Archive of Our Own ^beta

Dick was a bit scared.

Fuck that, he was absolutely terrified—striking lightning down his bruised spine and letting his hands shake in the wind. The feeling was destructive, his stomach seemed to wince and burn as it churned uncomfortably. The note in his hand fell to the floor softly, leaving no sound but Dick’s breath against the dirty Gotham air.

The note. It was a yellow post-it note that had scribbled on lines. Drawn neatly on the guides were a series of words, written in Tim’s signature mix of cursive and font, a nearly indecipherable form of art. And they spelled out a horrible image.

It was a goodbye letter. Well, one in drafts. The work was more of a collection of ideas for a suicide note rather than a thought-out farewell. But it was horrifying, and it was real. “Oh god, Tim, no…”

Dick couldn’t even comprehend the listed thoughts, the awful display of his brother's crumbling mental state. There were timestamps and pros and cons lists for different items he would leave to different people in the event of his death. The paper was almost completely filled with ink, all logical in their strokes. Sickening.

Tim was in the Batcave right now.

Dick couldn’t face him.

The kid probably dropped the note from his overflowing backpack of cases, and stray electronic devices, that could only ever be helpful to himself. 

He was going to kill himself tomorrow. His kid brother… was going to down a bunch of pills and end his life. Why? Why would he do that? He has to know that Dick loves him. Bruce, Alfred, Cass, Duke, Steph—hell, even Damian and Jason—love him.

And his team? How could Young Justice move on from the death of their leader? Dick didn’t know them that well, but Barry talked about Bart a lot—mostly mumbling with thoughts of giving Impulse the mantle of Flash when he grew older—so he knew the young speedster would be devastated. 

And Superboy? That kid had a massive crush on Tim—not that either of them knew that yet. Robin gave him a way out from being Superman and Lex Luthor’s son, he guided Kon to his own identity and paved a path of friendship and complete loyalty. The Kryptonian wouldn’t be able to recover—and Dick knew that because he himself never fully survived Wally going missing in the speed force. That kind of connection leaves an unfillable hole when taken away.

And what about Cassie? The fierce superheroine who used to gush about Donna Troy to Dick without knowing he was on a team with her. When Kon died she joined a superhero-worshiping cult in the hopes of resurrecting him, she loved deeply to the point of no return. Another death on her team?.. that would break her. The demigod would fall into a depression so big she wouldn’t be able to get out. And there would be another suicide in Young Justice.

And Cissie? Secret? The rest of the teams revolving members—what about the Teen Titans? Tim was so loved. How couldn’t he know that?

Dick understands—somewhere tucked away in his brain—that a depression like the one reflected in Tim’s note would not have any rational thought. It was nothing that could be talked away, fixed with a PowerPoint, or dissected by a therapist. Tim needed medicine, and he needed solidarity. 

Tim was a stubborn kid, and if he didn’t want to get better he couldn’t. If Dick couldn’t convince his baby brother to live another day… then he wouldn’t.

It was a terrible weight. And it was one he would fight day and night to carry. He lived through everything to get to this moment. Dick would do anything Tim wanted—he couldn’t lose another brother. But how could he fight something that wasn’t physical? How could he help? The guilt was hot and burned like liquid gold through his veins. He was useless in this situation. God… Tim.

He could tell Bruce—no. No, Bruce would be the worst person to tell. He would rush forward in blinding fear and end up bulldozing Tim with harsh words and grim expressions. The man would scream, he would tie Tim down, and he would keep him in the cave forever if that meant he would stay alive. That’s not what Tim needed right now—no.

The kids were out, anyone younger than him was out. Dick wouldn’t—he couldn’t put that on them. Maybe Barbara? But the girl was out of state for a mission with the Birds of Prey and uncontactable currently—it wasn’t any day when Barbara could go in the field with her wheelchair, but the high-stakes scene required an inside girl, which she could dutifully fill in by pretending to be a distant relative of Scottish royalty.

Who else was Tim close to? Dick hated himself for not knowing.

But time was up, and Tim was still waiting for him in the Batcave—his yells of irritation flooded the halls. “Are you coming? I still need to show you something!”

“Yeah!” Dick choked out, sending a desperate thanks to all the gods he knew for letting his voice sound firm—though, still, the words fell clumsy in his mouth. 

He took soft steps down the circling stairs, past the grandfather clock, and winced at the eerie  quiet that seemed to grab at him. The atmosphere was stuffy and humid—a big contrast to the usually freezing temperatures of the Batcave, or well, any cave. Dick supposed it was the tension in his thoughts, and he hoped he wasn’t sweating or visually nervous.

“Finally, Dick. You know that if you say that you are coming, then it should mean that you are walking. Or running. Leaping is preferred.”

The usual banter felt stale in the air.

“Sorry.” Dick said, his tongue clumping in a heap above his teeth as he searched for moisture in his mouth—but his throat was dry, and the movement caused a squeak of skin rubbing against skin.

Tim squinted his eyes, looking Dick up and down at his shady behavior. “Are you okay?”

“Mhm!” Dick murmured unconvincingly, but turned his face away so that his brother couldn’t see the sadness in his eyes. 

The taller moved forward, putting his hands on the back of the Batcave’s central seat—more like a throne—while the smaller disregarded the weird behavior in order to display his findings on the recent case.

“So, we’ve been looking at this the wrong way. The guy isn’t the drug dealer, he’s the strawberry. But since guys don’t usually exchange sex for shit, all the working girls thought that he was the one providing his own drugs—because he saves it for whenever he is with them. He’s trying to make them believe that he’s got cash so that he can take them under his wing and pimp them out.” Tim ranted.

“But then, the person who he was fucking to get drugs, realized what he was doing—because they had connections to the girls—so they started to give him less and less. And then, when he couldn’t show the working girls that he could provide whatever they needed—drugs, money, protection—because of his lack of cash, the workers got pissed at him for lying and banned him.

“After that, the word got around that he didn’t have any money, so dealers stopped meeting with him—not knowing he paid with other means—resulting in meth withdrawals so bad that he just let loose the secret, and got killed for that, since the person who was fucking him was a known figure.”

Dick tried desperately to keep up, nodding his head and letting his lips tilt in a sad smile. Tim was so smart. “So who was the guy that killed him?”

Tim laughed, swinging around in the chair and leaning against the leathery back, and told Dick the name of the killer. It wasn’t surprising—the man was a staple in trafficking and street services, probably controlling the majority of the girls in his neighborhood. Fortunately, the man wasn’t a rogue or any Batman-related villain, so they could probably write up a report and send it to the commissioner.

A craving, powerful, and sort of uncontrollable sense of mourning rocked against Dick’s skull. Timmy. God, he loved him. “How did you figure all this out?”

Tim blinked up at him through tired eyes. “Spite.”

A laugh escaped Dick, and his first real smile of the day bloomed on his face. But it quickly disappeared with the thought of the conversation he needed to create.

“Dick… are you alright?” Tim questioned softly, pointing his head down a bit, in the almost instinctual habit of giving the older man room to answer. 

How could he answer that, his baby brother, Tim, wanted to die so badly he would leave all his friends and family, risk whatever was on the other side of life and death—Jason held that secret like a vigil, sneering at anyone who asked—just for it to end. Dick knew Tim didn’t believe in an afterlife, so that meant he was truly—horribly—in so much pain, that he didn’t just want it to stop, he wanted himself to stop. To die.

How could he explain to the boy how much he doesn’t want Tim to do that?

This wasn’t like on patrol, where he could grab someone down and hand them off to a professional—because when he did that, he wasn’t saving them. He was stopping them. But now he had to be the brother a jumper came home to. Now he had to be the man to talk to doctors, to hesitantly pry for answers, to help Tim deal with this for what would probably be his whole life.

If Tim even lets you. A voice whispered

“I’m okay, Timmy.” Dick smiled. “I just want to talk to you ‘bout something.” 

“What do you want to talk about?” Tim questioned, concern in the crease of his eyebrows. 

“How about we go to your room, alright?”

Tim gave Dick a wide-eyed stare, frowning with confusion. “There’s nobody down here, I can turn off the tapes if you want…”

“I’d rather be somewhere… comfortable.” It felt wrong for Dick to imply something was up with him, but the man didn’t want to scare Tim, and the boy would be much more likely to come along if he could help someone—self-sacrificing bastard.

“Yeah, no, of course!” The shorter man scrambled, trying his best to look approachable. It made a bit of Dick’s brain laugh. 

Fuck.

Jeez, it was like fear toxic was pumping through his lungs and smoking him out from the inside like how a pest control worker gets rid of rats. It laced through his body, poking sharply at the corners of his eyes—shit he was going to cry. 

Mission fucking failed.

Tears streamed out of Dick’s eyes, splashing on his hands while he rubbed at them quickly—but it was too late, Tim already saw.

“What the—Dick? Woah, hey, hey, Dick. What’s wrong? What’s going on?” Tim reached out to touch the man, trying to ground him and provide an inch of comfort.

Dick accepted the affection—Tim needed it more than he did—and started to rub his hands through his brother's hair, circling the back of his neck, specifically his nape, in what he hoped was seen as loving—while he murmured little words of love and comfort.

Tim tensed as he realized Dick was trying to relax him. Regardless, the older brother held still, trying to push all of his feelings into his little brother—the love, trust, concern… things he didn’t trust himself to orally express. Tim wasn’t small—he was muscled and strong from years of training and vigilantism—but he was still younger and shorter, causing Dick to hug him as if he was still a babe. Or maybe that’s just Dick being Dick.

“Dick… you’re scaring me. What’s wrong?” Tim lightly pushed the older man off of him but kept him in reach. 

“No, I’m fine. It’s—how are you?” Dick was fumbling, tripling over his own words while carefully crafting a soothing mask.

Tim pushed up one of his eyebrows. “How am I? Well… I’m pretty concerned about my brother… who was just sobbing on my shoulder, and petting me like a cat.” 

Dick stared deeply into Tim’s eyes, searching for a sort of dark passenger—maybe a blob of baneful magic that glimmered around his irises. Just… fucking something that wasn’t the truth. But no. It was Tim staring back at him with his signature wince and light-hearted glare. 

“I found your little note.” Dick casted the words into the air, letting them hang onto the pasty atmosphere of the cave. 

Tim blinked. “I make a lot of notes… is it from the pile for the Merlos-Bloom case? Or the one with the perp from Blüdhaven?” 

“Your—god. Tim… your fucking suicide checklist”

Tim jerked back like he was hit. 

Dick knew. How could he know? Tim was being so careful—triple-checking that every piece of paper concerning his death wouldn’t be viewed until after. Was he really this stupid? This awful at hiding it? And now Dick is scared—how could he scare Dick? How could he do this to him? Oh.

Oh god—and his brother would tell Bruce. Bruce would go batshit—pun intended—and would bench him forever! His whole life would be gone, he would be put on bedrest forever, in an empty manor, while his family risks their lives—and he wouldn’t be able to save them. And it was all his fault. And his stupid—fucking basic job at hiding it.

But now Dick knew… he saw the empty-eyed pain inside Tim’s eyes and will see him for the monster he is. He’s fucking psycho, and now everyone will know and he will lose everything.

Fuck. And Dick was still crying.

What could he do? How does he fix this? There has to be something he could say that would get the older man off his back.

Thoughts rushed to his mind, a steady stream of information and possible outs. But Tim couldn’t comprehend them—overwhelming anxiety flooded his body and held him by the throat. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck—

“Tim, Timmy, hey. Calm down, please? Take a breath.” A soft voice chanted in a comfortable rhythm. 

“What—give me the letter. What was on it? What did you see?” 

Dick gently guided Tim’s head into the taller’s chest, protectively curling around him while Tim’s complaints got muffled by muscle. The older man rubbed hearts on his brother's back, obviously hoping it would smooth the kid down from his panic attack. But Tim was fine, he swears that he’s fine.

“Dick, I’m okay, It’s just a misunderstanding! It’s—uhm—it’s an old letter, okay. You don’t have to worry about it! I swear!”

Tim could almost sense the unbelieving expression on Dick’s face—they both knew that he puts dates on all the notes he makes, as a result of too many time travels with Bart and not enough organization. Dick knew what was happening right now, and Tim was looking more like a fucking pathetic idiot, with a loose tongue, by the minute.

It’s just… Tim can’t tell the truth—he really can’t. It’s too complex, something chemical and powerful inside his head that clouds the world more than Gotham’s shadows ever could. He couldn’t blabber about why he wanted to die—he would wind up talking about everything he’s ever done; being a vigilante and seeing those horrors every day, losing friends and family, tossing away his life in pursuit of a mission that wasn’t his to begin with. Every step he took was baked with layers of sorrow, and pure unadulterated mourning, of more than just himself. He was grieving his faith—his faith in everything.

How could you describe that wave of emotions? No language has deciphered a way yet—Tim would know—dialogues paint pictures with words; describing colors and actions to let the human brains connect that to their emotions. But anger was never fire, and sadness was never water, and Tim was still irrevocably yearning for death. He couldn’t explain that to Dick.

“Tim, hey. It's alright, I promise you that it’s alright. Just talk to me, okay? I’m on your side—let me help with this.”

He couldn’t explain to Dick because he would ingest the words like a piece of literature, analyzing them for patterns or reasons. But they don’t have that, and he would come to wrong conclusions—basic conclusions, popular meanings. Tim didn’t hate himself, he didn’t think he was worthless or selfish enough to kill himself. He just… he was so tired.

So tired of all of this shit. Being a perfect heir, a perfect vigilante—never once straying from Bruce’s code no matter how much he was beaten, and being the ‘intelligent robin’.

Tim was so tired of staying up for days, ignoring the haunting urge to sleep as it hung over his shoulders and whispered in his ears—the voices were similar to how Joker Junior laughed at him, through his own eyes, in the bathroom mirror at night. 

Every broken cry of a killed civilian, the intense fear on a rouges face as they realize they are going to be locked up, the look on a mother's face when they fully comprehend that their son is a rapist, the screams of a girl that lost her child to ivy’s thorns. All of it. A horrible symphony of pain and crime.

And that could never be stopped, even if he left his mask on the shelf and tried to live a normal life—the crime would not stop, and the death would continue in its frightening massacre. His reason for wanting to die could not be disproven, and it could not be hid from.

“Dick… I…” Tim started, lowering his eyes from the intense concern on the tallers face. “I don’t know what to tell you.”

Dick softened his eyes, letting his arm fall around Tim’s shoulders as he brought his kid brother into a side hug. “How long has this been going on?”

“Years,” Tim whispered. Because it all started when he saw his first death—following Robin and Batman as they made their rounds around Gotham. He was a bright-eyed fanboy, innocence clouding his judgment. But just because he kept his gaze on billionaires doesn’t mean he didn’t see the violence out of the corner of his eyes. And it was brutal. “Back when you were Robin.” Tim hoped Dick wouldn’t take it personally.

But he did. And it showed. The man was horrified—his hand came up to cup his mouth as his eyes widened, showing off baby blues behind thick lashes. “When I was Robin? Timmy, you were… you were so young—you were a fucking baby. A little kid. What… what happened?”

What happened to make him want to die? Or what happened to that little kid? The answers were only slightly different, but it made Tim question.

“Let’s just say… I wasn’t ready to see all the things Gotham had to offer. It scared me really badly.” Tim offered.

“Does it still scare you?” Dick asked.

Tim shook his head. “I understand it, now.”

Dick was silent for a bit. “Is that why you want to… do this,” he gestured to the note in his hand, “to yourself? Because of the things you’ve seen as both Tim Drake and Robin—sorry, Red Robin?”

“No, no. I got past that… uh… terror… really quickly. Probably too quickly for my age—I don’t think I processed it.” Tim explained while Dick nodded, entrapped in the conversation. “I just…”

The words felt caught in his throat. Burning him from the inside. He couldn’t let them go, as if there was an invisible barrier in his mouth. 

“I just… had to go through it alone. And I think that stuck with me.”

The taller man looked downwards in shame. Tim did the same.

“And then that’s who I grew up to be. A loner. And when B started to train me, that’s who he built me into… you guys get mad about it all the time—that Bruce said Robin is a soldier—but in my case that was true.” Tim paused. Gauging Dick’s reaction, but the man only looked slightly disheveled. “The reason I want to die is because I have nothing else but… war. I guess. A battlefield and a mask, surrounded by gunshots and gas as I emerge with deep cuts and wounds. Just pure violence.”

“That’s… that’s it. That’s who I am—that’s all I have! And even if I leave it, the people and thoughts will follow me for an eternity.”

Dick gently interrupted Tim. “You have me, us—this family. You have your friends and—“

“And where did I find them? How are we connected? Just more fucking pain.”

“There can be good too!” Dick nudged into the conversation again. Breaking Tim’s negative train of thought. “I know we all met under… unfortunate situations… but we are more than just soldiers in arms—and I know you know that, Tim”

“You are my brother, and I care about you while you care about me.” Dick continued. “I know we don’t always have the best of a relationship—and I’d like to mend that—but you forget what we are fighting for in the first place. We are getting hurt every day and night to be able to come home again. To sit and smile at each other when we eat at the dining room table while we fake-fight about stupid things. We are fighting to be safe, warm, and loved.”

“If you forget about that, you are going to drive yourself crazy.”

Tim scoffed. Leaning away from Dick’s face—it gradually got closer to Tim’s in every word the taller said—and letting his spine fall back into the uncomfortable bat-chair. “It’s more complicated than that. I know that there is more to this than endless violence—you wouldn’t be this and do it otherwise—but it’s the only thing I can see, touch, smell. The only constant in my life right now is the threat of it ending.”

Dick tried to speak, but Tim continued with a threatening glare, letting his body fall into a hostile but solid expression. “I’ve always done this job to be your family. But where the hell is it? Bruce won’t talk to half of his kids, Barbara gets horrible flashbacks when she comes within ten meters of this manor, Jason is an insane crime lord who has tried to kill me multiple times, Damian is an assassin’s princeling baby who has arguably got me closer to my death then the Hood, Steph is avoiding everyone, Duke thinks he doesn’t belong here, Cass is running from the woman she thinks she was born to be, and I’m—“ he broke himself off. “I’m a suicidal replacement for the family that you can’t quite have.”

Dick pushed his way through Tim’s internal monologue—throwing himself on his brother in an inescapable hug while the taller’s tears pattered on Tim’s shoulder. Dick must hate him. He has to.

Pulling his fingers into a fist, Dick jumped back from the hug with an unusually angry look on his features. And for the first time in forever—that wasn’t on patrol—the taller raised his voice to a shout. “Bruce has been trying to talk with his kids, he got into therapy and has been fucking reading self-help books. Barbara has been coming near the manor every day—getting an inch closer and training her body to not react in shock. Jason has almost stopped killing and started reaching out to me while asking how everyone is doing. He’s so fucking sorry. He wanted me to put him in Arkham because he thought he deserved it for what he did to you. Damian started leaving you gifts outside your door like a fucking cat because you were the first brother he’s ever known and he messed up. He paints you, did you know that? Sometimes even you in your old Robin suit. Steph has been out of touch because she and Cass were doing batgirl business and trying to find themselves—they planned a whole surprise party for their return and I only knew because like you, I thought something happened to them. And Duke finally started coming to family dinners.” He finished.

“We may not be good at it, Tim. But we are a god-forsaken family and that is the one thing I won’t let go of.” Dick demanded, then considered something else for a second, tilting his head up as he stared unblinking into the younger’s eyes. “And you aren’t some suicidal replacement. You are Tim Drake, you’re… you’re my brother. My equal. And you will not die.”

Tim sighed. Dick wasn’t giving up and Tim was already extremely tired from the interaction—and the days of no sleep. “So, you’re telling me to see the good in the bad? To not think about the bloodshed and instead think of what might happen.”

“Yeah. Yeah, Tim.” Dick said, and the sheer honesty in his voice was refreshing to Tim’s ears. “Just for a second—look at me—relax for a day. Relish in the things you’ve so clearly earned. You’ve lived your whole life alone—let me change that.”

Maybe he could. Just for a day. Just to see what it would feel like. The solution wasn’t a permanent one—the good feelings of trust would turn stale when Dick had to leave for a mission or Tim had to see another man die—but it was a step.

A step off the ledge.