Chapter Text
In hindsight, it was really very obvious. Tim’s gravitation towards makeup and the way his eyes were always drawn towards dresses was not necessarily because he was attracted to the women wearing that makeup and those dresses, but rather because he intrinsically felt an affinity towards the feminine.
The first time Tim indulged in what he had come to accept as his dirty secret, it was for a mission, so it was okay. He hadn't even been the one to suggest going under as a woman, so it wasn’t like he was really doing anything wrong, per se.
The shameful part came when he had to take the disguise off at the end of it all, and he realized that he’d felt far more comfortable with the hair extensions and padded bra than he’d ever felt in his gala suits or his boy’s school uniform.
Two weeks after the mission was over, Tim found himself lurking in the Batcave alone under the guise of finishing up a report. It took him all of four minutes to decide to grab the hair extensions, basic makeup supplies, and clothes belonging to “Caroline Hill.” Stuffing the items in his backpack and shoving three separate textbooks on top, he hastily erased the last five minutes of the Batcave’s footage, replacing it with a looped feed of him typing on the Batcomputer.
Later, in the privacy of his en-suite bathroom, Tim went through the motions of becoming Caroline Hill, checking the lock every two minutes with a paranoia that rivaled Bruce’s own. He shaved his legs and applied makeup and dressed himself and attached the hair extensions and looked in the mirror and nearly started crying.
God.
He tried for a smile and found that the stranger in the mirror felt like home. She was pretty, with long hair and glossy lips and soft curves in the places where Tim was sharp and angled. His chest twisted and his heart pounded. God, he wanted more than anything to just be this girl. For a sweet sliver of a moment, Tim imagined becoming this girl, imagined putting her on every morning, imagined going out into the world wearing her. Then, abruptly, he shook the thought out of his head, guilt and shame and fear and disgust and hatred pooling in his gut.
He couldn’t.
He stared at the girl himself in the mirror one last time before ripping off the clothes and hair extensions and shoving them in a shoebox that he hid away at the very back of his closet, buried under sweatshirts and shoes and suits with ties.
He hadn’t heard his dad say much on the matter before the coma, but Jack Drake was not a tolerant man, nor was he a forgiving father. If—no, when his dad woke up, he would want a normal son, not some freak traipsing around in dresses and pretending to be a girl.
Jack Drake woke up from his coma exactly nineteen days later.
—
Moving back into his own house wasn’t as hard as he’d expected. He threw all of his things into boxes, loaded them into a car, and made the back and forth trip twice. Just like that, everything was done. The innocuous box with Caroline Hill trapped inside took up its rightful place at the back of his closet, stowed underneath literally everything else.
Soon enough, there was too much to be worried about for him to be thinking about Caroline. Tim was too focused on his father’s physical therapist becoming his fucking stepmom and Ives getting follicular fucking cancer and Darla fucking dying and Jason fucking Todd coming back to life as the fucking Red Hood to fucking kill him. Yeah. Tim’s life was pretty fucking busy.
When the attack at Titans Tower happened, all Tim could think in the back of his head was that Jason called him a “pretender” because he knew. When Jason broke Tim’s bones with his own bo staff, Tim was certain Jason knew how wrong he really was. Somehow, despite how careful he’d been, Jason had found out that Tim was a freakish, disgusting, warped mess of a boy who was so desperate for attention that he couldn’t even stand to look at himself in the mirror. The guilt wormed its way under his skin, settling down next to the knowledge that his very presence was tainting the Robin colors.
Later, when Jack found out about Robin, all Tim could feel in the moment was relief that it had been Robin and not Caroline. He spent months angry at his dad, angry about being forced to quit Robin, angry about the reaction he knew he’d get from his dad if he ever dared to dress up as Caroline. He was just angry all the time and his skin was itching like it needed to be washed and he knew, he knew, he knew that he wasn’t normal. He wanted so badly for everything to go back to normal, because this false life he was living in like a parasite wasn’t his normal. It wasn’t his at all. Being a normal boy with a normal life and normal friends made Tim want to die.
Even after he eventually resumed being Robin, things weren’t perfect. Things weren’t even good. Tim was living in a stranger’s room with a stranger’s family in a stranger’s body. He missed his room in Wayne Manor and he missed living with Bruce and Alfred and he missed the feeling of Caroline’s skin instead of his own. Guiltily, in the privacy of his own mind, he wished his dad had never woken up.
Jack Drake died on the floor of Drake Manor sixteen days later.
—
Tim had to give up on Eddie Drake pretty quickly once it became clear that Bruce had figured it out.
All in all, it wasn’t totally bad. Bruce officially adopted him and he moved back into his old room at Wayne Manor, which had been left untouched except for the occasional dusting. The move was harder than before, on account of the fact that he had to transfer everything because there would be no going back to Drake Manor. He didn’t mind the thought. He fit back into his old life like nothing had changed. And, if he was being honest, not much had changed. The only differences were small. Jack Drake was in a coffin instead of a hospital bed. Timothy Jackson Drake was now Timothy Jackson Drake-Wayne. Most importantly, Tim was starting to truly belong for the first time.
With less shame than he’d felt before, he purchased a pale blue dress for six dollars at a thrift store while wearing a hoodie, sunglasses, a medical mask, and the baggiest sweatpants he could find. He probably looked like a total freak, but whatever. He put the dress on in the same en-suite bathroom he’d properly worn Caroline for the first time. Standing there, looking in the mirror at the pretty girl he’d missed so much, he quietly considered telling Bruce about Caroline Hill. Maybe Tim could be someone that didn’t make his skin itch and twist and burn. Maybe it would be okay after all.
Then Damian showed up, claiming to be the blood son and calling Tim an ‘interloper’ as if Tim didn’t already know that. There were attempts on his life in his own home, and he’d never felt like more of an intruder in his life. He lived in perpetual terror that Damian would have the bright idea to raid his room, and that he’d find Caroline in the process. Every day in the manor felt a little bit more like a nightmare, especially once it became blindingly obvious that Damian wasn’t going to rest until Tim was gone.
At the very least, he was able to get out of Wayne Manor whenever he went on dates with Steph.
Steph died.
Still, he could lean on the shoulder of his best friend, his heart outside of his body, the other half of his soul, Kon.
Kon died.
Thank God he still had Bart.
Bart died.
Bruce could help, he could do anything, he was Tim’s rock, his mentor, his dad. Everything would be okay, because Bruce was there, and Bruce was Batma—
Bruce died.
Everyone was dying around him. Everyone around him always died. John and Mary Grayson, Jason, Mom, Darla, Dad, Steph, Kon, Bart, Bruce.
He spent far too long in that basement laboratory, desperately trying to bring pieces of Kon back, trying to make him again. He’d press his hands and forehead against the glass tube and pretend Kon was alive.
Attempt 97. Fail.
Attempt 98. Fail.
Attempt 99. Fail.
As he knelt before the last failure, he realized what had been plaguing him. He realized why Kon’s death had left him so hollow and unable to breathe. He was in love with Kon, and maybe he always had been. How unfair life was, to give Tim something so precious, only to rip it away from him before he saw its beauty. Kon wasn’t coming back. Kon was gone, and the world was slipping away from him. Gone.
Gone. Gone. Gone. Gone. Gone. Gone. Gone. Gone. Gone. Gone. Gone. Gone. Gone. Gone. Gone. Gone. Gone. Gone. Gone. Gone. Gone. Gone. Gone. Gone. Gone. Gone. Gone. Gone. Gone. Gone. Gone. Gone. Gone. Gone. Gone. Gone. Gone. Gone. Gone. Gone. Gone. Gone. Gone. Gone. Gone. Gone. Gone. Gone. Gone. Gone. Gone. Gone. Gone. Gone. Gone. Gone. Gone. Gone. Gone. Gone. Gone. Gone. Gone. Gone. Gone. Gone. Gone. Gone. Gone. Gone. Gone. Gone. Gone. Gone. Gone. Gone. Gone. Gone. Gone. Gone. Gone. Gone. Gone. Gone. Gone. Gone. Gone. Gone. Gone. Gone. Gone. Gone. Gone. Gone. Gone. Gone. Gone. Gone. Gone.
Everyone was gone.
All he had left was Robin. Robin was the first thing he’d ever had. Robin had always felt right in the same way that Caroline Hill had felt the few times he wore her. Robin felt right in the way that Timothy Drake had never been. Robin was his and he was Robin and Robin was him at his best and Robin was—
Robin was being ripped away from him.
Dick stood there next to Damian, who was—who was wearing—wearing Robin.
“Damian needs Robin,” Dick was saying, “and I don’t think Robin is helping you right now, Tim, I think you need help. Professional help. Psychiatric help. I’m worried about you, you’re my equal, Tim, and…” he continued.
Dick kept going, but the words were washing over Tim like a wave, drowning out all noise and deafening their own sounds into nothing but silvery silence. The only thing he heard was the loud thump-thump of his heart in his chest and the blood rushing in his ears.
Tim took a step back. Dick reached a hand out and took a step forward, and Tim knew instinctively that this place was not his home any longer. Tim knew he did not have any friends left and that his family was gone and dead. Tim knew it was his own fault for being so inherently wrong that fate itself hated him.
Tim disappeared that night with a flash of red and the rumble of a motorcycle’s engine.