Chapter Text
“See the world,” they said, “Make your own path,” they said. Now look where the fuck that got him.
After three weeks of learning healing arts, meditation, and a few new—new to him, everything he learnt was ancient when Rome was built—combat skills from Rahul Lama, Tim somehow managed to end up training under Lady fucking Shiva. The world’s deadliest martial artist and one of the best assassins. Yeah, that Lady Shiva.
She honed Tim like a weapon, teaching him everything she could in three and a half months. And everything she could turned out to be a hell of a lot; that woman has the efficiency of a beehive on crack.
Then they put all that training to good use by stopping King Snake from manufacturing an outbreak of the Bubonic Plague.
Tim parted ways with Shiva in Hong Kong after refusing to kill Snake, and now… well. Bruce sent him to train in France and Tim agreed to be back in six to twelve months. It’s been about four months now, which means he still has up to eight months free from Bruce’s watchful eye to do whatever he wants. Many may say now would be a good point to head home; he’s already learnt plenty from people he probably shouldn’t have been associated with so why not stop now?
The thing is, Tim isn’t like Jason or Dick. When Dick started training for Robin, he had years of circus training and acrobatics under his belt. When Jason started, he had street smarts and moves he’d picked up from other Alley kids. Tim has none of that. He was born with a silver spoon in his mouth, a credit card with no limit in his pocket, and was raised in a manor fully stocked with everything he could ever need or want.
Aside from a few gymnastics classes in his youth, starting out Tim had nothing. No tricks, no edge. Then he wandered through the front door of Wayne manor and into Bruce’s life, and he began learning how to fight like a shadow in the night. And that’s great, but it’s not enough. Before France, he was only just fit to be on the streets.
Tim could go back to Bruce now with Shiva’s training and what he learnt from Rahul Lama, and Bruce would be happy enough. Tim would make a perfectly fine Robin. His fighting skills would be good, though not great. But his mind and other skills could make up for that.
Or Tim could learn as much as possible over the next eight months and return to Bruce as a legendary fighter who knows how to operate on his own even in the worst of circumstances. He could show Bruce why he deserves Robin, and maybe he could someday live up to Dick and Jason’s legacies.
Tim picks option two.
—
In Manhattan, Tim learns from Richard Dragon: a great martial artist who taught Shiva, Barbara Gordon, and Helena Bertinelli.
In Central City, he learns from Bronze Tiger: deadly martial artist and villain-turned superhero.
He has a brief run in with Constantine in London who teaches him a colourful new vocabulary and shows him some cool magic shit.
Tim is beaten, bloodied, bruised, and has had more than a few brushes with death.
However, it’s only been four more months. He still has five more months left to train, but he’s starting to run out of places to go.
There’s one more place that he knows will be able to fill in every last gap in his knowledge. There’s just one problem though: it will push his morals to their very limits.
Bruce’s moral code is a straight line that he never wavers from, not even a wobble since he became Batman.
Over the past few months, Tim’s moral code has become a Slinky that’s been launched down the stairwell of an eighty storey building.
That is to say, there’s a lot of wobbling going on. Tim hasn’t crossed the line, and he’s determined not to. But he’s done a lot of things he isn’t proud of, like working with killers.
This though… it’s gonna push it. While the blood won’t be directly on his hands, they won’t be clean by any means.
Before leaving Gotham, Alfred told him that he has to make the path his own. That while he is mirroring the journey Bruce took in his youth, Tim doesn’t have to repeat his steps.
Before Bruce was Batman, his moral code wobbled.
Maybe this is Tim’s wobble.
Maybe some steps are worth repeating.
—
There’s a saying that you can get in anywhere with a high-vis vest and a ladder.
Today, Tim’s putting that to the test.
Most wouldn’t have the balls to walk straight into Nanda Parbat. Tim is not most people.
Equipped with a backpack, fake goatee, facial prosthetics, wig, enough confidence to make Lex Luthor look like a pussy, and his trusty high-vis vest and ladder, Tim walks down hallway after hallway, deeper into the base following the route he memorised.
Ninja hardly spare him a glance as he reaches his destination, opening the door to a dusty, unused room. Also known as Tim’s new office.
He changes into a suit and removes his bald cap, revealing his recently bleached hair. He would’ve preferred to just use a blond wig, but he’s going to be here for a while and he can’t risk the wig coming off at any point. Ending up on a compilation of ‘top ten worst wig fails’ would be a more tragic fate than the much likelier beheading.
He sticks on a new goatee with extra-strength glue, applies makeup and different facial prosthetics, and slides a pair of glasses on, face now aged at least ten years.
Looking in the mirror of the shitty attached restroom, Tim can’t recognise himself. He no longer looks like a thirteen-year-old boy; he actually looks like an adult, though unfortunately a very short one. The past few months have led to more muscle growth which helps, but he’s still waiting on that growth spurt.
He heads back out into the office which is in desperate need of some sprucing up. Does Amazon deliver to Nanda Parbat?
Tim opens up his computer, sneezing as dust flurries around him when he sits at a desk.
Contrary to current circumstances, Tim knows how dangerous the League is. He knows that if he joins, he will be taunting death every day and there will come a day where they’ll order him to kill someone. Which is why he decided not to join as a ninja.
Just like any other organisation or business, the League has departments. There’s the IT department, the finance department, operations and strategy, member training, and of course leadership and directorship.
But one thing Tim noticed while lightly cyberstalking the League is that they lack an HR department.
There’s a medical sector on each League base to take care of injuries—the minor ones not worth using the Lazarus Pit—so employee physical health is taken care of, but there’s absolutely no care for their mental health. In a high-stress, high-risk environment like a ninja assassin cult, mental health issues run rampant. Anxiety, PTSD, depression… The list goes on.
The fact that there’s no support provided is frankly disgusting. Tim can’t believe they’re still managing to operate. What happens if a ninja has an anxiety attack or trauma flashback during a mission? They’d just die, which is not only cruel but an ineffectual use of resources. Having an HR department means the ninja and other members can have support and will lessen the risk of such an incident occurring.
The hiring and firing process is also basically non-existent, seeing as most members are born into the League while the rest are skilled fighters who receive an invitation. The firing process can vary from a simple decapitation to quite literally being set on fire and pushed off a high ledge.
As for employee compensation and benefits, pay is abominably low and no PTO is given. At least they have dental, though.
Conflict resolution is handled with knives and broken bones.
In short, it’s fucking anarchy.
Considering the amount of funds the League has available, Tim is appalled they haven’t implemented a Human Resources department sooner. A happy ninja cult is a productive ninja cult, after all. But he supposes he’ll just have to do it himself.
Tim adds a branch to the League’s system dedicated to HR and backdates it so it appears to have existed for years. He covertly updates the map of Nanda Parbat to include the department and writes a short blurb in the HR page about how ‘we care about your wellbeing and value each and every one of you’ and ‘we have a zero-tolerance policy for bullying and harassment in the workplace’ and ‘support is available 24/7 so feel free to mosey on down to HR anytime’. He puts a cute smiley-face giving a thumbs-up emoticon at the bottom and finishes it off with ‘teamwork makes the dream work’.
He adds a photo of himself at the bottom and writes ‘Alvin Draper, Head of the Human Resources Department’.
The page is complete, and now he can get started with the real work. Hiring new members is his first order of business, because it’ll be easier to integrate the department when new members can mention it to their older coworkers and convince them to come along to HR briefings.
Tim knows helping the League like this is probably not very morally sound, but his main job is supporting the mental health and relations of the members and whatever effects it has on the League’s productivity are unintended, so he thinks this counts as a moral grey area.
Dear God, Tim hopes he never has to explain this to Bruce.
—
Tim’s whole plan to not get killed relies solely on sheer confidence, so he walks right into the cafeteria at dinner time and grabs a tray of rice, dahl, and a chocolate pudding cup. The options are good; he’s glad the employees are being fed properly.
He looks around for a place to sit and considers his options. He’d rather not risk getting stabbed by sitting with the assassins, so that’s a no-go. He doesn’t think he’ll fit in with the janitorial and kitchen staff, so that’s not an option either.
Ah, perfect. There’s a group sitting at a long table who seem to be the other department heads, so in true ‘fuck it, we ball’ fashion he makes his way over to them.
“Hey guys, my name’s Alvin and I’m the new head of HR,” Tim says, sitting down.
The group shoot him a confused look and seem to have a conversation through raised eyebrows and shrugs.
A middle-aged man wearing glasses and skinny jeans with grey streaks through brown hair is the one to voice the silent question. “We have a human resources department?”
“Yes, I understand the confusion though. The last department head was highly incompetent and only worked here for the dental plan. He was recently… let go.” Tim emphasises the final two words.
The man nods. “Nice to meet you. I’m Norman, head of IT.”
The woman sitting to the left of Tim speaks next. “I’m Yasmina, head of finance.”
The rest of the group goes around sharing their names. The last man asks, “So what’s human resources?”
It takes Tim a minute before he realises it’s a serious question and a few other people around the table also seem interested in the answer. It dawns on him that most, if not all of these people grew up in the League with little to no contact with the outside world and they genuinely might not know what HR does, so he explains.
“HR is here to ensure everyone’s safe and happy. We deal with things like the hiring and firing process, employee mental health, and conflict resolution.”
Yasmina raises an eyebrow. “The League cares about us being safe and happy?”
“Of course! Your wellbeing is very important and I’m sorry that hasn’t already been made clear to you.”
The group still looks confused. “And His Grace authorises and agrees with this?” Norman clarifies.
“Yep! He completely agrees.” Tim beams at them and hopes nobody asks Ra’s about the HR department. He thinks he can make a convincing case on the importance of the department if it comes down to it, but it’s unlikely he’d be able to get through the whole PowerPoint presentation before his head is forcefully removed from his shoulders.
“Wow. That’s… that’s really nice of Him,” Omar from Operations says, sounding choked-up. Norman leans over to give him a hug.
They continue eating while Tim answers a few more questions and engages in light conversation. He gets to know the group and everyone seems great, except for Jerry in member training. Fuck that guy.
“So, what wing are you staying in?” Norman asks as they stack their trays with the others that need to be cleaned.
“I actually haven’t been given a room yet, I only got here a couple of hours ago,” Tim answers sheepishly. He’d been planning to just sleep on the floor in his office.
“There’s a free room in the same wing as me and Yasmina if you want it,” Norman says, shrugging.
“Thank you, that’s very kind.” Tim’s genuinely touched and lets Norman lead the way.
The room is sparse but there’s a bed, a desk, and a nice rug for decoration.
Norman says goodnight and goes back to his quarters before Tim heads to HR to fetch his things.
All in all, it’s been a good first day.
Tim falls onto the bed and promptly bursts into tears.
He tries to stop, to silence the gasping breaths, wipe away the tears and snot, to keep the fucking lid on the Pandora’s box of his emotions. Repress, Tim, repress. Repress is the key to success. He repeats this to himself almost manically the same way he’s been doing since the first time his parents dropped him in boarding school and fucked off to the other side of the Earth for six months, but Pandora’s box is looking really fucking tempting right now.
See, the thing is, Tim might’ve been lying to himself when he rationalised that the only reason he doesn’t want to return to Gotham is because he wants to become a good little Robin.
The real reason may have something to do with the fact that he buried his mom a few weeks before his departure, and his dad’s completely unresponsive in a coma. The doctors try to be reassuring but through all the medical jargon and straight-up bullshitting it’s clear they have no fucking clue if the man’s ever going to wake up.
Which… if Tim’s honest to himself, he’s holding his mental health together with a roll of duct tape and silent prayers. While his parents weren’t exactly the gold standard (Exhibit A: being dumped in boarding schools for six months at a time), they cared. They loved him, even if they spent most of the time they were home arguing with each other. Honestly, sometimes he was glad when they were off to wherever was better than home. It at least gave him some peace and quiet from the ‘Timothy, tell your father to pass me the salt’ and the subsequent ‘get it yourself, you lazy cow’ from his father. But when things were good, they were so good.
His dad teaching him how to cook the recipes he learnt around the world, his mom taking him ice skating in the winter, baseball games they went to as a family. It was nice, really nice. He wishes he got to see more of that side of them. But now, he may never get a chance to again. All he has left of his dad is a man lying in a hospital bed, unable to breathe on his own or feel when Tim holds his hand.
The tears come harder, his shoulders shaking as he tries to burrow deeper into the hard wooden pallets of the bed. He quickly shoves the grief back into the box and adds a padlock for good measure.
So he’s currently down two parents and up one emotionally constipated furry. The aforementioned emotionally constipated furry has also decided out of some sense of either guilt or just convenience to take Tim in. Tim’s not very happy with this turn of events, but seeing as his options are this, one of his many distant family members who would most likely try to murder him and steal his money, or chance Gotham’s foster system, he decided to let Bruce do whatever martyr self-hatred thing he’s doing.
Tim would’ve gone with his fake uncle plan, but the identity wasn’t ready to go and he would’ve needed to find an actor who matched all the requirements, all of which would’ve taken at least a week. Or maybe like, three Zesti-fueled all nighters, but he’d just lost his mom and was a little busy wallowing in grief and self-pity for that.
It’s not like he hates Bruce or anything. Bruce is Bruce. He’s an emotionally constipated furry, and that about sums him up. He refuses to talk about his feelings and is as skilled in the arts of escapism and repression as Tim. Whenever Bruce is feeling An Emotionᵀᴹ, he quickly redirects all of his mental and physical energy into a new project, which at the moment just so happens to be Tim.
Soon though, Bruce will lose interest and all the grief and chronic depression being bottled up will come spilling out again, and Tim will be the one left to mop up the mess. Which is fine; that’s the job he agreed to do when he became Robin. But Tim’s a little busy with his own mess right now to deal with Bruce’s.
So Bruce has taken Tim in while both his parents are unable to care for him. And Tim’s not a fan of being the current pet project, and maybe he’s a little pissed as well. After all, Bruce is the one who handed Tim’s parents the poisoned water. He knows Bruce didn’t know it was poisoned, that was made very clear when Bruce sat him down and explained exactly what happened when he got to Haiti. But part of Tim still resents Bruce for it, even though he knows it’s not logical or kind of him to do that.
Resentment is another of those pesky emotions that normally gets shoved into Pandora’s box, but the box is currently at full capacity. It was either let the resentment stay out or release some of the grief, which is a much worse alternative. Resentment can fuel Tim; it can drive him to do just about anything, while grief makes him want to crawl into a hole and die. Not so helpful when he’s infiltrating a ninja assassin cult.
So maybe he’s also taking this opportunity to avoid Bruce for a little longer. He knows he’ll have to go back to Gotham eventually, but hey, he still has a few months left to repress everything and focus all his attention on not dying.
—
The next day, Tim acquaints himself with the facility. His first round of interviews with potential members is tomorrow and there’s not a lot more that he has to do before then. He’s already sent a ninja to collect his Amazon delivery—turns out they do deliver to deep within the Himalayas, though in order to not get beheaded by Ra’s for telling an Amazon delivery driver where Nanda Parbat is he just had it sent to the nearest town—so later on he’ll be able to decorate the HR department, but for now he has some spare time.
Tim decides to spend his free time by doing what he set out here to do. He borrows an all-black outfit that every ninja on the base wears from the laundry room and heads to one of the training rooms.
The room he picks out is one for teens about his age and a little older who are still focusing on the base-level skills so the training isn’t too rough; far easier than the stuff he learnt with Shiva.
Which is how he ends up sparring with a partner while the whole class gathers to watch. They’re using bō staves and Tim accidentally let himself loose a little, and now it’s too late to rein himself in.
He wins the match by forcing his opponent to the ground.
The teacher, a woman with short black hair and biceps the size of Tim’s head comes over and claps him on the shoulder. “Good match, kid. You really know your way around a bō. What’s your name?”
“Glanz, Gary Glanz,” his brain answers for him, using one of his pre-prepared IDs. Gary is meant to be a typical frat boy asshole, but maybe Gary is secretly harboring a love of murder and cult worship. Whatever, he’ll probably have to burn the identity after all this is over.
“Well Gary, I think the class could use some of your tutelage. Take over for a bit, show them how you did that.”
And that’s how he finds himself teaching a class of ninja-in-training how to use a bō staff.
They’re a good group; they take direction from him well and pick it up quick enough, with only one student being critically injured. After class, Tim showers and changes back into Alvin Draper. He keeps the ninja outfit just in case, and silently apologises to whoever is going to be missing their clothes.
When he makes it back to the HR department, the room is filled with boxes. Did he really order this much stuff?
There’s a smaller side-room which Tim has decided to make his personal office while the main room will be where the rest of the staff work when he eventually hires them.
He sets up a desk, couch, bean bags, lava lamp, and an Oasis poster in his office. It’ll be where he gives people counselling and conducts interviews so the space has to be cosy and comfy. He thinks he’s succeeded.
In the main room, Tim wipes down the surfaces and installs the filing cabinets. On the walls he hangs motivational posters with cheesy messages like ‘hang in there’ with a picture of a cat dangling from a washing line, ‘be-leaf in yourself” with a cartoon smiling plant, and ‘don’t froget how special you are’ with a frog and an amount of rainbows that could make Rainbow Dash throw up.
He’s pretty satisfied; nobody would guess he only just set this room up today. He smiles. The League of Assassins’ HR department is now in full working order.
Tim leans back in his big fancy desk chair and daydreams about asking a ninja to bring him a Batburger.