Work Text:
There’s a photo Tim saw once, back when he was still chasing freedom and adrenaline and Robin over Gotham rooftops. At the time, he thought it was one of the coolest ideas he’d seen, and while he’d expanded his aperture for quality composition since he first searched “cool photography ideas” on Pinterest, something about that one photo had stuck around long enough for Tim to remember it now.
The photographer was leaning out a car window, face obscured behind their tool of choice, hair streaming in the wind behind them. Around the edges, the road ahead could be seen, blue sky bright with afternoon sunshine and highway free of any other travelers. The majority of the photo was taken up by the side mirror, where a thunderstorm had gleefully shoved its way firmly past brewing and taken over the entire horizon in its glee. Swathes of rain obscured any view that may have previously been visible and forks of lighting sparked through the clouds to tag the ground, while the text below provided a faded and desperate warning: objects in mirror are closer than they appear.
Tim had long since moved past his single summer of storm-chasing. Vigilantism provided just as much an opportunity for photography, and there was even more a chance for adrenaline and satisfaction in a job well done. Perhaps a slightly higher chance of death via stab wound, but the likelihood of freezing to death in the arctic or getting struck by lightning were lower (though never zero). But the feeling the photo had given him, a chance for a breathtaking adventure juxtaposed with the swiftly creeping consequences of the past, had never left.
The phrase “gut feeling” had never meant much until he’d connected it with the visual. Every once in a while something in Tim’s life would shift, and he’d feel that creeping, unsettling sensation all over again, even while he stared into what looked like a cloudless sky.
Sometimes it was little, stupid things: terrible traffic on an already bad day, a silly argument gone out of hand with one of his siblings. Sometimes it wasn’t: a Bat ending up in the med-bay after going silent on coms, Ra’s al Ghul reaching out again (personally or otherwise), a JL meeting that had everyone exhausted and injured by the end of whatever invasion they barely stopped.
Something that had struck him years later was how in focus the photo was. Head and limbs held perfectly steady, car and mirror and text all easily visible. Hair flying and lighting both equally captured and preserved. It wasn’t a photo taken in haste, but composed beautifully.
Later Robin wondered if the photographer had been an experienced crafter, confident in their tools and their skills and their timing, both to take the photo, and to leave before they were caught in the storm.
Red Robin supposed they could have been a reckless amateur. An artist in the right place at the right time by sheer luck.
Tim wondered if it mattered.
His own gut feelings had never given him an edge, just reminded him there was something to lose.
Maybe that was an edge all on its own.