Chapter Text
It’s been six months. Six months since the Justice League got Bruce back from the time stream. Six months since Tim last spent a night at the manor. Six months with no interaction outside of that necessary for their night work. And Tim’s okay with that. He is. It’s not like he’s ready to deal with Dick, and Damian hasn’t improved. So maybe he misses Cass, but it’s not like she’s around right now, she’s busy in Hong Kong. And sure he misses Alfred’s cooking, but who doesn’t?
Tim has a lot going on to keep himself busy anyway. Between working at Wayne Enterprises, his work as Red Robin, helping the other Bats with their case work and helping out the Teen Titans. He has a lot on his plate, he doesn’t have time to think about whatever he’s feeling. He can’t think about how the moment Bruce asked he would come straight back to the manor, regardless of how he feels about being around Dick and Damian. But of course, he never does.
Over those six months, Tim realised no one noticed if he got hurt. No one checked at the end of the night, no one asked. So Tim didn’t tell them. Why should he? He can handle them himself. So what if he goes back out with barely healed cracked ribs? Or stitched up gashes? No one noticed, and he knows he’s not letting it affect his ability in the field. So he keeps these things to himself.
This is the situation Tim finds himself in and he’s determined to live with it. What else can he do?
~~~
Tim is walking out of the office and back to his apartment. When did it get to the end of the day? The last thing he truly remembers is arriving and getting in the elevator to get to his office. And now he’s leaving? There’s a blur in between, the vague suggestion of things that happened, meetings he attended, but he doesn’t recall living those moments. He hesitates barely a moment before continuing on his way. He must be running on less sleep than he realised.
The light filters through the clouds and smog as Tim walks along. The clouds are threatening to rain, but when do they not? Thankfully he makes it inside and up to his apartment before the skies truly open up. He is not looking forward to having to go back out there for patrol later tonight. Oh well, that’s a later problem. The problem right now is food. Tim checks the cupboards and finds a pack of ramen which he sets to boil, and a protein bar that he forces down as he waits for the ramen to be ready.
He doesn’t know why but lately it has taken more effort than he thinks it should to keep himself fed. He might know why if he let himself think about it, but he doesn’t want to. Tim stares blankly at the boiling ramen as he swallows down the last of the protein bar. He lets his mind race over what needs doing tonight. Standard patrol, unless someone needed him, he’s been to the cave recently so he doesn’t need to go tonight, and then after patrol he has to go over a handful of cases he took charge of last time he stopped by the cave.
Tim, still deep in thought, goes through the motions of taking the ramen off the heat, draining it and sitting down to eat. He almost startles upon realising he is sitting at his table and halfway through eating. It’s only his heavily enforced, ironclad control over his outward reactions that saves him. He pushes down his unease and finishes doing through the motions of his evening.
Once Tim is suited up in the Nest under his apartment, he puts in his comm. “Hey Oracle, Red Robin reporting in for the night.”
“Hey Red, Hood is looking for you. Think you can meet him on the edge of Crime Alley?” comes the response. Tim bites back a sigh. He’s not sure why, seeing as he’s forgiven Red Hood, but there are some nights he just doesn’t want to be around him.
“Sure, tell him I’m fifteen minutes out.” With that, he’s off. His bike rumbles under him as he races towards the alley. Twelve minutes later, the bike is parked and hidden nearby, and Tim grapples onto the roof of a building near the outer edges of Crime Alley. He grapples closer, and comes to a stop on a building he knows Hood will find him at.
Hood doesn’t leave him waiting long, he shows up barely two minutes later. Tim turns to face him at the soft sound of his boots hitting the roof. “Replacement,” Hood’s mechanical voice grates on Tim’s senses, but he’s confident he hides his reaction.
“Hood,” They both stand and watch each other for a moment, frozen in place and unsure of how to move forward. Hood breaks before Tim.
“I’ve got a deal going on in a warehouse over that way in about an hour. You good for it?” Tim considers for a moment.
“What do you know?” Hood stares at him with that blank helmet before responding.
“Just twenty or so, ten locals and ten Metropolitans. It’s some kind of hand off. The two of us should be good.” Even with that voice Hood manages to sound so dismissive. Tim just rolls his eyes and gestured for Hood to lead the way.
The two of them grapple across the rooftops, Tim following Hood’s lead until they reach a warehouse. It’s always a warehouse. They stop across the street and watch from the shadows as the second group shows up. There’s ten of them and they are not doing a good job of keeping a low profile as they glance around suspiciously, looking up and down the streets and sneaking into the building.
Tim looks to Hood, who nods, and together they grapple to the roof of the warehouse, and crash through the skylight. Both groups turn towards the noise, the Gothamites reacting faster than the others to cover their heads from the raining glass. The group from Metropolis took the glass straight to the face. With them disoriented, Hood and Tim focused on disabling the Gotham goons.
Hood lets loose a few bullets, hitting some of them in the wrist and kneecaps. About four of them go down under his fire. Tim snaps out his bow staff, whacking those closest to him. Wrist, abdomen, elbow. Two more have dropped their guns, and one stumbles back winded. Hood has stepped in close to the group and is pummeling two more as they try their absolute best to land a hit on him. Tim refocuses on those around him. A few swings to the head has two of them knocked to the ground unconscious.
Tim turns to take on the last two Gothamites just as the Metropolitans recover. Hood steps back to take aim at them, rubber bullets hitting their marks. Tim blocks the next couple of punches aimed towards him, then brings his staff down on the arm extended towards him. He hears a satisfying snap, before immediately pivoting to whip the staff back into the other guy’s side.
Tim faces the Metropolitans only to see that those still on their feet have dropped their weapons and have their hands raised in surrender. He snorts, they were not prepared for Gotham. “You good to round up, Hood?”
Hood doesn’t even look at him, waving back over his shoulder. “Yeah, yeah. Figure out what they were handing over.” Tim glances over the warehouse, it’s full of crates, unfortunately many of them are empty. However, from the way the Gothamites are carefully avoiding looking at the back right corner, that seems like a good place to start. It only takes a few minutes of searching to find the filled crates. There are four crates full of vials of fear toxin.
Fear toxin in Metropolis, with Superman. That’s a disaster waiting to happen. Tim heads back to Hood just as he binds up the last person. “Fear toxin, back there, there’s four crates full of it.” Hood sucks in a harsh breath. “I should let B know so he can keep an eye on Scarecrow and pass on to Superman that some of his were looking to get their hands on the stuff.”
Hood nods, then looks back at the group of bound men gathered on the floor. “Guess that means I’m on hand over.” Tim grunts. “Ah, well. Off you go.” Hood waves Tim off and he grapples his way out of there.
Coming to a stop on a roof a few blocks away, Tim turns on his comms. “Oracle, is B on the line?”
“Not right now, give me a moment, I’ll bring him in.” Tim settles down next to a gargoyle and watches the streets as he waits.
“Red Robin, report.”
“B. Hood asked for my assistance in intercepting a handover between some goons and a group from Metropolis. We took them down, all accounted for and no casualties, Hood is handing them over to police now. They were handing off crates of fear toxin.”
“Hmm,” Tim waits. Bruce doesn’t say anything more. “Right, then, I guess I’ll go finish my patrol.” All Bruce does in response is grunt. So with that Tim does a quick patrol, he already feels done with the night, but he can’t leave the people alone. The patrol is uneventful and so he’s back to his Nest in reasonable time. All that’s left is to go over those cases. Although, he should check on Scarecrow. Bruce will probably remember to, but just to be safe.