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It felt so mundane, the way he thought about killing himself.
The thought passed him with as much decorum as remembering that he needed to buy a new notepad. There weren’t exactly any huge exhausting sobs that highlighted what he was feeling like a huge billboard that shouted to the world “Look at this kid! He’s depressed as fuck!”. He kinda just sat there at the Bat Computer desk, rolling his finger over the mouse as he scrolled through the case file that Dick typed up last night and thought to himself, he’d just really rather not exist.
It was not a new thought. He had lived with these invasive thoughts for as long as he could remember, but never quite fully committed to the act.
He cut himself on occasion, off-and-on, but it would just spring on a whole new anxiety if people would discover the scars and then he would have even more issues. By the time he finishes the entire debate in his head, he would often just be overcome with self-loathing and try to distract himself with a cold case. Either that or the self-loathing would lead to him standing over his bathroom sink, greasy hair sticking to his wet, teary face as the blood dripped from his wrist and splattered onto the porcelain.
Sometimes many, many inconvenient little things would happen and pile up, and then all of the horrible and intrusive thoughts that made his skin crawl and he shoved to the back of his head will sneak back, and suddenly every single thought he had would trail back to the several bottles of extra-strength sleeping pills that he kept in his sock drawer.
How easy would it be for him to simply slip away to some random safe house, lock the doors, swallow the pills between gulps of vodka and just let go? Sometimes it scared him, thinking about it more and more and realizing exactly how easy it would be, how nobody wouldn’t care or even notice until it was too late. But sometimes, it was reassuring, like a rigid, freezing embrace. Yes, it wasn’t a warm and comforting thought, but it was something.
And Tim’s a realistic guy. He wasn’t bullshitting himself, of course, he knew that someone would eventually notice. And yeah, maybe a couple of people would care, maybe even shed a couple of tears over his death. He did have people in his life who’d probably rather he stay. But sometimes it was just hard for him to deal with the fracturing state of his mind everyday. Was it too much for him to ask, just once, if he could take the easy way out?
Suicide was cheaty, painful, and damaging to those that love him. Yeah, he watched all the TED talks, and listened to the presenters at his high school while they flicked through their slideshow presentation on mental health that was compiled with photos from Stock Images. But he’s been going the hard path every day, choosing to stick it out and make the hard decision every time.
Instead of rebelling against his parents when they forced him into boarding school, he sucked it up and got the best grades he could for them. When he realized that Batman was destroying himself in the aftermath of Robin’s death, he took it upon himself to find Dick and attempt to get him to reconcile with Batman, and when that failed, he became Robin himself. When Jason Todd returned from the dead, Tim understood that he would simply have to withstand whatever he would throw at him because Batman still needed him. When everyone thought that Batman was dead and nobody would believe Tim when he knew Bruce was still out there, Tim stuck it out and made sure he came back alive, whatever it took. And when Dick replaced Tim with Damian, Tim forced himself to come to terms with reality and remember what he thought back when he put on the Robin costume for the first time: this was temporary and this position was never, ever for him.
So was it so hard to believe that maybe, just this once, after all of what he had been through, Tim deserved to be selfish and take the easy way out?
His head was all foggy and exhausted and sad, as cliché as that may sound. He just didn’t want to feel like this anymore.
And it was weird because, at this point in his life, he didn’t think he’d have to.
Five years ago, if you had asked him where he saw himself in five years, with certainty, he’d tell you that either he’d be dead. Either died with the whole Robin thing or his stupid mental health. People don’t exactly live long in this line of work, as anybody would know from his predecessor, and the plan was to kill himself before sixteen.
He wasn’t exactly sure where he screwed up, but it probably had something to do with his overwhelming obsession with using all of his energy and efforts in the desperate attempt to win Bruce’s approval and love. It was all, always for Bruce.
Tim huffed and pushed his chair away from his desk, the wheels audibly rolling away as he stood up. Maybe this was it. This time, he would finally do it.
The way he walked to his room in eerie calmness felt like dejá vú. Just one step at a time, and he could hear his footfalls in the silence of the halls. Everyone had gone to bed by now.
He had done this before, many, many times, and his movements felt almost practiced as he closed the door behind him and locked both bolts before pulling open his drawer, shoving the white socks away to reveal the hidden pill bottles.
Tim lifted one to his face, reading and muttering the words on the label to himself like a prayer as he gripped it between shaky fingers.
He knew what the label said, of course. He had read it before, several times. He had it memorized by heart and could probably recite it on a whim. This was a ritual he practiced every time he was at the manor and the thought snuck into his mind.
There was a painful, aching pain in his chest, and the hypochondriac in him whispered “heart attack” while the logical part of him understood it was just some heavy emotions and he just needed to suck it up and go to bed.
It’s almost comedic that everything was so normal. Nobody knew what war Tim was fighting in his head, the exhaustion and hopelessness that followed him like a shadow, or the pills that he hid behind and underneath his socks. There wasn’t anyone bursting into his room, begging him to not do it. It was just him in his room with his pills on this normal Thursday night, when nothing more exciting than Batgirl stopping a mugging on 24th street was happening.
He let himself slink onto his bedroom floor, the cool wooden floor welcoming him as he slumped onto it. It felt nice to just lay there, listening to the pills rattle in their plastic bottle. He wouldn’t take them tonight, he doesn’t think. Not tonight, he wasn’t sure that he was quite ready yet.
But one day, one day he would be ready. He just hoped that his death would be fast and merciful.