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It’s no surprise that Tim’s highest grade is math.
Currently, he’s taking two AP math courses, Ap Statistics and AP calculus AB, neither of his classes have seen his grade dip below a ninety-eight the whole semester.
Maybe it’s pride, the odd warmth in his chest as he surveys his report card, but either way, he attaches the digital document into his monthly email update to his parents and sends it off, checking the time to estimate when they’ll respond.
They’re three hours ahead of him as of now, which lands them at an absurd hour of the early morning, far too early to be awake, much less checking their email. His mother might see it when she checks her inbox upon waking up, but they’re easing into week two of their dig and his mother is always too preoccupied with other things to even scan his emails on good days, Tim doubts she’ll even open it before noon.
It should be odd, that his parents never respond sooner than a day after Tim sends it, usually more considering outside factors. When you take into account how quickly both the Drakes can type out an email, how apt they are at glancing at a document and immediately retaining all of its contents, you would think they’d be faster.
He tries not to think about it too much, instead weighing whether the food they have for lunch will add two or three hours to their response time.
Tim’s been measuring his life in equations for as long as he can remember.
It’s easy to look at the numbers and be objective, to look at statistics and percentages and make impersonal observations. The question: “Why do Mommy and Daddy never come home?” hurts far more than the hypothesis: “Mother and Father’s proximity to Gotham is directly proportional to the amount of free time I have.”
It’s percentages and math, his parents only being in Gotham 13% of the year, and it’s okay, Tim understands.
His parents have very demanding jobs, very demanding lives, very demanding needs, and Tim isn’t too high up on the list of important things to them.
Subjective observations hurt far less than the truth: Tim’s the problem, and he always will be.
Gotham has never seen a sunny day, and it will be a cold day in hell when the sun finally decides to cut through the low level smog that constantly covers the streets in a thick film of haze to add to the gloomy aura of the entire city.
On nights where Tim sits above it all, dressed like a toddler mixing and matching their entire wardrobe for halloween and sitting next to a statue of a man, Gotham seems magical.
From a photography standpoint, the way the streetlights reflect on the damp cobblestones below them create dazzling night lighting for a cityscape photoshoot, the way the moonlight filters through the fog is practically a gift from god.
From Tim’s standpoint, catching quick breaths of never fully clean air between fights and still nights where the world seems to hold its breath between each rooftop jump Tim risks, Gotham’s downright ethereal.
When he’s Robin, it isn’t pathetic, and he isn’t weak.
Statistically, Gotham is brighter on nights that Robin patrols with Batman.
The big bad bat himself hasn’t fully warmed up to Tim yet, perfectly comfortable with a strictly professional relationship with Robin, but awkward and harsh the moment the mask comes off. B often likes to single him out on slow nights, slowly pick apart all of his fighting weaknesses and low points to make examples of them, scold him on how he could be better, could never live up to the suit he sits so pompously in.
Nights like tonight, where Tim’s ribs ache with the hit he took that flung him into the side of the industrial dumpster, as he ignored the sting. Bruce scowls at the ground, muttering under his breath about the five different ways Tim could have avoided the hit in the first place.
Somewhere deep within his constantly curdling blood, he knows it’s intrinsically his fault that Bruce is upset. Statistically, 90% of all his problems could be solved if he removed the weak factor from the equation. Seeing as he is the weak factor, he hasn’t quite found a way to do so as of yet.
Bruce tries to be kind about it, format the hatred he obviously festers for the young bird into partner-like critique. Tim would believe it, if he hadn’t seen the way Batman had interacted with his previous Robins.
Tim can remember his formative years, chasing Bruce and another bird around the streets at night and marveling at the way Robin’s magic seemed to seep out into the streets around him. He ran the math, and looked at countless figures. It’s not Robin that’s the problem, Robin’s never been the problem.
Consistently, the only outlier in every equation Tim’s in is Tim himself.
Nothing is new about this observation, it shouldn’t hurt, it shouldn’t sting, it shouldn’t feel like an iron fist wrapped around his heart slowly squeezing.
That’s another thing he’s failed at when acting as Robin: keeping his emotions in check.
Tim learns to look at each interaction with Bruce like sailing.
There are thousands of components that go into maintaining a boat on the open sea, and the sea has millions of different moods, different shades, changing daily and constantly turning from mean to kind to mean again.
Bruce is similar in that way. They could be running cases in the Cave before Tim leaves for the night and suddenly Bruce is getting on Tim about his irresponsibility, how he never struggled with the other Robins the way he struggles with Tim.
Tim knows to give him grace, to not react when Bruce smiles and goes to call him by a different name, a dead name that will never speak again, will never be referred to in the first person again.
Sometimes in the dead of night, Tim pretends that all the smiles Bruce intends for a dead boy and that dead boy’s fake shadow are actually directed at the boy currently behind the mask, easily mistaken for the boy that once didn’t only own it, but flew with it.
He changes his sails and braves Bruce’s moods like a seasoned sailor, ignoring the thousands of growing holes of pain in his ship that slowly bring him down, how each accidental cut off, “Jason” feels like a stab in the heart.
Tim trains relentlessly, working himself to the bone. When his muscles ache enough to nearly bring him to his knees, he begins shooting looks at where Bruce works on the batcomputer, wondering about his own cases he has yet to fully look into, yet to fully gather numbers on.
Bruce always notices the extra glances, sometimes even makes an offhand comment about the extra scrutiny with a patiently raised eyebrow, but tonight, the man fully spins around in his chair, surveying Tim from where he works himself through a number of the mobility stretches Dick taught him.
Quirking a little smile, Tim shimmies through the movement and into a lunge as he tries to urge his shaking muscles into some semblance of control over his bones.
Gruffly, Bruce huffs, “Are you nearly through.”
The sheer exhaustion and exasperation in the other man’s tone strikes a long forgotten annoyance in Tim’s soul, a fire that he constantly fights to smother rises up on its heels in sparking annoyance, “Just paying attention to detail, thought you’d appreciate it.”
He smiles through the fading anger, even as his heart sinks to his stomach in anticipation of Bruce’s response. He doesn’t often mock Bruce, especially for something like being meticulous, and never as directly as he is right now.
Batman himself has already turned back to the computer, eyes rolling behind his reading glasses for screens as he continues typing, “You have school tomorrow.”
Never in a million years has Bruce ever cared about Tim’s schooling. The man has pulled him out of school on multiple occasions for missions and such, kept him running on two hours of sleep in days and sent him home to an empty manor to catch up on work due the next day. Tim doesn’t even think the man knows what classes he is taking, at least not enough to accurately comment on coursework, much less know how Tim is doing in those classes.
Often, Tim will trudge home somewhere between the time after they get back from patrol and before the sun rises, wrestle his tired, aching muscles into his uniform, and walk the mile and a half to the city bus that takes him to school. Catching up on sleep is for when he’s dead, something that he won’t be anytime soon if he has any say in the matter.
Face twisting in confused defense out of instinct, his tone is wildly disbelieving as he asks, “Yes, and?”
He feels the air stiffen more than he sees Bruce’s body language change, “Well, you should be going soon.”
Tim knows a dismissal when he hears one, so he picks up the resistance band he had been using and stands, trying to keep his gait casual and open so Bruce doesn’t notice that Tim has picked up on the need to not be here anymore, “You’re right,” he agrees rationally, like an adult, calming his breathing and reminding himself to keep his exhalations steady, “My parents might notice I’m gone and worry,” they’re in Honduras right now and haven’t contacted him since their dig in Asia two months ago, “And Mrs. Mac will be upset if I don’t try her food before she wakes up,” she hasn’t been by since Wednesday and won’t be by again for a week, “‘Night B.”
Bruce nods distractedly, like he hadn’t even listened to Tim’s flimsy excuses to leave without acknowledging no longer being needed.
It makes sense, Tim isn’t needed and hasn’t ever been, no mask or training can change that, but it doesn’t stop him from wanting to run up to the man and shake him until he understands just the vibrations in his bones, shaking apart his muscles at the tendons. He longs to let it spill out of him and through him, over onto Bruce like a blanket until the man comprehends just how filled to the brim he is under the surface.
It isn’t Bruce’s fault. Tim knows he’s a hard person to love, a hard person to be around for long periods, he isn’t agreeable, his very presence annoys.
No use fighting it, it’s Tim that’s the problem not anybody else.
It’s like a significant figure in science. There’s a certain amount of numbers needed for every solution, and Tim doesn’t make the cut.
Hopefully, he pauses at the bottom of the stairs, wishing he could say something to soften Bruce for just a moment, be under that warm gaze for just a second, see the calm waves for just a minute before another storm.
He knows how to push buttons, how to soften Bruce even though it’ll only make him harder later.
“You should probably head to bed soon too, old man.”
Bruce’s shoulders relax, sinking into something easier through his distraction with whatever case it is that’s taking up some of his brain power, “Night Jayb-”
The soft as sunshine warmth that had wrapped itself around Tim at just the tone of Bruce’s voice hardens against his skin, a suffocating dry humidity that drains the comfort from the air and leaves nothing but stifling heat as Bruce freezes, colder than ice.
It’s like Tim intentionally steers towards icebergs, drawing near still means you got the initial contact of being hit in the first place, and if you stop touching people for long enough, any contact is comforting.
Patrol for the next week is stiff, biting and weird as they navigate an awkward period and Bruce glares twice as much as often, hatred simmering in his words as he berates Tim for tripping on rooftops after running around for hours, taking too long to unsheathe his staff before a fight, whispering too loud during a stakeout.
It’s never Tim’s actions, every mistake can always be boiled down to Tim himself.
Everything can always be boiled down to numbers, like how if Tim challenges Bruce in less teasing ways, he’s 50% less likely to be mistaken for Jason, like how if Tim keeps still and quiet during debriefs like he’s actually supposed to, he’s less likely to set Bruce off.
The soft smiles still keep getting directed near his vicinity every once in a blue moon, but Bruce mistaking him for Jason starts becoming just as rare.
On the cold nights in his empty manor as he stares out at Wayne manor through his slightly frosty window, Tim pretends his intentional separation of identity had nothing to do with it, that he’s starting to actually become meaningful in Bruce’s life.
No fantasy has ever been more painful to remember the truth of, or so far from the reality of Tim’s situation.
Proportionally, as Tim grows older, his parents hang around the manor less and less, starting their steady decline when Tim turned six, and as Tim rings in the new year on the hardwood floor of his kitchen, surrounded by scratch paper and his calculator, he realizes they’ve reached an unprecedented moment.
The decline has been rather predictable, excessively easy to spot the pattern of, but this is the first year they’ve dipped below three, below two, below one.
If his calculations are right (and they always are, he’s gotten this equation down to an exact science), Tim’s parents are going to spend -3% of their time in Gotham this year.
He could factor in the promise to visit for his fifteenth birthday, but he knows promises that involve time from his parents are never followed through, and are completed with a zero percent success rate.
This equation has carried him through his childhood, a constant number that never estimated more than it actually would end up being, a range that almost always fell on the smaller side, and yet, being somewhere for a negative amount of time isn’t technically possible.
For a while, well into the early hours of the morning, even earlier than normal considering he also patrolled for most of the night before returning to the manor, he tries factoring in his complex email response equation into the whole thing.
Hypothesis for this year: If the amount of time in Gotham is accurately a negative number, then the amount of time will begin to affect parental and child communications as well.
He works well past the sun rising through the Drakes’ million dollar blinds, ignoring the beginning of the first day of the year. It won’t matter anyway, not one day this year will be spent with his parents.
Dick begins hanging around the manor again, and Tim spends half of his night after patrol doing the math in his room.
Eventually, he trudges out to the bus stop with numbers running behind his eyes and a cup of coffee clutched in his shaking hands, dozing as he stands to wait for the bus and reruns equations already calculated in his head.
Dick comes around 20% more when Tim isn’t around the manor, smiles twice as much when he doesn’t realize Tim is there, his usual joy dimmed to uncomfortable grimaces when Tim is around.
Tim can take a hint, he has been taking hints since he could do math, he stops staying for dinner every few nights and starts declining invitations to Sunday brunch.
Dick starts coming around even more.
Bruce has become brighter.
Knees buckling under the constant disapproval of Batman, when the weight starts to lessen, Tim barely notices, but suddenly they’re sitting on rooftops with their legs dangling as they wait for crime and Bruce is allotting him half-smiles when he says something the man approves of.
It’s not nearly enough attention for him, deprived as he is of any sort of adult approval since he could remember, but Tim cherishes each smile. He bottles each huff of laughter, brings them out in the middle of the night to clutch like a child grasps his beloved stuffed animal.
In the dark, clutching bottled huffs that are nothing like the open laughter other Robins could pull from the reserved superhero, Tim pretends for just a moment that Bruce actually could be his father one day.
Bruce sits typing at the batcomputer as Tim trains, spinning and kicking and twirling with his staff in hand, trying to make it feel more like an extension of himself as opposed to the wobbling mess it’s reducing him to right now.
He hears more than sees the moment that Bruce turns his attention to him, the frantic typing slowing down a fraction as the man’s posture shifts, undoubtedly watching him through the reflection of the computer.
Exhaustion pulls at his bones, even as his heart speeds up under the man’s scrutiny, muscles automatically tensing at the attention.
Trying to breathe properly, Tim moves fluidly from the kick sequence he’d been practicing into a roll that leads him through another sequence against the dummy, this one utilizing his balance with the staff more than the other one.
Everything aches as he pushes himself through the exercise, the only thing keeping him going at this point is the adrenaline that Bruce’s attention (divided, never full, never looking long enough to see the boy behind the mask) has provided.
It’s no surprise that near the end of the set exercise, he overcorrects and begins falling backwards, stumbling as he catches himself and loses seconds he could have been attacking, seconds that could cost him his life in the field.
The weight of Bruce’s gaze recedes after his misstep, of course only ever directed at him when he’s barely functioning enough to stand straight, nonetheless, he should have done better.
Thirty minutes later, he begins putting away the equipment he got out, dawdling slightly in an attempt to wring a few more minutes of human company out of the night, his empty and cold manor a shadow of darkness against the stifled warmth of Bruce’s manor.
Feigned care is better than empty halls and chilling floors, quiet kitchens with dim lights he can’t bear to turn up because no matter what he does, nothing can fill the stifling, lonely silence of that house.
Tim beams at Bruce before leaving, shooting out a hopeful goodbye as he stands at the bottom of the stairs.
Bruce doesn’t bother turning away from the computer, “You need to improve on your balance, it’s almost getting worse. I’ll have to bench you if you don’t stay on top of your training.”
His heart has suddenly become sentient, sinking down to his toes with a painful tug as the rest of his organs churn with the need to follow it. Ignoring the tears of frustration that pick at his eyes, Tim smiles harder to hide the shininess of his gaze that Bruce won’t bother to meet, “Of course Sir, I’ll be better.”
It’s an empty platitude, a repetitive phrase that has become so overused it’s fraying at the edges of his soul, pushing against the sanity keeping him together enough to be Robin, and Tim is about ready to snap if he has to voice the promise again.
It doesn’t matter either way, Bruce won’t ever press too hard, care too much, he’s learned that lesson through blood, sweat, and tears.
Tim isn’t enough of a reason to try again.
As he walks the trek from the manor to his house, Tim thinks that maybe if he is just good enough, Bruce might smile at him one day like he smiles at Dick.
Like he smiled at Jason.
Dick shows up at his door two Sunday mornings later, beaming with two coffees in hand as Tim peeks through the window and eventually unlocks the door so he can squint at the older man as he leans against the doorframe.
It’s early enough that Tim hasn’t had his first or second coffee yet, so the world seems blurry around the edges of his vision as he struggles to keep his eyes open, practically falling asleep standing between blinks.
He doesn’t remember falling asleep the night before, having gotten back from patrol around three that morning and spending an hour after running hand to hand drills in the dank cave as Batman stayed out.
Hazily, he’s pretty sure he rushed out after hurriedly stashing his things in his locker and zooming up the stairs as the Batmobile got closer to home. Either way, he definitely didn’t get back to the manor until four or five, and then he sat down on the couch to finish case reports.
Sometime between the sun peeking through his half-open blinds and Dick practically banging down his front door, Tim must have fallen asleep.
Eventually, Tim registers that if Dick is showing up to his house, he probably expects to be let in, so he moves to the side so Dick can walk past him, getting a beaming smile and hair ruffle in reward for his troubles.
It’s the most rewarding human contact he’s had in weeks, and he’s tired enough that his brain won’t tell him that leaning into the touch is a bad idea, so he practically purrs as he tilts his head to keep it in Dick’s grasp, pulling back a second too late as the implications of his actions catch up with him.
Dick doesn’t move from the foyer, so Tim trudges to the kitchen for them and starts a pot of coffee, much to Dick’s protest.
Tim eyes the coffee Dick brought for him warily, wondering if there’s something he did recently to make the guy mad enough to prank him. He’s been avoiding going to the manor when Dick’s there, so they haven’t even crossed paths this month.
Eventually, his need for caffeine outweighs his ingrained suspicion, and he takes the cup from the older man with a sigh, grasping it all the way around as the heat from the cup warms his slightly frozen fingers.
Drake manor is never hot, his parents preferring to keep the heating bill low during the cold months, having no need to keep it warm and welcoming when nobody but Tim will be home to enjoy it, and Tim doesn’t count anyway.
By the time the coffee is brewed, Tim has downed the cup that Dick brought, pouring his new coffee directly into the biodegradable cup that Dick brought with him as the fog in his brain begins to fade and the rest of the world comes into sharper focus.
They sit in silence, Tim on top of the counter and Dick in a chair as they drink their respective things. As his head clears, Tim begins watching Dick more observantly, noting distantly the fidgeting fingers against the cup and the way he bounces his leg when distracted before realizing he’s doing it and forcibly stopping, just to continue when he forgets to not do it.
He’s obviously here for a reason, any other need like just for Tim would be silly, so Tim smiles politely and decides to start the conversation before they move from slightly uncomfortable silence to meaningless questions about Tim’s life that Dick doesn’t really care about.
“What can I do to help you Dick?” he asks, pulling out his computer as he enters into the backdoor to the batcave that he has installed, already pulling up active cases that Dick is involved in.
The older man walks around the counter to lean against it next to him, still the tiniest bit taller than him even with the height that sitting on the counter gives the younger boy. Upon seeing the hundreds of cases running across the screen that Tim is currently scanning for keywords, Dick frowns, taking in the computer warily, “Does Bruce know an outside electronic device has access to the cave?”
Tim glances at him warily, still scouring through records to find the active cases Dick is working on right now, “Not unless you’re planning on telling him, which would be extremely inconvenient.”
If Tim didn’t know better, he’d mistake the expression on Dick’s face for happy relief, the kind of emotion one displays when they feel like they’ve finally got a way to connect with a friend, “I won’t tell, promise. Brother code.”
Ignoring the man’s weird babbling about betrayal, Tim finds the case he’s looking for, glancing through the details as he takes in the document. It’s a simple drug running case really, if you just hack into the city’s cameras (Tim installed that particular backdoor months ago). It’s where they’re getting the substance that’s tricky.
Gotham doesn’t usually outsource beyond out of country shipments, but the docks have been quiet, so someone must be smuggling the goods.
Into and out of city documents pull up an interesting picture, nobody really comes in and out all that often, except for the gray sudan that’s for some reason driven in and out of Gotham a dozen times in the past month.
The owner works for some low level company, and Tim matches the shoes he’s caught wearing on a Bowery camera as he leaves work to the same shoes one of Blackface’s thugs were wearing when Batman and Robin stopped a drug run two nights ago.
Dick mumbles something about the case not being too important, but Tim is already pulling up the feed from his suit two days ago and speeding through the footage until he finds the identification he’s looking for.
It’s an exact match, right down to the scuff in the left shoe, and looking into the guy pulls up a wonderful array of contacts helpfully entered into his unprotected phone.
Tim pulls together all the hastily gathered information into a folder, organizing it haphazardly with an inward grimace at how unorganized the plan is without his brain to sift through the processes, scrubbing the drive clean before reorganizing it into something better.
With the case finished, Tim shuts his computer, turning to a stunned Dick as he sends over the information directly onto Dick’s phone so Bruce doesn’t accidentally find it in the partially solved folder and decide to take the case on for himself.
Now that he’s fulfilled his duty, Tim slides off the counter and picks his computer back up from where he set it down, surveying Dick with much sharper eyes than he previously had.
“Is there anything else I can do for you Dick?”
It takes a moment for Dick to snap out of whatever trance watching Tim work had entered him in, jerking abruptly as he registers Tim’s words, “I-” the man hesitates, looking around the empty kitchen, still cold despite the inviting tendrils of sunlight that spill across every surface in the early morning, an unnatural stillness to a commonly busy place that makes the entire scene feel slightly off.
Tim hasn’t ever seen his kitchen full of light and laughter the way the Wayne’s kitchen always is, hasn’t ever seen any room in the Drake household seem more inviting than a staged catalog photo, but he can tell that it sets a family dependant man like Dick on edge.
“Where are your parents?”
Assuming Tim didn’t sleep through the seven alarms on his phone to get him up for school in the mornings, it is definitely a weekend, and Tim knows that the Waynes often assume that Tim’s parents are home when Tim himself is, far be it for Tim to correct them and create unnecessary concern out of forced obligation.
Tim can’t fault him for asking, not when Dick is a trained mandated reporter with an eye for things like this, but there’s no way he can explain how different he is compared to other kids, how he just doesn’t need the constant attention and care that most kids his age do.
He’s more mature, more independent, than that.
“At some auction for youth relief, it’s a brunch affair that will last through the day. Bummer, seeing as it means we can’t have family dinner today,” Tim says, the lie rolling so easily off his tongue as he disinterestedly picks up the coffee cups to dispose of them that he nearly believes his own words for a moment. An extremely short lived moment.
They might actually be at that auction right now, depending on time differences, it’s happening somewhere in East Europe and popped up on the itinerary that Tim hacked years ago a few days ago. He’ll have to check exactly where they are later to know if they are at the auction or if it’s still night wherever they are.
Dick takes the words at face value and doesn’t push, Tim doesn’t offer any more details anyway, so it’s all for the best.
“Well,” Dick says, obviously trying to bat down the excitement in his tone and act casual while failing desperately, “If you’re free, I have an extra ticket to the new photography exhibit at Gotham Museum. You like photography right?”
Mouth drying up as his heart rate skyrockets, Tim tries not to fidget under Dick’s obviously feigned casual interest. Tim’s obsessed with photography. He’s been raving mentally about the new exhibit for weeks now as he picks up every newspaper, article, and brochure he can. It’s a piece of interactive collage that walks you through different photography legends and the cameras that those famous photographers used. Tim’s been tearing through every piece of information he can get on it and he’s pretty sure he left a few windows of the batcomputer open on accident when reading about it before patrol.
Of course, Dick probably doesn’t know any of this, probably doesn’t even care that much about photography but doesn’t want to waste the tickets. Why of all people, he’d take Tim, bewilders the younger boy. He’s practically a waste of the undoubtedly expensive ticket.
Shifting his weight uneasily, Tim tries to read Dick’s impassive and casual expression, pick apart the microticks on the older man’s face, but Dick has been a detective far longer than Tim has, and he obviously picks up on Tim’s hesitance, “Please, I need someone to go with, you’re my only hope Timmy.”
Exaggerated, as is the melodramatic arm Dick flings over his eyes like an ailing woman in the 1800s, but it does help sway Tim, loath as he is to admit it.
“If you’re sure…”
Dick jumps at the opportunity, beaming as he grabs Tim’s hand, “Wonderful, go change we leave in ten.”
The abrupt mood shift just helps support Tim’s theory that all of Bruce Wayne’s kids are secretly theater kids, but Tim dashes upstairs nonetheless to change into something a little more publicly acceptable than pajamas.
If his parents found out he wore such informal clothes around other people, they’d have an aneurysm, and then probably skin him alive over the phone.
Now that he thinks of it, maybe he’ll be able to get their contact out of the negative zones if he starts appearing in the papers more.
It’s a theory for later, and as Tim practically drags a willing Dick around the exhibit and points out different gradients for color and lighting scales, rambling to him about different kinds of camera techniques you can use to take high-exposure photos in the dark.
Generally, Tim would be better about staying reserved, would be smarter about staying objective. He knows in the back of his mind that he’s just a last resort for this trip, that Dick probably asked a million people before turning to Tim, that Dick doesn’t care about the opinions of some kid. It’s his duty to entertain and listen, but he can’t help it, Dick’s face is so open, his posture so relaxed, he asks further questions everytime Tim falters in his rambling out of self-doubt.
It’s almost like he really wants him here.
Of course, Dick doesn’t actually want him here. The numbers never lie.
When it comes down to it, Tim is rounded out of every equation, unnecessary for the solution, solving the problem completely.
Robin solves his first major case by himself under Bruce’s tutelage, and the weight of Bruce’s approving gaze is like a straight shot of dopamine to his brain.
He’s researched, he knows what attention deprivation is, that it can cause children to latch onto the first person that gives them a shred of attention, but this isn’t about that. Tim doesn’t care about Bruce’s attention, it makes him squirm uncomfortably most of the time, completely undeserving of it. It’s the pride, the approval in his gaze that keeps Tim up at night, rushing through different security camera feeds and tracking down people in a search to solve more, do more, be more.
It’s a constant cycle of craving, getting approval becoming a requirement to have a good day when before it had been a break from the monthly routine.
Sometimes it scares Tim, the anxious rolling he feels in his gut as he pushes himself past the point of exhaustion in hopes of a smile, a small part of him knowing that if he keeps running himself into the ground, he’s eventually going to end up staying there, but he can’t stop now, not when he’s so close to a smile, a huff, a gaze fully settled on him.
If it kills him, it’ll be the worthiest way to die.
Tim had realized very early on his place in the hierarchy of the world.
He isn’t truly needed by anyone he’s close to.
His parents don’t care about him enough to even visit (It’s coming up on December and they’ve emailed twice, haven’t called once, and his parents haven’t visited since last November), it’s like he doesn’t even exist to them. Bruce doesn’t truly care about him, he’s just a stand-in, a fill in shadow of another kid Bruce loves, a cardboard cut out for Bruce to pretend is someone else. Dick is awkward around him, obviously festering hatred for him, but hesitating to show it because of their odd relationship.
Tim simply isn’t important, isn’t significant, in anyone’s life, in anyone’s story.
This isn’t quite new news, not when Tim’s known this in his heart since he could think, knew it in his soul since he could sing.
It doesn’t comfort the sting, nor the biting, harsh cold of apathy that threatens to upturn him every time he catches a poorly concealed glare.
Sometimes Tim feels exactly like a textbook bleeding heart, not the stereotype, but a wild, gory, beating heart, bleeding out sluggishly as everyone stands around and watches. It’s like love is stored inside him with the specific intent to never be reciprocated: love for parents that forget their own child’s name, love for a mentor that wishes more than anything else that another black haired boy would stand in Tim’s place, love for an older brother that can never love him as much as he loved his real brother.
Tim’s bursting with it, exploding at the seams, this love that has no outlet, nowhere to comfortably exist, nobody to receive it with reciprocation.
There’s nothing new here, nothing good enough, not for anyone respectable.
Tim’s an extra piece, a spare, an insignificant background character that threw himself into a plot nobody wanted him in.
There’s a new anti-hero in town, running rampant around Crime Alley and making his hatred for the bats in general but the role of Robin clear. The man hates them hard enough for a personal reason, though Tim doesn’t quite know what Robin could have done to a guy that’s no older than twenty-one (if that).
Bruce sends him to Titan’s tower, the threat from the up-and-coming vigilante making him gruffer, sterner, more likely to snap at a moment's notice than he ever had been before. It’s like the year and a half of work Tim put every part of himself into in the hopes of wearing down the man’s barriers have been undone, sending the boy rushing back to square one as he’s cast aside while Batman looks for the Red Hood.
It’s nothing more than he should have expected, far more than he ever deserved to even get this time, but being unable to help makes him itch with disuse. Not having a purpose isn’t acceptable, he needs to have something that sets him apart, makes him helpful, to make people want him around.
Currently, he’s no more special than anybody else, no more helpful than a toad. Bruce can see this, it’s why he sent him to Titan’s Tower in the first place.
Tim sits in a dark kitchen, completely alone aside from the blinking lights of a flickering clock beside him, head buried in statistics and probabilities, making himself useful in the only way he knows how.
Finding Red Hood’s identity.
It takes countless cups of coffee and nearly thirty-seven hours before Tim emerges from his thorough research triumphant, a sinking feeling beginning in his stomach as he stares at results he’s double checked and triple checked and cross checked.
There’s nobody else that it could be.
Everything makes sense, the fact that Bruce sent him away just shows the older detective figured it out first, thought it’d be easier to get him out of the picture if a Pit-mad murderer did it for him.
Red Hood is a dead man, but he’s the wrong dead man.
The power goes out in the Tower (it’s one of the strongest and unhackable places in the world) and Tim knows exactly why. When something’s wrong in Tim’s life, it’s always his fault. The wrong dead man is coming, and only one of them is leaving this meeting.
Jason’s coming to make it right.
Tim wakes up in the cave and he doesn’t understand, can’t make sense of the pain faded behind curtains in his mind, the pieces of his memory floating just under the surface of a place he can see them, there but unrecognizable.
He can’t fathom the pit in his gut when Bruce makes eye contact with him, soft eyes meeting Tim’s squinting gaze as he tries to clear his vision.
Dick appears from somewhere in the void on Tim’s left, soothing him softly as Tim tries to sit up himself and helping him pull the bed into a sitting position.
The massive amounts of coddling have never been directed towards Tim. Dick’s legendary touchiness is all but actual legend. Dick’s never initiated any sort of contact with him, not since he tried to hug Tim goodbye after the museum visit and Tim went stiff in his grip, thousands of clashing emotions sloshing around like liquid in the pit of his stomach as he stared up at the older boy.
None of that applies now, Dick climbing up on the bed next to Tim and latching to his side like an accessory, helping the smaller boy stay upright and pulling him into his side as Tim sags from the sheer pleasantness that seeps into his blood and makes his head feel fuzzier than any medication could.
Bruce clears his throat and Tim suddenly remembers falling asleep, blood sticking to the fingers he pressed against his bleeding throat, wheezing breaths fading into darkness as his free hand groped blindly against the slick ground under his hand.
His memory must be altered or wrong, because for a moment, he can almost remember someone grasping the hand gently, moving his fumbling fingers aside to stem the bleeding at his neck, but the only other person there had been Jason.
Jason.
Tim jerks upright suddenly, the memories rushing back quickly now that he could accurately piece together the other people there, wheezing past the bandaging against his stiff neck as he tries to report his discovery to Bruce.
Neither man there likes his urgency very much, Dick slinging a comforting arm around Tim that nearly makes the stubborn boy melt into a puddle of goo, Bruce speaking in hushed, soothing tones as Tim still tries to speak, to bat Dick’s persistent pulling away, make eye contact with a helpless Bruce.
He’s Robin, he has purpose, he’s an informant, a detective, a fighter.
He’s Tim, and he’s wrong, he’s always last to figure it out, impossible to explain. He lost the fight.
Bruce doesn’t understand, can’t understand that Tim can still be of use, still be helpful, not unless Tim tells him what only he knows.
Dick is mumbling a litany of words in his ear, one of his slender, calloused hands rubbing up and down on his arm as he tries to get Tim to calm down for a moment.
“J’s’n,” Tim wheezes, forcing the sounds out of his aching throat, pushing past the sharp stabbing pain in his head as he shuffles forward on the bed insistently, “Jas’n”
The moment Bruce deciphers Tim’s impassioned mumbling, the older man sits upright quickly, eyes so fervent Tim thinks for a moment the love hopefully blooming behind them is directed at him.
He really should know better by now.
“What did you say?” Bruce breathes, every line of him practically shaking with repressed energy, his nerves pushing through to the surface in completely out of character actions from him.
Dick nudges forward, eyes bright as he stares at Tim, “No matter who it is, we won’t let them hurt you again Tim, you’re safe here.”
If Dick would have taken off his belt and strangled Tim with it, Tim thinks it would have been easier to breathe through than his words. It’s like there’s a constricting vice around his ribs, crushing them into his chest and pushing against all of his organs. He can’t breathe through the pressure building in his stomach, stopped up by his throat and pushing against his brain.
“I-” he’s choking on air, on his grief, on his pain.
He doesn’t deserve this attention, the loving gaze that Dick is directing at him. He’s never deserved Dick’s minor attention, not when Dick is brighter than a star, shining like a beacon over everything else.
Dick is important, the love people have for him prominent in Bruce's fond gaze, Alfred’s soft smile, stranger’s whoops and hollers. Dick has meaning, holds weight, Tim is nothing but a placeholder.
A replacement.
“Jason,” he manages to force out of his abused throat, heart aching at the remaining words that bounce around in his head like trapped animals, “Just a little replacement. Nothing but another dead Robin. A shadow of your predecessors.”
He’s never been important, Tim doesn’t know why he thought becoming Robin would change that.
Robin is benched for four weeks while his wearer heals, Tim spends those four weeks training as relentlessly as he can, typing up case reports and scouring every shred of information they have that they could tie back to Red Hood.
Tie back to Jason, Tim’s Robin, his magic, the man who hates him most in the whole world.
It’s almost comforting to Tim, someone caring about him enough to hate him. It’s hard to explain, but Jason hating him means he cares enough about Tim to think about him often, or at least often enough to be a common passing thought.
Hatred shouldn't be comforting, but Tim has been raised without care, without supervision, allowed to scrape up his knees and dirty his hands without anyone to pick him up and brush him off. He’s been raised without an adult to fall back on, without anyone caring about him enough to even think about him daily, and has transitioned to Bruce’s indifferent gaze, Dick’s uncomfortable silences.
Nobody truly cares about him enough to think about him often, and even if it takes hatred for someone to care, at least they care enough to make their obvious hatred worth it.
Tim’s parents still haven’t called him, still haven’t responded to his previous email about travel dates, even though he hacked into their email and they did open it.
Jason tracked him all the way to Titan’s Tower just to beat him up.
Janet and Jack Drake couldn’t confidently tell anyone where he is at any given moment.
The typicality of it should hurt, but that particular brand of ache numbed into a dull flare of scar tissue years ago.
How people didn’t predict Tim figuring out every safe house and location Jason had been in in the past three months when he had been given free reign of the batcave for a month is beyond him, but Tim wouldn’t be the one to complain.
Bruce and Dick underestimating him has always been a gift in disguise, it allows him much more flexibility than he would have if they knew just what he could do with their resources.
He’s used to little to no supervision, and as with most things, the two overworked superheroes are too tired to spare a second thought about their wayward guest.
It’s a waiting game now, running calculations and probabilities until he figures out which night he’ll have the best success in.
Bruce has taken up the annoying habit of checking in on him every night before he turns in after patrol, doubly annoying as it encourages Dick to do the same thing when he gets out of his post-patrol shower ten minutes later.
While this does pose a challenge of sorts to Tim, seeing as Bruce won’t let him go back to his own manor until he’s healed (He thinks his parents are on a business trip and will be back in a week, Tim isn’t about to correct him), he has been training for stealth like this his whole life.
Tim’s parents are actually in Saudi Arabia right now, trying to argue with the government to let them keep the artifacts they found on their dig. It's delayed their travels by almost a week now, biting into the already little communication time that Tim has with his parents, a precious commodity nobody but him cares about.
Bruce stays out later on weekends, which gives Tim more time generally, and Dick hasn’t ever come in from patrol before three in the time that Tim’s known him, so Saturday night is his best bet.
Jason’s patrol route had been laughably easy to crack, coming from the boy that figured out Batman’s complex and rotating patrol route at ten, so Tim already knew exactly where to go by the time Saturday rolled around.
The real challenge would be sneaking past Alfred.
His legs have healed well enough to support his weight without trembling like newborn birds, but Tim’s ribs still jolt with pain at every deep breath, and his head pounds when he stands for too long.
It’s a wonderful excuse to beg off early after dinner, declining Dick’s movie offer with a slightly-exaggerated grimace as he does so, and it makes the bad audio of his pretend sleep sound more realistic because of how difficult breathing comes.
Either way, once he’s dodged every obstacle to get out the manor, physically getting to Jason’s safehouse is like a walk in the park.
The hard part, apparently, comes with convincing the man he isn’t a threat. It should be easier, seeing as Jason’s already beat him at his best, and Tim’s nowhere near that with his bruised larynx and fractured arm. His cracked ribs still protest every movement and his left femur still twinges with every step.
Nonetheless, he surges on, somehow managing to maneuver his way into the older’s apartment as he plops on his old couch, the uncomfortably stick out springs creaking in protest at the weight as Jason prowls across the room and takes perch on an armchair adjacent to Tim’s declared seat.
“What do you want Replacement? Looking for another beating?” Jason practically growls the words out, gazing at Tim with such fervor in his eyes that Tim almost mistakes it for hatred.
Jason couldn’t hate him if he tried, even if he shouts it until he’s hoarse, Tim knows by his actions he doesn’t mean it.
“You wanted me dead.”
The statement is darkening in the warm room, sucking the heat out of the air and leaving behind a cold chill.
Jason surveys him over his mug of coffee he staunchly refused to let Tim have a cup of, perched on the armrest of one of the dingy chairs in his pre-furnished safe house. Here, in the fading light of the day where the world has slowed down into a sleepy blend of overworked minimum wage moms getting off of a long shift, Jason’s rage has quieted, leaving behind a tired boy pretending to be a man.
“I saw Bruce,” Jason says, unable to look up at Tim where the younger boy sits on top of his kitchen counter, resisting the urge to kick his feet out, “I shouldn’t have taken out my anger at him on you.”
The three weeks between their last encounter has allowed for the dust between them to settle, leaving behind only the rubble and ruin of their pasts between them.
“Go home,” Tim pleads, staring at the grimy counter between his outstretched hands, “Bruce needs you.”
Scoffing, Jason looks away from Tim entirely to stare at the wall to his left, “Bruce doesn’t need me, he has a better version.”
Tim had known that no matter what their conversation began as, it would inevitably come down to this moment.
“I might be Robin now, but I’m a flimsy stand-in for Bruce’s real son. You’re always going to be needed at the manor, I’m just a stop-gap for the criminals in the streets.”
Jason blinks in shock as Tim pauses, giving him an opportunity to interject before he continues.
“After your uh-,” he pauses here, trying to gauge the man’s emotions. They’ve been civil so far, but Tim has no idea how the man will react to a reminder of his death, “temporary absence, Bruce became more violent than I’d ever seen him. I used to follow you guys on patrol, all the way back when Dick first grew out of Robin. I had never seen him so…,” flashes of blood against cobblestones, the sound of the dying moaning in pain, raspy wheezes out of rib-sliced lungs, the sound of people drowning in their own blood, the empty stare of a victim’s lifeless eyes, “havoc-wreaking.”
Jason stills, obviously detecting the pause.
“He needed a Robin,” Tim reports, pushing away the memories of a stumbling drunk Bruce yelling at him, the ache of hundreds of bruises on his skin after a training session, the hesitance for months before every carefully calculated word, constantly waiting for the other shoe to drop, to be the next body in an alley bleeding out after encountering Batman.
“He needed a Robin,” Tim says again, quieter this time against the torrential pour of memories, syllables muted through the anger in the forefront of his mind, “and you had been growing out of that role long before you left it.”
Jason is at least aware enough to not contest the point, giving in willingly against the opinion. Tim’s seen it twice now, the changing of tides, the twisting of winds as children masquerading as heroes begin growing out of their mentor’s shadow, becoming a presence on their own, plotting their place in the world. The natural conclusion of the first occurrence had been a blue and black clad hero bursting out at the seams of a costume too small for him, spreading his wings and taking up too much space, growing into a new city, a new identity. Growing into Nightwing.
Jason had begun showing the signs of it earlier than Dick did, already so much more independent than the original Robin had been at that age, buckling under the restrictions that kept him from being fully able to fly, gliding around with weights on his feet to bring him back down eventually. His age had turned the growth into teenage rebellion, not completely unlike Dick’s own rebellious stage, but the weights that should have been a comforting reminder of a home to turn to were too limiting. They became a point of tension, of resentment. Jason would never get the opportunity to linearly grow the way Dick did, his sprout of something bigger, something his own, cut short by his death.
Tim knows that even if the man is mad about being replaced, he doesn’t truly want Robin back, he’s grown far too much to ever fit between the fabric of his own costume.
“I’ve never been Bruce’s kid,” Tim continues, ignoring the persistent ache the combination of those letters formatted into words provoke, “and I couldn’t ever replace you. Just like Bruce adopting you didn’t really replace Dick. You’ll always be welcome at home.”
Scowlint, Jason says, “I’m not running back to a man who didn’t even wait for my body to cool before shoving another kid in my colors. He didn’t even bother to avenge me.”
“He tried to kill the Joker,” Tim speaks into the silence, feeling the atmosphere freeze against his skin, the moment before a breath, the pause as one holds their breath, “Superman stopped him.”
They sit in silence for almost a whole minute as Jason processes the words, face abruptly twisting into anger as he bursts out, “Why-,”
“Killing someone wouldn’t bring you back, and Bruce hadn’t been in the right frame of mind to do anything, especially kill someone,” there’s a pause, “willingly killing someone, killing someone no matter what, it takes more from you than what you’re taking from them. Bruce has always stood by his decision to never kill, and a best friend wouldn’t let him ruin himself that way.”
He’s rendered the older speechless, and Tim doesn’t really see this going any other way, so he shifts, getting ready to slide off the counter and go.
“Please, come bac-“
“I tried to kill you.”
Tim freezes, scrambling for purchase against a ground slick with his blood still fresh in his mind, drowning out the logical thought in his brain, it’s like a bluescreen jumping in front of his vision.
Unbidden, his mouth answers without his permission, “Half my friends have at some point, do it again and maybe then we’ll have problems.”
“I tried to kill you,” Jason repeats, like saying it again it is going to make it more true, make Tim’s struggle and plight more worthy of attention.
Forcing his muscles to relax, Tim nods, unable to make eye contact, “You failed.”
The joke falls flat somewhere between the blood on the walls of Titan tower and the pang in his ribs that comes with every breath.
“Why would you want me to come home when I-“
The words burst unbidden from some deep ache in his chest, “The manor is not my home.”
His passion throws Jason for a loop, “But your parents-,”
“Are alive and well thank you,” they’re somewhere in Asia, flying to China as they speak, they have no idea where Tim is.
“Even so,” Jason continues, confusion splashing its way across his expression, “Bruce would never let me back after hurting you.”
The obviously flawed logic makes Tim shake his head. Maybe if it were another kid that had been hurt, it would be different, but it’s Tim. Jason evidently doesn’t know exactly how defective and unimportant Tim is yet.
Thankfully, Tim is here to set him straight, “It’s me though, things are different. I’m not,” here he pauses, struggling to find the words for the knowledge he’s always instinctively known, which has been proven to him millions of times.
“I’m not important. Not the way other people are. I’m…” there isn’t a way he can explain it, put it into words.
This has always been a feeling, a mathematical equation that never needed words, didn’t need description when thinking about it for too long in actual thoughts made an uncomfortable ball lodge in his throat.
“Tim-“
“You know in science, how when you do math you count the significant figures to figure out how much you should round to? Like 0.03 times, freaking- I don’t know- four, gets you 0.12. But you have to round with significant figures, and zeroes don’t count. So there’s only one significant figure, the three. Your final answer becomes 0.1. I’m like, I’m like the zero in every equation. I’m not a significant figure, I’m…I’m a placeholder.”
“Tim-“
“You, you’re a significant figure. Bruce needs you, and Dick too, I’m just, not as important. I’m-“
Jason has managed to teleport across the room as Tim spoke, grabbing him by the shoulders as he interrupts, “ Tim,” the words sound ripped from his throat, spoken with a ferocity his name has never been given before, “You are so significant,” he says, right before he crushes him into his chest.
The world shatters apart, remolds itself back together just to rip again, stitching itself up once more as Tim sits safely in the space between Jason’s arms.
Tim’s never been anyone’s first choice, he’s never truly been a choice. Rather, he’s spent the majority of his life shoving into spaces he doesn’t fit, forcing his presence onto people that don’t want him.
For the first time in his life, he thinks for a moment that could change.