Sequel to 'Too Late' but you do not have to read that one to read this XD
So this turned out extremely different to what I started writing...
Dextra, if you still want a sequel where Tim goes evil I will write one for you :)
There will be more...
Tim didn't really know how he got back to his room at the manor, he guessed he was hit by that alien blast ray pretty hard, and he hit the wall pretty hard too. Someone must have brought him back to the cave, and then up to the manor itself. That made sense.
What didn't make sense though was Dick tentatively opening the door, then proceeding to walk straight towards his bed and curl himself round a pillow, completely ignoring Tim. Dick's face was ashen and stained with tears. Why had he been crying? Tim's okay right? It's not like he died, they got him to Alfred, who worked his magic and Tim woke up without a sore bone in his body.
He older man started silently sobbing a hiccupping tearless sob. Like he had no more tears to shed. Tim was about to go put his arms around his older brother when his door opened for a second time. Jason, who had only recently come back to the manor, to the family, poked his head through the door. Opening it fully and striding over to Dick when he saw that the room was occupied.
"Hey Dick, you shouldn't be here all by yourself. Come back downstairs, Alfred made hot chocolate" Dick merely let out a pained whine and hugged Tim's pillow tighter. Jason gently caressed a hand through Dick's hair "What are you doing up here anyway? I thought Alfred had put dust sheets in all the guest rooms." Dick made another pained noise into the pillow and Tim sat down of a free piece of mattress.
After a couple of minutes his face emerged "This was Tim's room" his eyes were bright red and puffy, there were tears rolling down his face, it broke Tim's heart to see his brother so upset.
Wait-
'Was Tim's room'? 'Shouldn't be up here all by yourself'? he wasn't… Tim was here too, or does Tim not count as a person anymore? He thought that Jason and him had gotten over their pitiful spite battles and he definitely didn't think that Jason would stoop so low as to ignore him when Dick was crying in *his* room.
He ended up glowering at his brother and moving to put his arms round Dick in what he would call 'big brother cuddles'; but Dick didn't move.
That… that wasn't like him, he was always in the mood to hug Tim, especially when Tim hugged him first.
"Dick, Dick what's wrong" he… he couldn't hear himself, his mouth was moving but nothing was coming out, which was when he turned to look at himself in his bedroom mirror and suddenly found he wished he hadn't.
Because he was pretty certain he wasn't usually this pale. But he wasn't pale, not really; it was like he had suddenly been thrown into an old black and white silent movie. It was like he was in his own plane of existence… it was like he was a ghost, but not. Because he had met ghosts, they weren't silent beings, or opaque. They were translucent and you *could* see them. You could tell they were there, and most of the time they were very vocal about it.
But he couldn't talk, he couldn't be seen, he was opaque. He was dead, but not dead… because this certainly wasn't heaven, and he will be damned if he has to spend the rest of his existence and a half-dead not ghost.
But, for once, Tim wasn't cold. He wasn't hot or warm or anything nice like that, but he wasn't cold.
He wasn't cold and he wasn't broken. He didn't feel like a rag doll, or a puppet, or a pencil that has been sharpened so much it has outlived its usefulness.
For once Tim's not angry, he's not sad or annoyed or upset, Tim's not even apathetic. Tim is nothing, feels nothing, Tim is just there.
Tim just exists and for a moment lives with no expectations, nobody to live up to, nobody to compete with, nobody to disappoint.
It was nice to just be, but it was horrible at the same time.
Because his family was hurting, and crying, and breaking down in front of him. It make his chest hurt, painfully, and there was nothing he could do to stop it, to quench that hurt and pain and anguish.
Jason to his wardrobe and the door opened again. This time the rest of his family entered his room, with Alfred carrying a steaming mug of hot chocolate, presumably for Dick. By the time the older man had set it down carefully on the bedside table Bruce had lay down on his bed and pulled Dick into a fatherly embrace just like he had always done to Tim whenever the man found him crying. Damian crawled into the crevice between the two sets of legs and Tim curled up on Bruce's other side and if he tried really hard it was almost like he was in the room with them.
Almost.
"Master Jason may I ask what you are doing?"
"Looking for Babybird's photos" his family move in unison making a variety of interested squeaks "ah here they are" Jason pulls a shoebox out of the back of Tim's wardrobe.
They spent at least four hours looking over them, smiling at forgotten memories; contemplating just how Tim was able to get so close to Batman undetected at such a young age; loosing themselves in the past until;
"That can't be all of them"
"What?"
"That can't be all Babybird's photos"
"Why not Todd?" They all looked at Jason, even Tim was wondering what he meant, that was all the photos he remembered collecting
"Where are the photos of Babybird" everyone looked stumped. It was true. Tim had made a collection of everything. Dick's first days at the manor; Jason's; Jason's first day at school; their first patrols; his pictures of their patrols; pictures of Dick's graduation; Jason's first 95% attendance certificate; Dick coming back to the manor; 'Officer Grayson'; Nightwing in Blüdhaven; Red Hood back in Gotham; Damian's arrival; Damian's first term at school; Damian as Robin; Damian and Colin; Jason at various stages of 'coming home'; as well as various pictures of Bruce and Alfred at work, rest and play.
But none of Tim.
No that was a lie, Tim was in some of the pictures, but it was always someone and Tim, Tim was never the focus of the picture and more often or not it was an accident he was in it at all.
"Father, I do not understand; what of it?" Bruce's had went to his son's hair, a guest urge that Tim found he missed dearly,
"What Jason is saying is that there are photos of everyone else here but Tim" he sounded deathly tired and sad, almost like he had given up again.
"But surly that should be expected if these are Drake's photos?" Damian was greeted with weary half smiles
"I think the problem is that none of us have photos of Tim either. We all just thought that Tim collected all of the pictures." Subconsciously they all glanced towards Alfred,
"I do have a few pictures of Master Timothy, but not as many as I would have liked"
The room returned to an uncomfortable silence, all occupants now realising that 'oh we'll get some pictures later' just wasn't good enough.
Roaming the manor in this... form was a strange freedom to Tim. He couldn't walk through walls or anything like that but h could go anywhere he wanted, just think and 'pop' there here is. It was weird at first, he ended up popping in on his family in... rather compromising situations, not that they minded, they couldn't see him, not like he could them. Sometimes it was nice to see them coping, most of the time it broke his heart.
"Bruce what's that?" Dick's excited squeak about the post and drawn him to the living room, now he wished it hadn't.
Bruce was staring at the mail, his eyes transfixed by the something on the front of the envelopes. Silence blanketed the room,
Dick seemed to know what was going on because he whispered a muffled "oh" before hug tackling their father.
"Father I demand to know where- father?... Grayson what is going on" Damian's voice mellowed to a more inquisitive tone and Tim had to give it to the kid, he'd grown up in the last few months
"They're Tim's college acceptance letters"
Oh.
His hand reached out and settled on his father's shoulder, and he could swear that for a moment Bruce could feel it, because the minute he did the man flinched almost but then abruptly left the room. Tim followed leaving Dick stopping Damian from doing the same saying Bruce "needed some time".
Tim thought that he would head to the cave for his silent brooding time, he was wrong and soon found himself in his room.
Bruce was sitting on Tim's bed head in hands and crying. Slaty tears running down his face, into his hands and dripping onto the floor.
He had never seen Bruce like this, it was completely different that when Jason died. When Jason died it was Bruce's fault, he had failed his son, he had let the Joker win, it was the first time he had lost someone he loved to his obsession, his war.
But now; Bruce couldn't blame himself for Tim's death and that was tearing him apart at the seams. He had become just another parent of a murdered child, just another family caught in the tragedy of the Earth's attraction to alien races.
It was one of the only times that they didn't have to out right lie about how someone died.
The news report had simply said "It has been confirmed that young CEO Timothy Drake-Wayne is among the dead with reports saying that he died whilst saving..." Well at least that was all Tim heard before one or more of his family got up and angrily turned it off, Jason had thrown on of his knifes through it once.
Tim had died a hero, the world knowing that didn't make it hurt any less.
"You got into college today," Bruce's voice breaking the silence of the room brought him out of his reminiscing "all of them, and I, I wish you were here. I wish you were here to be able to chose where you want to go, I wish you were here so I could watch you fret over each of them and then I wish you were here so I could help you and sit with you the entire night before you had to make your decision debating it with you before you finally settle on the one you were going to go to in the first place. I wish that we could go 'new semester' shopping with Alfred, buying you things that you might need, but then again you probably won't, I wish that you were here to plan when and how you would be coming back to go on patrol with us, or really just coming back to see us, and us to see you" he stopped for a moment, loosing composure in a way Tim had never seen before, not even with Jason
"I... I'm just so proud of you and I wish you were here to see it"
The man broke into fresh tears, and, even though he knew Bruce couldn't feel it, Tim enveloped his father in a hug, crying along with him.
But Bruce did feel something, something indescribable that made his head snap out of his hands and flinch round to 'look' at Tim, seeing nothing at first, but catching something in the mirror, something that immediately made him get up and stare as he took the form in, like a character from a silent movie, smiling lightly and sheepishly waving;
"Tim?"