Chapter Text
I understand what it’s like to want to be a part of something, and to be willing to do anything within your power to cement your place. Some people do something as dumb as blackmail Batman–not that I’m speaking from personal experience of course–in order to construct even a fraction of their personal indefectible reality. However, even that vehement want for something more, something better, can’t excuse THIS FUCKING BULLSHIT!
Tim’s hands flew to where his backup grapple was supposed to be, but of course his genuinely genetic bad luck chose this night to show up again. Instead of a live-saving device, Red Robin’s hands grasped only air as the vigilante began to tumble downwards.
Robin, of course, was now nowhere to be seen. Presumably he was already fleeing back to Batman so that he has an alibi when Tim’s dead and broken body is inevitably discovered in one of Gotham's many alleyways.
Will I die from this? No. Does he know that? Also no. When I revive from this stupid attack I’m going to poison his breakfast, stop holding back when we spar, hide the hot chocolate, and move everything an inch to the left until he starts to lose his mind, Tim thought to himself while trying, and failing, to grab onto anything in order to slow his fall. Unfortunately for him, however, Robin had picked the spot well–not a fire escape or clothesline in sight–and Tim quickly resigned himself to another night of cleaning blood off of his clothing in the seclusion of his nearest safe house.
All the nearby apartments heard the thud of Red Robin’s body hitting the concrete floor. Of course, since it was Gotham no one came to look, which was for the best because not even a minute later the vigilante’s skull had reformed and he was regaining consciousness.
“Fuck,” Tim immediately shut his eyes, “blunt force trauma deaths are the fucking worst.” A thundering headache shook the teenagers brain hard enough that Tim knew it wasn’t going away for a week, minimum. Once Red Robin felt like he could open his eyes without wanting to die for the second time that day, he began to peel himself off of the pavement.
“Oh God I just put my hand on some brain matter. Ew ew ew. That’s my brain I just touched.” Red Robin muttered to himself as he gradually maneuvered off of the cold and probably diseased ground. When he finally reached standing position he carefully stepped out of the pool of his own blood and grabbed the only non-Bat-approved device in his utility belt: a disintegrator tuned specifically to disintegrate human matter. Whether or not it was the reason the Justice League was down one confiscated weapon was obviously irrelevant. With a sigh, Tim activated it and quickly tossed it into the pile of human goo. Within an instant it was all converted into ash and dust and there was no longer an unmistakable murder scene in the middle of the alleyway.
Another sigh left Tim’s mouth as he began to hobble to the mouth of the alley, leaning heavily on the wall the entire time. Every step, another bone cracked back into place; not exactly a painful sensation but definitely something he would not wish on anyone except for maybe Damian at this point since the kid had literally just murdered him. Red Robin looked longingly at the roof tops, wishing that he had some way to traverse across them since walking all the way back to the empty building that was his closest safe house was going to take at least an hour.
“Red Robin to Oracle, got anything for me? I’m not seeing anything on my route.” Please say no so I can go home without raising suspicion. Please say no so I can go home without raising suspicion. Please s-
“Red Robin, there’s a bank robbery five blocks north from your location. Think you’d be able to take care of that for us?” Oracle’s voice echoed in Tim’s comm and it took physical effort not to groan.
“I’m on it.” The vigilante responded after failing to come up with a realistic excuse as to why he wouldn’t be able to. At least I’m wearing red and black, it’ll be difficult to tell that it’s absolutely coated in blood. His cowl, however, was a lost cause so he disconnected it from the rest of his uniform and slipped a simple domino mask on to replace it. Then, while Red Robin peeled himself off of the wall and began to sprint north, he grabbed an alcohol wipe and cleaned as much blood as possible off of his face. The teenager’s movements were obviously practiced, and soon Tim looked like a vigilante again instead of a victim.
“What am I expecting here?” Tim questioned as he raced up a nearby fire escape, ignoring the lingering pain racing through his whole body. The buildings were much closer together near the bank, allowing him to be able to jump between them even without a grappling hook.
“Six basic goons holding around 24 people hostage with a bunch of automatic weapons. Not sure if they work for anyone yet, see if you can find out while taking them down.” Oracle responded. Tim could hear her typing rapidly even though the comm, already moving her focus onto the other numerous catastrophes simultaneously occurring.
“Red Robin, want any help? It’s kinda quiet down on our end over here.” Nightwing piped up.
“You’ve cursed us, Nightwing,” Robin retorted, nothing in his voice giving away the fact that he attempted to murder his adopted brother only a few minutes ago, “now we must stay to defeat whatever your poor choice of words unleashed.”
Ah, he’s hoping since the last one ‘failed’ this will be the one that puts me six feet under. Well I’ve got bad news for you buddy, your tactics will never work.
“I’ll be fine Nightwing.” Tim closed off all conversation with the swift reply. “Oracle, I’m on the neighboring building now, heading inside through the fourth floor.”
“Received. Stay safe.” Barbara Gordon responded, and with that Tim took a flying leap through a conveniently open window and into the upper levels of the bank. The area was completely empty and obviously ransacked.
I wonder if the mess is because someone was looking for something or just an intimidation tactic. Tim pondered as he silently made his way to the stairs. On the way, he picked up the top couple documents out of the scattered papers and skimmed them; the lack of correlation between the statistics they detailed was enough to make Tim confident that the chaos was a power move and nothing more. Quickly, the vigilante set the papers down on a random desk and made the last few steps towards the emergency exit.
As soon as the door was opened, Red Robin froze, listening intently into the stairway for any sound of movement. When he heard none, the vigilante silently closed the door behind him and began the trek down three flights of stairs.
Do not slide down the railing Tim. I know it’s annoying not to be able to grapple down but sliding down the railings is how you get a lecture you don’t have the mental energy to sit through, probably shouldn’t have been the only thought running through Tim’s mind as he raced down the endless staircase, and yet there he was. Thankfully, before Red Robin gave in and actually did slide down the railings, the vigilante reached the first floor.
With practiced steps, Tim approached the stairway door and cracked it open. Only a few steps away from the front of the door were the hostages. The teen could only see four at the moment, but was convinced more and more with every second that all of them were at the very least nearby. With that assumption, Red Robin moved his stare towards the three attackers who were guarding the hostages, and sadly doing a pretty good job. From his position, the vigilante couldn’t see how he was going to be able to exit this hallway without being seen.
I can’t use a smoke bomb with this many automatic weapons around. The goons might start shooting randomly and injure a civilian. Tim opened the utility pocket containing his throwing stars, careful not to make a sound, and drew three of them out. In the same movement, Red Robin slammed open the stairway door and flung each of the disks at the guns. Like most plebeians (Damn now I sound like Damian), the robbers were slow to react to the vigilante’s entrance and couldn’t move their weapons out of the way in time. Sparks flew from each of the guns as Red Robin’s projectiles made contact and successfully took the weapons out of the equation.
“Bat!” The robber closest to Tim managed to yell out right before he got a bo staff to the temple and crumpled to the ground. Red Robin cleanly twisted his staff around and used the opposite end to nail one of the other criminals right in the gut. Then, when the robber was doubled over in pain, Red Robin swiftly brought his weapon right back up and caught him under the chin. Tim immediately turned and sprinted towards the last remaining guard, jumping over the second’s collapsing body, and swung his staff through the air. Unluckily, this criminal had been expecting that and dropped to the ground before Tim could make contact. On instinct, the man aimed his gun at the vigilante, forgetting that a few seconds earlier Tim had broken it. That moment of hesitation after the gun did not fire was all the teenager needed to successfully land a hit on the robber’s temple.
“Run for the stairs.” Red Robin ordered the hostages, desperate to get them out of range when the rest of the gang inevitably showed up. Rushed movement quickly followed the statement, and, faster than most hostages, the group was up and moving as one into the staircase the vigilante had just left. It was just in time too, seconds later one of the robbers burst around the corner, presumably heading from the teller desks, and started firing his automatic. Tim threw himself behind the nearest counter and finally unleashed the smoke bombs he had been waiting to use this entire time.
Thick, gray smoke flooded out from the three small spheres Tim had thrown slightly too far to the left, but what mattered was that it covered the entire room perfectly. Once he was convinced all lines of sight were successfully cut off, the blue-eyed teenager unfolded from his crouch behind the desk and briskly walked around the side farthest from the robber, hoping to be able to catch the bad guy from behind. Of course, nothing could actually go in Tim’s favor today, so on the way to the criminal he managed to catch his hip on the corner of a desk. A loud thunk reverberated through the air. A second later, bullets cut through the air in Red Robin’s exact direction. Fully on instinct, Tim flattened himself to the ground, but not fast enough. Silently, the teenager lifted his left hand to his right shoulder and felt for any blood.
Thank God for bulletproof gear. Tim breathed a sigh of relief as his gloved fingers came away clear. Still going to leave one hell of a bruise though. That mixed with the killer headache I’m successfully ignoring is going to make me regret everything for the next couple of days.
While barely lifting himself off of the ground, Red Robin army crawled a few feet to the left in order to fully make sure he would be out of the range of fire if the robber decided to light the area up again.
“Did you hit him?” A voice screamed out into the silence. The other two robbers must have reached the area while it was obscured with the smoke.
That means two more unknown variables. Well, one now. A batarang sliced through the air in the direction the voice came from, and Tim knew it made its mark when a scream and a thud of a body, still alive, hitting the ground echoed into the smoke.
“Shit! He got John!” Another new voice shouted and Tim smirked as the sound allowed him to take the second robber out with the same exact move.
“You’re dead! You hear me, you’re fucking dead!” The last criminal standing screamed out, and although Tim would have been happy to use the same trick from the third time, the felon decided to start shooting at everything and anything in the hopes he would land a hit on the vigilante.
Barely holding back a curse, Tim threw himself behind the very desk that alerted the enemy at his location to begin with. He didn’t dare move as bullets continuously ricocheted throughout the entire building for the next few seconds. By the time they died down, so had the smoke. The robber had managed to waste enough time for the room to clear and cause Tim to lose his main advantage.
Guess I’m going to have to take a page out of Nightwing’s book. Red Robin tensed all of his muscles, and sprinted out from behind the desk. Bullets immediately began to follow his path and it took all of Tim’s concentration to maintain enough speed that the robber’s aim was always a second behind. Soon enough, another desk was directly in front of Tim which was exactly what he wanted. Without hesitating, the vigilante used the top of the desk to shoot himself up and backwards in a perfect backflip. The robber paused in surprise, giving Tim the precious few seconds he needed to launch himself forwards. While he ran towards the enemy, the teenager grabbed another batarang and launched it at the robber’s hand. His aim was true and the weapon lodged itself in the appendage, forcing the criminal to drop the gun. In the next breath the felon was in range and Tim whacked him across the head with his bo staff like he did to the first round of robbers. The robber collapsed to the ground and just like that it was over.
Or almost anyway. “This is Red Robin,” Tim projected. “The threat has been contained and the area is safe. Please make your way towards my voice so I can evacuate you.” A door opened in the edge of his sight, one of the other hostages peeking through the crack. Once they saw that the coast was indeed clear, the rest of the victims practically launched themselves towards the vigilante, who quickly directed them towards the stairwell.
“Red Robin to Oracle, all robbers down and accounted for. Hostages escaped into the southwest stairwell. Please notify the police for me.” Tim professionally ground out as his adrenaline levels crashed and all of his wounds forced themselves to his attention.
“Received RR, police are on their way inside. Good job.” With that response, Tim quickly fled out the back of the building.
I’m pretty positive my safe house is only four blocks away. I can make that. It’s gonna suck, but I can make it. Tim took a deep breath of stale Gotham air as he exited the bank, and then set off towards his final destination.
“Oracle, I’m heading in for the rest of the night. Feel free to call me in if necessary, but I’m gonna try to get some actual sleep before the big meeting tomorrow.” Tim notified Barbara while climbing up yet another rickety fire escape.
“Understood. Good on you for actually prioritizing sleep for once. Should I be concerned you’re being mind controlled?” She joked.
“Ha ha,” Tim snarked back. He, of course, wasn’t prioritizing sleep but instead fully understanding how long it was going to take to get all of the blood out of his clothing without Alfred’s help. If today was going to be anything like past experiences, it would take an ungodly amount of time to squeeze the last drops out. Still, it was only two am, so that would leave plenty of time for sleep. Or it would have if Tim hadn’t put off making a slideshow for the meeting until the last possible second. As it was, it was looking pretty likely that the already sleep-deprived CEO was going to have another insomnious night.
With one more leap across buildings, Tim was finally on the roof of his safe house. Sadly, he couldn’t manage to grab an apartment with roof access without having to pay an obscene amount–something he could do but not without raising suspicion–so the vigilante was stuck carefully climbing down two floors until he could land on his balcony. With practiced movements, Tim deactivated the numerous security measures and slid through his window. The movement sparked his shoulder injury from the bullet back to life, but Tim didn’t even flinch due to around a decade of practice of ignoring pain. Instead, he stalked directly into the bathroom, dragged his cleaning supplies from under the sink, and began to fill up the tub with both water and chemicals.
The teenager stripped off his armor section by section and dumped it in the bubbly bath. As he peeled off his shirt Tim grimaced at the startlingly large bruise that had already appeared on his right shoulder. He knew he would have to ice it soon, but soon is often subjective when you have as much stuff to do as he always did. So instead of heading to the kitchen to grab an ice pack, Tim headed to his bedroom to grab his computer, leaving his gear to soak.
The bedroom was only a few feet away from the bathroom. The unusually small apartment got on Tim’s nerves most of the time—not a big fan of restricted movement—but right now he had never been happier to have a chance to get off his feet. Tim threw open the door, immediately grimacing at the light layer of dust coating every surface, and headed directly to the cheap laptop lying on top of his bed. Tim’s ascent onto the bed was less than graceful, but eventually he got himself situated with his back to the wall and his computer on his lap. Was it the most productive position? No. Was he more likely to fall asleep than finish his presentation? Yes. Did he care? Hell no.
The dispassionate vigilante flinched when he opened up his laptop, the bright light causing his headache to flare up, but then immediately froze when he saw what he last used the device for. Sitting innocently on the front page was all of the data Tim had collected surrounding Bruce’s death and the weird painting that looked exactly like him. Before this reminder, Tim had almost managed to force himself to actually believe his suspensions were as insane as everyone kept telling him, but looking at the information laid out in front of him he couldn’t bring himself to be fully convinced.
I know there’s more proof out there that Bruce is alive. There has to be some way to save him, I just need to look harder. A million scenarios flashed through Tim’s mind without his permission. Is there even anything tying me to Gotham anymore? Dick and the Demon Brat, who literally just killed me might I add, have Gotham covered. The only real responsibility I have here is my job at Wayne Industries that I didn’t really want to begin with. I could just… leave.
Once the thought had entered Red Robin’s brain, it refused to recede. The longer he thought of it, the more appealing it looked until Tim honestly couldn’t ascertain a reason as to why he shouldn’t just pick up and leave. He still hadn’t reached a consensus by the time sunlight had begun to creep through the windows. He also hadn’t completed the PowerPoint—what a surprise—which was what finally forced him off the precipice.
“Fuck it,” Tim whispered to himself as he opened his email and wrote an email to Tam informing her on his newly scheduled half-a-year vacation.