Chapter Text
Tim didn’t stay in the lab for long after Damian left him. The echoes stored there were too big, too overwhelming for him to digest. He more or less fled the area, trying to find some way to process everything that was happening, all the revelations that kept hitting him today.
Maybe it was a mistake to come here, he thought to himself dismally. He’d come for answers, for clarity, but everything now felt murkier and more impenetrable as ever. Who was Bruce? Who was Tim? Was anything he had once stood on, any foundation at all, ever really stable, unchangeable? Tim couldn’t sort out the tangles in his thoughts or feelings enough to even answer that.
Seeking some kind of quiet, dark place, his feet lead him away from people, deep into the bowels of the physical archives where no one really went. It was a honeycomb of rooms that stored old pre-cogs, either fulfilled or prevented, and all the old paper research other miscellanea that no longer had a use but to keep a record. Here in the quiet, cool, sound deadened place, Tim wandered aimlessly, trying to get his thoughts into some sort of order.
He didn’t want to face the family like this. He didn’t want to face anyone. He felt wrecked. He didn’t even know what to think about all this. His skin felt too small, like he was trapped, like he was going to explode.
He didn’t know how long he wandered when he found the room. He’d been walking in a kind of daze, thoughts running in wild but futile circles, but when he saw a room filled with what looked like… stands covered in static sheets. It was unusual enough to draw him from his thoughts. This was a records archive; any art assets the Institute owned were stored in the museum.
Frowning, he went into the dark room, the lights automatically responding to his presence. It wasn’t a huge room, but it was filled with stands covered with static sheets and crammed into every available space. Tim pulled one aside and promptly dropped it on the floor.
The painting was of him.
He was, from the point of view of the observer, upside down. Or, more accurately, it was a painting of him falling from a height head first. His arms were outstretched. His hands and most of his arms were cut off on the bottom of the canvas, but his face was clearly rendered. His eyes were closed, almost like he was asleep. The picture had a weird, surrealist quality to it; he was bathed in light on a lumpen and ugly grey background, but the edges of his body were blurred and leached of colour, blending with the grey in a million tiny brushstrokes. Like he was dissolving.
Turning to dust.
Tim felt a chill run down his spine when he looked around the rest of the room. Almost not wanting to know, he started tearing sheets off the rest of the stands.
They were not all the same picture, but it was certainly all the same subject. Him, falling, grey dust. Some showed his figure as smaller, from a view further away. Some were close ups, just his face or just his hands. Some of them the artist had clearly tried to bring the background into focus, managing to paint the hodgepodge mountains of old washing units, skimmers, old cars and other junk. On certain ones blurred license plates had been circled in red by someone else after the paint had dried; a reference point for pre-cog researchers, Tim knew.
In some, a precious few, it showed Tim holding on to someone. But the figure was indistinct, the lines increasingly frustrated as the artist tried to capture the subject but wasn’t given enough information to render it.
“You never actually met Jason, did you Damian?” Tim murmured. Holos and the like were all very well and good, but pre-cog visions weren’t nearly as clear as them. They weren’t viewed at a distance, objectively and at one remove. A pre-cog was often right in the thick of it, only able to see certain details clearly. That’s why so much of their time and money was spent on pre-cog analysis; you really did have to do a lot of work to make any sense out of what any pre-cog got. One thing pre-cog generally saw the clearest were places and people that they already knew. Damian had only seen Tim clearly because he knew Tim. Jason had been an unknown factor.
The swell of pity he felt for the boy before turned into a rushing tide. He must have been seeing this, working on it, for months on end. Even for someone as desensitized to violence and death as Damian was, that was a lot to contend with for a kid. Seeing someone die, or seemingly die, over and over again wasn’t something Tim would want for him, even with their problems. “Poor kid,” he muttered softly. He really had been through the wringer while Tim had been gone.
“He was,” a soft voice agreed.
Tim was pretty inured to shock these days, but he still jumped.
Mind you, Cass was, as demonstrated, the foremost expert of the stealth pounce.
She grinned at him. Tim huffed out a breath and rolled his eyes at her.
She sat down next to the wall and patted the floor next to her imperiously. Tim took the order in good grace, flopping down next to her and taking her hand.
He felt a wave of relaxation hit him; gently and slowly, like a small wave rather than a tsunami. Not demanding he accept it, but there if he needed it.
God, he’d missed Cass.
Missed you too, Cass sent telepathically. They always spoke better like this.
“Sorry,” Tim told her, throat unexpectedly growing tight. “Sorry I left without saying goodbye. For making you worry.”
Cass shook her head and then leaned it against Tim. I wasn’t worried. You are strong. Far stronger than you were allowed to know. I worried about Bruce. About Dick. About the rest. They were all so frightened. But not about you, her hand tightened. I knew you’d come back. I had faith.
He leaned his head back against hers. “Thanks Cass,” he croaked.
They were silent for a while staring at the multitude of paintings, showing his knife edge brush with death. So much had changed. Tim almost felt like his past pre-leaving was a whole other lifetime, lived by someone else. Now that he was back here, despite his experiences living in the crush of Jerhatten, this place felt ill fitting, like a pair of shoes that were slightly too small. The feeling was weirdly unsettling in its own way. He’d always, in his heart, believed that he could go back. He hadn’t wanted to, but he knew he could have. He’d always assumed the Institute was immortal, unchanging in the fundamentals.
The Institute, Cass broke into his thoughts. Is not the world. Her hand squeezed his. You deserve the world. Even Bruce believes that.
“Bruce,” Tim snorted. Even past all the calm, his feelings around Bruce were all knotted up. He still loved Bruce. He knew Bruce loved him. But he was just so angry, still.
Bruce made a mistake, Cass said with the mental equivalent of a shrug. A big mistake. You are allowed to be angry about it. You can also love him for it too. For meaning well. You don’t have to forgive him today. Today, you can be angry about it. He’s not going to leave you over it. He’s not your parents. He won’t abandon you for being inconvenient and emotional.
“God, I missed you, Cass,” Tim huffed. As usual, she tracked the thread all the way to its origins. A lot of what he did found its emotional basis in that niggling fear. Jack and Janet Drake were still out there somewhere, on endless rounds of parties and travel, likely not even remembering they once had a son. If Tim Drake couldn’t even squeeze love out of his parents, what chance did he have with anyone else? Why would they stay with him, unless he was somehow useful? That he wasn’t a bother?
Jack and Janet Drake, he realized, really were just shit human beings. It really had nothing to do with him at all.
Yes, they were, Cass agreed. One day, we’ll meet. The most evil smirk in the world briefly painted itself across her face. One day.
Oy. Turns out Tim could dredge up a sand grain of sympathy for them nonetheless, though no more than a grain. Cass was the one everyone feared. Even Bruce.
“I guess Bruce told you guys,” Tim said heavily as the levity drained away.
We have been asking for answers for months, Cass nodded. He said he had to talk to you about it first, but then he said he’d tell us too. Damian might have told Dick accidentally first though, Cass added. When he came back from seeing you. He thought Dick already knew, I think.
Tim frowned. “I’m surprised Damian made that kind of mistake.” Damian usually took great pride in knowing everything everyone around him was thinking.
He doesn’t scan without permission as much as he used to, Cass told him. He feels safe enough now to not feel like he has to. Dick wasn’t happy with Bruce. Neither was anyone else. There was a lot of yelling. I left them to it and came to find you.
Tim winced. He couldn’t blame her. “What about you? Are you mad at Bruce?”
A little, Cass admitted. He should have known keeping secrets wasn’t going to turn out well. And I don’t like that you got hurt. So I’ll be a little mad today. Tomorrow will be different. But I don’t think any of us will punish him worse than he is already punishing himself. He is hurting very deeply, Cass added, mental voice laden with sighs. He takes too much pain into himself sometimes. It’s very silly.
Tim focused on the paintings for a while. If Cass said Bruce was in pain, then he was in pain. The knowledge didn’t give him one iota of satisfaction. He couldn’t muster the necessary vindictiveness to deliver a hearty serves-you-right, even in the depths of his own anger. All he felt was a tired kind of grief at the rupture of one of his closest and most dearly held relationships.
Who knows? Maybe that meant there was still hope for them.
Maybe it didn’t mean anything except that he was exhausted by it all.
Maybe, he thought, looking at the paintings, these dozens of paintings with Jason cut out of the frame, maybe it just didn’t matter, in comparison to the rest of it.
Cass put her arm around his shoulders.
“I saw Dick, you know,” Tim murmured after a while. “Down in the Linears once. He was looking for me. I remember thinking that if you had been there, there would have been nowhere I could have hidden where you wouldn’t find me. But I never saw you,” Tim tilted his head to look at her. “You never came looking.”
Cass looked at him. I wasn’t worried. The others looked at all of these and saw death. I didn’t.
“What did you see?” Tim asked.
Love.
Tim felt tears prickle at his eyes when he looked at them, at the precise rendering of his face in careful brushstrokes. There was no stress in the lines, no clench in the jaw. At best, you could see the sharp delineation of his brow; not anger, but pure determination. Someone who was going to the end of the world with a loved one in their arms and hanging on with everything they had. So tightly that the whole universe couldn’t tear them asunder.
Somewhere, only miles away, as close as that, Jason lay as Tim remembered him; in a sleeping world, carefully coming back to the waking one. The fulfilment of all Tim’s hopes and dreams coming true.
And when his eyes opened into daylight, he wouldn’t remember Tim. He wouldn’t remember this strange boy who’d wandered into his world and changed it forever. He wouldn’t remember all the moments, the good times, the kiss, that Tim carried with him every day.
Maybe it was better that way. Jason had loved him in those last few seconds absolutely, but that didn’t mean he’d forgiven Tim. He’d never said so.
What right did Tim have to be mad at Bruce? Hadn’t he done the same? Hadn’t he kept knowledge Jason had had a right to from him under the aegis of protecting him, as if Jason was some child who couldn’t live with the truth? So what if the scale was smaller? The mechanism was exactly the same.
Tim felt his heart hammering in his chest, all the other griefs and regrets falling away in the face of the biggest, most unendurable one of all. The one Tim would never be able to fix. The one he couldn’t even get closure for, not like he would for the others.
Cass’ arm tightened around him. She wasn’t drawing it out of him. She was just letting him feel it, in his own way and at his own pace.
“I thought he was a time bomb, you know,” Tim rasped, letting the tears fall. “I was against the clock. I had to save him before the timer ran out. And all this time it was me,” Tim sobbed. “It was me. I was the time bomb.”
Cass said nothing. She just held on as Tim cried himself out.
*
Eventually they had to go back to the visitors centre. Tim could have, theoretically, just teleported home but he a) refused to leave Cass holding the bag and b) was self-aware enough by now to realize that running from his problems would just make more problems down the road.
He was just kind of glad he got to do this in the visitors atrium and not the Manor. He should probably thank Cass for that, since he was sure she’d been the one to tell the family where they were going to be. And she wasn’t the type to take no for an answer from any of them.
The opening hours had ended by the time they made it back, so the visitors centre was free of any people. The last stragglers were probably down at the train station, waiting for the last train back down to Gotham for the day to arrive. If Tim hurried through this, he’d probably make it in time to catch it.
That, of course, meant dealing with the thick, cloying tension in the atrium once he arrived. There was a sharply delineated no man's land between most of the family and Bruce when Tim arrived, though Tim wasn’t sure if Bruce’s exile to the far reaches of the atrium was self-imposed or not. Dick kept shooting him nasty looks. Steph was passive aggressively working behind the counter, probably finishing up the records for the day, and not acknowledging him. Babs was with her; far more serene but also far more pensive. Alfred was absent, which was likely the wisest course he could take. Damian was also there, shuffling uncomfortably, exactly midway between Bruce and Dick. Tim felt for the kid, he really did.
“Tim!” Dick all but launched himself over when Tim hit the floor. This time Tim allowed the hug, because Dick looked all kinds of wrecked and sad. “Are you okay? Where have you been? You don’t feel sick, do you?” Dick asked anxiously.
Tim rolled his eyes. Yep, there was Mother Hen Grayson, right on schedule. “Relax Dick, I’m fine.”
“No offense ex-boyfriend,” Steph raised a disbelieving eyebrow. “But you don’t look it.”
Tim reflected that, yeah, her observation was kind of valid. He probably looked like a wreck that had recently cried his guts out. But the whole act had been a magnificent purge. His mind felt as clear as bell and his feelings felt stable, at least for now. Good enough for him to fend off their well-intentioned smothering. “Gee, thanks, Steph. Love you too,” he retorted with cheerful sarcasm. “It’s been a hell of a day. I had a lot to digest. That doesn’t mean I’m actively dying.”
Not the most well-chosen words he could have used. The atmosphere noticeably dimmed.
“Let’s go up to the Manor,” Babs suggested. “I think Alfred should take a look at you, kiddo. Just to be safe.”
“I can’t,” Tim shook his head, tucking his kneejerk hell no reaction deep inside. “I’ve got to get to the station before the last train goes.”
The rest of the room stared at him in wide eyed consternation.
“Drake, you fool,” Damian piped up, sounding baffled. “Your condition requires constant medical intervention! You will not survive in the Linears!”
“Hey, I survived six damn months in the Linears,” Tim protested. “And three more in the wastelands. And, in case you forgot, I also kicked your ass in the middle of that too.”
Damian gave him a constipated scowl.
“Besides,” Tim added before it could turn into an epic snipe fest. “My heart’s fine. Better than it ever was before.”
Everyone – even Bruce, all looked at each other. Tim would call it a wordless conversation, but he had no doubt actual telepathic words were being exchanged. What a bunch of Primes, he thought.
Eventually, Bruce stepped forward. “Tim. Son,” he looked genuinely scared at the thought of Tim leaving. “I know what I told you was difficult to hear and… you might need some time to process it but the defect is absolutely still there. You survived far more strain than I ever thought you could, but it’s still there, Tim.” He pleaded, “Please, just, stay the night at least. Let us give you a check up to see how it’s going. Just… just give me some time to set up some kind of monitoring system, if you really don’t want to live at the Institute. Please sweetheart. Don’t put your life at risk over my mistakes, please.”
“He’s right, Tim! You can’t leave!” Dick burst out. “We need to know how bad this is. We need to start some kind of treatment! We just…” he slumped. “I just… don’t want you to die.”
Tim pursed his lips. “I get that you’re worried, but you don’t need to be! It’s better now. After the—”
“Tim, seriously?” Babs was staring at him. “You’re the most rational person I know. You can’t wish illness away. I know you have issues with the Institute and the people in it,” she shot a look at Bruce. “But that’s no reason to put your life at risk.”
“I’m not—!” Tim gaped.
“Tim, seriously, if you don’t want to live with these assholes,” Steph jerked her thumb at the various others in the room. “You can stay in my mom’s apartment in mid-town. At least you’ll be near a hospital. Come on, don’t cut off your nose to spite our faces.”
A cacophony of arguments rose up.
“Will all of you SHUT UP for just a second!” Tim yelled above the din, effectively silencing it. “I can’t believe this,” he added incredulously. “I can’t believe I’m on this rollercoaster ride with you people again. This whole mess started with you not listening to me! Will you damn well start listening to me now!”
They all froze at his tone.
“Right. Thank you,” Tim said in a calmer voice while Cass silently laughed behind him. “As I was saying, my heart is currently healthy. Not because,” he held up a hand at Bruce’s opening mouth. “Of some kind of self-denial magical thinking. My heart’s fine because when I lived in the Linears I found Leslie Thompkins. Remember her?” Tim asked a startled Bruce. “I guess I know why you wanted to find her so badly now, huh? The microkinetic that can literally rewrite genes. Anyway, I was hurt pretty bad after the whole explosion thing. Some friends came in and found me in the dust storm afterwards and took me to her to get patched up. She could have regrown my spleen. She didn’t. Know why? Because you only get one genetic reset from her, and she chose to fix my heart. I’ll check with her, but I’m pretty sure my heart is now a hundred percent defect free.”
Having a clear mind was a wonderful thing. It had given him the space to really think about things as Cass and he had made their way back to the visitors centre. When it had hit him, he’d stopped and laughed for a full five minutes, Cass looking on in bemusement.
It also gave him the rare opportunity to fully appreciate the sight of Bruce Wayne full-on gawking at him. That did not happen every day.
He didn’t enjoy it for very long though, because Bruce’s face transformed the minute the news hit him fully. “Tim… are… are you sure?” he strode forward and put his hands on Tim’s shoulders. “Are you absolutely sure?” his face was alight with almost vain hope, as if he didn’t dare believe it.
Tim looked him in the eyes. “Yeah B,” he smiled. “I’m sure.”
He was promptly swept up in a massive hug from the man himself. Three damn years of living in fear, carrying the burden of knowledge, swept away in one massive damn burst of news, was a bit much for even Bruce Wayne’s celebrated self-control. Bruce held onto him tightly, murmuring “Thank god, thank god, thank god,” into his hair and a little bit inside his head. Bruce’s sheer relief was a palpable thing, filling the room from edge to edge. Tim felt soft beads of moisture in his red-streaked hair and couldn’t deny he felt a certain wetness return to the corners of his own eyes as a result.
Bruce loved him. It changed nothing and everything.
Eventually, after an aeon had passed, Bruce reluctantly let go of him. The tall man smiled down at Tim in a way that caught Tim right in his heart; proudly and lovingly. “I’m so glad,” he murmured. “I’m so proud of you Tim. I… I love you. You’re right, I never said it nearly enough. I should have. I will more, I promise.”
“Eh, you’re basically omniscient,” Tim shrugged, scrubbing his face as discreetly as he could. “Sometimes you forget that other people don’t know what you know. That’s why you adopt so many sassy, disobedient kids. It’s our job to remind you.”
Bruce barked out a laugh.
Tim looked over at the others, and sighed to see Dick giving him the most tragic sad puppy look the world has ever seen. “Alright, Dick, fine,” he said with mock grumpiness. “You can have a hug too.”
Dick pretty much pounced on him and wrapped him up tight. “Love you, little brother,” he declared quietly, emotions projecting into the air. “I know we’re not… we’re not all good yet. But I’ll fix it, I promise.”
“Yeah, I know,” Tim said gently, because he knew Dick meant it. “I know you will.” Dick let him go.
There was a slightly awkward silence. It was always a little embarrassing to have emotional upheavals around Talents. You couldn’t pretend that they didn’t know exactly what was going on under the surface. Tim shrugged through his discomfort. “Um… It was good to see you all. I should probably get going if I’m going to make the train.”
“Stay,” Bruce asked him. “For dinner, even. We never got to celebrate your birthday. You can go back in Gotham tomorrow,” he added, though it was clear that it wasn’t his preference. He wanted Tim at the Manor, back home.
Tim willed his smile not to turn brittle.
Jason was at the Manor.
He might even be in the waking part of his coma therapy.
There might be a day, somewhere in the future, where Tim could see Jason, feel the hammer blow of Jason’s eyes empty of recognition when they fixed on Tim, and not shatter into a thousand pieces. It would always be a devastating blow no matter when it happened, but there might be a day when Tim was strong enough to take it, to feel like he might be able to rise up and go on afterwards.
After all the world-flipping, psyche destroying, emotional unravellings he’d had, today was not that day.
He couldn’t tell them the truth. He wasn’t even strong enough for that. Instead, he said what was as close to the truth as he could get. “I need more time, B,” he said quietly.
He took the blow of the sadness that suffused their faces as well as he could. It was true, but it still stung. Like an old junker car, some things needed a lot of time to fix them.
“Can we,” Dick swallowed. “Can we come and visit you sometimes?” His face was a mingled wash of hurt and hope.
Tim smiled a little more authentically as Cass put an arm around him from behind. “Sure. I’d like that.”
It wasn’t everything. But for the time being, it would have to be enough.