Don't Fear the Reaper

70) Brain Dead Angst-ish Writer = Me RN

A/N: the pic has nothing to do with the chapter, it just made me laugh. I hope you guys can read it lol

Tim sat in the common room that was attached to the kitchen, still a little bit shocked over Nico's actions, so he didn't question why the room was basically silent despite the fact that nearly the entire team was in there.

"Where's Ghost?" Kon asked, breaking the silence of the room. "I thought he'd be with you."

Tim just looked at him in confusion. "Ghost? Since when is the Mountain haunted—and why would I  be the one the ghost is specially haunting?"

"We nicknamed our guest Ghost," Jamie said, looking weirdly tense.

"Oooooh... well, I can't say it's not fitting," Tim muttered quietly. "He's with Spoiler. He was acting kinda weird though. Did something happen?"

The team shared anxious looks before Artemis spoke up. "His glamour charm came up and he said he had no idea what he looked like to us, so M'gann offered to show him by becoming a mirror image. Apparently he looks nearly the same, except it was a version of him where 'nothing bad had ever happened'."

Tim looked at them in surprise, his brain recomputing. Nico had more than extensive scarring, but the idea of him that looked assumably unharmed... it was kinda hard to imaging. His perception of Nico was formed recently—long after he'd become the Reaper—so he'd never seen a version of the kid that was anything short of broken. 

After a long moment on internal buffering, he looked to M'gann, who was sitting silently, and looking guilty. "Can you show me?"

The martian seemed hesitant, probably debating if this was crossing a boundary, before she closed her eyes and shifted. Within seconds, a version of Nico was staring back at him, and Tim immediately understood why Nico had been acting weird.

Tim had only met Nico a bit under a year ago, but looking at a version of the kid that just looked like  a kid... it was painful in a way he couldn't express. This was Nico, no doubt about it, but this  Nico was just an average teen. This kid went to school and had a family. This kid missed sleep because of exams, not because of nightmares. This was a kid... and it was one who'd never known the agony of the Reaper.

"You can switch back," Tim said, his voice sounding hollow.

M'gann did without hesitation, looking at Tim worriedly. "Did I do something wrong? Should I have not offered or-"

"If he accepted, then you did nothing wrong," Tim reassured her. "It's just... it's kinda... I don't know. That version of him..."

"Are the scars really that bad?" Cassie asked hesitantly.

Tim didn't know how to explain this sort of thing. Everyone on the team was no stranger to injuries, but they'd never known hurt like Nico did. They'd lost their fair share of fights, but they'd never fought in a true war. Each of them had at least one person they were close to die, yet none of them knew what it was to die and be forced back to life in the way Nico had. The demigod's scars, they were gruesome and all-encompassing, but seeing the lack of them wasn't what really made that version of Nico hurt; it was everything else that made Tim feel sick to his stomach. 

"Ghost," Tim said, trying his best to maintain Nico's anonymity despite the fact that his brain felt like it was shutting down. "He... he's nothing like what you could imagine. The scars are definitely a part of that, but... He's been through things that none of us could even try to understand. I've um... I met some of his old teammates recently and they don't say too much, but... the stories I've heard..."

"What happened to him?" Jamie asked, cutting through the tense energy in the air. 

Tim bit at the inside of his cheek, unsure of what to say. "Honestly? 'What hasn't' is almost a better question. He's... there's a lot you don't know—there's a lot even we  don't know—but just from everything we've heard and seen... the version you see is him, but it's not him."

The others looked at him in surprise. It was rare enough for a Bat to admit that they didn't know everything about someone who was allegedly an ally, but for one to unable to explain something... that was kinda unheard of. The bats were known for their ability to know it all—to have the answers and remain unflinching during any and all circumstances—and yet Nico seemed to be the exception to every Batman and Co. stereotype. He was a mystery, one that was ever more fascinating than that bats. 

"So, if you don't know everything about him, why do you trust him?" Garf asked, looking interested. "I haven't been on the team that long, but you guys seem to only trust people after like a million background checks, and even then it's hesitantly, so why him?"

Tim looked at them, once again not knowing what to say. He'd known the team for a few years now, his brother knowing them even longer, and yet, they knew close to nothing about their family. They knew their vigilante names and a few knew their real ones... but they didn't know them. They knew the lore that surrounded the family and were able to draw their own conclusions after meeting each of them, but their actual traits and beliefs... those were always undefined. The bats existed in the in between of the known and unknown, so how could Tim even begin to explain how they'd gotten there? How could he convey the efforts they went through to not only keep the kid with them, but to try and save him? How could they understand how much they needed  Nico to get better?... because that was the truth. It wasn't a want or a wish. They needed him to heal, because, at this point, Tim didn't thingk any of them would survive it if Nico didn't. 

"Ghost... needed help. He... I..." Tim had no answers in that moment. He didn't know a thing. He couldn't tell them the truth, but he couldn't lie either. He couldn't say Nico was safe, but that didn't mean he was a danger... Nico was a wildcard on his best days, but that didn't mean they didn't trust him.  Tim was pretty sure that the kid was the type of person to light the house on fire with himself inside the first chance he got, and yet... "All of us would trust him with our lives. He would give his life for any one of us without hesitation. He's the type of guy to throw himself on the grenade to save everyone else. He's... he's a good person—I have to believe that—he just... he needs to remember that."

The team sat with that for a while, their faces somber. They knew that those words were high praise from anyone, but from a member of the Bqtfam... that was basically a golden stamp of approval. 

A/N: ik i posted late, but I am publishing my own Literary Journal for a class rn and the final mock up was due at midnight and I kinda put it off till the last minute... hehe whoopsies

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