#OOG!! ily rimi hehehehe

[mysterycitrus]

hihihi! tim drake in college real?

oog indeed mein freund

so ur tim drake, ur seventeen, and ur dad has just come back from the dead. u hollowed urself out until there’s nothing left and ur ribs are broken but you’ve never felt better. if u stop moving for more than a second the weight of the world hits u. there’s another kid wearing ur uniform and u have to watch as this new robin and bruce, the bruce u fought for, the bruce u left everything behind for, the bruce u nearly died for, debut as gothams dynamic duo. but it’s fine. u did what u had to do. u feel great, actually.

then ur brother who u love more than anything sits u down and tells u he’s enrolled u in college in california. ur so angry ur spitting. he trusts u and now he’s not even giving u the choice to stay. u want to kick and scream and hold on till ur hands are bloody, but he tells u that he’s worried. he’s been so scared for u since ur dad died. he thinks ur losing urself. he wants u to make choices for urself without bruce. he wants u to spend time with ur friends who are alive again and miss u. he wants u to take a chance to live ur life away from gotham, away from that burden.

he tells u: robin is never truly gone, alright? it’ll never leave. i need u to trust me that it’ll still be u no matter how many other kids wear the cape. i need u to trust that i love u more than what ur able to do in tights.

and he knows this better than anyone. he’s asking u to extricate tim drake from robin and batman and red robin. to remember what it felt like to choose. and after all these years u can’t say no, so u pack ur bags and leave for the west coast.

college is fine. u keep changing majors. u pick up photography as a joke, thinking about snapping photos of the boy wonder from a distance, to print in the basement dark room after school. it’s a laugh, and ur gonna drop it until donna troy finds out, and u spend a long time on the roof of the tower with her taking photos of the sunrise. it’s been a while since the sunrise was the start of ur day. it feels….. unfamiliar. she tells u about how ur brother became nightwing. she tells u about the heartbreak of having to move on. she tells u about choices.

kon’s right down the hall. he can hear u but u can’t hear him, so sometimes you’ll whisper a question for him to shout back. he obligingly poses for ur still life class. he and steph make fun of how u can’t decide what to study. it’s painful to become tim drake and nothing else again, but it happens in increments. u make friends with people in ur tutoriasl. ur less pale — u pinken under the sun easily, peeling flesh turning red and painful, but u look less like a corpse. ur hair is longer, and bart buys u a claw clip shaped like an avocado.

the new robin is growing up, and he explains colour theory to u for one of ur classes. he’s an asshole, but he’s trying. when asked politely, he draws character sheets for bart’s dnd group with minimal grumbling. red and yellow suit him, and looking at him in the costume feels less painful, and more nostalgic.

u brainstorm new ideas for urself, new roles, new ideas for the team, but there’s no rush. u have time. if u see bruce, u kno there’s someone else at his back, watching him through the night. dick texts u life updates, but they’re funny, not desperate. the world continues to spin. u, tim drake, are still alive.