A/N - Trigger warning - Suicidal thoughts.

**Suicide is the most heartbreaking ending possible to a life, for both you and your loved ones. I have been suicidal many a time and checked myself into hospitals and I am here, happy and whole on the other side, to tell about it. I also lost a dearly loved friend to suicide years later and the pain from that is never-ending.

If you are depressed or feeling suicidal, please know that the feelings that you think will never change will, in fact, pass one day, especially with proper medication and therapy. It absolutely gets better and you can recover and feel happy and motivated to live again.

If you are currently suicidal and a danger to yourself, please call 911 in the US and/or check yourself into your nearest emergency room if you are capable of getting there safely.

The National Suicide Prevention Lifeline (USA) at 1-800-273-8255 provides 24/7, free and confidential support for people in distress, prevention and crisis resources for you or your loved ones, and best practices for professionals.

The Trevor Project is the leading national organization providing crisis intervention and suicide prevention services to lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer & questioning (LGBTQ) young people under 25. Our trained counselors are here to support you 24/7. If you are a young person in crisis, feeling suicidal, or in need of a safe and judgment-free place to talk, call the TrevorLifeline now (USA) at 1-866-488-7386.

Opencounseling dot com slash suicide-hotlines has International Suicide Hotline numbers.

Chapter 2

"Bruce?" Tim said in confusion.

Why was Bruce calling him at all? Tim had quit as Robin after his dad had found out what he was up to and then threatened Bruce's life before yanking Tim out of Gotham and away to Metropolis.

"Tim…" Bruce rasped out, his voice sounding heavy and jagged.

Tim glanced around the crowded courtyard where he and his equally elite private school classmates were eating lunch. He shuffled over a little closer to a bare patch of wall.

"Is everything ok?" Tim asked his former mentor uncertainly.

Was… was that a sob? Why would Bruce be crying? ...Alfred, maybe? Oh, no.

A knot formed in Tim's stomach and he shivered, unexpectedly cold despite the sunshine.

"Steph's dead," Bruce said.

Tim had never gone deep-sea diving.

He preferred skateboarding and land sports, like gymnastics, and despite, or because of, his parents' former busy travel schedules, vacations with their only child weren't a priority.

The few times they had taken Timmy with them on a special trip had been to lavish cities like Paris or Rome, where his mom could parade in her elegant dresses and pearls and wear her big hats and fancy sunglasses and little white gloves so she'd look like Audrey Hepburn in all of their photos, her hair neatly tucked up with nary a flyaway and her lipsticked smile giving just the right amount of stretch in each shot to convey wonder and grateful appreciation (but never crass amazement) for the moment that they were privileged to experience, along with an appropriately moderate amount of affection for her son, whose shoulder her gloved hand was carefully perched on in each photo that Tim would have shot a thousand times better than his dad, but his mom always wanted photos with her and Tim, and Tim had never appreciated that at the time, he'd been more concerned with coaching his dad on how to use his camera and sometimes Tim had even resented his mom for insisting on Christmas-letter-worthy poses for each. and every. photo. instead of just letting them look natural, or take selfies with all three of them, but now that she was dead, Tim realized that her efforts were her way of showing Tim that she loved him and making sure he would have memories of her and of them together but they had never once, in their very few vacations as a family, ever even considered going deep-sea diving.

It was supposed to be very silent under the sea, Tim had always heard. And dark. Quite dark.

He'd swum in swimming pools of course, from time to time in elementary school at classmates' birthday parties hosted at their lavish, private, and rarely used backyard pools that even the smallest child in attendance knew far better than to pee in as they bobbed in the water and floated on inner tubes and didn't splash too much so that the daiquiri-plied grown-ups in the lounge chairs wouldn't get wet as their heirs swam among the artful little waterfalls and rock borders and colored lights that each rich person's pool inevitably had, much to the detriment of the children's playtime, because the rocks were quite sharp if one banged into them and they could puncture the pool floats and the hoses for the waterfall features could be knocked off kilter and then the parents who owned the pool would get cross and sometimes even yell if they'd made it up to three or four daiquiris by that point, even though obviously the pool boy (or girl or woman or man) was more than capable of righting the waterfall so that it would flow down into the water again instead of spraying the bougainvilleas and palm trees which were not supposed to get chlorinated water, thank you very much, and that kind of swimming wasn't very much fun and maybe that was why Tim wasn't inclined to go deep-sea diving.

Deep enough down, you couldn't hear anything at all from the surface anymore, Tim remembered learning. How far down was it, though? A few hundred feet? Less than that? At those interminable birthday parties, when Tim had bothered to dunk his head under the water, he could still hear the fake tinkling laughter of the adults and the steady bass background of Kid Bopz and it wasn't silent at all.

It was like being in a tunnel maybe, with the sound coming from very far away and kind of muted, but not muffled enough so that Tim couldn't hear Tommy Sander's dad yelling at Harry Johnston about the waterfall feature.

Deep-sea diving would probably be better than a swimming pool, Tim idly decided, as he listened to the distant sounds of Bruce saying words like Black Mask and gang wars and other words, worse words, words that Tim really would have preferred not to hear, and he wouldn't have heard them at all if he'd been down deeper.

Maybe he could submerge himself in the quiet if he held his breath for long enough. That's what some deep-sea divers did, right? The indigenous pearl divers, he thought, of some island or another. They didn't use oxygen tanks. They just held their breath and went down.

He could do that. All he had to do was stop breathing. And if Tim closed his eyes, it was almost like being underwater, except for the sunlight filtering through his eyelids. It was much too bright at the moment. So maybe if he - yes, that was better. The heels of his hands over his eyes. It was so much darker now. And the sound of Bruce's voice had disappeared.

There.

Just like being in the deep sea.

Tim was dragged to shore by two hands gripping his upper arms and a warm breath panting across his face.

"Tim?"

Well, that was a worried voice. They shouldn't be worried, though. Tim was fine. He was swimming underwater just like the pearl divers and he'd be fine. He didn't need oxygen. He'd tell them so in just a minute.

"Tim!"

The voice was more urgent now and sounded a little scared. It was a nice voice, washing over Tim like warm waves in Hawaii. The water was supposed to be warm in Hawaii, wasn't it? Or was that the Caribbean? Or maybe both? It didn't actually matter, Tim guessed, because he wasn't going to go to some silly island anyway and especially not to swim.

He hated swimming.

"Tim, come on. Open your eyes, buddy."

A hand was gently but firmly pulling one of Tim's blinders away and he growled in frustration at the sudden sunlight and the way that his eye automatically opened to it like a stupid sunflower or something.

Sunflowers followed the sun. Tim had taken pictures of them last year in Alfred's garden; he'd set his tripod up and snapped shots every fifteen minutes from dawn 'til dusk, all day long, and Alfred had brought him sandwiches and iced tea and cookies and even sat with him sometimes chatting about nothing important while Tim completed his photo project.

Tim wasn't a sunflower and he didn't want to see the sun. But what he saw were blue eyes blinking back at him, filled with fear and concern, and they were very pretty eyes so it wasn't such a bad view, actually. Huh.

"Tim," the anxious voice was saying again and another hand was forcing Tim's other eye out into the light and Tim noticed that the voice belonged to the eyes and the eyes were so pretty that Tim decided to listen.

"Huh?" he said.

"What happened?" Conner asked, his gorgeous blue eyes - they were gorgeous, not pretty, Tim realized - and they were searching Tim's own, looking for some kind of answer.

Had he asked a question?

"I love your eyes," Tim smiled up at the boy, who blinked in response.

Oh, nice eyelashes, too. Bonus.

"Tim?" Conner said again, more gently this time, and his eyes had gotten softer, look at that, and the hands were back and squeezing Tim's shoulders.

"Can you tell me what happened? With your phone call?"

Oh. Phone call. Right. The water had fried his cellphone, Tim guessed, because Bruce's voice was thankfully gone.

Gone.

Steph was gone.

How - why - what -

Tim didn't notice when the gorgeous blue eyes turned panicked but he appreciated being pulled into a strong chest and wrapped up in really muscular and delicious arms and oh shit, was he crying?

Tim was crying.

Why was he cry - oh. Because Steph was gone. She was dead. Died. How had she died? She was Tim's best friend, his only real friend that he had, she couldn't just die, Tim needed her, clearly she couldn't be dead.

"Who's dead?" Conner was saying really gently and one of his hands was rubbing the back of Tim's head and threaded through his hair and wow, did that feel nice, so Tim snuggled his face deeper into Conner's chest and hugged him tighter.

When did his arms get around Conner? Not like he minded. Conner was warm and huggable and sweet and sooooo pretty, and his eyes weren't just pretty, they were gorgeous.

"Gorgeous, huh," Conner said with a small laugh. "I'll remember that. Can you tell me who died, Timmy? I'm so sorry, buddy."

"Steph," Tim said, not quite understanding the word. "My best friend."

"Oh, shit," Conner said in horror.

"But she can't be dead," Tim said very rationally. "Bruce has it wrong. I'm sure he does. Steph was alive -"

Wait.

When had Steph last texted Tim?

Oh, shit.

A cold panic swept through Tim, dousing him in reality.

"Fuck, fuck, fuck," Tim suddenly babbled, pulling away from Conner's chest - he'd been hugging Conner? Huh. No time to dwell on that now.

He looked in his empty hand and then down at the ground.

"My phone, where's my phone?" Tim said in a panic.

"Here, here," Conner said quickly, pulling it out of the pocket of his own studded and patched leather jacket that he insisted on wearing despite the school's uniform code. He got away with it because the teachers were too scared of his dad to make him put it in his locker.

"It was on the ground next to you," Conner said, putting the phone in Tim's hand.

"Shit, shit, shit, when did she last text me?" Tim muttered rapidly, frantically unlocking his phone and clicking through apps until -

"Oh fuck," Tim whispered, his eyes going wide and still and horrified. "Fuck," he whispered. "No. No no nonononononono -"

Conner's arm was around his shoulders now, and they were sitting on the grass somehow, and Tim was crying into his neck.

"Four days," he sobbed out. "Four days, Conner. We never go that long without texting but I was working on my history project this weekend and I kind of forgot to sleep and I just got so busy and I didn't realize and -"

"It's ok," Conner said, hugging him tighter. "It's not your fault," he said.

"I should have realized," Tim argued, pulling away from Conner's yummy-smelling neck.

"I should have realized. I could have called Bruce. I could've -" he burst into sobs, big ones this time that hurt his chest as they came out, and they were loud, too, so loud that a teacher was coming over, and Conner was saying, "His best friend died," and the teacher's face was getting all sad and teary and she was saying that she'd call Tim's dad and that Tim and Conner should just stay out here even though everyone else was going back to class and then she was gone just like Steph was gone and Tim was alone because Bruce was gone, too, his dad had forced him out of Tim's life so now everyone he loved was gone, even Robin was gone and Tim wanted to be gone, too.

"You're not going anywhere, buddy," Conner said with the utmost confidence as he downright cuddled Tim against him, now, soothing him until his sobs died down.

"You haven't finished telling me about my eyes," Conner pointed out.

Tim gulped and sniffed and looked into them.

"And when you finish talking about my eyes," Conner said, "not that you ever will, because how could you ever run out of good things to say about such gorgeous orbs?" the boy said, fluttering his equally beautiful lashes at Tim.

"But if you ever need to take a small break from telling me about my eyes, then you've got my smile and my hair and my killer sense of style -"

"I like you," Tim blurted out.

He'd never really talked to Conner Luthor before. Since his dad was Lex, and all.

But there was something really special about him and Tim realized his hip was tingling the faintest bit where it was pressed against Conner's.

Ohmygod, did that mean...?

Sometimes, once in a while, some lucky soulmates got a phantom pain when they met each other, before they were old enough for their marks to appear. But it only happened if they made a really strong emotional connection.

So if his hip was - and Conner was - and Tim was -

"You like me?" Conner was grinning at him now. "Tell me more," he said.

"I think you might be my soulmate," Tim said in wonder.

"Wait, is your hip buzzing too?" Conner squealed in sudden excitement.

"Yeah," Tim sniffed, smiling a little bit despite his absolutely wrecked heart and his tears.

"Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhaskljdfhfdsgkjhiasjfd," Conner yelled, tackling Tim sideways onto the grass into an enormous hug that he was deliriously grinning into and even though Tim couldn't do much more than sigh with relief as he hugged Conner back and snuggled into him, the other boy seemed to understand.

"I fucking hate that your best friend died," Conner said with heartfelt grief a minute later, pushing himself up on an elbow so his face was hovering over Tim's instead of pressed into the side of it as Tim lay under him on the grass.

"Me, too," Tim whispered hollowly, tears still pooling in his eyes and leaking down into the bombed out cavern in his chest that was so big he could build a swimming pool in it.

"I'll take care of you now," Conner said very seriously, reaching up and brushing his rough palm over Tim's wet cheek. "So no more talk of killing yourself, ok?" he said with a worried frown.

"I said that?" Tim blinked.

Well. That kind of made sense. He hadn't had Conner a few minutes ago. He hadn't had anybody. Even Bruce was gone, except - why the hell did Bruce still have to be gone?

Steph was dead and Tim hadn't been there and if his dad hadn't made him leave Gotham and leave Robin she'd still be alive and fuck his dad, Tim was going back to Bruce and back to Gotham and he'd like to see Jack Drake try to stop Robin from flying home.

"Yeah," Conner was answering him, though. "You said you wanted to be dead, too," his soulmate said somberly.

Tim sighed.

"I guess I don't mean it, anymore," he said, tugging Conner back down into him and sighing with contentment as Conner's heavy weight pressed into him tighter.

Because when it came right down to it, Tim felt like he was already dead anyway, his insides turned to ash, even though pieces of coal from the explosion were still on fire and burning him and he hadn't cried nearly enough tears yet to put the smoldering embers out.

But ashes or no ashes, no way was Tim going to leave Conner alone now that they'd found each other.

"Will you stay with me today?" Tim whispered up to him pleadingly.

"Not just today," Conner smiled.

A/N - Again, please see the above resources if you are feeling suicidal and in need of assistance. Help is available and life will get better. We want you in it :)

Thanks for reading! Lots more chapters coming!

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