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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
Words:
3,024
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4/4
Comments:
97
Kudos:
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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?

Chapter 2: Cause I've Built My Life Around You

Summary:

Everyone should be willing to order at least one assassination in their life. Barbara is.

Feat. Bart and Cassie breaking and entering.

Notes:

WOW IT'S BEEN THREE MONTHS
It's been a hot minute! College is hell and so is applying for summer jobs and so is single-handedly running my school's GSA. But, I'm back, I'm gonna try to write some stuff ahead of time but don't quote me on that, and also I forgot to reply to comments again! I will do better, I prommy.

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

Chapter Text

Bart's idea had been to talk to Oracle. She knows everything, right? But she's gone. He should know; he vibrated through ceiling and into the secret part of the Gotham Clock Tower and nobody was there.

He gets Cassie inside and they discuss their next steps.

"We could call her," Cassie suggests.

"I don't know how."

"Try to hack into her stuff; that'll get her attention."

Okay, he can do that. He's good at technology. He can just try a few random number sequences until it alerts her.

"While you do that, I'm gonna be nosy."

He runs over to the computer and pulls a random, twenty-digit sequence out of his head and puts it in.

"Okay, hopefully that will..." The screens turn on. Bart fistpumps. "Score!"

Old security camera footage pulls up.

"Not score," Bart corrects, lowering his arm.

"Hey Bart? You're gonna want to see what I just found."

Bart zooms over to Cassie, who is looking through some papers.

"Ooh, ooh, let me see!"

He goes through and reads it and stops. "What the fuck?"

Oracle hired an assassin?

"Girlboss behavior," Cassie says.

"Assasins kill people, though."

"And?"

He thinks about it. "Good for her."

"Exactly."

 

Barbara Gordon wheels ahead of Jason, because even though she probably doesn't know the layout of this place as well as he does, she's still in charge, and Jason isn't dumb enough to question that.

"You can't just stop there!" he exclaims. "What do you mean the Joker is paralyzed!"

"I'm not stopping there. Hold your fucking horses."

She gets to the kitchen and grabs two beers from the fridge, tossing one at him.

"Do you know who Tamara Fox is?" 

She cracks open her beer and takes a sip.

"...I'm gonna go on a limb here and say she's related to Lucius Fox?"

"Yep. Daughter of the business manager of W.E."

"And what does she have to do with anything?"

"It all has to do with her, actually."

 

Barbara doesn't realize why she's stuck with this. She has more important things to be doing than finding Luke's AWOL sister. Luke is convinced she's dead, but she's a teenage girl who was just given enough money to fuck around and see the world. Why wouldn't she take it? Kids want to do more than just be kids. They want to be great.

(They want to be Batgirl. Honestly, Tam is probably safer running around the world than she would be stuck around a vigilante family. Who knows what could happen to her?)

Still, she has to track the girl down. It's harder than she expected — finding one teenage girl isn't supposed to be hard for her — but she finds a location. She sets her attention to San Joyo, Puerto Rico.

And in San Joyo she finds something way more important than finding Tamara Fox: Renegade.

Renegade, the new Big Bad on the horizon for the Justice League. He kills superheroes and supervillians almost indiscriminately, and his first sighting was in San Joyo.

After a lot — and she means a lot — of digging, she finds an online trail.

It's through the League of Assassin's channels, too. It's heavily encoded and she can only find the one, but it tells her a lot.

T2: u still in Spain?

T1: just finished a hit. y?

T2: got someone for renegade 

T1: who?

T2: White Jackal

T1: small time superhero. what did he do?

T2: uses his powers to traffic the "fatalities" from the attacks

T1: slave trade???

T2: ding ding ding

T1: oh he's going down

T2: I'll track the slave ring and get u the location

T1: and I'll make sure this guy burns in hell

T2: dramatic

T1: u know it bb

She notes a few things.

• The designation T1 and T2. What does it stand for? Probably LOA code
• Renegade (T1, most likely) is, assumably, a member of the LOA
• Renegade has someone (T2) working with him to help choose his targets
• T1 chose his most recent target due to the fact that he was trading slaves
• T1 asked "what did he do" before choosing to target him. Is this a normal occurance?

She sticks with that last thought and pulls up the list of heroes and villians that Renegade has taken down and digs through their dirty laundry.

Electron - hero - pedophile (had been reported several times)
Dr. Team - villian - killed children
Zryon - hero - sold secret identies to government

It's all stuff like that. Killing people who have done horrible things. People who were in positions of power and abused it, who hurt people.

Renegade might not be what people are assuming he is.

She needs to meet him.

Babs calls up an old favor with a message.

Oracle: how do I order a hit from the LOA in San Joyo?

NAME ERROR: give me a week
NAME ERROR: who do you want dead

Oracle: I want to order the hit myself

NAME ERROR: if you insist

After that, Babs yawns, streches, and calls it a night.

She hopes the Joker is ready for some payback.

Notes:

Question time: we all know hiring an assassin to destroy the man who ruined our lives is pretty high up there on the scale of Girlboss Behaviors, but what is the Ultimate Girlboss Behavior and which of these characters is most likely to achieve Ultimate Girlboss?

Chapter 3: But Time Makes You Bolder

Notes:

This series is my baby but it appears I'm a very negligent parent. I WILL figure out how to get a consistent schedule. Eventually. Life is hard and very inconsistent and this fic doesn't exactly get a lot of traction, so that little demon in the back of my head asks if it even matters if I update this fic. All that is whatever though.

I realized I totally spoiled the surprise in the notes for the last chap so I'm moving them up here, so if you get deja vu, that's because you've read it before.

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

Chapter Text

T1: hey I need to tell u something

T2: oh no
T2: what did u do

T1: I may or may not have taken that job in Gotham

T2: of course u did
T2: why am i not surprised

T1: wanna come?

T2: i would literally rather get the electric chair
T2: but thanks
T2: who's the hit?

T1: idk yet

T2: are u on your way?

T1: oh I'm already in Gotham

T2: why the hell didn't u start with that, asshole?

T1: comeuppance for all the times u do the same to me

T2: were u just reading a fucking thesaurus??? who the fuck says comeuppance???

T1: me
T1: okay i gotta go talk to the client

T2: don't get caught

T1: I'll try my best

Does Barbara like the Bat? Not anymore, no. But she isn't ungrateful for the training he's given her. Reading people is a skill that comes in handy again and again, and learning to read the Bat means that you can read almost everyone at least slightly.

So she can tell that, when Renegade lands, he's surprised to see her.

Is it because she's the commissioner's daughter? Is it because she's in a wheelchair? Or — and this is the worst (and most likely) answer — does he recognize her from something? Does he know about Oracle? About the Birds of Prey? About Batgirl?

Well, she's about to find out.

"You're the assassin?" she asks. He nods. "I have a job for you."

"Just tell me who to kill," he replies in an artificially-deepened voice. If she knew less about robotics she would think he was using something to do that, but no, he's just talking deep like a kid trying to come off as an adult.

Wait, is Renegade a kid?

Doesn't matter. Not important right now.

"I didn't hire you to kill him. Are you okay with that?"

"Depends on who you're talking about. Your file didn't tell me who you're targeting."

"The Joker."

"Done. What do you want done to him?"

"I don't care what you do; as long as I get comeuppance for what he did to me."

"Consider it done."

She pulls off the briefcase strapped to her wheelchair.

"Half up front, right?" she asks, offering out the money.

"Consider this one on the house."

He steps into the shadows and then he's gone.

Everyone has violent urges every once and a while. The urge to slap some asshole harassing you, the urge to trip someone you hate, the urge for someone working in customer service to blow up their entire place of employment. Totally normal.

But there's a specific violent urge that every single Gothamite has. To completely destroy the Joker. And Renegade finally has a reason to.

It's easier right now, since Joker is in Arkham. Not that Renegade wouldn't be able to get to him if he wasn't; he'd been tempted to in the past, but it wasn't his grievance. The bats are the ones with beef with him.

Now that a bat has given him the all clear, he's more than happy to give the man a taste of his own medicine. (Bitch).

It's child's play to get into his cell, especially since he was mid-breakout. Ren just kills the men helping Joker escape and goes in himself.

Joker laughs.

"You're here! Good! It's playtime!"

Ren sticks a needle in his arm and injects him with a paralyzing agent.

Time to get to work.

Today

"Woah, that's a lot of blood," Bart mumbles, staring at the pictures of the disfigured body Cassie found.

The guy Babs hired a hit on, no doubt.

"Holy Zeus, that's graphic. Renegade did that?" Cassie asks. "Guess that's why he's public enemy number one. Anyone who can do something like that..."

"He's really pale. Is it blood loss?"

"Maybe. His face is super scarred, too."

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

Cassie looks again. "Oh, nevermind. Get fucked, clown-bitch."

"Clown-bitch? You can do better than that."

"I know."

Cassie hears a noise and looks over to the source. A window. She walks over to see Kon, eyes wide.

No t today

Barbara is kind of disappointed. She didn't realize how much she wanted to hear Joker scream. She knows Renegade is doing something, there's a lot of blood leaking out from under the door, but he's completely silent. It's unnerving, really. Only  a professional can make someone bleed that much without them making a noise.

A different noise gets Babs' attention.

"We're not letting him get out," someone says.

"You sure you're okay to see him again?" another person asks.

"Yep! He doesn't have any more control over this girl."

They step into frame of the security camera Babs is watching.

Poison Ivy and Harley Quinn.

Babs can pinpoint the moment the women notice the dead bodies and blood.

"What's going on, Ives?"

"Not completely sure, Harley."

That's when the door opens. Renegade is wiping the blood off of his dagger and onto his pant leg. (What is he, a fourteen year old who doesn't want to get up to get a napkin?)

A moment later, there are vines wrapped around him, holding him in a place.

"We're not letting you get away this—"

Harley cuts Ivy off. "Robin!"

"Robin?" Babs mutters.

"Robin?" Renegade says. "I think you have me confused with someone else."

"Come on, number three, I recognize you! You were always my favorite birdy."

Renegade deflates. "Fine, you got me."

What?

"Tim?" Babs whispers, though nobody can hear her.

Notes:

Babs: T1 and T2. I wonder what those could stand for? It must be something so complicated and secret that it would be a waste of time to try and decipher right now.
Meanwhile...
Tam: Tim are you fucking stupid we can't put our full first names
Tim: but we can't both be T!
Tam: we literally can though???? I'm T1 and you're T2
Tim: I'm T1 I was here first

We officially have villian Tim!!!!!! I know that the surprise here isn't actually that big of a surprise because... who else would Renegade be... but I'm proud of it anyway.

I'm writing another fic rn fyi. Nothing like this, just a tim & dami bonding fic called Some Common Ground. If you like my writing go check it out!

Question time: what other villian names did Tim think of that Tam immediately shot down because he's horrible at naming things?

Chapter 4: Even Children Get Older

Summary:

The Core Four (minus Tim) make a decision.

Something bad happens in Gotham.

Notes:

It's been almost a year, huh? Sorry about that. I got really into writing Some Common Ground and then got really into not failing my classes. (I still have to spend today studying for my Shakespeare exam).

Since I last updated, I've taken two major-specific writing classes (fiction and poetry) and my writing style has changed a lot. I tried to keep this chapter in that style of writing, but the next work is pretty different. It's better though!

The first chapter of it also getting published in like 20 minutes.

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

Chapter Text

"Tim is alive," Kon says the moment he flies in the window.

"Holy shit," Cassie says. "Who told you?"

"Luthor."

"That's amazing!" Bart shouts.

"There's more," Kon says. "Tim... became a supervillian."

"He did?!" Cassie exclaims.

"The video just said that," Bart says. "He's Renegade. Did you miss that part?"

"I was letting Kon in."

"You're... calm about this," Kon says.

"He's alive. I don't care if he's evil. He's evil and alive."

"He kills people," Cassie says.

"He's Tim."

Kon purses his lips, but nods after a second. "It's Tim."

"It's Tim," Cassie agrees after a moment of hesitation.

"We gotta find him!" Bart shouts.

Kon shakes his head. "The JL has been looking for Renegade for years."

"Yeah, but we're looking for Tim."

Kon hesitates, so Cassie says, "We're going to look for Tim." She gestures between herself and Bart. "Are you with us?"

"...I'm with you."

"Hell yeah!"

Jason takes a long sip of his beer.

"And that's it?"

"I've been working with them since. Not the league stuff, but Renegade and Tam. I've been training her. She's still in Gotham right now, but, once she can escape the clutches of an overprotective Batwing who thought she was dead, she'll be coming back out here with the four stooges."

Jason snorts, almost spitting out his beer. "The four stooges?"

"They actually call themselves that." Her watch starts buzzing and she immediately turns it off.

"You sure that's a good idea?"

"It's probably Dick."

Cassie is just about to lock the door behind them when she hears screeching from inside the Clocktower.

"What's that?" Kon asks.

"I'll check," Bart says. He's back a second later. "I'm not totally sure, but it's definitely something bad."

Cassie pushes past him and flies up to the very top, where the sound is coming from. Every screen is bright red.

Damian Protection Program Activated
One or more League of Assassins assassins has entered Gotham

"Yeah," Cassie agrees. "Yeah, that looks bad."

Bart makes a face. "But it's not our problem, is it?"

"Of course it is!" Cassie replies.

"We need to tell Jon," Kon says. "We can figure the rest out later."

Notes:

Something horrible: *happens*
Bart: can we all agree that this didn't happen while we were here?

I can't believe I used to post such short chapters. How did y'all deal with this???

Also, I PROMISE I'm gonna start replying to comments. It might take a little bit of time, but I got into the habit with Some Common Ground.

Question time: what should Tim (and definitely not me) have named the Damian Protection Program?

Notes:

Please please please please PLEASE leave comments and kudos! I'm going to try my best to actually respond to comments now and prove that I read them (even though I always have). Everyone who leaves a comment is promised my first born child. You're going to have to figure out custody between yourselves though.