Chapter Text
ONE.
Gotham looks small, from this far away.
All the towering buildings seem minuscule, like decorations on a display, and the endless smog over the factory district seems so much heavier, a blanket covering the entire city. Even from here, Tim can imagine the city streets in vivid detail, from all of the people shouting to the burned, uprooted, and otherwise damaged pavement. He’ll miss it, he knows, despite all of the problems.
And there are problems. Fuck, there are more problems than any one city should have to deal with in a year, let alone on a daily basis. There are rogues and sickness and pollution – less, since Ivy became semi-reformed, but still – and too many issues to count, but they had been getting better, hadn’t they?
Gotham is the city that Tim grew up in, the city that practically raised him. He loves it, no matter how many times he’s almost died keeping it safe.
Truth is, Tim never thought that he would be leaving Gotham.
Least of all, like this.
Tim could sort of imagine leaving for college, going out of state or maybe even out of country – his family could afford the tuition, he knows, not that he’d ever ask them to pay a single penny – and studying. Business would be the obvious choice, but Tim has always loved photography and forensics.
Or maybe he’d get stuck on a long-term mission, and spend months at a time somewhere else, only making it back to the manor for important holidays and occasions. Bruce has done things like that before, years ago, and Steph spent that time in Africa after her “death,” and–
This isn’t anything like that.
Because Tim has an old, beat up car stolen from the garage, two backpacks worth of belongings, and a box of cheap face masks, and that is it. He’s left all of his vigilante equipment behind, stored safely in the cave, and he has no intention of going back for it. Going back for any of it really, because Tim loves his family, he really does, but he can’t stand the way they look at him now.
Like he’s something breakable, something they need to wear kid gloves around and treat like glass. Like Tim is another civilian they need to protect.
And it was only for a few days, but–
Tim isn’t going to get any better.
He isn’t foolish enough to think otherwise.
Tim isn’t sure how long it takes him to notice his phone is ringing. It’s been in his pocket, buzzing nonstop from the onslaught of texts he’s surely getting, but this is the first time someone has actually called him. By the time Tim dares to take it out and see which name is on the screen, the phone has already completed one call cycle, and has begun ringing a second time.
There are a few people he expects it to be. Dick, maybe, because he’d been crashing at the manor for a couple of days. Steph, because she’s always been more observant than people gave her credit for – Tim can’t blame them, he had done the same thing, after all – and knows more than she should. Maybe even Jason, because his predecessor is a paranoid bastard, and if Jason heard that shit was going down in the family, he’d want to know the details.
It’s none of them.
Instead, Bruce’s name flashes across his screen, and Tim’s heart stops in his chest.
And Bruce hadn’t done anything wrong, he hadn’t, but Tim can’t stop picturing his face. The furrow in his brow, the way his lips were down-turned in a frown, the fucking pity in his eyes. He saw Tim as another child he failed, Tim is sure of it.
Because not even all the money the Waynes had thrown at the hospital had managed to help Tim get better, and–
He stops thinking. Lets the call ring and ring, until it finally falls silent. Lacking a better option, given that he’s pulled over on the side of a road, Tim just– drops his phone, wincing as the ringing begins anew.
Damian would kill me if he saw this, Tim thinks, and then, I’ve never seen Bruce this frantic, before.
It doesn’t matter. Tim left a note, and when he does get a new phone – he knows having one is important, but even with his modifications, there’s no telling if Babs can track him – he has their numbers memorized.
Tim can call them, when he’s ready.
A part of him whispers, what if you’re never ready? And what if, when you are, they’ve moved on? He forces the thoughts away.
He needs to leave, he knows. He needs to get back on the road, and find himself a hotel for the night. Even somewhere he can park his car and sleep there, because while he knows the dangers, Tim can still take care of himself.
He was on his own for years before he became one of the Bats, he can do fine by himself now.
Probably.
Tim takes one good, long look at the city. He wants to burn the sight into his eyelids, so no matter how long it takes him to come home, he doesn’t forget it. Tim doesn’t know what he’d do if he woke up one day, and couldn’t picture Gotham in his mind. He’s tempted to grab his camera out of the backpack he stowed it away in, just to have a picture to keep in his pocket, but he doesn’t have enough time for that.
If Bruce is calling him, then they definitely have seen the note he left on the dining table.
Based on the number of texts and calls he’s ignored, one of them has already recruited Babs to find his phone, and once that happens, it’s only a matter of time before one of them finds him loitering here.
And well– he’s done everything he needed to do here.
So Tim gets in the front seat of the car, and pulls the door shut with a little more force than necessary. Normally, he’d hook up his phone and let Bluetooth do the rest, but now, he grabs a random CD out of the container he’d found in the trunk, and lets the music wash over him.
He takes a deep breath. Starts the car and feels the engine rumble to life.
Then, Tim puts the car in drive and turns back out onto the main road. He has a long night ahead of him, he can feel it.
“One room, please.”
The hotel receptionist looks at him with an obnoxious amount of doubt. Somehow, despite being seated, she gives Tim the impression that she's looking down on him, condescension as clear as day. She reminds him of a strict librarian – that perfect bun, half-moon glasses low on her nose, and the faded blue sweater worn over a white blouse – and Tim doesn’t mean that in an endearing way.
And maybe Tim hadn’t brought any of his upper-class, business-casual kind of clothes, so he could, in a way, see where she’s coming from. With his worn jeans, washed out band shirt, and admittedly simple piercings, Tim is a walking stereotype for a troubled, runaway teenager. That doesn’t mean that he wants any trouble though, so Tim flashes her his most charming grin.
It’s one he learned from watching Bruce, but she certainly doesn’t need to know.
“I’m meeting my sister in Pennsylvania,” Tim says, conversationally, messing with the straps on his bag. “I only need the room for one night, and then I’m back on the road.”
The receptionist gives him one more searching look, before nodding and typing something on her computer. “What name will the room be under?”
His expression doesn’t change. “Timothy Cain.”
“And to confirm, you’re only staying one night?”
Tim nods. “Yes, ma’am.”
After what feels like hours, she finally hands him the keycard, along with a map of the grounds and a poorly made brochure. “Don’t be causing problems,” the woman says, once he’s paid, and then, “Checkout is at ten A.M.”
The brochure says eleven, but like he said, Tim isn’t looking for trouble. “Thank you, ma’am,” he says, and then Tim walks out of her office and back to his car. At least, the car he’s treating as his own. Semantics, and all that.
And even if Tim hadn’t tossed his phone, the hotel room is nothing to write home about.
There’s nothing wrong with it, not in the slightest. It’s small, sure, and simple enough to have an almost homey vibe to it. Sturdy furniture, a clean set of sheets, a TV to distract himself with; Tim doesn’t need anything more than that. He sets his bag on the desk in the corner, makes a mental note to grab the second backpack once he catches his breath, and plops back on the bed.
His lungs ache from even the small amount of exertion, his chest heaving as he breathes, and Tim supposes that the ceiling is as good a view as any.
He spends the next five minutes desperately trying not to think about anything.
It only sort of works.
It'd be easier if he'd simply punctured a lung, Tim thinks, not for the first time, and he has to bite back a swear. At least a punctured lung had a concrete fix, even if it took a while to fully heal. It would suck, sure, but there would be answers. Something that Tim could research and study, and ultimately, find a way to prevent.
Tim could handle that.
He'd complain and complain and complain until he ran out of breath, but he could deal with that.
Long term damage caused by pneumonia?
That's a little harder to fix.
Tim doesn't know how long it takes for him to regain his breath, but he knows it felt like hours. When he looks at the alarm clock — a cracked, broken thing, the green numbers almost too dark to read — only five minutes have passed. Another thing he has to learn to deal with, he supposes. Minutes ticking by like hours.
He sits up with a groan. Anxiety will haunt him all night if he doesn't grab his other bag, Tim knows that from experience, but even the short walk to his car sounds like a nightmare. Suck it up, a part of him thinks, you've fought literal demons, and you're going to let a little stroll across a parking lot stop you?
That part of him, no matter how small, has a lot to say these days.
In Tim's humble opinion, it can fuck right off.
The bag he already brought in is the heavier of the two, stuffed to the brim with thrifted T-shirts and worn jeans. There's a spare pair of shoes at the bottom, and a zip-lock bag filled with hygiene essentials, and the weight had surprised him at first. You'd think the backpack with his camera, photo album, laptop, and other trinkets would be heavier, but then again, Tim had not left an ounce of room in the first bag—
He's getting in his head.
Tim's been doing that a lot, recently.
When he finally convinces himself to stand, his aching chest has dulled to almost a pleasant level. It's akin to the soreness after a workout, or something like that. Tim leans down to retie his converse, and then he's slipping out the door. He locks it behind him, the resounding click taking the edge off of his worry.
The car is right where he'd left it, and really, Tim's seen Damian park better than this, and the kid's barely had his learner's permit for a month. It's not bad enough that Tim's going to go through the steps of re-parking the car, not when he's only going to be here overnight, but somehow, it gets a laugh out of him.
There's a joke on the tip of his tongue, something that Dick would say, and Tim finds himself grinning as he unlocks it.
Of course, the contents of the bag are spilled across the backseat. Must not've zipped it all the way, Tim thinks absently, remembering his hurried leave. He'd been planning this for weeks, but he thought he had heard someone enter the mansion just as he was getting ready to pull out of the garage, and well.
He had panicked.
Just a little bit.
So he hadn't double checked what he'd packed — Tim knows that he's missing something, he just hasn't figured out what yet — and thrown his bags in the backseat. The front seat was already ready to go, with an energy drink in the cup holder and a packed lunch on the passenger seat, for whenever he needed it, so Tim had—
Left.
He had left.
It's still hard to wrap his head around the fact that he actually did it.
But it's almost midnight, and really, Tim should be getting back inside. It's cold and it's dark, and really, Tim doesn't want to risk getting mugged on his first night out of Gotham. He would never live it down, if he did.
So he packs.
His laptop goes in first, and then the photo album, and then the camera, and everything else sort of falls into place. There's an annotated copy of Jason's favorite book — Treasure Island, but watching Treasure Planet with him was an experience Tim won't forget — and there's a small painting Damian had given him, after they'd been forced to talk things out, based on one of Tim's pictures. There's a wrinkled note, too, and Tim doesn't remember packing it.
You go kick some ass, Boy Wonder! It reads, in Steph's curling letters. It must be from the early days, because she hasn't called him that in years, and after the note, there's a series of ex's and oh's.
Tim rubs at his eyes, carefully tucks the note in the pages of the photo album, and finishes packing before he gets a chance to cry.
The thud of the car door closing echoes in the empty parking lot, and for a moment, Tim wonders when he was last alone like this. Truly, undeniably alone. Except he can't think about that, not right now, so he locks the car and starts the walk back to his hotel room.
He doesn't bother unpacking once he's in the room. Any other night, Tim would grab out his laptop and pull up some work, or play something brainless on his phone, or if he was really bored, channel surf on the TV. Something to keep his mind occupied.
Tonight, Tim takes a quick, lazy shower, sets an alarm for 9:30am on the clock, and is asleep before his head hits the pillow.
Except—
Tim wakes up sometime after three in the morning, stumbles into the bathroom, and gets lost in his reflection.
Even now, weeks later, he still looks sick. Hollow cheeks, bags under his eyes, pale, as though he hasn't been outside in weeks. Maybe even months. His body is all skin and bone, hardly any muscle, and now — wearing only an oversized sleep shirt — Tim doesn't recognize himself.
He doesn't recognize himself at all.
And maybe something inside him breaks, almost violently so, but all Tim knows is that something has to change. He doesn't want to be a Wayne right now, polished and prepped for the spotlight, but being a ghost of himself may be even worse.
No wonder the front desk was so rude, Tim thinks, almost hysterically. I do look like a troublemaker.
Tim pushes his hair back, shoving it out of his eyes, and oh, he thinks, that's a possibility, isn't it? He has to have something sharp with him, he's a Gothamite for fuck's sake, he wouldn't have left without at least a pocket knife.
He flicks on the overhead lights in the bedroom, wincing at the sudden brightness, but Tim has a goal now. A stupid one, and one he might come to regret in the morning, but a goal nevertheless, and well. Tim's always done better when he has an objective. And it shouldn't be too hard to find something that will work, right? In theory, at least.
As luck would have it, there is a pocket knife tucked away in one of his bags. It's old, the blade a little dull and the handle a faded blue, but it'll do.
Hopefully, Tim thinks, staring at the bathroom mirror, I don't hate it in the morning.
When he left, Tim's hair was starting to get long, almost long enough that he could comfortable pull it back. He hadn't cut it for a while, so the ends were messy and his bangs were starting to get in his eyes, and really, a trim was overdue.
Now?
Tim hacks off everything that goes past the nape of his neck. Adds some shitty layers to it, too, because he was curious what it would look like, and grins at the end result. Cuts his bangs so they're still long enough to cover his eyes, but to a level he can manage.
Fuck, if Tim had hair dye with him, he'd probably give that a try, too.
But he doesn't, so Tim does his best to make a change with his old knife. He isn't a stylist, and he doesn't have any idea what he's going for, but that's not really the point. If it's a mess, Tim can clean it up in the morning.
He just—
He needs to look like someone new.
Maybe that way, Tim isn't stuck in the mansion, the cave, the city—
Stuck in all of the places that will never feel the same.
"Oh, you are absolutely the coolest looking person I've seen all week."
Tim blinks, his hand still outstretched as he tries to return his room key. The girl sitting at the reception desk is his age, and at a glance, her personality already seems completely different than the woman from last night. Her hair is a bright, electric blue, and it matches perfectly with her green eyes, lined by neon eyeliner, and there is absolutely nothing quiet about her.
She is also looking right at him, smiling brightly.
"Huh?" He says, ever the picture of wit. "Say that again?"
The girl — Ash, if her name-tag is anything to go by — just keeps smiling. "You look so cool," she says, "Most of the people who come through here are like. Suburban moms and old businessmen on their way to a board meeting." Her grin brightens, as she leans over the desk. "You look like you actually have a story to tell."
He blinks again, then shrugs. "I'm nothing special," Tim says, feeling a little bit lost. His hair is still a mess — he hadn't hated the cut, after all — and he's wearing ripped up jeans and a faded band shirt, nothing fancy. "I'm meeting my sister out of state."
"No, you're not," Ash says, grin unchanging. "I've seen people like you before. Called them out, too." She shrugs her shoulders, and then finally takes his key from him. When she sets it down, the metallic clink echoes throughout the small room. "Don't worry, I'm not that nosy. I won't ask where you're going."
Well thank fuck for that, Tim thinks, because this whole conversation has just been one surprise after another. He isn't sure if his body will handle another shock. "You're a lot better conversationalist than your co-worker," Tim says.
"You mean ol' Linda?" Ash says, and she nods. "I get that a lot. It's a wonder she hasn't been fined for her comments yet." After a moment, her smile softens. Somehow, her features — sharp cheekbones, clear lines of makeup, straight hair — are the most genuine thing Tim has seen in months. "You remind me of my little sibling."
Of all the things Tim wasn't expecting, that wasn't one of them. "In what way?"
"They ran away when they were fourteen," Ash says, but despite the words, she doesn't sound sad. "Ran into them a few years later and I almost didn't recognize them." She pauses, giving him a curious look. "Their hair was cut the exact same way as yours."
Badly, is Tim's first thought, quickly followed by in a state of panic? But he doubts that's what she means, because at least so far, she's been kind. Messily is still on the table, and now that he's thinking about it, the cut looks similar to how Cass does hers, and people tend to call her charming? Though, there are a lot of reasons for that.
Ash must see his confusion though, because she adds on, "They were cutting it every few weeks, and they were still learning what worked and what didn't."
Oh.
That makes sense, too, Tim supposes. It makes a lot more sense than whatever uncharitable bullshit his mind was throwing at him. Ash isn't wrong, per se, Tim hadn't known what he was doing. It could have been much worse, but it could have been better, too, and Tim might have to buy some scissors and clean it up, one of these days—
"I've never cut it before," Tim says, absently raising a hand to play with the ends. "I know it doesn't look great."
"Nah," Ash says, grinning, "it looks fine." She pauses, giving him a careful once over. "You know, my sibling is doing pretty okay these days. I don't know where you're goin,' but I know you'll get there, too."
Tim has to bite back a frown. How do I get there, he thinks, if I don't even know where I'm going?
He can't say that, not out loud, but that doesn't stop Tim from thinking it. There are a lot of things that Tim thinks and doesn't say.
"Thank you," he settles on saying. It's a few minutes before he answers, but Ash doesn't seem to mind. Tim wonders if she ever seems to mind, when she acts like she has the patience of a saint. "It was a pleasure talking to you."
Ash grins. "The pleasure is all mine."
Tim isn't running away.
He isn't.
He needs some distance from everything, that's all. His family hasn't done anything wrong, hasn't mistreated him or committed some kind of terrible crime. Fuck, if anything, they had cared too much, and that's what has him rushing off on his own.
Tim isn't a delicate thing, needing to be coddled and protected. He would heal and his family would heal — from the stress and concern, not any actual injury — and then everything would be fine.
It would be.
Tim just—
He needs a little space.
Some time away from their worried eyes and careful hands.
That's all there is to it.
( He ignores the part of him that wonders if he'll ever be able to face them again, after leaving without a word and destroying his phone. They'd forgive him, he's sure, they forgave Jason after all, but Tim isn't Jason. He's been Robin as long as he's been in the family.
With them, he doesn't know if he'd ever learn how to be anything else. )
Three days later, Tim is driving through another random town.
He's in Ohio, he thinks, surrounded by nothing but Victorian styled houses and farmland. The locals aren't the most open-minded people he's met, hiding their disdain and confusion behind a shallow veneer of politeness, but Tim doesn't care. He's not planning on staying, and he knows there's nothing he can do to change their minds.
If they want to see a down on their luck teenager, then that's what they'll see, and Tim will be gone by the next morning.
He doesn't plan on spending the night here, not when he's getting close to the Indiana border, so it's odd that he notices the sign. Mia's Makeup Supply it reads, spelled out in bright, bubbly letters. Tim almost drives past it, but then he remembers Ash with her neon lined eyes and friendly smile, and pulls into the parking lot.
Someone behind him honks.
Deserved, Tim thinks, because it had been a last minute choice. An impulse, and he tried not to cut anyone off when he turned, but it might have happened anyway.
Oh well.
And Mia is actually short for Michael, instead of any other name Tim would normally associate with it. Michael is a tall man, with a build that reminds him of Jason and a nasty scar across his lip to add to the comparison.
He still smiles warmly when Tim steps into the store, unsure of himself.
Tim has bought makeup before, but that was for Caroline, not for him, and he doesn't know how to describe the difference. Caroline was all blood reds and sapphire blues and deep, deep colors that lured people in. Fake eyelashes with gems on them and shimmery things that a magpie would love to be adorned in; stuff like that.
Tim- Tim wants to play around, to look in the mirror and like what he sees. He doesn't want to be a spectacle.
Like he said, it's hard to define the difference between the two.
Michael — call me Mia, Michael is my father — sees the confusion. Shows him around, tells him what everything is and what it does, even points out the colors and tones he thinks would look best on Tim's skin.
"Why help me?" Tim asks, standing at the checkout counter with an armful of makeup products. He wasn't planning to buy this much, but Mia had insisted. Said everything would be half off. "You don't know me."
Mia gives him a somber look. Eyes drawn, his grin smaller. "There aren't many people like you out here," he says, voice soft. "People who dare to experiment and learn what they like."
There's a story there, one that Mia doesn't tell him. And though Tim is curious by nature — a real detective, this one, Bruce used to say — he doesn't push any further.
When he was a little kid, Tim used to hate car rides.
He only ever wanted to be at the Drake Estate, reading his books or playing with his toys. Car rides only ever meant that his parents were going on another dig, and dropping him off with a grandparent, or some other distant relative. Even his lessons were better than sitting in the car all day, head against the door as he watched the world speed by in the window.
It was another sign that meant he was going to be left behind again, just like packing his suitcase and cleaning up his things.
The dislike faded, over the years, as Tim became more and more independent and, eventually, realized that his parents were never going to change. They loved him, sure, but the Drakes were busy people. Wealthy ones, who considered their reputation more important than their too-smart son who asked too many questions.
It wasn't until Tim left — not ran, never ran — that he actually started to enjoy driving.
He likes the peacefulness of it, having to focus on one thing and somehow, many things at once. Driving is easy and it's complicated, stimulating his mind and honestly? Once he buys a phone and logs into all of his hidden accounts — spotify, email, whatever he feels like — it starts becoming fun.
Maybe it's a childish kind of glee, but he's never driven with all the windows down, blasting music and singing at the top of his lungs, wind in his hair and his face and stinging his eyes and—
It's freeing.
Calming.
Tim still has to take a break every few hours, far more often than he'd like to, but he's getting better. Stopping less times in a day and breathing easier at night. He hates the healing processes, thinks it's slow and uncomfortable and so damn boring, but he's getting through it.
Doesn't that count for something?
Tim likes to think that it does.
He's even starting to enjoy this life.
Waking up in a hotel room, or sometimes the car — those are the days where he's truly, truly exhausted, and doesn't want to look anyone in the eye — and brushing his hair. Pulling the longest strands into a ponytail with two dollar hair ties to keep it out of his eyes. Playing with make up, sometimes, and learning how to look more masculine or more feminine or something in between. Tim likes the pastels Mia gave him, but he looks good in gold, too.
And then he drives.
And it's a simple routine, Tim knows it is, but does that matter? Or, perhaps a better question: why should it matter?
Bruce has spent years exploring the world, and Dick grew up traveling, and then who knows what Jason was up to during the years he was presumed dead and—
Tim likes this life.
He's getting comfortable with it, too.
And of course, that's when it all goes to shit.