Chapter Text
“I--” he starts, cuts off. Breathes. “I didn’t expect it to go like this, you know?”
The hero standing next to him sits down on the hill, tips himself over so his shoulder is against Tim’s and crosses his arms on drawn-up knees. Sitting on the Red Robin cape, which is spread out under him, no longer needed now. Like the cowl. “I know.”
He’s babbling. He’s been babbling for the last hour and--and Tim is pretty sure he’s said this exact same thing about three other times already. Red Arrow’s answers haven’t changed, or at least it sounds like they haven’t. “I’m the last person I thought they’d save. I--I feel so bad for that but I’ve always been the one to lay down on the wire and let the other guys crawl over me. And they always have. Not in any mean way, more like they just didn’t realize they were walking all over me.”
“I think I would have just cut the wire.” A pause. “There’s always a way out.”
“I know that,” Tim murmurs. “I know that, now. But I didn’t expect Dick, Jason... didn’t expect Bruce to send me a ahead with a lie. Just to get me out. I guess I was too distracted to notice. He usually can’t lie to me that well.”
A gloved hand rises, wraps around Tim’s where he’s digging his fingers into the grass and dirt.
“Do I have to become Batman, now?” he whispers, and leans hard on Roy Harper, turning his face against the other man’s shoulder. The suit smells like ash and copper. The quiver on his back is a little over half-full, the one between their hips almost empty. “Batman is--Gotham needs a Batman, always.”
“Kid,” Roy says, and his hand tightens, long fingers pushing Tim’s apart and curling down to his palm. “There isn’t any Gotham now.”