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Tim Drake first saw a ghost when he was four.
At first there was beauty, bright beautiful shining and sparkling lights glowing around the elder Grayson's as they soared through the air. Then there was a snap. And a cry so raw and horrible it would ring in the audience’s ears for years to come.
Tim first saw a ghost when he was four, sitting in the crowd of a circus, eyes wide with tears with tiny hands grasping the photo that was taken moments before.
Staring in horror, two broken flying birds sobbing trying to grasp on to their crying son that stood over their bodies. He saw the mangled limbs, bones sticking out, blood seeping out, and bruises blooming on skin, and he, as any toddler would, threw up.
His parents along with the crowd looked just as sick as Tim was, but they were looking at the far too still bodies.
Tim was looking at their ghosts, hearing their wails and screams of grief because they could not comfort their son.
His mother and father had frantically drug him away, but not before Tim saw a dark shadow sweep in.
That was the first time he saw Batman.
The same night he first saw Dick Grayson.
And the first time he saw a ghost.
From there on, Timothy couldn’t not see them.
And they were everywhere.
A woman burned to a crisp, flesh peeling from her skin and blood leaking from the burns as her husband talked with Tim’s father about a business deal over dinner. He ran to the nearest bathroom, crying his eyes out as he puked up in horror. He had seen the skin peeling away, flames dancing on her skin and he had smelled the smoke and burning flesh.
Tim was told he embarrassed his parents, and they left for a dig for the first time soon after. He prayed what he had seen wasn’t real, as his mother had snapped annoyed by his tears.
But he knew better.
A man, with his face half ripped off by Killer Croc. Huge clawing, scratches, cutting so deep, that Tim could see his skull. Blood mixed with flesh and brain matter, his eye practically bulging from his head stood on the sidewalk.
Tim had fallen over in horror on his way to school. He ran home crying and sent an email posing as his parents claiming he was sick.
The ghosts didn’t leave his sight, they were everywhere, broken, bleeding, and bruised, and this was the first time he understood only he could see them.
The couple dressed in vintage clothes that stood so proudly behind Bruce Wayne at the first Wayne gala Tim attended, at first looked so nice. They were the perfect gala couple with kind eyes and perfect smiles.
But then they moved out from behind their son, and Tim stepped back in horror. There were bullet holes in their perfect pristine clothing, blood splattering the silk dress and clean-cut tux. Martha Wayne smiling kindly with a half-shattered pearl necklace on her neck, and Thomas Wayne standing right by her with blood flecks on his face. Tim puked in a small forgotten pot. He had to walk home, his parents having forgotten him.
Tim couldn’t escape the ghosts. And he knew, he knew more than anyone else, that he could not escape death.
He learned how to adapt. He forced his eyes to glaze over the blood and bones. Tim smiled at teachers as if there weren't over twenty in that single class room alone. He ignored the smell of blood and death. As much as he learned to ignore whatever this curse was, he learned to watch.
Tim watched Robin fly through the sky, with two ghosts smiling softly as he did a very specific flip.
It was Dick Grayson.
Dick Grayson was Robin.
And Batman was Bruce Wayne.
Tim watched.
He watched, eyes widening, hands grasped around his camera, ghosts all staring at him strangely.
Tim gripped his camera tighter, slowly clicking the photo button.