All Thursday's Should Be Blue

Tim stands crouched on a streetlamp, perching himself like a cat, the air is still and nothing is breathing tonight. He can see a figure moving in the dark, pouncing from rooftop to rooftop.

“Well, well, well, Baby Bat,” calls out Selene Kyle, holding the goods from a heist around her neck in the form of a diamond necklace. It is very cat burglar cliche if Tim doesn’t say so himself.

Blinking down at Catwoman, Tim gives her a wave. This close, he can see her holding a brown paper bag with grease stains on the bottom.

“I brought you…breakfast?” She offers, waving the baggie. Unsure of what the meal should be called.

Tim shouldn’t but he knows Selena well enough to trust the food, he’s hungry and he’s been out all night on patrol. Shimmying down the pole he swings himself down to grab the baggie, and stand beside the nice lady who brought him food.

Opening the bag Tim finds that he is in possession of what looks like a double cheeseburger and fries from one of the slummiest, yet most delicious joints in Gotham. It was shut down twice for health and safety violations.

Grinning up at Selena he says, “Thanks, Catwoman.”

Ruffling his hair Selena replies, “No worries kiddo, you helped me out in a tight spot at the Wayne party, it was the least I could do.”

Tim had served as an excellent distraction for Miss Kyle as she ran away fast as she could from one of the Gotham city council members who was convinced he could…solicit…her services. Tim dropped a wine glass on his crotch, entirely by accident of course. He was really, very sorry.

…

Joker stands at attention monologuing on about something to do with gas, and schoolchildren and killing, as Damian and Tim sit bound to each other by meters of sail rope. They’re back to back and not pleased with where they currently are in life.

Somewhere in his monologue Joker kicks a random floor knife backwards towards the bound heroes, and gives Tim a pointed look and a cough, before going on to say, “Batsy one and two will never get out of here alive, by the time Batman comes, I’ll have you dead…two little birdies in the garden.”

Which would ordinarily be very disturbing if he had’t just helped them out. They were wrapped up in rope like the world’s worst Christmas present. He gave them a knife. Ergo, he was giving them an exit plan. He also conveniently left the room he had no reason to leave while loudly exclaiming that he’d be gone for exactly thirty minutes to check on the other hostages.

It was such bad acting it almost felt like a trap. Tim pulled the knife close to his body with his feet, grabbed it and cut them free.

“It’s a trap.” Damian hissed.

Tim rolled his eyes, not that anyone could see the motion under the domino. “It could be, but either way we’re free. Let’s contact B. We’ll deal with the maybe-a-trap on the way.”

About two weeks ago, Tim had rolled Joker into a dumpster to hide him from some of Black Mask’s thugs, He didn’t think the clown was awake at the time, he also never expected repayment for his actions. But here he was, not dead, witnessing a cheesy looney tunes style villain monologue from one of the creepiest clowns in Gotham. It was…not reassuring but it was nice be…thanked…Tim guessed? Not that, not killing someone was usually a thank you, but in this case, Tim would take it.

“Come on Demon Bird, stop stalling,” Tim continued, grabbing Damian by the hand before repelling out the window.

…

Jay gaped in shock as he watched Slade give Tim a bo staff. Just give it to him. On a rooftop. It even had a little blue bow on it. It was a gift.

Pulling out a gun, after recovering from the shock, Jason pointed it at Slade and screamed, “What the fuck do you think, you’re doing Slade?”

Slade, creepy motherfucker that he was, stroked Tim’s cheek, as he purred out, “I’m leaving young Timothy a gift.”

Okay. Ew. “Back away from the little boy Deathstroke.”

“Relax, Jason. I’ll be out of your hair in a moment, though if you do pull that trigger you’ll find that you’ll be short one Red Robin.”

Who hit on someone, and then used that same person as a hostage? Jason kept the gun trained on Slade’s face.

He watched the assassin stroke Tim’s cheek one more time before running off. Tim, that moron turned to Jason, and waved the shiny new bo.

“Look,” he said. “I’ve got a new staff. Isn’t that nice?”

No. No that was not nice. Jason grabbed the thing and spat out, “We’re getting this tested, why the fuck is that creep even giving you things anyway in the first place?”

Tim kicked him in the shin, “It’s my staff. He’s just being nice.”

Jason raised an eyebrow in disbelief. “He’s Deathstroke he doesn’t do nice.”

Tim grumbled the entire way home, and was far too smug when the bo turned out clean. He helped out Rose the other day. He prevented her from getting caught by the police during an unexpected ambush, but throwing her out a window and into a tree. Slade was honestly just being nice. But it was funny to watch Jason panic so Tim was going to keep that information from him.

…

“Tim,” Batman started. “It has come to my attention that some of the villains are being…lenient towards you.”

That wasn’t an actual question so Tim waited.

“Do you have any idea why?” Bruce asked.

“Nope.” Tim replied. He lied. He knew exactly why. He was being a good samaritan. It’s not like the others didn’t help people get their penguins out of trees, or rescue lost cats, or help mentally unstable men find their things. It was just that Tim had the luck of running into villains pretty often, and those villains paid him back. Sometimes in increasingly questionable ways, but who was Tim to turn down a gift, even if that gift were a dead rat.

They hit lighter, created openings for him to escape, and sometimes gave him food. The highlight of his week was when Joker of all villains, tried to give him food, that wasn’t even poisoned. The muffin had a bite taken out of it, but it wasn’t poisoned, and if it was diseased Tim hadn’t noticed yet. They split it. J was cool when he wasn’t trying to kill everyone around him. Or having a mental breakdown.

Maybe if the Bats were nicer, they too would get half eaten muffins but until that point, Tim saw no need to enlighten them.

Bruce glared at him, and returned to his information map as though it would give him the answer Tim wouldn’t.

Smiling Tim turned, and left. He wondered if Ivy was growing apples again, he was craving some and she’d let him pick stuff in her garden if he helped prune the plants. Best grocery store on town.

…

Sometimes Tim closes his eyes and sees lights in endless colours trailing through the darkness like fireworks. Fissures of green and purple, explosions of red bursting through. Misty indigo, sunshine yellow…blue, like rain-water. If Tim closes his eyes and looks inwards, he is a supernova made flesh, his insides are the heart of a star, he glows orange gold, and he knows what this means like he knows the steps to his house. Like he knows the streets of the city. Like he knows he will never follow the other colours, will never look outwards, because inside him is all he’ll ever need. 

His mother was the same. An inverted sky, repelling those around her, forcing away instead of attracting. Pushing instead of pulling. 

It is all he ever does, all he knows how to do. 

He has never learned to take other elements into his blue sky, and for all of his mass, he is empty. 

He does not know how to so much as speak to other children, let alone make guardians of people. 

His sky was meant to be this way. Empty of everything but himself. 

….

He sees Dick first. 

Everyone thinks it was Bruce that caught his eye as a child, based on the photos he once took. Everyone is wrong. Dick came first, with his eyes like lightning and his soul like rainwater. 

Tim sees him and he wants to be clean. He could find that boy anywhere. Hunt him no matter where he went. Find him oceans away, all from his base in Gotham without moving an inch. He knows that boy like clockwork, tastes his water on his tongue and does not swallow.  

….

Bruce is the after, a massive cloud, hanging over Gotham. Gotham after all, is Batman territory. It’s a sad thing that most people don’t really know what that means. 

Bruce could never stand invaders in his city. 

….

Tim couldn’t stop following them if he tried once he caught sight of them. Watches them repel each other from rooftops, the way they their souls rubbed against each other causing sparks to form. 

Dick may have been rainwater, may have been made to soothe, but even rainwater pressed against the clouds in ways that irritated them. In ways that made them want to move. 

There was no way for two elements of that strength to be so close to each other without fighting over territory in some way, shape, or form. 

When Jason came, and Dick left to Bludhaven to eke out a corner of his life, free from Bruce’s control it only got worse. 

Storms, stirred up clouds to make explosions. Bruce and Jason tried, but they could not make it work. Far worse, was that Jason was as much lightening as he was storm. Split between two elements in perfect halves. Half suicidal in a melancholy fashion, half rage. Half drowning in a bathtub, half kamikaze plane pilot, fully ready to burn, and burn the world alongside his own immolation. He was a matchstick lit from both ends, burning itself like the worlds tiniest pyre. 

Cloudy days couldn’t put him out. All Bruce could do was attempt to exert his control, and all that did was stoke the fire higher, and call the storm to rage. 

Jason stuck between building up walls, only to burn them down and start over again, could not notice his own imminent self-destruction…or Bruce’s efforts to stop it. 

….

When Tim became Robin the watching felt worse. It felt as though he was watching his family through what felt like sheets of glass. So close, but so far away. His fingertips could reach out to touch, but they never seemed to get anywhere. 

He could not tell them what he was, his mouth had forgotten the words, and he did not know how to push soul from body, to show them where he burned….so he watched, as he always had.  

He was a sky flipped upside down, which is to say, he was not really a sky at all. He was buried alive…or was that Jason. Some days it was hard to keep the facts straight. 

Some days, Tim’s eyes felt glassy and his body felt cold. He had been dealing with such things his entire life. So had his mother. It killed her too. It’s killing Tim right now. His supernova heart, his insides pulsing, but they have no way out, so press they inwards, exerting pressure on his bones, his lungs, and his heart. One day he will burst. 

Some days he feels like he is a glass figurine, all smooth edges, and incased inside him is the sky. He feels the outside world swirl around him, but he cannot reach out. 

….

Damian is horrible. Half sun, half mist. Like some kind of fucked up nightmare mix, so unbalanced Tim cannot even imagine being in his body. Half construction, half activation. His illusions would be solid, but his personality….half reaching to conceal, half reaching for attention, all of him murderous when the results are not as expected. The results are never as expected when you want two different things simultaneously. 

….

Tim’s sky is empty, and he lives in a house filled with elements but walks through it unseen like a ghost. 

He is always a glass window pane away from them, and does not know how to bridge the gap. 

….

The crack comes, he thinks, when he’s dying. He throws himself over Damian’s body at the sound of a gunshot. Stupid boy never wears armour when he’s told to. Never looks back. 

He can feel himself begin to bleed out…and forces of nature are all about dying will…aren’t they? Sky’s are about pushing between that space that separates life and death, and saying…no. 

Tim is a supernova trapped in a fragile, mortal body, and when that crack comes, it shines like a lure at the bottom of the ocean, snagging the prey closest to it. So when Tim lays dying, drowning in his own blood, and he latches on to Damian’s misty summer day like a vice, Damian grabs back. Damian’s flames sense the crack and plunge through the entry way, the fissure the size of a hair, and pry it open with force, until the two of them resonate. 

Harmony clicks, and slides into them like a bullet wound, both of them winded. Damian’s hands glow gold as he presses them to Tim’s chest instinctively healing the wound.