Disclaimers: I don't even own most of the books, man.

Spoilers: "Batman Beyond: Return of the Joker," in an
AU-ish way.

Summary: Tim didn't need to be taught *everything*.

Ratings Note: R.

Author's Note: This takes place within current *comics*
canon. No, I know what I said in the spoilers. Just trust
me. Or, you know, don't.

Acknowledgments: Benway put ideas in my head. The
Spike spun them out with me. Jack held my hand, and
gave many helpful suggestions. The Spike also gave me
a title.

Feedback: Adored. leytelj@gmail.com

*

In his head, Tim is juggling the following items:

The fake, wax apple on Professor Jameson's desk, redder
than the lipstick of the prostitute Robin spoke with last
night.

The bundled up rag used and re-used to wipe down the
white-board -- this is difficult. The rag is neither wet nor
particularly dirty.

The ballpoint pen he's chewing on.

The plastic butterfly clips in Deanna Wilson's hair.

It's not that he's particularly fond of juggling -- without
an audience, at least, and even then...

It's just that Professor Jameson is saying nothing
especially interesting about the world of trigonometry.
The textbook is brand new, excellent, and long-since
completed on a shallow level.

He's been six weeks ahead of the class on a *deeper*
level pretty much since the semester began.

This won't change.

A quick glance around -- more with his body than his
eyes in a way he doesn't, quite, have words for --
reveals his classmates in all their glory.

Glaze-eyed there, suspiciously rapt there. No one's
even passing notes.

Tim puts a waxen worm in the apple and gets creative
with the loops and patterns.

*

Robin slips on, turns on, *exists* with the mask.

A few years ago, when Nightwing had visited Gotham
for one epically angst-ridden reason or another, Tim
had asked him about it.

Nightwing had blinked into Dick, right there on the
rooftop, and given him a look. "He's always there, I
guess. I don't think I've really thought -- no, that's
not true. I obsessed about it when I was fifteen or
so." He'd smiled. "I guess you're just early."

Dick had ruffled his hair, breathed, and gone back to
being Nightwing, just like that.

Tim isn't sure about it, at all.

Intellectually, it makes sense. All of these things, all
of these *people* have to exist in order for any of it
to make sense at all.

A handful of men stuffed into Bruce Wayne's body, a
few women in Barbara's. And in him...

What?

It *has* to be real.

It just doesn't feel real, exactly.

Tim puts one foot on the guard-rail around tonight's
starter rooftop, breathes deep and looks out over the city.

He's been in this movie for years, now.

It just hasn't stopped filming yet.

The metaphor is as good as any other.

*

Ashley asks him out, again, on Wednesday.

Ashley's hair curls blonde and bright over her shoulders.
She doesn't so much lean against the lockers as let
herself fall with a muffled, controlled crash.

"So...?" she asks, blue eyes wide with moderately stoned
laughter.

Tim shuffles through his options and decides on Shy
Boy. Hardly anyone ever questions it. He thinks it goes
well with being a little small for his age. "Uh..."

She rolls her eyes. "It's just a *club*, Tim. Not even
one of the good ones. There's, like, chaperones and
stuff. Good music, though."

"I'm not really much of a dancer, Ashley..."

"Hmmph. Think about it, okay?"

He gives her Grateful Smile # 4.

It makes her blink and blush like the teenaged girl she's
been trying not to be at least since he's known her. She
recovers quickly, though, standing up straight and
putting on her own smile: The Sophisticate.

He stands still for the trace of her dampish index finger
over his cheek.

"You are *way* too cute for your own good, Timmy."
She giggles, mostly at herself, he thinks, and hip-sways
down the hallway.

He's just late enough for study hall.

*

There's nothing to do, after school.

Ashley's disappeared with the other stoners, a smile for
him tossed over his shoulder -- there's a definite pattern
to that. Ashley doles out attention and encouragement
almost exactly one-fifth less often than the average girl
does for the average boy-that-girl-likes. Which is still
significantly more often than the boys remember to do
for the girls.

She's fascinating, in her way.

Basketball is tempting in exactly the wrong ways.

His body has been annoyingly slow about dealing with
the limitations of what Tim can and can't show his
acquaintances on a day-to-day basis.

He suspects it has something to do with adrenaline, or
just adolescence.

Or maybe basketball is just too much fun to fake. His
body certainly enjoys it.

He watches the other boys stumble and foul their way
across the court for a moment, another.

It's been twelve days since he's shown up at WayneTech.
Good enough.

*

Janice smiles at him in the usual way when he steps off
the elevator into Bruce's office -- like something important
behind her face is melting.

Tim falls into it the way he's supposed to, grinning back
and jumping on her desk. He's almost sixteen, but it's an
adaptable move, especially since Janice's desk is always,
always near-spotless.

He leans and rolls and lounges, bracing himself on his
elbows and turning his grin into something closer to a
leer. "Heya, Janice." He waggles his eyebrows.

"Oh, *you*." If she had a handkerchief, she'd be flapping
it at him.

Janice isn't nearly as old as she pretends to be, though
that... it's curious. He's not sure how much flirting he
can get away with for Janice's inner prude, versus how
much he can get away with for Janice's inner thirty-eight
year old.

Probably the same, and probably for entirely different
reasons. It's a little frustrating.

"Your beauty makes me foolish," he simpers, and bats
his eyelashes.

She rolls her eyes and gives him a gentle push.

Tim pauses for just long enough to let Janice know she
hadn't *really* pushed him that hard, then rolls himself
with conscious awkwardness onto the floor, landing
about half as well as he *actually* can, but there's a
continuum to this. A known number of degrees.

Janice's eyes widen.

Tim clutches his chest and gasps, "you *wound* me to
the... uh. To the quick!"

She laughs.

Tim smiles.

"Mr. Wayne is in a meeting now, but you know you can
go right in, Timmy."

He considers playing it up a little more, but decides to
just smile a little wider. "Okay, Janice. Don't let him know
I'm here, hunh?"

She winks at him. "Our secret."

*

He forces himself into a stretch Dick could do in his sleep.
While actively restrained.

He can do it, but it's nowhere near as easy as it was
when he was twelve.

He can *just* see his extended feet out of the corners
of his eyes. The top edge of the chair is that precise
kind of steady that's all about his control -- fragile and
ominous.

Tim straightens his spine and forces the stretch a little
further, his legs *almost* parallel to the floor.

This is going to hurt very, very soon.

Sweat beads on his forehead and Tim forces it,
increasing the pressure until the chair swings -- left.
Damn.

He flips back and off, sticking the landing more out of
luck than anything else.

"Careless." Bruce is leaning against the closed door, a
file of very-important-but-not-really documents in his
right hand that he flips through with his left.

He's grown out of the surprise. The only question is
how *long* Bruce has been standing there. As ever,
it's impossible to be sure. Tim shakes his head. "On
purpose. Mostly."

"You're not, actually, an acrobat, Tim."

"And that stops you, when?"

The barest hint of a facial twitch. Clearest sign of any
that *Bruce* is somewhere outside the room. "What are
you up to?" Or not.

It's hard to tell, sometimes. Tim shrugs. "Nothing much.
Had a question, though."

"Oh?"

"Yeah, the physical thing. What's the trick?" He plays
with the chair, rolling it back and forth. Watches Bruce
register the apparently nervous motion, watches him
sink a little deeper. Or rise a little higher. One or the
other.

"Did something happen?"

Tim grins, and makes it look just as easy as it is. "Nah.
I'm just..." Lets the grin fade. "I can't seem to make
myself look clumsy. Not all the time."

There never was anything like a furrow in Bruce's brow,
but it clears anyway. He snaps the file folder shut.
"There's no trick, really. It's just that as you get older --"

Tim rolls his eyes on cue.

"As you get *older*, there will be fewer opportunities for
you to slip. Bruce Wayne can be a good a dancer as he
needs to be. No one will ask him to shoot hoops in the
playground."

Which... makes sense. "But --"

"There is *one* thing."

Better. Tim puts on his attentive-face. "Yeah?"

"Tire yourself out."

It's so brilliantly simple that Tim's face wants to slacken
with simple awe. He rolls his eyes instead. "You're just
trying to get me to work out more."

Bruce smiles at him, eyes sharp and focused as any
predator's. "Maybe."

And it's... he wants to ask. Why do you want me to be
this, when I can be something else entirely? Something
more.

What are you getting out of this?

But he knows the answer. He's known that for *years*.

He scowls, perhaps a little blacker than he should, and
spins the chair hard enough for it to crash against the
desk. A little. "Right."

Bruce's smile softens exactly the way it should.

*

The thing about Robin is that there are times when Tim
suspects he isn't as smart as he could be.

As he *is*.

But there are ways to be Robin, and ways *not* to be
Robin, and none of it has anything to do with Dick, or
even Jason, except in the ways that Robin can and can't
behave around Batman.

Around Bruce.

And yet, there really has to be a better way, a better
*compromise*.

Because Robin is just so damned *careless*. Not a
child, nothing *like* one, sometimes.

But young, just the same.

Dashing, swashbuckling, friendly, competent, innocent.

Caught.

And just because Robin's gauntlets are the ones manacled
to the table doesn't mean that Tim is any closer to
getting the hell out of here.

It is, in short, a problem.

*

Three days in and several things are very, very obvious.

One, Batman doesn't have clue one where he is.

Two, he hasn't given the question of pain in regards to
his own tolerances nearly enough thought. Tim thinks
there could be novels written about this. Encyclopedias.

Three, the Joker wants something very, very specific.

Leaning in close, teeth long and horse-ish and discolored.
You can't tell anything about Joker from his smile. That's
a given.

His eyes are as bright and avid and mindless as a bird's.

Tim knows that look, too.

Robin spits in the man's face.

Tim cringes against the way Joker's eyes focus.

Novels.

*

He's seen that movie. He's seen a lot of movies, but that
one was a favorite, in an uncomfortable kind of way.

Very sixties. The way sci-fi movies where everyone wore
jumpsuits were very seventies.

He hasn't give enough thought to this, enough literary
deconstruction.

Because Harley is stroking his face, moving effortlessly
away from the bruises. There are a lot of bruises.
Novels.

Maybe he'll get to this in college. Film school. Analysis.

The film on the screen is grainy, unprofessional. The
kind of black and white that Tim's brain wants to call
'artistic,' but it isn't that, at all.

He hasn't studied enough.

Because this is very, very Clockwork Orange, and he...

He isn't sure what, exactly, he's supposed to be doing.

There's what Joker wants Robin to do -- flinch and
sicken and break at the sight of his own body on the
screen, at the things that were done to it after Tim had
managed to put himself into a trance.

There's what Harley wants Robin to do -- "you really
need to talk, sweetie." Stroke, stroke.

Tim doesn't have much to call on for this. It's begun
to seem... repetitive to sneer, and cursing only gets
him so far. It's not that it's entirely unexpected. Robin
always gets rescued, and so resists and hopes and
generally gets stupider and stupider to Tim's eyes.

Because this was always going to happen, wasn't it?
Something like this.

The Tim-on-screen makes noises that Tim doesn't
remember.

He can smell himself.

He doesn't know how long its been.

*

And then it's clear, so clear that Tim wants to laugh,
never *stop* laughing. And maybe... maybe that's
what he's supposed to do?

"Well, why didn't you *say* so?" is what he says, and
he can see how different he must look, must *sound*,
by the way Harley's eyes widen behind her domino,
the way her pig-tails bounce, bells ringing with
uncomplicated joy.

He can see it in Joker's hungry, hungry smile, and feel
it in the clutch and flex of the spidery hand on his
ankle.

He can see it.

It's just another... card in the deck.

*

There's a wall between Tim and the rest of the world.

Literally.

He traces the edges of the two-way mirror, the back of
his neck itching and pulling. He's being watched, and he
has a *general* idea from where, but there are no
cues, no way to tell even how many people there are.

He doesn't think this is the way it's supposed to go.

Still, there are always, always options.

The first -- railing and throwing everything not actively
bolted down, had just brought in the orderlies.

They train orderlies better than henchmen, and it had
only taken three of them to wrestle him down and
drug him unconscious.

The second option... just might work better.

He lets his eyes widen, and hugs himself against the
cold that only exists in the abstract and metaphorical.

Literary criticism, yes, very necessary. He'd like to have
a better idea *why* being stuck in this hospital is so...
enervating. Beyond the obvious.

Later. *After* he gets out.

He stares at the exact center of the mirror, and works,
and works, and *works*. Pain -- much too abstract. An
early lesson: the body forgets.

Old Yeller -- better.

Dead kittens... maybe too much.

Back to Old Yeller.

The first tear forms and he forces himself not to blink,
to keep his eyes wide until the pain isn't abstract at all,
anymore.

"Please," he says, staring.

And there are sounds beyond the locked door, muffled
yells and scuffling.

He holds the expression until he can bury his face
against Bruce's suit-jacket.

"Tim. Tim, I'm so --"

"You have to get me out of here," he whispers. "It's."
Really *fucking* annoying. "I can't take it."

"I'll take you home."

*

Tim sits on the edge of the bed, careful not to rumple it
too much.

In his head, he isn't doing much at all.

There is... a great deal to consider.

So many questions.

Why does it still feel like a movie, first and foremost. He
recognizes his own tendency to apply quick fixes, easy
definitions that allow things to be filed away and
forgotten until he needs to call them up again for
something or another.

It's just that there's a vast, apparently very important
difference between the way *he* views that tendency
and the way everyone else does. Even Bruce.

He can't put it into words, yet, it's too big and
dangerous.

In his sessions with Dr. Thompkins, he is as silent and
uncommunicative as he can manage.

It works -- the books had all suggested the woman
would expect just that. Even from a Robin.

And that's the difficult part. Because...

Because he's not, actually, a trauma case. He just has
to figure out how to play one convincingly enough
that they won't figure out the *real* problem.

He gets it now -- that part at least.

He's read enough.

Because there are *always* rules, and he's not
following them. He's not following them in a way that's
bound to make *someone* suspicious.

They'll lock him up again.

They'll lock him up again when they drag his dead
*body* out of here.

Because... because he knows what will happen, now.
There'll be a tiny room, and eyes on him from
everywhere and nowhere, and they'll *watch* him,
and try to... fix him?

"The world is full of the ignorant and unthinking," Bruce
had said, once.

And it hadn't exactly been news, and it still isn't.

It's just that he never expected Bruce to be *one* of
them.

If he *hadn't* been what he is...

God. All Joker had wanted from him was what he did
every fucking day of his *life*. What he'd been doing
for as long as he could remember, long before he ever
put on a *mask*.

*Everyone* wants something, everyone needs
something, needs you to *be* something. This one
wants a pliable boyfriend, this one wants a cute
teenaged boy to flirt with ever-so-innocently.

*They* want a leader, distant but full of compassion.
And this one...

This one wants a son. A better one than he thinks he
could ever have, happy and simple and smart and
good. This one *needs* that the way Tim needs air
and space to move.

It's just that if he'd *been* that, *any* of that, he'd
be a shaking little puddle on the floor instead of...
this.

And *none* of them want that.

Except that they really, really do.

"More than anything else, people want to be reassured.
They want something solid to believe in, something
orderly and consistent," Bruce had said, some other
time.

Bruce is very, very intelligent.

Tim just isn't sure he's smart enough for *this*.

Footsteps beyond the closed door, and Tim checks
himself carefully. His body is loose -- he straightens his
spine.

His face is blank -- he raises an eyebrow in question.

Considers.

Listens harder -- it's Bruce.

There has to be a way to *explain*... but.

Tim hasn't thought of what it might be, yet.

He lets himself go rigid with tension, and widens his
eyes.

*

"Robin... Tim."

It's his own damned fault.

"I don't think. I don't think you should go out,
anymore."

He's made it too easy. Too logical.

'Something to believe in.' Right. The law of unintended
consequences.

But Tim's not going to let *this* happen. Getting out
of the hospital and *staying* out was just the *first* step.
And he has been very, very patient. "Bruce, there's
something you don't understand," he says, domino in
his hand. The only part of the uniform he'd been able to
find.

"Tell me." And it *is* Bruce, frayed around the edges
and just as open as he should be. Moreso.

His own fault.

But he can work with that.

Tim looks at Bruce, looks him in the eye and *holds* the
look.

Waits.

"Tim?"

Tim smiles, and takes a step closer.

Another.

"Bruce," he says, in the voice that's only ever existed
within his own mind, and has to pause.

It sounds...

He wants to touch his own throat, wants to *feel* it.

He shakes it off. Bruce is... solidifying before his eyes.
Sinking in to the Bat. There's no time.

Tim tilts his head up and leans in, just enough to breathe
against Bruce's chin. "Bruce," he says. "There's a
difference between perception and reality."

"Tim --"

"I didn't need you to teach me that, Bruce," he says, and
presses his lips to the man's jaw.

"Tim. We can't do this." Hands on his shoulders.

Tim wonders if Bruce knows how telling that is. That he
hadn't even asked *what* Tim was doing. Just one, dry
kiss, dripping with ambiguity. He lets the smile out, in
part, and feels Bruce shake.

And Bruce pushes him away, softly. Stares. He's a very,
very smart man.

Tim lets himself be moved. "Where's the suit?"

There's something like dawning horror in the man's eyes.
Too much.

Tim gives him the wide-eyed look he's so deeply sick of.
"I just need to... I need to help. Someone."

This close, he can see the shuffle in the man's eyes.
Bruce-the-father, Batman-the-warrior, everything else.

"I'm all right," he says.

And Bruce narrows his eyes. "I don't think that's even
close to the biggest lie you've ever told me."

Tim can't hold back a wince, and doesn't bother to try.
A *smart* man. He shakes his head. "How much does
it matter? Really. Against everything else?"

"Tim --"

"I *need* this." And you owe me, he doesn't have to
say.

A long, long look, and Tim suspects most of it, whatever
*it* is, is buried behind Bruce's face.

But eventually, Batman nods, sharply, and walks toward
a case Tim hadn't noticed before, tucked neatly against
the wall of the Cave.

The suit, the belt, the boots. The cape.

There's a... it's relief, it has to be. Swelling against the
insides of Tim's chest and making it impossible to see
for a moment, impossible to even think.

Only relief, *true* relief, could ever hurt like this.

"Thank you," he says, and reaches for Robin's clothes.

Batman catches him by the wrist. "You're not going out
alone."

Tim blinks.

Nods.

He hadn't really expected *understanding*, after all.

Not even from Batman.

He twists his arm free.

Turns his back.

And changes.

end.