Author's Note: Please note that this story is marked T due to mentions and more-than-mentions of neglect and abuse, along with self-blame for the previous topics. Read with caution if these things upset you. Otherwise, enjoy, and let me know what you think!
Tim has always been special, but not like that, not like how most parents say their kids are special. It's not like that at all.
After all, Tim's not smart or strong. He's not fast or fearless. He's not creative or compassionate. He's not a good kid, really. He's probably not even really a good person. He's not good at all.
Maybe if he was good, his parents wouldn't need to treat him like this.
He isn't very old yet, Tim knows, not in comparison to a lot of people, like his parents or their servants or most of the people he sees at high-society events. Tim is kind of young, he's just turned eight, he thinks, if he remembers his birthday right, but he's not too young to understand. He knows how things go, and he knows how things have always gone.
It starts when he makes a mess of something. It could be a vase, it could be a rug, it could be a phone call or a gala or anything. No matter what it is, though, Tim makes a mess of it, and that's when it starts.
Tim makes a mess, and then his parents find out. That's how it continues. His parents find out, from a cook or a nanny or a maid or one of his parents' high-society friends, and his parents tell him to clean up whatever mess he's made. Tim cleans up the mess, and he hopes that it's enough. He hopes that it will be good enough. He hopes that by the time his parents start to come home from wherever they are that time, they won't care that he made a mess.
They care.
They always care.
They care about the mess, and they care that Tim made that mess. And so his parents come home, and they spend time at home, just Mother and Father and Tim, no servants or high-society friends around. They spend time at home, just the three of them, and at first, usually, it's nice. It's fine. It's good, even. Mother and Father talk to each other a lot more than they talk to Tim, because they barely talk to Tim at all, like they've forgotten he exists, but Tim doesn't mind that. Tim even likes that. He likes to hear about what's important to his parents. He likes when his mother smiles at his father, or when his father hugs his mother, or when both of his parents laugh together.
What he doesn't like is what comes next, what always comes next.
Eventually, Tim's parents remember he exists. They remember he's there. They remember he made a mess, and they remember how bad Tim was for making that mess. And so, Tim gets consequences.
The consequences hurt. It doesn't matter what form they take, they hurt. The forms vary: a slap, a kick, the belt, the knife. Each of them hurt. They hurt, and Mother and Father make sure they hurt a lot, so Tim learns not to make a mess.
Tim tries to learn. Really, he tries. But Tim isn't any good, so he doesn't learn very well. He keeps making messes. A lot of the time, he even makes a mess when he's getting a consequence, a mess of blood and tears and sweat and spit, and then Mother and Father get even more mad, and the consequence hurts more, and Tim makes more of a mess, and it goes on and on until Tim's parents get fed up. Then they leave. They leave the house, they leave the state, they leave the country, and they leave Tim in his mess. And it hurts, and it's hard, and Tim always feels like he's going to die after a consequence.
But he won't die.
Because, again, Tim is special. Tim has always been special.
And the way Tim is special is this: he heals. He heals fast, and he heals fully, and he heals and heals and heals until he can get up out of his mess and clean himself up and clean the mess up and get back to life the way it always is, waiting to make another mess and get another consequence.
And that's how life goes, day in and day out. Every day, Tim tries to be good. Every day, Tim tries not to make a mess. Every day, Tim tries to keep being special like that a secret, because it makes Mother and Father even more mad during a consequence when he heals himself, and because he knows that his parents want the best for him, and because if someone who wasn't them found out he was special, the consequences would be the worst he's ever had, both from the person who finds out and from his parents.
So every day, Tim tries.
And every night…
Every night, it's Tim's turn to leave. But not like how his parents leave. Tim leaves the house, but he doesn't leave the state, and he definitely doesn't leave the country. Tim doesn't even leave Gotham. Why would he?
After all, Gotham is where Batman and Robin are.
Every night, Tim checks his computer for alerts from his many trackers and sighting logs. Then he grabs his camera and heads out. He sneaks around Gotham and tries to find Batman and Robin. Most of the time, he's even successful, sometimes even multiple times a night. Then he gets pictures, as many as he can, and he heads home as happy as he can be.
Tonight, though, Tim isn't going to be happy. He hasn't had a single sighting of Batman or Robin, he hasn't had a single glimpse of a crook or two who might need Batman and Robin to beat them up, and he hasn't even had a good night out taking photographs of other things like he sometimes likes to do. It's been cloudy all night, and windy, and more than a little cold. Tim is just about to call it off for the night and head home when he hears them.
Two men are talking in a back alley. Their voices are hushed, and as Tim peeks down at them from the rooftop he's hiding on, the two men are huddled closely together and passing something back and forth between them. At midnight. In dark clothes and low-browed caps. Just a few blocks from Crime Alley.
That's crook activity if Tim's ever seen it.
Tim nestles himself into a nook at the edge of the rooftop and settles in to listen just as the rain starts to fall around him.
"-Unreal," the one man is saying. He's looking down at a piece of paper, a newspaper article, probably. "You think there's some of these freaks in Gotham?"
"There's some of them everywhere, I bet," the other man says. He spits to one side. "The freaks just keep showing up."
The first man nods and spits to the side too. "Those freaks and their freaky… Things that freaks can do."
Tim stifles a giggle. He doesn't know what the two crooks are talking about, but they keep saying the word "freaks" over and over, and it's starting to not sound like a word anymore.
"It almost makes you glad to have the Bat," the second man says quietly.
The first man smacks the second man on the shoulder with the newspaper. "Don't go saying things like that!"
"Almost," the second man says. "I said almost. Not all the way. I'm not glad to have the Bat around. No way. But at least I know that if he's around, those freaks won't be."
"You think?" The first man says, folding up the newspaper and putting it away.
"I know," the second man says. "Batman hates metahumans."
Metahumans. Tim mouths the word to himself. He doesn't know what it means. He's never heard of it before. Maybe he heard wrong? He inches closer to the edge of the roof, trying to make out what's going on.
"That's one thing we've got in common with the Bat," the second man continues.
The first man snorts. "The only thing, you mean."
"Probably," the second man says. "Well, and that we wear a lot of black."
"Only because we've got to," the first man says. "If you're in a gang, you do what the gang leader says."
So they are crooks! Tim presses even closer. Batman and Robin will probably show up any second. Any second. Any second…
"When in Crime Alley, do as the Crime Alley citizens," the second man says.
"I don't think that's how that saying goes," the first man says.
"Doesn't matter," the second man says. "All that matters is that we know no special little freaky metahumans are going to be anywhere near Batman."
Something about that statement sounds wrong to Tim, very wrong.
"Metahumans," the first man huffs. "Freaks, the lot. Them and their powers, their abilities, their curses against humanity."
"Fire powers, ice powers, earth powers, electricity powers," the second man lists off.
"Hate them all," the first man says, then he cackles loudly. "And so does Batman. At least there's that."
"Controlling other people's emotions, controlling other people's thoughts, controlling other people's bodies," the second man continues.
The first man sighs and looks at his watch. "Our break's probably up."
"Super speed, super strength," the second man goes on.
"Oh, shut up," the first man says, and he starts to walk away.
"I even heard there were a couple metahumans who could heal themselves," the second man says as he starts to follow the first man.
"Yeah?" The first man says.
"Yeah," the second man says. "They get shot, or they get stabbed, or they get run over, doesn't matter. They just get up and keep going, no harm done."
The first man laughs. "That'd actually be a nice one to have, or really, to have on your team."
"I thought you hated metahumans," the second man says.
"I do," the first man says as they start to disappear around the corner. "But a guy you could send out to get beat up and know that he wouldn't die and that you could use him for the same thing again the next day? That'd be useful. Plus, you know, he'd always be the first to draw the fire from the Bat. Because Batman would hate him."
The two men's voices disappear.
Tim's thoughts seem to have disappeared as well.
Metahuman.
The word beats through his brain.
Metahuman.
Metahuman.
Tim can't even breathe.
Metahuman.
Metahuman.
Metahuman.
Batman hates metahumans.
Tim's whole body trembles. His chin trembles. His stomach trembles. His hands tremble. His feet tremble, and he slips on the rain-soaked rooftop. He loses his balance. He topples. He grabs for the edge.
He goes right over the edge.
As Tim falls from the rooftop, all he can think is the hate shown by those two men, the hate they were full of, the hate they had been so sure Batman would share.
Then he hits the ground, and all he can think of is the pain.