Archive of Our Own

In the pitch black—a seemingly bottomless void of ink and color yet to appear, the darkness before the curtains pull back—six figures fall. Their shadows are followed by a whirring click, the unspooling of film, the whoosh of a stage unveiled: with a crack of blinding light (and the whine of a camera flash, fading) the setting is revealed—

An empty room doused in a faint red glow, silent, only the drip of chemicals to be heard…

—A circus cast in black and white. The people are frozen in time, half-movements captured in rose-tinted nostalgia. Only that rare hint of red remains, and it is that color—that striking, unmistakable emblem of the Flying Graysons’ uniforms—that draws the eye, that brings the memory to life.

The flash. The momentary hug, grin, and calm before the storm. Permanent and yet not; the camera goes off and the memory, the past, stutters into motion—a time revisited, but not remade, not returned to in full.

Not quite. Not exactly.

Dick swings the boy—Timothy, his parents introduced him as—in a spinning hug, and when he laughs, airy, joyous, just as all the kids do when visiting Haly’s Circus, he almost doesn’t want to say goodbye.

“Come see our show!” Dick chirps, bouncing on his toes with giddy energy. He won’t feel settled until after the day is over, until he’s burned off all of the excitement coiled in his body with leaps and tricks and his very first official flight. “I’ll do a quadruple flip just for you,” he tells Tim, the wide-eyed, little slip of a boy, because it just feels right—the promise, the nickname.

Had Dick really ever been that small? It feels like a lifetime ago, now, and he thinks he understands why his parents waited so long to let him join them. He couldn’t imagine seeing Tim on the ropes, an accident in the making. Dick is trained, though; he was born to fly. He’d show Tim just how spectacular it was—how incredible his family is, to do what they do.

And it’s like no time passes at all between then and the show—no backstage preparatory talks, no well-wishes and warnings, no… He remembers, though, his mom taking him aside… But how can he remember, when this is currently happening? When he’s—? When they’re—?

When the show is beginning and Tim is in the audience—an audience of three (Tim, his mother, his father) and faceless, countless others. An audience of three, but really, truly, only one: his parents fade away, lifeless shadows cast on the furthest tent wall. Another remains, a shadowy figure, too, but more real than the imaginary, the residues of times past—Batman, or rather, Bruce Wayne, waiting in the wings for—

For—

The fall.

The ropes snap, louder than the sudden cacophony of voices shouting, overlapping each other, six familiar cries for him, but…

None are his parents’ voices, silenced, now, forever after—after the most memorable moment of his entire life.

The most memorable moment, it seems, of not just his life.

The sight of them collapsed, broken, unmoving—it’s the last thing he sees before everything returns to black, the sensation of freefall smothered by constricting circus tent curtains and winding ropes.

And in the empty room of red light and chemicals, the darkroom aglow with warm lamps and yet somehow so cold, so quiet, so—

A single photograph, the first in a line of pinned, developing film, bleeds into view: the shot taken at Haly’s Circus, all those years ago, unforgotten.

(Dick reaches out to grasp hold of it, but he has no hands, no body, no claim to stake in this timeline of memories lived.)

Another flash. It’s closely followed by the echo of thunder in the distance.

Dick’s hand is still extended, still reaching out for that photograph, for his parents who fell to their deaths before his very eyes, once more, another addition to the thousands of times he’s dreamt it, remembered it, relived it.

He’s no longer there nor in that strange, unfamiliar darkroom. This memory is somewhat more recognizable, but not like Haly’s Circus; no, this is only vaguely familiar in that, for all its minor differences, he can still identify the layout of Tim’s old bedroom in Drake Manor.

“How—?” He doesn’t stumble, but it’s a near thing. Even with all of his experience in throwing himself blindly into jumps and maneuvers, the disorientation of being flung into new and radically different environments is hard to brush off.

The others—Batman, Red Hood, Black Bat, Spoiler, Robin—are all crowded into the room with him. Red Robin is nowhere in sight.

“The fuck was that?” Jason snaps, hands balled into fists, clenching and unclenching in betrayal of his own disconcertion. “Wasn’t that—shit, wasn’t that your parents, Dick?”

He swallows. He hasn’t struggled with talking about this, about them, in years. “Yeah.” It comes out hoarse.

Steph curses. Cass places her hand on his shoulder, patting softly. She doesn’t need to say anything; Dick understands. Even Damian, though trying not to look too lost, is staring at him in poorly concealed concern. Bruce, on the other hand… Dick hates that he can barely get a read on him these days, not since his unexpected return from the time stream.

“Where is Red Robin,” Bruce says—no, Batman says. And while Dick agrees that it’s important they find him, he… He may have hoped, even for just a second, that the man who was there that day, that shed his icy exterior to comfort him once upon a time, would still do so now—would still care enough to try. But no, he gets nothing from this man he can barely even recognize. Barely wants to recognize.

As if reacting to his words, the bundle of blankets on the bed shifts, a tiny hand poking out to pull them back, revealing their secret audience: Tim Drake, still so young but older than before, back in that shared memory between them both when he couldn’t have been more than three. His face is blotchy with tears.

“You little—” Jason starts, easily pushing past the others to reach his target. “This is your fault—!” His hand goes for Tim, maybe his shirt collar, to pull him up to meet him face-to-face, maybe for his neck. Dick doesn’t want to think that of Jason; doesn't want to even suspect that his little brother could still be so vicious when Tim looked to be all of six or seven, tiny and tearstained. It doesn’t matter in the end. His hand reaches for Tim but only manages to pass through him—like ripples in water, or smoke dispersing and reforming, Tim is as untouchable as a ghost.

The phantom in their midst doesn’t even spare him a glance. He doesn’t look at anyone, only staring at his hands, shaking, trembling. His tears fall without a sound to hit the backs of them, lip bitten raw to restrain any noises he could make.

“Oh, crap,” Jason says, which they can all agree on. If Tim is untouchable, unreachable, then they were essentially stuck until a way to wake him up, so to speak, could be found.

“Nightmare,” says Cass, eyes intent and flickering over Tim’s form, studying. “Scared.” Her face shutters, briefly frustrated, then pensive. “No—Terrified. Sad. Very sad.”

Dick understood.

Tim, or the memory of him, turns around and reaches under his pillow. He pulls out an old black-and-white photograph—and why was it only just now that Dick realized there was no color in the room beside themselves? The dark, grayed-out atmosphere of the room may have been subtle enough to miss, but Tim’s colorless—normally so vividly blue—eyes should have been immediately noticeable, utterly unignorable.

And yet Dick, caught up in his own turmoil, was barely noticing a single thing going wrong outside of himself.

Tim pulls out a picture, and it’s familiar, somewhat worn-down but protected from the worst of wear and tear; it’s the scene that brought this trip down memory lane to life, and it’s the same photograph Dick so desperately tried to snatch from that eerie and empty darkroom.

He stares down at that photo, cherished beyond belief, beyond what Dick ever even suspected of Tim when he said that he’s kept it with him since, and smiles that small, barely-there smile he sometimes catches his Tim doing when he thinks no one’s looking. Traces Dick’s face with his thumb. Stowes it back under his pillow and turns on his side, burrowing his head beneath the blanket. Curls into a ball.

Dick reaches out for him, despite knowing that it’s a futile effort. It can’t be futile when it’s him, though—when it’s his brother, when it’s Tim. He doesn’t get the chance to see if he’ll pass through him as well before a flash of lightning erupts, burning away the memory in a wash of white light.

When he lands on a rooftop, boots finding purchase on gravel and the broken remains of a shattered beer bottle, Jason regrets bothering to show up tonight. He wasn’t needed—it’s not like he ever really is—and yet he still finds himself crawling back, unable to kill those last shreds of a boy yearning for attention from a family that has more of a foot in the grave than he does. He’s not sure why they still bother to put on this farce of a relationship; he’s not sure why he bothers.

Because it is a bother, to get caught up in these messes. Of course it would be the Replacement, the damn cuckoo bird, that sticks his nose in business that he shouldn’t and then use it to force his way into the center of attention. Jason could admit that he was exaggerating a bit—only a bit—because rationally, he recognized the fact that Tim likely has no control over this whatsoever. And, the stingy, secretive bastard he is, he’d more likely throw himself off a building than let them—or anyone, really—into his mind.

Also, he didn’t even touch the damn device on purpose, Jason doesn’t think. Probably. It was a real mess, that argument-turned-brawl. Tim was just another casualty in the fight; Jason didn’t, and still doesn’t, feel guilty about ramming into him by accident and knocking him directly into the line of fire. Really, he should’ve just dodged, or been more aware of his surroundings to begin with.

But it all comes back to bite him in the ass in the end—Jason, that is—because flying through the gray city streets and back alleys is a really, really fucking familiar Robin. As much as Jason himself doesn’t remember this night, Tim sure seems to.

Where the memory of Haly’s Circus was the black-and-white rendition of a vintage photograph, this memory is entirely monochromatic, save, obviously, for the blindingly vivid picture of Robin the Second, Jason baby-faced Todd, laughing and cartwheeling in the air like some nightmare come back to haunt him. That never really stopped haunting him.

He can hear himself whooping and hollering like there’s not a worry in the world that can reach him.

It’s disturbing.

“Where the fuck are you, Tim?” Jason yells, stalking around the rooftop. Bruce is useless—frozen at the sight of Jason’s younger self swinging alongside the Batman of the past—and everyone else is either too shaken up from the earlier happenings (Dick, god, he can’t believe the Replacement had the nerve to put him through that day again) or are also caught up in staring at this Jason as Robin.

There’s a quiet, but still no less audible, click.

And it’s just below him.

Jason crouches and grabs.

With a shriek, the wayward bird is snatched up from his perch. Then again, he’s not quite a bird yet, now is he? Tim, the barely preteen kid that he can lift with one arm, kicks and twists in his grip, terribly slippery. Jason is resolute, though. “Gotcha,” he grins, scaring the little brat into complete stillness. His wide eyes are a gray reflection of the sky.

“Who—Who are you?” he whispers. “What d’you want? Because I don’t have any money on me—”

“I don’t want your money,” Jason snarls, shutting the kid up. “I want out of this damn hellscape—”

“Jason,” Bruce fucking scolds, his tone brooking no argument. Jason ignores it, and him, anyway.

“I know you’re in there, you thieving, little spineless rat—!” He shakes the kid, only once, because before he can threaten him any further and maybe even get them all out of this illusion, Dick steals him away.

The kid clings to him like he’s his hero or something, and Jason supposes that he technically—really, truly—is. A frankly ridiculously large camera is pressed between them from where it hangs around Tim’s neck, the source of the clicking sound. Jason remembers—hearing, once, and can’t recall where from exactly—that Tim used to take pictures of them. He doubted it, back when he was hunting down the brat for taking his place. He never did quite start to believe in it, either—not until now.

(What sorts of pictures are hidden on that camera’s film reel? Jason represses the thought, the damned curiosity, immediately.)

“It’s okay,” Dick murmurs into Tim’s hair, brushing a hand down his convulsing back. He didn’t even scare the kid that badly. He didn’t—mean to, at least. “It’s going to be alright, you’re fine, I’ve got you…”

“Jason, you absolute fuckin’ idiot,” Steph explodes. “You can’t just do that! We’re in his head, or something like that—what if you made things worse?” Her hands are shaking.

“What if I got us the hell out of here?” Jason argues back. “Didn’t think about that? He’s—” and here, he points an accusing finger at Tim, “our only way out!”

“Not us,” Cass cuts in, shaking her head. “Worse for him. For Tim.”

“Like I care about that,” he says, a low, dangerous admission. He didn’t, and it’s not his problem either way.

“I am of the same mind.” It’s Damian who voices his agreement; he’s glaring at the pitiful sight of Dick holding onto the Replacement like he nearly died, like he’s the one who needs help. They’re the ones stuck here, forced to watch as their worst memories are thrown in their faces like it’s all some kind of sick joke. “Drake needs to be held accountable. This is his mind, supposedly, so he has the power to release us, as Todd said.”

“No one will be doing anything to anyone,” Batman, for all intents and purposes, growls out. Looks like he finally dragged himself away from the glorious reminder of what once was. “Not until we have a full understanding of the situation.” His jaw clenches. “Tim,” he addresses, only marginally softer. Not even the angel-faced Replacement has earned the full sympathy of the Dark Knight, Jason notes, smirking.

Tim twitches at his name, carefully peering out from where he tucked his head into Nightwing’s neck. “Batman?” he mutters. “But, you were just… With Robin, over… There?” His eyes flicker from Robin—Damian—and to Batman again, both looking very, undeniably different from their past counterparts. “You’re not Batman and Robin,” he decides with finality. “I’m not talking to you.”

He pushes his face back into the safety of Nightwing’s embrace.

Before anyone can begin to argue, Batman similarly concludes, “He’s not Tim.” Then: “Let him go, Nightwing; there’s no use in playing along with a memory.” As if the hypocrite hadn’t been enthralled in his own damn sentiments earlier, fixed to the spot by a mere glimpse of the past.

“What?” And Dick, hot-headed, bullheaded, complete and utter dickhead that he is, starts on his shit, as typical of him. “You—You heartless, worthless excuse for a father—Bruce,” and he says his name like it’s something detestable, something that pains him to acknowledge. “Do you really think that it matters whether or not he’s real? Whether or not he’s a memory, a piece of Tim, or even nothing more than an illusion? B, I was my counterpart in the other memory. I wasn’t aware of it at first, and Tim might be somewhere in this kid too, looking out at the world from the eyes of who he was at this time.”

And although he makes a point, it’s not Jason whom Dick is trying to get through to—and it’s Jason who catches sight of a flicker of red and green and gold and aims his grapple, leaving the roof and Tim and everyone else behind.

He slams into his younger self with a vengeance, and that’s when everything goes fucking topsy-turvey.

The roll of film jams, stutters, rips—the cartridge spills out under the unforgiving light, exposed, fading—

The door to the darkroom is ajar, thrown open, and Tim—

He gathers the film in his hands, uselessly—

Always a little too late.

Tim adjusts the aperture of his camera, prepared for the familiar sight that would greet him in five, four, three, two…

Robin swings past with a wide, blinding grin on his face, and at the exact second before he enters the center of his field of view, Tim allows muscle memory to kick in.

Click.

His parents are off on another trip, but that’s okay: he has Batman and Robin to pass the time. Tim dips another spool of film in the chemical bath.

Click.

He traces the face of Dick Grayson in the picture, remembering the warmth and steadiness of his arms wrapped around Tim. His parents hugged him enough to make up for all the ones they missed while gone, but they weren’t especially touchy people. Their hugs were always half-on, half-off—half of his life, there; half of his life, gone. Always at a distance that Tim couldn’t figure out how to bridge.

Click.

—further and further the memories unwind, deteriorate, get eaten away at by the blistering touch of light—

Click.

Jason dies. Tim creeps out from behind a dumpster, from where he was hiding, waiting with bated breath for Batman to finally, finally leave the beaten-down purse thief in a pool of his own blood. He drops to his knees, having to crawl the last few feet between him and the barely recognizable man. His face is practically caved in, or as close to it as Tim has ever seen on a real, live person.

And—he really hopes the man is alive. He places his palm over the man’s shattered nose, feeling for… for a breath, that does, in fact, come—but it’s ragged, wheezing, hardly there. Tim calls an ambulance. The man lives, but he spends the rest of those living days in a coma.

Click.

He’s Robin, and it’s great, it’s everything he always thought it would be—train surfing with Nightwing, flying through the air, solving crimes alongside Batman—it’s the best—

He’s Robin, and he—

Slits his throat in a graveyard. Tim thinks it’s Clayface, and even knowing this—assuming this—it’s the first mind game that has ever really, truly, gotten to him. He’s Robin. He’s magic. He can’t let this be ruined for him, for Jason, for everyone—

Robin breaks into Titan’s Tower and beats him with his own weapon, and every blow hurts more when his eyes are open. Tim fights back, tooth and nail, snark and, and… Robin wit, but he isn’t… He can’t…

He can’t win against Jason.

Tim bends and breaks beneath the weight of a legacy he wasn’t even chosen for—wanted for—

—and like a shattered mirror, they fragment back into seven separate people.

Stephanie retches when it’s all said and done, the trainwreck of memories finally slowing to a stop. She’d wish, sometimes, when Tim was being especially tight-lipped, taking those unfathomable, crazy-ass risks of his without talking it through with anyone other than himself, that she could just slip into his mind and see what made him tick. Never again would she make a wish as naive as that.

The memory they’ve landed in is less stable, sure—stuttering and flickering, unsettled, almost, like the old camcorder her mom bought used for cheap, but with a vintage brown overlay; it’s still better than the volley of memories being thrown at them, or them being flung through like ragdolls, Tim’s forgotten cargo. Unwanted baggage, more like.

Something rankles her about the look of this memory, though. Beyond the creepy atmosphere, she can’t help but feel as though there’s something missing—and it’s not because of the huge chunks of black… nothingness eating away at the memory like cigarette burns. No, it’s something else, something…

There’s a dead body on the floor.

Stephanie jumps back with a startled, “Shit!” and nearly trips over herself. Cass catches her, hands steady on her shoulders. She shoots her a grateful look. Normally, she would be well-adjusted—or, not exactly well-adjusted in that sense of the term, but definitely more than used to seeing corpses. But this one—this one is impaled through the chest, unseeing, and surrounded by an old pool of blood that has long oxidized. The face is unmistakable, too.

“Jack Drake,” Batman identifies the body, and damn, yeah, that checks out for another trip down shitty-trauma-lane. But where’s—? “Tim,” Batman continues, echoing her thoughts, “should be here.” He scours the half-formed room with a flair of his cape. “In this memory, we would both be here.”

“Well,” Jason cuts in, looking shaken—and he should be, damn it. “Not sorry to say, but he isn’t. We’re stuck with a corpse and this creepy fucking…” He waves a hand, aggravated. “Whatever this is! What the hell is wrong with the—the kid, to have a mind like this?”

“Have you ever considered it’s your fault he’s like this?” Stephanie snaps at him, striding up to him to jab her finger into his chest. “That all of this bullshit is fucking us up?!” She nods to the cooling corpse in the middle of the room. “That’s his dad! His mom’s dead too, y’know—”

“We’ve all lost people!” Jason yells back. “It’s part of the job!”

“As if that makes this any less awful—!”

The memory clicks like a goddamn slideshow, scene shifting over to the empty ruins of a city left in rubble and smoke. Except, it’s not entirely empty—the memory Batman cast in dried-blood brown is there, waiting.

“Robin,” he greets to thin air.

The real Batman twitches. “This is when…” He trails off.

In the memory, the Batman of the past, of Tim’s past, reaches out and places a gloved hand on seemingly nothing. Stephanie puts two-and-two together. “Tim,” he addresses. “She isn’t… She isn’t here, anymore.” A pause, and then he lifts his cowl to reveal his grim face. Stephanie’s heart sinks in her chest, able to figure out the rest of the incomplete memory.

“Tim… I’m sorry.”

“Why isn’t he here?” she says, turning toward their Bruce, overcome with the need to know, to understand. “Where’s Tim? Why is he missing?”

Despite being half-hidden by the cowl, his expression is a perfect replica of his past self. Grief-stricken. Frustratingly understanding. Of what?

A jump-cut, another memory: a war-torn battlefield where the body of Superboy rests alone, bloody and beaten, not another soul in sight.

“Shit,” says Jason, haggard. “Wasn’t this—Didn’t these all happen one right after the other?”

“Yeah,” Stephanie says, and it’s all she can say.

The dead silence of the memory is suffocating, but then:

“Go to Hell!!”

It’s Tim’s voice. Oh, thank God, they’ve found him. He’s back. Livid, sure, but here.

They’re on a rooftop. Strangely, both Batman and Alfred, though oddly dressed, are here as well—their past selves. Tim’s cape has been flung over Batman’s face as he tears him a new one.

“You just spent weeks—weeks of time and energy that could’ve gone into actual, useful work—to cook up this big scam to, what? Humiliate me?! To prove how gullible I am—?”

Jason whistles. Dick looks overwhelmed, caught in his own flashback. Tim—

“It was literal freakin’ torture, you asshole! I was having a genuine nervous breakdown!” He unlatches his belt and lets it drop.

“I am DONE,” is the last thing he says, Robin suit fully discarded and left behind. All that’s left is Tim: betrayed, hurt, and rightfully pissed. He swings himself over the roof’s ladder and disappears into the inky edges of the scene.

Alfred and Batman vanish, swept away in a haze of dissolving memory.

There’s a resounding click, but it’s not coming from Tim’s mind: it’s the sound of Jason undoing the safety lock on his gun.

“What,” he snarls, all vitriol and insidious, violent anger, “the fuck was that about, old man?”

“Jason,” says Batman, a warning. “Put the gun down.” It’s aimed his way. Stephanie likes where this is going.

“No,” and it’s said with a grin. “Are you gonna make me? Huh? Wiggle your way into my brain and torture me into doing what you want? Is that your game?”

“Jason.” It’s a threat.

The gun is waved wildly through the air. “I’m serious, Bruce! This isn’t a fuckin’ joke! Not these memories, and not whatever the hell this is!”

“I agree,” says Dick, and Stephanie feels her heartrate skyrocket. It’s happening. It’s finally happening. Tim told her about the events that led to her gaining the Robin title; she doubts he confided in anyone else about it, not by these responses. They deserve to know. Tim deserves the validation, the justice. “Just what was Tim referring to, Bruce? And why haven’t I been told a damn thing?”

“Even Goldie doesn’t know,” Jason laughs, still swinging his gun around without a care. “What else are you hiding from us, B? Let’s see: you’ve got emotional, verbal, and physical abuse; that’s already three strikes. You can tack on psychological torture, now, too. Are you trying to get a full rap sheet?”

He cocks the gun, aiming—

Bruce knocks the gun out of Jason’s hand, but it’s too late.

Flames consume everything.

“Holy shit—!” Jason jumps, trying to pat out the nonexistent sparks on himself. “Uh, we’re not…?”

“It’s a memory,” Bruce reminds, to which Jason turns away, clicking his tongue. The gun, still skidding across the floor, slides to a stop at someone’s feet. Tim, battered and beaten in his Robin uniform, picks it up.

“I will make a real difference,” he says, gaze cast beyond them—behind them.

He presses the barrel to his temple. 

In the rubble, an unfamiliar Batman lies petrified, face contorted with terror. 

“Starting… with us.”

“Oh, god,” Dick breathes, just as frozen as the man on the ground. No one can seem to move. It would hardly matter; they couldn’t stop him even if they tried. 

“Think about what you’re doing,” the unknown Batman begins, but Bruce has already pieced together the puzzle—figured him out for who he is. Or rather, who he was, or could have been, in an alternate timeline.

“I am thinking,” Tim says, unwavering. His finger tightens on the trigger, straining the mechanism as far as it will permit. The make of the gun has changed, no longer one of Jason’s; Bruce feels the blood drain from his face as he recognizes just whose gun it is, or rather, was. 

“I’m thinking about what I’m doing. What I will do.”

“You will save lives,” he presses. “If you become me—”

And this elicits a round of gasps, but Tim, the one who pulled even Bruce back from the brink of no return, is resilient. Dedicated.

“I will become a killer!” He snarls. The gun digs into his skin, his grip no less steady. “I refuse to be a—gun-toting psycho who stands by and watches as innocents suffer!”

“Bruce, did you—know about this?” Dick accuses more than asks, and Bruce cannot even blame him for it. 

“About Tim and the rest of Young Justice’s evil future selves? Yes,” he confirms, steadfast under the collective disappointment and animosity that is aimed at him. “About this exact confrontation, however? No, I did not. Tim never told me.”

“Or anyone, probably,” Jason mutters, glowering. His gaze, when he considers the Batman that is Tim’s once-future, is unreadable to even Bruce. It is not, as far as he can tell—can hope—interested, or positive by any definition of the word. If anything, Bruce would almost argue that he’s… upset, whatever that may bode.

The Batman of this memory closes out his speech.

“ … Connor and Bart have zero chance of coming back.” Tim’s brave face softly collapses into anguish.

“No… No, I’ll never be—”

Click.

The sound, normally a relief—a signifier as to the memory’s abrupt end—sends chills throughout them all. For a camera’s click, it sounded remarkably similar to that of a trigger being pressed. But that couldn’t be right, they reasoned, if Tim was still with them—still alive to recall these memories.

But the scene shifts nevertheless, and Bruce will be the first to admit that it is a mercy.

(Tim, his son, holding a gun to his head—the same gun that took Bruce’s parents’ lives—it will forever be burned into his memory. He will never look at Tim and not see the potential aftermath, the death of his son taken by his own hand, all in the name of maintaining his code. 

It is a mercy, because Bruce will forever remember how, in that moment, he approved of Tim’s actions. That he thought—that he believed—Tim should kill himself, when faced with the reasoning, the evidence, the proof that anyone could see clear as day that his choice would save lives.

And isn’t that what he does every day, sending his children out to fight? Knowingly putting their lives on the line, killing themselves under his guidance?)

Damian doesn’t know what to think.

Rarely does he waver from what he considers to be decisive, but when his beliefs are put to the test, it is his duty to improve himself: he swore off killing in the name of his father’s legacy, leaving behind his mother’s; when given the opportunity and… permission, to discover himself—to invest his time into pursuits that did not align with his goals, his training, in any perceivable way… No, his interests in art, in the care of animals—those were admittedly selfish and unproductive. And yet, Richard, and his father, now that he has returned and realized Damian’s worth (his growth), they both accept him for—himself. And that is it; it is as simple as that, or so they say.

Damian… does not know what to think, when his thoughts have, and will continue to prove—for the rest of his life, no matter the amount of work he puts into changing—that they are dangerous if listened to. That he is dangerous, to a fault. Todd would understand, and that is a bitter, unwilling admission on his part.

When Timothy put the barrel of a gun to his head and smiled, daring, all Damian could think was: I am not the first to nearly kill you, Drake. That was entirely your own doing.

And unlike any other time that insidious voice of his own thoughts—his own disturbed, misbegotten feelings—slithered into his brain, Damian felt ill.

To blame him, for something that, as Robin, he had trained into him—ingrained, even, so as not to slip, to regress into a harsher, colder mindset like this. He was supposed to talk people down from these choices, these escalations, not—!

Support them. Berate and ridicule them for.

Damian felt something in his stomach curdle, and the ripping, displacing nausea of the scene abruptly shifting once more did not help; the clicking of a camera immortalizing this moment in Timothy’s memory, in Damian’s memory, did not help.

His hands, shot out, did not help as Timothy fell from the dinosaur to the cave’s floor (no, it should’ve been—the glass case was there to break his fall—) and there his body lay, splayed out and broken in a manner uncannily similar to that of the Flying Graysons.

Several people shout in alarm—he has a crowd, this time, to bear witness to his mistakes—and although Damian does not want to seek out Richard’s face among them, he does. He can’t stop himself from prolonging the punishment, the torture.

Damian does not think about the way his brother’s face darkens with the shadows of grief.

No, traitorously, his heart demands a different attention—a worry, a fear lodged in place and choking his blood. If Richard knew, if Richard sees the memory of—

Click.

The echo of ropes snapping—

But no, no—it’s one rope, a line, a grappling wire, cut. His shuriken flies, lodging itself into a wall, but not before slicing through Timothy’s wire first.

There’s—more shouting, the sensation of freefall, dizzying, gut-churning, the guilt being pulled out of him in a slow, winding twist, and then—

Nothing at all.

They are back in the cave.

“What—?” Brown coughs out, hands on her knees. “What just happened? I barely even got to see where the hell we were.”

“Somewhere over East End,” says Todd. “I recognized it.” And, with hair-raising implication, his gaze slides over Damian, unreadable behind the mask. It doesn’t linger. “Didn’t see much else, though.”

Richard’s breath shudders out of him. “I heard—I heard it. The ropes snapping. Again. Why did I hear it again?”

His father’s hands clench. “The memories are becoming unstable.”

“Like before?” says Cassandra, and, oh, Damian knew when she was being purposeful in not looking at someone; he could recognize his own efforts mirrored back at him. She knows.

“Yes. Or worse.”

Damian is just glad to not be at the top of the dinosaur again, hands reaching out uselessly, guiltily. He would deserve it, to be stuck in a loop of his own thoughtless actions—but Richard wouldn’t.

Click.

The echo of ropes snapping—no. Red Robin’s line is cut, mid-jump. Robin’s shuriken lodges into the concrete wall. Something… unlatches, within him, and violently twists.

They fall through the darkness and are spat back out onto the cave floor.

“For FUCK’s sake,” Todd exclaims, clutching his stomach. Both Brown and Cassandra look alarmingly pale, and Richard is still… lost. Distressed, certainly, but working himself up to anger.

“I saw Tim,” he says, pacing. “He was in his Red Robin suit. He was—He leapt off the edge of a building, and his line, it—”

“Snapped?” offers Brown, wiping her mouth despite not having lost the contents of her stomach, not yet.

“Was cut,” Richard hisses.

Click.

The echo of—

Damian flings his shuriken, careless, opportune, entirely planned. It catches Timothy’s wire and slices cleanly through it. Guilt rears its vicious, horned head and spears through him, winding counter-clockwise.

They fall, hitting the cave floor violently.

“Shit, is this… Going to keep getting faster?” Todd wheezes, picking himself up. “Because it’s startin’ to look like we’re gonna be the ones who go splat on the next go-around.”

“Jason,” Richard says, low and barely restrained. “Do you really think that’s the sort of thing you should be joking about right now?”

Todd is seemingly unperturbed by this, but Damian can see how he twitches, aware of how inappropriate his comment was, considering the audience. But no less true.

“I’m just being fuckin’ honest,” he says. “We might not be able to get injured or die in here—for all that we know—but I sure as hell don’t want to find out.”

“We have to break the loop,” Cassandra says, the sudden and welcome voice of clarity. She pauses, finding her words. “Tim… always has a reason. A purpose.”

“You think the glitches aren’t an accident,” Brown realizes. “It does seem to be saying something, but what? The same scene, again and again, but why? Why now?”

“The real question,” Richard says slowly, fury fading in the face of an answer waiting for him to uncover, “is why do we keep ending up back here? What part does the Batcave play in this memory?”

“Not this memory,” says his father. “But the memory before it.”

Everyone turns to look at Damian.

The Robin shuriken is in his hand.

“I…” With hunched shoulders, he flounders, unable to defend himself. “I cut his line.”

There’s silence for a short moment—prolonged, in agonizing increments, by his anxiety—until Richard bursts out: “What the hell, Damian, I thought you were getting better—that things between you and Tim were finally clearing up?!”

Earning his ire is always worse than any punishment that follows it.

“It was a long time ago,” is his weak response. “This was after I discovered Drake’s hit list; I felt threatened, and he was…” He was trusting Damian to have his back, and Damian only brought another blade to an imaginary fight. “I’m sorry. I regret it.”

“I would hope so!” Richard throws his hands up in the air, incensed. “Because you should, Robin,” he hisses, “regret it. You could’ve killed Tim. Shit, being sorry isn’t an accomplishment—it should be expected. I’m… I can’t do this right now.” He turns on his heel and stalks off to a distant corner of the cave doused in shadows.

“Well,” blathers Todd, the fool. “Good on you for owning up to it, I guess,” he congratulates. “Maybe now we won’t, y’know…” He drags a finger over his throat, tipping his head to the side with an unrealistic depiction of dying.

“Dude, seriously not the time—” Brown groans, but Damian speaks over her.

“You would know, wouldn’t you, Todd?” And it’s the poisonous creep of that same thought process that drove him to push Timothy, to cut his line, to drive him from the family, that shapes his words. “What with how you slit his throat, just so?” Todd’s lips curl into a snarl. “How did it feel, to have your own knife be dragged over your jugular, to be privy to Drake’s unshaken faith in your integrity—?”

“I’ll show you just how it feels, you heartless little demon—!”

“Enough!” Batman bellows, but it is not his voice that cuts through the argument.

“How do you feel, Tim Drake?”

They turn around as one, finding the cave far behind them; it is no longer the Batcave, however, but rather an unfamiliar one in the desert. Tim Drake, Red Robin, stands at its sloping entrance, an out-of-practice smile pulling at his lips.

“Great, he smiles. That’s bloody brilliant,” the bald woman—Prudence Woods, Damian’s memory supplies, an unnerving clarity as to who these people, these assassins, are catching him off guard. What was Timothy doing with his grandfather’s followers—?

Damian doesn’t have to wonder for long, not when a saber burst through the chest of one of them, an unknown assailant introducing himself as The Widower.

Pru’s throat gets sliced in the ensuing carnage, and Owens is stabbed, dead before Tim can even begin to move. All he can do is bring his bo up to block the attack aimed at him, outrage fueling his strength and keeping The Widower at bay.

But it’s only one of two blades that he stops; the second sinks into his upper abdomen, twisting. The Widower had a list of who would be here, but Tim was not on that list.

“The Council of Spiders thanks you for participating in the game,” is his farewell, leaving Tim to bleed out in the desert, alone with the corpses of his friends and one quickly on her way to joining them if he doesn’t get up and move.

But, as the blade slides out of him, his thoughts drift toward his mission. To Bruce. He knew he was alive. He has proof, now, but they’re miles from… from…

Tim knew he was right, he knew… He thought that he would die, but as Robin, not…

He drifts, blacking out, but miraculously resurfaces.

The unbearable pain of it all—of losing his friends, of getting stabbed, of finding proof of Bruce being alive and not making it far enough to do a single thing about it—forces him to push through: Batman would be able to do this; Batman would be able to enter a state of zen and finish his mission. Tim can only choke down the pain and bleed out.

He grabs Pru. Wraps their wounds. Regretfully leaves behind the bodies of Z and Owens to vanish into the sands of a random desert in Iraq. Drags himself and Pru to the vehicle. Manages to reach the Wayne facility, but is unable to do more than pass out on the bed beside her.

The thought of calling out for Superman flickers briefly, appearing and disappearing before he can grasp onto it. Would he respond? Tim is the only one that knows Bruce is alive. Connor…

He wonders if he’ll get to see Connor.

Tim wakes on a stone slab in a cave. The memories of the paintings on the cave walls overlap his surroundings; he found Bruce.

But there is unnatural light, here: wired to the ceiling, bearing down on him—a ninja, hovering above him—the glow of a Lazarus Pit—

Fear coiled with disbelief, with sudden, all-consuming rage, dyes the memory in a flood of green, ruining the already delicate balance.

In the darkroom, a young boy swears under his breath, dropping the reel of film that bleeds a toxic green.

They leave behind the onslaught of memories, returned to the cave. While the fear and disbelief had undoubtedly been Tim’s, it was mixed up with that of Jason’s own brand of emotions: that same fear, but buried beneath layers of rage.

Cassandra can see it in him even now, ejected from the memories and returned to the safety, the familiarity, of his own body. For all that she could read how others wore their bodies, actually wearing one—and not even as herself, but as Tim—was unsettling. It felt wrong. Jason shows that same lingering sense of discomfort in the constant, stressed twitches he suppresses.

“Why was he near the Pit?!” His indignation wars with his newfound—or perhaps not new, but newly discovered—protectiveness. “Did another bird die for your crusade, Bruce? Did he?!”

“No,” he grounds out, gnashing his teeth. Bruce is worried. He does not know for certain. “He couldn’t have been in the Pit; he would have told me.” This is what he believes—what he holds onto and doesn’t let go of.

“But you know what really happened,” says Dick. He understands Bruce’s not-language well.

“Yes.”

“Well?” goads Steph, muscles coiled. “Not planning to tell us? Just like with everything else?” She is hurting, deep inside. It is weeping.

Bruce does not respond to that, not immediately.

“Father,” Damian starts, then nearly backtracks when several eyes turn his way. He bolsters his courage, small yet fierce. “Drake must have lost an organ from that injury, at the very least. It would prove—dangerous to his health if we remained uninformed of such a—weakness.” Though his wording is harsh, his heart is bared: he is concerned about Tim.

Bruce hesitates, an uncommon sight, yet more common than the others are aware; he often hesitates when his children are involved in the matter.

“His spleen ruptured and was surgically removed.” Steph hisses, wincing, and Jason tosses his hands up in the air, turning his back to Bruce. Dick is—disturbed, or… betrayed? Guilty. He feels guilty that Tim was hurt while he was away. While he was Batman, tasked with his safety. Damian is similarly guilty, but also not. Where Dick’s guilt is worn as a failure of responsibility, Damian’s is a result of it: his actions put Tim’s departure into motion, and he holds himself accountable.

“He could’ve—died,” says Jason, stumbling over the word. “He still could’ve been thrown in the Pit. You don’t know that. He could’ve lied like he has been this whole time.”

“Tim hasn’t lied.” Steph is offended on Tim’s behalf. “Sure, he’s kept some shit to himself—but don’t we all?”

“He—” Dick is unsettled, tipping dangerously as though he will collapse. He braces one hand on a stone-slabbed wall, mouthing words soundlessly. “He thought he would die. As Robin. No, he knew—He said he knew. He was okay with dying.”

Jason’s face does not settle on a single expression; it flashes through them, all different variations of the same repressed unease. “That’s just part of the job,” he argues, but his… spirit isn’t in it. “We accept our mortality and keep going anyway.”

“That’s not what that was and you know it,” Dick whispers viciously, mouth tugged down in—a frown, or a half-formed grimace. The flicker of candlelight leaves him looking more exhausted than usual, casting dark shadows across his face.

There were no candles in the League’s cave.

Cassandra realizes belatedly that those dusty, tan stone slabs are familiar; her heart rate picks up against her will.

“No,” she murmurs, twisting around, searching aimlessly. “No, no…”

“Cass?”

“Too late.” It’s a horrible admission. A difficult one. The others all receive her words with dread.

Chains rattle, and the naked villain—the Daughter of Acheron—appears from the darkness to loom over Tim, bound to the wall of the catacomb. His cowl is ripped back and face bared before her: furious, but also so, so very terrified.

“Oh, god,” says Steph, appalled. Jason mutters a curse. It’s Dick that catches Cassandra’s attention, however, for his utter lack of a reaction—it’s as though every trace of him leaves his body completely, his expression going slack, eyes dimming. Even his breathing is shallow.

“…Though your flesh dies now, know that your spirit will be honored—and you will live on,” she says, a chill of disgust and murderous intent from her unwilling audience sweeping through the catacombs, the memory. “Through the child you are about to give me.”

Her fingers trace down Tim’s neck to find the zipper of his suit, and as she begins to pull it down, Cassandra remembers that this is not real—that this is not happening, and that she was not too late—and she attacks the naked woman with a cry.

The Daughter of Acheron melts into a puddle of tar.

Cassandra is unafraid of how, if given the chance, she would have killed that woman.

“You broke it!”

They all turn to face him at his shout. Good. They keep messing with his stuff, and now he’s going to have to clean up after them. Tim crosses his arms, pouting.

“You broke my camera, now fix it!” He gestures toward his busted-up camera and spools of ruined film scattered everywhere. They look confused, stumbling over each other.

“How the hell—” starts Jason, glancing around his darkroom with a wary expression. Tim rolls his eyes.

“This is my darkroom, and my memories, and none of you are allowed to be in here,” he says with a huff. Then, he pauses, anger softening with his own confusion. “Wait, how are you here?”

Bruce pushes to the front. “Tim, you’re the only one who can release us from your mind. You have to—”

Tim cuts him off because he can do that here. And in the real world, when he feels like it. “Nuh-uh, I wanna know why you’re here.” He narrows his eyes. “Are you trying to find out my secrets? ‘Cause I’ll never tell you where I hid that Batmobile I em—” his nose scrunches up, “embezzled,” he finally succeeds in saying.

Jason has a very funny look on his face. So does Bruce, for that matter.

“We’re—” Dick’s voice cuts out, almost strangled. “We’re not here for your secrets, Tim,” he says with that babying tone he sometimes uses when he thinks Tim doesn’t understand something supposedly obvious, like the importance of remembering your own birthday. Ridiculous.

“Yeah, right.”

“No, seriously,” Steph joins in, frustrated. “We don’t want to be here, like, at all.”

They all seem to agree with that sentiment. But, as Tim slowly drags his gaze across each of them, enjoying how they squirm, he lands on Damian and… considers.

“Sure, I’ll let you out,” he says, shrugging. They all breathe sighs of relief, save for Batman, the buzzkill. “But I wanna know why you’re here, first, so I’m just gonna do that real quick.”

“Do what real quick?” Jason echoes, as paranoid as he should be. Tim grins, picking up his camera and aiming it their way. Every single one of them reaches out to stop him. Tim pulls back the film advance lever and presses the shutter button.

Click.

Bruce has confiscated some unknown, alien-made technology. They suspect that it could be Martian, but there’s no conclusive evidence to support that claim. Tim studies it balefully, knowing that he may lose even more sleep at this rate; he’s already clocking overtime on sleep deprivation.

Even more annoyingly, they’re arguing about something or another again. It’s always the same show with different actors, a slightly altered script: someone says or does something that can be taken offensively, and they start a fight about it. Either physical or verbal, take your pick—or both, as has become the most likely option as of late.

Tim wishes that it would all just stop. That he could tap out. That—his efforts to drift away, to remove himself from this performance of a family, would be noticed. It’s not as though he’s trying especially hard, considering he’s here tonight, but when was the last time he made the effort to take part in their day-lives? Tim knows, but he would bet any of his remaining organs that they don’t.

That they wouldn’t even think to wonder.

It doesn’t matter. He’s never—He doesn’t care. Tim hardly listens as the argument raises in octave, several others joining in, rehearsing their lines. He just wants to go rest, but he can’t even have that easily—since moving out of his room at the manor and packing everything up (and—well, there wasn’t much to pack, he realized, having not bothered to keep anything more than essentials there) he was only able to sleep satisfyingly at his Nest, anymore. (Or at all, really; he didn’t feel… safe enough, to enter REM unless he had every security measure possible placed between him and the world.)

So, point being, he would need to drive back the whole way without crashing Redbird. That’s fine. This is fine.

Someone throws something, and it doesn’t matter what, or who, it was; the device gets clipped and a soft beeping begins to emit from it.

“You need to be more careful—!” he calls, stepping onto the stage, shaking his head at the intrusive metaphors. He wants to sleep. He needs a shot of adrenaline, or an unhealthy amount of caffeine, to put up with this.

The beeping picks up in speed and octave.

Jason stumbles back (and nearly collides into Tim) dodging a flying kick from Damian, and his bicep jerks, gearing up for a punch, only to slam into Tim’s head. He falls. The device opens up like a metallic lotus, spinning rapidly.

The last thing he sees is a flash of white light.

In the darkroom, Tim remembers.

While the others groan and clutch their heads, eyes screwed shut with the pangs of the memory’s sensations, Tim remembers, and he…

“I wanted to leave,” he says, surprised. “Why did I want to leave? I don’t…” He looks to them for answers. “I don’t want to leave,” he says as if he could convince them. Convince himself.

“Tim,” Dick begins, soft—a wretched sound. Tim doesn’t need him to be soft right now; he wants him to be firm. Unyielding. Tell him not to leave. Tell him he’s wanted. Then, with more alarm: “Tim?”

Something warm trails down his cheeks. Tim brings one hand up to his face and finds tears spilling out without his permission. Nothing ever goes how he wishes it to; nothing—nobody—ever listens to him.

“I don’t want to leave!” he sobs, clutching his camera. “I don’t! I really don’t!” He shakes his head. “Real-me is lying. He’s lying to himself. You have to believe me, you—”

“We believe you.” Tim’s eyes shoot open. He stares into the earnest face of Jason Todd, the Robin he once watched for hours at a time. He knows that expression; he knows it’s real. “I believe you, at least,” he relents, gruff.

“I just wanted a family,” Tim confesses, sniffling. He wipes the tears away with his sleeve. “I knew it was… too much to ask for, from you all. I knew I was asking for something—temporary, or one-sided, or—”

“It’s not, Tim,” Dick exclaims, rushing over to him to grasp his shoulders, kneeling before him. “You’re our family. My little brother. Bruce’s—son.”

Bruce clears his throat. Visibly hesitates. “Tim, I… You must know that I consider you to be my son.” A pause. “Don’t you…?”

Tim only cries harder. Bruce’s expression is—fragile. Gentle.

“Brother,” Cass says, fond.

“I’m technically the ex-in-law,” Steph pipes up, a crooked grin betraying her embarrassment.

“You…” Jason glares at the floor. “I don’t see how you could still want me as a brother,” he admits.

“I do,” says Tim, painfully honest. “I’ve always wanted to be brothers with you. That hasn’t changed.”

Jason’s eyes are wide. “Not even…?”

Tim doesn’t look away. “Not even,” he nods.

Dick wraps his arms around Tim in a hug that nearly sends them both sprawling. “And your my little bro,” he whispers into his shoulder. “But you already knew that!” Tim yelps as he musses up his hair, pushing Dick away.

A small voice finds its courage.

“…Timothy,” Damian starts, then presses his lips together, shuffling his feet. “Tim,” he tries again, strangely… endearing, in his fumbling.

“Dami…?” Tim returns, uncertain. Damian’s face brightens, mouth falling open in a faint, Oh. The tips of Tim’s ears are burning, but he pushes through the awkwardness: “It’s… I’ve always wanted a little brother, y’know…?”

Damian’s face crumples.

Tim waves his hands, mortified. “Oh, god, I’m sorry I don’t know why I said that—”

“Thank you,” Damian says, cutting him off. Tim will forgive him for it, just this once. That’s his responsibility as an older brother, after all.

“Yeah,” says Tim, suddenly shy and feeling much, much smaller than normal. “Will… Before I let you all go,” he says, fidgeting. “Will you all… pose for me?” He blinks his wide eyes at them, sealing the deal. “For a family portrait.”

“Shit, kid,” Jason mutters, pushing back his hair. “I think you need to go get those eyes of yours registered as a carry-on weapon.”

Tim’s composure cracks. “So, you don’t…?”

Dick glares at Jason, who straightens with an alarmed look. “Wait, no, I mean—Yes!” he blurts out. “We’ll pose, we’ll pose… Please, for fuck’s sake, don’t cry again.”

Tim smiles wider than he has this whole time—since he has in a long, long time. “Great!” he chirps, barely wasting a second before directing them on where to stand. “I want you, there… and you, over here…”

By the time everyone is squeezed in, feuds put on hold for this short, precious moment, Tim is setting up for the shot, his tongue poking out in concentration.

“Tim?” Dick calls, carefully maintaining his pose.

“Yeah?”

“Well, the thing is…”

“Get on with it, Goldie,” Jason rolls his eyes, and when he goes to adjust his arms, Tim glares at him. He stays put.

“As I was saying before I was so rudely interrupted—” and this earns a dark look from Jason, “—we can’t exactly have a family portrait like this, now can we?”

Tim pauses. “What d’you mean?” he asks softly, preparing himself for the impending disappointment.

Dick’s smile is genuine, though. “It wouldn’t be complete without the last member here with us,” he explains, and Tim—

“You… want me to join you?”

“Yes, doofus, c’mon over here already,” Steph gripes, clearly irritated with having to stand still for so long. “I know you have a setting on there somewhere for a timed picture. Just start it and jump in.”

And he—blinks at that. “Okay,” he agrees, and although there wasn’t originally a setting for that, he finds one waiting and ready for him. Tim turns it on without thinking, hearing the timer ticking down. But where is he supposed to stand…?

Bruce opens his arms wide. Tim doesn’t hesitate.

Click.

The white flash fades, and a chorus of resounding groans echoes throughout the cave.

“I feel like I got hit by a truck,” Steph mutters, her voice strangely close to Tim’s ear. He tries to open his eyes, but even the dim light of the cave sends a migraine shooting through his skull. He’s in agreement with her; every part of his body feels pummeled into the ground. “Shit, Tim?” she says, and despite how worried she sounds, Tim can’t help but want her to be quiet. He clutches his head, breathing deeply through his nose.

“I think I hit my head,” he says, and his mouth could be full of cotton for all that it’s concerningly dry and utterly uncooperative.

“Sounds about right,” someone grunts, and Tim thinks it might be Jason.

“…Should we check him for a concussion?” A distant conversation goes in one ear and out the next, but that was probably Dick talking. A hand cards through his hair, and he sighs, relaxing into the touch.

“I’m going to sleep now,” he warns.

“Wait, wait—!” That’s definitely Dick. “Tim, do you remember—?”

“Remember what?” he grumbles, sensing that his beautiful sleep is slipping further and further out of his reach. “Getting knocked over by Jason’s fat ass and hitting my head on the weird device? Then, yeah.”

“You little shit—” Jason growls, but against Tim’s better judgment, he would argue that it almost sounded—dare he even think it—fond.

“Nothing else?” Dick presses. “Nothing at all? No… memories?”

“Just my normal memories, Dick.” Tim sighs, his eyes still closed. “I don’t have amnesia if that’s what you’re worried about.”

“No,” Dick responds after a momentary pause. “No, just… checking.” Tim hums. The fingers in his hair, brushing over his scalp, feel nice. Comforting.

“Can I sleep now?” he asks, but really, he’s already giving in before he can hear whether or not he got their permission.

A pair of strong arms lift him from the cave floor, and honestly, it could be any one of them that carries him to his bedroom upstairs—bare for now, but maybe not for much longer.

Tim had planned to distance himself and cut ties if nothing changed, and he hadn’t planned to do anything to make that change happen.

This was a pleasant surprise.

Maybe—Maybe he could stick around a little longer. Just to see how things play out from here.

(And if Tim got two new photographs to display amongst the others, a posed family portrait—with him embraced in the arms of his dad, a silly smile too big for his tiny face—and a candid shot with each of them reaching out so desperately, so hilariously, to steal his camera from him—? Well, Tim would take that secret to his grave.)