Chapter Text
Your name is Tim Drake, and your parents are Jack and Janet. You live in a huge mansion in a wealthy neighborhood, and if that wasn’t amazing enough, you live next to Bruce Wayne, or as you know him, Batman.
It’s not hard to put together the evidence that says you pieced together Batman’s identity. You had the foreknowledge after all. The memories of a different life constantly clamber in the back of your head, screaming at you that this life in Gotham isn’t real.
But you don’t have a choice in the matter. Batman needs a Robin, and you’re it.
You don’t want to be Robin of course. It’s a dangerous and thankless job that will mentally gut you to the core, but your life will probably end sooner if you don’t take the mask. Batman’s spiral of madness is getting worse by the day, and he needs to be stopped.
You don’t have a choice in the matter, you repeat to yourself.
Things go exactly to the script. Your knees shake and your mouth trembles as the reality of facing mobsters with guns in nothing but a unitard comes to fruition. You do not have any special abilities or knowledge that makes walking into gang fights a piece of cake.
No thirteen-year-old should be trying to play superhero. You should be at home, playing games while your homework remains in your backpack untouched. You should be sending stupid videos to your friends while eating dinner. Murder mysteries belong on the bookshelf next to the Kungfu dvds.
Who in their right mind decides that they want an unpaid night job that ends with injuries and exhaustion as their career?
You throw up and cry before gritting your teeth and continuing on. You are too soft for this kind of life, but someone has to be Robin.
Alfred welcomes you into the manor. He is less of a saint than you thought he’d be and more of a sassy ninja butler. His cookies, or biscuits as he huffs at you, are to die for, but he’ll either disappear the split second you look away or make a dry remark about your eating habits.
You still like him better than his master, Bruce Wayne.
Dressing up as Batman and beating up criminals is already crazy, but there’s something beyond that when it comes to Bruce, something that sets you on edge. You don’t know if you can fix someone like him.
“Are you sure you want to do this?” Nightwing asks, kneeling so you can see eye-to-eye. His hands are big and warm on your small shoulders, and it makes you want to launch yourself at him and bury yourself into his wide chest.
You glance at the white lenses that stare at you over his shoulder. You try not to shudder at the madness you think lies behind them.
“Yes,” you say even as your mind screams No.
“Okay then. I’ll see you around, Robin,” Nighwing says with something close to a sigh. He lets go of you, and Batman wastes no time steering you away to the glass case your costume came from.
You choke back the acid climbing up your throat and try not to glance behind. The casket lid has closed on you, and there is nothing you can do about it.
To your surprise, Batman doesn’t force you to fight crime immediately. Instead, he trains you long and hard until your brain fogs over into the abyss. Not a day goes by where you don’t have bruises, and the fear of dying is literally beaten out of you.
The only fear Batman wants you to have is a fear of Batman.
The one good thing about such intense training is that the likelihood of your demise decreases by the day. You never knew you could bend like that, or that you can trick your mind into ignoring feelings of pain. Maybe you don’t care very much for Batman, but at least he seems to know what he’s doing.
Maybe you will survive long enough until your replacement gets here.
The Rogues of Gotham are scary, but Batman is scarier. It’s the only reason you don’t fall to pieces when Poison Ivy’s carnivorous plants try to eat you, or when Killer Croc rises from the sewers like a Jaws parody.
You never really get the funny quips down, but some of the villains are willing to discuss philosophy and theoretical debate when they’re lying on the ground, tied up. Batman’s not a fan of your efforts to be friendly, but he never stops you from doing it either.
You think Bruce wants you to get attached to the people you beat up, to want to be able to save them from themselves. When you think of the rose Pamela made you after a wistful comment, of Clayface shifting into an old tv villain so you can face him down with a pop gun and a toy badge, of Mr. Freeze saving you from a nasty fall by freezing you to the side of a building—you think it’s working
Villain, hero, it’s all relative in the scheme of things, and you know what it’s like to be forced to play the role before you with no other choice.
Maybe you’re just lonely and making this all up in your head.
Nightwing—Dick—is the closest thing you have to an older brother in this life, and you want him to be proud of you since no one else is. Dick is doting in a way natural-born brothers aren’t, and you want him to shine that loving attention on your weary soul.
“How about we go catch a game tomorrow, just us?” Dick asks you one afternoon as he guides you through some stretches.
“Really?” You might have squeaked a bit there.
“Robin has to finish the Frazzy case,” Batman says while studying a bullet and pretending he’s not watching the two of you.
Catching sight of your disappointed face, Dick pleads on your behalf. “Oh, come on. Let him take the night off!”
“No.”
You don’t get to go to the game, but it’s not because Batman won’t let you. After Dick loses his temper, Bruce agrees to let you have the night off. An emergency with the Teen Titans conveniently ruins your plans. Robin takes to the skies with Batman, and Nightwing disappears for an entire month.
Dick never gets the chance to invite you out again. You buy yourself a Gotham Knights baseball cap just in case.
“Help,” you whisper in those rare moments you are alone. “Someone help me, please.”
A familiar whoosh of bats signals the return of your shadow, and your feelings of despair leave as quickly as they had appeared.
Robin has work to do.
You need to leave for the Teen Titans. You need the experience of working with others just as much as you need to secretly catalogue all the strength and weaknesses of the upcoming heroes. Batman doesn’t let you go easily, however.
He’s gotten better with his possessiveness, but he still overdoes it with the trackers and the hidden cameras. You’re pretty sure he’s hacked in the Titan’s communicators as well.
Still, freedom is freedom, and you enjoy the chance to goof off and make friends. The Teen Titans are loud and crazy, and you think you have never loved anyone more. You get as close to them as you dare to with Batman’s eye still watching you.
It’s not Bruce who snatches your place of belonging from you.
“How does it feel to be a replacement?” Jason demands as he kicks you over and over.
“I hate it,” you say honestly as tears fall from your eyes. “I hate it all.”
The formerly dead Robin is angry that you have taken his spot, and it makes you want to break out in hysterical laughter. You never wanted to be Robin, you never wanted this kind of pain to be normal. The lack of air in your lungs is the only reason you keep your crazy giggles to yourself.
“Don’t go after Batman,” you try to warn him before Jason smashes the pipe in his hand against your skull.
The years pass on, and you come to terms with your lot in life. Superboy rip your arm off? That was a Tuesday. Harvey play coin toss as you sway over a slow-burning acid? Friday. Having to put together the gory remains of children left by a serial killer? Just another night in Gotham.
You do good for this world, but you wonder sometimes if it’s enough. And sometimes you just wonder what your life would have been like if it hadn’t came crashing to an end.
Would you have been happy?
Or do you…
…prefer being Robin?
Jack and Janet die, and you feel a pang of regret for not being able to stop their deaths. Jack may have been able to live through his coma if you had paid attention to what his nurses were giving him.
The heavy feeling of regret doesn’t last long. In truth, you didn’t really know them. Still, you lived in their house and ate their food, so you show up to their funerals and play the grieving son.
You fake having an uncle to continue living by yourself because your only other option is to be adopted by Bruce Wayne, and that is not happening.
You don’t need another parent. You’ve had enough of those for two lifetimes.
It’s a night like any other when your world comes crashing down. Jason, now back in Batman’s good graces, whips off his helmet and storms into the cave with a thunderous expression on his face. You don’t bother acknowledging his presence.
It’s Jason. He’s either here to pick a fight with Bruce or Dick, or he’s just here to yell until it gets out of his system. You haven’t done anything lately, except break him out of jail. You doubt he’s mad about that.
Which is why when he stops in front of you and shoves your stack of casefiles onto the floor, you are taken aback.
“Is Bruce still forcing you to be Robin?” Jason growls out, slamming his hands onto your desk and leaning into your face. His eyes are an angry green, and you find yourself frozen. You think he needs a peppermint.
“What’s he talking about, Tim?” Dick slinks out of the shadows, workout clothes hanging loose over his Nightwing suit. He must have hurried down from the manor when the alarm upstairs went off.
You look from Jason to Dick before leaning back with a bitter smile.
“He doesn’t have to force me anymore. I don’t know how to be anyone else now,” you say.
Dick and Jason share a glance before disappearing, and you’re left sitting at the computer that monitors Arkham like the good soldier you are. No matter what happens, Robin is Batman’s partner, and no one can change that.
You are Tim Drake because someone had to be.
You don’t know what happened to Bruce, but between Jason and Dick, he vanishes from the manor. Your contacts say he’s on vacation, which might be true because Alfred is gone as well. You don’t get the chance to enjoy having the Batmobile to yourself.
“Tim isn’t your real name, is it?” Jason asks once he’s sure you can’t undo the handcuffs keeping you tied to the kitchen chair. You wish he would let you finish your pancakes, but you suppose you’re dangerous enough to warrant the precaution.
A stack of papers is dropped onto the table before you, and you notice the first page contains your first school photo in Gotham. You look terrified.
“The Drakes never had a child. Who are you?” Dick asks, tone so gentle and sad.
“I am Tim Drake,” you answer because you can’t remember anything else.
(“Your name is Tim Drake, and your parents are Janet and Jack. You will be Robin,” Batman says, lifting you up.
“Please let me go!” You beg of the monster holding you. You have no idea what this creature is doing outside of Gotham, but you wish you hadn’t tried to find out.
“You will never leave me.” A canister sprays into your face, and the world fades around you.)