Chapter Text
Tim felt like he was run over by a bus. Twice, and backed over for good measure. He had minimal sleep due to the night shift and his day job, plus the very few hours he had slept the days before were filled with nightmares of murderous robots. He felt the most tired he had in, probably a few months, even with his shitty sleep schedule. He got ready for work like a zombie, having basically rolled out of bed and face planting on the floor before forcing himself to get up. Before leaving his bedroom to hopefully get some food before he leaves, he prayed that Jason wasn’t in his apartment this time.
When he finally made it to the kitchen after walking into multiple walls and almost going back to bed to cry himself to sleep, he saw a note on the fridge from Jason. It said “Hey! You are probably annoyed with me for ‘breaking’ into your apartment once again. It’s not breaking in though! I didn’t actually break in, just entered, even if I did pick the lock, along with the rest of the security system. Anyways I made you some food, considering I know you, and I know that you are not probably not going to even go through the effort of making food, just drinking your coffee. Eat this or there will be more breaking in the ‘breaking and entering’ in the future. Actually eat it, don’t try to throw it away, or hide it or whatever. I will know.” There was a cryptic smiley face at the end of the note. Who knew Red Hood actually cared this much.
Tim was honestly too tired to deal with Jason, even if it was just a note, so he grabbed the plate out of the fridge, not even bothering to heat it up before eating it. He could almost hear Jason going off about how eating it cold removes so much of the goodness from it. He, unfortunately, did not have the time to and did not care enough to either.
After eating the food Jason left him, he left for work all too aware of the fact that if he was late two days in a row Tam would make it so he wouldn’t be alive for the night shift. On his way to WE Tim almost fell asleep on his motorcycle multiple times, but thankfully managed to wake himself up. Arriving at WE he made a run for the elevators in the hopes of getting to the office right on time.
When he entered he was greeted by Tam staring at him, looking suspiciously at his tired expression and the bags under his eyes, and simply raising her eyebrows at him.
“Decided not to sleep again, did we?” She said even though she clearly knew the answer already.
“You try sleeping when there's robots trying to kill you at every turn!”
“...there have been no robot attacks in Gotham, or anywhere in the past few days for that matter. Next excuse.”
“Tell that to all the missing children and night guards. It’s really strange how it all seems to point to one place, this weird kids restaurant that just so happens to have a bunch of robots that would never attack a human. “
Tam raised her eyebrows at him, again. “You decided to solve a murder cause by taking a night shift job there that mysteriously kills most people in it? What happens if you die. Who will do the paperwork?”
Tim forced himself to laugh before replying, “We both know you wouldn’t let me get out of paperwork. Even in death. It’s not like anyone knows how to stay dead in Bruce's family.”
While he did joke around with Tam about it, this was just more confirmation that doing work and jobs for people is all he’s good for.
“Tim”
No one actually cares about him, they just care about what he can do for them. And really, that’s a fair point considering how unlikeable he is. Bruce doesn't even care, and Tim was the one who rescued him from the time stream.
“Tim!”
Honestly, why would he even think Bruce cares? He didn’t want Tim as a robin. Tim has to force his way into the family, and now he's shocked that he doesn’t have a place-
“Timothy Drake! I swear to god if you don’t snap out of this right now.”
“Sorry- I got distracted. Thinking about all the meetings today!”
Tam sighed frustratedly before rubbing her temples. “Ok- you know what? Go home Tim. You’re not going to get anything done like this, and you’re more likely to drop dead than get anything done. You aren’t in a good place physically or mentally. If I find out you have worked on anything related to WE this week, I swear to everything that is holy, I will tell Bruce about everything that has happened..”
“...everything?”
“Everything.”
“Including the spleen thing?”
“Especially the spleen thing.”
“Well, I guess I’ll head home then. Thank you for your weird way of caring I guess?”
“Oh don’t think that you’re getting off easy. You’re working double hours next week to make up for this.”
Tam’s frown was quickly replaced with a passive aggressive smirk, as if their conversation had never taken place.
“Have a good day!”
Tim sighed before making his way back to the elevator. He made his way towards the elevator and pressed the button to open it, expecting it to be empty when it opened. Instead, he was greeted by Bruce. As soon as Bruce looks at him, concern floods onto his face before he covers up all emotion, as usual.
“Hey Tim, how are you doing?” Bruce asked.
“Um, yeah. I’m, completely fine Bruce, there isn’t any reason for you to be concerned.”
“Are you sure? You don’t exactly look fine” Bruce responded doubtfully.
Tim sighed tiredly before responding. “Yeah, I’m sure I’m fine.”
“Maybe you should go home? You look really tired, like more than usual. You haven’t been patrolling either.”
“Yeah I’m heading home right now, Tam is sending me home early.”
“She’s sending you home early… if Tam is sending you home early it must be really bad huh.”
Bruce said not even bothering to hide the concern in his voice.
“Maybe we should just go to the manor instead? We could have Alfred check you over. You might be sick.”
“Really Bruce, I’m fine. Plus my motorcycle is here.”
“...You’re not riding your motorcycle home. You’re gonna pass out halfway there! You know what, scratch that because you won’t even make it halfway”
“Well then what do you suggest I do? My motorcycle is still here like I said.”
“Look, I’ll drive you to the Manor and if it really matters that much to you, we can put it in the back of the car.”
“My motorcycle will not fit in the back of a car? And you think that I’m the one who isn’t doing so good.”
“We can take it apart. If we do that it’ll fit in the back! Then we can just put it back together at the manor.”
“No? We aren’t taking my motorcycle apart. Do you even have the equipment for that.”
“No, but we can borrow it from one of the departments. This is Wayne Enterprises after all.”
“Are you on crack? We are not taking my motorcycle apart! My masterpiece is not going to be destroyed by the likes of you! Besides, even if we did do that, they would ask questions. What would you say? ‘Yeah, I’m just taking apart Tim’s motorcycle so it can fit in the back of my car, I’ll return it in a few minutes.’ “
“I’m the CEO. They can’t question me.”
“Actually, I’m the CEO right now Bruce. I’ve been the CEO ever since you got lost in the timestream.”
“Close enough.”
“Not really, but go off I guess”
“Fine, I’m Bruce Wayne. They can’t question me.”
“I mean, they technically can? It’s not like you have any ownership of the company right now.”
“But, If I tell people I'm Bruce Wayne it’s kind of a power move. They usually just let me do what I’m doing. I only use this power for emergencies. And this qualifies as one.”
“It’s not really an emergency, plus even if you could manage to get ahold of the tools to do the job, I wouldn’t let you actually go through with it.”
Bruce sighed in defeat, “Fine, I’ll send someone to pick up your motorcycle.”
“Fine, but as long as Jason doesn’t pick my bike up. I think he might steal it with how much he already obsesses over it.
__
“So Tim, you know that you can talk to me right? I’ll always listen, and if you need help I’m here.”
“...Is this an impromptu therapy session? Bruce, I’m fine. Plus if that’s what this is, you could at least get an actual therapist.”
“So you are clearly about to collapse, so you haven’t been sleeping. You haven’t been patrolling at all this week, so what am I missing here? The pieces simply don’t fit together. Are your meds not working. Do you need new meds? I can get you new meds if you need them.”
“Bruce, my meds aren’t working because I’m not taking them. I haven’t been sleeping at night for the past few days.”
“You haven’t at all? That’s even more concerning. Why aren’t you sleeping? Is something wrong? Is it nightmares?”
“Well, I’ve been working the night shift lately and I haven’t had the time for sleep.”
“What do you mean you have been working the night shift? You haven’t been patrolling and I haven’t seen any updated cases recently.”
“It’s not important. Classified info.”
“...I’m Batman? You don’t keep classified info from Batman.” Tim was done with Bruce's protective dad BS. It’s not like he was there when Tim actually needed him.
“Well deal with it. If you don’t mind, I'm going to go take a nap, unless you want to stop me?” Tim said, before pushing past Bruce and heading upstairs to his old room before collapsing onto the bed and falling asleep, not even needing his medication.
__
Tim woke up feeling much better than before, no longer physically dead, but still mentally dead, as all teenagers are. He c r a v e d coffee. Before the caffeine withdrawal symptoms could kick in he made his way to the kitchen to get a cup of liquid cocaine, or ambrosia your choice.
“...you really don’t know anything Dick? You haven’t talked to him in months? Well, what am I supposed to do? He almost collapsed at work today. He told me he had a night shift, but we both know he is willing to lie to get us off his back. Who have I talked to? Cas, Steph, Babs, even Damien, but nobody’s talked to him outside our typical vigilante stuff. Why would I talk to Jason? Don’t they hate each other? Jason has literally tried to kill Tim, and Jason refuses to call Tim by his name, instead opting for ‘replacement’, so I don’t know why they would be close.”
You know what, fine, I will talk to Jason, but I doubt I’ll get anything useful from him.”
Bruce is about to call Jason. Shit. He was so screwed. He needed to leave. It looked like Tim wasn’t going to be getting his coffee. Dang. Tim internally groaned, suffering at the thought of having to continue without his coffee. Tim slipped through the manor to the front door, silently closing it before getting on his motorcycle and leaving, still planning to get his coffee.
__
“Hey, Ted? Ready for your shift today?” Dave said with an… odd smile on his face.
“Yeah man I’m ready. Did something happen? You seem happier today.”
“Yeah, I got to use one of the old suits today. Sometimes they let us daytime employees entertain the kiddos. Make kids smile… it just always brings a smile to my face.” Tim couldn’t help but notice that while that seemed plausible, all of his detective instincts were telling him that it wasn’t true. That there was something extremely wrong. He couldn’t help but pay close attention to Dave’s appearance and actions. Find the problem, because there was something wrong with him. After looking for a few seconds he noticed something heart-stopping.
A bloodstain on Dave’s face.
Dave noticed where Tim was looking quickly and freaked out for a second, before quickly covering his panic up. “Thanks for pointing that out to me man, I did some… painting earlier before I came into work and I thought I got all of it. I guess I didn’t.”
Before Tim could question him more about the mysterious stain he waved goodbye and left, leaving Tim alone in the cold, empty, hallway. As Tim made his way to the office he mostly thought about Dave’s weird behavior, which while suspicious, was not incriminating, but he couldn’t help but notice a weird smell that seemed to be coming from the storage room. It seemed to be strangely metallic? Maybe the animatronics had been cleaned, but either way he had to get to the office soon or he was in a lot of danger.
Once he got situated in the office, preparing for the night, the phone rang again. Tim picked it up, listening to Phone Guy.
" Hello, hello? Hey you're doing great! Most people don’t last this long. ”
Tim laughed, thinking about all the unsolved missing persons cases that disappeared while working at Freddy’s. That was an understatement.
“ I mean, you know, they usually move on to other things by now. I'm not implying that they died. Th-th-that’s not what I meant. ”
“Of course not Phone Guy, why would they be dead? This is obviously a very safe environment.”
“ Uh, anyway I better not take up too much of your time. Things start getting real tonight. Uh... Hey, listen, I had an idea: if you happen to get caught and want to avoid getting stuffed into a Freddy suit, uhh, try playing dead! ”
“I thought you said ‘Don’t worry it’s safe’, ‘People don’t die in this job!’, ‘Don’t worry’, yeah you say that then you literally tell me to play dead.”
“ You know, go limp. Then there's a chance that, uh, maybe they’ll think that you're an empty costume instead. Then again if they think you're an empty costume, they might try to... stuff a metal skeleton into you. ”
I wonder how that would work, especially if it was from a haunted robot. Maybe the person would survive, and the soul that was haunting the robot could use the person's body as a disguise to escape. But wouldn’t it rot and fall apart? The soul would probably have to find a different host body. But what happens if the person’s body survived even through all of this, and they were in control again. In control of their rotted, disgusting, corpse of a somehow still alive thing . But that could never happen, Tim was just being really morbid.
“ Yeah, never mind, scratch that. It's best just not to get caught. Um... Ok, I'll leave you to it. See you on the flip side! " The line went dead.
“Thank you for your amazing pep talk Phone Guy. Really feeling the worry for my safety.” Tim realized he still hasn't called Jason, which he normally already did. Jason was going to kill him if he didn’t call soon. Tim reached into his pocket to grab his phone. It wasn’t there. He quickly looked around the room after checking all of his pockets. He couldn’t find it anywhere. Did he drop it somewh- no. He never went back upstairs. Tim left his phone at the manor.
“Shittttt.”
Jason was actually going to murder him when he left.
Well, Jason can’t kill him if he doesn’t survive the night so he probably should check the cameras. Tim thought back to the strategy he had come up with earlier. The problem he has the most is keeping track of power, so what he’ll do is check the main stage to see which animatronics are moving, then check the lights on both doors. If one of the animatronics is there, he’ll close the door till it leaves. And he’ll occasionally check on Foxy.
Nothing new happened really, Freddy did look at the camera a few times but Tim didn’t think anything of it. Bonnie and Chica approached the door a few times each, but Tim just closed the door until they left. He finished with 21% of the power left, greeted the morning guard, and left.
Tim walked outside, trying to get away quickly, knowing Jason would be wanting to talk to him. He almost made it to his motorcycle before Jason pulled up beside it.
“Hey Replacement, how the fuck are you doing right now? Cause me? I’m doing great. Just worried sick about my goddamned baby brother, who not only snuck out to go to the job where he almost dies on the regular, but also didn’t bring his phone or any way to contact him with him! It was Great.”
Tim could tell that if Jason didn’t kill him, Tim would wish he had.