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Tim runs a hand over his head and through his hair, hissing slightly when his knuckles get caught in dark waves. A few distracted attempts to free his fingers from the tangles later, he gives up and yanks, roughly flicking his wrist out and pulling with it a grip full of unwashed hair.
He eyes the clump in distaste, tightening his hold on the strands. Tim can almost see the red staining his knuckles, even after removing the suits’ dirtied gloves, though he’s definitely not imagining the bruises marring his pale skin.
Pushing himself up from where he’s sat in-front of the Batcomputer, Tim forces his fists to unclench. He doesn’t bother looking to see where the loose hair fell, keeping his gaze steady as he walks away. (Tim’s eyes don’t wander to Bruce standing a few feet away. To the little boy covering a frightened face with his father’s cape, the fabric clutched by too-small fingers.)
(It’s not real, anyway.)
Tim’s never quite noticed just how quiet the Batcave gets when there’s only one heartbeat thudding against the walls. Without the med-bay buzzing with the energy of an injured vigilante impatiently waiting to be cleared, the squeal of tires down the driveway. There’s no scuffling sounds as his brother and sister spar on the training mats. No good job on that case, Timmy! or you made me proud tonight.
(Not that there’s anything left to be proud of. And the ghost of Bruce is too caught up in his silent judgement to bestow approval upon Tim. He doesn’t think he’d want to hear what Bruce had to say anyway.)
(Of course he’d want to hear. Please, Bruce, say I was right. I didn’t.. I did what I had to. Tell me you understand, tell me you forgive me, please, Bruce. Please.)
Dull beeps and hums pierce the oppressive silence in place of Dick’s laughter after Tim shared an arguably unfunny joke Ives or Steph cracked. The bats living in the gaps between broken stalactites don’t even chirp anymore. Sometimes, at night, Tim hears wings fluttering as they move around but it doesn’t seem like they want anything to do with him.
(He used to pause his work and look up, trying to remember the way Bruce taught him to pick their forms out from the darkness with his eyes. It never worked.)
Tim had decided very quickly that he hates the impersonal sounds of an empty Batcave. It fills him with a loathing so intense that he knows, in his heart, that if anyone was to hear the screams of Robin he kept buried they’d think he was dying. The weight of hands clad in green gloves gripping his ankles make it seemingly impossible to climb the stairs to the manor so he hasn’t been upstairs but he’s sure he’d hate the silence there too.
It almost feels as though someone else is puppeteering his body, moving his feet without bothering to share their planned destination with him. He wishes it were true. That he wasn’t in full control of himself when he crashed his bike in his haste to enter the cave. (Robin had loved that bike.) When he ripped his gloves off, stained with blood that wasn’t his, and discarded them on the desk.
The computer monitor is flashing and, if Tim hadn’t muted every volume switch he could get his hands on, it would probably be blaring an alarm. Or maybe it’s morse code, sending out a message that he turns his head in an effort not to see.
Usually, activating lockdown protocol in the cave would block all outside transmissions through the computer. If Tim didn’t know Oracle he’d be shocked at her ability to bypass that level of security.
As it is, he just blows out air with an irritated huff. He thought he’d have more time.
Having stopped walking minutes ago, Tim blinks out of his thoughts and opens a case he’d pulled from the evidence storage room.
The gun isn’t anything special. The barrel is worn slightly with age but not too much to affect a shot. When Tim inserted the bullet, only one - that’s all he needs, the cartridge went in smoothly. Lightweight and deceptively small in size for a weapon that causes such large amounts of damage anytime it’s fired.
It’s not unique or unusual in any way. As Robin he’d disarmed hundreds, thousands even, of criminals using this exact caliber. With the way his hand shakes upon picking it up though, you’d think it was heavier than the combined weight of the cowl sitting on Tim’s shoulders and the legacy he can’t, won’t, live up to.
He’s a killer.
Tim already knew that, objectively, but it’s like reality has only just dawned on him. The thought nearly makes him sick.
Bruce is gone. Dick, Alfred, Jason, Duke, Cass. Damian. They’re all gone and the list just won’t stop growing.
No matter what test Tim ran, they all came back positive. The body rotting in the grave is Bruce Wayne. His sons and daughter and the family surrounding him are really them too. He can’t run to Ra’s Al Ghul for the lazarus water he craves so desperately. The Justice League are too busy trying to reason with Tim to even consider time travel or magic or anything, anything to save Tim’s family. His city.
Reason with him. Like he’s a supervillain holding a kid hostage during a mental break.
(When Superman had landed in front of a criminal, taking what would’ve, should’ve, been a fatal strike from Tim’s staff; “Stand down, Robin,” he’d said. As if Tim was still 13 years old and starry eyed at the sight of the kryptonian hero. As if he wasn’t Batman now. He’d felt bad using kryptonite against the older man, but Tim couldn’t let Clark stop him. He was so close to being done.)
(And if Tim had avoided looking at the hero directly in fear of seeing a younger, more familiar face, Superman hadn’t mentioned it. He was kind like that. Like Kon had been.)
Hell, maybe he was the villain in their eyes now. Maybe the kid he’s keeping from them is the boy he used to see when his eyes met with a mirror.
Or maybe he’s been staring down the barrel of a cheap gun for too long and his brain is grasping for a distraction via moralising.
The webcam on the Batcomputer turns on as the last of his code is overridden by Oracle. She won’t be able to get the audio working since he physically unplugged the wires but small victories, he guesses. Not that it’ll help her. Or him.
He briefly wonders how pathetic he must look to Barbara. Wearing a batsuit that, even after tailoring, feels too big for his frame. Messy hair and expression drawn into a grim line.
He looks nothing like Tim Drake.
(He looks too much like Tim Drake.)
Bruce shifts to the side, pulling Robin behind his back in an attempt to shield the smaller body with his own, when Tim cocks the gun.
Tim feels like snarling at the kid and aiming the barrel between innocent blue eyes. He wants to. Self control abandoned, he whips around and stalks towards the figures he knows aren’t really there.
He doesn’t care.
Opening his mouth to spit the vitriol corroding his soul, he meets Bruce’s dead eyes.
Hysterically, Tim comes to the conclusion that yeah, he probably did go insane all those years ago, when he put that damned cowl on.
Through the maggots eating at what were once hardened irises, the rotted muscles forming his face and the gaunt lines of where flesh had fallen away to reveal bone; Bruce looks so devastatingly sad.
(No. No! He’s meant to be disappointed, angry! Why does he look at Tim like he’s mourning the child tucked against his back?! Stop stop stop, Bruce would be angry, he’d hate Tim. Surely they, surely they’d hate Tim as he is now. They all would! That’s not- this can’t be real.)
(He knows it’s not real. Please.)
Tim scrambles away from Bruce, crying out in fear as his father’s face melts and the shadows swallow him back into their suffocating grasp. Without anyone to protect him, Robin lifts his head from where he’s knelt on cold stone and starts sobbing.
Pain shoots up knees as Tim joins him on the floor but instead of mirroring the pathetic, gasping little mewls leaving the boy, he chokes back laughter.
It’s not funny. He knows it’s not funny.
(It’s hilarious. The Joker might’ve had a point all of these years. If Tim planned on leaving the cave after tonight, he’d whisper that confession into a fire and hope it reaches hell where the clown could hear it.)
(He’ll have to settle for telling him in person, it seems.)
Robin just cries harder at the gurgled cackles slipping past Tim’s ground teeth. He looks terrified and disgusted and like he can’t bear to watch. The kid can’t look away though, Tim knows. It’s okay, he can’t either.
In the back of his mind, he dimly hopes that Barbara has turned the stream off. He’d hate for her to have to see this.
With the last of his giggles tapering off and tears cascading down his cheeks, Tim lifts the gun once more.
Robin pushes himself up, straightens his back and wipes his face with the back of his hand. The tracks under his eyes glisten slightly under the harsh lights of the cave, his wide eyes narrowing until they’re a repulsed glare. His mouth tightening into a defiant pout.
He reaches forwards and so, so gently takes the weapon from Tim’s slackened grip. Like underneath all the horror, he still sees a spark of humanity left in Tim.
Tim feels his stomach constrict when Robin lifts the gun to his own head. It’s an obscene sight. He should stop the kid. His dads would’ve, both of them.
Tim should do a lot of things.
(Let Barbara’s messages reach him. She probably wants to help him, save Tim from himself. Hand himself in, let the League throw him in a cell and never let him see sunlight again. They wouldn’t do that. Would they? Apologise to the graveyards he’s filled and beg the forgiveness of sneering ghosts.)
Batman meets Robin’s glare and turns his head towards the shadows, again. He swears he can see Bruce staring at him.
He doesn’t flinch at the bang, nor does he when the gun clatters to the ground. Raising his arm, his fingers graze lightly over his bottom lip. He darts his tongue out. Robin’s blood is warm where it splattered onto him. It’s sweet, the tang of iron diluted into only a bitter aftertaste.
Batman leans down and picks up the fallen weapon. There’s no sign of use. The metal is cool when he presses it into skin. Robin wasn’t real enough to produce body heat. Robin wasn’t real at all.
(Sorry, Bruce.)
Tim closes his eyes and pulls the trigger.