Catchall (Summer)

[ployboy]

Who: Tim Drake, closed starters
What: Tim sees the past, sees the future, and decides he's done feigning acceptance of either
When: July, August
Where: Milton

Content Warnings: July's event warnings go here! Mind the headers in each thread

His birthday's tomorrow- Tim found out the date by accident. He knows he feels something with the reminder but mostly he feels glad he isn't flashing emotions as colors anymore.

Seeing things he could never finds words for was always infuriating.

Comments

K-

[ployboy]

If the days are alluring then the nights are impossible to resist; Tim's stepped out of the General Store and, frankly, can't be sure he'll be back to finish his shift. The green in the air should be terrifying. But it clouds the sun, the damned sun, and Tim can finally step into the summer without feeling... like he's dying.

He swears he isn't being dramatic about it either. It feels good to move, to breathe, to be able to see through the weak twilight with human eyes, making out shapes without the migraines of focus souring the basic acts.

Tim isn't afraid of the green but Tim fears for the winter. He'll need a plan for them, for all of them. A plan to scare or shake or silence the monsters that will no doubt feel so powerful and wild when the sun dies for good. (No, the sun will rest for only a season, Tim reminds himself. Again he doesn't know how he feels at the reminder. It's a weird sensation so at odds with itself, always so at home in his chest.)

The walk is aimless. Tim is alone. He enjoys it, he thinks, and then he spots Kate, and some more green, and he stills. She's coming towards him. Reflexively he turns his head to glance behind himself but there's nothing; it's just them and the evening and the green.

That's scary.

He turns back to her and, reflexively again, he pockets his hands. "Hey. Hey, what's up?"

B-

[ployboy]

There's something weird about living under Bruce's roof now that Dick's here, too. Tim could conjure up memories of Bane and the Bat and his brother having to step into the mantle afterwards but, One, Bruce wasn't really with them then and Two, the idea of Bane now opens up the memory that was never his to witness. It feels more like a wound than a memory, one that will never even begin to heal. Because Alfred...

Anyway.

The gas station feels cramped.

Then there's green in the air and the first time that Tim sees it he stills. Like a rabbit sensing the wolf upon it. He makes it a point to warn... his dad, his brother: "That means the Darkwalker is going to show itself."

But even Milton likes to turn Tim into a veritable liar.

The Darkwalker doesn't laugh. It doesn't leave mangled corpses for them to find, faces frozen in terror. It doesn't even make Tim flinch, doesn't make his voice waver; instead Tim bravely pokes his head outside. And then, gesturing for Lily to stay, he ventures out where it's murky. Like a wolf sensing a scared rabbit, defenseless and out there somewhere, Tim moves through the town. There is a lot of fear in the air. (It's thrilling.)

(That's... bad.)

B is tailing him, and Tim's not sure when that happened. He's ready to be turned a liar again, gesturing to... fog, distant but rolling in, inescapable. (Except, now, for the first time because of the green, Tim feels dread in his excitement.) 

"See, I told you." he snipes, unsatisfied with being proved right just as the hissing of many voices, anxious, surround the grave tone of their Patron Saint of Bullshit and Misery: S̵h̵e̶ ̶b̷i̷n̸d̸s̶ ̵m̴e̶.̶

D-

[ployboy]

"So there's this girl, right?"

Which isn't the first thing Tim had planned to blurt out after having had his soul torn asunder just thirty or so minutes ago, but somehow it seems like the safest thing to touch on. And Tim is... a lot of things. Smart, yes. Wise, no. Cunning. Resilient. Safe...? Tim can remember terror and blood in the underground of Wayne manor. In San Francisco. In the hallway of Grieve Memorial High. In his father's brownstone that he's only just stepped away from, leaving its bloodied stench behind in the white snow.

But he's now holding- waving mechanically back and forth between himself and the doorframe to the office of the gas station that is Tim's bedroom- a neatly folded paper, a letter. This is as safe as Tim can make words from his mouth sound, and as safe as he will will himself to believe he is by virtue of rote familiarity.

It doesn't escape him (blinking silent pleas to Dick Grayson to play along for God's sake just play along please) that for him, safety has just become synonymous with Kate. Punching his face in be damned. He even got a small, cool scar out of it now that the lip's healed. Finally. Anyway. Anyway-

Tim stands there, the flush not making it to his ears or cheeks just yet, but the listlessness makes him tuck an overgrown lock of hair back behind his ear regardless. He is so overwhelmingly self-conscious and it's either the panic or the puppy love or both; he wants to crawl back into his nest and curl himself around Laelaps and just not wake up, not for a long while. (But that would be selfish.)

Maybe this is selfish too. And he can't just force-- stolen time, something ridiculous in the face of their new reality, on the man (even if he suspects he already has, with an unspoken shame in his eyes that his brother knows, the one that comes on when there's nothing safe from their failures) so Tim clears his throat. Awkwardly.

And finally, embarrassed, he adds, "I mean. I don't know. Sorry. Are you busy?"

Because he wants... to talk.

[castitas]

July is gloomy and green and it fills her with a low-rolling dread that sits permanently in her stomach and a sharp kind of buzzing fear in her chest. It's not like midsummer last year, but it still feels wrong. The kind of feelings that make her want to crawl into her closet or under her bed and hide.

But she's out the house despite herself, even if her footsteps are hurried and her breaths and quick and shallow as she walks down through the main street of town. She has it all planned out: find Tim, give him the letter and get straight back home. No big deal, right? Totally fine.

And she's making a beeline for him as soon as she spots him, breathless when she's close enough — stopping short enough to give enough space between them.

"Hey, um—" she sucks in a breath to calm herself, but she's still out of breath and agitated, uneasy. "I was looking for you, actually. I, uh—"

She's fumbling, reaching for her satchel.

"I need to give you something, and like—" her hands are shaking a little. They're covered this time, at least. Just give him the letter and get back home. She pulls a small, plain envelope. A letter. "If you can maybe not read it until, like— later."

She holds it out for him. Take it. Please.

[shoving]

There is something strange about sharing his space with other people. They are strangers, quiet little intrusions on the routine Bruce has managed to put together here. He doesn't mind. Not as much as he thought he would anyway. Even if the loneliness had been easier in a way. Familiar. Safe.

Getting to know Tim and Dick never really felt like a chore, since they were halfway to knowing him anyway. All he had to do was meet them in the middle. And in those moments he did mind, Bruce knew how to withdraw and be alone so he could regroup.

When the air turns a sickly shade of green, Bruce is set on a finer edge. He'd never cared for the color. He'd seen it too many times laughing at him. Tim warns him that it means the Darkwalker is coming and Bruce thinks Finally. He isn't afraid of it. Maybe he should be.

But he isn't.

He isn't afraid, as much as he's concerned about Tim and how restless he feels when the world turns dark and it doesn't feel so oppressive to be outside anymore. Bruce follows Tim. He's concerned.

Bruce's steps are quiet after years of practice and if he ever doubted Tim's been trained by him (or someone with his face), catching him in the act dispels it.

“I believed you, Tim.”

i am so sorry this took forever and a half

[aerobat]

So there's this girl isn't - well. At least this isn't a my girlfriend is pregnant conversation. Dick could always be two seconds away from falling face-first onto the ground because Tim finding entirely unexpected topics to bring up out of nowhere is very Timmish of him. This is fine.

And even better: Dick has his hands pressed to Bitewing's cheeks, pushing up the fluff of his face as before Tim had deciding to interrupt, he had been cooing quietly at the pup in the otherwise silent gas station. It's the paper waving back and forth that has him releasing the dog after ruffling his fur, eyes tracking it as Tim waves it hazardously and Dick's - raising a brow. Watching his little brother. It isn't that this is unexpected behavior - no, the predictability of it almost makes him feel a little better because everything has been off, but this is notably very Tim-like. At least some things never change.

"I'm not busy, no." He might have teased Tim for how anxious he seems about bringing it up to him, but given the amount of time he's been here mostly on his own, how behind Dick feels, he opts to save that for - later. Much later. Instead, he holds out a hand toward the letter. If Tim chooses not to hand it over, that's fine, too - but given he'd brought it out while bringing this up to him, Dick assumes he has some desire to share it's contents. "So, a girl?"

cw dead animal mentions

[ployboy]

Is something following her? is the first and dominant thought in Tim's head. He loses most of his focus on her the moment she's within reach-- which he's sure isn't correct or proper or anything of that ilk but he scans the silent world around her anyway. It's green, but there's nothing that steals his attention for long. (Which should have been a red flag the same way that Kate having beat up a dead bear was a red flag, but he's blind from the thrill of being able to stand without wanting to collapse to his knees.)

Tim blinks, and he turns to see Kate rummaging through her bag. Soon enough there's a...

"Is this my pink slip?" he asks, dumbfounded around the edges where a nervous smile wants to tug at his lips. He takes the envelope and resists the urge to tear into it. He takes the envelope and resists reaching for her, for her hands.

He misses it, but it's also... the green. There's a lot of it.

And that can't be safe.

In the next moment, Tim's expression shakes off it's human hesitance once more. The envelope goes into an inner pocket of his coat and he stands taller, firmer, in the quiet sick-green snow. There's fog. Voices. The Darkwalker.

Then, a figure emerges from the fog. One that makes Tim... freeze. Shut down. Or boot into overdrive, as he clamps down on everything emotional that tears into his innards like starved, wild dogs. Jack Drake- a man in his fortys, sturdy, hair graying but cropped neat. Green polo shirt. Khakis. In front of a television screen. Jack turns from where he's seated and shoots off a peculiar question-

Anyone shoot at you tonight?

Tim sees... himself, and he looks younger, he thinks, than he does now. This is the him of two... three years ago. The boy creeps uncertainly forward to sit with his dad, his white shirt too large, old jeans, untied sneakers. Dad, please don't worry about--

Indeed.

Tim cuts in front of Kate, nods mechanically to where she came from. Says, "I'll take you back to your place."

[castitas]

"What—? No, I just—" the words fail her, and she shakes her hand gently, urging him to take it. Just read it, later. It's horrendously awkward, only making how she already feels with this tell-tale green gloom in the air ten times worse.

Tim straightens and Kate shrinks. The fog drifts in thicker, and she's distracted by the chittering of voices that it carries. The urge to run is suffocating, but her feet remain planted where they are, heavier than stone. She's too cowed to start openly freaking out, turning her head in horror at the sound of the Darkwalker's voice.

"Oh, God—" breathed out, strained. Oh, God, because what will It do now? Of all times, why does it have to be now?

One way, or another — I am coming for you. I will break you, consume you. You will go into the Dark.

She hears a TV set, and does a double take.

A man she doesn't recognise, appears in the gloom, but looks familiar in a specific way. A boy appears, and this one she instantly recognises, even if he looks a little younger. Kate stares for a long beat, keeps staring even after Tim blocks her view.

"Tim." she wets her lips, swallows thickly. "That's your Dad."

Tim's Dad is dead. She knows that.

cw corpse mention

[ployboy]

That's your Dad and Tim can practically hear the stress of the capital-D. He thought he'd seen and heard enough already, his heart hammering in his chest and throat as Tim reasons that, well, at least he isn't seeing a corpse. A walking decomposing mix of green-purple flesh and stubborn tendons still sticking to reanimated bones. Not this time. That's good. He makes a noise, something strangled and furious, and he has to turn, briefly, back to the scene unfolding around them.

He has to see his Dad.

Just once more.

Tim thinks, hopes, maybe this time--

The TV announces Sue Dibney's death, and Tim doesn't lean into his Dad, he's pulled into him. Tim thinks he's never going to recover from that shock, wonders if Kate can somehow feel that the proximity is as torturous and awkward as it looks to him. He clears his throat,

and reaches for Kate's hand. Because everyone breaks, but if he can get ahead of it and prepare for the fall...

"Kate. We're leaving."

His bedroom is all... boy. It looks like it reeks. There's open books and old clothes on the bed, both at risk of falling and cluttering the already cluttered floor. The window squeaks open, and Robin silently flutters in.

Tim could laugh. God. God, what now.

More at ease than he has any right to be, he pulls at Kate. He wants her to take a step, just one, to start moving because

"You're going to see him die. Or you're going to see him already dead."

Tim has a baggy jersey- #94. He's careful not to go overboard with the concealer, but pressing on the bruising under his eye hurts. He needs to be quiet. Not like Dad would be awake at this hour.

"Let's go."

[castitas]

It feels like a trespass. It she were to put a word to it: trespass. Like she's stumbling into something she's not supposed to see, that she's never supposed to see. These moments are Tim's, not hers. Moments with his father, before he died. She's reminded of when she and Wynonna drank tea and Wynonna saw the Vortex Club party — pulled into the midst of it, watching Nathan press a solo cup of wine into her hand and being unable to stop herself from taking a sip.

He never told her how. She doesn't bat his hand away, lets him take it. And it's enough to make her look at him for a few beats — her eyes are wide—

This is... Tim's room—?

Her throat feels tight, stunned and horrified. He pulls at her hand and she pulls at his right back.

"Go where?" It's not a snap of frustration, but of fear. "This is the Darkwalker, it's not just gonna let us leave. You know that."

Surely he does. The Darkwalker isn't merciful. Isn't kind. It doesn't care about them. If it's brought this upon them, how are they going to get out of it? Totally not by just walking out, that's for sure.

It's so... weird. Looking at him. He's here, holding onto her hand. Trying to pull her away and yet he's right there, too. (Is... that make-up?)

"Why... why did he ask you if anyone shot at you?"

[ployboy]

She pulls him and it's a moment of tug-of-war that lights him on fire and makes him want to shout that they have to try to fight this God damn it. And it's not even because this is private. That never crosses or has crossed Tim's mind-

"--elbowed me in the face," Tim explains lamely, and Jack knows that's a lie. Tim is hunched over, unsure, always so unsteady around his dad. Jack looks at his son and doesn't call out the lie, just brushes his hand over the makeup and smiles sadly. "How 'bout I get you some ice?" Jack offers, heaving to stand.

MURDER AMONG HEROES. Superman is on TV. Ralph is weeping, inconsolable, the poor, poor man--

There's going to be no escaping this, and Tim wonders if he should be so relieved that Kate is... "Sometimes I'd get shot at," he shrugs.

His back teeth hurt, he's going to rack up a fat bill at the dentist from grinding them. He's holding himself miserably, having followed his dad to the kitchen but not daring intrude into the space; Jack is bracing himself against the sink, head bowed, miserable.

Father and son.

What a happy, flattering--

And he misses it so much. "Kate, it's going to be bloody," he urges, and feels his hair stand on end. He won't pull at her hand again, but he's holding on as he steps... back. "Walk with me."

Please.

(That letter she penned him. It says she never wanted to see him again, huh?)

Robin is buttoning up the cloak, the cape, its collar high and stiff. It's night. The window (large, old), open. "Dad, please..." he groans, tired, irritated.

cw: mention of drink-spiking in canon, mention of suicide

[castitas]

It had all just played out, between her and Wynonna. And she remembers the woman's outrage — Nathan drugged her. And Wynonna couldn't do anything but watch, calling it all for what it was: bullshit. It was bad enough, watching it. Sober. Hiding her face in her hands, deeply ashamed, until the heavy bass of the music distorted and the lights grew too blurred and hazy for the memory to end.

Now she's the one stuck in Wynonna's place, and she doesn't say it but she agrees: this is bullshit. But she knows the Darkwalker doesn't care what she thinks, unless it's getting in her head enough that she'll give it want it wants and just kill herself. She is not part of nature's design, after all.

Fathers see through it all, don't they? Kate thinks of her own dad. It's a quiet kind of thing. An offer for an icepack, a bible verse on a postcard.

He shrugs, and she's balking at him. He says it like it's so normal, like it's fine. Sometimes he'd get shot at, just like that. And she's staring at him, incredulous, because how could those words ever be something that's normal?

"Are you serious?!" she breathes, "People don't just get shot at."

People, meaning teenage boys. Teenage boys, meaning Tim Drake.

He's stepping back.

"Tim—" her chest aches, because it's bullshit that it's his turn to deal with this. She exhales softly. They're not walking away from this. She's so sorry. "This isn't gonna be how it works."

There's no joy in it.

Tim Drake is a mystery. She's turning her head to look at him, the other him. The memory of him. There's so much she doesn't know.

But she follows after him, as he's stepping back. She's going to see his Dad die, isn't she? Her heart sinks, and she nods.

"Okay, Tim." she says softly. "I'll go with you."

[ployboy]

"Just promise me you won't open the door." He says like a guy who is used to arguing with a goddamn brick wall. The costume is bright- red, yellow, green. Jack isn't even looking at the garish colors. Tim can't blame him.

Tim can't look either, but this is different than the Black Lantern fiasco. There's going to be no escaping, no fighting. A laugh bubbles up in his throat at Kate's outburst and his eyes spark with sudden, wild light. (For the first time in his life, he's free) He says, "I dunno, I got shot a few times." Like this is somehow funny. It isn't.

He's nervous.

(He's not.)

He's wild with energy.

"Tim, I'm fine."

"You're not. You think you are, but you're not. You saw the TV. They killed Sue Dibney. Attacked Jean Loring. Both in their homes."

Tim, free, lips quirked up in helpless sadness, tells Kate, "You just weren't supposed to know. Nobody was ever supposed to know. Because that's how people I know get hurt, or die."

But she's agreed to walk, to not let him work through the motions and crash of futility all on his own.

They walk and the scenery never changes. It's green. (And red and black and yellow.) Jack isn't pleased, is trying to hold himself together. "Someone was threatened, weren't they? Who was it?"

"Dad..."

"I am your father."

Tim scoffs and he hates that he scoffs, and it's not because of his dad. Desperate to quell the misunderstanding, and fingers twitching in Kate's hold, he hurriedly adds, "I'm sorry."

(Who is he apologizing to?)

"I know and I want to tell you but... it was someone big, okay? And if they know who he is... Just promise me you'll be smart."

"I can talk you through it. Or we can talk about something else."

It won't matter. She'll hear the screaming.

[castitas]

"Tim." Because what else can she say that her eyes aren't already saying? Confused horror, fear for him. Not shot at, but actually shot? And these are words that shouldn't be coming out of his mouth, but they are.

Tim Drake, dressed up like he's ready for Halloween. Getting shot at. Getting shot. And he's here, laughing about it.

Rorschach told her that the mask he wears is his real face.

It's surreal but it's— it's real.

The truth doesn't always set you free, it snags you in the net. As unbelievable as it is hearing that other people knowing any of this puts a target on their back, she can... actually believe it. Considering the whole 'being shot' thing.

She squeezes his hand.

Considering 'being in Iraq'. Considering how he knows the man who's done all the worst things you can think of, who then got bored of those things and did everything else instead. Considering all the other things he's told her, just all those little pieces of him she's found out about after all this time.

This decision isn't hers. It's not her memory, not her dad dying. Not her garish nightmare of a single mistake to go to a stupid party, just wanting to make friends.

"We can talk about whatever you want to." she says softly. "It's— just whatever you want, okay?"

There's no control here. The Darkwalker has that right now. But if anything, she can at least try to give him whatever little there might be left.

She squeezes his hand again, keeps walking with him.

[ployboy]

She's-- frazzled, and Tim doesn't know what to do with the stirring in his gut at her rebuke. With Tam, he would continue the teasing until she would inevitably throw a cushion or hit him with a binder flying across the room to get him to shut up. Kate's already thrown a book at him and hit him, and Tim is again with that languid, tired smile because he doesn't know what else to do to show her how much this isn't destroying him.

She squeezes his hand. Not just lets him take it. She doesn't only not pull away. She makes him remember she is here, with him.

Tim fears the unopened envelope tucked into his coat more than he fears what he's about to see play out in front of his eyes.

Robin has his head in his gloved hand- tempers are running thin because there's no practice in temperance. He's perched at the window, and doesn't have the time to hear-- "You know... I've tried to be good about this. Better than most parents- in fact, better than any parent. My therapy bills alone-"

"Dad--"

"I'm just saying. I know he chose you for a reason-"

"Well, I don't know what to talk about."

"Dad, I can't do this right now."

Is that really how they would talk to each other? Tim's screwed the smile on- tight, plastic; he has a timer clicking, counting down in his head. Tick. Tick. Thud. Thud. Thud.

"I've always been real good at talking," he states dryly, and the hand that isn't holding (or being held by) Kate jerks a little, minuscule. Then Tim brings up his other hand, up to pull down his hood and tangle in his long hair in childish rejection of decorum. Tick. Tick. Tick. Tick. "Maybe it'd be better if you stayed in tonight- you're sixteen years old- a mask and cape-"

"Don't you think it's a little too late for that?"

What a stupid little-- He stops walking, turns to Kate and says, hand apparently frozen in his hold of himself (lest his brain spills out of his ear), "You're right. We-- should stop. Walking. Uh."

He doesn't want to risk running into anyone else.

"You really think I should stay? Be honest, Dad."

"So, yeah, I'm Robin. No I'm not. What am I saying? I was. Uh."

Fuck.

"I'm sorry."

Tick. Tick.

"No. You should go. Definitely go."

Honesty: what he and Dad would do best, huh.

There is no I Love You as Robin takes his leave.

[castitas]

For once, Tim doesn't know what to talk about. And it would be surprising if it weren't for everything playing out in front of them right now. Never mind, it's still surprising because yeah— Tim Drake has a lot to talk about and a lot of words come out that mouth of him and now he doesn't know what to say.

It's not the time to point it out to him. None of this is the right time, and even if she's still mad at him and she wants him to apologise to her for what he did — she's even pushing that away into a corner, tucked up tight for now.

Tim looks a lot like his dad, she thinks. Just taller.

"This was the last conversation you had with him, right?"

She misses her own Dad, and that feels selfish because Richard Marsh is alive and well.

Tim stops, and she's pulling her gaze away from the scene to look at him. Kate frowns, not quite understanding.

"Wait, what?" It's supposed to mean something, like all this means something. She just doesn't quite get it. "What do you mean you're Robin? Is that what... that is?"

The whole. Get up, she means. Gesturing.

(Rorschach isn't Rorschach's name, she figures. He would have had another name once. Maybe it's like that.)

Tim's sorry. His other hand tangled up in his hair under his hood. Kate pauses, then reaches for the other hand with hers — lightly grabs at his wrist to coax it down.

"Why are you sorry?"

It's not the apology she's looking for. But this? He doesn't need to apologise for this.

cw surprise! zombie (dead man walking mention); self harm (hitting)

[ployboy]

Tim shakes his head at her question and he can't be sure what expression or lack of he sports as he clarifies to her that no, the last time he heard his father's voice and his father heard his was through a

"Phonecall."

His voice is dry and tastes like sunbaked stone.

Because memories are tainted sometimes- time makes them warp or fade but that isn't what's happening now. Jack Drake, father, husband, is left alone in the brownstone apartment. Dissatisfied, tired, worrying. There's still Robin's haste to get to the where the action awaits, but the other clearer memory is his Dad-

skin peeled away from the years-aged corpse but walking, moving. (Because of course Tim remembers seeing his father's body reanimated, who the fuck would ever forget that!?) He's at least glad Kate has turned away, though he's unable to look away himself.

(Look! He's better! He's doing better! Because he isn't throwing himself at the black-green walking dead and screaming with a hoarse desperation to Stop it! Stop! Dad! Dad stop!)

Jack('s body) enters the kitchen, and finds a box. A note. "Tim? Did you-?"

JACK DRAKE. PROTECT YOURSELF.

And inside the small box is that motherfucking gun.

Tim swallows air. He can't breathe, but he can gulp in the cold kick to the chest that is life. "I just wanted to do something good," he says, and it sounds so small and stupid, stupid, stupid. "I always wanted to help people, save them, but I never save the people who love me."

What is Robin?

Jack('s body) is huddled behind the counter. The corpse's fingers are curled around the gun. He talks into the radio- "I think my life might be in danger."

"I was going to cover your eyes," Tim admits lamely. He lets his hand get coaxed down. He thinks he's about to fall to his damn knees. He can't breathe. He says, gentle and defeated, to Kate and not at her, with a sympathy that balms over the hot coals in his chest that make him want to retch, "But you'll hear the shouting anyway. I'm sorry."

"Someone sent me a gun."

And that's it for the zombie, the memory blurring back to the one of that day, and Tim wants to sob his thanks... to who? For what? Robin is in... not a car. More of a tank. The Batmobile might be difficult to explain to someone so unused to the sheer weaponization of everything available. Batman- a figure more than a man. Black. Shadowed. On a mission. Always on a mission. Bats is driving.

Oracle- a voice- cuts through Tim's... thanks.

"Tim. Get home. Now."

"What're you talking about? What's wrong?"

"It's your dad."

The screeching of tires makes Tim wince.

Agitated, he both needs to move and move away from Kate-- she's good, she's here, she's real, she's everything he shouldn't be allowed to be near. Tim takes his hands back, he paces. He shouts at the green fog and pounds a fist with rage against his leg, "I left him!"

The radio. A voice. Jack's: "Tim?"

"Dad? Dad, are you okay!?"

Weird how his voice always breaks in the same place.

Tim is wild. He paces. Stops. Looks up. Can't look at himself- it's a repulsion deep inside him. He paces, he balls his hand into a fist and knocks it into his leg and it doesn't even feel like anything, so he paces and looks up and

he thinks he gets it now.

"I-I'm fine. I think he's in the hallway. I've got it though," (THUD) "I-I'm fine."

"Dad, this isn't some African safari! Get out of there!"

Tim is moving, he's fast, (all of this is fast. Tick. Tick. Tickticktick-) he's holding Kate's arm whether she wants to be held or not to give her the choice that,

"You don't need to see it if you don't want to. You're going to hear my dad die, and then you're going to see a lot of blood. I'm here. You don't need to see any of that."

(He thinks he gets it now: don't leave them. Don't leave her.)

His voice breaks- "I'm sorry."

cw: refs to death bodies

[castitas]

"You saved me."

She knows it's already in the letter. She knows everything's all in there, including that. He'll read it eventually, later, at some point. But she says it now, gentle but firm. Because no, it's not true — that he never saves people who love him. She's right here, proof of that.

He relents and she pulls his wrist towards her — presses his hand to her face. Her cheek is cold, but it's real and solid. Proof that Tim Drake saved someone who loves him.

She's not going to look back. She's not going to turn to see what's going on. She presses her hand over his, trying to pull his attention away from the memory he's looking at. Her throat is tight and she's scared, of course she is.

But she's really trying not to be.

"See?" Look at her, Tim. Please. "I'm still here. Okay?"

The scene changes, and there's more voices. New voices. The screech of tires makes Tim wince and makes Kate jump. He's pulling away, and she's turning her head to look.

"Who—?" A man dressed in black. Her focus wavers, flitting between Tim and what she's seeing. Tim wins out, and she's raising her hands in a defensive gesture — as if trying to soothe a caged animal.

And failing desperately.

Kate's mouth opens, falters. Then:

"There were bodies in the snow. Merry started digging at something in a snowbank and I didn't— I don't— they were just staring back at me. And they were just—"

Why's she bringing this up? It's relevant, she swears.

What's she's trying to say is that she's seen a dead body before. Twice now. The Milton native in the snow, and there was another before that— Heartman died in his sleep. He was peaceful, and it looked like he was almost smiling.

She's never seen blood, but she's been close enough to smell it. Hear it pooling in the snow beside her, the sound of a shotgun blast ringing in her ears and her throat burning, struggling under the sudden release and sweep of cold, crisp air. Edward Little had made her close her eyes as he picked her up and carried her away.

Maybe it's a bit like that, what happens to Tim's dad. Not like Heartman, or the Milton resident. Maybe it's like Mikel.

"I can close my eyes, if I need to. Okay?" she tells him gently. "Don't be sorry."

[ployboy]

Tickticktick-

His breath hitches, catches somewhere between his throat and the roof of his mouth in what's a dry wail and Tim wishes his vision would begin to go black.

There's hollow noises through the radio, all intermixed with Robin's high whining and rising pitch of his voice; every word is more devastated than the last. Jack Drake's also. Through the noise of a home invasion and a Batmobile, everyone knows: this is it. The beginning of the end. Maybe the Darkwalker was right. Tim thinks, he's always been a plague.

"He's definitely in the hall!" His Dad calls, because there's no use in staying silent when he's the one being hunted and there's no where to hide.

The air feels like water, and through Kate's explanation, Tim nods. Parts his lips to respond, but he closes them to keep the breath from escaping, his spirit from leaving. He manages, "I know." with a tinge of that misplaced wryness that even manages to snap his attention to her, again. It's exactly what Randvi had had to spell out for him: no one here is as helpless as he believes them to be. Kate Marsh sure isn't.

(It gives him strength.)

He's shaking like a goddamn leaf and it's not fear. Tim Drake just never knows what to do with the rush of adrenaline when he can't lean into it. He states the obvious around his tongue which feels like lead, his head already ducking, his body curling in around itself- "I always need to be the big damn hero." (The joke: it isn't needed. Not the way he used to think it was.) Batman's already said Flash's name. Oracle replied he wasn't available. Robin's already said Batman's name. (Why does Tim feel proud of having protected them when he knows his father is going to die.)

"Just keep my boy safe... please... just keep him safe."

Why isn't he crying?

Tim flushes a horrible, dreadful red.

His hand on Kate's arm is losing its grip-- he can't find the energy; he's staring at the snow below his boots and wishes he was under the frozen dirt of-- but then he wouldn't be here. (Safe. Like his dad wanted.)

"I'm so sorry," he says and it's barely a whisper. He has no breath to spare.

"We're gonna make it, Dad... we're gonna make it..." he screeches just as Dad informs, "He's at the door." and the kid is wild, voice turning sharp and tickticktick "Dad--"

"Tim, if something happens-"

"Nothing's gonna happen!" something inhuman in the face of willful delusion, and

"Tim, I need you to focus-"

"Nothing's gonna happen!"

"Tim!"

Oh, Tim thinks: now he's crying. It's quiet. And he's sinking to his knees because God, he's so sorry he was so wrong.

"You listening, Tim?" a father's voice cuts through the babbling- stern, present, direct. "Good. Then understand one thing. If you don't get here, it's not your fault." "Dad--!"

He was so wrong about everything--!

[castitas]

There's no telling what's worse, hearing Tim's Dad going through the invasion itself, or Tim's desperation. This is it. And there's some part of her that thinks this is all so surreal, but it's sobering, crushing all at once. Tim's Dad is going to die, and they're listening to it.

She braces his shoulder with one hand, shakes her head.

"No, you don't." she says softly. "And that's okay."

They're not heroes, they're humans. Wishing, and hoping and just trying to do their best. Sometimes they don't always win. Sometimes it's not fair. Sometimes a boy listens to their Dad get killed, sometimes a girl gets roofied at a party.

Would it be the same, if it were her own father? Probably. Maybe. She doesn't know. She can't imagine herself in Tim's shoes, can't imagine herself in this same position. But maybe she'd be the same — defiance, disbelief, nothing's gonna happen.

If only.

Tim sinks to his knees and Kate watches him fall before she kneels down to join him. Her hands hover before him for a long moment, as if trying to work out what to do. All her anger and upset are still tucked away, they're unimportant right now.

If you don't get here, it's not your fault.

Tim didn't listen, did he?

She reaches for his face, holds it as gently as she can in her hands.

"Tim—" she starts and stops, because what can she say? Is there anything that she can say to him? Nothing'll make this okay. Nothing'll make him feel better. None of this is okay, none of this is fair.

She guides his head up a little, presses her forehead to his.

"I forgive you." she tells him, and her eyes are wet.

Maybe it's not what she wants him to apologise for, or maybe it is. But she forgives him anyways. Because she will always be the one to forgive. Because he has to be the big damn hero all the time? Because he just wants to save everyone?

He's... such an idiot. But she forgives him, and she loves him.

"You gotta get up."

Screw the Darkwalker.

"I'm right here. But you have to get up."

cw d d death

[ployboy]

Tickticktick.

Ticktick.

Time is unfeeling and unfettered.

"I need you to know this, Tim... it's not your fault," Dad repeats, because he knows his son isn't listening. "Okay? You didn't do this."

"I didn't tell him that I loved him," Tim admits with a whisper that's so, so far from them both. He will never tell his father that he loves him.

"I love you, Tim. I love you just like your mother loves you."

And Tim is sobbing, the noise ugly and stabbing. Ticktick.

Kate is down here where it's cold and the snow bites at his legs folded under him and burns his knees. Kate is down here with him, and Tim isn't sobbing because something around his middle hurts so bad- he's clutching at his body in a bid to keep it from falling apart, ripped open. Shred open. His eyes are not nearly as wet as they ought to be when he's looking into Kate's. She forgives him and her eyes are wet.

Ticktick.

"What you do... for all those people... it's worth it, Tim. Never question it. It's worth it." It feels like a mockery of the truth. It feels like a lie. Tim gasps and shudders; if he believes that his dad's words are only words, then how will he ever face Kate again, and tell her

You can do this-?

"Tell Bruce to take care of you-"

BAM.

The door of the home is kicked in. Tim, the veteran hero, wails, strains against the harness of the car- "Dad!"

Tick.

Three gunshots. BLAM BLAMBLAM

Tim's sobbing, Tim's sobbing. He nods. He nods again, always eager to take orders, to follow at a heel.

Tick.

"Dad!"

He had been right there, just close enough to be too far away. Tim is flying, moving with a speed he shouldn't be able-- ("Tim," Batman: always inhuman when it hurts the most. "If the police are there...") stripping the costume and it's kevlar and boobytraps and he's running up the stairs, blind through his grief, his knowledge that-

"Dad, I'm coming!"

Tim chokes, shatters, pleads to Kate as his heart is trodden down with every heavy step of boots on wooden stairs, "Help me up? I can't--"

(He can't do this alone. Was never able to.)

"--is he--?"

"You have to understand," Oracle's voice sighs. Tim, a sixteen year old boy in black shorts and a white tee, balks at the top of the staircase. There's blood... there's blood running, seeping under the closed door the small... kitchen... "there's nothing any of us could do."

[castitas]

"No, you didn't." she agrees evenly, and then swallows hard. "But he knew anyway."

How can she possibly know that? How could she possibly not?

(Tim isn't a mystery, not in that way. Sometimes he's so painfully obvious.)

But she keeps hold of his face as gently as she can, even if her fingers are trembling because she knows what's coming. She's still scared. Scared of the Darkwalker and how it makes her feel like a dying animal. Scared of hearing the last words of a man due to die, scared and outraged—

she is still soft in spite of it.

She inhales sharply at the sound of gunshots, shuddering. She can't cry right now, even if the glossiness of her eyes wells and spills over down her cheeks. She tenses, as if physically pressing it down—

she can't right now, for Tim's sake.

She needs to hold it together, even if it's hard.

Blessed are they that mourn, for they shall be comforted.

The memory continues around them, but she can't look away. She can't look to it, only looking at Tim — trying to keep his gaze for as long as she can.

"Okay. Okay, I've got you." she's pulling her face away from his, nodding. She shifts, moving to get up, her hands moving to find his — trying to pry them away from himself.

"Come on, that's it—" softly encouraging, even if her voice cracks.

Gently but incessant. She'll take his hands and move to stand, pulling him up with her as she goes—

awkward, stumbling a little with the weight of him.

"Neither of us have to look, okay?" she tells him when he's back on his feet. "You just keep looking at me, and I'll keep looking at you. We don't have to look."

more death

[ployboy]

He's like an animal, his body unwilling to give because it keeps itself alive through fight or flight alone; Tim tries. He tries to mirror her movements, tries to tune out the rest of the world, of his life, for her. But he's frozen in an unnatural way and there's a keening that escapes his lips though he barely parts them. Unable, he's failed her too.

So Tim tries again.

The scream is a new chapter, a nightmare ushering in a new life and it knocks the boy off his feet and he falls to his knees not before stumbling forward for his-

"DAD!"

Tim can't breathe and that's-- that's okay. He doesn't need to breathe to command one finger to unfurl, then another- to leave its white-knuckled grip on where his heart should be. Just like he doesn't need to turn to know that there's blood on the apartment's floorboards. There was so much blood, it was so warm on his knees, his toes, his hands when...

"Get it out!" He's crying, sounding not like a person in his hoarseness; he's slicing the flesh of his palms on that boomerang protruding from his dad's chest. There's so much blood that it must have hit the-

Jack Drake's eyes are open, fearful. Unseeing.

"Get! it out!"

Tim turns to see the memory, the bodies- dead and alive both, because Kate is, for once, wrong. "That's my dad," he points out through his panting-- but he's up on legs that don't feel strong enough to keep him standing.

Tim owes his dad this, at least, to be there to...

"Please!"

to wish that everything had gone differently.

to wish he had listened.

Tim's hands are in Kate's; he tries to turn them over, so he can take hers in his. (He's a little steadier than before. After all, what's done is... done.) He swallows and- looking over to the approaching steps like the good soldier he is, he shakes his head.

He shakes his head at his younger self, twisted around himself and with an expression deformed into only pain, the haunting pain of loneliness, as denial has no choice but to fade into reality:

Batman and Robin: orphans.

Like the creature he is, Batman is there without having arrived.

"Please..."

"Tim, it's okay. It's okay."

(How was Tim ever supposed to trust in words after hearing that-? For the first time, the sob is loud. Explosive, strangled. Strange.)

(But it's okay.)

"I've got you." Says the Bat, the cowl, the cape.

And Tim doesn't want it.

Blood is on the floor, the wall, the kitchen island, the banister, the-- the eyes are open. His dad's eyes are open- his dad was scared, his dad was scared, and the gun on his hand isn't his gun, it's--

It's--

There's so much blood, it's slippery. Tim's bare foot and sliding in the fresh red, over his dad's middle, with wild eyes and cut hands and a shadow engulfing him.

And all Tim can say, muted in-- not rage. maybe disappointment. is

"Damn it, Bruce, you promised."

And he had believed him.

And... maybe, that wasn't all his fault.

(He'd been a child.)

A child that's in his room. It's dark. It's quiet. He isn't crying. He isn't doing anything.

He's there. A child in his room. Alone. It's dark. It's quiet. He isn't crying. He isn't doing anything. He isn't doing anything except listening to the landline recording a message from Dick. "Pick up kiddo... pick up... I know you can hear me, Tim..."

He's there. Alone. In his room. Alone. It's quiet. Except, Tim thinks, once...

A phonecall? That's it?

Where are you...?

Where are you... he's so alone... he's all alone.

And his Dad is dead.

[castitas]

He's trying, and that's what matters. She's asking the impossible. Not to look, not to listen. To tune out the replay of something so awful. And that's so messed up, in a way. To ask that of him. It's not fair of her. But she asks it of him because—

it's no good for him. It's exactly what the Darkwalker wants. To break, to consume. To drown him in this, all over again. It's messed up.

And so Tim looks again, and Kate looks pained for a few moments. But she can hardly blame him because that's his dad, and she doesn't think she'd be able to look away if it were her in his shoes.

"I know." her words are strained, gaze lowering.

She won't look. She can't. Maybe it's the right decision, maybe it's not. She can't possibly tell which way it'll be when this is all over. Maybe she'll feel bad for not looking, for choosing to keep her eyes down, or on Tim. But maybe she'll thank herself for it, or something. Because even if she doesn't look, she can still hear it. She's sure she can taste blood on the air when she breathes in, slow and shaky.

Selfishly, if she looks, she'll never be able to unsee it. She won't remember that Tim's dad looks like Tim only taller. She'll just remember what he looks like, lying dead.

She can see the blood on the floorboards. There's so much.

That's enough.

(But he's standing at least, and Kate's both relieved and proud.)

"I know." she says again, looking back up at him. "But it's not okay. None of this is okay."

It doesn't matter what— Bruce, she realises. What Bruce says. It's not okay. How could it be?

She lets him moves her hands so he's taking them instead. Her lips are pressed together tightly as she continues to listen: the sound of feet slipping in blood, how much it burns in her eyes but she's just— it's not the time for that, right now. She needs to keep it together, she reminds herself again.

How could he tell him that it was okay? How could anything be okay ever again?

"I'm sorry." strained, her eyes still burning.

What else does she say?

She is so— woefully unprepared for this. For anything.

The world is so much bigger and darker than she could ever realise. Every time she learns something new and she thinks that's it, there's always something else.

She's not crying, but tears are streaking down her face because there's no room left in her eyes to hold them. Her shoulders rise and fall with each breath— it's not fair.

"Tim, I—"

She doesn't know. Her head shakes. She's sorry.

[ployboy]

The room is dark and lonesome, then fades from view into nothingness; Tim supposes he had been sleeping a lot those days before the funerals. And so, the world returns to the silence of devastation and the green tint of the night opens to visibility beyond grief- Tim can see the blinking of fire light in some of Milton's larger buildings. It's what he needs to look at for a jarring, ravaging moment- appalled. Face dark in that red flush again:

Shame.

It's not only grief in his throat and he turns her hands over in his in a thoughtless moment of real fear that he's heard her wrong. It's not okay.

No; she's right. It's not.

And so it's not just grief coursing through his mind and body. Tim is alight with guilt. Not just because let his father die... how screwed up is that-? Her words open up that wound he's just bled all over her and no, None of this is okay. And with all the humiliation of years believing it was, for no other reason than it had to be, Tim rounds his gaze to the girl's cute face that's marred by his poor choices (and this hellish place because not everything can possibly be only his fault, but what he confesses next sure is.)

(It hurts like waking up from the Darkwalker claiming him as his, had hurt.)

"That week, Bruce offered to adopt me," he says. Shy so all of a sudden of something that became a public spectacle. But it feels so different from that right now. "And I was so happy."

Another break. Another failure to stave off the dread of himself. Tim whines a frustrated noise, and he ducks his head to cover his gasping. One hand comes up to cover his mouth, and before he can bite on it Tim remembers he should at least-- explain-

(--or did he remember to excuse...?)

"He does so many good things. He saves people. And I could help him because he'd lost so much but still did everything he could to help. Kate, I didn't tell Dad that I loved him because we never... we barely talked..."

No, she's right: none of it was ever okay.

"But Dad and I were starting to get better."

The grief is the marrow in his bones. Between Jack and Tim Drake, there's no closure, things beginning and ending too abruptly for a kid to make any damn sense of it.

"And I chose wrong."

In the farmhouse, with the gun in his hands, Tim had stared down Batman and said he was done. Tim frowns, grim and undeserving of second chances. But. He scrubs at his face and thinks, this is it. For good. "Bruce is here. And you should be... careful. He's good. And kind. But don't trust him."

People... die. around Bruce Wayne.

Around Bruce Wayne's crusade.

Grief and guilt-- and Tim winces at what he's doing to Kate. It's all so much. He starts walking. Forward. But not without her besides him. He'll take her... to her home.

Where people are looking for her. Worried for her. Where she can rest away from the deluge of delusions.

(His legs feel like they shouldn't be able to support him. It's all very strange, when the green in the sky makes him want to walk, and walk, and get lost.)

He knows what it's like to be left with a warning, so Tim, unused to paving over frightening things, tries... with a smaller voice. Something much more mundane. (But not any less real.) "After Dad died, I moved to be closer to my stepmom, where she had to be treated for the grief. The shock. And she got better. Bruce didn't formally adopt me until months later. Months after that, I went to court to emancipate."

What he means, voice steadier, steps steady,

"I think... I think it takes me a while... to see the obvious. To figure out what's good... for me."

(Is that selfish? There's a letter from Kate that might just prove so; despite himself, sad, Tim offers a distracted, small smile.)

(Only one way to find out: with time.)