A/N: Done at last! I hope you guys like it! The second and last part for this story! Maybe it can be an AU 0w0

Warnings: Violence, a cuss word or six

Words: 1,560


Tim sat alone, hands cuffed to a chain around his waist that also connected to cuffs on his ankles. His eyes dim and ignoring the world. His long, stringy hair covered his face, only a few strands held together by the rubber band holding the rest of it. Scars earned from numerous scuffles in this place crosshatched his arms and body underneath the layers he wore. A few marred his face and he absently reached to scratch at one. Around him other inmates chattered among themselves, all divided into different groups, eyes flicking around nervously like sitting with the prison gang could keep them safe from the armed guards scattered around the lunch area.

He'd been in Blackgate Penitentiary since the day he woke up in the Batcave. Tim remembered it all—Bruce's identity, Dick's, the team's—but pretended he didn't after being interrogated by the Justice League. It wasn't hard to lie to them. Tim had been trained by the Batman, after all.

From what Tim had counted, he'd been here for fifteen years.

I'm 29, he mused to himself. How old was Bruce? Dick? Alfred? His old team?

Not like it mattered, he supposed; they didn't remember him and didn't need to. Tim had long gotten over the sting, it had dulled to a throbbing ache in his chest years ago.

Raised voices coaxed Tim out of his musings, though he would hardly be surprised if it was another yelling match between the Caveiras and the Drakos. They got into shouting arguments just about every other day.

As he lifted his head to look over, the four guards standing around him tensed, fingers twitching over the triggers to their weapons, but Tim ignored them. It looked like things were escalating between the rival prison gangs today because a few members of each had risen from their seats.

The muzzle of a gun nudged Tim's shoulder as a guard instructed him to stand.

Tim complied after about twenty seconds, a small grunt escaping him, and rose to his newly-measured height of 5'11". He'd hit his growth spurt sometime in prison.

Ever since his third spat in the lunchroom he'd been kept separate from the others, though it hadn't been Tim's fault the guy wanted to make him his bitch. Tim had needed to make a point, and it had to be made well known. The offender had suffered a shattered collarbone, a broken orbital socket, a dislocated wrist, and a broken hip, but he'd survived. Tim hadn't killed anyone.

He stretched as much as his bonds would allow, every gun of his personal escort pointed at him in a heartbeat, a few joints popping.

If Tim were to be completely honest, he had no plans to return to his solitary cell today. He knew why the gang was arguing, and had known each and every time they'd fought. He had the reason hidden on his person, after all, strapped to his calf. A stupid little trinket the Caveiras valued as a sort of talisman; an item of similar value to the Drakos resting beside the other stolen charm. Each fight between the two gangs had been planned to the letter, Tim using the gangs without them knowing of his hand in it, like a ghost puppeteer pulling their marionette strings.

Now that he thought about it, he'd gotten a nickname in this cage. Wraith. Nobody knew his name, where he came from or why he'd been incarcerated and everyone was too afraid to ask. They'd sensed his cold, intelligent aura the moment they'd laid eyes on him, even as a fourteen-year-old. His quarters had always been in solitary, probably per Batman's recommendation.

Wraith is all anyone here knew him by. It was all they would ever know him by. It was a name he planned to live up to down to the letter today, if he hadn't been before.

Death is inevitable, after all, and Tim had a name to support.

As he started walking to the door that would lead him back to his cold, white-walled, silent cell, Tim waited for them to start passing the uproarious fight before abruptly halting in his walk. Quickly, efficiently, slipping his hand out of the cuffs. Throwing an elbow into a guard's unprotected gut and twisting the gun out of his hands.

Turning off the weapon's safety, he only had a few seconds to think if he truly wanted to live up to the nickname, time slowing as they ticked away.

10 seconds

Tim had been Robin.

9 seconds

Robins don't kill.

8 seconds

Batman didn't stand for killing.

7 seconds

Becoming Robin, Tim had understood that.

6 seconds

He'd agreed wholeheartedly.

5 seconds

Tim had upheld his morals throughout his years.

4 seconds

But they weren't his morals, were they?

3 seconds

They'd been Batman's morals.

2 seconds

They'd been Robin's morals.

1 second

He wasn't Robin anymore.

0 seconds

Tim pulled the trigger, gun aimed at the guard's head, and milliseconds later his head snapped to the side, the bullet slipping in through one end of the skull then out another, like a fish swimming gently through calm waters.

Instantly after pulling the trigger, Tim was ducking to avoid the bullets fired from the guns of stunned and shocked guards around him. Since he hadn't been able to free his legs, Tim was forced to slide-tackle one of the other guards, twisting his torso to fire one more bullet and again hitting his mark under the chin, blood immediately rushing free.

Two guards of Tim's escort left, and he wasn't paying any more attention to the gang dispute. The other guards were occupied trying to stop the two gangs who, last Tim knew, were now hostile and engaged in a large-scale fight. They couldn't come to their comrade's aid even if they wanted to.

Above him, the guard he'd slide-tackled fell, flailing with a yelp, and Tim rolled out of the way. The guard left standing fired off three bullets, two of which missed, and the only one that hit pierced the flesh of Tim's upper right arm. He grit his teeth at the pain, bringing the butt of the gun he held down hard on the fallen guard's throat, probably crushing the windpipe, and rolled to his feet. A bullet grazed his neck. Tim hissed, jerked the gun up and fired two bullets, each boring their own ways through the remaining guard's head. Wet gurgling reached Tim's ears and he glanced down.

The poor bastard was still alive.

With that thought, Tim turned and snuck away, making sure to shoot the security cameras he'd noted beforehand. There was no catwalk around the room for snipers to fire down from, and that meant no eyes to watch where he went.

Leaving screams and gunfire behind him, Tim slipped away like a fish leaping smoothly into a new body of water, leaving not a trace of where it went, only ripples left in its wake.

He was long gone by the time they got the situation under control.

. . . .

Bruce slammed his hand on the console of the Batcomputer, his other hand carding through his hair in frustration. Their John Doe escaped Blackgate three days ago and still nothing.

Nothing.

There was a likely criminal on the streets with information in his head far too valuable to be left untraced. It was both infuriating and stressful, yet, Bruce couldn't help but respect this young man. He was managing to stay off of Batman's radar.

He glanced over to a monitor displaying current news and watched as the feed changed. The audio was off, like always, but for this next story all Bruce needed to do was see.

Eyes widening, Bruce analyzed the information, moving the feed to the center monitor and leaning back in his chair.

The audio remained off as a video that appeared to be 720p or a few pixels above began playing. On it Bruce watched as a boy twenty-nine years of age dispatched four trained and armed guards, escaped his bonds, and took out the feed.

Burning baby blue eyes was the last image he saw.

Abruptly the reel changed, the reporter on-screen looking either alarmed or surprised as a new photo popped up beside her. The red bar below that rattled off the information she was saying read: JOHN DOE, AGE: 29, PREVIOUSLY WANTED: FOUND DEAD BENEATH WESTBURY BRIDGE.

Leaning forward in his seat, Bruce narrowed his eyes. The photo was grainy but showed a male with raven-colored hair wearing a red prison jumpsuit floating in the water, face-down and skin pale. Drowned.

A fog Bruce hadn't known about lifted from his head and he gasped, memories flooding back like water from a broken dam. Memories of the neighbor kid who had become a son. Memories of a third Robin after. Memories of a boy who needed to get more sleep and do less work.

That's no John doe.

How could he have done this? How could he have forgotten? Bruce sent his son to Blackgate.

And now Tim was dead because of it.

"What have I done?"


Open endings are fun :D