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Chapter Text

jour·ney

[ˈdʒəːni]

noun

journey  (noun) · journeys (plural noun)

1. an act of travelling from one place to another:
2. a long and often difficult process of personal change and development

Tim is pissed.

“It’s not my fucking fault, B! I didn’t ask the bloody goon to try and break my arm, did I?”

“That’s not the point, Robin. You were too focused on the mission objective and not on your own health and safety. You need to start prioritizing yourself.”

“Oh, as if you ever do. Mr ‘I’ll be fine, don’t worry about the broken ribs’.”

“It’s different.”

“Oh, really? How. Give me one fucking reason why me getting hurt is any different to when you do.”

“Language,” Bruce corrects absent-mindedly, still glaring at him. “It’s different, because you are my son.”

“Oh, really? Because you sure aren’t acting like it.”

At that, Batman growls. Like, actually growls. “How dare-”

“No. I’m standing by what I said, okay? Most fathers, if their son gets hurt, are worried. They don’t fucking tell their kid off for nearly breaking a bone on a mission that they ordered. Especially because most fathers would never even dream of putting their kids in harm’s way. Much less do it voluntarily.” Tim spits his words, full of rage and pain and hurt. He’s sick of taking the fall for everything that happens on a mission.

At his words, Bruce just straightens his back, jaw clenched. Without another word, he turns and stalks away into the Bat-plane. Tim just huffs and stalks off, into the forest, massaging his arm. It isn’t broken, he doesn’t think, but it’s certainly sprained, and it hurts like a bitch. Just for once in his life, Tim would like Bruce to just give him a hug and tell him it’ll all be ok soon- the way he does with Tim’s brothers. But Tim doesn’t have the same Father as his brothers do. He learned that a long time ago and it’s about bloody time he accepts it. After 10 minutes or so of moping, he turns around and heads back to the plane, scuffing his feet. He knows Bruce isn’t really mad, he’s just bad at showing his concern. Even so, it riles Tim up sometimes.

As he heads back to the landing site, Tim thinks of what he’s going to do when he gets back to the Manor. Probably a nice warm bath, first. He still has some flecks of blood on him from the fight, and it always ends up sticky and irritating. Then he’ll get Alfred to check over his arm. He really hopes he doesn’t need a cast. Then he’ll apologize to Bruce.

Yeah, that’s a good plan.

Unfortunately, Tim has to revise his plan quite quickly because the Bat-plane is… not there. Tim whips his head back and forth in an almost comical way because a plane can’t just disappear?

 But it can take off.

But Bruce wouldn’t do that, right? Tim almost hopes he’s in the wrong clearing, and the plane is just in a clearing nearby but- nope, there’s the wheel-marks on the ground. Fuck. Ok, what’s the plan here Robin?

Yeah, no, he’s got nothing.

His hand automatically flies to his wrist-watch, specially fitted with a tracker and emergency button. Sure, Bruce is mad at him, but he wouldn’t just leave him. Probably.

His wrist however is, unfortunately, empty.

Oh, this is the worst. He wracks his brain, trying to remember where his watch could have ended up, and comes to the unfortunate conclusion that he left it in the Bat-Plane. Great. And he doesn’t keep his civilian phone on him during missions either.

He pats down his utility belt, going over his supplies. Some bandages, his Bo staff, a few protein bars, his water bottle, a few knives and $40. Great. With no way to get in direct contact with Bruce, Tim decides to just sit in the centre of the clearing. If he’s lucky, Bruce will feel regret in a few minutes and come back to get him. Yeah. Maybe this is just some kind of test. Tim’s been tested before. He survived his 16^th birthday, he can survive this too.

He lies on his back in the field and stares into the sky, hoping to spot a little black dot growing closer. Every few minutes he thinks he sees it, but then it flaps it’s wings and Tim realises it’s just a bird. He never thought the whole ‘is it a bird, is it a plane’ thing was actually all that difficult before, but now he gets it.

It’s when the sun begins to set that Tim gives up. By his estimation, Bruce left at around 3pm, and the sunset is likely around 10pm. He isn’t coming back. Tim scarfs down one of his protein bars and tucks himself up in his cape, deciding to sleep at the edge of the glade. Surely Bruce will come for him by morning?

The night is cold, and Tim feels the ache in his damaged wrist. In fact, every part of him aches- the cold seeping into his bones like a mantra:

He isn’t coming. Get up. No one is coming to save you.

When the first tendrils of dawn begin to shine through the sky, Tim gets up. He brushes himself off, and packs up his gear: not that there is much to pack. He takes one last longing glance at the imprints of the Bat-plane in the glade and steels himself.

He knows there is a town nearby. It’s small, barely over a thousand inhabitants, but there are a few shops. He needs new clothes, he realises, and probably a bag too. He can’t go walking around in his Robin costume. That’s just asking to be killed. The rest of his money can go to food. He’ll have to get something hardy, filling. He doesn’t want to run out of it too fast. It’ll need to fill him up and keep him that way.

But why? For what? What is he planning?

These questions rattle around his brain as Tim walks to the town. It’s a relatively short walk- only about 30 minutes, and it hardly gives him enough time to ponder these questions at length. He’s a good walker, though, always has been. He likes hiking, and he has the stamina for it. He tried taking Jason and Dick once, figuring it would be a good brotherly-bonding activity to share something he loves, but they both just complained the whole way. He stopped trying to share after that.

When he reaches the town he is thrilled to find a little convenience shop selling everything he needs at relatively low prices. A bag and T-shirt only set him back $12, and there is a whole selection of food. He finds some water-purifiers, which he pockets subtly. He feels bad, but he only has a little bit of money, and without water he will literally die, so… yeah. The old man at the counter will just have to deal with it. (Tim decides to send like, a grand, to him once he gets home.) He picks up a bunch of trail mix, hoping that it’ll do what it claims and give him a bunch of energy. He stares longingly at the coffee packets, but they are way out of budget and (technically) not necessary.

To his surprise, Tim still has an extra $5 left when he’s finished picking out everything he needs. It’s then that he spots it.

Sitting on the ‘second hand books’ display at the front of the store, is a seemingly completely fresh copy of ‘The Odyssey’ by Homer. Tim has heard of the Ancient Greek epic, of course he has, but he’s never had the chance to read it. Never had the time. But it’s about a long journey to get home, and if there ever was a time to read it, it would be now. Before he can overthink it, he plops his wares down on the counter. “Just this, please.”

He hands over his $40 dollars a bit forlornly, aware that he will have to steal if he needs anything else. Sure, it’s not like shoplifting is the most illegal thing he’s done (His whole damn job as a vigilante is illegal for fuck’s sake) but he would still rather avoid it if he can.

He leaves the convenience store, pulling on his new t-shirt, and heads down the sorry excuse for a high-street. There is no one around. He half expects tumbleweed to start flying past. He spots himself in the reflection of a shop window, and cringes a bit. There was only a few options of clothing in the store, and the one he ended up with has the words ‘alpha male’ on it, in bright pink script, then a picture of a kitten. When he bought it he thought it was funny and ironic. Now though, he just looks stupid. Especially layered over his Vigilante gear. He looks insane. He’s about to give up and just let nature take him when, to his absolute delight, he spots a sign for a library. He actually feels like bursting into tears when he reads the sign; “Free computers and Wifi”. Finally, something right in the world.

He practically runs to the doors, peeling them open so fast that they slam into the wall behind him, startling the sweet old lady at the desk. “Sorry,” He mumbles at her as he hurries over to the computers. Yeah, definitely insane.

He logs on and immediately pulls up google, feeling- foolishly- comforted by the sight. It’s almost like being home, where he spends the majority of his time researching cases online. Though, in fairness, they have much better technology in the bat cave than in this random Montana Library.

That’s the first thing he looks up; where the fuck he is. Central Montana, as it turns out. In pretty much the middle of nowhere. There are no train lines from here to Gotham, and he wouldn’t have the money to take them even if there were. He researches various modes of travel for a while before sighing and leaning back in his chair. Like some goddamned sign, out of the corner of his eye he spots his Odyssey. A difficult journey.

He could- no, that’s stupid. Isn’t it?

He searches up the distance. Converts the distance into time. Fuck. He could do it. About 26 days walk. That’s not too bad, right? Sure, Gotham’s practically the other side of the country, but that’s not exactly forever. Just under a month. He reckons his family would barely notice he’s gone before he’s back. It’s perfect.

Just to be safe, he prints off the map, messily draws on his route with a pencil he finds on the floor and tucks it into his bag. Yeah. He’s doing this.

…

The first couple of days are relatively peaceful. Tim kind of wishes he had his phone and headphones with him so he could play music while he walks, but he isn’t all that fussed. He contents himself with quiet singing. No one is around to hear him, after all, so it doesn’t really matter how off-key he is. He tried to go to singing lessons when he was a kid, but Jack Drake told him that singing lessons would make him gay. It’s a bit ironic now; and Tim kinda feels like he could’ve just gone to singing lessons anyway, given he has turned out gay despite Jack’s best efforts. So yeah, he can’t sing all that well, but it’s fun, and it makes his throat tickle in a good way; like it’s full of song somehow. He can’t describe it, really, but when he hits really low or really high notes it almost feels like eating a brownie. Like a treat.

The nights are the hardest. It gets cold out in the Montana wilderness, and he only has his cape to protect him. Sure, the cape is bullet-resistant and, like- perfectly designed to be the best vigilante cape possible, but it’s not built to be a blanket. In fact, it’s built to be as lightweight as possible, meaning it doesn’t make for a very good duvet. Regardless of the bad nights, his morale is still pretty high. Perhaps he’s just slightly manic right now; that is a very real possibility, but it feels like he’s on some kind of adventure.

The only slightly worrying thing is his trail mix. It’s depleting much faster than he thought it would. This is, in fairness, because Tim underestimated how many calories it would take to walk for, like, 12 hours a day. He’s almost finished a whole bag already. He’s also just figured out that only eating oats makes you feel pretty damn weird pretty damn quick. His feet are beginning to blister; his boots are built for climbing and kicking- not walking, so his feet are being rubbed raw. He’s hoping they’ll scab over and get calloused soon. He’s not really sure how long that’s gonna take.

He wonders if they know he’s missing yet. Tim’s kind of betting they don’t. Its not unlike him to disappear to his room for a couple of days after an argument. Even so, today is Sunday. They always have dinner as a family on a Sunday, regardless of fights and disagreements. And- shit- he is meant to be going on a date with Kon tomorrow. He winces a little bit, internally apologising.  He’s sure Kon won’t mind. He’ll probably realise something else came up. It wouldn’t be the first time. With a life like theirs, date nights are few and far between. They definitely make up for it when they get them though.

Tim will just have to make the next one as perfect as possible.

As he’s ruminating on this, getting mildly distracted by the memory of Kon’s lips on his, Tim walks into a fence.

In his defence (get it, de-fence?) it’s made of wire and practically see-through. After he has extracted himself from his impromptu make out with a wire, he surveys it. It stretches left and right for about as far as the eye can see. There’s some barbed wire at the top, but he’s dealt with worse. He tucks his hands into the thin wire, and pulls himself up. His fractured wrist twinges in protest, but he ignores the pain. He’s worked through worse. The wire buckles a bit under his weight, which makes Tim chuckle. He’s the lightest person he knows, practically skin and bone, so for the wire to struggle to hold him it must clearly be a pretty bad wire. He vaults himself over the barbs, ducking over it like he’s on high-jump. He rolls out neatly on the other side; standing and brushing himself off. Then he continues to walk.

There’s a lot of that on this journey. Every time something happens (like the cockroach that landed on his face yesterday) he just keeps walking. It’s kind of fun to feel this resilient. Like nothing can stop him. He hasn’t felt like this since… well, he doesn’t think he ever has. He’s always been too anxious, too careful. Never carefree. Not like this, at least.

When he spots the first sign, he’s a bit confused. It’s a dark wood, with a notable grain, and yellow words inscribed into it. He lifts an eyebrow, but doesn’t think much of it. A few miles later, he sees another one, this one boasting a trail. Hm. It’s probably better to take an actual trail, right? That way he’s less likely to be eaten by mountain lions or something. God, he’s really a city boy.

“City slicker” Kon had said, whacking him lightly on the head, while Tim just stared blankly at him. “Wait, so Bulls and Cows are the same species?”

“Of course they are? What else would they be?”

“Different animals! They have different names!”

Then Kon had kissed him on the nose, laughing all the while, and taken him through a catalogue of different farm animals (Most of which Tim was familiar with. Don’t let Kon tell you any different.)

Kon’s not here, though, so Tim just keeps walking; sticking to where he thinks the path is. Eventually, he finds himself out of the woods, in an open clearing, which is weird. He hasn’t seen unfiltered sky in days. The path turns to a board-walk as he walks over what looks like… bubbling mud? In the distance, he spots a bunch of people crowding around… something (?) and decides to go and investigate. Look, he’s always been nosy, ok? It’s how he ended up as Robin in the first place.

When he reaches the group, he sees they are all standing around a… bubbling lake? Bit weird, but sure. A man at the front, seemingly wearing a pretend park-ranger outfit starts to count down from ten. Most of the group join in. For a brief moment, Tim wonders if he’s stumbled upon a cult. It would hardly be the first time (Venezuela was an experience) but he’s confused what they’re doing here.

Just as he’s about to open his mouth and ask the man nearest to him what deity they’re all worshipping, the lake erupts. Tim’s first instinct, after years of Vigilantism is ‘Bomb!’ so he ducks and covers. The lake keeps erupting. There is no bomb sound, just a loud whooshing. People are laughing and clapping, as if blowing up a lake is a normal fucking thing to do. This is a weird fucking cult.

The man next to him is clearly the biggest devotee. He claps and laughs, yelling “We love you, Old Faithful!” In a thick southern accent. Wait, Old Faithful? Tim scrutinises the man he thought was a fake park-ranger for another minute, spotting the flinthead arrow design on his chest. He scooches closer as surreptitiously as he can and… oh. Oops. The words ‘Yellowstone National Park’ reflect back at him brightly.

Tim pulls out his map. Checks it. Checks it again.

Ok, so he’s been going in the wrong direction. No biggie. He should’ve used a compass. When he gets home, he’s going to sew a bloody compass into his suit. He sits down as Old faithful slows down, exhausted and a bit morose with the knowledge he’s been walking aimlessly for the past two days. Ok, it’s not as bad as it could have been. He’s still vaguely in the forwards direction, just… a bit too far down. It’s fine. Really, it’s fine.

He sits down on the decking- well, more like falls and tucks his face into his knees.

The fake (No, wait, real) park ranger sits down slowly next to him on the decking. Belatedly, Tim realises he’s the only one left. How long has it been? “Hey there, son, are you alright?”

Tim looks up, and everything is a little bit blurry. Oh, he’s crying. “Hmm, what? Oh, ah, yeah. I just… um, I got a bit lost.”

“Well, that’s what I’m here for, sonny. Tell me, where are you trying to get to?” Tim checks his map again. The exit on the North-East side is pretty much exactly where he needs to be- should be- at this point in his schedule. His throat is suspiciously clogged, which he isn’t a fan of, so he just points at the exit he should be at. The ranger just smiles. “Do you want to walk there? I can tell you which routes to take if you do. If not,” he leans over, holding his hand over his mouth like he’s telling a secret. “I can take you in my buggy.”

He gestures with his thumb to a golf-cart-esque contraption sitting on the side of the path 10 metres or so away. “She’s much faster than she looks, I promise.”

Tim studies him for a moment. The ranger is old, probably mid-forties, with a receding hairline and crow’s-feet around his eyes. He looks kind. His legs are well-toned, presumably due to his job requiring him to walk all day, but his arms look weak. Tim reckons he could win a fight against him if he needs to.

“Alright.”

The ranger smiles, standing, and offers his hand for Tim to take. Tim, always contrarian, ignores it, standing on his own. To his credit, the ranger doesn’t seem to mind, taking it in his stride. He accompanies Tim to the buggy, climbing in on the drivers side and patting the seat across from him encouragingly. “C’mon kid. It’ll take us about an hour, and we can grab some grub on the way! It’ll be fun.”

Tim, against his vigilante instincts, gets in the buggy. There are no doors, and it goes at about 20 miles per hour. He’s jumped out of faster vehicles before.

The ranger, clearly unaware of Tim’s plotting, talks as they drive.

“So, Kid, what’s your name?”

Tim just stares blankly back at him.

“Ok, that’s fair. I’m Jim. Jim Morrison. I’ve been a ranger here for about 20 years now. Met my husband on the job. We actually have a house near the North-East entrance, so this is perfect. I’ll just head home early, get dinner started. Oh- We have a lil’ dog too, her name’s Buster, ‘cause we thought she was a boy when we got ‘er, and I think she’s out with Craig at the moment. Craig’s my husband, by the way. Anyway-”

Jim goes on like that for the majority of the journey. Eventually, Tim opens up a little bit. Sure, he gives a fake name, but he admits he has a boyfriend, much to Jim’s delight. He also talks about photography with him. Jim is apparently an avid wildlife photographer (“Part of the reason I got into the job in the first place!”). He offers to set Tim up with a disposable camera when he admits he ‘accidentally’ left his at home. “No photographer should be in a place of natural beauty without their camera” he had insisted, and handed Tim a disposable camera that he apparently keeps in his glove box for “Emergencies just like this!”

He's a nice man, Tim decides, taking a few snaps of the park as they whiz through. The only problem with a disposable camera is that he won’t know if his photos are blurry until it’s too late. Then again, that’s kind of the beauty of it. As they drive, Tim’s hope and whimsy slowly come back to him. This isn’t so bad actually. He’s seen Yellowstone now, and he’s gained a camera, all while still sticking to schedule! He never gets this type of luck, so he savours it while he can.

After about 40 minutes of driving and chatting, they pull up outside a 1950’s style diner. “Lunch!” Jim announces, happily. Tim follows him in, expecting just to sit and watch him eat, then get back to driving. However, when they reach the front, Jim turns and asks him what he’d like to eat. “Oh, um…” Tim’s voice trails off. He’s embarrassed, he realises. He’s never not had enough money for something before. “I… uh, can’t afford it.”

Jim looks at him like he’s grown another head, and Tim shrinks in on himself. “Well, why would that be a problem? I’ll get it for you, no biggie!”

Tim’s eyes widen. “Wait, really?”

“Course, son. You’re practically skin and bones! Let’s get a burger in you.”

They sit down with their (comedically large) burgers, and Tim practically salivates looking at them. He has burgers all the time in Gotham-  Bat-burger being a personal favourite haunt. He hasn’t had one in at least four days, and the trail mix has been getting to him. He tries to savour it- this might be the last full meal he has for the next month- but he’s so ravenous that he just scarfs it down in a couple minutes. He’s embarrassed, until he sees that Jim has done the same. “Walking is a calorie-consuming sport, champ. Even if it doesn’t feel like it!”

Tim eats his fries, and some of Jim’s, who claims he’s ‘too full’. Tim thinks he’s lying, but he’s too grateful to care. Eventually, they wrap up their papers and head back to the buggy. Another 20 minutes, and they’ve arrived at the North-East entrance. Jim parks the buggy outside a quaint little log cabin, grinning. “This is ma’ home. She ain’t much, but she’s pretty.” He gets out the buggy and unlocks his front door, stepping inside. Tim waits, not sure what the proper thing to do is. He can’t exactly follow Jim into his house, can he? That’s rude. Tim’s pretty sure that’s rude. “C’mon in!” Jim calls, just as Tim turns to go.

He creeps in carefully, still a bit wary. He isn’t wary of Jim, he doesn’t think. He’s been nothing but kind to Tim, and he has no reason to suspect ulterior motives. It’s the husband Tim can’t trust. He never trusts anyone until he can look them in the eyes. Eyes are the window to the soul, after all. Jim sits Tim down with a cup of coffee (Praise the Lord!) and keeps blabbering about this, that and the other. Tim finds he’s quite enjoying it, actually.

All too soon, the sun begins to set behind the blinds. Tim doesn’t want to leave, not really, their couch is so comfortable, and he’s found he quite enjoys the company, but he can’t impede on Jim any more than he already has. He tries to make his excuses and leave, but Jim just smiles. “Where are you going to sleep tonight, son?”

Tim blinks. He must have taken a second too long to respond, because Jim sighs. “That’s what I thought. Now, I sure as hell ain’t judging you. Life can be hard sometimes. But you never need to sleep on the ground when there are friends around. We have a guest bedroom, you can stay here for the night, If you want.”

Tim blinks again, unsure. He ponders it for a minute, and Jim gives him the time to do so with no judgement. In the end, his aching bones win out. A proper bed sounds pretty good right about now. “Ok.” He says quietly.

Just then, there’s a barking outside the cabin. Tim startles, the quiet moment broken, just as Jim smiles and starts towards the door. A man walks in, similar in age and stature to Jim. His hair is salt-and-pepper, similar to Bruce’s, and he has smile lines, just like Jim.

Fuck, Tim trusts him.

He should be better than this! But, well, he is trained to spot who is and isn’t trustworthy. If he gets a vibe… usually it’s just his training kicking in. So yeah. He’s getting a good vibe.

Jim kisses Craig quickly and tenderly, and Tim thinks back wistfully to Kon. Stolen kisses hanging half out his bedroom window, and quiet, lazy kisses laying side-by-side on Kon’s bed in Kansas. Craig smiles, letting a border-collie run into the room. Instantly, she jumps up onto the sofa, and begins licking Tim’s face. Great.

“Hey, Buster,” He laughs, pushing her face away gently and stroking her back. Her tail wags so aggressively that she almost topples over. Craig seems completely unperturbed by Tim being in his house- leading Tim to think this might be a habit of Jim’s- and he greets him cheerily.

Tim watches as Jim and Craig make dinner, helping out where he can. Craig insists his best form of help is distracting Buster- “She’ll eat all the bacon if you don’t!”

Half an hour later, the three of them sit around the small table in the kitchen, with Buster staring up at them greedily from Tim’s feet. They’ve got eggs, bacon, beans and toast. Conversation over dinner is easy- mostly consisting of Craig and Jim flirting jokingly with one another, and everyone trying to ignore Buster’s puppy-dog eyes. (Tim feeds her some of his bacon when Jim isn’t looking. Craig just winks at him.)

They tuck in for the night, and Tim is startled by just how… safe he feels. This is weird. He isn’t used to this. Even at home in the manor, Tim is always slightly aware of potential threats. After all, Jason and Bruce have both tried to kill him at least once. That’ll get a guy’s hackles up. In some dark, secret corner of his mind, Tim wishes he could just stay here. He’d contact Kon, and they’d all live here together. They could go hiking during the day, and sleep in the cozy log cabin at night, and they’d never have to worry about Lazarus Pits or Fear Toxin or The Joker. They could just… well, live.

But, no. Tim has a duty. To Gotham, to his people. Unlike Jason and Dick, it’s a duty he chose, so he should damn well do it.

His fractured wrist twinges in response.

Can’t I just rest?

He falls asleep before that question can be answered, warm duvet and pillows lulling him into oblivion. When he wakes, the sun is streaming through the window, and there is something cooking in the kitchen. Blearily, he makes his way out of the guest room, rubbing at his eyes with his knuckles. “Hey Kid!” Craig calls, handing over a plate of bacon sandwiches the second Tim is in range. “oof, you look tired.” Jim feels it’s important to add. Tim has to supress a scowl at that, because he is a guest, regardless of how comfortable he feels. A mug of coffee is set down kindly in front of him, and Tim barely has the wherewithal to say “Thanks” before he is slurping down the burning hot liquid, much to Craig’s amusement.  

After breakfast, Jim hands Tim a bundle of things to take with him. “Really, Jim, I couldn’t.”

“Nonsense, you need these things. Take them.”

And, well, he can’t really argue with that.

Firstly (And most importantly) Jim has given a sleeping bag. Tim’s bones leap for joy. Tucked inside, Tim finds more trail mix (Oh, great) and some protein packs. They give him some matches and a torch that will set him up in good stead, and even a bar of soap and some new clothes. He thanks both of them, and pats Buster goodbye. She looks devastated that her bacon-thievery accomplice is leaving, but wags her tail when he strokes her anyway. He walks out the North-East exit of the park with a pep in his step, and a heavier pack than ever before.

It’s only that evening, when Tim tucks down by a fire, in his nice new sleeping bag with his copy of the Odyssey that he learns the word he was looking for. Xenia- an ancient Greek tradition of letting travellers into your home regardless of who they are, and letting them go with gifts.

Tim thinks it’s a pretty beautiful tradition.

…

It takes him another day and a half to make it into South Dakota. He decides to head further South, towards route 90, in the hopes he might be able to hitch-hike some of the way. At this point, the twinge in his feet is worse than the twinge in his wrist, which he doesn’t think is a good sign, so the less time spent walking the better. Also, he’s pretty sure he’s heading towards Mount Rushmore, which he’s always wanted to see. Yeah, ok, so he’s doing some sight-seeing. Sue him.

At one point, he decides to stop and try to wash in a stream he finds. This, as it turns out, is a mistake. The air around him is warm, and the sun keeps beating down, but apparently the river doesn’t care about that. When he steps in, it feels like slipping into an ice block. Not nice. He tries to submerge himself, but finds it too cold to move his body properly.

He decides against it pretty quickly.

He does, however, change into some of his new clothes. He’s grateful to be rid of his ‘Alpha Male’ kitten t-shirt, and instead just pull on a plain green Yellowstone National Park t-shirt, hoodie and green checkered pants (Courtesy of Jim and Craig). It’s the kind of thing he would probably find himself wearing on a lazy day at the Manor.

He’s starting to get a bit homesick now; the novelty of the experience has started to wear off a bit, and he’s just feeling… well, lonely. He conjures up mental images of his brothers, goofing about around him, telling jokes and making him laugh. He thinks about Alfred, his sweet teas and wise words. He doesn’t think of Bruce. He doesn’t think that would be very comforting right now. The feeling of his family surrounding him gives him a sense of security that he hasn’t felt for the past few days, and he feels content enough to tuck down early.

When the night gets dark, though, he finds himself thrown into nightmares. The Titans Tower incident. His neck cut and bleeding. The sheer joy on Jason’s face as he hurt him. The fear that his childhood hero would be the one to end his life. The horror when he realised he didn’t care.

He wakes up in a start, gasping and pressing his hand to his chest, his heart beating wildly. It’s still dark out, the fire he started having burnt down to embers and the trees hiding the light of the moon. He whips wildly around, trying to spot potential threats- eyes in the dark. He’s not expecting to actually see anything, aware that he’s probably safe here (other than potential bears and big cats) but he still scans his surroundings warily. He stiffens when he spots two greengage eyes staring at him out of the brush. His mind flickers back to Jason- eyes ablaze with green fire and hatred- and flinches back, hand automatically flying to the small white scar on his throat. The memory of the cool blade, slick with blood, slicing through his arteries like butter flicks through his mind as he struggles out of his sleeping bag, trying to get away. The eyes get closer, glowing in the dark, and he thrashes as hard as he can. He can’t do this again, he can’t.  His back hits the tree behind him, and he pushes himself into it, closing his eyes. This is just a hallucination, right? He’s just going mad. Nothing new, wouldn’t be the first time. He’s just fine. Nothing is wrong.

A mass nudges his foot, moving it’s way up his leg slowly. He flinches at every second of contact, eyes squeezed shut and breath coming out so fast he’s feeling light headed. This isn’t real, this isn’t real. Eventually, the mass settles on his chest. It’s small, certainly not human, but Tim is still too scared to look. After a few moments, it begins vibrating against him. Confused, Tim cracks open his left eye, only slightly.

He’s a bit confused by what he sees. A bundle of fur, no bigger than a water bottle, curled up on his chest and purring happily. Huh. Ok, he’s a bit embarrassed now. He lets the cat stay there for a few minutes while he gets his breathing back under control, before he attempts to gently pry it off his chest. It doesn’t work. The cat clings on, digging it’s claws into Tim’s shirt and holding on for dear life. When he lets go, it goes right back to purring. Shit. Tim really hopes this thing doesn’t have, like, fleas or rabies. He shuffles back into his sleeping bag and hopes the warm thing on his chest will be gone by the morning.

It isn’t.

When he awakes, tired and bleary-eyed, the first thing he sees is a small face staring right back at him, paw outstretched to whack him. When he closes his eyes, it slaps him, causing him to re-open his eyes. This process repeats a few times before Tim sighs and sits up. The cat mews happily, mission successful. In the light, he can see it better. It has dark black fur in most places, but little white paws and chest, and is clearly just a kitten. If Tim had to hazard a guess, he would say around six or seven weeks old. Clearly not a newborn, but definitely not a full-fledged cat just yet.

It has a smushed face, as if it has run into a wall at fast speeds. Probably a Persian, but Tim isn’t sure. He had to know about cat breeds for a case a couple years back involving the Riddler, but he hasn’t had to use the information since.  He decides to name it ‘Squish’. Not that he’s keeping it, he just thinks that’s a fitting name. He packs up slowly, trying to ignore Squish moving between his legs and butting her head into him gently. He thinks she’s a girl. She gives girl vibes. When he’s finished, he scratches her lightly on the head, saying goodbye, and walks away.

To his consternation, she follows.

For the whole day.

He keeps trying to shake her, taking weird paths and ducking behind trees, but she follows- never more than 20 feet behind. Tim finds himself checking back on her every 5 minutes or so, making sure she’s still following. Not that he wants her to. He doesn’t need a cat. It’s just… well, it’s nice not to feel completely alone on his journey. At one point, he looks back, and she isn’t there, and he feels a pit open up in his stomach. Damn, he must be really awful if even a cat wants to leave him. But then she pops back up from behind a rock and he breathes a sigh of relief. He scoops her up and puts her in the front pocket of his hoodie. She purrs in contentment. He sighs internally and gives in. Looks like he has a cat now. Is he turning into Bruce? Picking up strays everywhere he goes? God, he hopes not.

Even so, it’s nice to have Squish with him. She’s a warm and comforting presence against his stomach. In fact, she purrs so much that it almost feels like Tim’s getting pins and needles, or butterflies in his stomach. He strokes her gently as he walks, and chatters mindlessly to her. Partly about the walk; “Oh, there’s a root there, let’s avoid that” and “I think my blisters have blisters at this point”. But also deeper things. Things about his family. Things he doesn’t think he’s ever told another living soul, even Kon. His deepest darkest secrets. It feels great; to talk to someone who can’t ever tattle on him, and in a place where he’s certain he isn’t bugged. Or, well, he probably has at least a few bugs crawling on him, but they aren’t the listening kind.

Regardless, a listening ear (albeit a furry one) is comforting for him. That sense of loneliness from the last few days begins to fall away, dwindling just like his food and resources.

He isn’t entirely sure how to feed Squish; given his own lack of food, but he rips up some of the beef jerky that Jim gave him and feeds it to her in little pieces. He internally mourns it, as it’s the only kind of food he owns right now that isn’t fucking trail mix, but he’s going to be a good cat-dad goddamn it, so he sets all of it aside for her. Tim takes loads of photos of her eating while he feeds her, giggling quietly to himself at the way her little face scrunches up when she eats the salty jerky. He finds a feather on the ground as they settle down for the night, and they spend a good half an hour playing. Tim twitches the feather lightly, moving it around in Squish’s eyeline, then tries to pull it out of the way when she pounces. When it gets too dark for the feather to really work anymore, Tim does the same with his flashlight, before curling up around Squish’s warm body and going to sleep.

…

The next day, Tim finds himself seeing a lot more roads and signs. He takes this to be a good thing, assuming the more civilisation the more likely he is to be close to his destination. The trees in this area are mainly deciduous. The further south he’s gotten, the less common the fir trees have been, so in theory he’s moving into a warmer climate. It doesn’t really feel like that though. He’s glad it’s spring at the moment. Only a few weeks ago and he would have probably just frozen to death in the night in his sleep. As it is, he wakes up with a few frost flakes in his hair, but none the worse for wear.

Not for the first time, he thinks longingly about how much easier his life would be if he had some kind of power. If he was a Meta, he could be home already. In fact, if he had super speed like Impulse, he could have made it back to the cave before Bruce did. Or if he could fly like Kon or Cassie, it would have only taken him a few days to make it over, rather than the month or so it’s going to take him. Honestly, he thinks quite often about how fucking useless he is in comparison to his teammates. Like, what does he have going for him? He isn’t bulletproof, he isn’t fast or strong or anything of worth. The only thing he is is resilient. He always has been, and he (hopefully) always will be. He bounces back. He doesn’t let shit get him down. He gets his neck cut open? He gets over it. He gets kidnapped and tortured by the joker? He tries his best to forget it. He gets left in the middle of nowhere to find his own way back? He fucking walks.

It feels as though if he were to stop, to let it affect him for more than a moment, then that’s like letting it win. He just needs to ignore it and keep moving. Whenever he’s left alone with his thoughts for too long, he finds himself spiralling viciously down rabbit holes; what-ifs and possibilities that make his head spin and heart hurt. So he doesn’t let that happen. He keeps himself busy. He doesn’t let anything take up too much room in his head. He makes himself useful.

So it shouldn’t be a surprise when the thought comes to him. He is walking along the edge of a paved road when it occurs to him that maybe he shouldn’t go home. Maybe all of this is useless. Maybe Bruce left because he finally realised everything that’s wrong with him, all of the reasons why he is a blight on their family. Maybe this isn’t a test, maybe Bruce just genuinely wanted to leave him. It’s not like it would be the first time; his parents sure did it often enough. Then again, they would at least leave him in a mansion, instead of the middle of a random forest in Montana. So, yeah, even if Bruce did intend to leave him, Tim is still going back to Gotham.

Part of this is spite, he’s very sure of that. He is going to make it home. Not just that, he is going to prove that he can. He’s been told over and over in his life that he is useless and worthless, and that the people around him leaving him is inevitable. So he’s learned to believe it. But maybe, if he just keeps going, maybe one day people will see just how useful he is. He only wants to be useful.

So yeah, sure. He isn’t super. He isn’t a hero, not in the way Kon is. He’s just some kid, who wormed his way into a family that didn’t want him, like a fucking cuckoo in a nest. And so of course Bruce left him. Why wouldn’t he? But Tim is going to keep fucking going, no matter what. Just like he always has. 

Just like he always will.

…

As Tim walks, the roads begin to get more paved around him. There are less potholes and more signs, all saying the same thing; ‘Mount Rushmore up ahead.’ And sure, Tim did have the vague idea that he was heading in this direction, but he didn’t expect to actually end up here. His parents would never take him to Mount Rushmore, or the grand canyon, or any big monument, no matter how much he begged. They were far more interested in antique treasures from distant lands than monuments nearby. Tim gets that, sure he does, but it’s fun to be a tourist sometimes. He’s never even bothered to ask Bruce if he can see anything tourist-y, because he reckons the man would say no, and his rejection-sensitivity dysphoria can’t take that massive blow to his self-esteem, so he won’t even try. Hell, at least he’s self-aware.

After getting a few weird looks from tourists in cars- presumably confused by his moss and mud aesthetic, he decides now is the time to wear some different clothes. He’s worked out so long as he wears each set for a few days, they should basically be fresh by the next time he wears them. Practically. He goes a couple hundred metres into the forest to change; stripping his clothes and stuffing them back into his pack as quickly as he can, trying to avoid looking at the goosebumps rising on his pale skin from the cold. In fact, he tends to try and avoid looking at his skin as much as possible. It’s covered in scars; some brutal and ragged, others uniform and precise. Bruises from various missions litter his skin in bright yellow, purple and green.

He looks like a corpse.

He even remembers the first time someone said that to him, a couple of years after he became Robin. He was with Young Justice, changing after a successful mission. He’d broken a rib during the fight, and was stripping off his shirt to bandage his torso, domino mask still firmly in place. It was the first time he’d ever changed around them, and it was a big show of trust for him.

“Fuck, Rob, you look half-dead.” Kon had announced, completely unbidden.

“Oof, yeah. You’ve got that Cadaver-chic thing going for you.” Cassie had joked, looking him up and down with an appraising gaze.

He didn’t change in front of them for at least a year after that.

The hoodie he’s changed into has a zip this time, no front pocket. Squish is understandably upset at this turn of events. While she is capable of making her own way through the woods, she prefers to be carried most of the time, only getting out of his pocket for 15 minute intervals before screaming at him to pick her up again.

Before she can complain, Tim decides the best course of action is just to stuff her inside the zip-up hoodie. He does it as quickly as possible, so she doesn’t have time to freak out and hurt him or herself. As it is, after getting over the initial shock, she sits very calmly, chin resting on the zip so that she can look out at the world. Mission successful. He snaps a couple pictures of her cradled happily in his sweater, then continues on his travels, following the now-steady stream of cars towards the monument.

…

When he arrives, he’s… well, he’s in awe. It’s big. Like, really big. To be honest, he didn’t really expect much, he’s seen pictures of course, but he never expected much more than just a mountain with some faces. He isn’t all that fussed about the whole patriotic shit. He’s never really bought into the whole ‘land of the free’ bullshit, being half-Korean will do that to you, but he can appreciate the craftsmanship. He snaps a few photos; trying to find some new angles that haven’t been done before, but he quickly realises that monuments like Mt. Rushmore have been photographed from pretty much every angle. So he gives up. He sits down, letting Squish out to wander around, and pulls out his Odyssey. He’s been keeping up with it over the past week, typically reading about one chapter a night. He’s on chapter eight, and Odysseus is being welcomed by the Phaeacians. He quickly looses himself in the age-old tale, engrossed in the ancient rules and customs of Greece. It’s only when Squish comes to bap at him, that he shifts his attention back to the real world. It’s then that he gets an idea. There’s a low wall in front of him, near the car park for visitors to the mountain, and he gently picks up Squish and puts her down on it, then angles his camera so that it looks as though she is one of the presidents (he’s not sure which one.) Now that’s a unique fucking picture. Squish, clearly aware of the history being made here, tilts her chin up proudly, the very best president. The ones on the mountain were all like, super racist anyway. Squish hates everyone equally.

After a while of relaxing by the mountain and watching bored families get out of their cars, pose, and get straight back in them, Tim gets back to walking; Squish trailing right behind him. He’s making relatively good time. He worked out that (on average) it should take him about 3 days to make it across each state. It’s been 7 days, and 2 states (plus him getting lost) so he takes it as a win.

When he reaches the crest of a hill, Tim sees a giant lake stretching out before him. The water is like a mirror, reflecting the sky in such a way that Tim almost can’t tell up from down. The trees bend into the water, stretching into the centre of the lake as like they’re trying to reach something. In the distance, snow-capped mountains rise into the sky, seemingly defying all logic by stretching themselves to the heavens. Everything twists and bends, colours and shapes morphing and turning into themselves. It’s beautiful. The green is a striking contrast against the blue of the lake and sky and Tim just sort of collapses against a nearby tree. He remembers distantly his English Tutor’s description of ‘the Sublime’.

“It’s something so beautiful, so painfully awe-inspiring that you can’t help but feel fear. It’s terrifying. To see something so much bigger than you, and see the beauty in the bigger picture? It’s scary. But, then again, isn’t that the beauty of it, too?”

Yeah, he can get used to this.

…

That night, he passes over the border into Iowa. There isn’t any fanfare or anything, there isn’t a single sign or noticeboard. In fact, he probably wouldn’t even know where he is if it wasn’t for him keeping a very close eye on his map, and tracing his route with his library-pencil from Montana. He isn’t making a Yellowstone mistake again.

For the next two days of walking, he doesn’t see a hint of civilisation. Not even one. Not a single sign, or even fucking chip packet. The woods get deeper, and he begins to even lose sight of the sun at points, aware that some light is filtering through the thick tree cover, but completely unaware of if it’s from the east or west. If Squish wasn’t here, Tim’s pretty sure he would have gone insane. Like, actually. This is all a bit too liminal for him. At least a few times, he’s convinced he’s walked in a circle and that he’s seeing the same freaky mushroom-shaped rock, but when he leaves a marking on it with his combat knife it doesn’t show up the next time, so he just decides he’s insane. That checks out. Every future version of himself has been insane and/or evil, so maybe this is simply the origin story. Not any of his torture or traumatic events or memories, nope. Just the Iowan woods. Yep, that checks out.

Eventually, he emerges from the deep forest, actually getting to feel the sun on his face! (He’s already not beating the vampire allegations, due to his night-dwelling habits, he needs his melanin, ok?) He follows a rather large and empty highway for a whole day, sticking to the side of the road. He sees a total of four cars over the whole day, and one truck. Clearly Iowa isn’t the hottest holiday destination.

It is hot though. He almost finds himself wishing for the blistering cold of the past week as his skin starts to burn (yet more proof he needs melanin) and he is forced to squint. The only thing for miles around is swaying fields of crops, gently waving in the breeze. Topographically, it reminds Tim of Kansas, from the times he’s been to see Kon there. Then again, that might just be because both places have a lot of corn. Actually, it’s definitely just the corn thing.

Eventually, he stumbles upon a small town with a 24 hour diner. He sees a bunch of trucks stopped outside. Clearly, this is where truckers go to eat while hauling shit through Iowa. It seems pretty nice, so far as truck stops go. It’s got what Tim would presume is a retro 50’s theme, if it wasn’t for the fact that he’s pretty sure it’s all original. That’s just how things are in Iowa.

Now, let it be known that he isn’t proud of what he does next. That’s a very important part of this story.

He goes to walk in through the doors with all the confidence of the pseudo-adopted son of a billionaire, who frequently crashes his car and then just replaces it the next day. Its then that he remembers he has quite literally no money. Sure, he could offer to pay them back later, but what reasonable business would accept that deal? Especially from someone rocking the ‘I live in a cave’ look as well as Tim is currently.

He makes a snap decision when he spots the dumpsters.

Look, ok, a man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do. There is only so much trail mix one guy can eat before he will quite literally eat anything. This being said, he doesn’t just dig in. He has a very healthy level of caution as he opens the lid. It’s clean, clearly the owner of the diner takes good care of everything they own, even the dumpsters.

He spots a half-eaten burger, and pulls out the patty. He rips it into small chunks and feeds it to Squish, still tucked happily in his hoodie. She purrs in contentment. At least one of them is getting a good dinner.

Tim is just about to start rooting around in the trash for something vaguely palatable for himself when the side door of the diner flies open. His head snaps up, body still bent over the dumpster, looking for all intents and purposes like a racoon caught in the act of dumpster diving. Or, well, just a boy doing it. The girl who opened the door stares at him for a moment, clearly dumbstruck. Tim thinks that’s a reasonable reaction.

He retracts himself from the dumpster slowly, not breaking eye contact. He raises his hands in surrender and backs away. “Sorry, dude. I just wanted something to eat. I’ll leave if it’s an issue.” He suddenly feels a cold chill go down his spine at the thought of this girl ratting him out. Bruce cannot find out about this. “Please don’t call the police.”

The girl just nods a bit lamely, then turns back into the diner, seemingly forgetting the trash bag she’s holding. Tim is almost tempted to go back to the dumpster for a second look, but that feels like pushing his luck. Besides, his wrist is still twinging a bit from diving for Squish’s dinner. Before he has time to make up his mind, the door opens again. There’s a wrinkled old lady standing in the doorway, squinting into the dark. Yeah, Tim has to stop pushing his luck.

“Sorry, I was just leaving. I hope you have a good night!” He makes to start running, before she can call the cops, but she stops him. “No, wait! You can have some food! Come inside.” She says it more as a command than as an offer and Tim freezes, not sure if it’s safe or not. The old woman, clearly realising her tone was too harsh, softens a little “No one should go hungry, and they sure as hell shouldn’t be eating from the fucking trash. Come on, kid. We have too much food anyway.”

He's hesitant, naturally, but the woman seems kindly enough. She clearly takes no shit, and Tim appreciates that. Carefully, he makes his way into the diner, wrapping his arms around his torso, where Squish lies. Shit, he’s becoming an overprotective cat dad.

He sits awkwardly on one of the bright red leather booths when directed, casting his eyes around for a threat. He’s honestly on the verge of a panic attack, but a purring from his chest calms him down. He presses a gently kiss to Squish’s head, trying his best to show his appreciation. The girl from before sits down across from him, cocking her head as she tries to work out what he’s doing. She can’t be much older than him, probably 17- maybe even 16 still. If he had to guess, he would assume that she’s the old ladies’ granddaughter.

“What’ve you got there?” She asks, curiosity bleeding into her voice. She inclines her head towards Tim’s torso, where he’s still cradling Squish. Reluctantly, he removes his arms and shows her the little ball of fur that is his cat. “Oh my gosh!” She squeals, clapping her hands together in delight. “Oh, he’s so cute! What’s his name?”

“She, actually. Her name is Squish.” He feels a bit foolish saying it out loud, but… well, he did choose the name, so he’s got to stick with it now. “Because, well, you know… it looks like she squished her face as a baby.”

The girl reaches out as if to stroke her, but Tim instinctively pulls away. “Oh, um, she gets scared around new people. She might scratch you.” This is, of course, a lie. Squish is (if anything) far too affectionate to new people. Hell, she let Tim adopt her after only a day. The girl doesn’t need to know that though.

The girl nods like she understands, but Squish (the traitor) decides to take that moment to wriggle out of his hold and wander over to her and start nudging her inquisitively. Tim just sighs. “Aw, I think she likes me!”

The girl plays with Squish for a few minutes, while telling Tim about herself. Her name is Maybelle, and she works at the diner. Tim was right, the old lady is her grandma,  and she owns the diner. Has for nearly 60 years, apparently, which Tim is very impressed by. A heavenly smell begins to drift from the kitchens, and before he knows what’s happening, the old lady is placing mounds of food in front of his face. A mound of fries, a milkshake and a chicken burger grace the table in front of him, along with a little bowl of actual cat food, which he assumes is for Squish, not him. The old lady introduces herself as Ethel, and slides into the booth across from Tim, smiling gently. “Eat up, dear. No use letting it get cold.”

He thanks her profusely and digs in, enjoying the warmth of the food slowly filling him up from the inside. They don’t question him at first, just letting him eat, but once it’s clear he isn’t about to keel over Ethel begins to gently ask him some questions.

“What are you doing out here, son?”

“Oh, um, just walking.”

“Yeah? Where are you headed?”

“Gotham. I have a place there. I just need to get back.”

“And where are you walking from?”

“Montana.”

“Can I ask why you were in Montana?”

“Family trip?” It comes out less certain than Tim would’ve hoped, but he can’t exactly tell Ethel the truth.

“Why couldn’t your family take you home?”

“We had an argument. My dad got mad. I think he wanted to prove a point by driving off, but now I’ve got to walk home.”

“Wait,” Maybelle interrupts. “Your dad left you to walk to Gotham?”

“I mean yeah? It’s really not that bad.”

Ethel and Maybelle exchange looks and oh fuck- he’s seen those looks before. It’s the same look that Dick and Bruce and eventually Jason would exchange whenever he talked about his life with the Drake’s. It’s the ‘We need to call CPS’ look.

The second he’s eaten, he makes his excuses to leave. They try to get him to stay, offering him a place for the night, but he knows they’re going to call CPS the minute he’s not looking. It’s better for all of them that he just leaves. As he’s forcefully exiting the restaurant, Squish tucked tightly to his chest, Ethel’s withered hand shoots out to grab his arm. “Wait-”

Despite his better judgement, Tim turns to her. “I know this isn’t ideal, but please, let us help you. Even just a little bit. Here;” She pulls out a stack of 20’s, thumbing through them and pulling out a few. “Take these. There’s a train from the next town over, it will take you across the whole of Illinois. Please, just… let me help you.”

Tim doesn’t want to accept her charity. She seems like a kind old lady, and it’s not like he’s poor. He’s a millionaire, for fuck’s sake! This should be going to someone else, someone who actually deserves it, but… well, he does need it. He’ll pay her back later.

“Fine… I- thank you.”

“No problem my boy. Please, be safe.”

He walks out into the night, confused. Why are so many complete strangers willing to help him on his journey? This isn’t how the world works, right? Or has Gotham just clouded his judgement of people. That’s a very real possibility.

…

The train through Illinois is empty. Like, straight up. Tim tries moving through the carriages, to see if any of the other ones have occupants, but he’s completely alone, which is… yeah, disconcerting for sure. It’s almost definitely because of the hour. The train left at 5:30 AM, so he’s pretty sure he is the only person travelling across the whole of Illinois at such a ridiculous time. He sits with his knees drawn up to his chest at one of the table seats, letting Squish roam freely around the train car. She can’t open doors, she’ll be fine. He leans against the window and lets the gentle morning light filter in, flickering it’s warmth over his face.

He thinks of Kon, only able to survive thanks to the warmth of the sun. What a life that would be.

There are a lot of things that are different about Kon; things that Tim could never hope to understand. He’s tried, of course he has, but there are some things that Kon can’t explain. Like his hearing; being able to hear every sound for miles. Tim can’t imagine anything worse. Tim’s own hearing is pretty fucked, due to being close to so many explosions at such a young age. He can barely hear the rain outside his window at night- he can’t imagine hearing the buzzing of every single fly in Kansas. He sometimes wonders how Kon isn’t insane. Not that Tim would be able to tell because let’s be real- the most insane of the two is them is Tim, for sure.

He still hasn’t talked to Kon about the cloning. He’s not sure how he’ll take it, and it’s not like it worked anyway, so it doesn’t matter, right?

When you live in a world of vigilantes and aliens, magic and murder, relationships are going to get messy. He’s known this ever since he signed up to be Robin, but some days he just wishes they could be a normal teen couple. He wishes their biggest worries could be what to wear to prom, instead of whether or not to tell the other about his multiple cloning attempts during the others temporary death.

He bashes his head against the window a couple of times, clearing his thoughts. This isn’t important right now. He just needs to keep going, then he’ll be home, and he can worry about it.

Except- Well, he isn’t going to worry about it when he gets home, is he? Something else will come up, some new case or Arkham breakout. There is always something stopping him from just reflecting. He always has to keep going, to get to the next finishing point. When does it end?

Will it ever?

Will Tim ever just… stop?

Squish comes and buries her face into his neck, purring gently. He doesn’t even realise he’s crying until little droplets fall onto her black fur. He wipes them off gently, and hold her in his arms while he cries silently. When the train pulls into the station, he will dry his eyes and keep going, keep walking and trying until his inevitable violent death. But for now? For now the sun is dappling on his face, and his cat is holding him, and the rock of the train beneath him is soothing all wounds. Tim cries, and it doesn’t feel shameful- not like it usually does- it feels cathartic. Freeing.

Maybe this trip isn’t so bad after all.

Chapter Text

When Tim gets off the train, he stares blankly upwards. No one warned him about this.

Ok, well, maybe the map did. But only technically! How was he meant to know what all those squiggly little lines meant? With hindsight, it makes sense that the closer they are to each other the higher the terrain, but how was he supposed to know that! Geography is pretty much useless to him most of the time, so he tends to sleep through those lessons. Did he miss a map-reading lesson?

Not that any of his pondering actually matters. What does matter is the giant fucking mountain range fading into the clouds above him. He checks his map. Checks it again. There is pretty much no way around, so it looks like he’s going over. Great.

There’s a gondola up to the top of the mountain, where there appears to be a ski resort nestled in the snow. It barely takes any effort to sneak his way onto the gondola; just ducking under a fence and avoiding the eyes of the workers. (gondola keepers? He’ll have to find out what they’re called). He slips into an empty carriage, and closes the doors. The gondola leaves the terminal and begins to slowly pull itself up the mountain. Tim watches the wire with a healthy amount of concern. Despite swinging from wires most nights of his life, he still finds himself hating heights when he isn’t in direct control. It feels like at any moment the wire could fray or snap and Tim would go plummeting down below. There are large metal masts that hold the wire up above the ground, and every time the carriage passes through one, everything shakes so much that Tim is vaguely convinced his bones are about to shake out of his fucking body. He clutches to Squish as carefully as he can, trying not to wake her as she sleeps peacefully in his sweater, but longing for the comfort of another living soul.

There is a relatively large gorge in the centre of the mountain, and so of course that is where the gondola stops. It’s sudden enough that when the wire stops the carriage continues forward- swinging jerkily with the inertia. Tim grips onto the bench until his knuckles turn white. Why doesn’t this fucking thing come with seatbelts?

 He looks down over the abyss below him, as the gondola swings, and wonders what would happen if he fell right now. Obviously, it would be lights out for him, but what about his body? Would it ever be found? There’s no record of him ever going on the gondola, because he snuck on, and no one is looking for him. Why would they be? If he falls, at best, they’ll be looking for the gondola carriage and find him by accident. Even then, would anyone tell his family? How would they know to? He would be a john doe- bloated and unrecognisable, simply an unfortunate soul in an unrelenting pit. Bruce would never even know what happened to him.

Before he can catastrophise for much longer, the gondola lurches forward, swinging back into action. He gets to the top without issue, and exits into a little café at the top of the mountain. There are skiers milling around, drinking Après Ski’s and eating lunch. He spots a sign for a ski-rental out of the corner of his eye, and decides that is the best course of action. At the end of the day, it’s easier to ski down a snow-covered mountain than attempt to walk it. And Tim’s a good skier. Like, a really good skier. His parents would take him all the time when he was little, because there was a ski resort near some meeting place that they had to go to a lot. It was easier for them to put him in ski-school than have to deal with him, so he got a lot of practice as a kid. In fact, by the time he was eight, he was going down black runs easily, far outstripping his instructors. He used to stay with the ski-school group until they reached the top of the mountain, then he would split off and take his own routes. So long as he met up with them at the bottom, his instructors never seemed to notice, so he got the hang of it pretty quickly.

He thanks his years of vigilante training for helping him steal ski gear. It isn’t even difficult, he just walks in and starts dressing, then sneaks out when the clerk isn’t looking. He manages to slip on some salopettes and a thick winter jacket, so hopefully he should survive the cold, and (more importantly) so should Squish. She’s awake now, and wriggling around in his jacket, but he tells her to settle down, because she’ll get cold if she goes for a wander right now, and he doesn’t know how to cure kitten hypothermia. He straps himself into his uncomfortable snow-boots, and is displeased to learn he grabbed a pair that were a couple of sizes too big in his haste. Wonderful. He snaps into his skis and slides over to a map, analysing his route.

By the looks of things, he could make it down pretty easily from here, and walk the rest of the way- the mountain range serving as a kind of horse-shoe shape to trap him- or he could ski along the ridge. Both options have pros and cons; the skiing is faster but infinitely more dangerous than walking, but the walking will take longer to reach home. Inevitably, because he is nothing if not slightly masochistic, he decides to ski across the mountains. The resort only covers the one mountain, so he’ll have to be very careful when he passes into empty territory. If he gets hurt while off-peak? Yeah, not good. He

He sets off, slightly wobbly after nearly a decade of no practice, but soon rediscovers his rhythm. Within minutes he’s gliding down the mountain, ice cold air whipping through his hair and turning his skin a bright red. There’s a bite to the breeze, but Tim couldn’t care less. He hasn’t felt this carefree since… well, probably since the last time he was skiing. He mounts a ridge and flies into the air, briefly becoming airborne before slamming gracefully back into the ground. God, he feels like he’s flying.

Is this how Kon feels all the time? No wonder he never gets down from the ceiling; Tim wouldn’t either. Of course, Tim has actually flown before: always cradled in a bridal-carry by Kon, but it’s not the same. It’s more like being in an open-air aeroplane than flying himself. Maybe he’ll take Kon skiing for their anniversary; then he can tell Tim how accurate his hypothesis is. And if Tim gets to see the snowflakes landing gently on his eyelashes, making them flutter in front of his inhumanly blue eyes then… well, that’s just a bonus.

Tim spends the rest of the day skiing down the first mountain, thinking about his plans for his and Kon’s anniversary. They’re coming up on a year now, having gotten together at 15. Bruce still doesn’t know about them, but then again he doesn’t really know anything about Tim’s time with Young Justice. And Tim will keep it that way, thank you very much. Also, Tim is more than a little worried about how Bruce is going to take it. Not that he thinks Bruce is homophobic or anything- he's always been very outspoken about his support for the Queer community- but more so that Tim is dating someone in general. Bruce drilled into him very quickly that  no one is to ever be trusted. Other than him of course. He claimed that affection is a blind spot and it can make you and your allies weak to attack. He told Tim never to fall in love.

He's stopped saying most of those things since Jason came back. But Tim is pretty sure he knows why. Tim felt first-hand the feeling of betrayed trust. Not that it was Jason’s fault. If anything, it was Tim’s, because he shouldn’t have tried to reach out to Jason so soon after his return. Even so, having his throat slit by the boy he considered his hero? Not exactly his childhood idea of how their friendship would go. But it was just that- a childish idea of how the world works. He’d 16 now; he knows better.

God, he should never have taken the mantle in the first place. Robin has never been his, not really. It’s something he has, sure, and he loves it more than he loves life itself, but he’s always been a place-holder Robin. Someone to be around until someone better suited can take up the mantle, or he dies in combat. He’s always thought he would like to die in combat, like Jason. Of course, he wouldn’t expect all of the grieving and fanfare that came with Jason’s death, he’s not really Bruce’s son after all, but he likes to hope that Bruce will be proud of him. That would be nice.

So yeah, Bruce doesn’t know about him and Kon, but that doesn’t really matter. He’s always telling Tim to take a break, so he’ll just tell him that he’s taking a well-needed rest, then take Kon skiing. They can drink hot chocolate and look out over the mountains and cuddle up by the fire and-

Wait, why is Tim stopping?

His skis slow to a stop, coming to a rest on flat ground. Confused, he tries to push himself forward with his poles, but he only succeeds in moving a few metres, then sliding back to where he was. Weird. Confused, he looks up from his skis to see a mountain looming in front of him. Behind, the mountain he came down looms just as large. Right. The ridge.

For a brief and embarrassing moment, he tries to ski up the side of the new mountain. It, unsurprisingly, doesn’t work, and he slides back down, defeated. With a huff, he kicks off his skis and ties them to his pack. The extra weight is extremely unhelpful, but he doesn’t really have a choice, so he begins to head up the other side.

The ski boots he stole press into his shins, cutting off blood flow to his feet, but slip around his ankles, making his footing unsecure. He makes embarrassingly slow speed, only making it a few metres up per minute. All too soon, he finds himself having to go on all-fours, pulling himself up by his arms as the mountainside gets steeper and steeper.

He’s about two-thirds of the way up the mountain when the sun begins to dip behind the horizon, giving the snow a rosy glow and bright reflection. Tim is distantly aware of the warnings from his childhood ski instructors about never being caught out on the mountain at night but… well, he never did listen to his instructors.

Just as it begins to get too dark to see, and Tim finds himself slipping just as far as climbing, he comes across the mouth of a cave. Perfect. Clearly, some god is looking over him: if only Odysseus had such good luck, half the things in the Odyssey wouldn’t happen. He bundles in, tucking himself and Squish into the alcove carefully. She hasn’t exactly made traversing the mountainside easier, but they’re connected now, so he sure as fuck isn’t leaving her.

He doesn’t bother removing his salopettes or ski jacket, simply tucks himself into the sleeping bag and prays he’ll somehow manage to keep warm. If he had any kind of wood, he would build a fire, but the mountain is barren and he has no way of chopping a tree down even if he could. He half considers just lighting one of his matches for the warmth, but that’s a really ineffectual use of resources, and he is not stupid. Just cold.

He is vaguely convinced Squish is trying to change her species. From all of her movements recently, it appears she would rather be a worm than a cat, due to her incessant wriggling. Once he’s sure he’s blocking the entrance to the alcove sufficiently, he lets her out- plopping her unceremoniously on the cold stone floor. She seems to revel in it for a moment, running around the small area and pouncing on Tim’s sleeping-bag covered leg. To make her feel better about her skills, he feigns grievous injury. Squish is very proud of herself. He makes sure to snap a few pictures of her silhouetted against the sunset and mountains before the light is gone entirely.

As Tim had predicted, she spends a total of 3 minutes out of the warmth of Tim’s jacket before she’s whining to be let back in.

“This is why I didn’t let you out in the first place, stupid cat.” He announces to her, while using one hand to scoop her under her belly and pull her into the folds of his fabric. She mews pathetically and he sighs. “Fine, you aren’t that stupid. Just a bit.”

Squish appears to accept this admission of guilt, and curls up contentedly against his chest. Tim curls around her and picks up his bag, rifling through to check for supplies. Some beef jerky for Squish- he just drops it into his jacket and hopes for the best- and… oh great. More trail mix for him. Whoop-de-fucking-do. Curse park rangers and their health obsessed lifestyles. At least in the trail mix he bought for himself there were little M’n’Ms that helped spice up this depression-fest. Now all he has is raisins and despair. “If I make it out of this,” Tim sighs to Squish “I am never eating a single mouthful of fucking trail mix ever again.”

Squish, the uncaring creature that she is, just makes a little contented noise and continues eating. What a bitch. (He loves her more than life itself.)

He manages to get a few pages of the Odyssey in by the time sunlight has completely slipped away from him. Content, he curls up on the cold ground and falls into a fitful sleep.

The cold makes any kind of sleeping sort of hard, and when he wakes in the morning- yawning and bleary-eyed- his bones ache in a way that only the cold can manage. When he slips back into his ski boots, he is disappointed to see blood staining his socks. He’d been mostly avoiding cuts and bleeding on his feet (blisters are another story) over the course of his journey, but clearly his ill-fitting boots have tipped his poor feet over the edge. He considers vaguely wrapping them or something, but his hands are too achy and shaky to wrap a bandage, and it’s not gonna do very much anyways. Besides, he might need them, if anything more pressing comes up. Tim slips his boots back on, and packs everything up. Squish is still sleeping soundly, so at least he won’t need to worry about a mini version of the worm from Dune worming around his person.

In the morning light, as he’s pleased to find, it doesn’t take him that long to reach the top of the mountain. From there, his favourite part: skiing back down again. This time, he decides to unzip his jacket to let Squish get a front-row seat. He thinks she enjoys it, but the wide-eyed look she gives him after they reach the bottom is slightly hard to distinguish. Especially because she’s a cat. That really doesn’t help.

When they reach the bottom, he stops for snacks. A handful of trail mix, of course, and some water should see him through. The snow really helps him with this- so long as he only takes the top layer of snow- it’s clean and he doesn’t need to waste his all-important water-purification packs. And it’s kind of like a really bland Slurpee. Honestly, he is so grateful for his spleen. That’s not the sort of thing most people think about, but with all of the rivers he’s been drinking out of lately, he’s so fucking glad he has an in-tact immune system. In fact, he reckons his spleen is his favourite organ. It just fucking rocks.

The second mountain he has to climb up is pretty much exactly the same as the first, except now he has the joy of knowing he only has one more to climb after this. When he and Kon go on their ski trip, Tim is going to insist that they take the ski-lifts and gondolas at any given opportunity.

He makes the peak of the second mountain at around 5pm (by his best guess) and skis down with a frankly embarrassing woop!

That would be a great ending to his day, but unfortunately the universe hates him. As he nears the bottom of the slope, his ski gets caught on what he can only assume is a root, and due to his speed he goes flying. His ski gets left behind as he tumbles downwards- arms curled at a distance around his ribcage- protecting Squish. He doesn’t need her to actually live up to her name. Nominative determination is not coming for you today, baby.

It's only when he rolls to a stop that his brain registers the crack that sounded when he hit the root. He distantly hopes it was just something in the ski’s breaking but when he tries to move… fuck. His ankle grinds painfully, causing him to gasp out and bite down on his tongue. Fuck fuck fuckfuckfuck-

He opens his jacket, letting a very frazzled Squish out onto the snow- seemingly completely fine. Tim can’t say the same. He pulls out the first thing he can find from the front of his pack, which turns out to be his Odyssey. It’s a bit bloated now, thanks to the moisture from the snow, but it’ll do. He presses it in between his lips, biting down with his teeth. It tastes like book. Not really a surprise.

With something to bite down on, he starts the arduous process of moving. Lifting his knees doesn’t appear to be a problem, but placing his feet down is another deal entirely. He cries out the second his right foot lands on the ground, muffling the noise with his Odyssey-gag. He glares accusatorially upwards to the unfairly blue sky (he notes distantly that it’s the same shade as Kon’s eyes) and keeps moving. When he’s sat up, he unbuckles his snow boots and pulls them off as gently as he can (not gently enough.) The ankle underneath is already swelling, and he’s pretty sure a bruise is forming. That’s definitely not good. He does a preliminary triage, poking his ankle in various spots and discovering the pain is nothing short of agonising. Yay. A bit more poking helps him discover that while the bone is still intact, it is very much not in the place it needs to be, ie: it’s socket.

To his right, Squish is frolicking in the snow, and Tim takes a minute to watch her before the inevitable. Closing his eyes against the pain and bright reflection of the sunlight on the snow, he wrenches his ankle back the way it should go. With a sickening crack it shifts back into place. He clenches down so hard on his Odyssey that he’s pretty sure he’s bitten through the front cover, but the agony slows down to a bearable level, which he’s pretty sure is a success. Or at least, what constitutes a success here. The light around him is beginning to fade again, and he needs to find somewhere to sleep.

Experimentally, he tries to put some weight on his ankle. Blinding white pain shoots through him, just like before, but it’s bearable enough so long as he ignores it. So he’ll just ignore it.

If Kon or Cassie could see him now, they would be horrified. That’s one of those things with invincible friends, they have a very low pain tolerance. Tim is like 90% sure that if they ended up in human bodies for a day the both of them would be bed-ridden within an hour from, like, a stubbed toe or something. They have no concept of working through injuries in the way Tim and the other Bats do.

But Tim has been doing this his whole life, even before his time with the Bats, so he’s more than qualified. Squish trails along at his heels as he stumbles his way through the snow- searching for somewhere to survive the night. To his unending dismay, it’s a barren wasteland. There is just snow and rocks- not even a cave in sight. After a few minutes of stumbling aimlessly around the base of the mountains he gives up and finds a large rock. He lays on the opposite side to the wind and shoves the snow around him to make an almost igloo-like shape (more of a smudgy half-circle, but it’ll do.)

As satisfied as he can be, Tim draws Squish back into his arms and curls up to grit and bear the coming night.

…

He’s at the door of Wayne manor, pressing his hand to the polished mahogany. He raps his knuckles once, twice, before the door swings open of it’s own accord. He raises an eyebrow in confusion- there’s no way Bruce or Alfred would ever leave the front door unlocked- but he steps inside nonetheless.

He knows, objectively, that he’s in the manor right now, but the layout is completely unrecognizable. The corridors shift and grow, and it feels like his first weeks at the manor, when he couldn’t find his own room without a GPS.

After what feels like an eternity of wandering unrecognisable corridors, Tim finds himself at a door he recognises. It’s Bruce’s room, but it’s Bruce’s room from when Tim first met him. It’s changed a lot since then, different paint colours and sheets, but it’s still his. When Tim creaks open the door- and damn, since when was it so loud?- He finds Bruce sat on the edge of his bed. He’s looking at Tim with slightly glossy eyes, and nursing bruises and cuts all over his body. “Timothy.” He announces, and his voice is cold. “I see you’ve returned.”

“Uh, Yeah. Sorry B.”

“Why did you come back? We’re all better off without you. I left you there for a reason.”

“I know that but- well, I thought it was a test? To show I was worthy. Like my birthday.”

“Don’t be stupid, boy. I just wanted you gone. I never wanted you around in the first place. You insinuated yourself into my life when I was at my most vulnerable, having just lost my son, and you used that to your advantage. You’re sick, Timothy. A cuckoo in a robin’s nest.”

Tim’s not sure when he got tied to a chair, or when Jason and Dick got here, but they leer around him now, frowning down at his pathetic form. “How could you do that?” Dick asks. “You took advantage of a grieving man just to… what? Feel like a hero? You aren’t a hero, Tim. You’re just a waste of space.”

When Tim looks over desperately to Jason, he’s in his Robin gear, half his previous hight. When he speaks, his voice comes out high, shrill and desperate. “You let me die, Tim. You wanted it. You just wanted to take my place. How could you.”

“No! I didn’t! I swear I didn’t! Please, Jay, Dick… Dad, please.”

But it’s already too late. The gruesome scars that Tim is all-too-familiar with on Jason’s face begin to etch themselves on, bleeding horrifically down his body. The ‘J’ curling into his mouth starts to look more like a ‘T’.

He wakes with a start, a sob already forming in his throat. It was just a dream. It doesn’t mean anything.

Doesn’t it?

He gives himself a quick minute to calm down while he tries to rub some warmth back into his stiff fingers, to no avail. On either account. Tears keep slipping from his eyes and he doesn’t think he’ll ever feel his fingers again. Squish wakes up at all his movement and curls up around his neck, providing him comfort while he cries.

He’s so cold.

…

When he gets moving for the day, he is scared to admit that he still can’t walk very well. His ankle is a bright purple now, tinging yellow around the outside. Even so, he doesn’t really have a choice but to walk on it. If he stays here, he’ll just die from hypothermia. So he keeps walking. He makes it up the next and final mountain in about 8 hours- double his previous times. Every step feels like his last, but he keeps going.

He will always keep going.

When he reaches the crest of the mountain, he takes a minute to look out at the endless sky. He isn’t above the cloud line- these mountains are far too short for that- so he can see everything for hundreds of miles. And by ‘everything’ he means nothing. There is nothing for days, just forests and fields.

Great.

He eyes the expanse below him, pure white snow stretching for as far as he can see, and wonders how he is even possibly going to get down. He lost one of his skis when he hit the root, and it felt useless to take the other one with him, especially given the weight and his bad ankle. So there is no chance of skiing down; he tries to think of other options he could pursue, but he only ever really went skiing as a child. He does vaguely remember some other kids going down the mountain in these inflatable donut things, but he definitely doesn’t have one of those on hand.  After sitting and pondering for nearly half an hour, it occurs to him that snow is slippery enough that he should be able to slide just by sitting. He manoeuvres himself into a crossed-leg position, with his damaged ankle firmly away from the ground and pulls out Squish from the front of his jacket. He sets her in his lap so that she can have a look around and then gently pushes himself down the mountain.

In his defence, it does work. Unfortunately, it works too well. He begins to slide faster and faster, skimming over the surface of the snow faster than he would have on skis. Alright, well, that might be an exaggeration, but it sure as hell feels like it, probably because they are closer to the ground. For her part, Squish seems to love it, mewing and purring happily as they speed down the mountain concerningly fast. While Tim agrees it is fun, he’s more worried about what will happen when they run out of snow.

He doesn’t have to worry for long.

The snow begins to thin as they get further down the mountain, meaning that Tim has to dodge and weave between rocks that poke out of the soft white snow. Now is not a good time to get impaled. Eventually it thins out to a point where there is only an inch or two between him and the unforgiving stone.

Of course, the snow runs out eventually. In fact, it runs out quite suddenly, resulting in Tim careening down the rock face of the mountain. He slows to a stop very quickly, finally having friction to slow him down, but he definitely has some rips in his trousers after all of that.

The rest of the walk down the mountain is relatively uneventful, but slow going and painful. The angle isn’t good for his ankle, so he’s just sort of stumbling downwards and trying to remain upright. The sun sets, but he keeps going, not wanting to spend another minute on this godforsaken mountain. He makes it to the base late into the night and buckles to the ground, his legs finally giving out from beneath him. The exhaustion takes over quickly and before he knows it he’s out cold.

…

He wakes up to the feeling of a finger poking his shoulder. This is strange for a number of reasons; the most important being that he is (or should be) completely alone. Briefly, he wonders if Squish has grown hands. That’s possible, right? He cracks his eyes open to see bright green eyes staring down at him, and blonde hair haloed by a ring of light that he judges to be the sun.

“Oh thank fuck, you’re alive.”

“I… what?” Tim stumbles out. He isn’t the most eloquent on the best of mornings, and this definitely isn’t the best of mornings.

“I thought you were dead! Like, I just walked upon a dead body! I’m not equipped for this!”

“Oh. Um. Thanks? I’m alive, I promise.” Tim closes his eyes, expecting the stranger to leave after having confirmed his ‘alive’ status, but he doesn’t hear any shuffling. He cracks his eyes open and the stranger is still standing above him, staring.

“Can I… help you?”

The stranger blinks down at him. “I’m supposed to help you?”

“No you aren’t?”

“I just found a half-dead kid in the forest. I’m meant to help you now. That’s how that works I think.”

“Well, I’m awake now? That helped I think?”

“At least tell me your name. Then I’ll feel like I actually helped.”

Tim groans, internally cursing his bad sleeping arrangements, and pulls himself to a sitting position. This allows him to get a better look at the stranger- no longer blinded by sunlight. The boy looks to be about his age, with floppy blonde hair and a grin that is far too cheery for this time of day. His clothes look similar to Tim’s- dirty and old. It looks like he’s on a long walk too.

“My name’s Bernard. Bernard Dowd.”

The stranger- Bernard- holds out his hand for Tim to take. Unsure of what else to do, he shakes it and introduces himself. “Tim.” He doesn’t bother to add a last name, because that would draw too much attention. He doesn’t need this kid blabbing to the press about the Drake heir being found half-dead in the middle of the woods.

“Nice!” Bernard grins, his teeth flashing in the morning light. “So, Tim, what are you doing out here?”

“Going for a walk.” Tim answers, short and concise. No unnecessary information. Bernard huffs. “Yeah, me too. Though, by the looks of you, it’s a slightly longer walk than you planned for.”

“You could say that,” Tim relents, because he can’t really deny it. He looks a mess. Before Bernard can call him out on his clear half-truth, a little ball of black and white fur comes barrelling into him.

In his half-awake state, Tim hadn’t even noticed that Squish was missing, which he now feels deeply guilty about. Is he a terrible cat dad? Probably. Regardless, Squish’s re-appearance brings a welcome distraction, especially when she dumps a dead rat on his chest. “Oh, um. Thanks Squish.” She mews happily, which Tim takes to mean ‘Yes, Father! Rat for Father! Rat for Father for breakfast!’

Tim does not want a rat for breakfast.

He tries to tell her as much, but she just purrs happily and shoves the rat closer to him. The sheer disgust on his face causes Bernard to burst out laughing. “I take it she’s your cat?” He asks when he manages to calm down.

“Well yes. Most cats don’t bring me dead rats in the morning.”

“Well she clearly thinks it’s a very nutritious breakfast. I think you should eat it after all the hard work she clearly put in finding it for you.”

Tim just glares at him in response, which Bernard apparently finds hilarious.

Tim does end up eating breakfast, but he decides to have a handful of trail mix, and leave the rat to Squish. He may hate trail mix, but he hasn’t quite resorted to raw rat just yet. Give it a few more days though and maybe…

When he has finished and is packing up, Bernard addresses the elephant in the room (well, forest). “Where are you heading?”

“Gotham.” Tim replies, just as terse as before. “You?”

“North Carolina.” Neither of them explain their reasons for the trip, which Tim is more than fine with. “Gotham takes you through Pennsylvania, right? I’m going that way too for Carolina. We could walk together… but only if you want to, obviously.” Bernard huffs out an awkward laugh, scratching the back of his neck. Tim considers his offer. He doesn’t need any assistance, of course, he’s done just fine on his own so far, but Bernard looks far too inexperienced for this. He doesn’t even have a pack, which leads Tim to believe he has no food either. Well, Robin is supposed to help people, and it looks like Tim Drake needs to as well. “Yeah, alright.”

…

They walk in companionable silence for the first half of the day, the quiet only interrupted every once in a while when Bernard decides to reveal a piece of information about his life. Tim notes with interest that he never mentions or alludes to his family. He has a feeling that has something to do with his journey, but he’s not about to press.

His ankle aches with every step, but he makes a conscious effort to not let that show. Weakness, especially around a stranger, is best hidden. Robin training doesn’t break as easy as bones.

When they sit down to rest at Midday, Tim hands over one of his last two bags of trail mix to Bernard. “this is for you.” He announces, quietly pleased that that devil’s shit is out of his possession, even if it means less for him. Bernard, to his credit, is extremely thankful, and scarfs down a few handfuls very happily. He is also very happy to rip out some chunks of jerky to give to Squish. He, like any sane person, appears to have instantly fallen head over heels for Squish’s cuteness. Tim thinks this is very reasonable.

They are sat in the middle of a corn field, the swaying ears rustling lightly in the wind. It’s shockingly peaceful, in a way that Tim hadn’t expected. Honestly, he didn’t really have any expectations when he started this journey; mainly focusing on the getting home aspect, but it occurs to him that maybe the journey is just as important as the destination. He pulls out his disposable camera- thankfully not smashed after the mountain’s… events- and snaps a quick picture of Bernard with Squish in front of the corn field.

“Your hair is the same colour as the corn, you know.” He announces at large, holding his hand out to coax Squish over to him. She’s gotten bigger in the past couple of weeks, which despite being completely expected still makes him a bit sad. “Well, you know… I blend in better. Makes me a better predator.”

“I… What?”

“Yeah,” Bernard says, clearly bullshitting. “You know. Like um… Lions! They’re the same colour as like, sand.”

“Lions live in the savannah.”

“Well, the grass then!”

“Sure. Whatever you say.”

“You’re just salty because a mouse would see you coming a mile away with that dark hair of yours.”

“Yes, well, maybe I hunt at night!”

“Oh yeah?”

“Yeah. I hunt in the dark, that way they’ll never see me coming.”

Tim stops and thinks for a moment. “Wait, why am I defending myself on this? This is stupid. Neither of us are going to be hunting in corn fields. Why are we even debating this?”

At Tim’s confusion, Bernard doubles over laughing, clutching his chest. Squish hisses at the loud noise and crawls into Tim’s sweater in complaint.

“Piss off.” Tim grumps, faux-scowling and crossing his arms over his chest.

“Maybe I will!” Bernard announces, still laughing, and gets up to leave.

“No wait!” Tim calls, not actually having meant what he said, and suddenly learning that he doesn’t want Bernard to go.

“I’m just pulling your leg; I need a piss. Back in a minute.”

Tim relaxes then, focusing on packing his gear back into his pack. With his food shared between the two of them, they have far fewer resources. This is a bit of a problem, if Tim’s honest, because he’s not entirely sure how to get more, and he doesn’t really fancy starving to death. That would be an embarrassing way to die.

Not for other people! He’s not about to be the kind of guy who bitches about other people’s deaths. It’s a completely respectable way for like, other people, but Tim’s Robin for fuck’s sake. He needs to die in a cool way. Or at least a way that protects other people. Starving to death in the middle of Pennsylvania would not be very girlboss of him.

With his potential death in mind, Tim decides to check his ankle.

It’s… well, it’s not good exactly. In fact, it is actively bad, but he’s been through worse! He’s literally been stabbed before. A twisted ankle is nothing. It is, however, currently something. His ankle is a bright purple and about double the size of the non-twisted one. Doesn’t exactly bode well, but when he pokes it, Tim feels no pain. In fact, he doesn’t really feel anything below his knee on that leg, so it’s all fine! There is no problem here, no siree. Everything is just… dandy.

By the time Bernard gets back, Tim has packed everything up and is standing up to go. “Ready to keep going?”

“Always.”

…

The next nine days are pretty relaxing. Having someone else to look after turns Tim’s constant catastrophising outwards rather than inwards, which is always preferable.

On the third day, Tim woke up to see Squish trying her best to bite holes into his Odyssey, and he has since found about a million pieces of fur in between the pages, which is just delightful. His ankle has, thankfully, not swollen any further, but it hasn’t gone down, still remaining that ugly purple colour. Their supplies are dwindling, but Tim’s camera is slowly gaining photos. He’s grateful for the recording, because without it… well, none of this would feel real. Was it really only two weeks ago that he was in Yellowstone? How can that be right?

They bed down at the border of New Jersey, just out of sight of the interstate. Somewhere, not too far in the distance, a Shopping Mall car park glows with the enough light to see by. A water tower looms over them like the eye of Sauron, watching and waiting. For what, Tim doesn’t know, but it’s slightly ominous presence is appreciated nonetheless.

They are by a little pond, with trees covering one side, above waist-high grass. Clearly, whoever’s job it is to mow this section of grass, they don’t get paid enough to mow between the trees. Bernard and Tim lie down on the flatter section, and Tim lets Squish out to play. She’s getting big enough that it’s a bit difficult to carry her in his sweater, but she insists on it, so he can’t really refuse her. She runs off the second she’s free, but Tim doesn’t worry (very much at least). The first time she’d done that, he’d had a mini heart-attack, convinced she was leaving for good, but now he’s realised that she’s basically a teenage cat now, and she needs her angsty alone time. She’ll be back soon.

Bernard is splayed out on the floor, staring up at the stars. Tim had offered him his sleeping bag the first night after they met, but Bernard refused, saying that Tim was already giving him his food, he shouldn’t have to give up his blanket as well. They had argued for a minute, but when it was clear that Bernard wasn’t going to relent, Tim gave up. Besides, Bernard seems to genuinely enjoy sleeping on the floor- an activity he has labelled ‘Floor time’ and seems to cherish dearly. Tim has decided magnanimously not to question it.

“You know,” Bernard starts, after having chosen the ideal part of ground to lie on. “That’s the   border to New Jersey. Any further that direction and I’ll be going the wrong way.”

Tim hums at this, a strange sense of grief filling his heart, which is stupid. Really, it is. He barely knows this kid! Sure, he’s spent the last 9 days in close contact with him, but that doesn’t make them friends. He barely knows anything about him! He only knows his favourite colour (Blue) and his favourite food (Sushi) and his favourite sport (none) and his favourite justice league member (Wonder Woman) and his favourite show (Wendy the werewolf slayer) and his-

Okay, so maybe he knows a lot about him. But this isn’t a surprise! Tim has known they would be splitting up from the minute they met. It’s not like when, like… everyone else left him. It’s expected! He has no idea why he’s having such a freak-out right now.

“-and I was just thinking… well, of course you can say no, it’s kind of stupid anyway, but… well,” Bernard is scratching the back of his neck again. “Like, it’s probably stupid, and you’ll probably think it’s stupid but-”

“Just say it Bernard.” Tim says, but it doesn’t come out anywhere near as cutting as he meant it. In fact, it comes out sort of… kind?

“Okay. I was just thinking… Maybe you could come with me? I… I don’t really have any plans- not any concrete ones at least- but I was hoping to find some work in Carolina, and maybe find an apartment or something there, and like… find a normal life, ya’know? I guess… well, it would kind of be nice if you were part of that life, Tim.”

Tim blinks.

Blinks again.

A normal life? What would that even look like for him?

Tim’s life has never been normal. Not once. He supposes that’s what you get for being born to eccentric billionaires, and then moonlighting as a vigilante, but even so. Normal? What would he even do? Get a 9-5? Worry about bills and food shopping? Settle down somewhere with kids and a dog? It would be so boring!

Or… well, would it be boring or peaceful? Now that’s a thought. Wouldn’t it be amazing to stop fearing for his life every night? To go home to a warm bed and not have to get out of it to fight a deranged clown?

The problem, Tim is quickly realising, is that he doesn’t know who he is beyond the Robin moniker. He’s still so young; and unlike other kids his age, he’s been too busy to try and find himself. He’s had shit to do; scarecrows to fight. His days revolve around his nights; struggling through school, trying to keep his eyes open before crashing for a few evening hours, then waking up and going out to patrol, then back home to sleep and repeat. It’s almost like two separate days; like he alternates a real life, and his true life. He’s always… doing something. All his skills revolve around Robin- he can pick a lock better than anyone, and he can fight with a Bo staff in a way that would impress even the harshest of martial arts Masters, but he can’t quote Shakespeare to save his life. He’s missed out on all of this: all of what makes a childhood… well, a childhood. And sure, he wouldn’t change it for the world. Not for anything.

But it makes something like this; a future where he doesn’t die tragically young in a violent attack, completely impossible. He wouldn’t know how to live a normal life, even if he wanted to. He just doesn’t have the skills.

His fate has been written in stone from the second he took up the mantle and donned the Red-Yellow-Green of the Robin suit.

He’s about to tell Bernard this- or at least a sanitised version of it- when a rustle comes from the grass across the pond. Tim’s vaguely appreciative of the distraction, because how do you explain to someone that you can’t live with them because you need to go die young in a freak accident? However, his training kicks in, and he changes his stance into a wary crouch- stepping lightly in front of Bernard; protecting him. When a dark blur leaps out of the brush, his heart stutters in his chest and he leaps forward; intending to meet whatever foe it is head-on. Instead, his hands find warm fur, and his eyes find a decidedly disgruntled Squish.

“Oh. Hello Squish.” He announces at loud, mostly to cover up for that embarrassing performance.

“Tim, look.” Bernard’s voice says from behind him. Instantly, Tim whirls around to face whatever he might have missed in his distraction, but all he finds is Bernard; wide eyed and staring in awe at a thousand glowing orbs.

It takes Tim a second to work out what they are- half convinced they’re in the middle of some demonic ritual- but then one lands on his arm and he recognises the bug for what it is: a firefly. There must have been a nest in the bushes that was disturbed when Squish came careening through.

They whir around Bernard and Tim, glowing all the while, to the extent where Tim isn’t sure where the ground ends and the night sky begins. It’s like they are among the stars, and what Tim wouldn’t give to be able to disappear into the stars like this. He feels so free, and he knows Bernard feels it too; if the look on his face is anything to go by. A fly lands on his nose, glowing softly and illuminating the glow in his eyes, and Tim finds himself thinking that maybe it wouldn’t be so bad to spend a life with Bernard.

In fact, he would probably even be happy. Bernard is the kind of guy who he should settle with: safe, caring, not a vigilante. But he just can’t bring himself to do it. He has a duty. A duty to his people; to the world. When he decided to be Robin, he hadn’t expected to last very long. A few weeks was his guess. But he did. He kept going, and kept surviving. He learned very quickly just how horrible the job could be: how he got to see the very worst of humanity every night, and experience more than a little bit of it himself. But he also got to see the best. He gets to see the first smile from a little kid after he gives them a lollipop after a traumatic event, and he gets to see the little nods of thanks from the working girls as he watches over their return home every night. His job is taxing, and will probably (definitely) not end well, but he owes it to the citizens of Gotham to return. He chose to be their Robin and he will not let them down.

When the fireflies settle back down again, and Squish climbs into his front pocket, Tim turns to Bernard. “Thank you.” He says, and means every bit of it. “For the offer. Really. But I can’t. I have things I need to do, back in Gotham.” He pauses for a second, allowing himself to display his emotion. “But I reckon it would be real nice. Living with you.”

Bernard grins. “Yeah. I reckon it would be.”

…

Tim is not good at goodbyes. He never has been, not since his parents started making their trips ‘away’ longer than their trips ‘back’. He’s not good with people leaving him. So he takes matters into his own hands. As the sun begins to rise on the lake, he packs his gear, leaving some fresh water and Bernard’s bag of trail mix by the sleeping boy’s side. He tears a page out of his Odyssey, one of the mostly-blank ones with, like, the date of publication on it. Then, using his Montana-library pencil, he scratches a quick ‘goodbye’ note onto the paper. He leaves his number at the bottom, just in case.

When he’s done with that, he takes one lingering look back at the sleeping boy, prays he doesn’t get mugged before he wakes up, and sets off.

…

New Jersey is pretty small, so far as states go.

The only thing that’s actually interesting to Tim here is Bludhaven, because that’s somewhere he’s actually been! He knows it! In fact, his big brother lives there! He’s practically home already. In fact, it should only be another three days or so before he makes it back home. Everything’s coming up Timothy! He sleeps under a bus shelter on the outskirts of Bludhaven that night, knowing attempting to cross the city at night was practically begging to be mugged.

Not that he has, like anything good to mug. He doesn’t even have any trail mix left, which is both a blessing and a curse. Because yes; he doesn’t have to eat that shit anymore, but now he doesn’t have anything to eat. Yippee. By his original calculations, before meeting Bernard, Tim would have been fine for food. In excess, actually! But sharing halved his resources and now…

Well, there’s no point dwelling on it. It’s not like he can go dumpster-diving once he gets to Blud, because there’s always the chance someone could recognise him as Tim Drake (Wayne), and have some questions about what a supposed child billionaire is doing dumpster-diving. Oh yeah, and his ankle fucking hurts. He’s not sure entirely what he did to it, but clearly all this walking on it has been bad. It’s still bruised, but now there is just a sickly yellow where the purple once was. And it aches. Like, really bad. But he’s sure that’s fine! All the blisters that he’s had have hardened and scabbed, so at least his feet are numb now, and he can ignore his painful hunger by imagining it as a fun little buzzing, and the continued twinge in his wrist from it not being set properly after the fight is fine, and everything is just fine.

So long as he doesn’t think about, like, anything, then he’s fine.

…

He tries to tackle Bludhaven in a day; aware that otherwise he would have to walk through it in the night or- god forbid- find somewhere to sleep. He really doesn’t fancy getting mugged, or- even worse- running into Nightwing. That would be a pretty shitty reunion, wouldn’t it? ‘Hey Bro, sorry for disappearing off the face of the earth for, like, a month, but how about you just let me keep walking to Gotham, eh?’.

Yeah, not a good idea.

When he gets near Dick’s apartment, though, that now-all-familiar sense of homesickness washes over him. He’s stayed at Dick’s enough that it feels like a second home; much more than Drake Manor ever did. He could go there; eat a meal, run a shower- fuck, he misses showers- maybe even sleep in a real bed for a night. But he knows full well that Dick will rat him out to Bruce the second he steps foot inside the threshold, and if this truly is a test about whether or not Tim can make it home on his own then- well, he’ll have failed! And if this is training, then he's worried about what a punishment would look like. So yeah. No apartment time for him.

When he gets into the city-proper, he finds his pace slowing. This is partially because of the crowds- foot-traffic slowing his own fast walking speed- but also due to Bludhaven’s lack of pedestrian-friendly architecture. So many people here own cars that everything is built around them. If you want to walk anywhere? Suffer. At least in Gotham, most people are too poor to own a car, so most streets are walkable at all times. It also doesn’t help that Tim refuses to take the train system. He probably could sneak on with very little issue; the guards at the gates could never best Robin, but if this is a test, then Bruce is watching him right now. Will he punish Tim for cheating by taking a train? At least previously, he was in a place with no security cameras. Now, he could be watched at any time.

So it’s mostly his own damn fault when night falls on Bludhaven, with Tim very much still-in-it. Yip-dee-fucking-doo. He wraps his arms tight around his torso- and by extension Squish- and tries his best to look un-muggable. Sure, he’s aware that Blud isn’t as crime-heavy as Gotham, but it’s still pretty bad, and gang crime is kinda prevalent here. A random teen walking around at night, with no gang insignia? He’s a perfect target.

And, like clockwork, the second he ducks down an alleyway to take a shortcut, he spots a hulking mass at one end. Instantly, he turns on his heel and tries to walk back the other way; only to find himself chest-to-chest with another equally-six-foot-seven man. Great.

“Gents.” Tim states into the silence, deciding just to ride this out and hope it goes well. He can’t really start beating up thugs in his civilian persona unless they hurt him first. Then he can claim anything he does is fuelled by adrenaline. Yeah, that’ll do.

“Give us your wallet, kid.” The one wearing a jacket announces. He looks dumb, with his pants practically around his ankles, but the one without the jacket looks dumber, because it gets cold in Bludhaven, dude! Wear a jacket!

“I don’t have it on me.” He states, given it is literally true.

“I don’t believe you.” Dumber decides, and the two thugs start walking towards him from either side. Dumb presses him up against the wall by his collar, while Dumber starts looking through his pockets. Fat luck, he thinks, because he’s got, like, a pencil in there. Nothing of value. They start to turn him over- presumably to get to his backpack- when it occurs to him that Tim does have something of value. A whole lot of value, actually, especially the information it comes along with. His Robin suit. Shit. He needs to break this up.

He leans his head forward a bit, like he’s cowering, then when Dumber moves closer he shifts his head back up, braining Dumber as he does so. So far so good. He twists himself out of Dumb’s grip and tries to run away, speeding down the small alleyway as fast as his fucked ankle can take him, but unfortunately that is not fast enough. Dumber grabs him and slams him into the wall; hitting his head hard against the concrete. Ow.

Tim blinks away the stars in his eyes and tries to focus. Dumb is drawing near, pulling out- oh, ok. A knife. Cool. He comes up next to Dumber and holds the knife towards Tim threateningly. “Now, we’ll let you get away with that, punk, because we’re so nice. But if you try to pull something like that again?” He mimes pulling the knife across his throat, and Tim finds himself wishing he was actually dumb enough to move it a few inches closer.

Dumb looks Tim up and down, his eyes catching on the bulge around Tim’s stomach that is decidedly not stomach shaped. “Unzip his sweater.” He commands Dumber, who complies- much to Tim’s dismay. What can he do? He can’t let them take or hurt his cat! He’d never forgive himself! He’s about to strike- knife be damned- when a little white paw stretches out from below the zip and rakes across Dumber’s face, catching his eye as it does so. He screams and falls back, clutching his eye where a stream of blood is now spurting down his face. Tim turns his attention to Squish, making the (apparently incorrect) assumption that Dumb would go and help his friend. Clearly not. Instead, Dumb chooses to stab Tim. Right in the side.

Which, erm, ow?

Tim decides that waiting around to be stabbed more is a terrible idea, so he takes off at a sprint, leaving Dumb to decide whether to stay and help Dumber, or to chase after him. Five minutes, and a few sharp turns later, Tim is delighted to announce that Dumb chose the former, which means he now gets to tend to his wounds. Whoopee.

He ducks into another alleyway and pulls up his shirt- disturbing Squish in the process. He lets her out, but doesn’t let her out of his sight. Filled with trepidation, he looks down at the wound.

It’s… well, it’s bad. He’s had worse, sure, but this is the worst he’s had without access to the cave and Alfred’s nursing skills. But it’s fine! He’ll just… stop the bleeding! Right. Yes, stop the bleeding. There is so much bleeding.

He holds his hands to the wound as it spurts blood in time with his heartbeat; crimson rivulets travelling down his porcelain skin- like blood on snow. Quickly, he realises he needs something else to stop the flow, so he rips open his pack and pushes past his Odyssey (covering it in blood in the process) and scrambles for his bandages. When he gets them he instantly begins tying them around his torso, as tightly as he possibly can. This is… it’s fine. Not ideal, but fine. The buzzing in his head will be gone soon, as will the pain in his abdomen. He just needs to ignore them. Compartmentalise.

His blood is drying sticky on his hands.

It looks like he’s killed someone.

He shakes his head, trying to clear through some of that buzzing to find- something? What was he doing? Right. Yes. Gotham. Getting back to Batman. Robin. Okay. He pulls his pack back on his shoulders- messily pulling the zip shut, and starts walking.

Squish curls in between his legs, but he can’t seem to bend over to pick her up, so it looks like she’s going to have to walk with him. Every step is a new twinge of pain.

The trail of blood he leaves behind him shines dewy in the light of the moon.

Chapter Text

The Gotham city skyline is unmistakable. So, when Tim- stumbling slightly from the pain and clutching his torso- catches a glimpse of it in the distance, he knows where he is instantly. He is walking as quickly as he possibly can through the suburbs of Gotham- where the houses are polite and unwelcoming, in the hopes of reaching the city as soon as possible. Once there, he can head to a safe house or… or the Manor, and get stitched up properly. It’s already been over 12 hours since he got the wound, any longer and he’ll risk bleeding out. The even bigger risk, unfortunately, is that Bruce will find out, and give him an F on his ‘surviving getting dropped in Montana’ test. Or, even worse, bench him from patrol.
So yeah, he’ll just quietly patch himself up when he gets back and try to put some kind of splint on his ankle to stop it getting any worse. Oh, and some food. He’s gone about 48 hours without now, and if he doesn’t eat soon he might just keel over. Either from that or blood loss, it’s kind of a toss-up at this point.

…

Stepping into the City proper is like stepping into a different world; except, unlike most people, he doesn’t find it foreign and terrifying. Tim breathes in a deep breath of polluted air and finally feels at home. The bullet holes in the nearby buildings, boarded up shop fronts, discarded anti-toxin masks on the floor… Yeah, he’s home.
From there, his route is relatively easy. He decides to head to one of his safe-houses first, to stitch himself up, then head to the manor asap. What if Bruce has him on a timer? Maybe if he takes more than a month then he’ll drop him as Robin? Yeah, stitched up then straight to the manor.

His nearest safehouse is in the upper end of Gotham, and he quickly flies across the rooftops to reach it. Even injured as he is, the Robin movements come as easy to him as breathing, and he’s at the safehouse before he knows it. This safehouse was bought with his Drake-money, so Bruce doesn’t know about it. Sure, Tim may be paranoid, but it sure as hell pays off in times like these.
When he slips through the window into the small apartment, he is pleased to note that none of his traps or alarms have been set off. The apartment is entirely undisturbed. He quickly turns them off, then lets Squish out to play, knowing she’ll stay within the confines of the apartment, then it’s time to focus on his… ah, ailments.
He heads to the cupboards first, hoping to satisfy his hunger before he has to perform the arduous task of doing his own stitches. Unfortunately, he clearly decided not to re-stock this particular safe-house on his most recent trip, so the cupboards are barren and bare. Sighing internally as his stomach grumbles at past-Tim’s grievous oversight, Tim makes his way to the bathroom, where he keeps his med-kit. Tim may have stupidly assumed that he would be fully fed when he next got here, but he was at least prepared enough to know he would be injured, because his med-kit is fully stocked.

He sits right where he is on the bathroom floor, aware that these tiles can be wiped clean of blood, whereas the carpet cannot, and pulls out a needle and thread. The needle is curved in the shape of a half-moon, with a small eye to thread through. He pre-emptively threads the needle, then gingerly pulls off his t-shirt.
His bandages are soaked with blood- a bright crimson against the stark white of his torso. Not a great look, if he’s honest. What would Kon think if he saw him like this? Pushing that thought far back into the depths of his mind, Tim begins to unwrap the bandages around his torso, careful not to jostle the wound too much. When he’s fully unwound, he grimaces at the sight. The gash in his stomach is deep and ragged, leaking blood in a steady red flow. Tim picks up a wooden popsicle stick, and shoves it between his teeth, then clenches down. The stick works better than his Odyssey, he will admit, but the pain when he pours the ethanol on is not good. He whites-out for a moment, before coming back to see the wound mostly cleaned, and a puddle of ethanol on the bathroom floor.
Once he’s sure it’s clean, he takes the curved needle and threads it through the corner of the wound, making sure to keep it as straight as he can. The feel of the needle tugging through his skin is nothing he hasn’t felt before, but it still feels weird, as if he is a piece of fabric being added to a strange grandma’s skin-blanket. He ties off the suture and starts on the next one as his vision begins to blur. This is normal, he’s pretty sure. Normally Alfred does this bit, so he doesn’t have to worry about it, but he is finding the experience rather hard to manage whilst actively being the one in pain.

His stitches get sloppier as his vision fades in and out, but after about an hour he has successfully sewn up the wound, albeit messily. Tim’s are nothing like Alfred’s neat, orderly stitches. Most of them are lopsided and loose, but they’ll do the job. Tim tells himself that he’ll just stand up and head to the manor, no point dilly-dallying, but when he tries to stand his vision blacks out and his eyes roll up into his head and he’s out.

…

When Tim wakes, it’s to the sound of Squish pawing at his door, and he’s still sat in the puddle of ethanol. Great. It’s soaked into his skin and made his hands do the weird skin-thing where your skin puckers and goes all wrinkly. He stands up slowly, not about to make the same mistake as before, and successfully finds himself upright. His ankle is still throbbing almost unbearably, but he’ll survive. He pads his way out into the kitchen and is disgruntled to see that it’s now the early morning. He must have been out all night.
Bruce is gonna kill him.
He goes back to the bathroom and cleans up the mess on the floor- the ethanol pink from his blood. Then he picks up Squish- happily munching on a mouse that she found from who-knows-where in the apartment, and tucks her into his backpack. She mews unhappily, clearly upset at this slander, but he shushes her. “I know, it’s not as warm, I’m sorry, but I think if I come back a day late with a cat, Bruce might break his one rule, so we can’t afford it.”
She looks up at him with her big green cat eyes and he’s almost convinced to say “Fuck it” and do what she wants, but inevitably closes the bag with a sigh.

He climbs back out of the window gingerly and starts his trek along the rooftops to where he stores one of his more accessible motorbikes. She’s red, with a huge flick of black on the side, and he has a matching red helmet. He thinks it’s pretty cool. She’s hidden behind a dumpster, cleverly disguised behind a fake wall. He takes her out, knocks up the kickstand, and revs off.
It takes him a good half hour to get to Bristol, but he needs the time. He spends it trying to work out what he’s going to say when he gets back to the manor. Does he apologize? Give a mission report? Pretend it never happened like with his 16th birthday test?

He eventually decides the best thing is to just go back to life as normal and not address the fact he’s been gone for a month. He’ll text Kon and apologise for missing a month’s worth of dates, and say that something came up. It’s not technically a lie, because he for sure did not expect to walk from Montana to Gotham, but whatever.
It’s actually kind of crazy, now that he’s made it all the way back. Just a few months ago, he never would have believed he could be capable of that kind of resilience but, like always, he’s proved he can keep going.
Beneath his motorbike helmet, Tim’s grinning.

…

When he reaches Wayne manor, Tim decides against going in through the main entrance. His aim here is, of course, to lower the chance of creating a scene. Bruce definitely won’t want that. Instead, he heads through a side gate, deliberately avoiding any traps or surveillance, and parks his bike in the underground parking lot. He makes a mental note to take her back later.
It’s so strange, being back. This place that he’s known for so long- can walk around blindfolded (that was a weird test that Bruce insisted on)- and holds so many memories now feels foreign to him. Or is it Tim that is foreign to the house? He’s changed so much in the last month. Maybe too much.

He sneaks up the stairs into the manor-proper, glancing around to check for threats (ie. A well-meaning member of the Wayne family who might wonder where he’s been). He manages to make it to his room relatively uneventfully, only having to dodge cameras, and strips out of his strange forest-man clothes ASAP. He’s pretty sure Bruce would prefer… whatever kind of reunion he’s intending- to not smell like dead animal. He changes into something more comfortable- one of Kon’s ‘Super Boy’ shirts that is far too big for him, and a pair of jogging-bottoms. He musses up his hair a bit, and looks in the mirror.
He looks… well, he’s looked better. Funnily enough, the circles under his eyes have lessened slightly with his recent lack of workload (oh god, he’s got so much to catch up on), but the rest of him looks exactly how he would expect someone to look after a month trekking in the wilderness. He has strange, unexplainable cuts and bruises, and his hair is nearing his collarbones in it’s length. He kind of likes it. Well, after he pulls out the remaining twigs and leaves, that is.

He wants a shower, to finally get the mud and blood that have crusted beneath his nails out, but he can’t afford to re-wrap his wounds, and risk infecting them, so he settles for scrubbing his hands under the sink until they’re raw.
He still isn’t sure how he wants to approach his reunion. Show up at lunch? No, that’s a good few hours yet. He’s starving, (quite literally). His body is wrecked after a month of fucking trail mix, and on top of that he hasn’t eaten anything for the past three days. So, food. God, he wants a vegetable.

He heads down to the kitchen, hoping to grab an Orange or something, only to find a man bent over the kitchen island- head in hands. He’s confused for a moment, before a distinctive white streak makes it clear who it is; Jason. Steeling his nerves, Tim walks into the room. “Hey, Jay. Do you think Alfie got any oranges while he was at the market the other day? I’m really in the mood for one.”
At the sound of Tim’s voice, Jason’s head snaps up, eyes narrowing at him. Oops, maybe this wasn’t the best re-introduction. Jason stands, still squinting at him, and Tim internally accepts any potential punishments that his pseudo-brother is intending to give him. What he doesn’t expect is for Jason- a man who preaches his hatred of physical contact- to wrap him into a bone- crushing hug. Tim barely even has time to catch his bearings and hug back before Jason is pulling away again. Tim feels a pit of disappointment in his stomach, but is pleasantly surprised when Jason doesn’t step away, simply moving his hands to Tim’s shoulders. “You’re here?” Jason asks, with what Tim might even describe as awe in his voice. “Um… yeah?”
“Like, actually? I’m not hallucinating, am I?” Jason goes back to squinting at Tim suspiciously, looking him up and down. Tim laughs awkwardly, bringing his hand up to scratch at the back of his neck, which is shockingly difficult in Jason’s iron grip. “Nope, I’m really here. Sorry about that. I can leave if you wa-”

Jason cuts him off by rushing over to what appears to be a big red button on a watch that he left on the table. He hits it quickly, and it makes three quick beeps before going silent.
“Um, what was that?” Tim asks cautiously. Looks like he won’t be getting his orange anytime soon. “The Tim Button” Jason announces into the air, still fiddling with the odd device. “The others are on their way.”
“I… um… what?”
Tim is not prepared for this. His plan was just to seamlessly slot himself back into their lives, no big deal. This? This seems like a big deal. He makes for the fridge as quickly as he can, hoping to at least get a hold of his orange before the interrogation begins, but the sound of the door slamming open freezes him to the spot.

It’s Dick, frozen like a deer in headlights. He just stands there and stares at Tim for an uncomfortably long moment, until another body which looks suspiciously like Bruce slams into him from behind- presumably also running into the kitchen. God, they are really in a rush to tell him off.
Once Bruce and Dick pick themselves up off the floor where they had tumbled after their collision, they both just stand and stare at him. This is starting to get really weird, guys. Dick blinks himself out of his stupor and rushes to give him a hug, which is so tight around Tim’s midriff that he thinks it may have popped all of his stitches. He hopes the yelp of pain he lets out can be excused as a yelp of indignation. After a frankly agonising few seconds, Dick releases him, but he doesn’t go far, clinging to Tim’s arm like a scared koala. Both of them look at Bruce expectantly.

“Tim, I… Where have you been?”
Ah, debrief time. Tim’s got this.
“Mission debrief; after becoming aware of the nature of my situation, I learned my location as quickly as possible. As communications were impossible, I located a map and directions, then used all resources at my disposal to return to base. Further information is unnecessary to initial breakdown, and will be outlined in my full written report at a later date.”
There, that’s pretty good, right? All the important details mentioned.

Bruce just looks at him with an expression that is starting to look a bit like horror. All this staring is making Tim feel itchy. What did he do wrong now?
“I am sorry if my return time was unsatisfactory. I returned with as much haste as the situation allowed.”

“I… what? Tim, No!” Bruce stammers out, leaving Tim confused and a bit bewildered. “Why are you giving a mission report? You weren’t on a mission!”
“Yes I was…?” Tim states uncertainly, glancing at his pseudo brothers for support. They look just as dumbfounded as he feels, which isn’t all that helpful. “Like for my 16th birthday. It was a test, to help me get better. Test my skills being dropped in a strange place with no communication and my ability to get back to base… right?” The certainty wavers out of Tim’s voice as he goes on, suddenly feeling a bit stupid. His throat begins to hitch a little bit, which is incredibly unhelpful because if… If it wasn’t a mission then… did Bruce leave him on purpose? Was his first impression right? Maybe Bruce just realised how useless he is and tried to get rid of him once and for all, but Tim was too stupid and too damn stubborn to take a hint. God, he’s like a stray cat who’d followed Bruce home, not getting the message that he isn’t wanted. Fuck.
His eyes start to sting a little, but he won’t let anyone have the satisfaction of watching the tears fall. Bruce is still just standing there, presumably waiting for Tim to get the message and fuck off. Right. Yes. Leaving.

“Um, I’m sorry. I think I misunderstood the situation.” Tim says in his most ‘I’m a future millionaire and business owner and I know what I’m doing’ voice he can manage at the moment. It comes out sounding a bit weak, even to his own ears. Nevertheless, he pushes past Bruce and into the corridor, picking up his pace as the heads to the front door. He hears footsteps behind him, and voices calling his name, but he keeps walking, not wanting to hear their scolding because how stupid could he be to think he could be wanted. It’s ridiculous. Tim’s own parents didn’t want him, why would Bruce?
He has about made it to the front door, doing his best to hide his (very obvious) limp, when a clean butler’s suit appears right in front of his face, bodily blocking him. Before he can react, Alfred is pushing him into the nearest room (which just so happens to be the first floor library) and commanding him to sit. Despite wanting to be literally anywhere else, Tim does as he’s told- having learned years ago that arguing with the butler never ends well.

Dick, Bruce and Jason come running into the room, clearly having been hot on his heels. They start speaking over each other, Shouting platitudes that Tim has to consciously ignore, before Alfred shuts them up with a hand up in their direction.
“Master Bruce. I believe it is your job to fix this?”
Bruce sighs. “Right. Yes. I should do that.”
“-It’s really no need” Tim interrupts, hating that he’s forced Bruce into a situation where he has to sit down and explain that he doesn’t want some fake-son waltzing around his house. “I get it, don’t worry. I should have seen it earlier, and that’s my bad, but I’m not an idiot. I can see where I’m not wanted.” He tries to end it with a self-deprecating smile, hoping that will bring some levity to the increasingly deep atmosphere.

It doesn’t work.

Bruce looks horrified, and hurries over to the sofa Tim’s sat on to kneel at his feet, which is such a weird, fatherly gesture that makes Tim feel like he’s getting some very mixed signals. Dick makes a strange, choking noise, and even Jason looks hurt. Fuck, Tim can’t even leave a family right.
“Tim, of course you are wanted.” Bruce states which… well, that put somewhat of a spanner in things. Tim’s almost tempted to write it off as another mixed signal, but the sincerity in Bruce’s eyes is nothing if not true.
Fuck.
“Then, why did you leave?” Tim chokes out with a sob, and Oh, that’s not good, now he’s crying. Well, this is fucking embarrassing. Alfred hurries Dick and Jason out of the room, which Tim has enough wherewithal to be thankful for. They shouldn’t have to see Bruce tell a crying child to leave their family. (Is he even going to do that anymore?)
Tim can’t think of a single reason that Bruce could come up with to explain him ‘still wanting Tim around’ and the fact that he left Tim in the middle of the woods somewhere in nowhere-ville Montana. They feel like two completely opposing concepts, and Tim only has proof of one of them, so science dictates that’s the one he should believe. Tim doesn’t really like science right now.

Bruce chokes on a sob, grasping Tim’s hand and… oh, they’re both crying now. This is weird. “Tim, I swear, I never would have left you if I’d known. We’d had that fight, and you had stormed off, and I thought you were angry at me and I didn’t want to pressure you into speaking, so I didn’t watch you come back onto the ship. I waited a few minutes, then checked your tracker and… there you were. On the ship. I thought you must have been avoiding me so I… I just flew home. Let you stew.” Tim has a sudden, disastrous epiphany. Of course… his wrist watch has his tracker in it. It would have shown Tim safe-and-sound in the Batplane. Right where he left it, along with his emergency call button. The mistake that got him into this mess in the first place.
He feels sick.
“Then when we got home, you weren’t there, and I just assumed you had snuck out and were brooding somewhere. We…” He takes a deep breath. “We didn’t even realise you were missing until Sunday lunch. When you didn’t show, we knew something was wrong. It’s then that we realised you had misplaced your wrist watch, and we had no idea where you were. Obviously, Dick and I flew straight back to Montana to look for you, but you were long gone by then.” Tim feels guilt curdle in his gut. If he’d just waited a bit longer…
“We alerted the justice league, everyone we knew who could find you. The supers tried to listen out for your heartbeat, but you must have been masking it, like how I taught you to.” Tim opens his mouth to apologize, but Bruce just shakes his head. “I’m not mad, I would have done the same thing. We weren’t surprised, just scared. Oh, Timothy, we were so scared.”

Bruce steps up gently and sits beside Tim, looking shockingly open and emotional. He holds out his arms for a hug and Tim… Tim hugs him. He knows he shouldn’t, knows he has apparently caused all kinds of emotional distress for his kind-of-adopted family, but he goes anyway. When he’s firmly tucked in Bruce’s embrace, he keeps talking. “We didn’t give up the search all month. We checked security feeds, everything, but you must have mainly been in the wilderness, because we couldn’t see you. We… I couldn’t find you. I should have done better- found you quicker, done something-”
“B-” Tim tries to interrupt, but Bruce steamrolls on.
“I mean, I’m supposed to be the ‘world’s greatest detective’ but what’s the point in that title if I can’t even find my own son?”
“Bruce.” Tim sits up, looking into Bruce’s eyes. “It’s not your fault. I made a mistake. I misunderstood the situation and I… I didn’t let you find me. At first I was… well, I was angry at you, because I thought you left me. But then, I thought it was a test. I thought that you wanted me to get home without being caught and so I kept hidden. You never would have found me. After all, I was trained by the best.” He gives a little grin to Bruce, who tugs him back in for another hug. It’s more emotionally vulnerable than either of them are usually comfortable with, but it’s been a whole month, and Tim… Well he missed his Dad.

…

Eventually, their embrace is interrupted by an indignant yowling from Tim’s backpack. He wrenches back in horror. “Squish!”
“I… what?”
Tim rips open his backpack, pulling out the little bundle of joy that is his Kitten. Though, she probably counts as a cat by now- she’s grown so much. He awkwardly turns to face Bruce, holding her out under the arms so she stretches to her full length. “This is Squish?” He states, but his awkwardness makes it sound more like a question.
“Right.” Bruce responds, clearly confused.
“She’s my cat. She kept me safe on my journey.”
“Oh.” Bruce reaches out and scratches her behind the ears, earning himself a purr of contentment. “In that case, hello Squish, and thank you for looking after my boy.”

…

They let Dick and Jason back in soon after, both cooing over Squish the minute they spot her. Dick is very obvious about it, burying his face in her fur and peppering her with kisses. Jason scowls and calls her ‘stupid idiot cat’, but he lets her sit on his lap, and strokes her when he thinks no one’s looking.

No one brings up the elephant in the room, in classic Wayne-family tradition, but none of them seem to feel comfortable with leaving this soon after being reunited. While Tim is very joyful about this, and feeling actually kind of wanted by his family for once, he is fucking hungry. Like, I haven’t eaten for 3 whole days kind of hungry. He tries to ignore it by thinking about trail mix. He doesn’t feel hungry when he thinks about trail mix.
However, unfortunately, if he isn’t feeling hungry, he’s in pain. Whoopee. The stitches across his torso have almost definitely come undone, and his ankle is in just as much pain as always. This helpfully incentivises the ‘no going to the kitchen’ idea, but his grumbling stomach rebels quite forcefully. What fun he has.

He’s almost settling into the peaceful atmosphere (and successfully disassociating from the pain) when the front doors fly open with a deafening crack. A sharp wind whistles into the room, and Tim sighs. He recognises that breeze.

Impulse comes rocketing into the room- Wonder girl sat on his back- and wastes no time at all in wrapping Tim up into a hug. Bart manages about 3 seconds before he is speaking rapid-fire at Tim- presumably catching him up to speed on the last month’s events. It’s so fast that it just comes out as jumbled noises which Tim can’t understand. Thankfully, Cassie stops him with a hand, and gives Tim a (much gentler) hug of her own. She then bitch-slaps him across the face.

“Where the fuck have you been!”
“I… um, what?”
“We were worried sick!”
“Sorry.” Tim mutters, shrinking in on himself. He really didn’t mean to be this much of a bother to everyone. Bart is practically vibrating at this point, trying to restrain himself from talking, clearly missing the death glare that Tim is receiving from Cassie. “Anyway,sowefiguredoutyouwerebackbecause-”
“Slowly, Bart.” Bruce interrupts.
“Right, so we figured out you were back because Dick told Roy, and Roy told Wally, and Wally told me and so I told Cassie and she insisted that we run here to slap you and so I ran here and then- ah, yeah that’s pretty much all of it.”
“And you needed to slap me because…?”
“Because you went missing!” Cassie shouts, which doesn’t simplify the situation at all, but Tim has long since stopped questioning her motives. He’s just lucky that she tolerates him most of the time. She would be terrifying to have as an enemy.

“Right. Well. Um, I’m sorry? Like, I actually am. So, are we good now?” Tim winces at his words, wishing he could just automatically make himself believable. Curse tone and it’s wicked ways. Cassie sighs and relaxes her shoulders. “Yeah. Fine. Don’t expect me to hold back on Mario kart this weekend though.”
“Hold- you never hold back!”
“That’s what you think.”

After realising that they are all good now, Bart takes it upon himself to inform Tim of everything he’s missed in the last month. Apparently Bart spent a lot of time looking for him, which makes him tear up a little bit, if he’s honest, but they also got to fight alongside the justice league for a mid-level threat, and Wonder Woman praised their work. Tim is violently jealous.
Mid-rendition of the battle; which Bruce insists wasn’t as impressive as Bart is making it sound- Tim has a thought.

“And then Kon swooped in and picked me up to chuck at the mech and-”
“Wait; is Kon alright?”
Bart stops in his tracks (he had been pacing a hole into the carpet) and stares at Tim like he’s grown a second head.
“Yes? Why wouldn’t he be?”
Tim suddenly feels a bit sheepish, because sure, clearly everyone was worried about him, but it’s not like they can all drop everything to come and see him now he’s finally shown up. Kon shouldn’t have to abandon everything he’s doing just because his stupid boyfriend finally made it home from a useless quest. Tim is stupid for even thinking-

“Wait, does Kon know that Tim is back?” Cassie asks suddenly to Bart, who bluescreens for a moment.
“Fuck.”
“Fuck!” Cassie announces in solidarity, before turning and mouthing ‘sorry’ to Bruce and Dick, who are watching this whole fiasco in amusement.
“You didn’t tell him?” Tim squawks, indignant. Sure, Kon shouldn’t have to drop everything to come and see him, but he should at least know that Tim’s back.

In a blur, Bart is gone, only leaving a signature gust of wind in his wake. Cassie sighs and flops down on the sofa next to Jason, seemingly disappointed at her friend’s antics. Tim seconds that opinion.
Tim realises he has a few minutes before Kon either arrives, or sends Bart back with a message, so he needs to work out a response of what to say when he arrives. He needs to be apologetic, right? Yeah, say sorry for going missing, and say sorry for missing their ‘hangouts’ (dates) and basically beg Kon not to hate him forever. Yeah, that’ll do.

What he isn’t prepared for is Kon arriving before Bart, seemingly having broken the sound barrier to get here as fast as possible. When he arrives- normally neat hair blown into a crow’s nest, and eyes wide and searching- Tim finds all of his planning flying out his head with the accompanying gust of wind. He finds himself distracted looking his boyfriend over- for what he isn’t sure- but he hasn’t seen him for a month. He feels like a drowning man having finally found land. There is an air of calm around Kon- despite his frantic movements. Perhaps it’s just in Tim’s mind- the automatic safety that he feels whenever Kon is around. Regardless, it helps him feel a bit less like a worthless piece of shit. Kon’s tan skin glitters slightly in the glow of the library’s light- an aspect that Tim has never quite gotten used to holy shit- and his tall, muscled body is tense. His unnaturally blue eyes lock on Tim, and he immediately relaxes, sinking in on himself in what Tim might even go so far as to classify as relief.
Before Tim has time to react, Kon is bolting towards him. Their lips meet in a clash that feels like the sea hitting the rocks- finally falling away after centuries of waiting. Time slips away, and it’s their first kiss- rosy cheeked and young, embarrassed and inexperienced. And it’s their kiss at their wedding, full of joy and excitement. And it’s years’ worth of quiet morning kisses over cups of coffee and passionate ones at night. It’s their last kiss, old and withered in some hospital somewhere as Tim slips away, because he was always going to die first. It’s their first kiss, and their last kiss, and every damn moment in between, and-

There is an awkward cough from behind them, and Tim and Kon jump apart to see Bruce standing with his arms crossed. Behind him, Jason and Dick are losing their collective shit, cackling and falling over each other on the couch- presumably at Bruce’s expression. He looks… unimpressed. Tim finds he doesn’t give a fuck: not with Kon so close. He wraps his arms around his boyfriends’ waist, and leans into him, taking the moment to take the weight off his aching ankle. Kon is trying to stammer out something to Bruce- presumably something along the lines of ‘Hello man who is one of the only people on earth who can kill me, I’m dating your son, please don’t hurt me’ but Tim finds himself not listening.

At first he puts it up to being uninterested in another one of Bruce’s lectures, but he very quickly finds the edges of his vision darkening and becoming black. Uh oh, that’s not good. He tries to tune into the conversation; in the hopes of finding a good moment to interrupt and say ‘um, hey guys, I think I’m dying?’ but he finds he genuinely can’t hear a thing. Ok, yeah, none of this is a good sign. He tries to take stock of his body- running through his various injuries and issues which may have decided to make themselves known in this situation.
Right. Stab wound, check. Ankle, check. Various scrapes and bruises, check. Dehydration, check. Malnourishment, check. Bad wrist, check. Ok, yeah this is getting a bit long. What is actually wrong here?

Oh yeah. The blood loss.

He has enough wherewithal to raise his hand and say “Um, guys?” before his vision blacks out and he finds himself face-planting into the carpet.

…

Tim is floating.

Or, wait, no. He’s floaty.

It feels like he’s swallowed a bunch of marshmallows and started floating into the clouds. Or maybe he is a marshmallow. That would be cool as fuck.

The world around him is all weird and red though, which is not cool and sexy. It’s kind of boring actually. How is a guy meant to slay in these conditions? He finds himself thinking it would be very eye-opening for a lot of people to suffer like he is right now. Fuckers like politicians deserve this boredom.
Wait, eye opening? Oh yeah! Eyes! He has those! That’s so cool. In fact, he could probably even open them and-

Oh, yo. He’s not in the red place anymore. All around him, he sees bright white. Fluffy clouds surround him, and he thinks he can hear some angelic singing somewhere over to his left.
Fuck. He’s in heaven.
Kinda sucks, to be honest, he’d been wanting to do a few more things before he died, but it’s chill. He guesses the place he was earlier was hell. That’s meant to be red, right? Yeah, he thinks so.

Someone floats over to him (literally floats! Woah!) and says they are very glad he’s awake. Ah, yes, this must be his welcome committee.
He assumes that the being in front of him must be an angel, then. Yeah, they don’t just let anyone be in the heaven welcome committee, and he certainly looks angelic.

The angel takes his hand (oh my god, Tim has hands!) and presses a gentle kiss to his knuckles. Tim has quite literally never felt warmer. His cheeks are probably the colour of… um… red (?) now. Metaphors are hard in this state. Distantly, he registers that there is a beeping somewhere in the background, and it just sped up. The angel apparently finds this very funny. Tim likes the angels’ laugh. Tim wants to make the angel laugh more.
“Are you my guardian angel?” He asks, because he needs to know. Is there a conflict of interest if he is? Maybe they wouldn’t be allowed to date if so.
“Um… no?” the angel responds, which Tim is very glad to hear. He decides it’s time to up the flirting. “You come here often?” he says in his best I’m-the-son-of-a-playboy-and-therefore-a-bit-of-a-whore voice. He also does his best smoulder.

It does not work.

It has virtually the opposite of the intended effect (To woo the angel and make him fall for Tim for all eternity) but at least he gets to hear the angel’s laugh again. He also notes another (much more raucous) laugh to his right, which is (unfortunately) familiar.
“J- Jason? What are you doing here?” A cold grip takes hold of his heart. Is his brother dead again? Did Tim do something wrong? Did he get him killed?
“It’s visiting hours, dipshit.” Jason responds, giving him a pat to the leg. Hmm. Tim didn’t know that was a thing. Maybe because Jason was here before he gets visiting rights? Maybe he has a bunch of angel friends who sneak him in for poker on the weekends or something. He doesn’t know the rules of heaven just yet.

He turns back to his angel, who is smiling at him with such warmth that his heart flutters in his chest. God, he hopes not all of the angels are this hot, or else he’s going to be fucked. What’s a poor bisexual to do. He decides to question the angel before continuing to flirt, because Bruce would be very disappointed if he found out Tim focused more on flirting than his surroundings, even if the angel is really hot and his brain kind of feels like pillow fluff.
“What kind of food do you eat.” He demands, because do angels even need to eat?
“Um…” The angel appears caught off guard again. Ha! Two points to Tim. “Just whatever Ma makes, usually?”
So the angel has parents! Fascinating. Tim will file this away for later questioning, just after he finishes staring at the angel’s eyes, because fuckfuckfuckfuck they are so blue and pretty and-

“Hello? Earth to Tim?” A hand snaps in front of his face, drawing his attention back to Jason.
“Are you good Timbit?”
Tim considers this for a minute. Sure, he’s dead, but otherwise everything’s pretty great. He’s got a hot angel, his brother is here, and nothing hurts. That feels like an overall net positive.
“I am just dandy ” Tim stumbles out, grinning when he accomplishes a speaking. Moving his mouth is hard right now.
Jason bursts into laughter again.

“Have you met my angel?” Tim asks, when Jason stops laughing. He doesn’t know if it’s a bit presumptuous to refer to the angel as ‘his’, but he also doesn’t care.
“Oh, yes, I have.” Jason admits through bouts of laughter.
Tim covers his mouth with his hand on the angels’ side and says “He’s hot” quietly with wide eyes. Jason cracks up again, and Tim’s pretty sure the angel is laughing too. Tim slaps Jason gently with his hand. “No! Seriously! There is no way he can be that amazing and perfect! He must be secretly evil. Wait!” Tim gasps in horror. “Do you think he’s done war crimes?”
Jason is now unresponsive with laughter. Fuck him, though, because this is important goddamn it.

He turns to the angel, to interrogate him head-on. “Do you commit war crimes? Have you blown up hospitals? Do you abuse prisoners of war?” the angel is too stunned to speak (clearly horrified to have been called out on his crimes) but before he can respond he is interrupted by yet another familiar voice.
“What did I just walk in on?”
“Dick! You get visitor hours too?” Damn, Tim should have been making use of this apparent loophole in the life/death system ages ago. Why did no one tell him?
“Well, yes? That’s how visitor hours work?”
“Fascinating.”
“Okay, you. That’s enough for today.” Dick walks over and starts fiddling with some kind of tube that Tim hadn’t noticed earlier. “What! No! he’s so funny like this.” Jason protests in between cackles, and Tim would be offended at the reasoning if Jason wasn’t standing up for him like this. “Exactly! I’m so funny like this!” He pouts, which just makes all of them laugh again.
“While that is true, you need your rest, and you aren’t getting it right now.” He presses a button on some kind of machine. “Goodnight, baby bird.”

Fuzziness begins to cloud the edges of his vision, and Tim is suddenly gripped with fear. Where are they sending him? Will he wake up again? If he dies in heaven, where does he go? In desperation, he turns to the angel. He might not be Tim’s guardian angel, but he must be someone’s so he’ll have to do. “Please.” He begs, “Stay with me? Keep me safe?” He usually doesn’t like leaving his fate in someone else’s hands, but he doesn’t understand any of this, and the angel is trustworthy, he just knows it.
“Of course.” The angel says as he fades out. “Always.”

…

When Tim wakes, with only a faint memory of a very embarrassing drug-induced state, he finds himself alone. A quick scan of his surroundings confirms the obvious- he’s still in the cave; in one of the cots in the medical bay. He’s plugged into various machines which are monitoring his vitals, and there is a little post-it-note on the railing of the bed. The only other living being in sight is Squish, who is curled up asleep at the base of the bed. Tim leans over, wincing a bit at the pain in his abdomen, and picks up the note.
‘press the call button when you wake >:)
-Dick’
With nothing better to do, he decides to follow Dick’s advice and press the temptingly red button to his right.

Within a minute, he hears the telltale chatter and footfalls that precedes his brother’s entrance. Jason comes in first, followed closely by Dick who is in a firm headlock. Kon enters right after, looking a bit sheepish, with Bruce and Alfred hot on his heels. Damn, so the gang’s all here.
“What’s up, Timtam!” Jason announces when he finally releases Dick’s head; allowing him to breathe. He sits on Tim’s right, leaving Kon to take the left and Dick, Bruce and Alfred to stand at the foot of the bed. Yeah, this is a bit threatening.

“We sent Bart and Cassie home.” Kon explains, taking Tim’s hand gently, earning him a glare from Bruce. “They were intent on waking you by any means necessary, which we figured wasn’t that great for your healing.”

They fall silent for a second, all turning to look at Bruce, who clearly has something to say. “Timothy.”
“Bruce.”
“You are hurt.”
“I was hurt. Big difference. I’ll be fine now.”
“You didn’t tell us.”
“I was sewn up! I would have been fine.”
“You passed out.”
“That was an unfortunate side effect of the malnutrition mixing with the blood loss. A shame, but not an indicator of harm.”
“Not a- Tim!” Dick interrupts, mouth agape like a fish. “Both of those things are harm, idiot!”

Alfred just sighs. “A full list of your injuries, Master Timothy. Now.”
Now, Tim may be stupid, but he’s not suicidal. (Not that suicidal, at least.) so he tells Alfred.
“Okay, so. I think my wrist was a bit fractured by the initial fight, but it sort of fixed itself pretty early on. Even so, we should probably check that it hasn’t set weird. Then there’s… oh, yeah! I got stabbed. I stitched it back up, and cleaned the wound, but I don’t know how many of the stitches are left. Quite a few popped out. I haven’t eaten in, like, three or four days at this point, so I’m kinda hungry, but that’s fine. I think that’s everything?”
He thinks for another moment.
“Oh wait! My ankle! Yeah, I think I broke it when I was skiing down a mountain. I thought it was just sprained so I kept walking on it, but it definitely wasn’t, so we should probably fix that.”

“Skiing down a mountain?” Kon asks, voice so clearly confused it would be comical if Tim couldn’t see the patented ‘bat-glare’ out of the corner of his eye.
“Yeah, well, there was a mountain range in my way, so I decided to go over rather than around. It was so much fun, actually! Remind me, and we’ll go sometime.”
“Fun?” Jason scoffs. “You broke your leg!”
“Just my ankle! And it’s not like one bad moment ruins the whole event, you know.”
“What else did you do? Sightseeing?” Dick quips at this, presumably hoping for a cheap joke. But oh-ho! Tim came prepared for this.
“Well actually-”

…

When he’s finally finished his long winded tale of his journey, and spent at least another 5 hours letting Alfred run tests and patch him up, Tim takes his pack and heads to his room. Kon is already there, laying spread eagled on his bed, wearing some of Tim’s pyjamas. In fairness, they were probably Kon’s originally, but they are Tim’s now goddamn it.
Tim sighs, and barely restrains himself from just flopping down into the bed, into his boyfriend’s arms. He has unpacking to do. Squish is currently downstairs, helping herself to Alfred’s cooking, but he leaves the door slightly ajar so she can slip in whenever (also for Bruce’s delicate sensibilities.)

He takes out his Robin suit first. He hasn’t worn it since the first few days of his trip, but it’s still dirty and a bit bloody, so he dumps it in his laundry basket. The rest of his strange collection of outfits follow, and he lifts each one to show Kon as he does so. Kon appears particularly taken with the ‘Alpha Male’ kitten shirt, and declares he’s going to steal it for himself at the nearest opportunity. Tim makes a mental note to burn it as soon as possible.
Next, there is a lot of trail mix wrappers to dispose of. He places them in the trash, then decides he can’t stand to have them in the same room as him, so goes next-door to Dick’s room to dump them in his trash. That’ll show ‘em. Kon gives him a bemused look, but doesn’t mention it, which Tim appreciates. No one can understand the hatred he holds.
The various miscellaneous items he collected over his trip get placed on his shelf, then he pulls out the final item- his Odyssey. It’s… battered. Ruined, even. And yet… Well, he’d been reading this the whole journey. The story of Odysseus’s return to Ithaca mirrored his own return to Gotham (although Tim’s required much less killing.)
For a second he turns to the trash, debating hurling the mauled book into oblivion, but at the last second he stops. He looks down at all the marks: Teeth marks from both himself and Squish, fur practically matted into the pages, edges dyed red from his blood and bloated from the snow. The front page is missing, torn out to write down Bernard’s number. Sure, it’s a mess, but the memories which reside in this book…
He places it on the bookshelf.

The only thing left to do is to take out his travel camera from the front pocket. It’s got one photo left, so he snaps a quick selfie with himself and Kon, then puts it on his dresser with a reminder to take the photos to print the next day.

“Are you done now?” Kon asks, after Tim finishes reverently placing various items around the room.
“Yep.” Tim announces, popping the ‘p’ as he does so. “I just need to get changed, then we can sleep.” It’s been a long day.
“Ugh. Why can’t you just sleep in those clothes?” Kon whines, clearly done with being awake. Tim can relate. Even so, he gestures down at his clothes- covered in mud and blood- then back at the clean white bedsheets. “Not happening.”
He pulls off his shirt gently, trying to avoid pulling at his new (Alfred patented) stitches. He hisses a bit, earning himself a wince from Kon, but manages without too much difficulty. He tries not to look at the mottled litany of bruises that litter his skin, painfully aware of Kon only a few metres away. He rummages in his closet and pulls out the first shirt he sees, which ends up being one of Kon’s old hoodies. It dwarfs him, but he pulls it on quickly, and follows it up with some checkered pyjama pants. He then sidles over and slips into the bed next to Kon, who has successfully warmed it up like the (half) human heater he is. He cuddles up to Kon, and closes his eyes, content to just fall asleep, but Kon grabs his arm and looks intently at one of the bruises there. The dark, sickly, purple-green of the bruise highlights a collection of small white scars that he got from a fight with the Joker a few years ago, making his flesh look strange and inhuman.
“You’re beautiful.” Kon announces into the dark which is just…
It’s incorrect, but appreciated.
“You can’t say that while looking at my bruises, dude.”
“No, but, like… that’s what I was talking about. Your bruises are beautiful.” Tim looks up at Kon in confusion and his eyes turn wide. “Not that… I mean, all of you is beautiful, like all the time, but-”
Tim just sighs. “They’re bruises, Kon. Literally what are you on about.”

Kon lifts his arm up to show his perfect, slightly-glittery skin. In comparison to Tim’s sickly pale arms, Kon’s unblemished tanned muscles look almost comedically better. “What’s the difference between our arms?” Kon asks, and Tim is about to launch into a whole self-deprecating spiel before Kon stops him with a finger to his lips. “Mine have no bruises.”
He says this like it’s earth-shattering information. Like a bad thing.
“Um, yeah? You’re invincible.”
“Exactly.”
Kon waits a moment, as if he thinks Tim is going to suddenly understand his reasoning, before sighing and explaining. “I can’t get hurt. Not really; not unless I get hit with Kryptonite. But you? You get hurt all the time. Every god-damned day. And you keep going! You walked for weeks on a broken ankle, and you dragged yourself home with a fucking stab wound and you do this all the time! You are so used to getting hurt it doesn’t even register to you anymore. That makes you so much stronger than I could ever be; regardless of what people think about us Supers. You are stronger than I could ever be.”

Tim has no words to say to that, so he shows his feelings in the only way he can- with a kiss.
And that night, falling asleep in his Boyfriend’s arms, it occurs to Tim that maybe it was all worth it in the end, just to be here right now.
Maybe it’ll all work out.

…

Two years later

Damian sits at the kitchen counter, stroking Squish gently while doing his homework. It’s laughably easy- clearly the American schooling system isn’t prepared for his league-based intellect, so he’s getting through it quite quickly. Despite this, he made sure to gather himself a snack before attempting it. Thinking should not be done on an empty stomach.
As he reaches the end of his page, Drake enters the kitchen.
Their relationship had been rocky to begin with, featuring a lot of one-sided murder attempts and violence (which came from a place of jealousy, not that he would tell Drake that) but they have since moved past that into a brotherhood. Or, at least, a tenuous co-existence. Damian is relatively sure he trusts Drake more than Drake trusts him, as Damian is the one who did the murder-attempts. It’s reasonable. Even so, in an attempt to solidify himself as a trustworthy ally, Damian attempts a traditional aspect of Brotherly-bonding.

“Drake. Would you like to sample a portion of my snack?”
He hadn’t been able to source anything of value, due to Alfred being away visiting old friends in Britain, so had settled for the first thing he had managed to get his hands on.
When he clocks the food, Drake’s eyes widen with what Damian would suggest is in keeping with the common reactions present in fear.
It’s just a snack! Damian didn’t even poison this one, and hasn’t for ages!
“What, Drake?” He snaps. “Do you not like trail mix?”
Tim turns on his heel and runs.