Chapter Twenty-Three: Rule #23 – Leave a Note
Seventeen minutes and forty seven seconds.
Tim counts them all.
Starts counting the instant he lets go of Jason and allows him to step back into the ring to face down Shankar Tolovi – who's looking at him with the eager, fang drip gaze of a predator that enjoys the kill. Tim almost regrets Stray's effectiveness at being utterly alluring, because where Shankar had seen Jason as nothing more than a punk ass kid being put in the ring like a chew toy, now he's looking at Jason like a rival for a sexual conquest.
Ingrained machismo at it's best.
Seventeen minutes and forty seven seconds.
It's excruciating.
Gut wrenching, heart rending.
Tim can't feel his limbs, hasn't swallowed once since he let Jason go, doesn't think his lungs ever really recalled their lessons on the art of breathing. His heart is pounding, his ears are ringing, pins and needles plague his muscles.
Every single one of the blows that Jason and Shankar exchange would kill a normal person – and each one bloodies up their clothes enough to prove it.
Tim retreats inside his head, and counts.
Stray's façade stays bland and bored, but Tim can feel it starting to crack – knows that it's been more tenuous than could possibly be considered acceptable since the moment Jason suggested that he ought to finish the fight.
The way he defeats Shankar makes bile rise in Tim's throat – makes the flat line of Stray's unamused expression tip downward into an apparent frown.
He almost doesn't feel the slim hand that slips around the fist he has clenched tightly at his side as Alistair Blake steps up to take his turn in the ring.
The pause in the action allows Tim to look away briefly – to make startled eye contact with the piercing, inquisitive gaze of the slim girl who's appeared beside him. She's young – Tim can't tell how young, but possibly as young as him – and dressed like a real ninja, rather than the sexy imitation ninja he's trussed up as, in soft black drapes of fabric that are silent as she moves around him with a quiet but obvious and honed sense of strength that makes Tim fall still instinctively, quaking like a rabbit.
"Mask," she whispers, tapping two fingers at her cheek.
He blinks, baffled and still rather terrified – both of her and for Jason, compounding the feeling of helpless panic growing in his chest.
As Tim looks on, the girl very deliberately moves her hands to mime an action that's most closely reminiscent of a person using their thumbs to crack a pencil in two.
"Break."
A distant corner of his brain wonders vaguely at what her first language could be, since it clearly isn't English.
While that part of his brain is distracted, another part works to tranlaste her meaning from the English words and hand signs she's given him.
His mask is breaking, he interprets.
She seems to read his successful translation in his eyes and gives a nod confirming it.
Her hand darts out – so swift and sudden that Tim can't even recognize the motion well enough to flinch – her fingertips coming to rest with startling force against Tim's chest, right above where his heat was desperately trying to maintain any semblance of a rhythmed beat.
"Hurt."
This time he can't even nod, the ache in his throat is too overwhelming to make even a slight motion in his neck plausible.
She lets an odd little smile flicker into view.
Tim can't interpret it, at all.
The girl tips her head towards Jason and seems to struggle, eyes crinkling at the corners as her smile puckers slightly – frustration, Tim realizes. She can't find the English words.
"Okay," she manages eventually, adding, "Live."
She's trying to tell him that Jason's going to be okay, that he'll live through this.
A bright nod meets his unspoken realization, something like relief pulling at the corners of her mouth and eyes.
"Okay," the girl repeats, moving one hand back to poke at Tim's shaking fist.
She coaxes his fingers to uncurl and then slips her own hand inside his grip. She squeezes, hard enough to tell him that he can squeeze back as hard as he needs to without having to worry about hurting her.
Tim has never felt so grateful to anyone in his entire life – let alone a perfect stranger.
Holding her hand securely to ground him, Tim turns his gaze back to the arena in time to watch Jason crack a smile that baits Alistair Blake into making the first move.
And Tim begins counting again.
The second fight lasts nine minutes and sixteen seconds.
Alistair collapses after Jason lands a kick to his head – just drops like a stone.
It makes Tim sway on his feet as that bile and dizziness returns.
The mysterious girl's iron grip on his hand is all that keeps him standing.
Jason smirks at the crowd after Alistair falls. Raises both hands in victory and swings his smug smirk around to face Rwen directly.
And then he starts to list dramatically.
Tim is running to him as Jason's knees give out before he even processes it – his hand still caught inside the strange girl's grip. She's running with him, graciously following his lead.
It's not even a question that he wouldn't have been able to get free, wouldn't have been able to simply drag her along, if letting him go to Jason isn't what she wanted.
Jason is far too heavy for Tim to actually catch, but he can ease the way of the limp figure's fall to the ground. He hugs Jason close, petting at his face as he tries to reassure himself that he can feel Jason's heart still beating and his lungs still breathing.
And then the girl is there, hoisting Jason up by an arm thrown over her shoulder – dragging him out of the fray that's crowded in close and is watching Rwen's theatrics as he gives another speech of some sort.
Tim is torn between reflief that the girl is helping him get Jason away from here, and terror that she's going to take him away for her own reasons while Tim can't do anything to stop her getting away.
His fears are allayed as they hit the dank, but refreshingly cool air of the alley just beyond the Raven's fire escape. The girl deposits Jason gently against the damp brick of the alley wall, making Tim sag with relief and gratitude.
The few seconds of calm allows him to recover his wits enough to prevent him jumping like a startled deer when she turns around to face him with a sudden and aggressively blank demeanor. It's unnerving, for a moment, but Tim can see her eyes aren't trained on him.
Someone followed them out of the night club.
"Tim?"
It's Barbara Gordon.
Stray's full persona snaps back firmly into place. Play the story harder.
"Who?"
He turns around with a smirk and sets his hand on a cocked hip with fingers splayed.
Stares Batgirl down.
She frowns – too many pieces of incongruous data attempting to mesh together to make any of them fit in a way that makes any sense.
"Oh," Tim purrs, utterly as if he'd only just realized it. "You mean Mama Cat's sad little stray kitten with the camera. Yeah, he's not here. He interrupted a perfectly good movie night, though, whining about how it was his fault this idiot was somehow in mortal peril or whatnot."
Barbara's frown deepens. A beat passes before she asks, "Aren't you called 'Stray'?"
Stray gives a shrug. "Cat's affectionate nicknames run a theme without a tremendous array of variety. She tried 'Catlad' out on me, but uh, no self respecting feline would ever bear a collar like that for anyone."
"You're saying you have no personal investment in Robin's life?"
"Not really," Stray replies. Tim realizes that Barbara won't buy it for a second, that he'd let his true feelings show far to clearly durning the fight. Her suspicious stare bores into him for a long few seconds. Eventually, he huffs and rolls his head around his neck like his next words are some great admission, confessing, "I'm just squeamish. I'm a theif, not a thug. And Selina, for whatever reason, likes that kid – enough to help him out on movie night. I don't know him well enough to know why she bothers, but if Mama Cat wants to help, I figure might as well."
The suspicion doesn't abate immediately, but it does wane at least a little.
Enough to say she's doubting her own conclusions.
Letting his face brighten with a false spark of sudden remembrance, Tim slides his hand off his hip and down to a hidden pocket on his thigh – slips two fingers in to pull out the flash drive he has tucked away there.
"Camera kid gave me this," Stay announces. He makes sure Batgirl's eyes are tracking it before he whips it across the alley towards her – she catches it with the smooth motion of carefully honed instincts. "Said to pass it on to the first Bat I found. Dunno what it is or if it'll be any help with anything, but he was pretty worked up about me getting it to you."
Batgirl pockets the drive without inspecting it, without looking away from Stray.
His goggles do their job well enough to let him see that the pouch on her utility belt she puts it in is lined with something that's probably able to block any kind of signal that might be piggy backing off of the drive itself.
Batgirl's chest rises and falls in a slow, measured motion meant to breath away frustration. She's still glaring at him from beneath the cowl, gaze wounded and distrustful.
Saying anything else would make it seem like Stray's got a story to spin, like he feels the need to make up details to give it the illusion of reality. So Stray says nothing and stares back.
But then the mysterious girl he'd almost forgotten about taps lightly at his shoulder. He loosens up to turn and she grabs his shoulder, pulling him into the exact place she wants with enough inexorable force to make it clear that she didn't have to warn him. He ends up with his back to the wall and his peripheral gaze still on Batgirl, while his main attention is with hers on the dark shape in the shadows on the alley's other side.
It's only due to the plethora of filters on Stray's special goggles that he can see Batman before the vigilante is directly on top of them.
He suspects that the Bat was lingering further down the alley for a while before he'd stepped close enough to expose himself to the mysterious girl's super human perceptions.
"Who are you?"
Tim draws in breath to respond with a properly catty retort, but the girl stops him with a painful squeeze to his shoulder.
The Bat has already heard his explanation. Giving more will only allow the detective to poke holes in the story where the pieces don't quite line up.
And Batman isn't talking to him anyway.
Either he doesn't think Stray is a viable threat, or he trusts Selina Kyle enough to think that she wouldn't set a murderer on course to rescue Jason.
Regardless, he's talking to the girl.
"Shiva."
Tension drops hard over the quartet still standing within the alley.
"You're with the League of Assassins?"
The girl shakes her head.
"But Lady Shiva sent you?"
A nod.
"Why?"
"Watch," she says. Then she make a wide gesture at the Raven.
Batman's frown twitches. "Is Ra's al Ghul interested in the Tolovis?"
She shrugs.
There's a moment of impasse, of blatant stand off.
And then a loud yawn breaks the silence as Selina folds herself out of the shadows and herself wraps enticingly around one of Bruce's arms with one of hers flung over his shoulders.
"As… interesting as this game of mime school twenty questions seems to be, I think you have a few more pressing issues to deal with," Selina purrs, claws gripping the back of Bruce's neck to force him to look at her.
She gives a salacious grin, enjoying the way he allows her control, and then points his face at Jason's fallen figure. "The bird's in bad shape, Batsy boy," she says. "Help him before you start doubting the motives of someone who's helped save him."
Batman's glower deepens – a silent question doubting that the girl has helped save Jason in any way other than simply hauling him out of the crowd after Jason had saved himself.
Standing unflinchingly beside Stray, the girl nods.
She then pulls three vials out of the endless folds of her dark outfit – vials full of sparkling, iridescent substances. A black one like what Jason had injected with before the fight, a green one like what Rwen removed from the gun before loading Jason's dose, and a pinkish one, that bubbled and sparked with internal lightning like nothing Tim had ever seen.
"Cure."
The girl says – noting easily which vial everyone's attention is fixated on.
"It's a cure?"
She frowns, shakes her head in a slow stilted motion with her chin tipping side to side.
"Try."
"It's an attempt at creating a cure? An incomplete one?"
She nods again, firmly.
A sliver of the tension releases.
And then Jason groans on the ground and Bruce looks away – paternal instincts overriding the Bat's typical priorities and giving Stray and the mysterious girl an opening. Stray does make a move to run, but the girl beats him to it like a gunshot – picking him up bridal style and dashing off at a sprint that nearly makes Tim puke.
They get impossibly far before the girl slows and decides they're safe enough to set Stray down without looking over her shoulder for a tail.
A flickering smile ghosts across her face and she pats Tim on the head like he's six.
"Thanks, I think," Tim tells her. "But why help me?"
She shrugs, that smile flickering more strongly. "Nice."
"I'm nice?"
She nods.
Tim doesn't think that could possibly be motivation enough, doesn't think she has enough experience with him to even be able to make a reasonable determination of that fact to base her motivation on.
She laughs at his confusion – it's soft and catches awkwardly in her throat, but it seems like it's genuine and happy.
She pets his head again and flits off into the shadowy maze of Gotham dark corners.
Leaving Tim alone and rather starstruck.
He's too dazed to react in any substantial way for a moment and he stands there on the pedestrian corner simply listening to the sounds sirens and angry street traffic – Gotham's version of a calming lullaby.
It's not until there's an intelligible sound in his ear that Tim wakes to the moment.
"I've got you, Jaylad."
The com Jason slipped into his camera bag is still in his ear. And still active.
Tim can hear Batman – Bruce, rather, the man beneath the cowl – speaking to Jason in soft, soothing tones as they wait for the Batmobile to arrive and ferry them quickly back to the Cave for Alfred to check Jason over. Tim can't tell if the others are still there, but he thinks it's likely. Even if they aren't right there, Batgirl and Nightwing are likely coordinating to wrap up whatever needs to be done to oversee the Tolovis' immediate emigration with the few members of the Teen Titans and the Justice League who'd shown up to support the Bats.
Diana, Clark, Kori, and Wally will likely stick around until morning – waiting to fully verify that the Tolovis and GHOST and everything involved with them has definitely vacated the Gotham city limits. Bruce would likely appreciate having them to manage that aspect while he's distracted with caring for Jason, even if he'd never say it aloud.
Selina, Pam, and Harley probably disappeared around the time that Tim and the girl ran off – the three of them disappearing into the Gotham underbelly with a reasonable confidence that they could make it away without any nosy capes tailing them.
The mysterious girl is definitely long gone.
No one would be able to find her again unless she decided to be found, of that, Tim is beyond certain. She may very well have been watching them since the case first got started and they would have absolutely no way to know about it.
The only other person in Tim's framework of concern is Spoiler.
Stephanie is likely still inside the Batcave, being checked over by Alfred before she gets deposited safely into her bed – likely well before her mother would ever be able to notice her absence. Tim needs to get her a new phone to replace the one he fried, but that can wait until the stores open in morning. He's got all the data backed up after all, and if he takes his time with it he can add a few secure contacts to her listings – himself and Batgirl, for starters.
Other than that, the only person who needs to be handled is Tim, himself.
He's a distraction for the Bats – a dangerous one.
As much as he has loved the feeling of being involved and mildly helpful, nothing he's done to aid this case is enough to counteract the damage he caused. He almost got Jason killed.
It's entirely Tim's fault that Jason's hurt right now – that he's high right now.
With his history, with his mother's history, that is just… horrific.
And it's Tim's fault.
Tim has to back off.
He has to.
Has to make things go back to the way they were before he stupidly got himself involved.
The thought makes his lungs ache – and causes some pitifully childish moisture to prickle at his eyes and nose – but Tim pushes down the selfish reluctance to let go of the tentative, nebulous friendship he's sorta developing with Jason.
It's better for Jason if they stop interacting.
It's better for Gotham, for everyone.
Tim knows this, and despite the irrational protest of his emotions, he would rather keep Jason safe than selfishly enjoy his company.
Resigned, Tim sighs and forces his feet to start carrying him back home.
He makes it to the donut shop where he left his pack before running off idiotically after Spoiler and collects the bike and gear he left there. The rest of the trip home passes far more quickly now that he has the aid of wheels and he makes it to his front door just as the sky starts to edge towards blue from the black of true night.
Sunrise is still about an hour off as Tim peels out of Stray's cat suit and begins tucking the various pieces away in disparate little hidey holes he's created inside his bedroom – initially established to hide the fruits of his night time photography escapades.
He forces himself to take a quick hot shower before he collapses into bed.
Tim lets himself sleep in until seven.
He drinks his coffee as he gets ready, fills his usual thermos, and then bikes out towards school like it was nothing more than an average Thursday.
He detours to a tech shop, instead of going in to sit through homeroom in the library as he usually would, and uses the extra forty minutes in his morning that gives him to purchase a new phone for Stephanie Brown – one that looks the same as her old one, and fits perfectly into the same bright eggplant case, but is actually a substantially better model.
Setting the phone up, he improves the device further with some beefed up security features and then syncs it to the copy he made of her previous device.
He adds Robin's contact number, and Batgirl's, and links to the Bat/GCPD hotlines – the ones that were text-friendly because she knows perfectly well that they have hotlines, but has always elected to send emails and such instead of calling. Tim isn't sure if it was a dislike of phones in general or an almost admirable attempt to protect her identity enacted with flawed understanding of how digital back tracing functions, but still, she clearly prefers to text and there are hotlines, albeit lesser known and poorly publicized ones, set up to accommodate that.
After a long moment of debate, Tim adds his own contact number as well.
Labels himself 'Kiddo'.
Phone set up and ready for its owner, Tim walks next door to the post office.
The return address he writes down for his parcel is that of the donut shop where he and Spoiler occasionally met up. He pays for same day delivery and for a verification signature to be required at the door – knowing that Mrs Crystal Brown would be away working at her evening job and that, on Thursdays, Stehapnie has a babysitting gig for the entire floor of the apartment building that she lived in… which meant she would both be home and able to accept the delivery, and yet also be far to busy to open it immediately.
Which would give him a time buffer, at least, and likely keep her so distracted that she might forget to yell at him about having destroyed her previous phone to begin with altogether.
That handled, Tim heads to school.
He sits through his classes, absent and subdued.
When the school day ends, Tim is reluctant to go home.
Home is… too close.
Too close to all his Bat paraphernalia – stuff that he should probably get rid of in the near future, to force him to quit this dangerous obsession he has cold turkey.
Too close to Wayne Manor – the Cave below which is where Jason is likely still confined and slowly recovering. (Tim refuses to think about any possible reality in which Jason is not currently and proactively recovering, any reality in which Tim's stupidity did anything more to hurt him than to force him to the sidelines for a couple of days, two weeks at most).
And it's too close to Jason, to places where Tim interacted with Jason… And Tim can't, just yet; can't bear to be so close to the places where he spent time with a friend while knowing that he shouldn't ever see that friend again.
So, Tim does not go home.
He goes to the Coventry Gardens branch of the Gotham Metropolitan Library.
He calls Mrs. Simz to tell her that he'll be working on a group project at the school's library for most of the afternoon and evening. Telling her that this time he will be coming home, but that she doesn't need to worry about leaving food for him – he and his phantom group of classmates are supposedly ordering pizza as they speak.
Tim assures her that yes, he has his key, and yes, he won't stay up too late, and yes, he knows all the rules and how to lock all the doors and arm the alarm before bed.
Her farewell is an affectionate little hum about how proud she is that he's finally putting in the effort to make friends. Tim's not quite sure why the sentiment stings so much.
When he hangs up, Tim looks around himself at his surroundings, slightly lost.
Since he doesn't actually have a school project to work on, Tim isn't entirely sure what he wants to do here… but even staring at a wall here is better than going home.
He fumbles and fusses for a while trying to think of things to do, ways to relax, reasons this was not an entirely ridiculous idea… but eventually he finds a quiet table on the fourth floor and pulls his homework out of his back pack. He doesn't really have to start it now – he hasn't received any truly difficult assignments and none of the busy work is due until Monday – but at least it's something mildly productive to do.
Tim stays until nine.
Takes his time on the bike ride home.
Fixes himself a peanut butter sandwich to eat for dinner.
Spends an obnoxiously long time in the shower.
Struggles to fall asleep.
Wakes up groggy, irritable, and somehow lonlier after just a day spent mostly alone than he felt after weeks without seeing his parents.
Even before he'd decided to pull back from bothering the Bats, Jason only ever showed up in his life a couple times a week. For a measley few hours at a stretch. It was only in this last disastrous week that he'd seen Jason for a large chunk of time every day – and yet so quickly, Tim had gotten spoiled by the company.
Steeling himself against the ridiculousness of his own psyche, Tim makes his coffee and bikes to school. Sits through the same stupid classes he did yesterday.
Dislikes every second of the school day.
Realizes that at least being stuck in school on Friday is better than being stuck at home alone unable to find anything to do with himself but worry about Jason.
Tim had forced himself not to search his information feeds for hints of how Jason was doing – not that he expected to be able to find anything, Batman was too careful to let anything slip through to the internet. Since Jason hadn't been recognized by anyone as one of the Waynes, there was no reason for mainstream media to have picked up the story.
And since the only name the baddies had called him by was 'Robin' Batman would be very thorough in keeping a lid on any hint of a story how Robin had been drugged beat bloody under Batman's watch.
An irrational flare of fury rises up in Tim as he dwells on that thought while the school day comes to a close. He nurses the anger as he walks to the library.
He's never been angry at Batman before.
Tim has understood that Batman's choices were not always the best options, particularly the decisions he made regarding the children in his care. That Batman's choices were made with a certain… lack of regard or understanding of how the children would see things, and also made with a focus on the Crusade… decisions primarily made as Batman rather than as Bruce could hardly be expected to pan out well for the two kids who could hardly tell that the separation between man and mask was a solid, almost physical wall between aspects of his psyche.
Usually, Tim could step back and see Batman's reasoning. He could understand the practical justifications, however unfatherly, and he could forgive Bruce for falling back on cold logic when parental warmth seemed only to complicate matters.
But in this case, Tim is… resistant to the idea of excusing things.
Batman had allowed Jason to be drugged… had given asent for him to participate in an illegal underground fight, while high as a kite on an unknown substance that has killed several dozen people in the last few weeks.
Tim blames Batman for that, is angry at Bruce for it.
Even if it was mostly Tim's own fault, and even if it was the best course for getting rid of the Tolovis and their poison for good – which Tim is still doubtful of, seeing as he has little faith in the valid promise of a gangster drug lord's words, Lasso of Truth notwithstanding.
Batman had still allowed it.
The decision meant that there hadn't been an all out brawl that would've likely killed several of the capes and bystanders alike, and for avoiding that, Tim has to be somewhat grateful, but still.
He is capable of being glad and grateful that his stupidity had only gotten one Bat hurt while simultanteously being angry at Batman for allowing that much, he was emotionally mature enough to manage that much.
Forgiveness is harder.
It would probably be easier if he knew for certain that Jason is safe and recovering well.
Batman is one of Tim's heroes, and eventually, Tim will probably forgive him, but for now, the anger feels good – better than the emptiness and worry.
Especially, as he makes it to the table he spent his afternoon at yesterday and slumps into the chair while realizing that he finished all of his homework yesterday.
He has nothing to do.
Nothing to distract him from the ache of loneliness and worry.
Tim pulls out a notebook and absently begins to doodle – just to make it seem like he had a reason to actually be here in case any librarians wandered up to check on things.
He winds up drawing the Robin uniform, obviously, and because his stupid little brain is fixated on keeping Jason safer because it was his fault Jason got hurt this time, he winds up drawing it was a few alterations – sketching out potential changes that could help Jason avoid his most frequent low key injuries like scrapes and twisted ankles.
Like, somehow, he can be excused for nearly getting Jason killed if he manages to find a way to keep Jason's knees from getting banged up in a tumble.
It's ridiculous.
It's not like Tim will ever even be able to give these designs to Jason.
He's backing off. He promised himself that he would.
And yet, it is something to do…
Tim latches on to that part of it and finds himself unable to force his brain to think of anything else he could do – something that could be excused as less straightforwardly ridiculous and possibly only mildly masochistic… instead of… this...
But the sketches are still something to do instead of simply wallowing.
Tim's not a great artist, but he's not terrible.
The sketches aren't Louvre worthy, but they are better than average.
A Drake could not be average at anything.
His mother insisted on art classes just as vehemently as his father insisted on music lessons. As a result he is now capable of not-quite humiliating himself at painting, drawing, sculpting, violin, piano, and harp. He has only ever voluntarily stuck with one activity from any of the lessons his parents had arranged for – photography.
Which he would likely have to give up for good now…
Though… maybe he could force himself to take pictures of other things…
His habit had started because of the Bats, but he did come to genuinely like photography for it's own sake. He could probably keep that habbit… even if it might be better to quit it cold.
That's a question for another day, however.
On this one, Tim simply stays at the library until nine, like he did yesterday, and then bikes home at a leisurely pace. It's late enough for the Bats to be readying, but unlikely that they'll be out and about yet – and with Jason sidelined… they'll likely be delaying their patrol slightly to ensure that he's secure and resting, and content with that decision.
Again, when Tim gets home, he fixes a quick dinner – pleased again at the fact that he can eat the same thing over and over without growing unbearably tired of it like some people complained about. Food is food to Tim, and as long as it keeps him alive and stays in his stomach without a fight, it's good food and that's good enough for Tim.
Another obnoxiously long shower.
Another mostly restless night.
Saturday hits hard.
Tim wakes up late, only getting downstairs at eight.
After waffling a while as he drinks his first cup of coffee, Tim gets dressed and bikes down the East Side to Gotham's museum district.
He doesn't know where he's going exactly, but he knows he's not going to the library.
Spending all day in the library, again, would drive him mad, especially if all he winds up working on turns out to be more sketches of an updated Robin uniform.
Tim knows the museum district edges dangerously close to Old Gotham – to where the Gordons live and to where Batgirl / Barbara Gordon spends most of her daylight hours – but Tim keeps carefully to the outskirts.
He needs the pleasant, informational distractions of a museum.
Without a clear destination in mind, Tim ends up in the Natural History Museum.
After trailing around at random, attention drifting absently off the exhibits without really catching on any of the information, Tim finds himself seated in a cool, dim corner of the Hall of Minerals. He's not in the main area of the rock room, not anywhere near the most famous stones, or any of the precious or even semi-precious gems. He's way off the main galleries, well away from the weekend traffic, near the azurite and smoky quartz.
There's a corner that has bright colors, where reds and greens and yellows are all right next to each other, but Tim actively avoided that area – he's failed to avoid the slide of blue-greens he thought was safe until an informational sign helped him remember that the cheerfully mottled color is colloquially referred to as 'robins egg blue'.
Tim spends a while sitting there, just sort of frowning at the little green sign and its neatly serif-ed white lettering – somehow both warm and professional – running the words over in his head with a few quips about the unfairness of how he can consciously avoid the worst reminders of why he has nothing to do, while falling into a deeper, subconscious trap.
It's ridiculous.
Ridiculous in general and ridiculous of him.
He's basically pining after Robin, after Jason.
There's some reason behind it, obviously. After all, it wasn't just Robin that stepped in to save Tim from GHOST and the Tolovis – it was Jason.
Jason had risked his secret identity, he risked his life and sanity… to save Tim from his own stupid, thoughtless, idiotic mistake. He'd called Tim his friend, even when he was utterly lost in the thrall of the drug – had willingly taken the drug to start with and then engaged in that horrifically brutal bought of illegal fisticuffs specifically to keep a promise he made largely on Tim's behalf. It was an agreement that had likely saved Gotham as well, but getting Tim out of the crosshairs of Rwen Tolovi had been the immediate catalyst.
Robin had been Tim's hero for years at this point…
For almost half of Tim's entire life – more than half of his life in terms of the years he could actually remember – Robin had been at the center of his focus.
And now that Jason had saved him – had stepped in to sacrifice himself twice now – and done so with such brave selflessness, it would be impossible for Tim to avoid developing some hint of hero-worship for Jason as a person… to avoid developing at least a little… crush on him.
Tim's not quite in the throes of puberty yet, but the hormones are still there, developing.
It's not entirely his fault he's being a bit ridiculous.
Some of it's the chaos of biology.
And with that awareness coming to the forefront, Tim is certain that he can tamp this idiocy down and back off like he means to – so he can keep the Bats focused on saving Gotham and protecting each other. He's a distraction to them, a dangerous one, and with this stupid twist of physiological pining in him making him stupid and desperate, he won't be anything but a hazardous menace to their over all well-being.
It may be a few sad, uncomfortable years, but the hormones will settle.
The crush will pass.
The world will go on as if nothing had happened anyway, so this little corner of it should be able to move on quickly enough.
It's fine.
Tim's fine.
He's almost entirely resolved to that now, settled with acceptance of the inevitable conclusion he's reached about how his strange and ridiculous feelings will fade and that they aren't any kind of reason to reconsider his plan of backing off.
Tim takes a deep, soothing breath to settle the last of his worries.
He'll let it go for today.
Maybe tomorrow he'll spend some time brainstorming ways to support the Crusade from afar – more like Commissioner Gordon does… or something similar, because Tim's not really police officer material… but still….
There's got to be something he can do to support his heroes without getting so directly involved that he becomes a worse distraction…
But that's a hard question.
One that needs to wait to be pondered until tomorrow.
He sets the question aside and stays seated for a while longer, staring at the blue-green rocks with not peace exactly… but almost an adequate kind of satisfaction.
Before he manages to raise the resolve to leave – to head back home and figure out something else to do with his new found oodles of free time – someone sits down on the far end of the bench from him and sighs.
Sighs in that way people do when they're specifically requesting attention.
Tim usually wouldn't care, usually couldn't be bothered, but some niggle buried way deep in his subconsciousness bothers him – a niggle which he retrospectively comes to see as recognition – and it bothers him enough to make him look.
At Barbara Gordon.
Tim blinks, stunned.
And then he freezes up with terror.
Something must have happened to Jason.
Words fail him utterly as his lungs clench and his throat swells.
He can't ask what happened – probably because his body already knows that his psyche won't be able to handle the answer.
Barbara doesn't make him wait long.
Thankfully, cuts right to the heart of the matter.
"Jason is going to be fine," she promises.
Tim doesn't trust that he could possibly have heard her right.
She can tell what he's thinking without even looking in his direction.
Keeping her gaze on the rocks beyond the glass in front of them, Barbara elaborates, "It was scary for a while there. By the time we got him home, he was in a coma. We used the samples collected from the Tolovi labs to fabricate a kind of cure to purge the drug from Jason's system. We can't tell if it's entirely gone or just too thoroughly enmeshed for us to detect, but it seems like it's worked. He woke up from the coma this morning. He'll be on strict bed rest for the next two weeks, but full recovery. He's going to be alright, Tim. He is."
Part of the tight knot behind Tim's lungs loosens.
It's enough to let him look away from Barbara.
He stares at something just beyond his knees instead.
Sits silently for a while tyring to digest that information – to accept that he hadn't really believed that Jason would be okay until just now.
Tim expected Barbara, having now delivered her message about Jason's recovery, to get up and slip back into her regular life, but she doesn't seem inclined to move. She's sitting quietly on the far end of the bench from him – giving him enough room to breathe easy, but the benches aren't so long that he can't still feel her sitting there beside him.
She doesn't speak again until he peeks up quizzically.
"You've been trying to avoid us," she comments.
Tim frowns.
No, he hasn't. He's had school. And homework.
And outside of that, he hasn't been avoiding them exactly, he's just been staying out of their way – preventing himself from butting in where he can't possibly be welcome.
Barbara sighs again, lets her gaze slide slightly to the side – still not looking at him, but letting herself look at his reflection in the glass.
"I was hoping that you would come talk to me on your own," she admits, adding, "And when I tracked you heading towards Old Gotham today, I was optimistic. Relieved."
Tim's eyes find that spot beyond his knees again.
"But you didn't," Barbara states, obviously sour – not in any way accusing, but certainly in a tone laced with a more than mild disappointment. Chastisement.
Tim doesn't quite manage to stop his flinch.
With a huff Tim doesn't understand, Barbara admits, "Jason probably understands it better than I do… this sort of 'go off alone to process things' response, but I do get it. Kinda. I mean, a lot happened over the last week. It's been overwhelming for all of us."
Tim ducks a tiny nod of agreement.
Overwhelming is a good word for it.
"You can talk to us, Tim," she tells him. "I mean it. You can talk to us, any of us – at any time, and about any thing. I know you know how to get in touch."
He does know.
And he understands what she's saying, kind of.
But he also understands that she's wrong.
Barbara wants him to come to the Bats, but she can't see how his involvement with them keeps putting them in danger – either that, or far more likely she, like any good Bat, is just ignoring the danger for the sake of keeping Gotham safe.
Even if the only part of Gotham this protects is one stupid little kid.
"I won't force it on you," Barbara promises, with a caveat of, "But you have to know that you can come to us…"
She hesitates, and Tim can feel her looking at him like she hopes he might speak up about something specific here and now.
Tim draws a blank and waits until she goes on.
"You've been kidnapped twice now because you're getting close to us," she says and Tim flinches violently at the reminder even though it's not an accusation – to him, it feels like one, because he knows it should be. "But it's not your fault, you know."
Tim vehemently disagrees, but keeps silent.
"Dick's been kidnapped so many times… while he was Robin the Rogues sometimes referred to him as the Boy Hostage instead of the Boy Wonder," she mentioned, the curl of a slight smile making it into her reflective tone. "He did it to himself. You just got unlucky."
No.
Tim had gotten stupid. Gotten sloppy.
Getting kidnapped twice already when he should have been smart enough to keep himself from even becoming a target.
There wasn't any luck involved with it.
Barbara doesn't press it further.
She looks away from him, adopting a very similar posture to Tim as she looks beyond her knees with a tangible uncertainty radiating from her as she collects her thoughts.
"The com that Jason used to talk to you, used to find you, has GPS," Barbara admits slowly, her voice low and careful.
Tim peeks up, confused as to where this might be going, and sees that Barbara is pulled tight around herself – anxious, and maybe slightly sad.
"The com was still in your ear when you hacked the Batmobile, and when you went to get Selina… and when Stray crashed the fight night party at the Raven…"
Tim's blood runs ice cold and he blanks out his expression as his posture stiffens.
He shouldn't do that, he knows, but he doesn't have a mask for this – for being blindsided without an established story to push into place ready to smoothe things out.
He doesn't have a contingency for this…
Because this… This…
This has never happened to him before.
He's never been ousted before.
And he's never panicked before… panicked in a way that made him cling to Jason's voice instead of even remembering that there was a means of doing the smart thing – that he could protect his secret, and Jason's as well, by ditching the com altogether long before he had even made it to Selina's place…
Tim kind of hates himself in that moment for overlooking it.
He never would have recognized that mistake in the glare of so many others he'd made this week without Barbara pointing it out to him here.
"I deleted it," Barbara says quietly, voice booming in the hush – sounding loud even over the top of the pound of Tim's heartbeat. "The GPS data, and all the back ups – I deleted it. For anyone who might think to look, it seems like you went straight to collect your bike before going home immediately after you went to ask Selina for help. No one else has connected any dots, and they likely won't ever manage it… Not without help. I won't force you to tell the others, but I think it might be good if you did. You really should consider it."
Out of the question.
Tim can't move, can't breathe – is pretty sure his heart's stopped beating.
He can't tell if he's angry or scared, or just flat out in pain.
The idea of having to tell the other Bats how reckless and overly involved he's been… it's almost enough to make him want to just leave the city for a while – to hide away somewhere far enough removed that Gotham's Bats still seem like nothing more than scary stories.
But before he leaves, he has to know if there's any possibility that he might be able to eventually come back.
"D-does J-Jas –" Tim's own strangled voice coming from his started him to silence. It's at least a bit more intelligible when he starts again, "Does Jason… remember anything?"
"No," Barbara tells him. "Jason says he can't remember anything, and even Bruce is actually convinced he isn't lying – which, knowing Bruce and Jason, is a rare enough circumstance to mean he's probably being honest about it all."
That makes Tim relax somewhat.
It was one thing to be ridiculous and pine after a hero he'd sent into danger… it was quite another to have attempted his rescue, kissed him inappropriately, failed to save him, and then have the hero in question remember it all enough to realize what had happened.
Even if Jason didn't remember first hand, someone would tell him what Stray did.
So Tim could never ever tell anyone that he was Stray – or it would eventually get back to Jason. It was inevitable that information like that would find the worst possible person to know of it at some eventuality…
But only the three Rogues Tim was with at the time and Batgirl herself know, and it's unbearably unlikely that they'll ever tell… so that part of the puzzle is the only safe piece in it.
Tim would keep it that way and they could all move on eventually.
Tim had pushed the kiss that Stray had forced on Jason out of his mind this long – so well that he'd nearly actually forgotten about the awfulness of it, of what he'd done while Jason wasn't in his right mind to protest – he could keep pushing it aside with the rest of his stupid little crush until it went away.
Same basic plan as before.
Just with a bit more space between him and Gotham for a while.
Tim does have a spring break coming up at school.
He could fabricate an invitation to join his parents on their dig or something, get out of the country for a while. Just a little while. Come back after the worst has died down and he can push all his ridiculous feelings aside so he can help in a legitimate, non-distracting way.
It'll be fine.
Or not.
Because frack.
Tim had kissed Jason Todd.
And had somehow managed not to think about it since then…
Probably because he was too wrapped up in worry that Jason wouldn't be alright.
But still. Tim kissed him.
Without invitation.
Without consent.
Without even knowing what the fack he was doing at the time…
Tim probably needs to spend a month on an uninhabited desert island to make himself actually process through that one.
He certainly isn't going to do it here and now, not with Barbara sitting right beside him.
Barbara, whom he'd forgotten is sitting right beside him…
The thought startles him – enough to make him look in her direction.
She's looking at his reflection in the display glass again.
This funny little expression on her face that Tim can't navigate… It's sympathetic, but also this strange mix of amused and sad that Tim wants to call nostalgia, but isn't really confident enough in the assessment to do so.
He freezes up, deeply concerned about the consequences of whatever it is she's thinking.
A small smile breaks at the corners of her mouth.
"You're part of the team, baby bird," she tells him, "Whether you believe it or not, you're part of the team and we want you to be able to come to us with anything."
Tim gives a stilted nod – knowing that it's the expected response and therefore being unable to stop himself from giving it even though he also knows that Barbara won't believe it.
"The big bad Bat's gonna want to talk to you soon about all of this, soon," Barbara warns with a resigned exhale as she looks away from him. "He's a bit distracted with keeping Jason home. Technically, I'm officially interrogating you for him, now."
Tim stiffens, going so rigid he nearly falls off the bench.
If Barbara's recording them, or even just patching audio through to the Cave…
But she wouldn't do that… would she?
She doesn't directly address his fears, but soothes them by saying, "I'm gonna conclude that you met Selina because you're a fan of us and took a few ill-advised trips into Gotham after dark to find us, that she gave you a talking to for it and a way to contact her in case you needed help. When Jason was taken hostage, you went to ask her to back the Bats up. Then you went home and started trying to avoid us…So here we are."
Tim gives another stitled, half nod.
After a long pause – long enough that Tim can feel it starting to prickle into awkward territory – Barbara turns to face him more completely.
"You don't have to come running to join the Family with your bags packed and ready to go," Barbara says, seemingly out of the blue. "But don't just go disappearing on us like we don't matter to you. We get worried about you, Tim, because you matter to us. We don't want to force anything on you, but we want to make sure you're okay."
" 'm fine," Tim promises, his voice startled out of him immediately. "It's fine. I'll be fine."
"You don't have to be fine, baby bird, it's okay," Barbara tells him softly.
Tim shakes his head and flashes a weak smile. " 'm fine."
Barbara doesn't sigh.
She doesn't let what she's thinking show up on her face.
And she doesn't try to hug him or anything ridiculous like that.
She simply waits until the moment passes.
"I'll let you go back to your afternoon, I guess," Barbara tells him eventually.
As she hauls herself up to her feet, she adds, "Don't disappear on us, Tim, okay? You don't have to let us help you or anything, but please don't disappear."
Tim doesn't know how to respond to that.
He doesn't figure out an answer even long after Barbara leaves him alone in the rock room – even after he sits there for over an hour after she's gone.
When Tim heads home, he's still resolved to get out of the country for a while – but as per Barbara's clear request, he decides not to leave immediately.
He'll give it a week – he can survive a week of this boredom and despondency, while Jason's stuck on bed rest… can use that time to pretend, more convincingly, that he's perfectly unruffled – and after that, he'll spend a week in Europe or something.
A little time, a little distance…
Everything will settle down and Tim will be able to back off smoothely.
Once far enough from the heart of the matter, he could readdress the idea of helping the Crusade from afar. Only after he's less emotionally compromised by it all, of course.
He's a Drake, after all, and if it has to be done, he can make it work.