Chapter Text
What do you do when there is nothing left for you. Every part of you replaced, every task taken over by somebody else.
What is there to do as a shadow, existing behind the people who truly matter. When the clock isn’t even ticking anymore, because it has run out of time for you.
They all have. Because time is the one thing truly limited in this world, and you require none of it. You are just there, floating alone, waiting until someone's attention makes you visible.
Time.
The curse of humans has always been that they paid too close attention to it. Counting every second, every minute of it, valuing it on a golden scale. Even measuring it in the first place must’ve been a mistake.
He would’ve preferred to never know what it was. Not having to know how much of it he had left and how much had passed. Not putting limits on every task, worrying about each second passing.
Not having to see them sliding by, counting the minutes as they stretched into eternity.
And yet, Tim had set himself a timer. A countdown. A limit. Because if he could not get rid of time itself by sleeping at ridiculous hours, fluctuating his schedule so that he was on a new one every week, he wanted to be in control of it.
It was ridiculous to wait on your own death. Trying to guess when it would arrive or running from it, only for the grim reaper to stare you dead in the eyes one day. He wanted to meet him on his own terms.
So he set himself a countdown. One year to live life to its fullest, not putting things off for the next time or waiting around. He had told himself that he wouldn’t let a single chance go, that this would lead him to becoming the greatest version of himself.
He wasn’t sure if he had kept that promise. But at least he was quite contempt with what was now awaiting him.
Tims feet were dangling off the top of the skyscraper he had sneaked up on. He had told Bruce that he would be out on a secret mission with Young Justice, and then he told Kon that he was on an undercover mission with Batman. Both were sure to tell anyone else who was worrying, and it would take long enough for either side to go in contact with each other, seeing as both would think the other was unreachable due to a mission.
9pm. He didn’t know why he had gotten up so early, considering that the plan had been to go through with his plan at midnight.
Maybe he had grown tired of living already. Quite a shame considering that he had only done it for a year. Tim didn’t count the years before, they seemed quite insignificant at this moment. Nothing else had really mattered since he became
Robin.
The magic mantle, supposed to turn lifes’ brightness up by a tenfold and give him wings. Wings to fly the sky, see the beauties of the World.
But for him, there had been nothing.
The colors of the suit had lost it’s magic with the Blood that spilled on it, even after he had gotten his own. Made it his own, changed the design, tried to make it work again. But the Magic had evaporated with the death of a kid who had smiled so brightly, it made him light up even brighter in those traffic light colored shorts.
The secrets of Robin had refused to reveal themselves to him. Perhaps it was because he was wrong. He was never meant to be Robin, he wasn’t chosen. He was a necessary replacement, a substitute. Like Applemouse instead of Eggs in a recipe for Chocolate Cake. Changed the flavour and texture, just enough so that the recipe stopped being popular, but not enough for anyone to point it out.
Enough to be bad, not bad enough to be noticed.
Close enough to Jason to get called by his name, not skilled enough to fill the hole that his predecessor had left.
It hadn’t even been a month since the last time it happened. Bruce called out for him, casually, not even turning around. Not until he saw Tim, and that slightly disappointed, slightly guilty look snuck back to his face. The look that revealed that while Bruce was trying to give Tim his best, he would still wish that it was Jason looking back at him every time.
The look that revealed that if it wasn’t necessary, he wouldn’t have wanted Tim to be Robin. The look that revealed that Bruce was very glad that he wasn’t an orphan so that he wouldn’t be bound to him in case a better option came along.
He couldn’t blame Bruce. He hadn’t been a very good Robin. He was smart, he followed the training plan, but he didn’t have what Dick or Jason had.
Tim had watched them for years, admired the way they flew through the sky of Gotham. He thought that when he took up the mantle, he would feel what he had seen on them. Wonder, Magic, Hope.
But he had just been… Him.
Not enough.
Not even enough to remember him by his name.
Not enough to be noticed if he was gone. He would just be a footnote. The great first Robin, who led to all other heroes taking in their own prodiges! The amazing second Robin, spreading hope with his bright smile, Gothams sweetheart!
Wait, wasn’t there a third one too?
But he had only been Robin for a year.
Surely Bruce would replace him within a timely manner. Maybe pretend like the one after him had been there all along.
After all, there was no reason to worry the people of Gotham. Another one of their birds dead would just bring panic. Why risk that?
And Timothy Drake?
His parents would surely find a way to make sure that the press was speaking in their favour. They had spent their lives on the fortune he was supposed to inherit, and the lack of an heir did not make it any less important.
Not when it had always been prioritised over said heir anyways.
At first he had taken his phone with him, as he would usually on an undercover mission. Maybe the reason he hadn’t immediately turned it off was because he had been scared. Scared to be alone with his own thoughts.
Even when it was already to late, when his insecurities and failures were already walking him to his own demise, he was still too scared to look them in the eye. No, Tim preferred to stare at a screen instead, dreading the sound of a notification coming in as he scrolled through Pinterest.
No one had messaged him yet. That was good. No one worried, no one cared to check up on him. Of course, they wouldn’t think he needed to be checked up on. Tim had always been strong, independent. Refusing to let others help him, lying when they asked him how he was so that he could push through whatever was going on. It was easy.
He had never wanted help.
But a tiny part of him wished for some right now. Whether it was help with ending it, finally pushing him over the damn edge he was sitting on, or help with getting off.
Someone who would care enough to convince him to care about himself too.
But he had long written that off as impossible. Or at least something he didn’t need, didn’t want. Tim would decide this for himself. And his decision was made, it was final, he just needed to follow through on it now.
It was easy, really. He was already sitting there, the edge of the building digging into his thighs as his feet dangeled into the nothingness beneath him. His phone was laying in some bush half an hour away, smashed by being stomped on repeatedly. The only thing he had left now were an old music player and the cable headphones that went with it from Dicks’ room. It was different music than he would usually listen to, but it felt fitting. Tim had spent half of the day loading new tracks onto the device, trying to at least give his death a nice soundtrack.
It was quite Ironic how much he cared about this while throwing his life away like a used tissue.
The things he had packed for the “undercover mission” had been abandoned in a hidden place near an entrance to the batcave, along with the Robin suit he had been wearing when he first left the manor.
Robin couldn’t die again.
Timothy Drake had to.
Perhaps that was why he had never truly been Robin. Because Robin was magic, and Robin was alive. Bleeding only when Injured in a fight, stitched up in the MedBay.
Tim had never really felt alive. He was there, sure, but he had never really been living. As hard as he tried to, it all still felt so detached, so unreal. He tried to bring himself back, snap out of the trance that had kept him prisoner his whole life, tried to slice through the clouds that occupied his brain with sharp razor blades.
Yet when he did, it had only ever bled red, clouding his view more. Left were only marks, ugly and pink, separating him more and more from the life he wished for.
Nothing could help him. He was sure of that.
So he was here to help everyone around him now.
The clock on the Ipod now showed 11.58 pm.
Tim took out the headphones, placing them gently on the floor next to him. Someone would find it eventually, maybe use it again. It was quite a nice device after all, playing music without the fear of someone texting him or the addictiveness of Social Media.
He looked down one last time, a rush of emotions flooding through him. It was hard to tell whether they consisted of relief or fear, but it didn’t matter now. Another look up at the sky, silently counting the few stars he could see.
It was a cloudy night.
Tim took a deep breath, his hands finding their place on the edge of the building, ready to push him over.
He heard something rumble behind him, maybe some security guards who had noticed that there was someone on the roof, but he ignored it.
One Push.
And finally,
Timothy Drake was flying now.
Truly flying.
Not trying too hard as Robin, swinging over buildings chasing the glory of a ghost.
He was himself, and he had grown the wings he had been searching for all along.