Chapter Text
Being soaked with a massive jet of relish was definitely in the top hundred worst things that had ever happened to Tim.
Condiment King cackled from the top of his hot dog-themed tank, swinging its military grade condiment blasters wildly in every direction. Batman dove out of the tank’s path, rolling straight into a puddle of mustard on the dirty Gotham street.
Tim winced, wiping his relish-slick hands on his cape. Alfred hated getting mustard out of the suit.
Finding the Condiment King in a Gotham alley at two in the morning was Tim’s equivalent of a fever dream. Normally, the guy preferred daylight strikes, just to cause as much havoc as possible.
This time, he had said something about painting the town red in tomato-y glory as a surprise for the commuters on their way to work .
The fight was almost over by now; there were just a few enemies left to be picked off. With a few well-timed hits and a lucky dodge, Tim dropped the last couple of Condiment King’s saucy lackeys. He threw in a spin-kick on the last one just to feel cool.
In addition to being very epic, it also pulled Condiment King’s attention off of the Bat grappling to the roof of a nearby storefront. “Get back here, you little pest-o!”
Tim made a face, scampering into the shadows behind a stack of crates. “Is pesto even a condiment?”
The Condiment King scowled, swinging the tank around in a wide arc. “I would know better than you, little bird.”
“What’s the plan, B?” Tim muttered.
Batman growled his response over comms, his voice so low it made Tim’s bones vibrate. He’d always thought Batman should go into ASMR. “Wait for my signal, there’s—“
Just then, as he climbed to the top of the crate stack, Tim spotted his opening.
“Now, where’s that pesky bat gotten off to?” Condiment King scanned the rooftops, searching for Batman.
Tim leapt forward with deadly precision, using the Condiment King’s Mustard Blaster to vault himself to the top of the vehicle.
The rogue barely had time to gasp before Robin sprang at him.
For all of his talk, the Condiment King was actually pretty useless in a fight. Tim used his forward momentum to aid in a badass uppercut. His reinforced glove connected with the man’s jaw. Condiment King fell backwards, tumbling from the seat of the tank to lie in a crumpled heap.
Tim grinned to himself. Those hours of training in close combat were finally paying off.
However, he didn’t have long to celebrate the victory. “Robin!”
Tim’s heart seized. That was Batman’s ‘you’re in danger’ voice.
Tim ducked on instinct and felt something whiz past his ear. Within half a second, Tim was being swept into the air by a mass of shadow and dark fluttering fabric.
With a grunt, Batman pulled them both into an alley and stumbled into a jerky landing. There were already police sirens in the distance, arriving to collect the defeated Condiment King.
Tim stood, brushing himself off with a grin. “Close one, eh, B?”
“Do you even realize how close you were to being killed ?” Batman growled.
Tim’s face fell. “Oh.”
“I gave you direct orders to wait. There was a goon left in the alley, aiming right at you. I couldn’t get to them right away. If you hadn’t ducked in time—”
Tim stared at his feet, spine rigid. “I know.”
“Robin, we’ve been over this.”
“I saw an opening, and I acted on instinct. It won’t happen again.”
“I hope it doesn’t, for both our sakes. You nearly sent me into cardiac arrest.” Batman sighed, reaching out to ruffle his hair. It took everything within Tim to hold back the flinch. “You’re just as bad as your brothers, you know that?”
Tim hesitated. Jason was now a crime lord, and Dick had such a strong stubborn streak he had moved nearly an hour away. Damian was a literal assassin who had grown up risking his life every day. Tim liked to think he wasn’t that bad. “Yeah, uh, I guess.”
Though Oracle and Batman were deep in conversation, Tim was silent the entire ride back to manor. He stared out the tinted window of the Batmobile, watching slimy tunnel walls zip past.
With just a few critical words, Tim had been sent back to his childhood bedroom. His mother stood over him, her face curled into a sneer. Words pierced his skin and stayed there like push pins in a cork board.
Needy . Irresponsible . Incompetent . Unloveable .
Batman hadn’t yelled, hadn’t belittled him. He didn’t have to. Tim already knew what was wrong with him. Clearly, Bruce did too.
“-at do you think? Robin?…Tim?”
Tim looked up. “Hm?”
“The bombings, what do you think?”
Tim blinked, wracking his brain. He’d been working on so many cases that afternoon that he could hardly keep them all straight. “The recent ones? The assassinations?”
“We don’t know they’re assassinations,” Batman cautioned.
“Yeah? Four political figures just happened to stumble across live bombs in the past week?” Tim countered.
“Thirty minutes ago, City Councilman Brady Harding was blown to bits when he started his car.” Oracle clarified. “As I told Batman just now, we’re still looking into it.”
“Has GCPD forensics gone through the evidence yet?”
“They’re at the scene currently. We should have an update within the hour.”
The sewer tunnels stopped abruptly in a dead end concrete wall, marked by several fabricated radioactive symbols. Batman reached up to press a Bat-Garage-Door-Opener. The Batmobile pulled smoothly into the Bat Cave, parking between the lines of the official Bat-Parking-Spot.
“Thank you, Oracle. Good work tonight. Call me if anything urgent arises.”
“Of course.”
Tim switched his comm off and dropped it off at the Bat-Charging-Station before returning to his desk.
Several years ago, all the Waynes had gotten their own mini Batcomputer and desk space. Bruce had insisted they could share the main Batcomputer until Jason played one too many rounds of Papa’s Cupcakeria in an attempt to break the world record.
Jason could’ve used his laptop, or one of the many gaming systems they owned, but he insisted that the Batcomputer was the most powerful of them all, and therefore his ticket to cutting down on buffering time.
Batman couldn’t access his case files for over 72 hours while Jason played non-stop, his siblings guarding him in turns. Nothing in Gotham was as important as Jason’s high score.
After that, Bruce decided that office space for his kids and a few thousand dollars worth of technology would be a small price to pay for access to his own computer.
Tim was ready to flop into his Bat-Spinny-Chair but found that there was already a gremlin sitting in it.
Damian gave him a stiff nod, eyes still trained on the center monitor screen. There were roughly a hundred tabs open at once, ranging from a Hello Kitty fan site to what Tim suspected to be highly classified documents protected by the United States government. “Drake.”
“...Why are you at my desk?”
“You didn’t seem to be using it.”
Tim blinked. “Uh, I’d like to.”
“How unfortunate.”
“I know you have a PC. Let me use mine.”
“It’s important,” Damian protested. “Not that you would understand.”
“I’ll get Bruce,” Tim threatened.
Damian shot him a trademark glare but started to log out. “How low you’ve sunk, Drake.”
“What’s going on?” Bruce padded over in Wonder Woman-themed slippers. “Damian? It’s late, bud, and it’s a school night. Shouldn’t you be in bed?”
Damian scoffed. “Tt. You have a five a.m. digital conference with international representatives that could determine the future of Wayne Enterprises and therefore the economy of Gotham for decades to come. If either of us should be in bed, it’s you.”
Tim snorted. “He’s got you there.”
Damian had been staying in the Wayne household for less than six months, and he was already carving a place for himself. His sass was enough to rival Jason’s. Bruce had complained on more than one occasion that he got his wit from his mother. From what he had heard so far, Tim never wanted to meet Talia al Ghul for fear of being shot on sight.
Alfred appeared from seemingly nowhere, as he was often wont to do. “Your father is right, Master Damian, if slightly hypocritical.”
“Must I, Pennyworth?”
“I’m afraid so.”
“The injustice of it all,” Damian muttered. Still, he slunk up the stairs towards his bedroom.
“You too, Master Bruce,” Alfred reminded him.
“I still have work to do, both as Bruce and Batman—”
“And I still have to get mustard stains out of kevlar. There is always work to be done. It can wait.”
“Alfred—”
“Go.”
Bruce hesitated, then just nodded. After years under Alfred’s care, he knew this wasn’t a fight he was going to win. He made his way up the stairs in Damian’s wake. “Thanks, Alfred.”
Alfred turned to Tim. “Master Tim, might I tempt you with the offer of a room?”
Tim gave a guilty smile. “I’m pretty sure you know the answer to that one.”
“Very well. Just know that you are always welcome. Perhaps a cuppa?”
“That would be great. Earl Grey?”
Alfred gave him a judgmental look. “This late? What about an herbal? Mint, perhaps?”
“Just be glad it’s not coffee,”
“I trust you will be getting some sleep,”
“Don’t worry, Alfie. I will. Promise.” Eventually .
A few hours later, Tim’s headphones pinged with a call from Oracle. He was still at his desk, combing through case files.
“Another bombing? Already?” Tim pinched the bridge of his nose, fighting an oncoming headache. He couldn’t tell if it was from dehydration, lack of sleep, eye strain, or stress. Maybe all of them.
Barbara huffed, typing furiously. Had her keyboard always been that loud? “Whoever our perp is, they work fast.”
Tim sighed. “Five bombings, all government officials of different levels. It’s gotta be connected.”
“Maybe four separate killers took inspiration from the first one.”
“I dunno. That would be quite the coincidence. They’ve all utilized the same explosive, right?”
“Yeah, something close to nitroglycerin. Nitrogen triiodide, I think,” Oracle verified. “Super unstable. A butterfly landing on a brick of that stuff could set it off.”
“Hmm. Have you scrubbed the street footage of the locations?” Tim suggested, pulling up the footage himself.
“Over and over. Then, I set a facial-recognition software loose on citywide footage. Still nothing. It’s as if the victims planted the bombs themselves.”
“Anything on bomb sourcing?”
“No hikes or drops in chemical imports. I’ve got an alert set to ping me if that changes. I’m still looking for local supply chain anomalies,” Oracle explained. “The explosives could be homebrew, though. It’s not exactly hard to make them.”
“Well, that’s reassuring,” Tim muttered. “Do you know what Councilman Harding was working on before he died?”
“He was on a traffic control and infrastructure committee. I don’t think anyone would want him dead over that.”
“I dunno, driving downtown during rush hour makes me want to kill people.”
“Can you even drive?”
“Irrelevant.”
“I assumed Dick or Jay would have taught you by now.”
Tim almost laughed at the idea of Jason trying to teach him to drive. “Dick tried, one time.”
“What happened?”
“I hit three lamp posts, two fire hydrants, and five iguanas.”
“We have iguanas in Gotham?”
“Well, we did .”
“Tim? Are you still here?” a deep voice suddenly piped up from behind him.
Tim whipped around, heart racing.
It was Bruce, dressed casually with a cup of coffee in hand.
“Gimme a sec, Oracle,” Tim muttered, yanking off his headphones spinning around in the chair to face Bruce. “Just finishing some casework. I’ll be done in like an hour.”
“Have you slept at all ? Pulling these constant all-nighters is going to give you brain damage—”
“C’mon, B, I’m fine.” Tim attempted a smile. “Do you need something?”
“Well, I was going to propose something to you, but it’s not something that should be considered on so little sleep.” Bruce gave him a pointed look.
“Well, now I’m curious. You have to tell me, or I’ll never be able to sleep again,” Tim teased.
“It’s alright. I’ll come back later.”
“C’mon, the suspense is killing me.”
"Alright, If you're sure..." Bruce leaned against the wall, arms crossed, in the perfect picture of normal conversation. Like a Hollywood director positioned him in the ultimate casual stance. He paused for a moment, considering his words carefully. “I think you’re ready to start patrolling on your own. How would you feel about that?”
Tim tried to ignore the sinking feeling in his chest. Something was very wrong. “I dunno. Being Robin is pretty great.”
“Well… I was thinking of giving the title of Robin to Damian.”
Just like that, Tim’s fragile world came crashing down around him.
Damian as Robin? The thought made Tim’s stomach clench. It had only been six months since Bruce’s biological son arrived, and Tim was already getting swept aside.
Tim blurted out the first thought that sprang into his head, “Is this about yesterday?”
“Why would it—Oh. No, I’ve been thinking about this for a while.”
Oh, great. So Tim’s been constantly judged as incompetent over the past few months. God, he was going to be sick. “Oh, uh, ok.”
“It’s not a bad thing, I promise,” Bruce added hurriedly. Apparently Tim wasn’t controlling his expression as well as he’d hoped. “I think you’ve outgrown me, baby bird. You’re ready to fly from the nest.”
Tim clutched the edges of the chair in an attempt to ground himself. “Can I still patrol?”
“If that’s what you want. You could start a new vigilante persona, if you like. Or maybe steal one of Dick’s old ones. He had a serious identity crisis when I passed on Robin to Jason. Trust me, it can’t get worse than Discowing.”
Tim forced a smile. It probably looked more like a grimace. “Uh, ok. Whatever you think.”
“Alfred can take your measurements this afternoon to start drafting a new suit, if you like.”
“New suit,” Tim echoed. His mind whirled, heart sinking further with every passing moment. “Right, got it.”
“I’m proud of you, Tim.” Bruce gave his shoulder a reassuring squeeze. “I can’t wait to see what you’ll do next.”
Tim nodded vaguely, moving on autopilot. By the time Bruce started up the stairs to the manor, his eyes were filled with tears.
I don’t have time for this, dammit! I have a case to solve.
But the sobs were bubbling up in his chest, and he couldn’t allow anyone to witness such a pathetic display.
Tim fled to a supply closet in the back of the cave, which was more of a supply warehouse, really. He’d used it a couple times before to bandage injuries without being noticed by the others. This time, he had a different kind of injury to nurse.
Robin, half of his soul, was being ripped away. When he’d had nothing in life to keep him going, he got out of bed in the morning to work as Batman’s right hand.
Tim could hardly see in the dark with his watery eyes, but he still managed to make it behind a shelf before he collapsed. Hot tears fell, and his whole body shuddered with the force of his sobs. Lying there with his back to the wall, he could hardly breathe.
There was no warning, nothing he could’ve done to prepare.
Why now?
Suddenly, he could understand why Dick and Jason had been so furious when the title was ripped from them. A torrent of rage rose inside of him. The thought of Damian donning his cloak, his mask, made him want to—
Tim tried to reason that it wasn’t Damian’s fault, but his emotions couldn’t get it together.
It wasn’t even Bruce’s fault. Maybe if Tim had been better at protecting Batman, made more arrests, been faster or stronger, this wouldn’t have happened.
But maybe Tim had always been a temporary Robin. Just until Bruce had another real son to give the mantle to.
It was stupid of Tim to get attached to the Waynes. He and Bruce had a professional relationship, that was all. Now that it had been severed, Tim didn’t have a reason to hang around the manor.
Tim could continue his casework solo, submit reports on time, and pretend like he’d never been Robin at all.
That was the problem, though. Tim didn’t want to patrol solo. He didn’t want to be alone like that again.
But that’s how he always ended up. Alone.
Maybe it was time he took it as a sign.