AN: Was this supposed to take as long as it did? No. Am I sorry? Sort of. BUT! I gots me a backstory for Tim at last...that I borrowed, in part, from Amelia B. Edwards' 'The Phantom Coach'. One more chapter, because Bruce needs to come and get his kids.
Warning for (hallucinated) animal death.
Shirokokuro: I am SO sorry this took so long. What a year...anyways, bonus sads: Gaslights!Catherine had lung cancer (opiates are expensive in 1888, and I can't have Jay getting sick/infecting the others with, like, tuberculosis). Jay's guilt surrounding her is indeed because he got sick and gave it to her...and then she died. Oops.
Guest: Thank you so much! :)
Tower of Babel: Aww, thank you! Glad you enjoyed them. :)
Tim knows precisely how to get back out of the maze. He's not far in, actually; if he stands on tip-toe, he can just see the entry arch in the distance. He's not lost, he's not going to be lost, and that's final.
But it frightens him. Gotham's a noisy city, but in here, that's all gone. It's only rain and rustling hedges. It's rather like, Tim thinks, being in a dragon's mouth. You can see the way out, but that doesn't mean you can use it.
He's not afraid of the dark. For all Jason's teasing, he's never been afraid of the dark. It's what's in the shadows that frightens him, what he can't see. Dick's the same way, a little, but he hides it well.
It's Gotham. You'd do well to be afraid of the dark.
He takes one of the shuriken (well...sort of, Bruce is...Bruce is eccentric and he makes his own, they're bat-shaped, Dick wants birds and Tim isn't sure how he feels about that) from his belt. There. That's better. Worst case, he can stab a hand if he's grabbed from above.
Being short comes with challenges.
The mud makes tracking them almost impossible, so as much as he hates to do it, he picks a path and just goes. Left is a good choice. Left is always a good choice.
If I were a serial killer on horseback, what would I do?
He rounds a corner, still puzzling over that one a little, and freezes seconds before his foot splashes in a puddle. The Grey Lady is there. She's not looking at him, and he thinks (hopes) that she hasn't noticed him. The horse's ears don't turn his way, and when she doesn't suddenly come after him, he moves his foot an inch to the right and sets it down near the puddle. If he catches her by surprise...but he needs to separate her from the horse first.
What would Batman do?
Stupid question. Batman would tackle her, because he's bigger than Tim and can.
The horse snorts and the Grey Lady leans forward to pat its neck. If she leaves, he could lose her. He needs...he needs...it's dark. She could lose him, if he's quick and careful, makes no mistakes.
(He's good at making no mistakes.)
"Hey!"
He doesn't wait, just turns and sprints back the way he came. Behind him, he can hear hoofbeats, and that's perfect, he just needs to make it to that turn there-
"Got you!"
His feet run in the air a second before his brain realizes that he's been plucked from the ground like a ripe carrot. Unfortunately for Scarecrow, Tim's been picked up by surprise before. Jason thinks he's hilarious. But just this once, Tim's grateful his brother is terrible, because his reflexes are honed; he stabs the hand with the shuriken and hits the ground running, dives around the corner and risks the thorns to wedge himself into a...sort of...alcove.
"That little brat-!"
Ha.
He doesn't get to feel smug for long, because both of them come this way. Scarecrow suddenly dismounts and oh, no, this isn't what Tim wanted to happen at all.
"Come out, come out, wherever you are!"
If he moves, he'll be seen. If Scarecrow turns the wrong way, he'll be seen. He holds his breath, swallowing against his pounding heart, and resolutely doesn't flinch when...something with too many legs...crawls over his hand.
Please…
SLICE!
He shudders, but the scythe isn't really near him. It's five feet down the hedge. Tim would prefer ten feet, but, well, beggars can't be choosers.
Scarecrow stills, head swiveling back and forth like a hunting dog's, and Tim, to his absolute horror, feels the urge to cough. He presses his tongue to the roof of his mouth and swallows again, but that only makes it worse.
"Damn."
Is he going? Is Tim really so lucky?
He is; Scarecrow gets back in the saddle and turns his horse, trots back the way he came. Tim sinks to his knees, wheezing and coughing as quietly as he possibly can. Well. That's not what he wanted to happen, but at least they didn't get him. He can adapt.
He moves to sit up, but the carriage (he wasn't in a carriage?) is swaying under him. Fine. He'll sit here. He'll just sit here, hands in his lap, and be the little angel his parents taught him to be. And then, later, once his uncle's on his way back to Gotham, he'll make his way to town-he knows he's not being 'sent to a friend'-and explain everything.
He jiggles the door handle out of curiosity, though, and finds it locked. Hm. He hadn't been aware…
Was it locked? How do I know what's...oh, no.
A flash of lightning turns the carriage into hedges and Tim tries to crawl towards one, at least hide again until this is over, but the floor pitches under his feet and he goes forward, nose crunching as he lands on it.
Ow…
"What was that?"
The hedges turn back to rotted wood (it wasn't rotted, it was new and clean and he'd thought he was going to a friend better suited for raising children-) and he bites down on a whine. He's okay. He's okay. Nothing's real, this is just...Scarecrow's…
He sees the broken, useless wall up ahead (to this day, he's not sure if this was planned or not) and screams out to the driver to stopstopSTOP!
The driver does not stop, and the coach pitches, teeters and jolts. The horses panic, thrashing in their harnesses, and the one closer to the edge makes an effort to pull them upright.
It doesn't, and the coach plummets.
The next minute's a blur, a blur of white and screaming horses (or Tim?) and then the rotting, broken door is wrenched off its hinges.
"There you are!" Long, sharp fingers grab his ankle and drag him, screaming and thrashing all the while, off the ground to dangle head-downwards. "Go ahead. Scream for me." He sees the shattered body of one of the horses, rib jutting through the skin and jaw half ripped off from the rocks. "SCREAM!"
The broken horse lifts its head. Tim faints.