Chapter Text
“All of you wanted me gone. I fucking got it. Some supposed spiritual connection, a myth, isn’t going to change anything.”
**
Those words haunt him no matter where he is: on patrol, in school, at Wayne Enterprises. Whenever a splash of red ( the color he gave to them ), of violet-blue ( his eyes narrowed, suspicious, and yet terrified to give in ), catches in the peripheral, those words echo again.
And Damian Wayne is not accustomed to feeling such awful guilt in regards to his predecessor. The past few years, the trials, the hard fights and seemingly-unstoppable villains, the lost friends and utterly destroying defeats, all of it gave Dami soft spots, gave him what he needed to learn how to bend. Not until he broke, never that, but enough to accept Grayson’s hugs and Father’s hair ruffles, Pennyworth’s hand on his shoulder and Cassandra’s silences, Brown’s snarky humor and those awful noogies from Todd. He could bend far enough to become part of their family.
On his eighteenth birthday, it had become apparent he, Jason, and Richard were spiritually connected, his splash of color beginning to manifest in seeing their eyes fully for the first time. Their view intensified, as Dick explained, in that they could still see monotones and grays in places, but could now pick out new, intense colors in their landscapes.
Deflecting Grayson’s poorly thrown punch during sparring had activated the bond, his vision abruptly exploded in an incredible vestige of color .
The blue on the body suit, no boots or gauntlets, just wraps on wrists and knuckles. Skin-to-skin contact made the knees go out on him, and Dami could only stay there, staring up at his soulmate, his mentor, his Batman, trying to catch a breath .
Todd was unexpected. His fellow member of the Dead Robin’s Club. Connecting with Grayson had inevitably led him to Todd, their connection just as electric the moment they tested it, staring at one another before reaching out tentative hands to touch.
“There is only one way to know for sure,” he’d argued softly, standing on a rooftop in Gotham, cape fluttering around his back. Where the Red Hood could watch, he pulled off the gauntlet and glove, thrust his hand out, palm up.
For long moments, he didn’t think Todd would take him up on it, felt his pulse pick up, heart pattering in some unknown emotion, something not quite fear, apprehension perhaps. It would make sense if Todd just wanted to share Grayson when necessary, not test to see if they are also, in fact, soulmates. Yet, it was achingly slow when the helmet turned slightly toward Nightwing facing them both, the blue over his chest a splash of color in the perpetual night their visions used to be.
At the oldest vigilante’s nod, Hood slowly peeled off his glove.
“Wouldn’t it be ironic if Drake or Brown were the last?” At the time, he’d been making a joke in bed about all the former Robins as soulmates while Jason held him against a broad chest and Dick hugged them both tightly from the other side.
He hadn’t expected that to be the case, not from the moment he showed up at the Wallstone that night, his soulmates and Father already gathered to start patrol when O reported over comms there were Red Robin sightings in their city.
He and Todd both knew Father and Grayson would be fairly salivating for a chance to talk to his predecessor while Robin and Red Hood would find another part of town to patrol, let them give in to their need to chase after the third Robin. He found it was...easier for them to approach if he and the Red Hood were elsewhere.
He hadn’t expected Grayson’s frantic call to Agent A less than an hour later, to feel an abrupt pang in his chest, watching as Hood rubbed the same spot over his armor. It could be none other than Grayson, to feel his distress so acutely without the ability to comfort him was a lesson in helplessness and pain .
The details come through the bond in fragments of feelings that were difficult to decipher, but from Agent A’s response, medical supplies would be available regardless of the situation. Robin and the Hood turned their frequencies to O’s when the comms slacked off, demanding a real status update.
“ Could use some coverage in Mid-Town if you’re asking. Explosions are bad for people don’t you know.”
“ You aren’t telling me anything, ” Robin replied, frustrated enough to punch a mugger hard enough to break his nose on the first hit.
“ It’s about Tim’s condition, and I’m trying to pay attention. Besides, what do you care?”
His soft tt is probably as appropriate a response as he can muster in reply because honestly , they hadn’t fought in years .
Still, “ Comm us if they need assistance. We can run interference if need be.”
“ Sure, Boy Wonder. I’ll keep you posted. ”
The Red Hood had laid a calming hand on the back of his neck, “don’t let it bother ya, sweetheart. Pretender’s the one thing always gonna be a sore spot, you feel me?”
Even though the whiteouts on his domino are up, shining blindly in the street lamp light, he rolls his eyes and crosses his arms over his chest defensively.
A few months ago, he would have ignored Jason and taken off on his own. Now, he finds himself understanding the sentiment behind it when he can feel the tension in Jay’s hand, shudders at the pull of anxiety through the bond. It is a map to understanding them in a way he never had through the years of being partners .
Running across the series of pawn shops, bail bondsmen, dollar stores, and restaurants in Mid-Town to track the explosions, Robin wonders what Drake was doing in the city anyway, His eyes move behind the whiteout, catching the glorious gold on signs and in streetlights, yellows in spray painted tags, faded candy wrappers in the gutter with cigarette stubs, all of it gained the moment Todd touched his fingers.
He gave them greens; they gave him blues and golds. Breathtaking .
But that...is all. So much is still terrifying shades of gray . All their research came up with the only possibility – the bond was not yet complete.
That night, his jest hadn’t been on his mind as much as the need to find the source of the explosions, tracking their perpetrators with enough Molotov Cocktails to burn half this side of town to ashes.
The two vigilantes were fortunately finishing up the take-down, zip ties securing their criminals and the GCPD en route for pick-up when Dick finally came back on comms panicked and afraid , more so than either had felt earlier.
Together, Robin and the Red Hood decided to knock off the rest of patrol and go back to the Manor to take care of their overwrought soulmate, calm him down, remind him Drake is a vigilante, a detective. He would survive the inevitable injury.
Helping turn Drake to get the suit off for Pennyworth to fully assess him was the moment everything changed.
Just hands on bare arms and a shoulder was enough to spark the bond’s final link, and the quiet hum of Drake’s unconscious mind brought on the final blast of color.
The kaleidoscope taking up his vision from one heartbeat to the next was enough to make Damian turn away, stomach churning at the abruptness of it, the unexpected lurch in his chest, the pull and tug to something deeper than blood and bone. His very soul reaching out .
Next to him, Todd jerked back like he’d been burned, hands going frantically to the helmet to disengage the security and throw the thing off, ripping the domino from his eyes. The blue of them flecked with green in perpetual motion, trying to believe.
But Grayson, Richard , looked wrecked, eyes watery almost immediately.
The implications came on the tail of glorious, uninhibited red .
Crimson on his own tunic, on Todd’s chest, all around the Cave, in Drake’s mouth when he whimpered softly, feeling the pain of his injuries even in unconsciousness.
Their missing piece.
Leaving him after that became...unbearable.
A thousand accusations and agonies while they watched him sleep on, while they all trace the newly uncovered path of the Bond.
Their soft, serious discussion by his bedside, tears shed with how cold, shuddered his end of the Bond is, even while he sleeps.
Facing him the next morning, facing his rightful ire, seeing first-hand what their actions had wrought, was a sharp agony to the chest when Drake fought them, pushed away their touch, their concern, closed himself off from them, took his connection away.
They only had precious moments to hold him, to feel the Bond full and complete and warm before Drake seemed to shake himself and shoved them away, the bond on his side shuttering completely closed. The loss of him was like ripping off skin .
The appearance of Superboy thwarted their opposition, the meta simply speeding into the Manor to face his best friend down, pointedly putting himself between them and their newly-gained soulmate.
“Really, Red? Didn’t I tell you to stop coming back here?”
From the side, Damian can see Drake ( my Tim, our Tim ) shake his head, “yeah, yeah. Thanks for being my Uber today, Kon. Current safehouse please. The faster, the better.”
Grayson, Todd, him had barely started to reach out, to say something, anything , before they were both gone, and the Bond dulled further on Drake’s end, leaving only the ache throbbing between the three of them.
**
Almost two weeks have gone by since they all felt whole , and each hour has been punctuated with the gnawing, grating silence from what they all now realize is the fourth connection to their soulbond.
“ All of you wanted me gone .”
Yes. That was once true, in Damian’s estimation. He and Todd had wanted the third Robin gone, each for his own reasons.
Dami because Drake was the representation of what he could never be, Father’s true son, not in blood, but in skill. Todd merely did not want the reminder of his replacement around, didn’t want to face that scar on Drake’s throat from the villainous days.
Reasons Dami could understand a month ago. Reasons that seemed justified because he had only wished Todd to be comfortable, not to face Drake’s mere existence and feel that awful guilt.
Yet, here he stands in Titan’s Tower, flown from Gotham on a quiet night, leaving his Beloveds behind.
Inside the gloves, his fingers are tingling. He flexes them in the attempt to dissuade the sensation.
Superboy and Kid Flash are regarding him with narrow eyes and straight backs, their silent disapproval unnerving as they block his way.
“I do not wish him harm,” Robin finds himself saying, “I merely want to...talk.”
“Honestly? I don’t give a fuck what you want,” Kid Flash bluntly lays it out, “you don’t get a private audience.”
Superboy continues to stare him down.
Robin’s jaw clenches, back teeth grinding, “I am certain he’s already told you who he is to me and the others, that alone should prove I will not harm him. We only–”
“You did everything, everything , in your power to drive him out of his own home, and then gloated about it in his face,” Superboy cuts in, deadly soft. “You put scars on him, asshole, when he gave up everything for that cape,” a finger points right to the prominent R on his shoulder. “He fucking earned it , and you threw him out like trash. Now, when he’s fucking useful to you, suddenly you show up here and want to talk ?”
Kid Flash’s hand on Superboy’s elbow may stop the words, but the fierce rage in those eyes bleeds deadly red for only a moment.
“As you can see, we’re obviously not fans.” Kid Flash smoothly pulls Superboy back a step. “So, you can either deal with it, or get the fuck out of our Tower. What’s it going to be?”
Behind the whiteouts, he blinks at them. On one hand, he’s absurdly grateful Drake has devoted friends. While he has had time to be horrified at his own behavior toward Drake, now knowing the elder is his soulmate, he is satisfied Drake was not necessarily on his own all the years he’d been away from Gotham and family.
Still, these two also make him regret not bringing a speed trap and shard of kryptonite to make this easier .
Calculating his plan of attack in this precarious situation, Robin raises both hands, palm up in an I surrender motion. “Very well. As long as I am able to at least see him, I will agree to your terms.”
Superboy nods and turns abruptly, leading the way up to Red Robin’s perch in Titan’s Tower. He follows without hesitation, the need to see Drake gnawing his insides, even when Kid Flash steps behind him, the two bracketing him in. The obvious mistrust grating, annoying as Robin has spent years working hard to earn the trust of the superhero community. He is no longer that child hell bent on proving himself the best merely by taking a life. He has come far since then that even the Justice League works with him without hesitation.
This? Is more demeaning, more humbling than he expected.
The Titan’s Tower Perch is disturbingly neat when the doors slide open to Red Robin’s living quarters.
Robin blatantly looks around, following the tense line of Superboy’s back to another set of doors.
Ah, this makes more sense.
What is apparently a workshop is littered with bits of technology, components, wiring, and sundry parts all strewn about. Several empty mugs line one work desk like fallen soldiers.
And Red Robin himself is bent over some sort of device, sparks flying as he works.
Robin’s mouth goes dry at his missing soulmate in only a black tank top and tight jeans rather than a bodysuit and armored tunic. His too-long hair is pulled back in a small tail at the back of his head above the strap of his welding goggles. He’s wearing short gloves, working diligently on some piece of tech.
How could I have missed how beautiful he is? How could there have ever been a time I did not want him?
“Hey man!” Kon calls out, stopping a few feet back to keep from startling his bestie into burning the fuck out of himself.
Tim finally notices the interruption, glances up once and then a second time. He pauses, staring at the vigilante over Kon’s shoulder, slowly straightens and then pulls off his welding goggles to make sure he isn’t hallucinating.
Because, you know, sleep dep is really a bitch.
“Gotham apparently sends their regards,” Kon fills in dryly, moving a foot to the right so Robin can step forward.
He’s struck by how small Drake is, broad for his size, but a head or more shorter than Robin himself, and the immediate urge to take Drake up against his chest, breathe in the scent of coffee and metal, bury his nose in the pale curve of that neck, is utterly devastating.
( Because he cannot have it, will perhaps never have it, depending on how tonight goes. )
“Hello, Tim,” Robin tries to be cordial, tries to make himself seem not dangerous, not abrupt or, in Pennyworth’s terms, arrogant and blunt .
“Damian,” is empty, neutral as Tim slowly puts down the tool in his hand, pulls off the gloves.
“I am sorry to intrude. However, you have not returned any of our messages, and... Grayson is beginning to worry.”
Tim’s expression remains neutral, so far removed from the anger and pain that had throbbed through the bond when he was in the Manor. The quiet of it, even here in his very presence, is an agony Robin has no name for.
He’s too busy staring at his soulmate to notice Superboy and Kid Flash turn to Tim with sharp movements.
“Huh, suddenly getting messages from Gotham now, are we?”
“Funny how we didn’t hear about that, Kon.”
“Very funny, Bart. I think our fearless leader hasn’t been telling us the whole story.”
“None of those messages were about cases or intel,” Tim hurries, turning back to his work table.
One of them hums in interest.
“No,” Tim points a wrench at his teammates, “when I need to go back for a case, then I go back. We had that whole talk about it, remember?”
“With the stipulation you let us know first, dude,” Superboy bites out.
Confused with this line of inquiry, what feels very close to a fight, Robin glances at the two Titans. “I do not understand this issue.”
Tim flinches, eyes snapping to the whiteouts, “it’s none of your business –”
“He’s got no safety net in Gotham,” Kid Flash pointedly talks over Tim, “no one in that fucking city is going to have his back if shit goes sideways. You know, like when someone he should have been able to trust cuts his zip line.”
This time, Robin is the one that flinches.
“Or tries to slit his throat,” Superboy shrugs nonchalantly. “Being on the same side doesn’t mean anything for some of the Bats apparently. Make that point to Red Hood for me, won’t you?”
“How about that whole who earned a cape anyway mentality from–”
“ Enough ,” Tim snarls.
His two besties just give him that look , aimed right at his face.
“Kon, Bart, give us a few minutes, okay? Please?”
At that, both metas freeze.
“T,” Kon starts in warning.
“Seriously,” Tim waves them off, “we’re in the Tower. What could go wrong?”
“Do you really want the list?” Kid Flash supplies flatly.
“I’m the one that configured security protocols, you know,” and Robin can’t help but watch as the smaller vigilante strong arms the two metas out the door of his workshop ( he has always been fierce, intelligent, capable, attractive. Now Dami can’t help but see it, be seduced by it .). “Stop worrying.”
The door closes on Kid Flash’s frown.
( But Kon is totally listening in, not even a question. )
“All right,” Tim doesn’t face him yet, his shoulders are tight, forearms deceptively loose, “what are you really doing here?”
Robin pulls off his domino, becomes Damian, reminds himself he needs to keep calm, treat this soulmate with care. If he, if any of them, had a chance to start again, to overcome their past, he would need to proceed carefully, delicately .
He eases himself down on one of the work stools, “I am here because you have not responded to us. That is the truth, Tim.”
And yes, a ton of missed texts and Facetime attempts almost had him changing his fucking number over the last few weeks, but he sure as hell didn’t expect any of them to actually show up here, “...not going to lie. I could expect something like this from Dick maybe, but never you.”
And yes, Dami understands why, and is precisely the reason he is here, alone rather than letting Grayson take the lead. He’d had a fervent hope Tim would take them seriously if Dami is the one in his Tower.
“I am just as concerned,” the youngest shrugs. “You are my soulmate as well, not just Grayson’s and Todd’s.”
Finally turning, eyes narrow, Tim stares at him intensely for achingly long seconds, assessing. He finally moves through his workshop, aware of Dami’s eyes on him, and goes back to what he was working on, bending over what will be a really nice trap for bad guy asshats.
“As you can see, I’m alive and working. Go back to Gotham. If you want intel? Another soldier between the baddies? That’s what I can do for you.” He starts threading wires in, places for small motherboards.
“Are you not curious as to why I have come rather than Grayson?” Dami asks gently, not moving from the stool, watching as those hands move, precise and sure.
“To be honest, I don’t care. I’d say the same thing to him.”
Damian makes a noise, something in his chest giving a sharp pain. “Tim... please .”
“Please, what?” And now those eyes, violet-blue and sharp enough to cut, are right on him. “Ignore the last few years? Come back to Gotham? Like I didn’t leave and stay the fuck gone because you and your soulmates wanted it that way? You think now that you know things are going to change?”
“I know our past is...tempestuous at best, and there are several reasons I owe you an apology,” Dami tries slowly.
Tim blinks and his entire demeanor changes, a mask, Dami realizes.
“It’s years too late for apologies, Damian,” and he goes back to his project, suddenly colder than he was before Gotham’s Robin came into his workshop. “I sold my parents’ house, the theatre, and everything about my life in Gotham is left in a 4x4 storage unit outside of town. Any family I have left are the people that live in this Tower.”
“Father–”
“I haven’t been his responsibility in a long time. That whole Boomerang thing? Before he pulled me out of Gotham Harbor, that was the last time I’d seen him.”
“I...Tim–”
“Whatever you’re trying to do is only motivated by the Bond. You don’t really mean any of it. You know that, right?” And Tim works while he talks, breaking Damian down in degrees. “Eventually, the newness of it will wear off and you’ll be back to your old self, Jason and Dick, too. Then, you’ll be kicking yourself in the ass for coming here in the first place.”
Damian leans forward, hands on his thighs, jaw clenched with how certain Tim is about what he’s saying, how he could believe they would one day return to the way things were, that such a thing could happen now that he’s discovered how it feels to be in a completed bond. “You honestly believe this?”
Tim doesn’t hesitate, “Yup. You’ll see. Give it some time.”
He sobers, hands splayed out flat on top Tim’s work table. “And this is why you will not give us a chance to be with you?”
Startlingly, Tim has to put the unit down because he’s abruptly laughing .
It grates on Damian, and he honestly cannot explain why.
“The first time we met, I put my hand out and welcomed you, and you punched me hard enough to knock some teeth loose,” he braces both hands by his project, stares down at it, “and none of it got better . A month ago, you probably would have done the same thing if I had the gall to be breathing in the same city.” Tim pauses long enough to turn and give Dami the weight of those eyes, “in another month or so when you’re over this soulmate crap, everything will go back to the way it was.”
You don’t get to break me again, none of you do.
Dami takes a soft breath, green eyes softer when he stands, takes slow, quiet steps in the hum of the machinery around them. It’s easier than it should have been to keep the table between them, to face Tim across the span, to lay his gloved hand on Tim’s bare ones and grip those fingers.
“And what if it does not, Tim? What if we still want you in another month, another year? What then?”
Finally, Tim’s head rises enough to look up at him, and Dami leans down a little to look into those blue-violet eyes, the color so pure it almost hurts.
“Eventually, you’ll get over it,” Tim fills in more gently, “just like I have. That pull you feel will stop meaning something to you, given enough time and space. And I don’t want to be anywhere in the region when that happens. I’m already missing a semi-important body part, thanks.”
He straightens, pulls his hands out from under Dami’s gloves, his expression back to that careful neutral, but Dami catches one wrist desperately, things starting to come together.
“This is why you stay out of the city as much as possible? To keep distance between us so the bond will not...?” He waves one hand in a circle between them.
Tim arches a brow in answer.
“You’ve been away for years , Drake. How long have you known about us? All three of us?!” He feels his anger justified, pulling the wrist he’s snagged, stares down while trying to recall their first meeting, that perhaps he’d missed the spark back then, had been too young to feel it.
But Drake...might not have been.
( He’d always assumed it was the element of surprise back then, the only reason he’d managed to land that backhand on the seasoned vigilante. But perhaps, Drake had felt something in the bond the moment they met, had found out... he’d hurt his soulmate from the moment they met, hasn’t he? )
“We’re done here. Go the fuck back to your city.” It’s simple to dislodge the hold on his wrist, to lean away from his “soulmate.” How was the I had to leave what I thought was my home and family because of you wasn’t clear?
“The very least you can give me is an answer!” Dami counters desperately.
“If I owe any of you anything, it’s Dick for putting up with me all those years. Believe me when I say he doesn’t want that answer.”
“You’re wrong –”
“I’m really not.”
“ Tim .” He moves fast, catches the slight flinch in Drake when his still-gloved hand presses lightly against that mouth, quiets him. “I will not give you up. Not in weeks or months or years. I do not expect you to believe in me, not yet, but at the very least, believe I am here to get answers. I cannot begin to try fixing this between us if I do not have all the evidence.”
“Fix?” Tim repeats stupidly, mumbled against Dami’s palm because how in the utter fuck is anything going to be ‘fixed’?
He’s spent years away from his home, from his parents’ graves, from the Manor, the Cave, the Bats, BI, and everything else associated. He’d stayed the fuck away and came back when it was time for major world catastrophes.
And not one of them gave a shit about him when the day was saved.
“Poor choice of words,” the current Robin hastily redacts, “I wish to be allowed to know you. This you,” he removes his hand, uses it in a flourish to encompass Tim standing there staring at him, “this man who is one of my soulmates.”
And even though Dami is across the work table from him, Tim takes a calculated step back out of reach, eyes narrowed shrewdly.
“You know me. We already established this.”
( “You wanted me gone.” )
“I know... of you. I know what I saw of you in this name,” his palm goes to the R over his heart, “and that was over eight years ago. The man before me now, I have only heard of in stories or seen in short visits when Gotham or the world is in peril. None of that is enough for me to understand you, to see you for you.”
The soft noise is Dami moving around the table, eyes all for Tim. His gloved hand moves again, more slowly this time to telegraph his movements, his heart aches when Tim still lightly flinches at the palm resting on the side of his face, expecting the inevitable blow.
It’s the same side of his face Dami backhanded when they first met.
“I want what I never attempted to have,” and his thumb moves over the clean line of Tim’s jaw, his gloves muffling the feel of skin he’s desperate to touch.
“What’s that?” Tim asks wearily, shaken and suspicious with how...gentle this is, how it’s very not what he expected when Kon first moved to show the current Robin bracketed in between him and Bart.
( Some part of him wants to smack that hand away, to spit curses and insults, to let all that old pain simmer and boil over, to fuck up his workshop more with the fight he’s itching to have. To reject Damian to his fucking face just to see the same pain he’d felt for years. While the other part, the one long denied, wants to sink into that grip, to let his eyes flutter closed, to bask in the attention from one of his soulmates. Fuck, how stupid is that really? )
“You, Tim. I want you.”
This time, he grips the gauntlet and moves the hand away from his face, remembers a time when all he’d wanted was to hear something like that from one of them, any of them. To keep the loneliness and isolation out of the bond, he locks himself down tighter, sees the effect when Dami’s expression crumples into confusion.
“You don’t get to say that,” he counters, “after all these years, none of you get to say that. I don’t even want to hear it.”
“I know,” and Dami’s chest throbs, a moment of agony before Tim’s side of the bond locks down tight enough to feel nothing . Only the faint indication Drake is close. In some ways, Dami thinks that is worse than the end being muted, silent. “And, I am aware I have not yet earned the right to say such things to you, but here we are. I am asking you to give me the chance to fight for you, Tim.”
And fuck does that hit some painful place in him, so obvious because he has to look away, a muscle in his jaw jumping with how hard he’s grinding his back teeth, biting down on all the things he wants to say .
He goes with, “I’m not interested in having soulmates at this juncture. Especially ones that have rejected me already. More than once, I might add. Besides I’ve had plenty of time to get used to being on my own, and it’s fine , thanks.”
“Oh Beloved,” Dami breathes painfully, the barest of glimpses into him that fleeting moment in the Manor when he and Todd and Grayson held their fourth tightly, kept him standing with them, where he belonged , how long Tim had walked alone, fighting and bleeding and mourning in his most private moments for something he thought could never be . “You aren’t... fine .”
“Don’t tell me what the fuck I–”
“None of us are without one another,” Dami interrupts gently, “I am only...undistracted because you are here.”
“Distance helps,” Tim replies flatly. “The longer you stay the hell away, the easier it is to cope. Trust me, you’ll learn that.”
“That is the opposite of what we want, Tim.”
“We’ll too fucking bad for what you suddenly want!”
Sadly, Dami watches the fire light in Tim, the start of anger, of pain , and he is helpless to do anything, to comfort this man, to assure this man they were all fools , that he is desperately needed, wanted, loved if only he would allow them to prove it this time, to give him all the evidence he would ever need.
“–you shouldn’t be here. Go back to Dick and Jason, tell them they’ll get used to–”
“They will not accept that, Tim. Nor will I. Is it simply...beyond us to know you are here in the world without us by your side.”
And Dami knows he’s made a grave error before the words are out of his mouth.
“By my...Seriously? You can’t stand to think I’m alone in the world? Hate to disappoint, but even when you were happy I was gone , I’ve never been alone.”
As if on cue, the main door slides open to a frowning Superboy and Kid Flash.
“Team’s almost all here, time to get started with our week of thwarting nefarious plots,” Bart is suddenly between them, looking up at the current Robin with a sharp, shark-like smile. “So you can have a very nice flight back to Gotham.”
“Just a few more minutes. Allen–”
“You said what you came to say,” Tim steps back with Kon and Bart, already putting Robin out of his mind. “And you got your answers. Have a nice trip back to Gotham.”
( But he won’t be able to, not for nights or days or week. The small part of him still alive, that still wants and craves to be complete, won’t let it go. )
“Please, Tim. I can wait until your team meeting is concluded.”
“How about you come back in two months if you still give a shit,” the older vigilante counters, already moving to the doors of his workshop, “see you at the never-happening Robin reunion.”