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English
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Part 4 of Tim Drake Takes Over The World (One Murder At A Time)
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Published:
2023-03-22
Completed:
2024-05-15
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3,024
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4/4
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And I'm Getting Older Too

Summary:

Bart is getting really curious about Dick's call. He might need to grab Cassie and investigate what the heck is going on.

Barbara is getting really sick of Dick. Might as well go on vacation to visit her favorite assassins and get away from Gotham for a bit.

Jason finds out about some stuff.

—

"Woah, that's a lot of blood," Bart mumbles, staring at the screen.

"Holy Zeus, that's graphic," Cassie agrees.

Bart squints. "Wait, is that the Joker?"

"Oh, nevermind. Get fucked."

—

Work four in the Tim Drake Takes Over The World (One Murder At A Time) series. Title from Landslide by Fleetwood Mac

Notes:

(See the end of the work for notes.)

Chapter 1: I've Been Afraid of Changing

Notes:

If you haven't noticed, I added Major Character Death to this one. That's because death is a hot topic in this first chapter — I would never tag it otherwise. Spoilers.

I didn't mean for it to get so upsetting, but my friend just committed suicide so it kind of wrote itself into that. That being said, I'm dedicating this specific work to them. Idk if they'd be honored by it or if they'd think it's cringe, but I guess this is my way of memorializing them.

Bye, Artie. I'll miss you.

Anyway, back to the stuff that isn't depressing!

It could be argued that my depiction of Cassie is a little ooc, but I did that on purpose. Losing loved ones changes you, and she was already so close to the breaking point when Tim leaves for Red Robin. Losing Tim tips her over.

Okay yeah that was still depressing. Sorry.

(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)

Chapter Text

"He's dead, Bart," Kon says. "Leave it alone. Dick is crazy."

"How would Dick not know Tim is dead? He's his brother!"

"I don't fucking know, Bart! Just stop!"

Bart grabs his arm, trying to pull him off the couch. "If there's a chance he's alive—"

Kon uses his TTK to push Bart off of him.

"Do you think I want him to be dead? Do you think I'm happy about this?" Kon shouts. Bart flinches. Kon's rage converts back into grief. It isn't Bart's fault. "I heard it happen."

"Something might have brought him back, Kon. We can't just ignore it."

"You can investigate it all you want, but I won't."

"Come on, Kon—"

"Just leave me alone."

Kon and Bart stare each other down for a minute. "I'm gonna go find Cassie and ask her."

Kon doesn't know why Bart is still talking to him. It's his fault. He should have done more, he should have saved him, he shouldn't have just sat there and listened as his best friend died.

(Even if he didn't have a choice. Even if he was trapped. A part of him knows it isn't his fault, but the rest of him blames himself anyway.)

Cassie isn't talking to him anymore.

Cassie isn't talking to anyone anymore. Kon and Bart don't even know where she is. He can't imagine how it feels, having to watch her friends die off one by one.

Tim dying wrecked him — he doesn't know how Cassie is still functioning after all three of them died.

Well, she might not be.

Child fucking soldiers. Why the *fuck* didn't the Justice League stop them? They were kids! Kids aren't supposed to run straight into their own graves.

But no, Cassie was the last one left. Kon had *just* come back when Tim died. She had to watch another one of her friends die.

This is the JL's fault. This is Superman's fault, Batman's fault, Diana's fault.

This is her fault.

She let him go out there by himself. She pushed him away and now look what happened. She was the only person he had left and now he's dead.

She thinks about it sometimes. If Kon had still been dead when Tim died, before Bart came back...

She's barely holding on as it is.

She quit the hero life for good. Cissie was right. She should have left sooner, should have dragged the boys out with her before this shit happened.

Tim is fucking dead. She still can't wrap her head around it sometimes. She was able to make sense of Kon and Bart dying, but there's something about Tim that makes it seem like he couldn't die.

Obviously that wasn't true.

He was too young. They all were too young.

Fuck the Justice League. Fuck the Justice League. Tim told Superman what was happening and he didn't do shit and now Tim is dead and Cassie is alone because she can't bring herself to look at Kon and Bart ever since Tim because they don't understand what happened, what it was like when they were gone, everything she did, the grief that only Tim could understand.

That's exactly what she's thinking when Bart shows up in front of her.

"I think Tim is alive!" he shouts at her.

"What? What are you talking about?"

"Dick called and didn't know that Tim was dead and was acting like he'd just seen Tim and I think he might have actually been there and we need to go to Gotham and check!"

He says it all in one breath and she can barely make out what he said, but she gets the idea.

"...really?"

She doesn't want to have hope. Not after all of this. But she needs to know. If there's a chance that Tim is still alive...

"Let's go."

"There's a giant technological anomaly nearby," Tim says, reading from his phone. "Like, satellites are going blind. We should go look at it."

"That's just me," a familiar voice says through his phone.

"Barbara?" he asks.

"Ding ding ding. I'm on a plane to your location. I'll be there in aprox fifteen minutes."

"I assume Dick is annoying the hell out of you?" Z asks over Tim's shoulder.

"He's insufferable. 'Oracle, locate Tim," 'Babs, quit protecting him,' 'Oracle, you're not acting professionally. You're ignoring the mission'. Have fun ignoring me pushing you down the stairs, Richard."

"Ooh, are we going into Babs' villian era?" Jason asks.

"Stop eavesdropping," Tim says.

"My villian era? Neither of you are allowed to talk there."

Jason laughs. "Really? Timbit?"

"Don't call me that," he mutters.

"Listen, I know he's an assassin now, but a villian? Funny."

His phone buzzes and he looks down. A text from Babs.

You haven't told him?

.It isn't his business

It very much so is.

.Then you tell him

Roy gives everyone a different designated space — there definitely aren't enough spare rooms for this — and Jason comes up to Babs after.

"Are you sure it's safe to be here?" he asks. "You've kinda been keeping Gotham duct taped together for years now."

"It isn't as bad anymore, not after the Joker. All the Rouges have calmed down. Tam thinks that he was putting chemicals in the food at Arkham."

"What do you mean, after the Joker?"

"After the Joker got paralyzed."

"I'm sorry, he's fucking what?"

Notes:

Remember to please leave comments pretty please bc you love me???

It occurred to me that with Tim blowing up a bunch of LOA bases in Red Robin, canon Tim probably has a higher kill count than this Tim, which is absolutely nuts bonkers. Canon Tim has blood on his hands.

Question time: if canon Tim and my Tim met, what would happen?