The sections in italics are from Enid Blyton's 'Good Work Secret Seven', I did not write them.

"…"We'll, I'll tell you what I think," said Peter, carefully moving his humbug to the other cheek. "I think those men were up to something. I don't know what- but I think we ought to find out something about them.""

Bruce's voice rang through his headphones like a wave of calm.

""But how can we?" Asked Pam. "I don't like the sound of them anyway."
"Well, if you don't want to be in on this, there's nothing to stop you from walking out," said Peter, getting cross with Pam. "The door's over there."

Pam changed her mind in a hurry. "Oh no- I want to be in in this; of course I do. You tell us what to do Peter."

"Well- we don't know very much," said Peter. "Excuse me, all of you, but I'm going to take my humbug out for a minute or two, while I talk- there, that's better. No, Scamper, don't sniff at it; you don't even like humbugs!" "

Tim sniffles a laugh as he remembers these books, The Secret Seven by Enid Blyton, he had half the series, but his parent's refused to buy him any more story books after he had turned eight, no he was far too old for story books.

But Bruce had bought him the books he had been missing; he even read to him on occasion, Tim had to admit it was nice, he… Missed it.

"With his sweet safely on a clean piece of paper beside him, Peter addressed the meeting.

"We haven't really much to go on, as I said," he began. "But we do have a few clues. One is 'Sid's place'. We ought to try to find out where that is and watch it, to see if either of the men go there. Then we could shadow them. We'd have to watch it at five o'clock each day."

"Go on," said George.

"Then there's Q8061" said Peter. "That's probably a telephone number. We could find out about that.""

The secret seven was one of the books that had got him interested in Detective work to begin with; it was just a group of kids helping society out… Tim had wanted to be like that.

""That's silly!" Said Pam. "We'd have to look all through every number in the telephone book- we don't even know the name of the exchange!"

Peter took no notice of Pam. "One man had a low-brimmed hat and long hair down to his collar," he said. "And I think there was something wrong with one hand- it looked as if the tip of the middle finger was missing. I only just caught sight of it in the lamp-post, but I'm fairly sure."

"And the other man had very short hair," said Janet suddenly. "I did notice that. Oh, and Peter- do you remember that he said he had dropped something? Do you think he had? We never looked to see! He didn't find whatever it was."

"Gosh, yes- I forgot about that," said Peter. "That's most important. We'll all go and look in the car at once. Bring your torches Secret Seven!" Goodnight Tim"

The sound of a short kiss filled his earphones and recording ended there, when Tim had fallen asleep.

A cold tears trickled down his cheeks, pooling in his ears as he lay in bed; he missed those days. The days where Bruce would sit at his bedside after patrol, stroke a hand through his hair and read to him from one of the many books he bought Tim. The days where Bruce would put on silly voices, just for him. The days where Bruce's voice carried light, loving, tones when he spoke to him. Not the dark and gritty harsh tones he makes whenever Tim is even in the room.

It shouldn't have surprised him. Love was only meant for Robin, not pretenders like him.

Tim, Tim had changed when Bruce died, and that was just one step too far, one mistake too many.

And so, Bruce didn't love him anymore.

But Tim still loved Bruce, and Tim could still only fall asleep to the gentle soothing of the man's rich timbre. The deep gravely notes of his voice pushing buttons in Tim's brain that say "It's okay, you're safe now, you can switch off," so he did.

But Bruce wasn't there to read to him anymore; and would probably never be again. And Tim isn't safe, not here with this team held together with bricks made of broken words and deceitful lies from a boy who's been outcast from his own family; and mortar full of the promise that they would be safe and protected, a promise he had broken oh so many times.

He had given up his life.

And to what end?

He had no family, no home, no place where he could just relax. His legal guardian hated him, no longer trusted him and would much rather see him with a sword through his heart than anyone else, even The Joker. His team ran on knife edges, tittering on the cusp of falling to pieces simply because he couldn't (wasn't allowed) to tell them his name for some stupid and unwarranted fear of them making the Wayne connection.

How did it all go so wrong? How did he fail so badly?

Damian was right, he was useless; he can't even fall asleep at night without listening to the one person who will never look at him, let alone speak to him in such a loving manner ever again.

Completely and utterly useless.