from enemies of mankind to their protective spirits (closed)

[ployboy]

Who: Tim, the Bats, potential others
What: December catch-all
When: Month of December to early January
Where: Lakeside

Content Warnings: Keep an eye on thread headers (animal death, casual suicidality, past injury to start us off:)

It's been a week since-

Well, whatever, it's best to start from the beginning.

The beginning: it's dark. Not your average everyday darkness: advanced darkness. Because of this, and because of a lame(ish) leg, the trek to Lakeside takes longer than Tim would've liked. But he had been to Lakeside before (Kieren knows) and he had swapped out locks to the Blackbear resort cabin: out with the old, in with the new seemed fitting and it was always top of the lists of things to do when searching for tips for a big move.

So: new town, same darkness, same snow, new locks.

(Tim, being Tim, had been unable to resist rigging his bear traps to launch themselves to any successful intruder- boobytrapping is illegal but who gives a fuck? This is Canada.)

It's freshly December, he thinks, when he knows he's been followed.

It would be less unnerving if he didn't have the nagging suspicion of who stalked him- Tim distinctly remembers praying for a grizzly attack when his suspicion turns to certainty. But he needs to hunt, and the bo staff with the retractable blade makes for a fine spear (and after so many month of maintenance he had been unable to find a substitute for keeping the thing ready that's as effective as keeping it in use). He returns with two rabbits, dead and tied to his pack, and Blackbear cabin has yet to procure an actual bear to maim him. Tim digs out his keys to the front door, simply because he has keys to the front door, and so: suck it.

He wonders if his brothers are aware that this is what his nightmares are made of:

Jason Todd and Damian Wayne are in this house Tim's been convinced he'll be using, and Tim knows he's outgunned. He remembers the pirate Edward's cabin, had popped in there every once in a while. But it was tiny and unsafe. And this resort cabin is now very unsafe, and tiny.

(It's not tiny.)

Tim unlatches the rabbits from his pack and decides to not acknowledge-- (oh, who is he kidding-?)

"This is the worst intervention I've ever seen."

There's not even a banner.

And Tim hates himself, because he's frowning (he's always frowning) and as he lays out the rabbit to skin and dress, he can't even grasp his one knife as he turns to the yahoos and asks, loathing the words- "Is everything okay?"

Comments

[thefifthchild]

[Damian, who had been reading exactly what Tim had given as some form of peace offering, doesn't look up.

He's been coping in the best way that he has on offer. He'd avoided his father the whole time that he was here beyond that initial excruciatingly awkward meeting, just like he avoids most people nowadays. The work is endless and - he does his part. Not as involved as he knows that he's supposed to be, but involved nevertheless.

This Tim has no idea what Damian's relationship is like with his father. This Tim wasn't there to say 'I told you so' as Damian naively trusted the directions he was given and stepped foot in the belly of the beast. This Tim just knows the time when they were both grieving two very different versions of the same sanctimonious prick.

Part of him wants to be petty. To respond how Tim has always responded whenever Damian has offered even the slightest bit of an olive branch and to snarl something about how all of a sudden he's a person and not a demon solely existing to ruin Tim's life.

He doesn't. He's too tired of fighting. Too worn out to be upset.

He closed the book. Tokyo Mew Mew. And he sits up.]

Mm. [Expecting something from Batman, or from Grayson, that's always been a common theme with Tim. With all Robins. Damian spent his entire life fixated on the idea of him, his elusive father that would come and lead him to something new, that he would be proud of him and the exceptional strength he had come into.

Only to fall into his life to find that his father already had a son. He had many of them. And each of them were more important than a scrap of DNA or a burden placed at his feet.] ...I ran away a bit after Alfred died, you know. Before I arrived here. I hadn't seen him in six months or so. A bit like you did.

[He hadn't told Tim that. Or Jason, for that matter. He still hasn't told them about Brother Blood. Or KGBeast. Or Deathstroke. Or the ghost at his shoulder talking into his ear about his conscience or the feelings he's ignoring.]

I'm not sure how I'm supposed to feel anymore.

[ployboy]

[Can it be?, asks the mocking voice in his head, Can the Batman really be the source of all of that friction between what was supposed to be a family?

Tim still doesn't like knowing there's a literal world out there that he doesn't know. The dislike is intense enough to badger a thin frown from his lips- a pout, Steph would call it. Because he's no stranger to sabbaticals- Cassie, Wonder Girl, was left behind for the better part of a year after Tim had run away. Turned his back on the world he knew, just for a bit, because it was painful.

Tim had thought it was the scenery that had been turning the sickle through his stomach. It wasn't; it had been the company he kept.

In a spur of-- wayward protectiveness (possessiveness, Steph would call it), Tim warns,] Who was with you?

[It's a question sure,

but it's not like Tim is ignorant to what things are attracted to lonely, hurt, child soldiers.]

You don't have to answer.

[Tim is at least also not ignorant to the fact that he's like Bruce in a way that many of them are not. He's also awkward-- innately so, clumsy and unrefined with words when he's on a hunt, and he bulldozes on, because Damian knows so much that he, or Jason, do not-] You know why Jason's arm was broken. When he arrived.

[--he can't even imagine and Tim, doing something new and unguided as he does it,

hesitates.]

Did that factor in at all?

[thefifthchild]

Nobody.

[Alfred.

Maya would have come with him, if he'd asked. Jon would, if he'd asked. Maybe some of his Titans too. Wallace, Emiko. Djinn. Even after everything he'd done to destroy those relationships, he knows that they would still probably follow him if he asked them, if he didn't lie to them or use them like his father does or like his mother does.

But he is the result of what made him. A manipulative, callous and lonely boy with a world on his shoulders that he can never truly be a part of.

He grimaces at the reminder of Jason's broken arm.

Nobody liked to discuss that. Or think about it. Jason had prompted that reaction, with the framing he had created, though Damian had pretended like he didn't understand. Of course he did. Evil cannot be cured, not entirely. If it could, then what does that say about him?]

No. That was... some time beforehand. [This is an advantage he's not going to let Tim push. Tim would expect it, no doubt, and part of Damian can only envision Tim snidely taking the chance to pronounce he was correct all along.

I killed someone. And I wanted to kill more.

Wanted.

Want.

He had Black Mask shackled to a wall, his plastered on skull cracked and bloody, he was barely able to even move and it was only half of what that monster deserved. Tim might even agree, considering his... proximity to Roman's victims. Not the nameless ones, the thousands who suffer every day because they give him permission to live and breathe, but the one they both know.

At least Brother Blood won't ever hurt anyone ever again.]

It was a multitude of factors. [...] Grayson was... comatose. [Ric.] Alfred had died. [Jon was... he wasn't gone, and he was still Damian's best friend and partner, but he was different. He went into the unknown and returned a stranger.] And I ended up quitting. I still have, officially.

[ployboy]

[No, Damian says.

Tim looks impossibly sad, the heartbreak evident after he had sworn off of having a heart so many times in the past week alone. And then Tim doesn't look like much at all, just another lonesome and hungry kid in the wasteland. He comments, dryly,] Congrats. I only lasted three days. [and then he was back by the Bat, tail between his legs because he had dared bite the hand that had dealt that blow to his spirit.

Back then, he hadn't known. That the War Games weren't a seventeen year old girl's fault.

But Tim knows now, and it's the driving force behind this sloppy confrontation, conversation, to not be a pawn in]

I need a favor that I can't ask of Robin.

[all the right pieces in all the right places are on the board,

and Tim lifts his gaze, sorry but not uncertain, and with it rises his sympathy:

Damian would understand. To not want to be a slave to the fate put before you, to what everyone expects from you. And Tim- he's learned, okay? He's learned that the definition of insanity is to do the same thing, over and over and over and over and expect something different.

He shifts his weight to his good leg, and idly wonders if he's now stuck with only one 'good' leg.]

And Jason won't understand it. I'm sorry.

[thefifthchild]

I wasn't aware you quit. [There was the period of a few months where Stephanie took over, but he never had the impression it was Tim's choice. It's not as if they've ever had the necessary trust for Damian to actually ask Tim for advice or about any of the details of what happened in that instance.

Damian inclines his head, his eyes only the slightest bit wary. An alterior motive. Obviously. Though it remains to be seen what exactly that is. And whether it's a problem.

He doesn't know what to do with the look of sympathy that appeared on Tim's face for a moment.

He files it away in a box of things that he will not think about.]

I don't need the preamble. [Flatly. He doesn't allow himself a moment of pride at the official recognition, when in the past Tim could barely stomach admitting that Damian really was Robin and not just some cruel joke. Because on the other hand. Of course you can't ask Jason for a favor, it's Jason.] What is it that you want?

[ployboy]

[Damian hadn't known; Tim's brows arch in show, though it's blessedly mild.

Like his confession to Bruce, there's no part of this that hasn't run tracks through his mind. Tim, in his final and private victory, simply says,] I did.

[Quit.

Need the preamble.

But nobody gives a fuck about Tim Drake, so he has to spell it out and

and he's rehearsed this, so it's ultimately fine.]

I know my future. I'm pretty sure I do, and I think I should have paid more attention to the times I saw it in the past. I thought I-

Whatever. Point is, Bruce didn't bother and Jason just won't get it. I have the gun my dad used to defend himself. If I have to, I'll use it.

If I use it, I'll find a reason not to stop.

[It's so... simple. Tim feels weird. Like,

alive.

Which is weird.

He furrows his brows, almost puzzled, boyish and awkward, because not even this is immune to Tim's special brand of stupid.]

I don't know, it sounded more interesting in my head. I just want someone to kill me when I do actually get to that point. I don't have anybody else I can trust here.

[thefifthchild]

[Of course that's what this was. An acknowledgement that he has feelings, manipulative words, their shared dead father, all to prompt him into following an order that he sees others as too morally upstanding to follow through on. He can be a blunt instrument, a tool to deal with the dirty work that nobody else wants to do, killing the people nobody else wants to get rid of.

In some ways, he tried to make himself into that not too long ago.

His eyes narrow, his scowl deepens, but he doesn't emote more than that. Tim is aware of what he might become, what he will become if left uninpeeded. No doubt, Tim is also probably aware of what Damian will become. Isn't that why he was on the contingency list as a potential dangerous threat?

Jon's words ring around in his head. His father's book, the words written down about the three Batmen, it all rings around in his head.

It leaves a sour taste in his mouth.]

I was wondering if you knew. [He remembers reading about Tim's encounter with a future self on the batcomputer, before the Flashpoint. Memories he only recently regained and never knew anything about personally, but they match the events that lead to Damian meeting the very same instance three years later.

And his fixation on Jon.

Dating back to their very first encounter, he'd realized early on who exactly he was talking to. Someone who would turn out to be a future/past enemy.]

I don't know how to respond to that other than to point out the completely typical level of self aggranzing inherent to you thinking the only solution would be to kill you.

[Of course if everything was at stake, Damian would do it. Just like how he expects Tim would do the same. More so than Jason or Bruce, Tim was always cold blooded in that way. But he resents it. He resents being asked in this backhanded and manipulative doublespeak.]

But sure. I'll add you to my secret hit list beneath my public hit list.

cw SI,

[ployboy]

[To think

Tim had believed this was going well.

Natural as his (stupid) apprehension at finalizing his end, his big stupid plan, aloud, to a boy bred and raised to be his better in every way, Tim bristles. It's short lived.

He's tired.

Fine, he thinks.

Hanging it is.]

You do understand the definition of favor, right?

[As he looks on, indifference in his voice so transparently forced.]

Of course you do. But. Fine. Thanks. [And then, he breaks-] But fucking tell me you understand that your dad is wrong. You quit? Cool. Now don't go back.

[thefifthchild]

[Damian jabs a finger in Tim's direction.]

If you actually believed that, you wouldn't be asking me this.

[His tone is sharp. Precise. Not quite letting his anger and hurt show beneath it, though the agitation is obviously mutual. It always is, they just take turns deciding who gets to play at being above it all.

Of course he knows his dad is wrong. On many things. Even the things Damian wants to believe aren't wrong. The things that made him want to be better.

He killed people and they stopped hurting others. They stopped terrorizing his friends, stopped murdering his family, burning down the hopes and dreams of innocent people, and despite what he's supposed to feel about it, he can't quite feel regret. They would all be better off.]

What exactly in this whole scenario have you done that he wouldn't? Set up a contingency to kill you if you go off the rails? Manipulate those around you with half sincere sympathy to serve your myopic self destruction and grief? Drive yourself to the brink of collapse until you're a liability to yourself and everyone around you? Framing the use of a gun as the inevitable moment you cross a line you can never come back from?

I know what you're capable of. I've seen it. [And his so-called friends saw it too and decided to trust Tim's judgement instead.] And I've been prepared to prevent it from the moment I arrived.

But no. If I'm going to kill someone, it won't be you. [The last thing he wants to deal with when he inevitably returns to hell is Tim's nasally fucking voice.]

cw suicidality continues, now with alluded animal death, physical/ emotional abuse of children

[ployboy]

[He's grinding his teeth. Jaime Reyes had warned him about that.

Something about high costs at the dentist's.]

I am nothing like him.

[Not a snarl, not a bite, but Tim's keenly aware of the electric pains of scars and poorly set bones in merciless winter.

Hanging is messy.

He has a gun.

Fine.

Won't be the first time he puts the gun to his head and now he knows to aim the muzzle between his eyes, not the temple- less Hollywood, more real-world results. And he knows he will pull that trigger this time, before someone- anyone- derails his plans. Because Tim knows he's falling.

When has he ever had the safety net of... oh my god he misses his brother.

Again, Tim wishes he had had the chance to say a Goodbye- say something... heartfelt. substantial. But Dick will understand and Tim swallows- he hates that Dick will get it. But catching his fall was nothing but a lucky break.

Tim's anger is... it's not meant to ever go away, is it. He felt it when his mom died and Bruce had told him to wait. He felt it when his dad died and Bruce had told him to keep going. And he feels it now when Bruce is nowhere except between them. It's such a small room.

Damian is wrong, or lying. About knowing what he can do, knowing who he is, about stopping him.

No, Tim is nothing like Bruce.

Bruce wouldn't have- the barn-]

Your creep of a grandfather could at least see that much.

[Cheap shots are fair game, though it's Tim growing goosebumps and feeling like he's wearing nothing.

Nightmare material, truly.]

But like I said, [because he's always a coward for confrontation, he doesn't want it,] fine. Forget it. Silly me for thinking you'd ever do me a favor.

[Look ma, no shouting.

Tim crosses his arms.

He looks at the book. Mew Mew. Gotham public schools. Whatever happened to Hudman and Callie, anyway? Ives and Zo would be freshman, but what the hell were they majoring in? Last time he saw his best friend, he had never even asked.] But since you won't kill me I guess you'll have to hear me out instead.

[There's a blizzard howling out there. Tim's at the door.

Dumb kid is stuck.]

Don't go back to someone who breaks their kid's arm. You can't fix someone that's messed up like that. And you shouldn't have to try.

cw for multiple layers of child abuse, dehumanization, child soldiering, internalized victim blaming

[thefifthchild]

You aren't him. [Damian says, his voice raw. He remembers an argument he had with Grayson about this, one of their few proper fights. They saw a collection of horrors and nightmares the world had never seen before and Dick wondered how much of that was just who Bruce Wayne is. He couldn't accept it. He shouted and railed against Dick for his disloyalty, because he didn't quite understand why.] So stop trying to be.

[Hypocrite.

When it was up to Damian to save Alfred it was Jason who blamed him, to his face. When Damian confronted Jason about his duplicity, it was Jason that broke his ribs and nose (He had admittedly stabbed him first). Jason shot him in the spine.

Does that make it okay? At what point do you stop being a child and start being a villain? Damian was a villain and he was much younger, he destroyed countless lives and sacrificed hundreds of others, all for a destiny he abandoned.

His mother killed him. She created his clones, the ones sacrificed so that he could find redemption, and she...

And he still misses her.]

That wasn't ever how I saw being Robin. I know I can't - I've never thought that I could. I was never capable of fixing anyone. [No doubt that's where Tim is, right now. Back at home, acting as a therapy animal. A morality chain. He feels... a pang of guilt, at that responsibility left on his brother's lap.

Mara's furious snarl comes to mind. The scar that he left serving as a constant reminder of her humiliation. All that and for what?

"That wasn't your fault," Alfred says. "You were just a little boy. Blaming yourself like this doesn't help anything."

Damian flexes his hand into a fist. He feels weaker, the anger fading and being replaced with something more helpless.]

Everything he taught me... My mother's love for him, her resentment for him, and her desire to be free. Everything good in me comes from...

Tim. If I accept that my - that our father - the greatest hero in the entire world - is unfixable.

Then what fucking hope do I have?

[ployboy]

[He grunts- an aborted wordless would-be protest: Jason had thrown those same words at him and Tim could revel because he's finally been seen. But that's the whole- any attention is good attention thing, that he heard from daytime talk shows when on the subject of delinquent children.

Is this a cry for help Louis had asked. And Tim had spent the weeks after that wondering if he was speaking English this entire time at all. Maybe Tim had been stuck on the Esperanto setting. Maybe Klingon.

But anyway.

The line of his shoulders hurts because he can't hike them up; Damian already knows so much about him that Tim is tempted to ask how many times he ran the cloning program on the delusion of bringing Kon back into his life. His eyes are sharp, narrow, and not focused on the bait that... actually, doesn't come. Tim makes a conscious effort to breathe out through his nose, far too mechanical. (He feels the building pressure of a coughing fit behind his lungs. Or maybe that's sepsis.)

Anyway.

Everything can be wildly simple. If he lets it be. He mumbles a disgruntled,] Well, first of all, Batman is not the greatest hero in the entire world. [Because the fact of the matter is that (Superman exists, is what Steph would say)

(Batgirl exists, Cass would smirk.)

Dick Grayson was Robin. And Robin is light, is that light at the end of the tunnel.

Batman is Bruce's punishment. It shouldn't have been any of theirs. So Tim lets that mistake slide, though it hurts like every old scar on him: Bruce, his father? No. No, and it's obvious now: they were partners. Business partners. Not much more. It hurts, so Tim doesn't drag himself into that world of misunderstanding, not now.

Tim, leg aching as if he's been sliced by a machete (wait-), shifts his weight again. And then he relents. He likes the path of least resistance, thanks. Defeat is a natural state of his. (Right?) But his life, his purpose, has never been about what he likes. Tim, simply, lets himself sit on that bed that Damian's occupied.]

The thing about people is that our pedigrees don't define us.

[Even now, hating her as he does and always will, Tim Drake loves Stephanie Brown more than she'll ever know.]

[thefifthchild]

[Even Damian's not sure he can disagree. Maybe his hesitance is because the first time he properly knew Batman - as anything more than a shadow on the wall and an abstract concept that could love him - it was Dick Grayson by his side and not Bruce Wayne, who was full of all of his own minute disappointments.

I'm terrified that you don't care about anyone but yourself.

Family. Pedigrees.

They say that. His father said it often. He says it too sometimes, to others, to Mara and Maya and all the other assassins he's stumbled on. A mantra he wishes were true, the inherent contradictions between his proud use of the Wayne name, the Robin legacy, and his secret dread at what that means for his future. The nightmares of a long trench coat and a fight that never ends, of demons that have haunted him since he was small. He was meant to be a vessel. R'as Al Ghul or Batman, he would become one of them. That should fill him with pride. He will change the world, leave it unrecognizable, no matter what.

But there's a low feeling of dread sitting in his chest as he thinks about his father, as he thinks about his mother, and he thinks about all the millions of ways he hates and loves them both.

Damian's fist clenches.]

That's never been your perspective before. Not on me.

[Not that Tim was wrong, per se. Brother Blood's mutilated corpse could attest to that. As could the arrow through Deathstroke's brain.]

I'm not going to go back with my tail between my legs. But I'm not interested in abandoning all the ideals he taught me either.

Even if he can't live up to them.

[He lets out a huff of breath.]

And if I was going to, I'd start by taking out Cannibal Goatee.

[ployboy]

[Here goes the kid again, neatly dividing the parts of Tim that try and the ones that say he's failed so many times that it's not worth trying at all. Tim repeats,] I put my hand over a lit candle, defended the man to freaking C.P.S... I chose him over my father knowing my dad could be, and was, killed that night, okay? I think we can both attest I've been very wrong. Besides,

[this is what a panic attack feels like, but Tim's taken care of useless men; he's not burdening Damian with the slight quake of his hands, the breathlessness of his hollow chest. He lets himself fall back on this bed and he blinks at a dark ceiling.

It'll be fine.]

Cassandra won't kick your ass 'til next Tuesday because she's too nice. [And not here, and he misses his sister so bad that it hurts.] But she should.

[And he mouths the.... name? Cannibal. Goatee. That's not leaving much to the imagination. That's just fine for Tim's runaway fantasies.

Huh.

Children shouldn't be in this bullshit.]

Who are your friends, here?

[thefifthchild]

[Damian watches Tim with a measure of wariness. This is all a side of Tim's personal tragedy that he'd been dimly aware of - boomerang. When he met Tim, he was defensive over Batman, territorial. He was afraid of Damian replacing him, obsessed with keeping Robin for himself, claiming it was all he had. He'd sneered at it, at the time. And since the crisis he hadn't wavered in that devotion except in select instances, something Damian found deeply insufferable. This... all of this... it runs contrary to that, all in relation to information that the Tim he knows should have already been aware of.

He doesn't comment on it.

He's not sure what to say.]

I think we must be talking about a different Cassandra. [He remembers telling her she was in the wrong room and being tossed to the floor.]

I don't have friends here. [Obviously. Tim's the Robin that makes friends. Damian just burns bridges.] There's few people I even like. [And it feels wrong to call them "friends". Maybe Ruby and Levi, at a stretch. Chloe... is old and frustrating.]

[ployboy]

[It's like feeling his intestines crawl it's so bad. And Tim does know a thing or two about having insides wanting to slosh around outside, okay?

Okay.

He wets his lips.

(Cassandra wouldn't-)

(He feels crushed. Not, like, figuratively. Cassandra can lay down a beating. It's fine. Especially if (since) Damian's been an ass. It's fine. But Tim feels crushed. And he swallows, because he can't breathe. Not like. Not really.)]

Tough.

[Tim scatters a lot of... small, trivial...

So he can eventually, if needed:] Doesn't your puppy need to see its littermates? Jason keep thinking a puppy playdate would be nice.