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bored-platypus · 13 days

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swim in circles (sniper! tim)

au where tim's parents get kidnapped by obeah man earlier on but they survive. and he becomes a sniper. :)

inspired by @yjcorefourenjoyer's sniper! tim idea, who graciously let me run around in their sandbox. :D

Turns out, when you leave your child alone without a parental figure for months, you can’t integrate yourself back into their life and just pretend all is normal.

You never wanted to parent me before, Tim wants to scream. Why are you even pretending you care now?

But he says none of it, swallows it down his throat dry where it resides in his chest, thick and cloying like a good son. His parents narrowly escaped being killed. Tim is being selfish because he isn’t used to this. It’s fine.

Jack wants him to transfer to a nearby private school and live at home instead of boarding school so he and Mom can keep an eye on him, fine. Tim can adapt, take advantage of the fact that he’s home more to take pictures of Batman and Robin.

So Tim is twelve years old when his father brings him to a shooting range and puts a hand on his shoulder. Some good ol’ father-son bonding, his dad claims. His dad is too scared to admit what the true purpose is; so Tim won’t be defenseless in case he’s kidnapped.

But it doesn’t matter whether his dad verbalizes it or not: Tim knows, so there’s no point in saying it out loud.

(For a brief moment, he thinks of becoming Robin, of fists and swinging staffs and acrobatics. Of following Batman’s no-kill rule.)

It’s a silly thought. Tim’s parents are very much alive, and his reality is this: gunpowder and cameras and slow, choking patience. Tim is athletic, but doesn’t exactly make a point to get into fights— if he’s attacked, he would have the best chance with a gun.

But for the next few months, Tim drowns under his father’s expectations and his mother’s worried and guilty gaze. The knot in his chest tightens until he struggles for air, and Tim needs something, needs to get out of the house, needs to do something other than follow Batman and Robin because his parents keep checking on him in the middle of the night.

Tim flounders, kicks fruitlessly at the waters until another weekend, when his father brings him out again and he adjusts his stance, aligns his handgun, and waits until his hands are steady.

It doesn’t take long until he speeds through a fire safety certificate test and all but owns his father’s 9mm pistol.

For the first time in what feels like forever, Tim breathes.

It’s a hobby his father supports and something his mother, who sits in her wheelchair, loosens the furrow in her brow for. Before he goes, she quietly brushes her hand over his hair. Remember your gun safety, Tim, she says, and he nods before heading out for another lesson.

Really damn good, his instructor says, and Tim smiles, because his arms are getting used to the recoil and Tim has one of the highest accuracies among all the teens in the class, even if he takes a little longer than everyone.

But it’s no matter: Tim has experience with being patient.

It doesn't take long for Tim to start bringing his handgun out with him while he goes birdwatching. It takes even shorter for Tim to start eyeing the bolt-action rifles jealously, thinking of how much farther he could take it, what he could do. Eighteen years old, he chants, eighteen years old.

Except when Tim turns thirteen, Jason dies. Batman grieves his son’s death in a way that leaves Gotham a bloody, destructive swathe of pain. And Tim can’t just watch, anymore. He goes to Dick, pleas in his mouth, begging him to see that Batman needs a Robin.

It doesn’t work. And now Two-Face has Bruce and Dick, and Tim has nothing but his 9mm pistol and the location of the Wayne manor. Alfred looks down at him, lips pursed in hesitation, and Tim knows, knows that Robin doesn’t use guns, knows that it would be an abomination to Bruce’s values and Dick’s legacy but he doesn't know what else to do.

“Please,” he begs.

Surprisingly, it is easier to convince Alfred that he can protect himself with a gun. Tim suspects that Batman will have a different reaction.

–

Bruce and Dick are safe, Two-Face is safely in jail, and Bruce looks at his guns with poorly concealed suspicion and apprehension. And that’s the crux of the matter: Tim uses guns, Robin does not. Tim cannot be Robin, not with his parents so closely around and his only method of protecting himself being a lethal weapon. The worst part is, it all feels like a waste. The hours at the shooting range, his father’s proud smile, his rising accuracy rates, and it sucks, because Tim doesn’t want to feel this way.

Tim never meant to be Robin. But he needs to become Robin now and Tim has never trained in hand-to-hand combat or swung a staff before. His way out has become another trap, and Tim has never shot a dart gun before, nor is it sustainable to use tranq darts.

Funny. Tim never seems to be given a choice. But he can’t complain, so he does the next best thing. Tim throws himself into convincing Bruce, tries to prove that he can be Robin, even if he’s fighting a losing battle. There’s really only one way Bruce will accept, and Tim knows it.

He screams until his voice is hoarse after Batman nearly dies, but he can't be Robin, not until he gives up Tim Drake. Timothy Jackson Drake holds tightly onto a hope that isn't sustainable, thinks of his father who looks at him in the eye and makes him promise that he'll keep his life over everybody else's.

TIm is selfish and he’s drowning again, but so is Gotham.

–

“Tim.”

His dad looks angry, flickers of worry shining from behind his eyes. Tim knows he’s been acting suspicious: too many bruises on his legs and cuts on his arm, coming home later than usual.

Tim shrugs self-deprecatingly.

“Please, dad? I know it’s not what you want but it’s getting to be a lot and I need to move around my schedule to fit in more.”

“Tim… This wasn't brought on because the boys in your class have been roughhousinging you because you’re better, right?”

“No! It’s not, it’s not,” Tim shakes his head, face burning with mortification. That would be so embarrassing. It seems so juvenile, quitting because he was bothered by the envious comments, rather than quitting because he wanted to take on a vigilante mantle that had a fifty percent mortality rate to make sure Batman didn’t go off his rocker.

Tim is so grounded when his dad finds out. His father sighs, running a hand through his hair, and Tim guiltily shrinks under his gaze.

“You spent so long practicing,” his father accuses. There’s the hidden panic Tim was expecting. “I really thought you were into it, Tim.”

Tim flinches.

“It’s not that,” he mumbles, trying not to feel like he’s wasted so much of his and his father’s time. “I’m just not that interested anymore and…”

And the truth is, Tim hates this choice. But it’s still his decision, to pick up Robin and put down Tim Drake. He goes for the low blow.

“Let me make my own choice for once, okay? You always want me to do this and that and I’m trying, but I want some space to figure out what I like instead of just balancing what you want in favor of what I want.”

His dad freezes, frustration playing out over his features, but Tim knows he’s won this one.

“I’m going to check up on your mom. I don’t want to talk about this tonight, but we are talking about this.” I can’t stand talking to you right now.

It’s fine, because Tim has won.

The situation will blow over, and Tim will prove that he can protect himself in other ways, to both his father and Bruce.

And once again his reality shifts: swinging fists and lies and the fast, spiraling rapids of life.

He thinks of steady hands and the quiet click to the loud bang of a gun. He will wait it out, he foolishly thinks. He has practice being patient.

a/n:

so basically this could go a NUMBER of ways, holy. i had so many plans that i derailed and thought over and whatnot

i originally was going to go for tim being a sniper wayyy earlier, like shooting bruce with tranqs post-jason death (which, by the way, tim would've gone through SO many hoops for that, dude is way too tiny to pass as over 18 and has to be a pretty damn good liar to his parents), never becoming robin (prob would've become a vigilante, just with guns)

but oh man in this version i haven't even GOTTEN to sniper! timmy yet...

also! discussed another cool idea with my wonderful beta @pinkcowzz about reverse robins where tim comes back from the dead as a sniper would also be fun. there are many ways that this au could branch out lmao

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