Chapter Text
Jason stared at the blade in horror, too terrified to move. Tim’s eyes were glazed, as if drowned in a thin fog, and Jason doubted he could see anything through it. There was a chilling resolve etched into Tim’s pale face, so stark it made Jason’s gut twist.
Because Tim always followed through with his words.
The blade pressed deeper into his skin, drawing a thin crimson bead that traced the edge of steel. Jason almost took a step forward, instinct snapping at him to move, but he stopped when Tim’s hand trembled, tightening around the hilt like it was the only anchor holding him upright. Jason’s jaw clenched until his teeth ached, helplessness gnawing beneath his ribs.
“Kid…” Jason tried again, hopeless, but Tim didn’t seem to hear him. Didn’t seem to see him. His chest rose and fell in rapid, shallow pulls of air, panic carving shadows beneath his eyes. Jason prayed the fear would push him into unconsciousness—anything to stop the inevitable.
“Tim,” Jason said, voice cracking despite his effort to steady it. “Tim, look at me.”
Disgust curled in his stomach at the pleading he heard in his own voice, but he would do anything for his brother. Anything to keep him from breaking. Even if this Tim wasn’t his Tim, even if he belonged to a different world, a different Jason.
He would bring him home. Back to his family. Back where he should have been.
Drawing in a shaky breath, Jason looked up, where Damian stood. His lips were pressed into a thin line, a crease carved between his brows, his gaze locked on Tim, like a tiger waiting for the exact second the prey became weak enough to strike.
But Tim wasn’t giving them the chance. He slowly backed toward the railing, never letting them out of his sight. His body was coiled tight, poised for a jump, and Jason knew—knew with a sick certainty—that he wouldn’t catch him in time. If he moved now, the door on the floor would remain open, and Tim could slip through it before anyone blinked. But if Jason stayed frozen, doing nothing…
Tim leaned further back, his spine bowing dangerously over the drop below. His eyes darted between them in frantic bursts, the blade still grazing his throat. Damian stepped forward, and Tim’s voice tore out, hoarse and sharp, echoing off the narrow stairwell walls.
“Stop!”
Damian froze, his gaze piercing but—unnervingly—soft. Jason couldn’t pinpoint when Damian had learned how to look like that. Maybe they were all strangers now, pretending at familiarity.
But Jason didn’t have time to drown in self-loathing.
Tim was still gasping, mouth open and desperate for air, keeping them all at bay. They understood the rules of this game: it was a waiting match. And the only advantage they had was numbers.
Jason glanced past Damian, who stood perfectly still at the top, eyes never leaving Tim, then to Bruce, who was silently dissecting Tim with his gaze, as if he couldn’t fully comprehend who stood in front of him. Jason grit his teeth, the weight settling squarely on his shoulders. And he hated it.
“Hey, kid,” Jason started, lifting both hands in a peace gesture, forcing out a crooked smile. “Big bad bat just wants to talk, alright?”
His tone turned dry, almost mocking. Anything to keep that blade from sliding deeper.
“He wanted to apologize for being an ass. You’re gonna let him apologize, yeah? Doesn’t happen often, and I’d hate to miss the show.”
Tim’s eyes snapped toward him, locking all of his attention onto Jason. Jason ignored the dark look Bruce threw his way; if Bruce wasn’t going to fix this himself, then Jason damn well would.
“So? What’s it gonna be, kid?” Jason forced out, trying to sound casual. “You wouldn’t rob me of a front-row seat to that, would you?”
He tried for a smirk. Tried to lace his voice with humor. Tried—desperately—to ignore the blade pressed against Tim’s throat. But his heart was pounding harder with every second, drumming against his skull until his vision throbbed with it.
And for the briefest moment, Tim’s hand trembled, just enough for his grip to slacken on the dagger.
Jason let out a quiet breath of relief—
—and then steel flashed past his face.
The dagger sailed through the narrow space and slammed into the wall with a dull, brutal thud, lodging itself deep in the plaster. Jason staggered sideways on instinct, and that one second, one heartbeat, was all Tim needed.
His spine bent back, body folding at the waist, and then he dropped.
Straight through the open gap between the staircases.
Jason could do nothing except watch as his brother fell twenty-two floors down, feeling his own heart seize in his chest. And in that moment of freefall, Jason saw something he knew would haunt him in his dreams for a long, long time.
Tim was smiling.
Jason lurched forward, ready to jump after him. Damian shoved toward the railing too, fear sharp on his face, raw and exposed in a way Jason had never seen, but before either of them could move, a shadow below swept through the stairwell.
Familiar. Precise. Terrifyingly fast. It snatched Tim out of the air, pulling him tight, and a needle plunged into Tim’s neck.
It all happened in seconds, but to Jason, time ground to a halt.
He stared down the stairwell, meeting a pair of bright blue eyes belonging to his eldest brother. Dick’s face was calm, but Jason saw the strain in the set of his jaw, the tension in his arms as he held Tim like he would vanish if loosened even a fraction.
And through it all, one thought mercilessly drilled itself into Jason’s skull:
Tim smiled because he knew he was going to die.
Dick walked straight ahead, following the line of Bruce’s back. The body in his arms, silent as a puppet, was pressed close to his chest. Cold radiated from Tim’s skin, and there was a metallic scent of blood clinging to him, sharp enough that Dick had to fight the urge to rush home, to wrap Tim—not their Tim—in a blanket and make him warm again.
Alfred. They needed Alfred. Alfred always knew what to do. Dick was certain that Alfred would fix this.
“Not this time, Dickwing,” Jason rasped, and Dick blinked at him in confusion. “You were mumbling to yourself.”
“I…” Dick opened his mouth, but shut it again, hollow and speechless. What could he possibly say? What words even existed for this?
The walk to the parking garage was suffocating in its quiet. Each of them was locked inside their own thoughts. Bruce led the way, throwing heavy glances over his shoulder from time to time. Damian trailed behind as a silent shadow, not uttering a single sound. Dick, meanwhile, kept replaying the moment he saw Tim’s body drop through the stairwell’s open shaft.
If he hadn’t been on that floor. If he hadn’t listened to Duke. If he had followed Bruce. If he hadn’t caught Tim…
Dick swallowed hard and lowered his gaze to Tim’s pale face. Maybe it was only the sedative, but he looked peacefully asleep in Dick’s arms—so young, so light, so horribly defenseless and fragile.
What had they done? What had Dick done?
“He chose to fall,” Dick whispered, catching the way Jason flinched and dropped his gaze to Tim. Dick drew a breath so deep his ribs ached, repeating the words. “He chose to fall, Jay.”
And Dick knew he had no one to blame but himself.
“For him, accepting death is easier than trusting us,” he went on, and with every word something inside him thinned—another thread of hope snapping loose. Because this was Tim. This was his younger brother. And Dick was repeating the same mistakes all over again. “Back then he didn’t know I would catch him. He couldn’t have known. Our Tim…”
Dick exhaled a broken, ragged sound, and looked at Jason with a kind of desperate clarity. Jason’s eyes were shifting, the green of the Lazarus creeping into them, reminding Dick of what he had dragged his brothers into, simply by allowing Robin to exist. By letting his brothers to follow his steps.
“…He chose death every time, and I never saw it. How can I call myself an older brother, Jay?”
Jason, like him, had no answer.
His stomach twisted from pain and hunger. A metallic tang of blood clung to his tongue, thick and coppery, and a cough tore out of him—violent enough to bend him forward as far as the shackles allowed. Blood splattered from his mouth and pattered onto the floor, warm for a moment before cooling against stone. He sagged to his knees, spent.
He heard footsteps—lighter this time, almost playful. Tim lifted his chin, meeting Klarion’s dark stare. An intrigued smile curled across the witch boy’s face.
“Resilient, aren’t you? Hats off to you, Robin. Not many of Ra’s prisoners can endure his Majesty this long,” Tim heard the mockery in his tone, though it was unclear whether it was aimed at Tim or Ra’s himself. The world blurred and smeared like wet paint; colors ran together, and a ringing drilled through his skull. He almost wished Ra’s would simply finish him.
“Maybe he’s losing his grip with age,” Tim rasped, coughing blood again. Each breath dragged fire through his chest; his ribs were undoubtedly broken, stabbing agony into every movement. How many weeks had passed? He had tried to count, but blackouts came and went too often, stealing time in chunks until numbers ceased to matter.
No one was looking for him anyway. Red Robin was always on his own.
“Maybe,” Klarion murmured, crouching close and peering straight into his eyes. Dark energy crawled over his palm, pulsing like rot, and Tim flinched, trying to recoil. The shackles screamed against the stone, metal shrieking, but clawlike nails seized his cheeks and forced his gaze upward into the abyss swallowing his sight. A sticky terror flooded his mind, freezing his throat. He could only listen as Klarion’s voice spilled strange words he couldn’t understand.
Then the darkness surged forward and took him.
“Don’t worry, Robin,” Klarion purred, amusement dripping from every syllable. “We’ll see each other again.”
Tim’s heartbeat slowed…slower…slowe…until he could no longer hold his eyes open, surrendering himself to the void.
His eyes snapped open, and his hand flew to his chest, palm pressed over his heart.
Thud. Thud. Thud.
It was beating. His heart was beating. It had only been a dream. Only a nightmare.
Or had it?
Still clutching his chest, Tim pushed himself up, the motion sending a ripple of pain through every inch of his body. His wounds—of course. He lifted the hem of his shirt, staring at fresh bandages wrapped tight around his ribs. Someone had cleaned him. Someone had changed his clothes.
Tim’s head jerked up. Cold dread washed over him as he realized where he was—the infirmary of the Batcave.
They found him.
The memory hit him with white flash: meeting Bruce at the stairs, the flash of steel, the drop, and then falling, falling, falling…
He shouldn’t have survived.
A ragged breath tore out of him. His fingers curled into the sheets, and bracing a shaking arm across his torso, he tried to push himself off the cot.
“Don’t even think about it,” a stern voice snapped.
Tim froze and turned his head. Dick sat in a chair beside the bed, elbows braced on his knees, fingers interlaced, watching him with a severity that rooted Tim in place. That gaze alone held him still, more binding than any restraint.
Dick’s stare was freezing cold, but buried deep in that frost was despair, and Tim couldn’t understand why it was directed at him. Hadn’t Dick wanted him gone? Hadn’t he wished to get rid of him?
“Don’t move,” Dick repeated, eyes locked on Tim as though blinking might make him vanish into thin air. The tension crawling through the room left Tim’s skin tight and prickling. He had no idea what they wanted from him. Despite the ache, the exhaustion, and the hunger hollowing him out, he bared his teeth and pushed himself upright, bare feet touching the cold floor, knees trembling beneath him.
“I’m fine.”
He was Timothy Drake. Red Robin. He was always fine.
Dick’s gaze narrowed and skimmed over Tim’s body—slow, assessing, clinical—and a shudder traced down Tim’s spine. He took a step back, still baring his teeth, still holding his ground. Dick didn’t move from his chair, just leaned back slightly and let his shoulders drop—an imitation of calm Tim didn’t buy for a second.
“Why isn’t he in bed?” Jason’s voice cut through the room as he crossed to the cot in a handful of strides, jabbing a finger toward Tim with a scowl. “He can barely stand! Dickwing, you were supposed to watch him!”
“I am watching,” Dick answered, not looking away from Tim even as Jason swore under his breath, a low frustrated growl curling out of his chest.
“You’re not supposed to let him get up,” Jason snapped, as if explaining to a child. Tim watched them both through narrowed eyes, one hand braced against his ribs, taking another step back and both their gazes snapped to him at once.
“Suggest we tie him to the bed, Jay?” Dick arched a brow, lips curling into a mocking smile, only Tim didn’t find it funny. Jason shook his head, hands dropping to his hips with a tired huff.
“Doubt that’d work,” Jason stepped closer to the cot and tapped the sheet with his palm. “Come on, you need rest, baby bird.”
Both of them watched him, waiting, weighing him, and for the briefest moment Tim nearly believed they cared.
But that wasn’t concern. It was guilt.
Tim lowered his hands slowly, straightening his posture and lifting his chin despite the sharp pull of pain along his ribs. His lungs burned when he tried to draw a full breath, and his vision swam at the edges, but he kept his face blank.
Keep your back straight, Timothy. Always meet their eyes.
“I’d like to know when I’m allowed to leave,” he said flatly, tone sanded clean of emotion, his expression empty as glass. If they couldn’t read him, they couldn’t predict him.
Jason frowned at that, crossing his arms over his chest and studying Tim like something fragile that might bolt or break. Dick rose from his chair in an unhurried, almost lazy motion, stepping up beside Jason. He looked down at Tim from over the cot, tone slow and deliberate, making Tim feel even smaller.
“You don’t actually think,” Dick drawled, pausing on each word as if savoring it, “that we’re just going to let you walk out, do you?”
Tim clenched his jaw, but his face didn’t crack; he met their stares with a hollow one of his own.
“You don’t trust me. You don’t want to help me. You won’t let me figure out what happened to me,” he tried—God, he tried—to keep his voice steady, but his body began to tremble, a fine shiver that seemed to start somewhere deep in his ribcage. His heart picked up a frantic rhythm, pulsing against his temples until it hurt. “You hate me. So why…why keep me here?”
“I do not hate you, Akhi.”
Tim hadn’t even noticed Damian descending the steps. Duke and Alfred followed behind him, stopping at the threshold of the med bay, giving space, but it didn’t feel like space. It felt like a perimeter. Like he was boxed in. They wore normal clothes, nothing overtly threatening, yet Tim had no doubt they had weapons hidden while he stood barefoot and unarmed and alone.
“That’s why you let them find us,” Tim snapped before he could stop himself. Maybe it was petty, maybe it was low, but Damian had told them Tim was with him. The betrayal burned in his throat—hypocritical, sure, but no less real. He didn’t trust Damian. He couldn’t trust him. He’d hoped for more time. Hoped he could disappear before they made their move.
A flicker of pain crossed Damian’s face, then gone in an instant, buried under a hard resolve that sent a cold shiver crawling down Tim’s spine.
“If you wish it, Timothy,” Damian began, stepping forward. This time Tim didn’t retreat; he stood rooted, staring into those sharp green eyes. They gleamed with bloodlust, but for once it wasn’t aimed at him. “I will stop them. Even if it means spilling blood. I will carve you a path out of here myself. Just give the order, Timothy.”
“Hey, gremlin, how about—” Jason started, moving toward him, only to freeze when the point of a blade pressed against his chest. He shut up instantly, hands lifting in a wary surrender. Damian didn’t even look at him, holding the knife steady, gaze locked solely on Tim. And Tim could only stare back, eyes wide, breath stuttering.
“One word, Timothy,” Damian’s tone carried weight. No hesitation, no uncertainty. He stood like a soldier awaiting a command. And Tim…Tim couldn’t form a single sound. His knees buckled, the tremor breaking through his control, and he slumped downward before his body could catch itself.
“Kid!” Jason called, rushing in and catching him by the arms before he hit the floor, guiding him up with surprising care. “Bed. Come on.”
This time Tim didn’t fight. He let Jason settle him onto the cot, staring over his shoulder at Damian, still in the shadows, still gripping cold steel, still watching him shaply. Tim swallowed and tore his gaze away. This wasn’t his Damian. He had to remember that.
“Master Tim, how are you feeling?” Alfred’s soft voice slipped into the room, sounding unbearably gentle, snapping him out of whatever spell had taken hold.
“Fine,” Tim muttered, dismissive and brittle.
From Alfred’s look alone it was obvious he hadn’t believed the lie, but Tim couldn’t care less. He’d found what he was looking for. Now he just had to figure out how Ra’s was connected to all of this. He was sure the other Tim had already dug up enough. But when his hand automatically reached for the pocket of his pants, he didn’t find the flash drive. His clothes had been changed.
“Right. That’s why you chose suicide,” Dick suddenly appeared in front of him, lips pressed tight, pinning him with that same cold stare, but Tim simply had no patience for him. “That’s why you decided to just kill yourself!”
“Where is it?” Tim asked, deceptively calm, fingers curling into fists. Dick’s brows lowered in confusion, but Tim didn’t have time for games. “The flash drive, Dick. Where is it?”
Dick grit his teeth, his right hand tangling in his own hair. Defeat was written across his face.
“You—” Dick faltered, his muscles going rigid, and behind him Tim caught a shadow of movement. “You almost died, Tim. Do you understand that?” And just like that, all the anger drained from him, leaving nothing but raw remorse, the kind that made Tim nauseous. “I almost lost you…”
“I’m not your brother,” Tim cut sharply, though his heart lurched at the pathetic hope that maybe…maybe once, Dick could have loved him as a brother. Dick recoiled as if slapped, one hand grabbing Jason’s shoulder for support. “So I don’t understand what you all want from me. I don’t understand what you want from me, Dick. I’m not a brother. I’m not a son. I’m no one to any of you. So why won’t you just leave me alone?”
Because he no longer hoped for their help. Red Robin had always been alone. Tim Drake could handle things on his own.
Extending his hand, Tim repeated in that same dry tone.
“The flash drive.”
To his surprise, it was Duke who slowly approached him, hands keeping visible, and gently placed the flash drive into Tim’s palm with a soft smile.
“I decided to keep it safe from Bruce,” he said, and after a few seconds added, “I’m Duke. Duke Thomas.”
Tim studied him for a long moment, searching for any hint of a lie, any sign of deceit, but Duke looked sincere. Not like the rest of the bats. He seemed to radiate sunlight, warm enough that Tim felt heat crawl across his skin just from that smile.
“Timothy Drake,” Tim nodded, returning the expression with that same polite smile that had charmed adults at galas since childhood. “Pleasure to meet you, Duke.”
Still, Duke’s expression dimmed with a flicker of sadness, but he nodded all the same, and Tim let out a quiet sigh of relief. At least he’d done one thing right.
He turned back toward Dick and Jason, who were watching him with matching frowns.
“I need access to a computer.”
They exhaled, heavy and irritated. They could be stubborn, but Tim was more stubborn, and if it came to it, he would use Damian’s word to get out of here if they didn’t let him work.
“How about breakfast, Master Tim?” Alfred cut in, and the blaze inside Tim sputtered out. He stared at him, momentarily lost.
“Breakfast?” How long had he been asleep? Alfred’s lips curved into a small smile, patient as ever.
“Breakfast, Master Tim. And I may even allow you a cup of coffee.”
How was Tim supposed to refuse that? He clenched the flash drive in his hand and hopped off the bed only to immediately lose his balance. Strong hands caught his shoulders, keeping him upright.
Jason was watching him with open concern, and Tim swallowed the lump in his throat, eyes dropping to the floor.
Jason had never looked at him like that. Not his Jason. He had no right to take what didn’t belong to him.
Tim shoved Jason’s hands away and chose to ignore the brief flash of hurt that crossed his face. Tim straightened his spine and followed after Alfred, hearing the others’ footsteps fall into place behind him. No one tried to speak, but the air was tight with tension. He could feel their eyes on him—measuring, dissecting, searching for weak points, waiting for the moment he dropped his guard.
Tim refused to give them one. He kept moving, even as pain tugged at the seams of his ribs and nausea crawled up his throat.
That dream had been too vivid. Too real. It hadn’t just left its marks on his body—it was still carved into his mind, cold and pulsing like an echo he couldn’t silence.
Maybe those dreams had never been dreams at all.
Tim was starting to realize his mind was no longer obeying him. It twisted reality, feeding him fragments of things he didn’t remember, or maybe things he had forgotten.
Slowly, he was going mad. He no longer understood who was the enemy and who was the ally. Who he could trust, and who he could dare to trust.
And who had killed Red Robin?
Tim didn’t even notice when they made it to the kitchen. His mind was too fogged and drifting. But the moment the rich scent of fresh coffee hit him, he snapped back to himself. He headed straight for the mugs, the ache in his ribs protesting each step, only to be gently intercepted by Alfred.
“Master Tim, please sit down. You shouldn’t overexert yourself.”
Tim pressed his lips into a thin, irritated line, but obeyed and sank into a chair. Chairs scraped quietly across tile as the others followed. Behind him, Jason let out a low laugh.
“Some things never change, do they, baby bird?” he snorted, moving past Alfred to help with breakfast. Metal utensils clicked against pans, something sizzled on the stove, and the faint hum of the overhead lights buzzed between their voices.
They all took their seats. Damian dropped into the chair beside him, arms crossed, watching everyone with feral stillness. Tim was too drained to speak. He would’ve given anything to be alone, especially when he caught Dick exchanging a look with Duke, who shook his head once, a silent not now.
Tim’s stomach tightened. A serious conversation was coming. He could smell it in the air as clearly as the coffee—heavy and inevitable—and he wasn’t ready for it. His eyes flicked toward Damian. At least hell’s own guard dog was on his side. If Tim set him loose, he was certain Damian could cut through any lecture with his blade.
Alfred set a mug of coffee in front of him, the porcelain clinking softly against the wood. Tim wrapped both hands around it before Alfred could change his mind and took a deep, greedy sip. Heat bloomed down his throat, and a quiet, involuntary smile tugged at his mouth as his thoughts began to fall back into place—if only for a moment.
At that exact moment, heavy footsteps echoed through the kitchen. Tim lifted his chin too fast and found himself staring straight into Bruce’s eyes as he stopped in the doorway. Tim’s pulse spiked, thudding against his ribs; panic hissed in his ears, muffling sound and breath.
But this time, unlike that cold, rigid glare he remembered, Tim saw something else. Regret.
That wasn’t Bruce. Bruce was always firm. Bruce was always composed. Bruce never looked at Tim like that.
Something was wrong.
An illusion. Or another nightmare. Ra’s tricks, twisting reality and tormenting him until he finally snapped for good.
“Bruce,” Jason broke the silence first, not bothering to hide his irritation at the sight of him. The tension that followed made Tim’s skin crawl. He couldn’t shake the sickening certainty that he was the reason for all of it.
But Bruce didn’t look at Jason. He kept staring at Tim with a sorrow that didn’t belong on his face—too raw, too fragile—and Tim had no idea what to do with it. He stared back, unable to move, watching as Bruce’s gaze faltered and dropped to the floor.
Tim’s heart seized. Bruce Wayne. The Dark Knight. He never broke eye contact. Ever.
“Father?” Damian’s voice cut through the air with suspicion, as if he too sensed the wrongness. The tension climbed, thick enough to pull breath from lungs. Everyone waited, silent, breath held, until Bruce finally lifted his eyes again.
They were blue, but dim, muted by some warm undertone Tim refused to name. Just a trick of the light. It had to be.
Bruce took a slow step toward the table, and Tim’s gaze tracked the movement, dropping to the man’s hand—
—and he froze.
His fingers tightened around his coffee mug until porcelain whispered under the strain, heat bleeding into his palms.
“Tim, I…” Bruce’s voice cracked with despair—despair and grief that felt alien to Tim, like someone else’s emotions shoved into the wrong body. Tim’s pulse slowed, cooling with something sharp and bitter. His expression flattened, and he asked quietly.
“Is that what I think it is?”
Because in Bruce’s hand was the flash drive. His flash drive. The one with the video from the other Tim. The one no one was supposed to know about.
Bruce’s face drained of color, and in the silence Tim became painfully aware of the room shifting around him. Jason moved a step closer, shoulders tense; Dick watched with calculating precision, assessing angles and outcomes; Damian coiled like a shadow, fingers lifting toward the hidden blade at his belt; Duke hovered by the chair, as if torn between fleeing or staying—too afraid to leave the rest of them alone. Even Alfred paused, still as stone, but with that eerie, unbreakable calm of someone bracing for impact.
“I didn’t—” Bruce faltered, running a shaking hand through his hair. The air tasted like metal. Tim’s stomach twisted. He knew what Bruce was about to say. He knew it before he said it, and that knowledge made bile rise to his throat. “Forgive me, Tim. I had to check. I had to—”
The coffee mug left Tim’s hand before he even thought. Porcelain whistled through the air, and Bruce barely managed to jerk out of the way. It shattered against the wall behind him in a violent burst, shards skittering across the floor like tiny bones. The smell of scorched coffee evaporated into the tension.
This time, Tim had aimed. He had aimed for Bruce’s face, if only to shut him up. Anger ignited in him—white-hot, blistering—making his blood feel molten, yet his voice stayed ice-cold as it rasped through clenched teeth.
“You had no right. You had no right, Bruce.”
“I had to make sure you weren’t trying to hurt my family,” Bruce growled back, but his eyes betrayed him—they were drowning in regret, and Tim saw it. Saw it and despised it.
A poisonous smile curled Tim’s lips, violent enough to draw blood.
“Your family,” he hissed. “Of course, Mister Wayne. After all, Timothy Drake was never part of your family.”
His words made Bruce flinch back a step, his boot grinding down on shattered porcelain. The fragments cracked and crunched under his weight, sharp enough that Tim half-expected them to draw blood. And at that point, he saw no reason to keep quiet anymore.
“Tell me, Bruce,” Tim continued, circling around the table like something cornered and dangerous. “Do you regret that Dick caught me? Do you regret that you didn’t just let me fall?”
He stopped behind a chair, fingers clawing into the backrest, knuckles white. His chin lifted in a predatory angle, lips curling into a too-wide smile, stretching the softness of youth into something twisted and poisonous. “Because I was always just your soldier, wasn’t I? One less, one more—what difference did it make, right?”
“Tim—”
“I regret it,” the confession tore out of him, and the sincerity of his own voice rattled him to the core, so honest it made his stomach lurch. But the dam had already burst, and the emotions surged through him like wildfire. “I regret surviving. I’m sorry, Bruce! I’m sorry I’m alive! I’m sorry my existence annoys you! I’m sorry I remind you of the bad shit! I’m sorry I failed you! I’m sorry I didn’t live up to whatever the hell you wanted me to be!”
He was shouting, voice vibrating the air, drowning out the hum of appliances and the hiss of the coffee machine. Reality warped at the edges, his vision trembling, depth and color thinning until the kitchen felt unreal. Timothy Drake was losing control, and his mind began to play a different game entirely.
The chair went flying, striking the floor with a violent crack that made everyone jolt in their seats. Eyes snapped to him—wide, wary, calculating. But Tim only stared at Bruce. And Bruce’s gaze was dimming—fading, fading, fading—as if the light behind it was being choked out.
“What else do I need to apologize for?! Huh?!” Tim’s voice broke into a hoarse snarl. “What else, Bruce? Tell me! Because I don’t know! I don’t understand what you want from me! I don’t understand anything!”
The teacup Alfred had placed in front of Damian went flying, launched straight at Bruce’s face. It missed again, shattering against the wall with a brittle CRACK that sent porcelain skittering across the floor near the shards of the coffee mug.
Tim shook in rage and humiliation. He reached for the utensils, cold metal glinting under the kitchen lights, ready to throw, ready to fight, ready to do something, anything—
Strong arms closed around him from behind, pinning his elbows to his sides and dragging him back against a broad chest. The contact punched the air out of him. The fury died mid-breath, snuffed out by the sudden cage of muscle and heat he couldn’t break.
Tim froze. Completely exposed. Completely defenseless. His lips trembled, traitorous, and tears stung at the corners of his eyes, blurring the edges of the room. He swallowed hard, throat burning with humiliation as he forced the words out between clenched teeth.
“I’m just a soldier. So why won’t you let me die like one?”
“Checkmate. What will you do now, detective?”