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Tim can't breathe. He's there by himself but surrounded by the heartbeats of many.
He wonders how Kon could do that: to know this sound and still manage to fall asleep. Tim is afraid of the ceiling of the lab collapsing on him at any moment, burying him alive. That he would be thankful for.
This- whatever Tim tries to mimic- has been achieved before. Kon was its a prime example, a genetic masterpiece of humankind's genius. So why couldn't he do the same?
ATTEMPT TWENTY-TWO COMPLETE. PROTEIN LINK FAILURE. ATTEMPT TWENTY-TWO UNSUCCESSFUL. KRYPTONIAN EXTRA-TERRESTRIAL DNA REJECTING HUMAN DNA. STABILIZER NEEDED. SOLUTION- UNKNOWN.
There isn't any malice behind Tim's scheme. Just an awful, cruel sort of grief that constantly urges him to make himself miserable. Deep down inside, he knows this nothing but a rotten fruit of mania and delirium. His actions are ill-considered and wrongheaded. The Robin 101 villain textbook material, per to say. The truth is, at this point, he can't really turn back.
A tiny splotch of blood falls on his glove, and the thought just clicks in a place like a perfect puzzle element that laid under the table all the time.
And now, the method works like miracle. It's not a real plan, not when there isn't any clear purpose behind it. It has nothing to do with his usual way of work. It's more a course of rash actions that let him act on his fierce, harmful feelings that would be a lot better left untouched to dull, like a paper cut. There is no need for a band-aid where the wound is perfect to be left alone.
Yet, he digs deeper and discovers emotions that make his heart ache beyond comprehension- because Kon is dead. There is no room for a mistake.
So Tim makes a dozen of them, just in case.
The first thirty clones don't go past the first stage. Tim has done a lot of uncanny work hand in hand with Bruce for Batman, but never something as bizarre as this: cloning his best friend. Dead best friend. It's unreasonable. It's more than stupid, it’s so retarded that his head aches.
He can't replicate Luthor's method, not with the limited resources he has. Human and Kryptonian DNA isn't compatible enough for that, but Kon is already half-Kryptonian. That probably makes the purpose of adding another donor lost; despite this Tim melds his own genetic code to this sick equation, just to be sure.
So that’s how be got there. To hiding in an underground base, hands deep in warm fluids of the artificial womb, scrunching his nose and frantically rummaging for another dead fetus. Number 54, eight weeks. Cause of death: unknown.
Clones' fetal development is accelerated, making the embryo’s physical age equivalent to the sixteenth week of pregnancy. It's not the first time he held something so small, still, and yet warm in his hands. None of them had fingernails though, and that makes Tim unable to look away. He draws a shaky breath (something this tiny alien-like thing will never do), and places it on the counter for a later investigation. There had to be a cause for its death. It was doing so well a few hours before. Maybe it could survive somehow if Tim wouldn't take a nap, wouldn't let himself rest, paid more attention—
No. Tim carefully washes his hands. Twice. They still reek of synthetic fetal waters. That's okay. Over the last months, he got used to this smell. He's certain all his clothes, skin, and hair stench. Can't think of why no one has made a comment about it yet. Maybe an acidic thick coffee odor makes up for this. Maybe he looks sick enough.
The laboratory would be soundless, so uninhabited if it weren't for a faint, soothing hiss of tank fluids.
Tim quickly washes his hair in the washbasin and pours himself another mug of coffee. If he wasn't addicted to it before, now he is. He pokes at one's tank glass inspecting it and takes a sip. It’s hot and pungent.
He walks out of the room, begging himself to forget. Let go. The moment he is away, he's aware the return is just a matter of time: the anxiety of giving up is far more addicting than his drink.
He's sure Numer 67 is the cause of this nightmare. Tim dreams of a petite toddler, perhaps three years old, sitting on the couch in the Tower's main room. There is something so derivatively not-Kon-like in this boy that makes his stomach crumble with distress. He looks at Tim with big, blue-grayish eyes and long eyelashes. He's charming, cute even, if Tim can tell a thing about a child's beauty.
"Dad, what am I?" he asks too knowingly for a kid his age, and this makes Tim aware that, indeed, all of this is just a play of his imagination. "What am I?"
Now Number 67 is probably utilised in one of the bins. Dead at a fetal development age of five weeks. Ten by normal means. He didn't notice nails on this one, much less human-like embryo than Number 54.
It turns out one quarter Kryptonian embryos start developing their invulnerability around the twelfth week, which makes performing an autopsy on their bodies harder. Tim’s stubborn curious though. In the fourteenth week, he's unable to stick a needle for checking. Thirty of all clones below the ten week mark had a double set of chromosomes, a condition lethal for most animals. He's no genetic engineer, but the pattern of mortality beyond that time is easy to notice.
Tim takes his time and doesn't walk into the lab for a couple of weeks. The last time Tim checked, three out of nine left fetuses were unresponding. He didn't bother to take them out of the tanks and throw them out.
He lays in bed, staring at the ceiling, pretending he can convince himself he doesn't care. It's okay. Their existence would be a mistake, anyway. If there is a god's presence anywhere in this universe, it keeps protecting Tim against his own recklessness.
Six; that’s how many of these things (children, Tim- children you created and by any means, they are as yours as they are Kon's) in the basement were still alive. He can't face himself in the mirror.
He created ninety-nine of them, and ninety of them were dead. Honestly, Tim doesn't care. He feels relieved with the thought. It would be so, so worse if most of them survived. They were just a heartbroken product of grief and loneliness. He can't make himself welcome any of them, not really.
The line between Robin and a coldblooded villain is so thin he can feel himself getting limp.
Number 99 is eleven- no, twenty-two weeks in development. It finally catches his eye as there were only four embryos left. Something is distinctly different about this one, and the fact that he haven't noticed it before, is the proof that he was a complete fool.
Number 99 is, in fact, a healthy developing baby girl. It obliviously has XX chromosomes, not XY like intended. Tim couldn't mess up something as big as this, and yet, he did.
Number 99 is-
a mistake like any other.
He hears Cassie's voice behind the door.
"Tim? Tim, can you hear me? You okay?" She sounds concerned. Of course, she is. Tim has barely talked to her anymore since Kon's death. Bart's death. Everyone dear in Tim's life seems to die, and Tim still can't figure out how to do it.
How to commit to the thought of taking his life. A blade and a wrist would be too easy. Painful? He has been in pain before. He easily could do that. Pills- that would make him a coward. Not that he finds other suicides cowards, but- that would make him, Tim Drake, one.
He tries to catch a breath. Failing terribly, he curses his weakness.
"Yeah," he lets out a little too faintly. "Give me a minute. I- I have to change. Yeah."
A moan escapes his mouth, and Tim briefly wonders if Cassie could make anything out of that worthless plea. He presses his temple against a cold metal cabinet and counts to ninety-nine.
Tim can live, even if just barely. Just not on his own terms, and that- that is what he can live with. That's what he's the best at.
He finds himself staring at Number 99 again. She's an accident waiting to expire, and yet her heartbeat is stable and resonates through the whole room like a soft humming. Her miniature figure unquestionably resembles a child more day by day, and the thought of her somehow surviving fills Tim's whole being with dread.
He can't distance himself from this emotional exhaustion and anxiety anymore. She's a perfect baby, innocent as an angel, and the reason for her existence is Tim's lack of responsibility and greed.
She is twenty-four weeks now, and Tim tries to remember how Steph looked like at this step of her pregnancy. How different would he feel about this if Number 99 had someone to protect, nurture, love her? There is something special about her, and he can't bring himself to name the feeling, shrinking at the thought of getting too attached. This inevitably can't end well.
The next day one of her siblings, Number 73, twenty weeks, dies, and Tim doesn't even blink performing another autopsy. Maybe he will dream this till his death, but that can't take long. It’s not as mortifying thought as he imagined it before. He's sure that by this point, his heart and compassion were long gone.
He sips his coffee and glares at Number 99. She's twenty-nine weeks. Maybe her XX chromosomes and sex were the wonders that let his and Kon's DNA be fully compatible. It's entirely plausible because out of a hundred Tim's fuck ups she's the most powerful, possibly the biggest one. The last one left.
He is certain her hair will be jet black, perhaps curled like Kon's, or as grouchy straight as his. Her eyes would definitely be a shade of blue. Maybe the bluest blue tinted purple of Kon's, or plainly a bit grayish like Tim's ones. Number 99 is an never-ending source of possibilities because she's nothing like Tim expected.
Tim is frightened because Number 99 is more than a clone, a baby girl like any other. An unpleasant surprise- He should love her the way she is, because she deserves the love of a father (her creator, inventor, discoverer, someone important). He was all she ever has had, and he couldn't provide her with anything as far as he's concerned.
She appears like she truly has a future ahead of her. In this cruel world full of dangerous figures and people unable to deal with their own feelings.
Meanwhile, Tim just turned seventeen. It's a miracle of its own. For some time, Tim doesn't really feel like being Tim Drake, and Robin isn't something he can be forever, but it's all that lets him still wake up every morning.
Meanwhile, his girlfriend gave her baby girl up because taking care of and raising a child to be a decent human being at their age would be impossible. Number 99 would never be like Steph's daughter. There is no place in this world for her, no place in anyone's heart.
He can't possibly give up a superpowered infant for adoption even within the superhero community. The moment her existence became a public stance would be the day he loses face.
He can't take care of her. She's a misconception, nothing more- nothing less. Tim's ashamed of himself, of ever launching this selfish project without further thought. What would Kon say about this if he was to appear in this room now? Probably run away from the monster with Robin's face.
There's something awry in his mind, so terrifying that he's petrified of ever letting himself wander to that point of despair. Now he's doomed. All of this, from Number 1 to Number 99, were a mistake. And mistakes don't correct themselves, right?
It's not his fault, Tim tells himself. Not something he could workaround. A final opportunity to take responsibility. A vacant lie like this isn't enough to make him feel a little bit better, but he has to manage with what he has got.
Number 99 is dying in front of him, not even thirty weeks along. At this development stage, rescuing her isn't entirely impossible. He has the required equipment for that. He could take her out from the artificial womb right now and not let her sink in synthetical fluids. If she died anyway, there wouldn't be anything to feel guilty about, right? This way Tim could make it better, but that would mean at one point in time she was an actual person of soul and flesh. Not a result of a disturbing experiment, a mistake born from Robin's vulnerability and inexcusable desires.
So he stills in front of the tank and listens as her heartbeat grows weak, contrary to Tim's own (that means he's still alive, still has feelings, and- that's good? good enough?). He shifts, dragging nails over his forearms, drawing blood that helped create her in the first place. He's the one to be blamed.
Saying that the kid died on its own would be one hell of a lie.
She weighs almost two pounds and is less than fifteen inches long, which would be good, very good even if he didn't have to get rid of the body. Throwing her with the trash like he used to do with much more underdeveloped fetuses was impossible, too dangerous.
Tim tugs her in the blanket. Not like he would treat a living newborn, but like preparing for an outdoor lunch, completely covering her little body as she loses natural warmth of a stillborn. He tries to forget about her tiny bits of eyelashes, little toes, and nails. Goes for a walk.
Ironically, he texts Dick he’s finally going to take care of himself and breathe some fresh air. How long it would take until somebody discovers a tiny body buried in the local woods? Never if he's lucky.
He carves "99" on a nearby tree. Tim would consider it the most ridiculous thing he has ever done if anything could compare to what took place in the basement.
He collapses in the bushes and vomits because god, what has he done-
Tim is smart. He doesn't leave any trail of his mistakes. As Robin, Tim Drake has to be responsible for his actions.
He can live with what he did, even if just barely. It's not really living, but he has done much worse before.
(Kon pulls him close, and Tim swears to penance. Kon doesn't understand, not really. None of them does. He wouldn't stay in the same room as Tim if he knew. For Kon, that very dark place is nothing more than a dim memory of a nightmare sprout out of Tim's anxiety and dread.
And Tim, being Tim, just loves himself a lot less for that- Kon will never get that sort of horror.)