Chapter Text
Timothy Jackson Drake is born premature in the height of summer, little voice calling out like he just couldn’t wait to greet the world. He's cleaned up and handed to a dazed and exhausted mother, too woozy from medication to take a close look at the boy before he’s whisked away to the NICU. His little lungs carry his cries down the hall, and Jack Drake kisses the top of his wife’s head before he turns to the nurse, eyes pinched with worry. “Don’t worry,” the nurse reassures the weary parents with a calm smile, “with a soulmark that bright- kid’s a fighter. He’ll pull through.” Janet grimaces through the chemical cocktail clouding her senses, murmuring something unintelligible but most likely scathing before dropping off to sleep.
-----
Tim is four when he asks his mother about her soulmark, a delicate series of black whirls tessellating across the back of her shoulder. She gets the look on her face that means he's done something wrong, and tells him such things are not to be discussed so casually. He pouts, because he has so many questions, but he knows by now that the frown she sends his way means he won't get any answers from her.
As soon as she is out of the room he tries the nanny, a kind young woman who scoops him into her arms and settles him onto the couch. She shows him her mark, a bright blue explosion of swirls undulating over her calf, bursting with hope. "The bright blue means my soulmate will be a great source of joy, Timmy. I just know we'll go on all sorts of adventures together." She ruffles his hair and laughs as he eagerly lifts up his shirt, revealing the gleaming silver vortex, wispy like smoke and brighter where it folds in on itself.
"Your mark, dear Timmy," she beamed down at the antsy boy, placing another affectionate kiss to his chubby cheek, "means there's someone very special waiting out there for you. The brighter the mark, the fiercer the love, sweetheart. And this person is going to love you like the sun does the moon." He beamed and spent the rest of his four-year-old attention span asking everything he'd wanted to know.
Six weeks later his mother returns and the nanny never comes back. He forgets most of what she'd taught him, and eventually her face as well.
-----
When his parents are around (which is to say, rarely) Tim learns to pretend soulmarks don't exist. It's easier to hide the glimmering hope away from critical eyes than to weather the tightness in his mother's lips or the furrow in his father's brow whenever they catch sight of the thing. He's eight and doesn't know why they treat it like it's trouble, but if he can show them it won't be, if he can treat it like it's nothing, maybe they will stay. They, of course, cannot, but Timothy is a good boy who understands the importance of their work, he does. So they go and he doesn't cry and sets out to be on his best behavior.
It's a weakness his mother would never abide that when he's curled up in his bed in a too-big too-dark too-empty house and everything about him feels so brittle, he stares at the mark's gleam and reminds himself someone out there is waiting to love him 'like the sun loves the moon'. His mark already shines with that light, and he will get to feel the warmth of that sun someday.
------
Tim is eleven and this is the best day of his short life, because he just found his soulmate. Even better, he found out his soulmate is Robin, brave and bright and so, so much more than he'd ever dared imagine. His soulmate is a hero, is his hero. He's in his makeshift darkroom developing the newest reel of photos of the daring duo when his eyes catch on a slash in the Robin suit, revealing a mark on the older boy's hip he'd recognize anywhere. Tim wants to scream, or dance, or run across the grounds to Wayne manor and not stop knocking until he gets to meet him. Maybe even touch his hand, prove the bond without a doubt.
He doesn't, because his parents are due back any day now, and explaining to Batman how he got that photo in the first place would...his parents would be so disappointed, so angry, if they knew what he'd been up to. If mother found out he'd found the source of that radiant soul illuminating his side, she'd take him away from here for his own good. He sets the photos gently into the rest of his hidden collection and decides to wait. His soulmate is a beacon and he can find his way to him once the storm has passed.
-----
Tim is twelve when his world goes dark. His mark has gone black. Robin is gone. Jason is dead. There is no beacon lighting his way out of despair, anymore.
-----
Batman is broken, a husk of a man tearing himself and the criminal underworld apart. His grief will consume him and Gotham will swallow him whole, and the last remaining hope for Gotham will be snuffed out.
Tim remembers that brash, bright boy holding the darkness at bay like he was born to do it. He traces over his own mark, and makes a decision. Then he gets to work. His soulmate's legacy will not be the last light extinguished before the Bat gives in to his own darkness. Tim will carry the light for him.
-----
Tim is thirteen and he is Robin. He does his very best to honor his mark, to be worthy of the title and the memory of the boy who came before him. He stands alongside Batman, protecting the people with him. Sometimes, on particularly bad nights, protects the people from him. He does his best to remember the light.
-----
"We have the equipment to remove that," is what Bruce says the first time he sees Tim's mark. "I had mine covered to prevent anybody from identifying me based on it." His tone is cool, measured. His face betrays nothing, though Tim knows he must have seen Jason's.
Tim instinctively cradles his mark in his palm, looking down at the black swirling smoke. The thought of it erased from his skin sends a chill to his bones, sharp and panicky.
"No, I think I need to carry it with me a little longer.” He doesn’t say he knows who it belonged to. If that night is the first in a while where he’s had to put a tranquilized Batman into the back of the Batmobile to keep him from crossing the line, well, what’s one more secret between partners.
-----
Tim is fourteen and reviewing the structural damage to the Titans Tower after an interplanetary attack when his soulmark, partially visible though some slashes in his suit, flashes back to silver. He blinks down at it, half convinced he’s hallucinating, before bolting to his room and frantically pulling off his suit. He almost collapses the moment he sees the shine, bright and back, how is it back? the hope swelling in his chest practically carrying him off the ground. He ignores the repairs for the night, curling his body protectively around his mark, and cries himself to sleep.
He doesn’t tell Bruce. Tim’s never heard of a soulmark changing back, and he knows he doesn’t have it in him to pull Batman back from the brink should his own hopes prove false. He needs to research and build the case; he will not bring this to Bruce without proof.
-----
Tim is fifteen when he first meets his soulmate. As he bleeds out on the cold floor, he finds himself grateful that Jason was wearing gloves. He only hopes that when silver fades to black, Jason knows why.
-----
Tim is still fifteen and recovering from his injuries in the Batcave when he can't take it anymore. His mind is hazy with painkillers and his body still hurts and he can't talk and his mark won't stop shining in his eyes under the fluorescent lights. The promise of that silver swirl feels closer to cruelty than it ever has before. The very moment he’s able, he drags himself to the medbay console and gets to work. It’s quick, programming the system to target the right area, and soon he’s lying back on the bed and watching the program do its work. As the smell of burnt flesh fills the room he presses his lips into a grim smile. His mother would be so proud.