attend and his grubby little hands always made him work twice as hard to keep up his disguise.)
“Let me buy you a drink, sweetheart“ the man crooned and Shelby smiled timidly. She wasn’t accustomed to so much attention and easily drank when offered. She was stupid, probably more naive than she ought to be as a dancer, and so she didn’t catch the small pill Falcone had dropped into the rum-cherry coke.
(Tim did catch it but he saw no way around it. He couldn’t let the drink fall, that would be suspicious, and he couldn’t claim not to drink because this was a club and Falconce would just make him do it anyway. He drank with trembling hands and nearly spit it all across Falcone’s fatty, bald head)
It didn’t take long for the drug to star working and within minutes, Shelby’s head was turning like a carousel and the man reached out to steady her, which was really just a poor excuse to grope her.
Tim hadn’t finished his mission but he also knew how a night like this could and most likely would end for him and no matter how much he split his personality, he couldn’t get himself raped, not like this, not again.
Desperately, he looked around despite knowing deep down that no one who was present at a party like this would care one bit about some no-name prostitute. He was seconds away from pushing his emergency-button when he spotted him.
Jason was in the club, mingling with some of his goons and cooly overseeing the crowd. Tim could’ve cried in relief.
They made eye-contact and Tim realized Jason had no idea who Tim even was. His disguises were designed to fool even his best of friends and he hadn’t said anything to them before going out. But still, he hoped the look in his eyes signaled that he was in need of help, a lot of help. Grubby fingers around his waist pulling him closer and Tim had to act but at the same time, he was frozen to his spot. In all his years going out, this ad never happened. He’d always found a way to escape the inevitable, but his luck was running out.
Then, Shelby manages to twist half-way in the lab of Falcone and makes a signal with her manicured hand. Her nails are press on and long, a deep red in color and she signs like her life depends on it. In a way, it does. She knows Hood had seen her, was watching her, and behind her back she began to spell out her issue. She had never been so grateful for Cass, for whom all of them had learned to sign fluently.
M-i-s-s-i-o-n / D-r-u-g / H-e-l-p / R-R
The very last of his signs, painfully spelt out by hand was his own personalized call sign, and it would have to do most of the heavy-lifting here.
But they were all trained professionals and Jason was fast on the uptake. Barely a minute later and Tim kept having to act like he was going to get sick so Falcone wouldn’t just pull him into the nearest coat-closet.
That was when he felt it, anther back against his and Falcone’s eyes going wide.
“Is there a problem here?“ Red Hood had a growl almost as deep as Batman and the mobster shook his head. Shelby groaned and plastered herself against the anti-hero. Anything to get her away from Falcone and his bad breath and dirty mind.
“No- no problem here. Me an Ariel were just having a bit of fun, weren’t we?“
Shelby didn’t answer, head spinning, and the hands on her shoulders tightened.
“Oh but I think there’s been a bit of a misunderstanding. *Ariel* is one of mine and I’m afraid I don’t like to share. You understand?“
The possessive curl in Jason’s voice made Tim shiver in his too-high boots and Falcone actually squeaked. She was roughly shoved off his lap and nearly face-planted into the dirty floor. Jason caught her beforehand, thankfully, and helped her steady herself. The heels were definitely not helping her confusion and everything was starting to blend together.
(It was getting harder and harder for Tim to stop himself from being Tim. He was starting to confuse the two and it was dangerous, he knew that. But the drugs were good ones and he just didn’t have the strength to pull himself out of the artificial funk)
Some goons jeered as Tim was manhandled out of the club but he didn’t even care. Jason was the only thing keeping him standing and as soon as the cold air hit his throat, he stumbled over to a trashcan and revlieved himself of his dinner.
“Shit, babybird. What did you get yourself into now? Are you good? Do you know what he gave you?“
Jason was obviously worried and if Tim had been in his right mind, he would’ve thought it was sweet. But he wasn’t, so it took all his mental power to just stay upright.
Frustrated, he unhooked the hundreds of clasps on his boots and chucked them into a dumpster. Of course, now his naked feet hit the grimy-alley floor but he didn’t even care anymore.
“’S roofy, I think. Had to drink to keep up-heave-up facade“
Hood cursed and carefully steered Tim towards his bike.
“What would you have done if I wasn’t there, hm? Would you have just gone with him? Is it really worth it?“
Tim shook his head. He didn’t know what he would’ve done if Jason hadn’t been there. Probably pressed his emergency button and pray to god Batman came fast. (He would’ve been too late and Tim didn’t even need to think about it)
“Think you can hold on?“
Tim hummed. Could he? There was no other means of transportation close by but his arms felt like pool noodles. He made a so-so motion with his hand.
Suddenly, he was lifted on the back of the bike and a rope was secured around him. Jason had effectively tied Tim to his back. It wasn’t exactly up to the safety-manuals’ standard but it would do for the few blocks to Jason’s place.
Despite him seemingly throwing up all that was in his stomach, the drug was still hitting him and Tim only noticed the passing of time in flashes. One second he sat on the bike in a random alley, the next they stopped in front of a run down house and then he opened his eyes on a couch and the lights were out.
The drugs were out of his system in just under twelve hours, so when he woke up at noon, he was only feeling them mildly. There was humming coming from the kitchen and the smell of eggs escaped tingled in his nose.
He could only remember last night in pieces and that was pretty terrifying. But nothing ached in places that it shouldn’t and he didn’t have a hangover. There was an IV bag attached to his arm and he had a headache. He was still in the clothes he’d gone out in last night and his very first move was pulling off the wig that had been practically glued to his head. It hurt but he didn’t care, the tension it created was enough of a bother.
Shit, he’d failed last night. The intel was insufficient and he’d gotten compromised. Bruce was going to be pissed.
Then, his older brother wandered through the door.
“Oh, you’re awake, that’s good. We’ve got a lot to talk about.“
Tim groaned. “Dick? What are you doing here?“
“That would be my fault, babybird. After you crashed on my couch last night, I alerted the cavalry. I’m not good at all this emotional shit.“
Tim wanted to suffocate himself with a pillow.
“C’mon, you gotta eat first. You lost your dinner pretty spectacularly last night.“
And eggs did sound good right now…
The plate was empty and Tim was dreading this talk. Dick was looking at him and Jason was pointedly not.
“Want to tell us what went down last night?“
“’was another mission, I was supposed to suss out a new deal between Maroni and Falcone. And this guy wanted to buy me a drink and I couldn’t exactly say no, he’s the bastard son of Marco Falcone. I saw him put the pill in, but I was undercover. And I tried spilling the drink but he would’ve just bought another one, so I had to drink it. The rest I’m pretty sure Jason told you already.“
“And did you even for one second think that maybe the info was way less important than some stupid cover? Shit Tim, I don’t have to tell you how much danger you were in last night…“
Tim shrugged. Yes, he’d realized that too, but it wasn’t like this was the first time he got drugged or even the first time he was drugged despite being fully aware of the drug.
“I was planning on hitting the emergency beacon anyway, he wasn’t going to talk since he knows nothing, so it would’ve been a waste of time“
Not to mention the nightmares Tim would’ve had of the heavy body above his, groaning in his ear, whispering compliments he didn’t mean and made Tim want to shower. He only ever did that in extreme cases and never without prior warning.
“You could barely walk, I highly doubt he would’ve just let you go“
Tim was starting to get pissed. “Yeah, so? Fuck Jason do I really have to spell it out for you? If I didn’t find a way out-which I did-he would’ve… you know. I was a fucking escort, of course he expects that from me“
Dick turned viciously green and leant over the trashcan. The eggs were coming right back up and Tim turned away to give him a bit of privacy. He had his own suspicions why his brother reacted like he did.
“How can you just talk about it like that? Like it’s not an extreme violation? How can you just accept that as par for the course?“ Jason’s voice was strained and his eyes sad. Tim had really hoped he could just ignore this all again tomorrow, but it was starting to dawn on him that they had a very different understanding of what giving all for a mission meant.
“Don’t you get it? For me it is par for the course. I’m so happy that none of you ever did what I do but I’ve been doing this more or less since I was fifteen. Yeah, it’s shit and it’s dangerous and I obviously don’t like it but eventually, I guess I was just accustomed to it?“
“Tim— you do understand what happened, yeah? That you and your body… I just can’t believe Bruce keeps on tolerating this. It’s abusive Tim, that’s what it is and I am so so sorry that I never said a word when you were younger“ Tim hugged his older brother who was starting to tear up.
“I understand, yes. How can I not when I’ve given literally everything? Dick, do you know what that’s like? To have nothing left to give to yourself? To choose to give to someone else? I’ve put so much on the line for this cause and I think I can’t stop now. Because then was it even worth it? If I stop now, do all my sacrifices ultimately mean nothing? Because I can’t live with that, I just can’t.“
“Tim, have you ever heard of the Sunk Cost fallacy? Of course, all your sacrifices mean something, you have saved so many people, including Bruce. If you say enough is enough, we’ll understand. And if Bruce says anything, I’ll make him understand…“
There was so much righteous fury in Jason’s voice. Tim was aware of the fallacy behind gambling, paying more and more in the hope to make it all back in one big cash-out, but he hadn’t realized it applied to him. But could he really give it up?
(memories of kisses he hadn’t wanted, sweaty hands, groans in his ear and the taste of watery-salt-musk on his tongue. Waking up from nightmares to wandering hands, of his innocence, lost and found and brutally destroyed again. Can he continue, is the question he should be asking. Where does it end? Is the question on his mind and he knows— if he doesn’t end it now, the end will be his death.)
But none of the others ever went on missions like this and Tim was the only one disgusted by his own body at the end of the night. Bruce certainly didn’t go out in skimpy dresses and latex skirts to get degraded. They would find another way—they had to.
Tim sighed. “You’re right. I don’t see why I have to suffer when none of you ever had too. Damian certainly never will. I think I’m done with undercover, at least for a while.“
Dick cried and hugged him closer. Tim really didn’t know how he felt about touch in general and romantic touch specifically, but he knew he would always want the arms of his older brother around him.