Chapter Text
"You're still injured, Robin. Red Hood is still out there, Robin. What if he tries to kill you again, Robin?" Tim grumbled to himself as he swung around Port Adams.
"As if he was actually trying to kill me. If he wanted me dead, I would have been dead," Tim bit out, landing on top of one of the warehouses beside the small ship yard.
Tim let out a dramatic gasp, placing a hand to his chest, "Robin! How can you say that?! Red Hood is obviously a dangerous psychopath who is out for your head!"
Tim crossed his arms before plopping on to the roof, "No, Nightwing. He's just your overdramatic brother back from the grave, lashing out like a toddler who isn't getting any attention."
Tim laid back on the roof, "Nooo, Robin. We've been over this. You were seeing things due to all the blood loss."
"Yeah, of course. It's not like he took off the fucking bucket BEFORE he decided to beat me half to death."
Tim couldn't help the shiver that went down his spine when he thought about what happened at the Tower five months ago.
Five months was a blink and an eternity, depending on the angle from which he peered at it. He'd watched the recording of the Tower incident exactly three times, and each time, his recollections and the CCTV desync-ed a little more until he didn't know which version was true: the security footage where Jason's face was a blur from blood and broken helmet, or what he saw as clear as Daylight—Jason's face, older than Tim remembered, deeply lined and unreadable, the green eyes burning with something that wasn't entirely hate.
Maybe it would have been better if Tim gave in to Dick and Bruce's insistence that he had been seeing things, that the Red Hood wasn't Jason Todd. At least then he wouldn't have to deal with the fact that his childhood hero despised him, beat him so badly he had been in recovery all this time, and had technically left him for dead.
Too bad Tim didn't cave easily when he knew a fact. Jason Todd was the Red Hood. Somehow. That, or maybe some kind of clone, or shape-shifter. Shape-shifting clone? No, Kon had told him that Jason's grave was empty when he pleaded with his best friend to check for him.
Sure, Tim could give this information to Bruce, and he could have Clark verify, but they were so insistent, borderline pleading, that the Red Hood wasn't Jason. They may just assume someone had stolen Jason's body, and that would only devastate them even more. Tim figured if they didn't want to believe him that badly, he'd just have to find undeniable proof.
Tim sighed, curling up on his side. That was partially why he was out here. Tim had told the Waynes that his parents were back for the week, so they had reluctantly let him go back to his own house. What they didn't know was that Tim had snuck the extra Robin suit out of Bruce’s BMW and left the trackers behind. Nor that his parents weren't actually coming back home for another four months.
So long as Tim was extra careful, he could be Robin again for the week. Close a few cases. Prove to Bruce and Dick that he wasn't a liability in the field right now.
Tim sat up and shuffled over to the edge of the roof. That was why he was here. While he had been stuck at Wayne Manor, that didn't mean he had been left in the dark. Tim knew that Sionis was working on something new. A drug of some kind that he intended to pass off as a pharmaceutical. He had been working on it for a long time, and it was finally ready for mass production. His labs were located elsewhere in the world, but of course the first distribution would be sent to Gotham. This was the best time to get a sample.
Tim carefully lowered himself to the ground and made his way into the smaller dock yard in Gotham. Sionis wouldn't have let it go through the large one, too many obstacles, and having it delivered directly to him would have been too suspicious.
Tim made his way through the stacks of crates and shipping containers. It was probably under Janus Cosmetics, so that was the label he looked for. After awhile, he found it in the back corner. There were a dozen crates stacked up, all addressed to the company. He went through the labels, most of them code words for the regular street drugs. The one odd label out read H. Zero. J. Ten.
Tim's eyes narrowed. That was new. He made quick work in popping a corner of the crate up, then another. He was about to slide the lid off when he heard hurried footsteps. Thinking quick, he squeezed inside the crate, lowering the lid as much as he could. The footsteps were quickly followed by the sound of gunfire and yelling.
Tim cracked an emergency glow stick and looked around the crate. There wasn't too much room, the crate was so packed he could just barely get to his hands and knees. He took note of all the neat packages and put his rebreather on before prying one apart, setting it atop the others as he got out a sample tube and swab from his utility belt. He took a deep breath and positioned a birdarang to make a small incision in the package. As he was sliding the tip in and cutting, the crate jostled and he ended up with a large gash across the package, and a knick on his forearm.
"Dammit." He did his best to brush the powder off his bare arms before safely getting a sample into the tube. Another hard jostle had Tim sprawling into the loose powder.
He cursed to himself as he struggled to get up. Tim tried to brush himself off again, but the powder had gotten into his clothes, hair, and all over his skin. He needed to get out of there before he got caught.
"What the hell are they doing out there?" Tim grumbled to himself, his heart pounding in his chest while he struggled to keep his breathing steady.
Despite the chaos outside, training had Tim’s mind whirring into immediate action. He had to figure out a way to escape before the goons -or whoever they were- came to check the crates. But that was the least of his problems. The powder was starting to make him feel strange, a sort of numbness spreading from where it had made contact with his skin, working its way inward. His vision was starting to grow fuzzy around the edges and he could feel his pulse quicken. Panic set in as Tim realized that he had been exposed to the mystery drug, and it acted much faster than he thought it would.
Swallowing hard against rising panic, he reached for his comm, fumbling with its smooth surface. His fingers felt clumsy and numb; the device slipped from his grip and fell among the packages.
"Great, just great," Tim muttered to himself, frustration dripping from each word. He scrabbled for the comm, instantly aware that he was moving too slowly, that time had somehow thickened like cheap syrup. His fingertips only grazed the casing.
"No time," he muttered to himself, forcing his body to move despite the rapidly increasing numbness and disorientation. He reached out, his gloved fingers fumbling as they closed around one of his spare birdarangs. Usually so sure, his grip was shaky now, the weapon feeling heavier than normal in his hand.
He had to keep moving, had to get out of this crate despite the world spinning around him. He knew that his condition was deteriorating, he could feel it. But he needed to push through, needed to rely on his determination and sheer Robin stubbornness.
With a grunt of effort, Tim attempted to use the birdarang to pry at the lid of the crate. His muscles protested, shaking feverishly under the exertion. He was light-headed, his vision blurry, the edges of his world dimming to an ominous black. The sharp noise of the birdarang scrapping against the crate's lid echoed loudly in his ears, or was it the overwhelming sound of his own pounding heartbeat?
It felt like he almost had it when a sudden wave of dizziness hit him harder than before. His grip on the birdarang slipped and he fell back onto the packages, breathless. The edges of his vision blackened, slowly creeping inward, threatening to swallow him whole.
"No," he groaned, struggling to sit up again. "Not yet." The numbness was quickly replaced by a sudden tingling feeling. It started in his arms and slowly spread throughout his body, sending electrical shocks through his nerves. He tried to get up but his body was unresponsive. He felt like he was being electrocuted from the inside out. What was this stuff? Was it some kind of weapon?
Tim was jostled as the crate moved again, and he struggled to keep his eyes open. He could hear muffled voices outside, shouting. The tingling sensation was becoming unbearable, and his body was starting to convulse. His vision blurred, and he felt like he was losing consciousness. He needed to get out of there, but he couldn't move.
He heard the rumble of a semi truck pulling up outside the crate, the tires crunching on gravel. The voices grew louder, but they were still muffled, indiscernible.
Tim's grip on consciousness was slipping fast, and could just barely sense the movement of the crate as it was lifted, a vague rocking that matched the unsteady rhythm of his heartbeat. He felt himself being lifted, his body bouncing slightly against the rough wood of the crate's interior as the crate was handled none too gently.
The shouting outside disappeared when the truck began moving. Tim’s consciousness disappeared with it.