Bart was tired.

It wasn't late, and he hadn't been doing much. He'd just gotten back from a mission, but his role hadn't been critical in the least. Bart knew it was bad to wish for action after the near-apocalypse, after Wally's death, but he wanted to feel alive.

He felt dead, and maybe that was for the best.

The rest of his squad were heading home, or to the showers, but Bart had no home. He didn't feel comfortable with the Garricks. Barry had his own life and his twins would be due in a few months, and Bart wasn't selfish enough to stay with them. So he lived in the Watchtower, in the Team's section of the place.

His room was next to Beast Boy's, which was often annoying. Bart wasn't in the mood for nineties sitcoms. He wasn't in the mood for much at all, lately.

Someone was knocking at his door.

Bart sighed and tried to muster up the energy to open the door and interact with people. He was tired. He hated being tired. Finally, he was able to open the door.

Robin, dressed with slightly more stylish sunglasses than Bart had last seen him in, didn't seem too perturbed by Bart's lack of emotion. Bart knew this wasn't how he usually acted, or at least it wasn't how he usually acted in this time. Back in the future, maybe he'd been more this way. He didn't know. He didn't like to think of that time.

"Hey," Robin said. "You mind if I hide out in here?"

Bart felt a little interest now — why did Robin have to hide out anywhere? He stepped aside and let Robin in his room.

"Thanks," Robin muttered, settling himself on the floor next to Bart's bed.

"You can sit up here, if you want," Bart said. He was trying so hard to be normal, to have energy, but Robin was a detective anyway — he would know even if Bart succeeded.

Robin climbed up onto his bed and seemed to watch Bart for a while.

Bart didn't look at him. "Why're you hiding, Robin?"

Robin said, "you can call me Tim right now. We're just in your room, and even if Gar hears, he already knows my name."

"Oh," Bart said. "Right. Sorry about that."

Tim shrugged. "It doesn't really matter that much," he said. "He was bound to find out at some point."

"Yeah…"

"Anyway," Tim said quickly. "I'm not really hiding. I just don't really want to talk to Nightwing right now. He's— he's great and everything, you know, but every time I hang out with him I feel weird. Like, he thinks of me as a little kid and I don't think he always trusts me to take care of myself."

Bart exhaled in a way that was somehow bitter. "I get that," he said.

Being the successor to a dead person wasn't a usually lovely thing.

"Yeah," Tim said, breathily, and sighed in a long way. "And I, I don't know, almost idolize him or whatever? Not really. I really respect him, and I… I don't know. I think way too much when I'm hanging out with him, about what I'm saying and what I'm doing. And I feel like shit when I embarrass myself."

Bart wasn't sure if he related to that part, so he didn't comment. "And, what, I'm more bearable than Gar?" he asked.

Tim gave him an odd look. "Or maybe I wanted to get to know you better."

Bart, for whatever reason, hadn't considered that.

"Are you alright, though?" Tim asked. "You seem off. Not that you're, um, worse this way or anything—"

"No, I know," Bart interrupted. "I've been feeling weird lately. Less energy."

"Hm," TIm said. "The, uh, the depression." He said the word 'depression' weirdly, like an inside joke Bart didn't quite get.

Bart curled up into himself. "Maybe," he said. "I used to be more like this… back, um, back where I'm from. When I'm from. I kind of thought it would end without all the… apocalypse stuff. But it didn't."

Tim studied him, not looking into his eyes but at the spot between his collarbones. Bart felt out of place.

"Are heroes meant to be depressed?" Bart asked.

"Maybe not meant to be, but most of us are, at least to some degree and at some point." Tim laced his fingers together in a strange way. "It comes with the job. We're around so much death and pain and everything… it sinks in."

"Oh," Bart said, quietly. "Does anyone on the team…"

"I have depression," Tim said. "If that's what you're asking. I'm also autistic. You're not, like, weird for feeling like shit. I don't want to say everyone does because that's not always true and it's annoying to hear anyway, but… don't feel, or I mean, you shouldn't feel, um, bad because you're feeling bad. Because we understand. We even have a team therapist."

"Black Canary, right?" Bart said. He poked Tim's cheek, for reasons unknown to both of them. Tim put his eyebrows together in a startled sort of way.

"Yes," Tim said. "I saw her once or twice after my mom died. I think the League was meaning to have everyone do a session with her after Wally died and the whole Reach thing ended, but I guess it didn't end up happening."

"She saw Jaime," Bart said. "Blue."

"Yeah…" Tim rubbed his eye. "Anyway. If you want me to mention seeing you to her, I can. If you want."

Bart shrugged. He didn't much feel like talking anymore. "Thank you," he said, and leaned onto the wall of his bed.

They were both quiet for a while, just sitting on the bed in silence. Bart hoped he would have energy again sometime soon. (Though he did wonder if he annoyed others less this way. Would people want to be around him more if he didn't do all that?)

Tim had his eyes closed when he spoke again. His eyelashes were long. "How do you know my secret ID," he said, not quite as a question.

"Uh," Bart said. "I'm from the future."

Tim opened his eyes once, seemed to decide that it was too bright, and closed them again. "Yeah, but it was the apocalypse or whatever. You didn't really have history class, right?"

Oh, right.

Bart had forgotten how many lies he'd told in his months on Earth. Too many to count, probably. About the future, about his teammates, about Barry. There was so much now that he had no clue how to take it back.

"There were," he started. "Others. Legacies of heroes and and stuff. The, uh, Neutron guy, whatever, he helped with the time machine and stuff. Some other people told me stuff about the past, who everyone was, all that. Most of the Justice League now was dead or incapacitated by then, but some of them had kids and stuff, and I worked with them."

"That makes sense," Tim said. "Oh. Yeah. I guess I should say, maybe, sorry? That all that happened in your timeline."

"I don't really get the 'sorry' thing," Bart said. "Shouldn't you say sorry when something is your fault? It's not your fault."

Tim shrugged and slid down the bed a bit. "I don't know any other words to use," he said. "I'm bad with them."

It was silent again for a long time after that. Finally, Bart said:

"We should do this again sometime."

"Do what?"

"Talk. Actual talking. I feel like I never talk to anyone. I know I talk all the time, but it doesn't register."

Tim paused. "I'm sick of small talk," he said, possibly quoted. "Talk to me about what really matters in the world. Like depression and bad end futures."

Bart laughed, but he wasn't sure what he was laughing at. "What is that?" he asked. "That's from something."

Tim snickered a little. "Meme."

Bart nodded seriously. "Meme."

After a few more moments of silence, he said, "but really. We should do this again."

"...yeah."