The night had started like any other.
Clean. Controlled. Predictable.
Gotham stretched out beneath them in a wash of dim streetlights and shadowed rooftops, the kind of quiet that never really meant peace—but came close enough that the Batfamily knew how to work with it. Comms were steady. Movements were precise. Every step of the patrol fell into place like muscle memory.
Batman on overwatch. Nightwing moving ahead. Red Robin calculating three steps further than everyone else. Robin—
Robin was exactly where he was supposed to be.
Until he wasn’t.
It happened fast. Too fast.
A routine takedown. One last thug who should’ve been down. A flicker of movement no one clocked in time—
Except Tim.
“Damian—!”
The warning barely left his mouth before everything snapped sideways.
Tim moved without thinking.
The knife meant for Damian sank into him instead.
The sound that followed didn’t feel real—sharp, wet, wrong. Tim’s breath hitched hard as the impact drove through him, his body locking before the pain fully registered. For a split second, everything went silent.
Tim staggered, his hand instinctively flying to his abdomen. When he pulled it back, it was slick with blood. Too much blood.
He hit the ground hard.
“Tim!” Dick was there first, dropping to his knees, hands pressing down over the wound without hesitation. “Stay with me—hey, stay with me, okay? Look at me.”
Tim tried.
But breathing felt like dragging air through water. Thick. Heavy. Each inhale cut shorter than the last, his chest stuttering as something warm bubbled at the back of his throat.
“Don’t talk,” Bruce ordered, already beside him, voice sharp but edged with something far more dangerous than anger. Fear.
Damian hovered close—too close—his hands clenched, eyes wide in a way no one ever saw. “He—he wasn’t supposed to—”
Tim coughed.
It came out wet.
Dick’s hands pressed harder. “Nope. No, no, no—stay with me, Tim. You’re okay. You’re okay.”
He wasn’t.
They all knew it.
Tim’s vision blurred at the edges, the world dimming as his breaths turned shallow and uneven. He could hear them—Dick’s voice, Bruce giving orders, Damian saying something he couldn’t quite make out—but it all felt distant. Like he was already slipping somewhere they couldn’t follow.
They didn’t usually go to hospitals.
Not exposed. Not public.
By the time they got him there, everything was moving too fast—doctors, nurses, gurneys, bright lights cutting through the dark as Red Robin disappeared behind swinging doors. Critical condition. Severe blood loss. Immediate surgery.
It only took one person. One camera. One whisper.
Red Robin hospitalized.
Critical.
Bernard Dowd wasn’t supposed to find out like that.
He had been halfway through getting ready for bed, the TV on low more for background noise than anything else. Something mindless. Something easy.
Until it wasn’t.
“…—confirmed reports that vigilante Red Robin has been transported to Gotham General in critical condition—”
Bernard froze.
Slowly, he turned toward the screen.
“No,” he muttered under his breath, like saying it could undo it. Like it could make it not real.
But the footage kept playing. Blurry images. Police barricades. News anchors speaking too seriously, too urgently.
Tim.
His stomach dropped so hard it felt like the floor gave out beneath him.
“No—no, no, no—”
Shoes. Hoodie. Phone. He grabbed a water bottle, a couple of snacks—anything—hands shaking so badly he almost dropped everything twice.
He was fine earlier. He said goodnight. He was okay—
Bernard bolted out the door.
By the time he reached the hospital, it was chaos.
Crowds pressed against barricades. Reporters shouting questions. Police trying—and failing—to keep everything under control.
Bernard’s chest tightened painfully as he pushed closer, only to be stopped short by the line of officers holding people back.
“I need to get in,” he said, breath uneven. “Please, I—”
“Sir, you can’t—”
The call rang once.
Twice.
“Come on,” he whispered. “Please pick up.”
A click.
“…Bernard?” Dick’s voice came through.