Title: Tempus
Author: Owarinari
Pairing: none, it's gen
Rating: PG-13 (language)
Summary: The best advice comes when you don't want it, from people you don't want to hear it from. Timcentric.
Disclaimer(s): Batman and all associated characters are not mine.
A/N: Because Tim has had a terrible last couple of years. Please excuse the gratuitous and vague references to various minor characters. I'm ignoring the recent story arcs of the Batman R.I.P and Battle for the Cowl, etc. Mostly because it'll cause some serious clashes, and if DC want to Retcon things and forget they ever happened then I reserve my right to do so too. The Clockworker is my OC, and I'm rather fond of him now (but I don't expect to use him again).
Tempus (omnia sed memorias privat)
Time deprives all but memory
John Ramsey, criminal.
No, how about: 'John Ramsey, mastermind'?
Ridiculous. He wonders how they do it – the nutcases in Arkham must have egos the size of Jupiter to come up with names like 'Scarecrow' and 'Joker'. Even an idiot knows that there is never refuge in audacity – what moron would scream from the rooftops that they had committed a crime? Gotham idiots, obviously.
No, quietly does it. John Ramsey – he of no 'super name' – shakes his head. He's even sounding like one of them now. A criminal. He isn't, not really. Not in the Gotham sense of crime anyway, which defied the definitions of crime any other place in the world had.
A business gone under and it had come to this, stealing from vaults and banks to try and escape from this wretched, dirty...a shudder. A crash of boxes breaking in the warehouse behind him. What the hell are those guys doing? Then there's a sound of crunching, bruising flesh, and he runs towards the noise. He only hired some guys to help out, people he knows who need a bit of cash. It isn't fair if they get hurt because of him. He rounds a corner stacked high with boxes just in time to see a few go flying, others lying on the floor and clutching at arms, ribs, noses. It's enough to make him stop. Who's strong enough to throw men about like toys? By the time he's close enough to see what's going on, the men Mr. Chesterfield lent him – who look like they wouldn't be out of place at a pro-wrestling match – already have the intruder tied up.
Robin.
He didn't expect the Boy Wonder to be...a boy. Just a kid. Sure, everybody knows that Robin was a child but seeing and believing are two different things. His Abby's sixteen, and this kid couldn't be any older. The red-and-black suit strains as the guards force his hands above his head.
"Hey, er, Guy, right?"
A blank face swings towards him "Huh?"
"Do you really have to do that?"
"Yeah. Sneaky brat." No more words, he just takes the kid's – Robin's – toolbelt and is gone. The other guy hulks his way back to the front door.
It had been such a good plan. Just cobble together money from little jobs where no one got threatened or hurt, all flawless given a bit of planning. Then some big crime boss comes around, threatens Angie. Threatens his children. So one last big job, just to get this Cobblepot guy off of his back. And if there's a feeling like Cobblepot won't let him go, that's nothing a one-way ticket out of Gotham won't take care of, right?
How has he gotten from pick pocketing to tying up a teen superhero? A look out the window tells him – Gotham. She's always pretty at night, elegant, wears darkness like a dress. But from here you couldn't see his destroyed shop, in a corner no one went to anymore. Because in Gotham if you jump at shadows it isn't paranoia. It's common sense.
A flawless plan. A big bank scheme, an option of six banks, six warehouses to hide the money. Enough to keep the police guessing, but John Ramsey wasn't a Gothamite.
He had forgotten the Batman.
Oh he had known alright. Danny never lets him forget they're in the city of the Batman. The guards are silent, looking to the sky – to the shadows. Afraid. Deathly afraid - and so is he. Maybe he is a kind of criminal then.
There are reports coming through his radio, everything going as it should. Maybe his code name should be the Clockworker. Because everything runs like.
But he's starting to wonder if he's cracking up when he hears soft voices. Not whispers, more like someone talking far away, almost out of earshot. He casts about, searching the faces of the people around the warehouse before he realises – Robin. He's still out, but he's got one of those comm-things in his ear. The tiny black device in his hand is broadcasting multiple voices. Other kids, a woman, a youngish man calling for 'little bird', for 'little brother'. An older brother? A friend? He can't decide what to do, and he just stands, listening to fragments of Robin's life when a gravelly pronouncement ends the chatter.
"I'm coming."
The comm-device-thing goes dead in his hand, and suddenly he's terrified. Everything should have been simple. Like clockwork. The guy gets his money, he leaves, and no one gets caught or hurt. Or killed. One of Mr. Chesterfield's henchmen heard the voices too, and he looks at the kid, then to his gun. Then back to the kid. And John Ramsey's stomach starts to sink to the floor. He wouldn't? He's just a kid-
Henchman – Tony? Toby? – shakes his head, turns away. He exhales in relief that he's not going to be watching a kid die and the man – Tony, he's certain now – turns haunted eyes on him.
"I wouldn'."
Surely his boss would like one less crime fighter? "Why? I mean, I'm glad, but-"
"Batman." One word, so many meanings. He frowns at the kid, the chains rattling as he stirs slowly. He has Angie, but he didn't have a partner like that, nothing to compare to losing an ally. Tony's scared of Batman exacting revenge or what? Dan flickers across his mind, tied up, waiting for help that comes too late. The clenching of his stomach tells him. Batman will come – if his care is half as much as the care John Ramsey has for his son, he'll come.
And that means work. He's a criminal, and he needs to get out. Before this city eats him alive. He calls contacts, tells employees to step up. They're being hunted, no mistake. Split the cash up, the cops can't possibly follow six unmarked vans at once.
Now he's got that crawling feeling like he's being watched. It's the kind of thing people get in horror films, but in real life you only get once or twice. Usually when something is about to go terribly wrong. He turns around and Robin is awake, masked eyes watching him silently, a face like stone surrounded by arms with muscles an Olympic athlete would be proud of. The eyes stay level, unflinching. He's not much of a kid, except for the sullen teenage silence. He can't look for long, the gaze is a little accusing and it feels like he's being scolded by a kid in a spandex suit. Weird.
Calls are coming in, two vans are down, there's angry screaming from Mr. Chesterfield and mob goons are making off while they still can. He tells them to transfer it to different vans, different routes, going on a plan that doesn't quite exist yet. All the while, the masked gaze doesn't falter, doesn't flinch, doesn't shift from him. He should be getting angry, furious. His plan's gone down the drain and he's pretty damn sure now that the night's going to end with him in prison but he can't feel anything. Gotham really is like a greedy mistress; she takes and takes until you haven't got anything left to give. Leaves you with shellshock and ennui and an empty wallet.
In the lull, he notices that the kid – he can't think of Robin any other way, now that he's noticed how young that face is – is tense, wound tight like he's about to snap. It sounds like a redundant statement in his head – he's been captured and strung up, but the kid's been doing this for awhile, surely he knows how to assess and plan, think his way out and keep cool. The tension is his body is bone deep, soul deep, like what he's been carrying round ever since the business packed up and his brother ran off with their money and their till girl. A body that hits out at the world and has only just realised that it won't stop the world from hitting you back.
He ponders, thinks back, wondering why the hell he's so curious about someone who would happily toss him in jail. He remembers suddenly – that disaster, only just finished when he moved here. Violence, murderers on the streets. The city overrun and the Batman nowhere to be found. Danny. Danny had been so cut up over two of those other kid superheroes. Superboy and Impulse. Did superheroes work in teams? If they did, maybe they were buddies at some point. Christ, children with war buddies.
Or his parents? God knows, you'd have to have been fucked over beyond belief to want to do this kind of thing. Maybe he's lost everything.
"D'you have a family, kid?"
Something moves in the kid's face, something that might have been a flinch in someone more normal. He nods slowly.
"I get ya. My dad died when I was just a kid." He doesn't know why he's talking, nevertheless talking to a kid who could (and would) wipe the floor with him given half a chance. But he talks anyway. "He was loud, lazy and kinda a bastard, now that I think about it, but my dad was my dad, you know?" He looks out of the warehouse, over the city, full of shadows and sorrow. "I was angry at him, at my mother, at me. For not trying harder, for not being good, whatever. But mom told me something that I thought was B-S at the time, but it was the smartest thing anybody's ever said to anybody else."
It's the broken, hurt defiance in Robin's face that seals the deal. "It'll get better, you know. Everything looks like it's gone to hell, but trust me, kid. At some point, it's going to get better."
A mocking eyebrow is raised in his direction, and despite himself he can't help but laugh "Okay, you think it's stupid. I get it."
And it really has gone to hell. Shadows in the night, people sneaking away when he turns his back. He can't blame them, they've got families to look after as well – he's not the only one suffering. He turns back to the Robin, who has a strange expression on his face, like he knows something that's going to scare the hell out of everybody else. And by the time that he's placed it as 'serene' the door's been kicked in and justice stands there. Batman. A moment of sweeping terror as the hawk-gaze sweeps over him to Robin, and the stare doesn't so much as twitch – which just makes it even more terrifying. Should he fight? This is his future, his kids' future. Abby and Dan are young and Robin's living proof that Gotham is no place for children. No kid should be worrying about the lives of random strangers before themselves. It's the best part of being a kid. So a fight – he'll battle for what might have been a future, and...
Robin heaves a sigh so exhausted, so world-weary, John Ramsey surrenders – what else can he do? He suspects struggling now would result in the self-appointed hand of justice coming down hard, and he's already going to cause Angie enough trouble without a broken husband added to the mix. He prays that the Bat is half as chivalrous as he's said to be. Angie doesn't deserve this. Another figure brushes by him and he sees blue-and-black spandex as the long haired man pulls at the chains that suspend Robin off of the floor. Nightwing. Another of Danny's heroes, the one who called for 'little brother' earlier, as he calls Robin now, checking him for injuries until the kid shrugs the hands away. There's such a sense of 'I don't want to admit I'm glad to see you' and it's so sullen it makes him smile. There is a teenage boy under there, tucked away and hidden under a mask and a cloak.
As he's being led away by a bulky detective in a brown jacket – who doesn't bother to take the toothpick out of his mouth while he talks to his female partner – he sees the two men in black towering over the little figure in red. Protecting. Promising retribution for every hurt. Because some hurts just couldn't be fixed.
So the kid did have family.
Huh.