An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
A @batfam-christmas-stocking fic written for @renecdote!! happy holidays <3
Alternate universes suck so much. Tim has always known that, but he’s never really grasped it, not until he and Dick were forcibly thrown into one a week ago.
Gotham feels different, even though it doesn’t appear that way on the surface. The violence is more personal, less showy, and as far as they’ve seen, there are almost no super villains. Somehow, though, there’s more crime on the whole, every corner of every street host to pimps and drug dealers and traffickers.
Tim tries to fight it, tries to intervene, but Dick pulls him back. “We can’t risk it, you know that.”
He does. But that doesn’t make it easier. “They need our help,” Tim fires back, everything he’s ever been taught about bettering the world, the pressure of saving people, battering around in his mind.
“It’s not our world or our place,” Dick explains, and for all that he sounds apologetic, his eyes don’t stray away from the shadowy parts of the street where they can hear people being hurt.
Dick is a good actor, but Tim can read him like a book. He’s following the protocols put in place for dimensional travel, playing the I’m The Big Brother And I’m In Charge card, but he doesn’t like it anymore than Tim does.
The rules are what they are for a reason, and Tim knows that. Grudgingly, he lets Dick pull him away, go back to their own little shadowy corners. They sleep on cardboard they find in dumpsters, huddling up for warmth. In the mornings, they go to the local library, hoping to fill out some of their knowledge on this world, since no rescue or way out otherwise is forthcoming.
There, sitting at the outdated computers, they find out that Martha and Thomas Wayne are still dead. Bruce wasn’t 8 when it happened, though—he was 16. He got shot too, making it painful and difficult to walk or move in general. According to one interview from a few years before, he’s kept on bedrest a lot, and has been in and out of physical therapy ever since it happened, now fifteen years prior. When he’s not doing that, he’s campaigning for control of Wayne Enterprises and tweeting about coffee.
There’s no Batman. Not like how they know him, at least.
One day, Dick flirts with a cop and Tim pickpockets the man’s scanner, and they learn that whole case files, suspects and evidence all neatly put together, have been sent to the GCPD over the past six years. They never see anyone fly overhead, though. At first, they think it might be Babs, but when they try to look her up, Tim finds that she’s been locked up in Arkham for at least the last four years.
Neither one of them want to know why, so they just don’t look into it any further. “This isn’t our Babs,” Dick reminds himself, and Tim, too. But mostly himself. “She’s not .”
They share a look, and don’t have to say anything to know it’s time to compartmentalize. This Babs isn’t their Babs. This Bruce isn’t their Bruce. This world doesn’t have the Joker or Poison Ivy or any of them except Two Face and the Penguin. This isn’t their world .
“Come on,” Dick murmurs, sticking close to his side as they leave the library. As they head to their latest alley, they pass all kinds of drug deals and gang members beating the shit out of people. By the time they actually get to where they’ve been staying, they’re both so tense, one smartass comment from Tim is all it takes to snap them into an argument.
”I’m sorry,” Tim says after they’ve gone back and forth a few times, sounding hostile even to himself. “I’m so sorry I can’t see things the same way you do. I’m sorry I’m not perfect Dick Grayson , who always knows what to do without even having to think about it, who always does the right thing, who is totally fine letting all these people suffer, because it’s in the protocol!”
He doesn’t even believe his own words. Tim’s just upset, unable to handle living on the streets for a week in a universe where everything is unfamiliar and grim, lashing out against one of the only things he can control. Dick is all he has here—and spending that much time with someone, let alone one of his brothers, would be hard even in the best of circumstances.
Dick flinches, and Tim only has a second to feel bad before the flash of a reflection from a gun in the window above them catches his attention. He moves on instinct, stepping forward and trying to pull Dick down even as Dick tries to move towards the mouth of the alley, protective to a fault. The bullet hits Dick’s left shoulder with a sickening and familiar crack-thwack .
For a moment, everything is silent, slow motion. Dick sucks in a pained breath, stumbling back a few steps, and Tim hopes and prays the bullet hasn’t hit an artery.
And then Tim twists to face the mouth of the alley and books it towards him, jumping on the bastard and bringing him to the ground. He rips the gun away and lets all of his pent-up anger and stress out, punching and punching. It’s only Dick, gritting his teeth and clutching his shoulder, calling out his name that saves the guy’s teeth from actually being knocked out.
Panting and shaking with fury and adrenaline, Tim stands. “Are you okay?” He demands.
“Fine,” Dick replies. “We—we should go.”
“Yeah, okay.” But he bends down instead, patting the guy’s pockets until he finds what he’s looking for: a wallet. As he rifles through, searching for a driver’s license or state ID, he explains. “We need to know who he is. If he’s working for Harvey….”
They both shudder at the thought, but the truth is worse. The name is Italian, familiar to Tim from a bust a few years before. He’s one of Maroni’s men.
Another thing they learned during their hours of research at the library: seven years ago, Haly’s Circus came through town. Bruce Wayne didn’t attend, or more likely, couldn’t. Mary and John Grayson fell to their deaths, and once it became clear that little Dick Grayson, only eight years old, knew something about the murderers, he ran. He’s been missing ever since, and if he’s still alive, then the Maronis are probably still on the lookout for him. Tony Zucco, apparently, is still alive. Still working Gotham’s underbelly, terrorizing and murdering. The Dick Grayson native to this universe is a threat to them.
They probably heard me say Dick’s name , Tim realizes, tucking the wallet away in the man’s pockets. Which means he was shot because of me. Fuck.
