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Tim wasn’t entirely sure how it happened.
All he remembered was the wind whipping his hair as he and Stephanie danced around some thugs who were robbing a pharmacy. They were waiting for Dick and Cass’s ETA when the shadows moved, not in front, but behind. Before he could turn or shout, hands—too many hands—snatched him from the periphery. A thick, suffocating canvas bag was immediately dropped over his head, yanking him from vigilante to vulnerable captive in a heartbeat. The last thing he felt was the jarring, sickening crack of an impact against his occipital bone, and then only cold dark silence.
The next sensation was the cold, unyielding shock of metal.
He woke strapped down, his body protesting the unnatural position. Thick, tight steel cuffs bit into his wrists, pinning his hands to the chair's cold, skeletal frame. A second, punishing cuff wrapped around his abdomen, pressing the air from his lungs and forcing his spine flush against the hard metal back. He felt his legs only to discover the restraint was overkill: his calves—not just his ankles, like usual—were bolted, removing any chance of leverage.
A slow, tingling numbness—the telltale sign of poor circulation and time elapsed—crawled through his extremities. The dried, crusty texture of blood from a graze on his right temple tasted faintly metallic on his upper lip. He blinked furiously, trying to clear the lingering haze of impact and the blur that clung to the edges of his domino mask.
He focused on the environment. The pervasive smell was a vile mix of rancid garbage and a sharp, clinical hint of cheap sterilizer, a combination common to forgotten industrial sites. Through a broken, high-up window in the top-right corner, he could see a sliver of the night sky. Around him were towering, knocked-over pallet racks and miscellaneous brown cardboard boxes, useless scrap metal, and a misplaced step ladder—standard abandoned warehouse clutter.
He pulled his gaze back to the window, forcing his overtaxed optic nerve to process the light. His eyes finally locked onto the familiar, faint asterism of the Cancer constellation. M44, the Beehive Cluster. Position is due north, 40.7 degrees latitude.
The constellation was low on the horizon, slightly to the northeast. This meant he was facing south-southwest. If the stellar map held true for Gotham’s known topography, being on the northeast edge meant only one thing: he was on the edge of the Industrial District, likely tucked away near the decommissioned dockyards or processing plants before Gotham transitioned into its urban sprawl. It was far enough from the city center to be quiet, but close enough for the perpetrators to feel secure.
“Our little birdie is awake, Boss,” a voice rasped from directly behind him. The man's voice was thick, gravelly, and instantly grating.
Tim’s tongue felt like sandpaper, but he pushed the words out anyway, aiming for mild irritation. “This is really unnecessary, guys. Do you know how hard it is to replace windows?” He nodded slightly toward the high, broken pane. “It’s tiresome work. First, you have to scrape out all that broken glass, which means you gotta deal with the old putty—it’s very weird to touch. Kind of greasy, kind of dry. You ever touch window putty?”
A large, rough hand suddenly clamped onto the back of his neck, fingers digging into the muscle and yanking his head violently backward, exposing his throat.
“You gettin’ smart with me, kid?” The gravelly voice was now dangerously close to his ear.
Tim chuckled, a dry, rattling sound in his restricted chest. “It’s either smart or I pass out from the lack of circulation. Pick your poison. Yours, however, seems to be a general lack of object permanence, considering the—"
The thug didn't let him finish. He pressed down harder on Tim’s skull, pulling it back further. “You think I’m stupid?”
“That was—” A sharp, involuntary gasp tore itself from Tim’s constricted throat as the strain on his neck muscles peaked. “—the implication.”
“Enough.” The voice was measured, cool, and sliced through the warehouse’s echo, carrying undeniable authority. “Don’t damage the merchandise, brute. We need him intact.”
The thug behind him grunted, a sound of frustrated submission, and released his grip, shoving Tim’s head forward. The momentum slammed his chin against his chest, sending a sharp throb of pain spiking through his already dizzy skull.
Tim coughed, dry and shallow, working his neck muscles to lift his chin. His eyes, stinging from the effort, finally landed on the figure in front of him. Ah, there was the source of the cheap theatrics. Dr. Jonathan Crane. Scarecrow.
“Doctor,” Tim managed, his voice a low, rough rasp, acknowledging the relentless pins-and-needles by flexing his cuffed hands subtly.
“Robin the Third,” Scarecrow returned, his head tilting in a gesture of faux-interest.
Tim glanced pointedly down at his extensive, frankly excessive, restraints. “So, what’s the play? Your little associates were robbing a pharmacy—is this about a bulk order of Zoloft, or is there a bigger, more boring plan this time?” He raised an eyebrow. “You wanna be helpful and easy and just tell me what masterpiece of fear you’ve concocted?”
Scarecrow sighed, a dramatic, affected sound that grated on Tim’s nerves. “But that would spoil the revelation, my dear boy,” he said, faking a petulant frown with his mask. “And take all the joy out of anticipation.”
“Oh, but Doctor,” Tim countered, tilting his head as much as the cuffs allowed. “Neither of us have time for this. You have lives to ruin and I have lives to save, so if we could just skip past our usual predictable banter, that would be beneficial to both sides of this very tedious coin.”
“I should have administered a muscle relaxant along with the sedative,” Scarecrow mused aloud, sounding genuinely annoyed. “Failing that, I should have gagged you.”
“Because I make an inconveniently logical point?”
Scarecrow glared at him through the mask’s eyeholes. “No. Because you talk too much. You know that? You rival Nightwing. And he talks a lot.”
“I’m slightly offended that you think I talk less than Nightwing,” Tim deadpanned. “Am I really that hushed around you? I’ll have to try harder.”
“Please,” Scarecrow said, his voice flat. “I wish you would simply be quiet.” He looked behind Tim, his eyes locking onto the thug. "Go fetch my surgical tray."
“Hard to be quiet when I don’t know what your plan is. I’m a vigilante, it’s kinda my thing to know what the evil guys with PhDs are doing,” Tim said, attempting a non-existent shrug.
Scarecrow ignored him. The thug mumbled, “A ‘please’ wouldn’t hurt, Doctor,” as he shuffled past Tim toward a door on the far side.
“Please go fetch my tray!” Scarecrow shouted, his voice cracking with artificial politeness. “If I still possessed my medical license, I would diagnose that man with oppositional defiant disorder," he muttered, adjusting his gloves.
“What’s the tray for?” Tim asked, twisting his head slightly, just enough to catch sight of the thug returning, pushing a wheeled metallic tray laden with sterile equipment and a handful of ominous syringes.
Scarecrow stepped closer, the low hiss of latex on latex audible as he finished pulling on his gloves. “Well, Red Robin, if you must know,” he purred. “I have developed a new, highly purified strain of my fear toxin. It is significantly more potent than previous versions. This one… you’re going to have the singular pleasure of discovering what it’s meant to do. But I needed a Bat to test it on, since you all have annoyingly built up a cross-immunity to all my other formulas.” Scarecrow inserted a needle into a small, clinical-looking glass vial, carefully drawing up the contents: a perfectly clear, innocuous-looking fluid.
“Oh, heavens to Betsy,” Tim sighed, laying on the sarcasm thick. “I’m so scared, what will I ever do?” He feigned a dramatic, fake scared expression even through his domino.
Scarecrow didn't react, simply flicking the needle expertly to clear the air, pushing the plunger until a tiny, shimmering bead of the clear toxin appeared at the tip. “Cry, probably,” he answered coolly.
“Maybe I will. It’d be nice, I read some studies that it’s good for the skin. Y’know, I’ve been breaking out a lot recently,” Tim nodded earnestly. “It’s probably from the stress of dealing with an insane psychologist—and no, I am not talking about Harley.”
Scarecrow huffed. “That’s an oxymoron, you intellectually stunted child. The proximity of a ‘dumbass’ next to a ‘psychologist’? A majority of psychologists are highly intelligent, often acquiring years of schooling and conducting rigorous experiments.”
“Clearly,” Tim muttered, his eyes narrowing in a sharp scowl, “you fall within the minority.”
Scarecrow said nothing to Tim, his attention now purely clinical, but he glanced over at the thug. “Hold his head back,” He instructed, his voice low and precise.
The thug's rough, heavy hand was instantly back in Tim’s damp hair, yanking his head back sharply, stretching the skin over his throat and exposing the vulnerable juncture of his neck and shoulder. Tim knew he couldn’t escape—the restraints were too thorough—but he thrashed anyway, a difficult, furious struggle that earned him a grunt of warning from the goon. Another cold hand came down, pressing like an anchor on his collarbone, keeping him utterly flush against the unyielding metal chair.
“Good birdie, just take it,” Scarecrow whispered, sounding more like a veterinarian than a villain.
Tim didn’t flinch outwardly. He held his breath and bit the inside of his cheek hard enough to taste copper when he felt the shockingly fine point of the needle poke into his carotid artery. It wasn't the pain he registered, but the distinct, unnerving sensation of the needle puncturing his skin, followed immediately by the profound, icy coldness of the toxin flowing right into his bloodstream. It felt like freezing water being pumped directly into his core. As quick as the needle was in, it was out, leaving behind a pinprick of crimson. Scarecrow backed up with a satisfied, almost clinical sigh, placing the syringe precisely onto the tray.
“You can let him go now,” Scarecrow said.
The thug released him, and Tim’s head snapped forward, the sudden loss of support causing his chin to collide with his chest again. He felt dizzy, nauseous.
“Fuck you,” Tim said through his teeth, the words tight and raw.
“I wonder what you’ll see, Red Robin,” Scarecrow said, leaning back in, just far enough that Tim couldn’t even attempt a desperate headbutt. He sounded genuinely curious, like a scientist awaiting a rare reaction.
The fear didn't arrive as a grand panic; instead, the mechanical anxiety arrived first. It was a cold, constricting vise around his chest, a purely physiological alarm demanding he lose control. But panic was inefficient. Instead, Tim’s mind performed a tactical retreat. He didn’t fight the rising feeling; he simply watched it, assigning it a data point: Toxin Onset, Stage One.
His perception fractured, pulling back from the terror to become a detached observer. He was no longer the boy strapped to the chair, anticipating horror; he was a silent, unfeeling program monitoring the biological contamination of a human subject named 'Tim Drake.' The world muted, reduced to data points: heart rate elevated, 110 bpm; blood pressure rising; visual field stable, object recognition nominal.
He was safe inside the glass box of his own intellect, sealed away from the world with only his thoughts for company. Every sound reached him muted, every sensation filtered, as if reality had to pass through layers of invisible panes before touching him. He could see everything—every flicker of movement, every edge of emotion—but none of it could reach him. The glass was both a sanctuary and a cage.
He waited there, motionless, for the real show to begin. For the world to start moving again, for someone to break through and remind him he was still a part of it.
He had done this before.
When he was a child, sitting stiff and silent at the kitchen table while his parents scolded him—too harshly, too briefly—during one of their rare visits home. He’d learned early how to disappear without leaving the room, how to fold himself into quiet compliance until their anger slid off the glass.
He’d done it again as a young teen, when the news came of his parents' death. He’d retreated then, deeper into the box, because grief was too loud and the world too sharp. The glass dulled everything—made their permanent absence bearable.
And he’d done it later, too. When Bruce went missing and everyone looked at him like he was crazy for believing he was still alive. When their pity turned to frustration, and his certainty turned to obsession. He’d sealed himself inside again, logic becoming the only language he could trust.
The only time his glass box had almost failed was when he made the deal with someone worse than the devil.
Ra’s had smiled like he knew exactly what Tim was doing—like he could see the cracks spreading across the glass. The deal had cost him more than his soul; it had scraped out something quieter, more vital. His virtue. His dignity. His decency. But the glass never broke.
Now, when the world pressed too close, the glass rebuilt itself with his permission. Clear, cold, perfect.
And Tim sat behind it—observing, calculating, untouched as the warehouse disappeared.
The data stream in Tim's head—heart rate, blood pressure, oxygen saturation—flickered and dissolved into noise, replaced by a sudden, deafening roar. The smell of rancid decay vanished, leaving behind the acrid tang of ozone and scorched earth. The cold metal of the chair became blinding, searing heat.
He was no longer looking at Scarecrow; he was staring up, the sky a bruised, unnatural sunset of red and orange, choked with smoke. The air tasted like ash and regret.
Then, the world tilted.
He was there, exactly where he failed. His body remained strapped to the chair, but his vision was locked onto the scene: The final, catastrophic impact.
The figure in the red and blue stood against the apocalyptic light, a beacon of impossible, beautiful, reckless defiance. Kon. He looked like a god made of sunshine and leather, but his face was contorted in a silent snarl of desperate effort.
Focus.
Tim's mind screamed the instruction, but the voice was trapped behind the glass wall. He could only witness.
He watched the impossible force—Superboy Prime—strike. The sound wasn't the heroic thwack of a comic book fight; it was a deep, wet, bone-shattering thud that vibrated through Tim’s phantom chest, an obscene note of finality.
The fear toxin amplified the reality, stripping away the cinematic flair and leaving only the brutal physics of the moment. Kon didn't fly backward; he simply stopped existing in a functional way. His body, his magnificent, strong, invincible body, crumpled like discarded paper, falling into the scorched dust.
Tim could see the light drain from the sky, from the world, from Kon's eyes. He saw the dust settle on the S shield—dirty, disrespected, inert.
I wasn't fast enough. I was on the comms. I was monitoring. I was calculating. I was here. I was there. I was everywhere but where I needed to be.
The guilt was a physical weight, pressing the remaining breath from his lungs. He was still chained to the chair, silent, his body rigid, but in his mind, he was crawling across the burning ground, reaching for the hand that wouldn't grip back.
The scene fractured, the heat receding, replaced by sterile cold. The red-and-orange sunset was swapped for the harsh, unforgiving glare of fluorescent white light. The air smelled of alcohol wipes and deep, abiding desperation.
He was in the lab.
Tim saw himself—the younger, gaunt version, eyes burning with two days of sleepless obsession—hunched over monitors. He saw the cold, empty glass pod, the one that should have housed the living, breathing result of his work. Instead, it was an illuminated mausoleum.
His fear wasn't Kon's death itself; the fear was the consequence of that death, the overwhelming proof of his own inadequacy. The fear was the cold, clinical pursuit of a replacement.
He saw the lines of code scrolling across screens, the frantic, impossible calculus. He was trying to clone a soul. He was trying to fix an immutable event with raw intellect, hoping that if he processed enough data, the universe would let him rewind.
The failure rate is 99.998 percent.
The genetic decay is too rapid.
The source material is insufficient.
He watched his younger self, driven by a furious, silent grief, tear apart protocols, lie to the Justice League, and burn through his savings, all to recreate the one person he couldn't live without. The vision lingered on the raw, painful intimacy of that obsessive work: the sound of his own breathing in the quiet lab, the tapping of keys, the endless, grinding loneliness of trying to manufacture love.
The vision cycled again: the dust, the impact, the code, the cold, empty pod. Over and over, the repeating proof: You couldn't save him, and you couldn't bring him back. He is never coming back.
In the actual warehouse, Tim was perfectly, horribly still.
His head was slightly bowed, his chin almost touching his chest, held there by the still-taut abdominal cuff. His eyes were wide open, fixed unblinkingly on a random spot of grimy concrete floor, yet they were seeing nothing in the room. His pupils, however, were dilated to pinpoints, a clear physiological marker of his brain being overwhelmed by the synthetic terror.
Scarecrow, who had been watching Tim with the clinical detachment of an entomologist, stepped closer, circling the chair slowly. The thug, relieved of his duties, was leaning against a stack of boxes, idly chewing gum.
“Look at him,” Scarecrow murmured, the sound muffled by his mask. He spoke not to the goon, but to the silence, addressing the data in front of him. “The little bird is gone. The lights are on, but the house is empty.”
He tapped a gloved finger lightly, almost surgically, on Tim’s temple. Tim didn't twitch. He didn't even register the touch.
“It's a marvel, isn't it, brute?” Crane asked, turning slightly to the thug, who only grunted in response. “The human mind, when confronted with a terror it deems too vast, too damaging to process, will simply… exit. He is fully conscious. His pain centers are screaming, his fear response is maxed, but his perception—the seat of his ‘self’—has dissociated entirely.”
Scarecrow crouched down, bringing his masked face level with Tim’s unseeing eyes. He spoke in a low, lecturing voice, designed to penetrate the psychological wall.
“I know what you are seeing, Robin. I know the fear of loss— thanatophobia, I have studied it for years. The fear of losing the one constant in your life, it will make you desperate. And the greatest horror, the real, ugly core of it, is that you know it will never, ever come back.”
He paused, waiting for any tremor, any flicker of recognition. Tim remained still, his breath shallow, his body an anatomical exhibit of a boy strapped to a chair.
Scarecrow let out a sigh of mild disappointment. “The toxin works on the physical level—the sympathetic nervous system is highly activated—but the psychological coping mechanism is proving too effective. I want the scream, boy, not the silence. The data is incomplete until I see the uncontrolled manifestation.”
He stood up, adjusting the rough fabric of his cowl.
“It’s time to reboot the system,” Scarecrow announced, his tone shifting from clinical lecturer to impatient torturer. He looked over his shoulder at the thug.
“Hey! Dullard! Get over here.”
The thug, startled, dropped his gum. “Yeah, Boss?”
“You see that large industrial sink by the back door? It’s leaking, so there should be standing water. I want you to find the largest, emptiest bucket you can, fill it with that water—the colder the better—and bring it here.”
The goon frowned, confused. “The water? Why? You want a mop?”
Scarecrow’s voice took on a sharp, dangerous edge. “I want to re-anchor his consciousness to his physical reality. Extreme, sudden shifts in temperature are highly effective. I want to rip him out of that little internal fortress he’s built and make him feel the fear where it belongs—in his body. Now move, before I decide to test my next compound on your own cerebral cortex.”
The thug swallowed hard, pushing off the boxes. “Yessir. Water bucket. Right away.” He disappeared toward the rear of the warehouse, his heavy boots echoing on the concrete as he searched for the bucket that would shatter Tim’s private horror.
Tim, in his own mind, was still watching Kon fall. The silence of the warehouse was the silence of the sterile lab. The fear was perfect, and the walls of his control were starting to crack under the relentless pressure of his own failures.
The sound of the thug’s return was a dull, wet scrape, a coarse sound of metal dragging on concrete, followed by the slosh of cold water. In the fragmented reality of Tim’s mind, the sound was distorted: it was the heavy thunk of the failed cloning pod door slamming shut, locking away the last of the viable DNA, trapping him in the sterile aftermath.
“Got it, Boss. Smells like bilge water and rust,” the thug reported, his voice a distorted, distant drone to Tim's ears, like a faulty intercom in the lab.
“Excellent,” Scarecrow replied, stepping back. His voice was sharper now, cutting through the mental noise like a cleaver. “Stand clear. It’s time to meet reality again, Red Robin. Don’t worry; you’ll still be terrified. Just more present for it.”
In Tim's dissociated state, he registered the figure of the thug looming, but it was overlaid by the image of a massive, shadowed Superboy Prime standing over the fallen Kon, preparing for the final, annihilating strike. The man with the bucket was merely a towering executioner.
A gasp, sharp and involuntary, finally tore through Tim’s tight chest as his peripheral vision, momentarily overriding the hallucination, registered the black, slimy surface of the liquid held aloft.
The water struck with the violence of a physical assault.
It wasn't just cold; it was arctic. It was shock therapy delivered through the most painful sensory pathway. The frigid, filthy bilge water, thick with the smell of mold and metallic rust, hit his face and chest, instantly plastering his hair and domino mask to his skin. The cold seeped through the thin fabric of his suit and hit his skin like a thousand electric needles, stealing his breath and seizing every muscle fiber.
The physiological shock was total. His eyes snapped shut in a reflex of sheer pain, and the delicate, internal glass box of his dissociation exploded inward.
The glass box shattered.
The data points—heart rate, blood pressure, oxygen saturation—didn’t return as calm diagnostics. They slammed back with feeling:
Heart Rate: A frantic, fluttering bird trying to escape his ribs.
Breathing: A gasping, ragged mess, choked by the shock and the abdominal restraint.
Temperature: An immediate, shivering, deep-body coldness that bypassed the skin and went straight to the bone marrow.
The illusion of detachment was gone. Tim was thrown back into his body, into the chair, wet and freezing, utterly vulnerable, and stripped of his mental armor. The fear toxin, which had been patiently waiting for the walls to fall, crashed over him like a tidal wave.
He didn't scream. He couldn't. The abdominal cuff was too tight, the initial shock had stolen too much air, but a guttural, wounded sound—half sob, half roar—wrenched itself from his throat.
The warehouse was back. The cold, damp reality was back.
But the fear was still there, now amplified tenfold. The images he had only relived before were now happening to him again
The water still dripped from his hair and suit, pooling in his lap, but the cold was immediately replaced by a horrific, searing heat—the heat of the battlefield.
He was back beside Kon. He was touching him now.
Kon’s body was impossible weight, too still, too heavy, wrong. Tim’s cuffed hands felt the texture of the scorched earth, the dust clinging to the damp fabric of his own gloves. He wasn't seeing Kon’s death anymore; he was feeling the devastating, absolute vacuum of his final moments.
“Kon! Kon, dammit, wake up!” The voice was his own, desperate and cracking, but it was silent in the warehouse, just a raw noise in his mind.
He couldn’t move his hands, trapped by the metal, but in the vision, he was cradling Kon’s head. His fingers found the dent in the skull, the impossible, fatal wound. The air filled with the coppery smell of blood and the smell of ozone from the residual kinetic energy.
You were too slow. You were always too slow. The thought wasn't Tim’s; it was a cold, alien voice whispering through the fear. He protected you. You were the weak link.
Kon’s eyes opened. They were the familiar, vibrant blue, but they were empty. They looked straight through Tim.
“Tim?” Kon’s voice was the soft, warm rumble Tim remembered, but it was fading, like a distant radio signal. “It’s… it’s okay. You can’t clone… what’s gone.”
And then, the impossible happened: Kon’s body dissolved in Tim’s arms, not violently, but systematically. First the skin, then the muscle, then the bone, all breaking down into a fine, sterile, genetic dust that slipped through Tim’s grasping fingers. He was left with nothing but a handful of ash and the crippling, bone-deep certainty that he could have done something, anything different. He should have used the kryptonite. He should have stayed home. He should have died instead.
The guilt was so immense it felt like a physical spike driven through his sternum. He arched his back against the chair, an agonizing, silent movement that pulled tight against his restraints.
The environment ripped again, tearing him from the dust of death to the sterile, terrifying green of the lab.
He was standing, unbound, the water-logged suit clinging uncomfortably, but his hands felt clean, smelling of disinfectant and toner ink. The lab was humming with a thousand computers, all focused on the glass pod.
The pod was full. And Kon was inside.
He looked healthy, sleeping, suspended in amniotic fluid—perfect. But the code running across the monitors was a terrifying scroll of red warnings: Memory Block Corruption. Origin Template Incomplete. Subject ID: B-00.
Tim watched his younger, insane self, feverishly typing commands, trying to fix the flaw, trying to hide the essential truth: this was not Kon.
The glass pod hissed open. Kon stood, tall and perfect in his uniform. He smiled, that dazzling, genuine, sun-on-the-water smile that always made Tim’s breath catch.
“Tim, you look tired,” Kon said, stepping forward. He reached out a hand to touch Tim’s face.
But as Kon’s fingers neared, they began to flicker. Kon’s face stretched, becoming thin and gaunt like a mask; his eyes went flat and black, and his voice deepened into the cold, clinical tone of Superboy Prime. This was a frequent nightmare he had.
“You made me,” the terrifying voice accused. “I am a replacement. I am a machine fueled by your grief.”
The Kon-clone—the ultimate failure of Tim's love and science—grabbed Tim’s cuffed wrist (which was still chained to the chair in the warehouse). The grip was crushing, Kryptonian strength focused entirely on accusation.
“You don’t love me,” Kon hissed, his breath a foul, septic wind. “You love the idea. You love the puzzle. And I will decay. I will always be the broken one, and you will have to watch me die again and again because you couldn’t let go.”
The scene sped up into a hellish, strobe-like cycle: Kon falling, Tim coding, Kon smiling, Kon decaying, Kon’s accusation repeating. The air pressure in his ears felt like it was going to burst as the auditory hallucination became a screeching feedback loop.
Failure. Useless. Insufficient.
In the warehouse, the noise Tim made was almost inhuman. He wasn't screaming words, but a continuous, high-pitched, whining noise, the sound of metal grinding against metal, coupled with short, ragged gasps. The water had worked.
His body was a bowstring. He fought the restraints with every fiber of his being, the metal biting deeper into his wrists and calves. His muscles, constricted by the cold shock and the sympathetic nervous system overload, were locked in painful spasm. The tight abdominal cuff was the only thing preventing him from tearing himself out of the chair, and the pain in his abdomen was excruciating.
Scarecrow watched, adjusting his glasses beneath the cowl, observing the results with rapt attention.
“Remarkable,” he murmured, stepping around to view Tim’s profile. “The autonomic distress is profound. He is experiencing full-scale terror, yet the voice centers are suppressed. The trauma is so deeply integrated into his identity—the guilt, the intellectual failure—that he cannot give it a linguistic form. He is locked in a feedback loop of pure, primal fear.”
He noticed the deep, racking shivers that ran through Tim’s body, causing the chair to rattle faintly. The boy’s lips were blue, his skin was paper-white beneath the grime, and the exposed area of his neck was slick with cold sweat and drying bilge water.
“The physiological anchoring is successful. He is present. The toxin has saturated his neural pathways,” Scarecrow concluded, pleased. He leaned forward again, putting his face inches from Tim’s domino mask.
Tim’s wide, terrified eyes flickered wildly behind the domino, momentarily seeing the burlap mask and the stitched smile over the dissolving face of Kon. He flinched, a violent, involuntary jerk of his head back into the thug's recent space.
“Do you see it now, Red Robin?” Scarecrow whispered, his voice dangerously soft, yet audible. “The flaw in feeling. The hubris of connection. The insufficiency of rehabilitation. That is the deepest human fear, is it not? That all your intellect, all your logic, can never fix what truly matters.”
Tim tried to respond. He needed to refute the accusation, needed to scream Kon is real! He's back! but the words caught. Only a harsh, clicking sound—a dry retch—escaped his lips. His jaw clenched so hard his teeth felt like they might crack.
Scarecrow straightened up, satisfied. He glanced at the thug, who was now staring with wide, uncomfortable eyes at the spectacle.
“The data is complete enough,” Crane stated, picking up a pen and a small notebook from the tray. “He is compromised. His cognitive mapping is shattered. He will be susceptible to suggestion for days.”
He tapped the pen against the notebook. “All right, brute. Clean this up. I want him moved to the containment unit. I have a message to send, and our subject is ready to be utilized as the emotional anchor.”
The thug, visibly disturbed by the raw terror he had just witnessed, nodded quickly.
As the thug approached the chair, a fresh wave of paralyzing cold, coupled with the echoing screams of the Kon hallucination, seized Tim. He fought uselessly against the restraints, his mind a wasteland of guilt and his body a prison of pain. The only thing he knew was cold, metal, and the endless, absolute horror of having failed his Kon.
The thug's shadow fell over Tim. In the fear-induced hallucination, the man's face was Kon's: the perfect, reconstructed face of the clone, but his mouth opened, not to speak, but to release the sound of breaking glass and static. The sheer, overwhelming devastation of that lie—the beautiful, empty vessel he had created—was too much. It was the final, critical error he couldn't compute.
His throat was raw, his lungs burned against the abdominal cuff, but the name, the one single truth he desperately needed, ripped through the chaos, tearing the silence of the warehouse.
“Superboy!”
The sound was a raw, primal shriek, barely a word—just a syllable of pure, unadulterated need. It was loud enough to make the thug pause, his hand frozen inches from Tim’s shoulder.
The sound that followed was instantaneous and devastating.
It wasn’t a door bursting open, or footsteps. It was the noise of the building failing. A deafening, concrete-shattering CRUNCH from the back wall, followed by the roar of displaced air and dust.
Scarecrow spun around, his attention ripped from his subject, dropping his notebook with a clatter. “What the—!”
The air pressure violently dropped, sucking the stale, rank atmosphere out of the hole in the wall. The sudden, chaotic wind whipped through the warehouse, stirring up dust and grime, making the pallet racks rattle.
A figure of impossible speed and kinetic force shot through the newly created opening.
He was a blur of black leather, and a blue and red suit, a streak of speed and controlled, furious energy. He didn't fly; he charged, his landing creating a shallow crater in the concrete floor that immediately cracked and spread towards Tim's chair.
Kon-El.
He was here. His chest was heaving with exertion, his eyes were burning with focused, scarlet heat vision—not directed at the villains, but held back by sheer willpower. His face was a mask of cold, unbridled rage Tim had rarely seen directed outside of a world-ending event.
The real Kon stopped less than ten feet from Tim's chair, radiating a palpable, furious heat that instantly counteracted the cold shock of the water. His presence was so overwhelmingly real, so physically vital, that the hallucinations instantly fractured and dissolved, leaving Tim dizzy, wet, and paralyzed with the aftermath of terror.
Kon didn’t spare a glance for Scarecrow. His entire world was the sight of Tim: strapped down, soaked, shaking violently, and utterly broken.
“Robin!” Kon’s voice was a low snarl, thick with protective fury and fear.
Scarecrow, ever the academic, attempted to regain control. “Superboy. A fascinating variable. We were just concluding our session. Step aside, or I’ll be forced to utilize this compound on the next Bat—”
Kon didn’t move or speak. He raised his hands, focusing his tactile telekinesis. He didn't even touch the metal chair, but the heavy steel cuffs and buckles securing Tim's wrists, chest, and legs violently fractured. The restraints exploded outward in sharp, metallic shrapnel that embedded harmlessly into the wooden boxes behind them, leaving Tim suddenly, agonizingly free.
The thug let out a startled yelp, realizing the danger, and fumbled for a crowbar.
Kon stepped forward, sweeping Tim’s now-limp, shivering body into his arms. Tim felt the rough texture of Kon’s patches and the terrifyingly steady, powerful heartbeat against his cheek. He was safe, yet his nervous system was still screaming the failure-loop.
“You hurt him,” Kon stated, his voice devoid of emotion, a cold statement of fact that sounded more terrifying than any threat. He lifted his head, finally meeting Scarecrow’s eyes.
“His amygdala and hippocampus are what’s hurting him,” Scarecrow stated.
Kon narrowed his eyes, “I could kill you before you even realize it,” he said, his voice a low, steady rumble, completely unlike his usual cheerful, loud nature. “I could snap your spine in four places and leave you paralyzed, begging for the pain to stop. I could tear a small, pinpoint hole in your arteries and let you bleed out internally, watching you fade with no one realizing why. I could rip every single tendon and ligament from your body and use it to wrap your pathetic corpse in a neat, little bow. And I could do all of that without even touching your miserable body.”
Scarecrow, for all his academic arrogance, registered the absolute, unhinged commitment to violence in the Kryptonian’s eyes. He opened his mouth, not for a fear-gas burst, but for a retort.
Before he could utter a syllable, his head violently conked to the side. The sound was sharp and final. Dr. Crane’s gangly body crumpled without a sound, his head bouncing once on the concrete. Behind where he had stood was a short, silent assassin in all black, holding a shuriken that was already dripping blood from the unconscious’ temple.
Cassandra Cain, Orphan. His sister.
She tilted her head once at the remaining goon, who instantly dropped his crowbar and threw his hands up in a gesture of absolute surrender. It was a useless effort. A heavy, gloved fist connected with the side of the thug's head, knocking him out before the surprise could register.
Jason Todd, Red Hood, stood over the fallen giant, the pistol he used to bludgeon the man still smoking faintly from a recent discharge. He didn't waste time, shoving the unconscious goon aside with his boot.
Cass hustled over to Tim and Kon, her eyes, hidden behind the cowl, performing a rapid, full-body diagnosis. She didn't need to ask questions. She saw the trembling, the soaked suit, the pin-point pupils, and the total lack of responsiveness.
“Fear toxin,” she stated immediately, her voice a low, rough murmur. She touched Tim’s cold cheek lightly. “Scared. Hurt.”
“He needs to be moved. Cass and I’ll clean up here and make sure Scarecrow stays out,” Jason said, his tone brisk and functional.
“New strain,” Tim mumbled, the word slurring, his eyes fixing on the tray with the ominous, clear vial. The sight of it made his shivering increase tenfold. “No antidote.”
“Take the vial with you. Someone’ll be able to synthesize something from it,” Jason instructed, his tone pragmatic. He tossed the small, clinical-looking glass container toward Kon.
Kon caught the vial precisely, the object halting a foot from his fingers as he enveloped it in his tactile telekinesis field. He gently deposited the vial into a pouch on his belt, his eyes never leaving Tim's face.
He didn't wait for Jason's final clearance. Kon launched straight up, blasting through the hole he had made in the wall moments before. The rough, freezing wind of Gotham’s night hit Tim instantly, making him clench against Kon’s chest. Kon tightened his grip and immediately wrapped his telekinetic field around both of them—a cocoon of warmth and wind resistance—and they broke the sound barrier over the Industrial District.
Tim felt the blurring rush of the city lights below, but the cold was banished, replaced by the encompassing, powerful heat of Kon’s body and the steady, rhythmic thump-thump of his heart against Tim’s ear. Kon’s thumb began rubbing small, slow circles into the damp fabric of Tim’s upper arm, a small, continuous gesture of comfort.
“I got you, Sunshine. I’ve always got you,” Kon murmured into the top of Tim’s cowl, his voice a low, comforting vibration that worked against the static in Tim’s mind.
Tim tried to form a word—thanks or more thugs or I love you—but his throat was closing too rapidly, the muscles still seizing up from the combination of toxin and shock. He couldn’t force the words out. He could only bury his face deeper into the warm, life-affirming reality of Kon's shoulder.
Kon burst through the automatically opening doors of the Batcave, the whoosh of air displacing the silence. The transition was immediately overwhelming.
Tim didn't remember the landing. He was suddenly aware of the Batcave’s sterile, sharp smell and the sound of rushed activity. He was on the lab table, stripped of his damp tunic, the lights painfully bright. The voices around him were too loud, too close, and too familiar.
The voices swam in the remnants of the toxin’s afterglow:
“It’s a new strain, Jason said—”
“I’ll work up a new antidote.” Bruce. So smart. He always fixed things.
“He should have waited for Grayson and Cain.” Damian. Why was he there? He should be on patrol. Why was he always hovering? “Why is the Clone still here?”
“Don’t blame him for this, Damian.” Dick, always the peacemaker when someone was hurt. Always trying to soften the angles. “And Tim loves Conner; he’s allowed to be here.”
Kon protected him so much. The thought was a raw, fresh wound. He wished he could’ve protected him.
A shadow passed over Tim's face, and he felt another sharp pinch in his neck—a new needle. The familiar sight, the familiar sensation, immediately sent his panic spiking again. He thrashed weakly against the restraining hands, his muscles burning. He didn’t want the injection; he didn’t want the terror to start over. He couldn’t keep seeing Kon die, he couldn’t face that again. It would truly kill him. He would die. Kon would be mad at me if I died. He couldn't handle those sweet, blue eyes filling with disappointment.
“Tim, Baby, hold still, it’s just a stabilizer, it’ll help,” Kon’s voice was right by his ear, warm and steady, a tether to reality. Kon’s arms wrapped tighter around Tim’s torso, holding him against the familiar, solid warmth.
The stabilizer went in, and the world faded to a dull, manageable throb. Tim finally released the tension holding his jaw shut, his last conscious thought drifting into the overwhelming safety of that embrace. So warm.
“He’s stabilizing,” Alfred’s voice, calm and steady, was the last sound Tim registered. “Master Conner, you may keep holding him, but you must move aside for the IV.”
Kon shifted but did not let go. He never lets go.
—-
It had been two weeks since then. The terror, the cold, the sheer isolation of the capture—it all felt a million miles away, yet still clung to the edges of Tim's mind like damp air.
The antidote, a frantic, brilliant blur, was created the very same night. Kon, his big frame radiating warmth and a quiet, anchoring strength, had held him until the next morning. Tim remembered the solid press of his chest against his back, a steady, low heartbeat—a physical presence that banished the chill. Kon had to leave at dawn, but true to form, he reappeared the following night. He brought Tim’s favorite thin-crust pepperoni pizza and an energy drink. The can featured a brightly colored, almost aggressively cheerful image of Superboy, part of a promotional deal where all the profits that would've gone to Kon were instead redirected to a women and children’s shelter in Metropolis.
“It’s cute, huh?” Kon had said, his grin wide and blindingly optimistic. He even tilted his head, showing off his signature one-sided smirk.
Tim snorted, the sound dry and unimpressed. “Very. After I finish it, it’ll look even cuter in the recycling bin.”
Kon had genuinely gaped at that, his brow furrowing in exaggerated dismay. But Tim didn't throw it away. He cleaned out the aluminum with painstaking care, filled the void with clear resin, and now the can sat on his desk, a kitschy, colorful paperweight.
Most of the Bats treated him the same—with a familiar blend of annoyance and love—which was greatly appreciated. He preferred the steady rhythm of their usual chaos. Alfred had, of course, presented his iconic “I am proud of you for surviving—but still upset with you for—getting kidnapped” cookies. They were warm, oversized peanut butter and chocolate chip discs, smelling of molasses and a deep, worried affection. Tim had sunk his teeth into six.
Bruce, however, was always a little weird after one of them was kidnapped. According to Dick, it was a hyper-focusing habit he developed after Jason died, a desperate, over-correcting need to affirm life and presence. The behavior was consistent: he would do anything they asked.
Dick needs new escrimas? Bruce asked if he wants the same lightweight alloy or a different, possibly experimental kind.
Stephanie wants to dye the ends of her hair purple? Bruce scheduled and paid for the appointment—at the city's most exclusive, expensive salon—within the half hour.
Jason wants Bruce to leave him alone for a few days? Bruce didn't just leave the manor; he left the country for five days, providing an untraceable communication blackout.
Duke wants to take the day off to have a date with Isabella? He can take the week, and here's his credit card.
Damian was looking at a rare, museum-quality katana a little too closely during a recent trip? Bruce didn't just buy the sword; he had it delivered that afternoon with a note detailing its provenance and maintenance requirements.
So when Tim, basking in the glow of Bruce's temporary "yes-man" state, asks him—because Kon had just asked Tim with those big, hopeful eyes and a wide, honest smile—if Cassie, Bart, and Kon can come over and swim in the Manor's expansive outside pool...
Bruce didn't hesitate. He simply asked what kinds of snacks his friends like, pulling out his phone before Tim had finished the sentence.
“I can't believe Alfred got so many snacks,” Kon mumbled later, his voice low, a mix of awe and guilt. He stood dripping slightly by the pop-up table. The surface was a fortress of provisions, ranging from neon-colored junk food and a mountain of chips to a beautifully arranged, complex charcuterie board.
Tim let out a slow sigh through his nose, running a towel over his wet hair. “Yeah, that's because he heard a speedster was coming.” He nodded his head toward the pool.
Bart was less a swimmer and more a human torpedo, his lightning-fast laps kicking up a wake that threatened to splash over the tiled edge. Cassie, despite her powerful physique, was currently losing the race, laughing so hard she had to stop to wipe the water from her eyes.
Kon swaggered over, resting his elbow heavily on Tim's shoulder, leaning in dramatically. “You’re my favorite snack,” Kon declared with a broad, teasing grin, sweeping a look over Tim.
Tim glanced down. He was still dry, his red swim shorts visibly loose—stolen from Jason, who’d first stolen one of his beanies—and had to be secured by a double-knotted drawstring to even graze his hips.
Tim raised an eyebrow, thoroughly unconvinced. “Where’d you get that line from? A porn video?” he questioned.
Kon’s jaw dropped in mock offense. “You think my romantic prowess is that low? My flirtation skills are far above that. I am truly wounded.” He carefully leaned back against the table, tossing the back of his hand to his forehead with a theatrical sigh.
“Right, okay, Romeo,” Tim mumbled, intertwining his fingers with Kon and taking a moment to appreciate the view. The beautiful light brown skin, the curly brown hair that shone in the sun. Kon’s chest was beaded with chlorine water, his blue swim shorts sticking tightly to his lower half.
“That wounds me more! You think my flair for romance is only on the same level as Shakespeare?” Kon protested. “I am aiming more for Sappho’s devotion.”
Tim reached over and gave Kon's damp shoulder a quick, affectionate punch-pat. “I think you’re dramatic,” he mumbled.
“Oh, so you hate me. Okay, cool,” Kon deadpanned.
Tim’s eyebrow arched higher. “Right, I hate my super kind, super strong, super hot, super boyfriend so much that I asked Batman to let you swim in his pool,” Tim countered.
Kon’s eyes narrowed, debating a comeback, before he let out a dramatic, loving sigh. “You’re right, you do love me,” he conceded. “You love me so much that you’re gonna swim with me and be all cute in the pool,” Kon said, tugging Tim toward the edge.
“I don’t wanna wash the chlorine out of my hair,” Tim said, slumping his shoulders.
Kon let his hand slip from Tim’s as he stepped deeper into the pool.
“Lame!” Cassie shouted, stopping her laps and moving safely to the side to let Bart continue his high-speed movement.
“You’re not gonna be saying that when the copper in the chlorine oxidizes and binds to your hair protein and turns your blonde hair green. You’ll be walking around looking like a lesbian Joker,” Tim said, sitting down at the edge and letting his legs fall in, the cool water hitting just below his knees.
Cassie shrugged, splashing in his direction playfully. “I could pull off the green and purple,” she said.
Kon, who had swum over to lean against the wall next to Tim, grinned wide. “And you already have the insane part down. You don’t even have to practice that,” he agreed.
“You know there’s Kryptonite on this property, right?” Cassie asked, raising an eyebrow at Kon.
Kon opened his mouth to say something in rebuttal but quickly closed it, opting instead to just stick his tongue out at her. He turned to Bart, “Wanna fight?” Bart nodded and in seconds the two were tackling each other under the water.
Afternoon sunlight shimmered across the Wayne Manor pool, warm and honeyed, glinting off ripples that mirrored the shifting clouds above. The air smelled faintly of chlorine and cut grass, a quiet echo of summers that felt impossibly far away.
Bart was already halfway across the pool, zipping across the surface just enough to create a spray of water. Kon, leaning on the edge, shaded his eyes with a hand and called out, laughing, “You cheat at literally everything! Get back here!”
Bart grinned, kicking up another splash. “Hey, if you can fly, I can run. It’s only fair!”
Cassie shook her head as she quickly moved to sit near Tim, pulling herself out of the water with grace. She hunched over, water dripping from her red swim shorts, the little white stars on them paled next to her silver gauntlets. “Pretty sure that’s not how fair works.” As she spoke, she adjusted the strap of her bikini top, tossing some of her soaking hair behind her with a wet thump.
Tim smiled faintly, watching the chaos unfold. The sun glowed low enough to turn everything gold, and for once, there was no mission to plan, no crisis waiting to crack open. Just them. Kon’s laughter was a low, effortless sound; Bart’s was bright and sharp; Cassie’s chimed like glass. It was noise that felt alive, the kind that made Tim’s chest ache with how much he wanted to keep it.
“You’re both impossible,” he said, voice light, teasing. “Bart, you’re motion sickness in human form. And Kon—you’re competitive enough to make Damian look reasonable.”
Cassie snorted. “He’s not wrong.”
Kon placed a hand over his heart, mock-offended. “You wound me, Sunshine.”
Tim shot him a dry look, even as warmth crept into his chest. “You call me that again, and I’m telling Alfred what happened to the last batch of cookies.”
Bart gasped dramatically. “Not the cookies! Have mercy!” He splashed more water in Tim’s direction, earning an unbothered shrug.
Cassie grinned. “Bart, you agreed to this fight, you finish it.”
“Fine by me,” Bart said, twisting his hands through the water to create a mini wave. It hit Tim square in the face. The shock of the cold water made him yelp, nearly falling backward
“Bart!” Kon warned, though his grin said he wasn’t all that serious.
Bart’s grin widened. He flicked more water, and this time, it splashed up over Tim’s face. Tim sputtered, pushing his wet hair back. For an instant, everyone was laughing—easy, bright, the sound of safety made real.
Then something cracked.
The light changed first. The golden ripples fractured into harsh white glare. The smell of chlorine sharpened into ammonia. Laughter echoed wrong—too long, too hollow.
Tim blinked, disoriented. The sun on his skin burned. The air pressed close, thick and sour. He could hear something—a hiss, the faint scrape of metal, the echo of a voice distorted by fabric.
Not here. Not now.
His heartbeat stumbled, racing to catch itself. The water dripping down his neck was suddenly ice-cold, too heavy. The edge of the pool became the edge of a metal chair. Kon’s laugh warped into a thick and low drawl.
He tried to move, to stand, but his hands wouldn’t obey. The pressure against his shoulders felt wrong—restraint, not touch. The smell of grass vanished, replaced by rust, fear, ozone. A sound filled his ears—dripping water, rhythmic and cruel. He was shoved into the little glass box again, numbing everything around him.
“Hey—Tim?” Kon’s voice cut through, distant and muffled. Hands touched his arm. Warm. Gentle. But his mind twisted them into restraints.
He gasped, body locking up, vision tunneling. The sunlight bled into fluorescent flicker. The world shrank to heat, sound, and the memory of toxin burning in his blood.
Kon dying. The hiss of a syringe. The world turning white-hot and empty.
He heard himself make a sound—thin, breathless, almost a whimper.
But he’s not.
He’s not in that warehouse, bolted to a chair with fear toxin crawling through his veins like fire ants, sweat and filthy water dripping down the back of his neck. He’s not surrounded by that awful smell—copper, oil, decay. He’s not staring at the ground because if he looks up, he’ll see Scarecrow’s grin again, that awful fascination.
He’s not in Nanda Parbat either, with Ra’s al Ghul’s voice coiling around him like smoke, smooth and poisonous, his hands pressing against Tim’s skin as if he could mold him into something else. He’s not there, not again.
His hands aren’t stained with his father’s blood. His lungs aren’t burning from the cold. Bruce isn’t missing, and no one is whispering that Tim’s lost it—that he’s broken, unfit, that Robin went too far.
He’s not there.
He isn’t—
And yet, for one dizzying moment, it feels like he is.
The chlorine burns his eyes and becomes the sting of chemicals. The reflection of the moon ripples into the glare of a warehouse bulb. The quiet splash of water turns into boots slapping on concrete.
He flinches, jerks his head up, gasping— and suddenly, he’s not in the pool anymore.
The cold tile is gone. The harsh echoes are gone. His body trembles, confused and trembling on something softer. He realizes he’s sitting on a lounge chair, a towel draped half over him. His breathing is fast and shallow, chest heaving like he’s been running for miles.
Someone’s voice cuts through the fog. Familiar. Warm. “Hey. Hey, Tim.”
Kon-El.
He turns his head, dizzy, and the world lurches into focus just enough to see Kon’s face hovering above his, damp hair plastered to his forehead, worry carved deep into every line of him. His arms are around Tim—tight, solid, holding him like he might break if he let go.
Cass is there too—when had she gotten here?—kneeling beside him, a towel in her hands. She’s so calm it makes his throat ache. She presses the towel gently to his face, and it’s warm—actually warm—and it smells like detergent and sunscreen and home. Her eyes catch the light, dark and steady. She looks at him like she’s making sure he knows she’s real.
There’s movement at the edge of his vision. Silver glints. A hand, soft and familiar, reaches forward and brushes his hair away from his face. He catches the reflection of Cassie’s gauntlets in the sun.
He hears a deep voice, not the words, just the cadence, and recognizes it immediately from his little glass box. Bruce said he was busy. Tim had dragged him out here. Why had he dragged him out here? His thoughts keep slipping, unraveling before he can catch them.
He doesn’t hear anyone whispering about him like he’s a ghost in the room. No one’s dissecting what went wrong or if he’s stable enough for another patrol. He hears Bart instead—talking to him, not about him. Bart’s words trip over each other, fast and clumsy and genuine as ever, trying to make sense of it all and comfort him in the same breath.
He clings to that. To all of it.
Kon’s voice—low, shaking, but sure. “Tim, hey, look at me.”
Cass’s touch—gentle, grounding, the towel rubbing warmth back into his frozen skin.
Bart—his usual hurricane of sound, half panic, half heart, rambling about oxygen levels and adrenaline and “you probably scared Bruce half to death, dude.” while Cassie tells him “That’s not what Bruce is worried about.”
Tim tries to match Kon’s breathing. In, out. In, out.
His chest stutters, skips. His throat feels raw, scraped hollow, but the air goes in this time. And again. And again.
It hurts, but it’s real.
The light starts to change—no longer the harsh brightness of memory, but the silver-blue glow of moonlight on water. The sting of chlorine pushes back the scent of chemicals. The world settles back into place, slow and uneven, like gravity remembering him.
The towel against his cheek is rough, but it anchors him. The terry cloth scratches just enough to remind him: this is real. Cass’s hand is warm. His pulse is slowing.
When his eyes finally focus, Kon’s face is the first thing he sees. Too close, too human, his expression a mix of fear and fierce protectiveness.
“I’m here,” Tim manages. The words scrape out of his throat, thin but certain.
Bart exhales, the sound halfway between a sigh and a laugh. “Man, don’t do that again. You scared the hell out of me.”
Cass presses the towel lightly against his neck, her voice soft but firm. “You’re safe, Tim. You’re home.”
Kon draws him in again, pulling him close until their foreheads almost touch. His voice is quiet, breaking just slightly at the edges. “Got you,” he murmurs. “You’re okay. I’ve got you.”
Tim lets himself lean into it—the warmth of Kon’s chest, the steady rhythm of his heartbeat, the smell of sunscreen and chlorine and something earthy that’s just Kon. The static in his head fades a little more. The world comes back in pieces: Bart’s voice rambling, Cass breathing quietly beside him, the hum of cicadas somewhere beyond the fence, the faint buzz of a porch light.
He focuses on that. On every small, ordinary sound.
The sky above them is turning from deep indigo to violet, a thin band of pink stretching along the horizon. The pool glitters under the fading light, calm now, almost peaceful. Tim’s fingers curl against Kon’s shoulder, feeling the warmth, the weight, the heartbeat beneath his palm.
He was here. He was safe. He was home.
“Sorry about that,” he mumbled, blinking hard as he finally sat up a little. His voice cracked around the words. “I’m fine.”
“Right, and I’m God,” Bruce said, crossing his arms, voice dry as stone but softer than it usually was.
Tim rolled his eyes, a small, shaky smile tugging at his mouth. “B’, I’m fine. Stop mothering me. Dick’ll be mad you took his job.”
Bart scratched the back of his neck, looking off to the side, wet hair sticking to his temples. “Sorry, man. I shouldn’t have splashed you like that. Didn’t think—”
Tim shook his head, voice soft. “You couldn’t have known,” he said. “It’s not your fault.”
“It’s Scarecrow’s,” Cass muttered, her voice barely above a whisper, like she didn’t want to say his name out loud.
Cassie, who had been hovering near the edge of the group, blinked and looked over at Cass. “Wait—where the hell did you even come from earlier?”
Cass shrugged, deadpan. “Big sister always knows,” she said simply, then added, nodding toward Tim, “he was wet when we rescued him.”
That earned the smallest laugh from Tim—quiet, but real. It trembled out of him, the sound uneven but warm.
Bart grinned, relieved. “See? There’s the patented Tim Drake laugh. He lives.”
Kon’s arm stayed around him, firm and unyielding. Bruce’s hand lingered on his shoulder for a moment longer than usual before he stepped back, saying nothing. The others filled the silence with soft conversation, but Tim tuned it out.
The night air smelled like wet stone and cut grass. Crickets replaced the cicadas. The pool lights flickered faintly, turning the water into rippled silver.
He let himself just be—pressed against Kon’s side, wrapped in the faint warmth of Cass’s towel, his heartbeat finally steady.
He was here, and he didn’t need to be in the little glass box.
He was safe.
He was home.