Chapter Text
Tim’s ears were still ringing, and his vision was swimming in a nauseating way that made the shadows not as steady as they should be which was just a whole problem in and of itself. Red Hood dragging him by the collar of his suit and cape didn’t help, Robin dragging his lip up into a grimace as he tried to get a hold on Red Hood in turn while also keeping his feet.
His arm screamed out in pain, whiting out his vision. Not that Red Hood cared, continuing to frog march him… somewhere. He was also hissing and snarling under his breath, the modulator not quite catching the words.
Okay, quick evaluation. Did he know what had happened just moments prior. He'd been in Crime Alley. He'd been investigating the connection between Nightwing and Red Hood, trying to understand it and verifying this or that project Red Hood had submitted paperwork for. He'd been moving between buildings and there'd been a flash? There'd definitely been a loud noise. Had he been on the grapple line? Probably, it wasn't like he'd risk other methods when that one was so easy. Had the line snapped? Had Hood done something to it? The concept of him falling was a bit laughable really, but it matched up with the pain his body was screaming with.
Had Red Hood shot him? That didn’t seem right, Red Hood was still marching him and yeah his arm hurt but more in tune with falling on it rather than a bullet wound. Broken? His fingers flexed, Red Hood shaking him. He didn’t think it was broken. Okay… that left him with what…
There'd been a noise, there'd been a light. Robin had been injured. Now Red Hood was marching Robin… somewhere.
Robin grimaced, reaching back for the hand gripping him. It mostly got him shaken again, Red Hood shoving him further forward so he could hold a hand around the back of Robin’s neck and the other twisting his arm behind his back and making him writhe against the pain. Alfred was going to have a field day with him… Bruce was too when he found out that Tim had been sneaking around Crime Alley without anything to show for it.
He did suppose he should probably consider himself lucky that he wasn’t just straight up dead, but honestly… Tim wasn’t really feeling it. He was still in pain, it was still Red Hood’s fault probably and there was also the detail that he was being marched somewhere.
“Robin B-02. Ro-” He startled as Red Hood kicked out, the bang of a reinforced boot hitting metal drowning out the coordinates even as he cussed. The voice that Tim knew as well as the sound of the bats in the cave echoed in his ears though. The zeta tube? Red Hood was taking him to the Zeta Tube!? He was using his id!
“No! No, no, no!” No wonder Red Hood hadn’t wanted him dead, he was using him to break into somewhere! Tim knew it had been too good to be true. Not even Dick was good enough to transform someone like Red Hood overnight! Okay, maybe not overnight but pretty close and while actively keeping most of the Bat family out of the loop. Not that that was unusual either.
Pretty much the only thing thrashing around got him was more pain and being thrown onto the ground on the far side of the zeta tube. Hood stomped after him, flipping him over and dragging him up again, this time with his bad arm still twisted behind his back and an arm around his throat. “Be a good little fucking birdie.”
Robin immediately thrashed, breathing deeper to block out the pain and very seriously considering if he should… if he should just… Red Hood was standing right at his back, practically pressed to him. It was going to shred the suit but if he could just…
“Release him!”
Or Starfire could rescue him. Wait… Starfire!?
Robin focused in on her, squinting behind the lens and realizing he knew exactly where they were. They were in the zeta room of Titan’s Tower. Red Hood was using him to break into Titan’s Tower?
The joke was on him. He’d dragged Robin straight to where the original titans were having one of their weekly or biweekly hangout nights. Robin relaxed slightly into the hold, instead letting his mind focus on picking up whatever other scattered pieces it felt like. Like for instance that Red Hood smelled faintly of… the caves? Not the Batcave but the deeper ones?
“Where the fuck is dick for brains?”
“You will release Robin.”
“Oh, I’m going to fucking release him, just as soon as his dipshit older brother bothers to get out here.”
Wait… Robin shifted slightly. Red Hood wanted Nightwing to be there? Why the hell would he….
Robin shifting made Red Hood tighten his grip, Robin hissing in response as his arm and shoulder were pressed up against armored chestplate. He sucked in a breath before Red Hood could make the grip too tight, ducking his head down while his other hand came up to try and get some leverage. It put his nose right into the leather jacket which… which smelled…
Tim wasn’t the greatest with scents. He knew his wasn’t anything like a lot of the definitively animal based others but even he could smell a claim marking. He could most definitely smell the one he’d been catching whiffs of recently, the one that had filled him with such hope and such dread as the weeks turned into months turned into… into…
Tim dragged in a breath. He had to be sure, he had to know but it was still the same, it was still…
Red Hood was marked with Nightwing’s otherness. Red Hood… he… Nightwing had shown Red Hood his otherness but not Robin . Tim had known that Dick was only saying words when he claimed them to be brothers but still held that distance between them, still kept everything strictly human but to have proof .
He would not cry. He would most certainly not cry even as his sudden difficulty breathing had nothing to do with the arm still around his throat or the physical pain.
“Fucking hell…” The arm released, Red Hood grabbing him by the back of his neck again. The shaking in no way shape or form helped. “Quit that.”
He should lash out. He should just turn and lay into Red Hood with all of the pain that he currently felt. The body armor might prove difficult for even his claws to get through but he was reasonably confident he could shred from the wrist cuff to the shoulder into nice bloody strips. Blood dripping on the floor and filling the air as his wings opened and cries rattled the windows.
The door slammed open, Nightwing all but tumbling into the room looking blotchy and sweating, his training undersuit slicked to his legs and a loose wrinkled shirt thrown on. The moment he took in the scene, all color left his face. “Hood…” The other titans filed in after him as he took slow cautious steps forward with one hand outstretched, his scent wafting around him, the dominance of it so immediately strong and… and.... He saw Nightwing’s gaze zero in on him, eyes wide with concern and surprise and then it didn’t really matter.
“What did I fucking say! What did I say , shitlord!” Red Hood threw him, Robin rolling over his good shoulder with the impact and twisting around only for Starfire to be there, shoving him behind her. “No fucking bats in Crime Alley! That was our deal! That was our fucking deal but nooooo-”
Hood stalked forward, jabbing Nightwing in the chest. Nightwing’s gaze dropped, his breath deepening and lip peeling back oh so slightly and just… just… Robin buried his face in Starfire’s side. He didn’t need any more confirmation.
He’d known that the older titans knew about Dick’s otherness. With how close all of them were, they had to. They knew what Dick really was… just like Tim had let Bart see little flashes, like how Kon was close enough a few times to run his fingers through shadows pretending to be flesh or for a tail to be looped through his fingers while Tim tried to focus on a case. For him to show it so openly not just in front of them but to Red Hood, to prove that even the Titans knew that Red Hood was closer to Dick than Tim was…
He had no desire to watch that. Starfire immediately wrapped herself around him, soothing.
“I’m only going to say it once more. No. Other. Bats. In. My. Territory.”
“Hood!”
“Fuck you!”
“Hood!” Footsteps, several footsteps and the zeta going off again. Then he was being peeled back from Starfire. “Robi-”
“Get off me!” He snapped, shoving Nightwing back. Shakily and with the pain truly starting to settle in, he got to his feet. Red Hood had apparently just left which of course he would… He was close to Dick, close enough to be friends, family , and accepted . “Fuck off!”
“Robin,” Nightwing reached for him again, Tim fighting back every urge to only shuffle backwards and not send Nightwing crashing to the ground with a well placed snap of wind. “Tim, you’re hurt…”
“Obviously! You’re little playmate fucking-!” He couldn’t… if he stayed he was going to overstep clear boundaries, he was going to let his own otherness out because he couldn’t get it through his thick fucking head that Dick didn’t want that and he just… just…
Tim turned on his heel, stalking to the doors that slid open for him. Nightwing just couldn’t leave it alone though, shooing off the other Titans to chase after him. “Tim.”
“Go away.”
“Tim, please…”
Unfortunately, he couldn’t just stalk to his room and slam the door. He was injured, so he settled for stalking to the medbay instead. Nightwing shadowed him every step of the way, and seemed to sag a little in relief when Robin hauled himself onto a cot and scowled at him. He would not be talking to the man, even when the gentle prying started to be a little less than gentle.
Eventually Tim curled his lip slightly. "Just go ask Red Hood since clearly you're close to him."
Dick caught his chin, forcing it upwards with maybe more than could be called gentle since Tim didn't go willingly. "What did he do?"
Tim jerked out of the hold, turning his back to Dick. "He shot out my fucking line."
Dick sucked in a pained sounding breath. "But he caught-" It sounded painfully hopeful, delusional even.
"No he fucking didn't!" He hissed, watching as the shadows behind Dick shifted. It wasn't much but Tim had to breath. Then he turned. "Just leave me the fuck alone. I don't want and I don't need your fake fucking concern."
"Tim-"
The door slid shut behind him, Tim stalking down the hallway. He didn't stop until he reached the zetatubes, despite the calls and concern from other team members he passed. The cave was dark when he entered, when he finally felt the clawing cry in his surface in a way he couldn't quite hide. Still, he kept it subtle. The bats didn't want him as part of his pack either. He knew that. He was the outside. He was always the outsider.
Unwanted. Unasked for. Forcing himself into the situation.
It was his nature. It was what his kind was .
He passed down the tunnel to the Drake Manner but he didn't fully go home. Instead he turned. It wasn't like his parents had wanted him either. He couldn't be what he was if his mother had wanted him. He would have been normal and none of this would have bothered him at all. He would have just been Tim .
The crag was natural, a sliver in the stone that everyone knew led to the deeper cave systems. No one thought much of it as a security issue though due to the tight nature of it. A full grown man couldn't pass through. Even a child would struggle and probably become trapped. That is… if they were a normal child.
The shadows clung to him, form distorting and sliding through the space like thickened shadow, letting Tim feel each bump and nick of stone. Then he was through to the other side, into a massive cavern below where water rushed and flowed towards the Bay. There, he let his back shift and crack, massive leathery wings opening. Some liked to think that the cloven hooves his feet were replaced by would struggle. Most forgot the feats goats were capable of. The horns extended back, curled and pronged into a mass not quite defined as any one animal. A tail, spaded and definitively sharp lashed as his fingers grew to claws and any number of other subtle shifts took place. His otherness released, all of it curling up, bubbling under the surface until he could only sit with his wings draped off the side, tilting his head back to let out a cry that echoed through the space, a cry that he knew could shatter glass and had been called before a bad omen.
He wasn't quiet. Not here. Not now. Instead he let all of it out, the pain, the frustration, safe in the knowledge that even if someone did hear, no one would ever be able to locate the source in the winding tunnels and caves. No one would come to bother him as he draped across the stone, wings and tail hanging free at last.