Chapter Text
Tim’s entire body slams onto the ground, his head cracking against sharp stone. Beneath the pulsing migraine, he can feel pain radiating up his leg, culminating around his left hip. There’s probably a crack in his femur.
It hurts so much, the damage extensive despite his efforts to soften the blow.
He clutches it, swearing under his breath.
“Again.”
Someone steps into his field of vision and his gaze, tilted sideways, slides up until it meets a pair of cold, grey eyes.
Yusuf, one of Ra’s personal guards.
He’s dressed head to toe in green and gold armour. Embellishments made of real gold adorn his uniform, the most ostentatious being Ra’s family crest firmly plastered on his chest.
But despite his gaudy appearance, every move he makes is a step away from being lethal. Tim’s seen him kill some of their best with just a flick of his wrist.
So it’s only natural that he’s been assigned as Tim’s teacher for his last training session of the day. Just his luck.
“I said again!” Yusuf kicks him harshly, and the only reason he didn’t break a rib is because he wedged his hand in between, catching his leg at the last moment.
Eight hours. It’s been eight hours.
There’s a flash of metal at his side. He lets go of the leg and cartwheels away from another incoming attack, perfectly timed despite his injuries.
Even a moment of hesitation is enough to cost him. Really, the only reason he’s managed to last this long is because he’s somehow healing faster, his senses sharper after being brought back to life several times over. It’s probably a side effect of the pit (albeit an uncommon one) but between the constant lessons, he doesn’t have much time to dig into that little theory.
There are more pressing matters (Like that axe that’s headed straight towards his feet). Tim leaps above it, holding in a swear when the landing sends pain spasming up his leg.
His instructor laughs, showing no such signs of fatigue. After all, a new one comes every two hours to relieve the last.
Ra’s says that it is important for him to be prepared for anything. This includes battling his best soldiers for hours on end.
But Tim knows the truth.
Keep him exhausted enough to keep him compliant. It’s one of the rare manipulation techniques that actually works on him.
When he’s not sleeping or training, he’s blacked out from pit madness.
Today is also Tuesday, which means that he gets to sit through eight hours of League history without a break.
How lovely.
He’ll only get a break later at night, where he’ll have dinner with Ra’s. The conversation will be spoken completely in Arabic of course, because his mother tongue is another useless facet of his old life that should no longer burden him - Ra’s words, not his.
Each day is some variation of the last. It starts with training, and if he doesn’t die, lessons. After that, dinner.
He’d be sick of the repetition if only the alternative wasn’t worse.
He falls into a roll, the axe following him quickly despite its weight. Yusuf does this weird wrist flick thing and sends it flying in his direction. It curves, almost following him as he leaps to the side, sliding up against the wall.
He only has time to gulp in a breath before the axe slams into the cement wall right beside his head. His heart beats erratically in his chest.
Strands of hair float down softly. His eyes track it, knowing that he’d be dead were it not for the slight edge the pit seems to give him.
So why does he stay?
That’s the question he keeps asking himself, and the answer remains the same.
The alternative is always worse.
He’d rather die than go back.
Just then, the pit screams at him to move like some sort of sixth sense.
Tim doesn’t have a lot of experience with medieval weapons (They’re kind of rare in Gotham), and despite the instructor’s enthusiasm in trying to teach him (i.e. cut his head), he thinks that he may be lacking some practical experience here.
There’s a flash in his peripheral vision. Yusuf is suddenly there, the axe headed for him again.
This time, he’s too slow to avoid it.
Tim wakes up hours later covered in fresh blood. The surface he’s lying on is both squishy and unnaturally hard.
It’s familiar in the worst way, and dread wraps around him like a weighed blanket as he registers the fact that he’s sitting on top of a pile of limbs.
The bodies are fresh, so fresh that the air hasn’t begun to stink with the smell of decay. Only the faint tinge of copper remains.
When he pushes himself up, his hand crushes a stray eyeball that’s been pulled out of a socket. It pops underneath his fingers.
He quickly pulls away, grimacing.
His clothes are damp, stained with both blood and green water, which means they must have dumped him in after he died. And after the latest game of ‘throw Tim in the water’, he probably blacked out again.
He shoves away the guilt accompanying that realization before he can delve too much into it. The pit laughs, asking him why he feels bad. It tells him that death is a normal part of life, that he didn’t do any harm by taking it away early.
Everyone is destined to end up in the ground, after all.
(Well, everyone except him. He’s always been special in that sense.)
Slowly, he makes his way out of the mess, trying to avoid their faces as best as he can.
Blood is crusted inside his fingernails. No surprise there. All the limbs surrounding him had been ripped clean off their bodies.
The sense of wrongness continues to eat at him, and it’s not helped by the fact that someone’s insides are digging into his nails. He just killed someone’s son, daughter, grandad.
So, he leans into it - The apathy.
It’s easier not to feel than to feel wrong.
Inside his mind, the pit laughs and laughs and laughs.
‘If you’re going to kill people anyway, you might as well enjoy it.’ It sniggers.
Tim shakes the thought away and vows to be better.
This is just the consequence of his failure. Next time, he’ll anticipate the strike before it comes. He won’t get thrown into the pit again. He won’t black out.
‘Why not?’ It whispers back. ‘You laughed, didn’t you? You laughed while they begged for their lives.’ The voice whispers as Tim glances at the mess of bodies.
No.
The bloodlust is just a by-product of pit madness.
No matter how insane he gets, a life is a life. He has to remember that.
Killing is wrong.
(But why should he follow that rule when Damian had crossed it a million times over without consequence?)
Killing is wrong, he repeats again, more firmly this time.
The bodies underneath him are proof of that. He can’t let the pit’s thoughts mess with his own.
Yusuf walks through the door just when his hand finally meets untainted concrete.
The axe is strapped to his back, its gleaming blade a stark contrast to his own state, doused in blood and pit water. Tim can’t help but stare.
‘You can wash this all away,’ The pit reminds him. ‘Blood is just dirt. It means nothing.’
(Just a few hours ago, that same axe had been wedged inside his skull.)
He looks calm and well rested, probably spent the last few hours sleeping instead of killing innocent people.
There’s a hint of humour in his eyes, and Tim feels like he missed the punchline to an inside joke that everyone else is already privy to.
Yusuf walks forward until his boots are sitting right next to Tim’s face.
He has to crane his neck to look up at him. And his gaze, tilted sideways, slides up until it meets a pair of cold, grey eyes.
“Again.” Yusuf demands, grinning through his teeth.
Sunlight streams through the open door behind him, the beginnings of a brand new day peeking through.